The Gospel of Jesus' Wife

Prof. Karen L. King recently unveiled the translation of a fragment of Coptic papyrus at the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome. This is the papyrus:

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 According to Prof. King, this is what it says:

This has obviously gotten a lot of media attention. Ever since Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, people have been fascinated by this old question. Did Jesus have a wife?

However, Prof. King says that this papyrus does nothing to prove or disprove the idea that Jesus was married. When asked if this proves that Jesus had a wife, she said,

"No, this fragment does not provide evidence that Jesus was married. The comparatively late date of this Coptic papyrus (a fourth century CE copy of a gospel probably written in Greek in the second half of the second century) argues against its value as evidence for the life of the historical Jesus."

She says that the fragment only proves that early Christians discussed it and held the belief that he was married.  Now, I'm no Harvard Professor, but I would have to disagree. This isn't a fragment showing what Christians discussed or talked about. This is a fragment showing what Jesus actually allegedly said.  If the fragment is accurate, then it isn't proof that Christians discussed Jesus' marriage. It's proof that Jesus discussed his own marriage.

So the question then is whether or not the fragment accurately depicts a conversation between Jesus and disciples, or if it's just more early Christian apocrypha. That is, whether or not this conversation ever actually happened.

One of the main issues with the fragments reliability is pointed out by Darrell L. Bock, senior research professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He says that  it represents "a very small minority in a much later period than original Christianity ... It is a fourth century text in a fringe gnostic group that is not representative of the larger groups that are [part of] Christianity."

In other words, the people writing this account were a group that had already split off from "original Christianity" and who do not necessarily represent their views. Does this automatically mean that their account is false? No, but it should at least give us pause. Bock also said that "this is one text among a mountain of texts that say Jesus was single. If the papyrus is authentic, it would be the first text to suggest that Jesus had a wife". We would have to start finding a lot more scrolls that describe him as being married before we started to seriously consider the possibility.

A quick side note about that last claim, that this is one text among a mountain of others that say he was single.  Daniel Peterson, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at BYU said of all these contradicting texts, 

"Well, honestly, I can't think of a single one that does ... The fact is his marital status is never discussed ... The earliest historical documents about Jesus simply don't say one way or another," Peterson said. "You can't prove that he was, but you can't prove that he wasn't."

So was Jesus married? Possibly, but if we are ever going to find the answer to that question, it won't be from this fragment.

The Law of Moses

One common objection to many religions, and certainly against Christianity, is that the laws and edicts of God seem cruel, harsh, or unjust. As stated by Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion:

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

This is a valid point and serious, complex issue. There are parts of the Old Testament which seem legitimately immoral, even by Christian standards.

The following is not meant to be an explanation for all of these inexplicably harsh acts, but can at least resolve issues relating to the Law of Moses, which is sometimes offered as an example of God's immorality on the grounds that it contains laws that are racist, sexist, or otherwise immoral.

The Law of Moses can be split into several categories, and has been dozens of times, such as:

• the Ten Commandments
• Moral laws - on murder, theft, honesty, adultery, etc.
• Social laws - on property, inheritance, marriage and divorce,
• Food laws - on what is clean and unclean, on cooking and storing food.
• Purity laws - on menstruation, seminal emissions, skin disease and mildew, etc.
• Feasts - the Day of Atonement, Passover, Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks etc.
• Sacrifices and offerings - the sin offering, burnt offering, whole offering, heave offering, Passover sacrifice, meal offering, wave offering, peace offering, drink offering, thank offering, dough offering, incense offering, red heifer, scapegoat, first fruits, etc.
• Instructions for the priesthood and the high priest including tithes.
• Instructions regarding the Tabernacle, and which were later applied to the Temple in Jerusalem, including those concerning the Holy of Holies containing the Ark of the Covenant (in which were the tablets of the law, Aaron's rod, the manna). Instructions and for the construction of various altars.
• Forward looking instructions for time when Israel would demand a king.

Nobody really has many complaints about the Ten Commandments or the Moral laws, with the exception of some penalties for infractions. Food and Purity laws are thought to have been thought up to help fight the spread of some diseases. Likewise, I'm not sure I've ever heard complaints against the laws regarding Feasts, Priests, or the Tabernacle. Most of the complaints seem to be against the Social Laws. These are the laws regarding dealing with slaves, the role of women and divorce, and other issues.

So what would God say if He were standing here and we told him that the Law which He gave Moses was immoral? He'd probably agree.

The pattern in the Lord's teachings is that He gives us a law, waits for us to master it, then comes and gives us a higher law. For example, in the Old Testament, He says, "Thou shalt not kill," or "thou shalt not commit adultery." 

In the New Testament, He says, "Not only should you not kill, you shouldn't even feel anger," and "Not only can you not commit adultery, don't even feel lust."

So even God seems to think that the law given to Moses was not an ideal law. He even says this in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, He says,

"8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

But didn't He teach us those ways? You mean the law he gave us falls short of the lofty celestial standard? Yes, Jesus also acknowledges  the imperfection of the law in the New Testament. The Pharisees came to him in Judea, trying to debate with him. They asked him if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife "for every cause." Jesus said it was unlawful, and the Pharisees asked why, then, did Moses give a provision for it in the law. Jesus explained:

"He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so."

Meaning that there are portions of the law which were given by God, but were not in line with God's eventual will for them. However, because of their hardness of heart, it was the law they were prepared to follow. To teach them to be all full of love and kindness would be like teachings calculus before addition and subtraction. They just weren't ready. So he taught them a lesser, imperfect law that they could handle, which would prepare them for a higher law.

Evidence Against Young-Earth Creationism

I am a theist, and a Christian, but I am not a fan of believing in claims that appear to be more than demonstrably false. To believe in a claim that is proven false absolutely requires that the adherent willfully closes their mind to truth. If there is a God, then that is certainly not what he intended for us.

One of these claims which, in my uneducated opinion, is more than demonstrably false is Young-Earth Creationism (YEC). I don't mean to offend anyone who may believe in Young-Earth Creationism, but to my mind, I can't imagine why He would do that.

To create the Earth in one week, 6,000 years ago, would require pretty significant, and frequent, violations of known laws of physics. If He could accelerate the Creation process in such a way, then why did it take a week? If He is capable of performing such huge violations of the laws of physics, then why not just snap your fingers and have it all be there? I don't know that there is a coherent answer.

In addition, if He did create it in one week, 6,000 years ago, then why would He also create huge amounts of physical evidence that it took much longer? Literally everything in the universe, from coral and tree rings, to the time it takes starlight to reach us, testifies that the universe has been here for much more than 6,000 years.

The more insightful among you may say that He did that in order to mask his presence, such as in an old refutation to the Argument from Non-Belief. He needs only those who are prepared to know of His existence in order to protect the unprepared. But that doesn't quite fit. No matter how God created the Earth, He could have masked His existence. Old-Earth Creationism doesn't bring us any further to proving his existence. In fact, wouldn't Old-Earth Creationism be the more reasonable model, if He were trying to hide His influence, since it looks much more like the natural process?

A bigger problem is that if God did leave such evidence as fossils and such in order to throw us off, it would be closer to deception than masking his existence. In other words, it would not simply be the absence of positive evidence, it would be the presentation of negative evidence. God would be telling a lie, rather than simply not saying anything at all, and according to Christian canon, God cannot lie.

In other words, no matter how you choose to interpret the first few chapters of Genesis, it difficult to see Young-Earth Creationism as not conflicting with the rest of the Bible and how we conceive of God, in addition to simply leaving many, many questions unanswered, and contradicting the many signs to the contrary.

Christianity and the Birth of Modern Science

It's a pretty common view these days that science and religion are at odds, or that they work against each other. This is tragic. What is even more tragic is that this view is often accurate. Theists make claims which are demonstrably false and consider it a badge of honor to obstinately refuse to listen to reason, or to promote a conception of God which even they admit makes no sense.

Another view is that science and religion are independent of each other. Science is about the physical, whereas religion is about the metaphysical. Science is empirical, religion is more philosophic. Rejecting religion because of science is like rejecting politics because of science, or rejecting economics because of science. The two have nothing to do with each other.

Recently, I came across another idea which I had never heard, but the more I look, the more sources I see that hold this position. Some scholars apparently think that religion has not been a hindrance to science. In fact, they believe that modern science owes a lot to medieval Christianity.

One example is James Hannam, who holds a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. He wrote an article called Christianity and the Rise of Science. In this article, he argues that Christianity is largely responsible for the rise of science as we have it today for a number of reasons, including:

• The preservation of literacy in the Dark Ages.
• The doctrine of the lawfulness of nature.
• The need to examine the real world rather than rely on pure reason.
• The belief that science was a sacred duty.

I highly suggest you read the full article, linked above, for a complete explanation. Another article by Hannam is Science owes much to both Christianity and the Middle Ages.

A misconception about apparent conflict comes from a few high-profile cases, such as Galileo, but these are not characteristic of the entire Middle Ages. The idea that science and religion were in conflict did not become popular until long after in the writings of Voltaire. 

We think that science and religion were in conflict for the same reason that people are afraid to fly in airplanes. We never hear reports of planes successfully landing with no trouble. We only hear about the horrific crashes, so we have a distorted view of how common they are. Likewise, we never hear about all the support religion gave to science and education in an era when it was hard to come by. We only hear about Galileo's trial so our view is distorted.

Another mistake is equating "religion" with "Christianity". Even in the Middle Ages, religious communities in other parts of the world, such as in Muslim regions, saw many fundamental advances in science and mathematics, including a theory of evolution by natural selection which was common knowledge among Muslims almost a thousand years before Darwin.

Much of history is simply a matter of perception and interpretation. If Hitler had won WWII, our textbooks would be very different, regardless of what actually happened or who was actually "right", but it seems there is a certain number of scholars who interpret history such that not only has religion not been a stumbling block for science, but that we may not have had science without it.

What do you think?

Big Bang Theism

Sometimes when I read atheistic writings or publications it seems like the term "Christian" or "Theist" is taken to be interchangeable with "Creationism". I think this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be either a Christian or a theist, and it also shows a lack of understanding or awareness that there are different forms of creationism.

There is Young-Earth Creationism, which holds that the Earth is only 6000 years old, there is no evolution, etc. There is also Old-Earth Creationism, which holds that the six "days" in Genesis were not literal 24 hour periods,  God may have used evolution as the mechanism by which He created man, etc.

Here is a handy little graphic I found that illustrates each view.

Sam Harris on Eyewitness Accounts of Miracles

HERE is a clip of Sam Harris speaking a while ago on eyewitness accounts of miracles, particularly in the Christian gospels

At the end of the video, Harris says that all of Sathya Sai Baba's miracles hardly merit on hour on the Discovery Channel, but if you take those same supposed feats and place them in an ancient text, written thousands of years ago, they suddenly become sacred, immutable facts. He then asks if anyone else sees a problem with that.

I am a theist, and I can tell you that I do have a problem with that.

The problem is that miracles are a legitimately poor reason to believe. Even Jesus would agree with this. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came asking for a miracle as proof of his claim he answered that "a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas." 

The reason Jesus was hesitant to use miracles as a foundation for faith was probably because they are so easily duplicated or falsified. They don't prove anything.

Take televangelism, for example.

Another example, of course, are the magicians of Pharaoh's court, who were able to duplicate almost every miracle performed by Moses. Speaking of magicians, if miracles were a legitimate reason to believe, then Penn and Teller would, ironically, be greater than any Biblical prophet.

And certainly much cooler.

So I do see a problem with people basing their beliefs on "miracles". The problem is that they prove nothing, especially in an age filled with Photoshop, computer animation, and Las Vegas magicians, but even in Christ's day, miracles were easily reproduced.

The Man And God Comprehension Gulf Argument

The Man and God Comprehension Gulf Argument claims that the nature of God is so vastly foreign to us that we are not only unable to fully comprehend it, but we cannot even be aware of its existence.

Geoffrey Berg, author of The Six Ways of Atheism, said the argument "[described] the unbridgeable gulf in comprehension (and identification) for a mortal with any supposedly immortal entity."

The arguments claims that:


1. Man is finite (in time, space and power etc).
2. God if he exists is infinite (in time, space and power etc).
3. Therefore mankind cannot possibly recognize God or even know that God exists.

This argument is extremely problematic for several reasons. The first is simply that it is demonstrably false. Man is aware of many things which are infinite, such as numbers or the gravitational mass of a singularity. If Berg's reasoning was correct, then we never would have invented mathematics.

While it may be true that we cannot recognize God, which even theists admit, it does not follow that we cannot be aware of His existence through thought and reason, which is exactly what Aquinas' Five Ways tried to do. It also does not mean that an infinite entity cannot reveal itself through "religious experience."

In other words, the argument asserts conclusions which are not supported by the premises.

The Universal Uncertainty Argument

The Universal Uncertainty Argument is an argument against the existence of God that claims that He cannot exist because omniscience is impossible. It is allegedly a logical paradox, stating that, "God cannot exist because God cannot know for sure that it is God."

The full argument, as a syllogism, runs as follows:

1. An uncertain God is a contradiction in terms.
2. Everything in the Universe must be fundamentally uncertain about its own relationship to the Universe as a whole because there is no way of attaining such certainty.
3. Therefore even an entity with all God’s other qualities cannot have the final quality of certain knowledge concerning its own relationship to the Universe as a whole.
4. Therefore God cannot exist because even any potential God cannot know for sure that it is God.

The argument is a Straw Man because of the second premise, "Everything in the Universe must be fundamentally uncertain about its own relationship to the Universe as a whole because there is no way of attaining such certainty."

This is a Straw Man because it sets up an inaccurate conception of God to attack. It claims that God cannot exist because He would not understand His own relationship with the universe. It ignores a characteristic of God that is so fundamental that almost any theist will agree with it; His omniscience.

God's omniscience is a part of almost every belief system around the world. In Christian scripture, it is also well attested. One of dozens of examples is Psalms 147:5, which reads:

Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

Because of this, one cannot present an argument against the existence of God which hinges on a statement such as, "God cannot exist because He does not know X," because if He does exist, then he does know X.

Therefore, the argument is immediately begging the question by assuming that God, as commonly conceived, does not exist.

In addition, how would we even come to that second premise? What evidence do we have that "everything in the universe must be  fundamentally uncertain?"

Why must we be uncertain? Why is it impossible to know? Also, what would lead us to think that, "We do not know, therefore God cannot know?"

Historicity of Jesus; A Double Standard?

Here is a very interesting post by David B. Marshall, at Christ the Tao, about the historicity of Jesus Christ, and  that of Confucius, with most of the information coming from a chapter in his book, Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could.

The post is called How Confucius Proves Jesus and can be read here.

But first, let me point out that the title of the post is a little misleading. If you scroll down to the comments section, you'll see that it caused some people to misunderstand what Marshall was arguing. The argument is not that the existence of Confucius as a historical figure somehow proves that Jesus existed, too.

Rather, he's arguing that the Gospels are just as reliable as historical texts as the Analects. In fact, the gospels even have certain advantages over the Analects.

Despite this, virtually nobody debates whether Confucius existed, while the existence of Jesus as a historical figure is still hotly debated.

Therefore, we practice a double standard by refusing to accept the historicity of Jesus.

The only problem I would have with the argument is that there is more evidence to consider than just their respective writings. Confucius, for example, has had many descendants throughout history, unlike Christ.

But then, not every genealogical claim is true and verifiable.

It's an interesting question, and Marshall offers some interesting points.

Retaking the Outsider Test

The Outsider Test is a criterion for rational faith put forth by former Christian apologist turned atheist, John W. Loftus. Loftus argues that for many believers, the religion practiced is not one that they choose, but usually one which they were born into, or are determined by cultural or national factors.

Since your religion is essentially randomly determined, you should examine your beliefs with every bit as much skepticism as you would any other religion. In other words, evaluate your beliefs as if you were an outsider to that faith, with no bias or preconceived notions.

One of the nuances of the Outsider Test is that it claims atheism as the intellectual default. Skepticism is the most rational initial response to supernatural claims.

I have several objections to the Outsider Test, such as the fact that it teaches atheists not to think, that since their position is the default, they do not need to examine their beliefs.

However, RD Miksa has written a rather lengthy paper, in the form of a blog called Taking Over the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF), in which he argues that the Outsider Test does not actually support atheism at all. In fact, it supports theism, super-naturalism, and intelligent design.

For those of you with the patience to read a long (about 22K words), informal paper on the philosophy of religion, I strongly recommend this work.

The Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit

The Ultimate 747 Boeing Gambit is an argument put forth by Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, which is allegedly a counter-argument to the Argument from Design and an allusion to Holye's Fallacy.

Astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle, who was a Darwinist, atheist and anti-theist, reportedly stated that the "probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747."

The basic argument against the idea of empirical theism goes back to David Hume, who's argument ccan be summed up in the popular phrase, "Who designed the designer?"

Dawkins writes that Evolution by natural selection is the only workable solution to the question of life's origin on Earth, and since it requires fewer assumptions than the God Hypothesis, Occam's Razor demands that we accept evolution over God.

This argument forms the central argument of The God Delusion and can be read here.

There are a few problems with this.

First is that evolution by natural selection is not a workable solution for the origin of life on Earth. Evolution does adequately explain how that life moved from simplicity to complexity, but it does not explain how it began to exist in the first place. Richard Dawkins admits this.

The fact that evolution does not explain the origin of life on Earth does not mean that we must therefore accept God as the answer. It only means that evolution, by itself, is not sufficient reason to reject God as the answer.

This leads to the second problem. Even if evolution by natural selection is a reality, which I believe that it is, it does not mean that we must reject God as a reality. There is nothing in evolution which disproves God, or even affects His probability of existence. At best, it disproves Young-Earth Creationism, but it actually strengthens Old-Earth Creationism.

Even Charles Darwin said that a man "can be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist."

Third, Dawkins argues that God is the ultimate Boeing 747 because if He created something as complex as the universe, then he must be even more complex. Therefore, the designer needs a designer. If the universe could not have arisen by chance, then neither could God.

However, Dawkins argues that the universe did arise by chance and that there is almost certainly no designer. Therefore, Dawkins argues that complexity does not require design. However, complexity could be designed, it is simply not required.

For example, it very well could be the case that the universe was designed, since it is possible that complexity would come about by design, but it is also possible that the universe's designer was not designed, since design is not required for complexity.

Not only is Dawkins' argument self-refuting, since he does not believe that complexity requires design, but it also completely fails to even address the issue of God's existence for the same reason.

The Argument from Parsimony

Occam's Razor

The Argument from Parsimony is an argument against the existence of God which claims that because scientific, or naturalistic, theories adequately describe the origin of life and the development of religion, the actual existence of any supernatural beings is an unnecessary detail and may be ignored unless it is shown that we need it to explain some phenomenon.

In other words, unless it can be shown that a phenomenon cannot be explained unless there is a God, then we have no reason to think that there is a God. God would complicate the issue rather than work towards resolution.

First of all, let me say that there is a difference between parsimony and simplicity. There are many simple theories which are not parsimonious. For example:

"The planets and stars are stuck to orbs around the Earth."

The geocentric model of the solar system is much simpler than our current view, that the Sun is in the center. The Heliocentric model is so complex that Sir Issac Newton had to develop a new kind of math, calculus, to describe the motion of celestial bodies and develop the laws of motion and gravitation.

But even though the idea of a heliocentric solar system is vastly more complex, it is still more parsimonious because it leaves fewer questions unanswered.

This principle is referred to as Occam's Razor. The idea that the hypothesis that requires fewer assumptions is preferable.

That's actually one of the first weaknesses with this argument. It's presents Occam's Razor as an absolute law, when it is actually just a "rule of thumb".

This is important because there are many, many examples of Occam's Razor stifling or delaying scientific advancement. For example, appeals to simplicity were used to deny meteorites, ball lightning, continental drift, DNA, atomic theory, and reverse transcriptase.

In addition to denying ideas that turned out to be true, Occam's Razor is also used to assert ideas which are false. For example, scientists thought that there must be some medium, Aether, out in space which allowed light waves to propagate, because it was less parsimonious to postulate wave propagation in a vacuum. At the time, all known waves propagated through a physical medium. We now know this to be false.

So the Argument from Parsimony fails immediately just because explanations sometimes reach beyond available data.

Second, even if the argument was successful, denial of God would bring us no closer to understanding what caused the Big Bang or life on Earth. Even Richard Dawkins admits the possibility of an origin involving intelligent beings (3:10).

For example, imagine yourself holding the end of a long chain. The other end of this chain is not in view, but when you pull on the chain, it it secured. If we were to say that there is nobody holding the other end of the chain, would we be any closer to finding out what is holding the other end? For that matter, do we have any good reason to think there is no one holding the other end? Sure, there may be no evidence that there is, but is there any evidence that there isn't? Like Dawkins, should we at least be open to the possibility of some intelligence on the other side?

Would we be making any fewer assumptions if, instead of a person on the other end of the chain, we instead said that it was fastened to some post or bolt in a wall? Or would we then need to explain how that post got there, ad infinitum?

So even if the argument is successful, which it isn't, then it still just doesn't do us any good. It wouldn't even necessary show that God is the less parsimonious hypothesis.

Mormon Creation

A while ago, I had a discussion with a reader about the LDS doctrine of Creation (See Comments). Mainstream Christianity and science say that the Universe was created in an instant, from nothing, though they disagree on how long it took.

The reader pointed out a supposed inconsistency in LDS doctrine, because Joseph Smith taught that matter is eternal, which would seem to indicate a steady state universe.

I pointed out that this does not mean that the Church supports the steady state theory. After all, Joseph Smith taught that "Spirit" was a type of matter, and Spirit is eternal. Therefore, he was not necessarily referring to the physical universe.

There are other issues, such as the mysterious nature of the Singularity, which leave Joseph Smith's comments rather ambiguous. Ultimately, the church has no official position on how the Creation happened, and it allows its members to believe what best makes sense to them.

However, I recently came across this quote by the second President of the Church, Brigham Young:

In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular...whether the Lord found the earth empty and void, whether he made it out of nothing or out of the rude elements; or whether he made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he give revelation on the subject. If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant.
—Brigham Young, (May 14, 1871) Journal of Discourses 14:116.

The context of this quote is Brigham Young commenting on the relationship between science and religion. The religionists of the day pushed the idea that God "made the earth out of nothing in six days, six thousand years ago."

Brigham Young says that in these respects we differ from Christians because, as I explained to this reader, we do not make this claim. We do not know exactly how the Creation happened, but "our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular."

Whatever science says, we agree.

Religious Violence

Some people have some strange hobbies. For example, Matthew White at Necrometrics.com apparently spends his time cataloging death tolls and body counts for various events throughout history. 

I've taken some numbers from this site because I was curious if the saying is true that "religion has caused more suffering and death than any other single cause in human history."

The site lists various scholarly estimates for each event. When possible, I've tried to select the most reliable sources, or have used the median, following the rule of thumb that the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, rather than with the outlying estimates. 

Here are the numbers for various religious tragedies throughout history:

Christianity

Holocaust: 5.6M

Crusades: 3M

Biblical Atrocities: 1.283M

Spanish Inquisition: 341K (Including those tortured, not killed)

Witch Hunts: 60K (Including Europe)

9/11: 3,037 (Including 19 hijackers)

TOTAL: est. 10.828M

Now here's a few things with a higher death toll:

Atheists

I point this out, not to be controversial, but only to provide an example of human violence which is clearly not religiously motivated. 

Since the origins Islam and Christianity, each religion has had 80M and 70M martyrs respectively, at the hands of:

Atheists: 31,689,000

Muslims 9,121,000

Ethnoreligionists: 7,469,000

Christians: 5,538,000

Quasi-religionists 2,712,000

Mahayana Buddhists: 1,651,000

Hindus: 676,000

Zoroastrians: 384,000

Smoking

R. Peto, "Mortality from tobacco in developed countries: indirect estimation from national vital statistics" Lancet, 23 May 1992:

1930-59: 11M

1960s: 9M

1970s: 13M

1980s: 17M

1990s: 21M

TOTAL (1930-1999): 71M tobacco-related deaths in developed countries. (US, Europe, USSR, Canada, Japan, Australia, NZ)

Capitalism 

(unbridled corporate exploitation)

Colonial El Niño Famines (1876-1900): 27M

Colonial Slave Trade (1700-1850): 17.8M (Only counting the dead among the first generation of slaves brought from Africa. Subsequent generations would contribute additional premature or unnatural deaths.)

Islamic Slave Trade: 19M

Soviet Decommunization: 6M

Kinshasa Congo: 3.8M 

Amazonian Rubber Companies: 200K

TOTAL: est. 73.8M


If the number of people killed by some organization or phenomenon is a measure of its moral worth, than we could come to some strange conclusions about a host of other causes.

I think, given enough information, an honest individual would come to agree that an organization's negative past is not necessarily a mark against it in the present.

10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On

I was very happy to read a certain article on Cracked.com. One thing that bothers me about the whole Atheist/Theist Conflict is the ridiculous irrationality on both sides. This article points out in simple, accessible language how everyone needs to just settle down and relax.


Read the Article Here

Mormons and the Wrong Jesus

Mormons are often criticized for teaching the "wrong" Jesus, or a "false" Jesus. This claim is one of the justifications used to classify the LDS church as non-Christian and is primarily based on our rejection of several points of the Nicene Creed, especially regarding the trinity.

The first Article of Faith of the LDS church states, "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." However, while we do believe in the three members of the Trinity, we do not subscribe to the idea that they are one in essence. We believe that they are three separate personages, one in heart, mind, and purpose, but physically separate.

Regarding this view, Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley said,

 "As a Church we have critics, many of them. They say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say. Our faith, our knowledge is not based on ancient tradition, the creeds which came of a finite understanding and out of the almost infinite discussions of men trying to arrive at a definition of the risen Christ. Our faith, our knowledge comes of the witness of a prophet in this dispensation who saw before him the great God of the universe and His Beloved Son, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. They spoke to him. He spoke with Them. He testified openly, unequivocally, and unabashedly of that great vision. It was a vision of the Almighty and of the Redeemer of the world, glorious beyond our understanding but certain and unequivocating in the knowledge which it brought. It is out of that knowledge, rooted deep in the soil of modern revelation, that we, in the words of Nephi, 'talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that [we and] our children may know to what source [we] may look for a remission of [our] sins'" (2 Nephi 25:26).

So while the LDS church does have a different conception of Jesus, is that enough to disqualify them as Christian? After all, don't all churches have a unique view of who Christ was, even regarding the nature and attributes of the Christ?

For example, Catholics believe in a God that speaks through a Pope, Protestants do not. Logically, one of them must have a false conception of God. He can't speak and not speak through the Pope. One of their Gods must be false. Catholics believe in a God which provides Purgatory, allows prayer to Saints, and performs transubstantiation during Communion, while Protestants do not. Catholics believe that salvation comes through baptism and may be lost or regained by sin and repentance. Protestants believe salvation comes through grace and is unconditional. Logically, God can't do and not do these things. They are teaching two separate conceptions of God, one of which simply must be false.

Even among specific denominations, there are differences in how we define God. Catholics believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. Orthodox holds that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only. Christ can't be and not be the source of the Holy Ghost. They are referring to two different conceptions of Christ. One must be false.

Some churches believe God sanctified Sunday as the Sabbath, some do not. One must be false. Some churches hold that God allows female clergy, some do not. One must be false. Some churches believe in a God who uses church leaders, such as Bishops and Popes, as sources of doctrine, others do not. One must be false.

If God is the source of all truth, then any instance of conflicting truths between two denominations is an indication that those two denominations do not teach of the same God. In other words, no two churches teach the same God.

So if anyone were to tell me that I teach a different Jesus, I'd ask, "Don't we all?"

Modest is Hottest

If you have ever felt like you need to be "sexy" to be loved, or if you have ever wondered why many Christian denominations discourage certain provocative modes of dress, then you need to watch this video.

You are more than this.

Free Will in Heaven

One issue frequently brought up against Christianity is that if there is a God, and Heaven is what we understand it to be, then the idea starts to not make much sense. If we cannot commit sin in Heaven, then what's the point of this life? If He's going to take away our free will in the end, then why bother creating us with it in the first place? 

I don't understand why this is an issue at all. In real life we have laws that must be followed or we get fined, imprisoned, or possibly put to death. Does this have any effect on our free will? If there is a penalty for murdering someone, then does that mean I cannot possibly murder someone? I am just as capable of murder as I would be if it were legal. The fact that there are consequences for our actions does not mean we are not free to choose those actions.

In other words, it is possible to sin in Heaven. A big part of the reason we're here in the first place is so that we can learn to live a life in accordance with the gospel. So that we can learn to choose not to sin. It's the reason some people won't be able to enter into Heaven, because they'd just screw it all up. It's why it's important to become a disciple rather than simply do what disciples do.

400th Anniversary of the King James Bible

Regardless of your religious affiliation or beliefs, you simply must admit that the Bible, for better or for worse, is easily one of the most influential books in human history. In 2011, we celebrate the 400th anniversary of this book. Here's some info about this book. This post will grow over time, so don't try to read it all the way through. Just scroll through and hopefully you'll find something interesting. Also, if you have some information not listed here, let me know and it may be included.

KJV Facts

1. The most popular Bible translation; an estimated 1 billion or more copies have been published.
2. The translation was brought upon by King James I of England.
3. First published in 1611 A.D. (some believe between May 2nd - May 5th).
4. More than 169 original 1611 King James Bibles are in existance today.
5. Gothic text and Jacobean spelling was used in the original 1611 version, which is noticeably different than 21st Century English.
6. 80 books were included (39 in Old Testament, 14 in Apocrypha, and 27 in New Testament).
7. Contains 788,258 total words, of which 14,565 are unique.
8. The title was not originally called the "King James Version", but "THE HOLY BIBLE, Containing the Old Testament, AND THE NEW: Newly Translated out of the Original tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties special Commandment".
9. 1814 A.D. is the earliest recorded date of it being called "King James Version" or "Authorized Version".
10. The original book was very large: approximately 17" tall, 30" wide when opened, and it weighed up to 30 pounds.
11. The first 1611 Bibles were expensive and were chained to the front pulpit of churches, to prevent from being stolen.
12. Prior to the 1611 King James Bible, most churches did not have Bibles.
13. The King James Bible is the first English Bible ever printed in the United States- first printed by the King's Printer in England, then printing and distribution spread throughout the world.
14. Public officials on all levels of United States government, including presidents, have taken their oath of office with the King James Bible.
15. A committee of 54 translators worked for 7 years to complete the King James translation.
16. The system of chapters was introduced in A.D. 1238 by Cardinal Hugo de
    S. Caro, while the verse notations were added in 1551 by Robertus
    Stephanus, after the advent of printing. 
17. A Bible in the University of Gottingen is written on 2,470 palm leaves.
18. According to statistics from Wycliffe International, the Society of
    Gideons, and the International Bible Society, the number of new Bibles
    that are sold, given away, or otherwise distributed in the United
    States is about 168,000 per day.
19. The Bible can be read aloud in 70 hours.
20. There are 8,674 different Hebrew words in the Bible, 5,624 different
    Greek words, and 12,143 different English words in the King James Version.
21. A number of verses in the Bible (KJV) contain all but 1 letter of the
    alphabet: Ezra 7:21 contains all but the letter j; Joshua 7:24,
    1 Kings 1:9, 1 Chronicles 12:40, 2 Chronicles 36:10, Ezekiel 28:13,
    Daniel 4:37, and Haggai 1:1 contain all but q; 2 Kings 16:15 and
    1 Chronicles 4:10 contain all but x; and Galatians 1:14 contains all
    but k.
22. The Bible is the best selling and most distributed book of all time. Estimated more than 6 billion copies published.
23. Originally written in 3 languages: Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic.
24. Written over a span of 1,000 or more years.
25. Written by more than 40 authors, including kings, prophets, poets, musicians, and fisherman.
26. Books include letters, poetry, songs, legal documentation, eyewitness accounts, biographies, historical literature and documents.
27. Translated into 2,454 languages of the world's estimated 6,500 total languages.
28. It is commonly believed that the writing of the Old and New Testament was inspired by God.
    
    
    
    Bible Translation Timeline
    
    
    1400 B.C.: Ten Commandment tablets given to Moses by God.
    
    500 B.C.: Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts completed.
    
    200 B.C.: Old Testament and Apocrypha Greek manuscripts completed.
    
    100 A.D.: New Testament completed.
    
    382 A.D.: Latin Vulgate manuscripts produced.
    
    1384 A.D.: First complete Bible ever reproduced. By John Wycliffe. A handwritten copy of all 80 books: the 66 old and new testaments, plus apocrypha.
    
    1456 A.D.: First printed Bible, the Gutenberg Bible. It used independently placed characters called movable type, which revolutionized book publishing.
    
    1560 A.D.: The first Bible in English, the Geneva Bible.
    
    1611 A.D.: The first King James Bible, commissioned by King James I of England.
    
    1769 A.D.: The English is edited and updated to reflect the evolving language.
    
    1885 A.D.: Apocrypha was removed, leaving 66 books.
    
    1947 A.D.: Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered which helped validate the accuracy of the Bible.
    
    1982 A.D.: New King James Version published to modernize the English.
    
    
    
    
    
    Statistics
    

    BIBLE STATISTICS (King James Authorized):

    Number of books in the Bible: 66

    Chapters: 1,189

    Verses: 31,102

    Words: 783,137

    Letters: 3,116,480

    Number of promises given in the Bible: 1,260

    Commands: 6,468

    Predictions: over 8,000

    Fulfilled prophecy: 3,268 verses

    Unfulfilled prophecy: 3,140

    Number of questions: 3,294

    Longest name: Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8:1)

    Longest verse: Esther 8:9 (78 words)

    Shortest verse: John 11:35 (2 words: "Jesus wept"). This is the King James Bible. Some Bibles might be Job 3:2 (Job said.) but King James has that as "Job answered" which is longer than Jesus wept.

    Middle books: Micah and Nahum

    Middle verse: Psalm 103:2-3

    Middle chapter: Psalm 117

    Shortest chapter (by number of words): Psalm 117 (by number of words)

    Longest book: Psalms (150 chapters)

    Shortest book (by number of words): 3 John

    Longest chapter: Psalm 119 (176 verses)

    Number of times the word "God" appears: 4,094

    Number of times the word "Lord" appears: 6,781

    Number of different authors: 40

    Number of languages the Bible has been translated into: over 1,200

    
    

    OLD TESTAMENT STATISTICS:

    Number of books: 39

    Chapters: 929

    Verses: 23,145

    Words: 602,585

    Letters: 2,278,100

    Middle book: Proverbs

    Middle chapter: Job 20

    Middle verses: 2 Chronicles 20:17,18

    Smallest book: Obadiah

    Shortest verse: 1 Chronicles 1:25

    Longest verse: Esther 8:9

    Longest chapter: Psalms 119

    Largest book: Psalms

    
    

    NEW TESTAMENT STATISTICS:

    Number of books: 27

    Chapters: 260

    Verses: 7,957

    Words: 180,552

    Letters: 838,380

    Middle book: 2 Thessalonians

    Middle chapters: Romans 8, 9

    Middle verse: Acts 27:17

    Smallest book: 3 John

    Shortest verse: John 11:35

    Longest verse: Revelation 20:4

    Longest chapter: Luke 1

    Largest book: Luke

    
    
    
    Notable Quotes
    
    
    "That book [King James Bible], sir, is the rock upon which our republic rests."
    - Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States
    
    
    "The King James Version is a Magna Carta for the Poor and Oppressed: the most democratic book in the world."
    - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
    
    
    "Indeed, it is an incontrovertible fact that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book [King James Bible]."
    - Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States
    
    
    "The scholars who produced this masterpiece [King James Bible] are mostly unknown and unremembered. But they forged an enduring link, literary and religious, between the English-speaking people of the world."
    - Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of UK
    
    
    "There is no doubt in my mind that the King James Bible not Shakespeare set this language on its path to become a universal language on a scale unprecedented before or since."
    - Melvyn Bragg, British Broadcaster and Author
    
    
    "The King James Bible is a cornerstone of our culture and our language. Whatever our faith, whatever we believe, we have to recognise that the rhetorical power of this book, and in particular its power to fuse history with poetry, connects at the most fundamental level with our own history and poetry."
    - Andrew Motion, British Author and Poet Laureate
    
    
    "The translation was extraordinarily well done because to the translators what they were translating was not merely a curious collection of ancient books written by different authors in different stages of culture, but the word of God divinely revealed through His chosen and expressly inspired scribes. In this conviction they carried out their work with boundless reverence and care and achieved a beautifully artistic result...they made a translation so magnificent that to this day the common human Britisher or citizen of the United States of North America accepts and worships it as a single book by a single author, the book being the Book of Books and the author being God."
    - George Bernard Shaw, Irish Author, Nobel Peace Prize Winner
    
    
    "Over the past several centuries it's been the single book in most households, an enormous force in shaping the development of the English language. Carried around the world by missionaries, it provided the base by which English is about to become the lingua franca of the world in the next century. Exploring it during this shoot [Ten Commandments] was one of the most rewarding creative experiences of my life."
    - Charlton Heston, American Actor

A Bible! A Bible! We Have Got A Bible, And There Cannot Be Any More Bible.

Many who reject the Book of Mormon do so on the grounds that the Bible is perfect, complete, and it is all we will ever need. This is part of the idea of Biblical Inerrancy. It is the idea that the Bible came to us through centuries of translation free of error or linguistic corruption. The Bible is allegedly free of error and it is all we will ever need.

However, one must wonder to which Bible they refer. Not all Bibles are the same, but are they all perfect and complete? There is the Armenian Bible, which includes books like Aseneth and Joseph that are not found in most European Bibles. There is also the Catholic Bible which typically includes apocryphal books not found in Protestant Bibles. Then there are two versions of the Ethiopic Bible (the narrower or wider canon) with several books not familiar to most Christians, such as Sirate Tsion (the book of order).

Even if we decide that a particular collection of books is somehow more perfect or more complete than others, we must face problems of translation. Once again, it becomes unclear which translation of these books is the most complete.

Bart Ehrman, for example, was a Biblical scholar and inerrantist at the start of his career studying the New Testament at the Moody Bible Institute. He eventually conceded that there were 200,000 to 400,000 variant readings of the New Testament. He wrote, "There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament."

Also, the Bible has no original manuscript evidence, just the word of the translators, and many changes have been made without checking with any original manuscript, since the originals were supposedly destroyed, lost, etc.

However, the majority of Bible scholars agree that 95% of the Old Testament is correctly translated, and 99% of the New Testament is correctly translated. That is, there may be many, many variations between manuscripts, but early Christians were able to tell which are more likely authentic versions. This is discerned by looking at correlations between other very early writings which directly quote the original texts, and whether or not the manuscripts agree with each other.

That means that 50 pages of the Old testament and 3 pages of the New Testament were mistranslated. And these are not 53 consecutive pages, but simply that much total material. Some say that these errors are simple spelling errors and word order variations with no effect on the doctrine. While that may be true in some cases, there are also widely recognized instances of doctrinal alteration.

For a milder example, various translations of 1 Samuel 13:1 run as follows,

KJV:
1. Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel,

New International Version:
1. Saul was thirty years old when he became King, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years.

New English Bible:
1. Saul was fifty years old when he became King, and he reigned over Israel for twenty-two years.

Contemporary English Version:
1. Saul was a young man when he became king, and he ruled Israel for two years.

The Jerusalem Bible:
1. . . . [The entire verse is missing, replaced by an ellipsis.]

New Revised Standard Version (here it is the same as the Revised Standard Version):
1. Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign, and he reigned . . . and two years over Israel.

Good News Bible:
[The verse is missing: Chapter 13 begins with verse 2.]

It is explained in footnotes in some editions that the available Hebrew text for this verse is missing a couple words. The first number is missing entirely, and in the second number, it's clear that it ends with a two but the first digit is unknown.

What's important here is not the fact that the translations differ and involved some degree of apparent  guesswork, but that the available Hebrew text itself clearly has problems. How can it be maintained that it has been preserved without error, without any loss or corruption, when there are many examples like 1 Samuel 13:1 that clearly show corruption of the text, and even the loss of entire words?

Old Biblical manuscript. Clearly in perfect condition.

This verse is not of particular doctrinal significance, but if rejection of sacred scripture in modern times, such as the Book of Mormon, is based on the non-Biblical notion that the Bible is complete and perfect, and that no further guidance from God is needed, then such a position needs to be reevaluated.

A more severe example is a verse in 1 John 5:7-8, which reads,

" For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."

The infamous Comma Johanneum, is accepted as a later insertion by virtually every scholar. It is most interesting that it is the only explicit reference to the Trinity in the New Testament, yet it is not part of the original epistle, but dates from probably the fourth century. This is clearly an alteration of doctrinal significance.

A somewhat humorous example is Hebrews 1:3, which reads, "reveals (phaneron) all things" in the Codex Vaticanus, while most manuscripts read "sustains (pheron) all things". This is particularly interesting because there's a scribe's marginal note in the CV that reads "Fool and knave, leave the old reading, don't change it!", indicating contention over an intentional change in the passage.

A matter of smaller doctrinal significance is Matthew 5:22,

"But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."

The phrase "without a cause" appears in some early manuscripts and some writings of early church fathers, but this phrase does not appear in the earliest manuscript (Papyrus 67 dated AD 125-150) nor in the earliest church father writing (Justin dated about 165 AD) of Matthew 5:22. Virtually all scholars believe that this phrase was added by the third century. (It is notable that this phrase is in the King James Bible but it is not in the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith Translation of Matthew 5:22.)

There is also the controversial case of The Sinners' Bible. This was an edition of the Bible published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, which was meant to be a reprint of the King James Bible. The name is derived from the compositors' mistake: in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:14) the word not in the sentence "Thou shalt not commit adultery" was omitted, thus changing the sentence into "Thou shalt commit adultery". This blunder was spread in a number of copies.

Verse 14.

The fact that this edition of the Bible contained such a flagrant mistake outraged Charles I of England and George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said then:

"I knew the tyme when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially, good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and the letter rare, and faire every way of the beste, but now the paper is nought, the composers boyes, and the correctors unlearned."

Latter-Day Saints are commonly derided for their belief that the Bible is not perfect and inerrant, but they must not be the only ones who feel this way, because every year it seems a new translation, or a new edition, of the perfect Bible is released, somehow improving on the past perfection. Every new work of translation and every commentary written is prima facie evidence that the translators or commentators believe the bible to be true only as translated correctly. If this were not so, then why would they bother translating it?

That said, I do believe in the Bible. I do believe it is the word of God, so far as it is translated correctly. My belief that the Bible is not inerrant is not an indication of my lack of faith in God. It is merely an indication of my lack of faith in people. Errors occur in translation, whether by accident or design, and plain and precious truths are lost in the process.

These significant errors are few enough that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has adopted the common practice of simply using an existing edition of the Bible (in our case, the King James Version) with a few explanatory footnotes. Nevertheless, those few errors are of some doctrinal significance and it stands to reason that if there is a God, he would want to rectify those errors.

Conclusion

Latter-day Saints do not rely on scripture—biblical or otherwise—for their knowledge of Christ. They rely instead upon that which provided the scripture in the first place: revelation by the Holy Ghost. They treasure the scriptural witnesses, but do not require perfection from any mortal or mortal work to have faith in the revelations of God.

And when we remember that, we might remember that God has never said that He will cease speaking to us. We might realize that it's possible that if there is a God, He can still send prophets and new revelation and new scripture just as He did in the past (like the New Testament, which was all new scripture to a people who thought they already had the complete word of God).

This is not something new. It is something old restored.