Category: One Year Skeptic

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Old Testament

Ack! It’s late.

God tells Moses to make some trumpets that can be used to signal the Israelites to resume their wanderings. The Israelites set out on the march again. The Israelites complain about their wandering. God gets angry, and reacts unreasonably:

Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp. Then the people screamed to Moses for help, and when he prayed to the Lord, the fire stopped

Remember, they are screaming to death because God is burning them to death. I cannot help but imagine it, and it is sickening.

Despite God’s anger, the Israelites keep whining. They whine about how they have nothing to eat but manna. Moses calls out to God in frustration asking why he was put in charge of such stubborn people. God responds by helping Moses to find some assistants and promising the Israelites meat

Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will have to eat it. And it won’t be for just a day or two, or for five or ten or even twenty. You will eat it for a whole month until you gag and are sick of it.

God sure comes across as angry, cruel, and spiteful today, doesn’t he?

New Testament

Oh, such disappointment! I misread today’s reading in a way that I knew was immediately wrong, but my misreading was so much more awesome than the original.

While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nerd nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.

If only it Jesus had been anointed with essence of nerd!

Also, Judas agrees to betray Jesus, and Jesus and the disciples partake in the Last Supper.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm sounds very Christian, by which I mean that it is all about God’s forgiveness and mercy and man’s sinful nature. A small sample (the rest goes on in the same vein):

Have mercy on me, O God,
because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
blot out the stain of my sins.
Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
For I recognize my rebellion;
it haunts me day and night.

In fact, out of what we have read so far, it is only in the psalms (and only in some of them) where we seem to get a glimpse of what seem to be presented as the core messages of modern mainstream Christianity. You can overlay such messages on the gospels (most of the time), but it is just an overlay, they do not, at least to me, seem to contain the message on the surface. As for the Old Testament readings, well, not so much.

We continue with the proverbs of the form, “The godly do X, the wicked do Y”. Since the proverbs seem to split the world along the lines of godly or ungodly, the proverbs just come across as annoying. Of course, if they split the world along the lines of good and wicked, they would just come across as tautological. That’s life, I suppose.

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Old Testament

Moses dedicates the Levites to serve in the temple; this, of course, requires many offerings and animal sacrifices. The Israelites celebrate the second Passover; those who are unable to celebrate at the proper time are told they may do so one month later. God settles on the Tabernacle in the form of a cloud (a fiery cloud at night); the cloud lifts and leads the Israelites whenever they should travel.

New Testament

Jesus talks more about the end times. Apparently,

“The day is coming when you will see the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing where he [translation note: or “it”] should not be.”

If that makes sense to you, chime in. Is something lost in translation here or was it this unspecific in the original? [ETA: Qohelet points out that this is a reference to the Abomination of Desolation. So the problem was a translation one, kind of. My translation uses a different phrase than is traditional, making the reference less recognizable.]

When this, whatever it is, occurs the people must flee to the hills without stopping to pack. These will be terrible times, so terrible that everyone would die if God did not shorten them. Many false Messiah’s will try to fool the people. The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars will fall from the sky (I am not quite sure how that last bit makes sense, but sure, we’ll run with it). Then the Son of Man (Jesus) will come and gather the chosen ones from all over the world. Very dramatic.

No one knows when this will happen except God. Not even Jesus. So Jesus’ followers have to stay alert.

Psalms and Proverbs

Our God approaches,
and he is not silent.
Fire devours everything in his way,
and a great storm rages around him.

More great imagery from today’s psalm. Goes rather well with the New Testament reading today. Also, we learn that God does not need sacrifices, just the sacrifice of thankfulness. In that case, why did we have to spend so much time reading about the rules for sacrifices? It was boring!

Proverbs continues the theme of “godly = good, wicked = bad”.

The question often comes up (both on this blog and elsewhere): Why do I insist on interpreting the Bible as if it were literally true? Don’t I know that most/many/educated Christians do no actually believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of an omniscient, omnipotent God?

I covered this a little in my introductory post,

My interpretation style will be mostly literal. By that, I mean that I will interpret my readings literally even though I realize that most Christians do not interpret the whole Bible literally. Since each group of Christians uses different criteria for choosing which parts to interpret literally, I cannot hope to make the “right” choices, so instead I will try to apply a uniformly literal interpretation to all passages presented as historical fact.

But I want to expand on this a little by looking at the discussion of inspiration in the chapter “Contemporary Theories of Revelation and Inspiration” in A General Introduction to the Bible by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix. According to this book, the contemporary views of the Bible are three (pg 188):

• “The Bible is the Word of God — orthodox” (i.e., the Bible is essentially the Word of God)
• “The Bible contains the Word of God — liberal” (i.e., the Bible is partially the Word of God)
• “The Bible becomes the Word of God — neo-orthodox” (i.e., the Bible is instrumentally the Word of God)

First, the non-orthodox views of inspiration do not fit the Biblical data. The Bible claims to be verbally inspired. For it is the writings (graphē) that are inspired (2 Tim. 3:16). … [more examples]… But all unorthodox views reject verbal inspiration. Hence, whatever else may be said in their favor, they are not biblical. (pg 185)

Fifth, the non-orthodox views ultimately deny any objective basis for divine authority. This issue revolves around the question of who will be the final arbiter — man or God. The Bible addresses this matter by saying, “Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, ‘That Though mightest be justified in Thy words, and mightest prevail when Thou art judged’ ” (Rom 3:4). Instead, man’s reason or subjective experience becomes the authority. For all non-orthodox views agree that the objective language of the Bible is not in itself the Word of God. That is, they deny the formula “What the Bible says, God says.” This being the case, even after one discovers what Paul (or Peter, or John, et al.) said in the text he must still ask the crucial question: “Indeed, has God said?” (Gen. 3:1). For once we drive a wedge between the words of Scripture and the Word of God, then after we discover the meaning of a passage it is left to our reason or experience to determine whether or not it is true. (pg 186)

Unfortunately non-orthodox views often confuse individual illumination (or even human intuition) with God’s objective revelation in Scripture. To do so is to shift the locus of revelation from the objective written Word of God to the subjective experience of the believer. In the case of the neo-orthodox view, it is claimed that the Bible is only a revelation when man is receiving it. Their claim that God is not really speaking unless man is hearing is clearly contrary to the repeated exhortation in Scripture to receive what God has spoken. (pg 187)

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Old Testament

Today’s reading covers two main topics. First, the regulations that must be followed when one takes the vows of a Nazirite. These include:

• Consuming no grape products
• Consuming no alcohol or anything derived from alcohol
• Never cutting hair for the duration of the vow
• Avoiding any dead bodies
• Giving a bunch of sacrifices

So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

Although the New Living Translation does not provide a reference for this supposed prophecy, some believe it refers to the birth of Samson in Judges 13:5-7.

You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.”

The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name. But he told me, ‘You will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. For your son will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from the moment of his birth until the day of his death.’”

As usual, it seems doubtful that this actually applies to Jesus. However, ignoring that, we can see that this use of Nazirite clearly referred to the vow, as in today’s reading. It does not indicate a city of Nazarene. Of course, the interpretation of Jesus as under the Nazarene vow from birth presents problems. For example, he was, according to Biblical reports, quite fond of wine.

The other topic covered in today’s reading is the offerings given by each of the tribe leaders at the anointing of the Tabernacle. Each tribe gave stuff. What is noteworthy is the amount of repetition is this description. Each tribal leader gave the exact same thing, and it was described as exactly the same way.

On the [Nth] day [so and so] son of [such and such], leader of the tribe of [whatever], presented his offering. His offering consisted of a silver platter weighing 3¼ pounds and a silver basin weighing 1¾ pounds (as measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel). These were both filled with grain offerings of choice flour moistened with olive oil. He also brought a gold container weighing four ounces, which was filled with incense. He brought a young bull, a ram, and a one-year-old male lamb for a burnt offering, and a male goat for a sin offering. For a peace offering he brought two bulls, five rams, five male goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering brought by [so and so] son of [such and such].

Repeat that 12 times and you have read the vast majority of Numbers 7.

New Testament

Today’s teachings:

Beware of the teachers of religious law who like to preach in public! Funny how prominent TV evangelicals never apply this to themselves (oops, still not talking about contemporary issues).

Those who give all they have give more than those who give a small amount of their surplus, even if the dollar amount is smaller. It is true, but we should remember that Jesus only said the widow’s offering was worth more, not that the offerings of the rich were worth nothing.

After Jesus predicts the fall of the temple (for versions of “predict” which take into account that this was probably written after the fall of the Temple), he talks about the end times.

“Don’t let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in many parts of the world, as well as famines. But this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.

Now, either this is a very general prophecy, and not worthy of being called a prediction of the future or the end times have been going on for 2000 years. Either way, not terribly impressive.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm: God is great because someday the wicked will die and be forced to leave behind all the wealth they acquired in life. The psalm has several verses which imply that the wicked will just die and be dead, not be tortured forever.

The grave is their eternal home
where they will stay forever.
…
They will die, just like animals.
…
But as for me, God will redeem my life.
He will snatch me from the power of the grave.
…
But they will die like all before them
and never again see the light of day.

Proverbs also continues to talk about the terrible fate of the wicked.

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Old Testament

We learn about the different tasks assigned to the divisions of the Levites. God is very particular about how the various pieces of the Tabernacle are wrapped for transport (blue cloth and fine goatskin leather for all the wrappings).

Reading through all that, I figured it would be another boring day in Numbers. Then God tells Moses how to test a woman for faithfulness.

At this point the priest must put the woman under oath by saying, “May the people know that the Lord’s curse is upon you when he makes you infertile, causing your womb to shrivel and your abdomen to swell. Now may this water that brings the curse enter your body and cause your abdomen to swell and your womb to shrivel.” And the woman will be required to say, “Yes, let it be so.” And the priest will write these curses on a piece of leather and wash them off into the bitter water. He will make the woman drink the bitter water that brings on the curse. When the water enters her body, it will cause bitter suffering if she is guilty.

What the @#$!*? The test for marital faithfulness consists of forcing a woman to drink a poison and seeing whether or not she suffers from it. A poison that was believed to destroy her ability to have children. Superstitious, ridiculous, BS!

New Testament

Jesus does Q&A:

Q: A woman serially marries 7 brothers. Which man claims her as a wife in heaven?
A: None of them! (Sure, sounds reasonable.)

Q: Will the dead be raised?
A: Yes, because God once said “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” after they had died. So obviously God is God of the living and they will be raised. (Really? I’m not buying the logic on this one.)

Q: What’s the most important commandment?
A: Love and honored God followed by love your neighbor. (I’ll take the second, but I cannot see how someone could love and honor a God who is supposedly the same as the God of the Old Testament.)

Q from Jesus: Why do you religious teachers claim the Messiah is the son of David?
A from Jesus: You’re like totally wrong you know. Because David in a psalm once called the Messiah “my Lord”. (I do not buy that David would never call a son of his “my Lord” nor do I think it is at all clear, to me at least, that the quoted psalm refers to what Jesus thinks it refers to.)

That said, we have a whole day’s worth of reading where Jesus does not get angry or annoyed at anyone. Hurrah!

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm: God is awesome because he defends Jerusalem.

Today’s proverb is great!

Lazy people irritate their employers,
like vinegar to the teeth or smoke in the eyes.

“Like vinegar to the teeth.” I love it!

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Old Testament

In today’s reading, we learn where all of the different tribes should camp relative to the tabernacle. To the east: Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. To the south: Reuben, Simeon, and Gad. To the west: Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. To the north: Dan, Asher, and Naphtali. I like organization. It makes me happy.

What makes me less happy is this: Moses numbered the first born sons (age 1 month or older) among the non-Levite tribes. This number was 22,273. As we learned yesterday, the total number of men 20 years or older was  603,550. The number of first born sons gives the number of families with sons. This means that each family had at least 603,550 / 22,273 = 27 sons. This is not even accounting for the fact that the set of men age 1 month or older is actually larger than 603,550. Not feasible!

New Testament

Today’s New Testament reading contains more parables that we have read before. No interesting new twists that I noted, and I was not inspired with any new thoughts, so there’s nothing more to comment about.

Psalms and Proverbs

I like the start of today’s psalm:

Come everyone! Clap your hands!
Shout to God with joyful praise!

I think I like it because of the exclamation points.

Also, the proverbs still imply that one is either godly or wicked. Blah, blah, etc.

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Old Testament

Reward and punishment make up the main topic of today’s reading. If the Israelites obey God’s commands, he shall bless them. The rains will come in season, the trees and fields will yield bumper crops, then land will be peaceful, and wild animals will not bother them. If they obey God, the Israelites will defeat their enemies and multiply in number. God will live among them.

God says a lot more about punishment (about three times as much text). Is is pretty terrible. If the Israelites do not obey God’s commands:

• He will bring terrors of disease and fevers upon them and let enemies conquer them (and eat their crops).
• If they still do not obey he will stop the rain and harden the land, making it yield no crops.
• If they still do not obey, he will send wild animals to eat the children and livestock of the Israelites.
• If they still do not obey, he will, send armies to destroy the Israelites and plagues on those who flee. He will also destroy the food supply to the point where rationing is necessary.
• If they still do not obey, he will cause the Israelites to resort to cannibalism, destroy property, destroy cities, take no pleasure in offering, and scatter the people among the nations. This is not an exaggeration:

  If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me, then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols, and I will despise you. I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me.Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled at what they see. I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins. 

• And for anyone who survives that, God will demoralize them to the point where living a normal life is impossible.

New Testament

In today’s reading, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to ask Jesus if they can sit at his left and right hand in heaven. Jesus says that to do so, they must drink from the bitter cup of death he will drink from, but actually only God can decide that. But what I want to point out is that in the version in Matthew 20:20-23, it was supposedly their mother who made this request.  In this version, they make the request directly. Which version is right? (Answer: probably neither, because most likely the story exists to make a point, not because it was true.)

Today we see another example of what I would call genuine kindness on Jesus’ part. A blind beggar, Bartimaeus, called out to Jesus to heal him. The crowd tried to shush him, but Jesus took mercy on the man and healed him. What amuses me about this story is the crowd. At first they yell at the man, “Be quiet!” But once Jesus tells him to come they yell, “Cheer up. Come on, he’s calling you!” Crowds are so fickle!

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm contains something different! Instead of going on about how great God is for blessing the psalmist or how terrible he is for neglecting the psalmist, today’s psalm seems to be a tribute to a king in honor of his wedding. Despite the cheery subject matter, the psalm briefly touches on the difficulty of being a woman in these times, even if that woman is a queen.

Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say.
Forget your people and your family far away.

How sad it must be to marry and be effectively cut off from your past forever. How grim to grow up knowing that such is likely your destiny.

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Old Testament

The Levites only owned houses in Levitical towns and the fields around them. Because that was all they owned, they got it back every 50 years (as we learn later in the reading, every 50 years is the Jubilee year, a year of rest for people and the land when everyone regains that which belonged to their ancestors).

The Israelites were commanded not to take advantage of those who have come on hard times. Good sentiment!

However, God fails when it comes to slavery. The Israelites may not buy and sell each other as slaves, only as indentured servants to be freed in the Year of Jubilee.

However, you may purchase male and female slaves from among the nations around you. You may also purchase the children of temporary residents who live among you, including those who have been born into your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat them as slaves, but you must never treat your fellow Israelites this way.

Now, if God really inspired the authorship of Leviticus as a book meant to go into his book of instruction for all of humanity for all time, you would think that the one thing he could handle is saying straight out that slavery is wrong. Fail.

Another failure is God’s idea of just punishment. God declares to Moses that a man should be stoned to death for blasphemy. What a terrible way to kill someone! A stoning would be a drawn out, painful death. It counts, in  my opinion, as cruel punishment that only a wicked being would choose as appropriate another. And yet, this is supposedly God’s preferred method of putting blasphemers to death. Perhaps not surprising for a being that murdered all of humanity in the flood and murdered many Egyptians before the Exodus, but still, like those events, sickening. Even if the God of the Bible exists, I do not think I could believe him worthy of worship.

Today’s reading also gives us the famous phrase, “an eye for an eye”.

Anyone who injures another person must be dealt with according to the injury inflicted — a fracture for a fracture, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Whatever anyone does to injure another person must be paid back in kind.

This is barbaric. Yes, I know Jesus repudiates this when he says to turn the other cheek, but we still have to deal with the original. The original is not barbaric because it claims that punishment should be proportional to the crime. It is barbaric because it implies that it should be like in kind. Imagine, someone causes someone else to lose an eye. Now, the person who committed the crime must have their eye deliberately gouged out by someone else.

New Testament

We see an example of Jesus being nice! Well, kind of. Some parents had brought their children to be blessed by Jesus. The disciples try to shoo them away. Instead of just telling them not too,

When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples.

Hardly a day goes by when the reading does not contain some reference to Jesus’ anger or annoyance. At least he blesses the children.

Actually, today we really do see an example of Jesus acting in a caring manner. A rich man who had always kept the commandments asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.

Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. “There is still one thing you haven’t done,” he told him. “God and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Wow! No anger, no annoyance, just genuine love. I like this Jesus more than the Jesus we usually see. The disciples discuss the difficulty of getting into heaven by these standards. Jesus tells them,

Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.

That’s nice. The next bit however, seems a bit callous. Jesus says,

I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property — along with persecution.

Sorry to break it to you Jesus, but getting a new family does not make up for the one that was lost. Relationships are not fungible like that.

Psalms and Proverbs

We get depressing a reading from Psalms today.

You have butchered us like sheep
and scattered us among the nations.
You sold your precious people for a pittance,
making nothing on the sale.
…
We can’t escape the constant humiliation;
shame is written across our faces.
All we hear are the taunts of our mockers.
All we see are our vengeful enemies.
All this has happened though we have not forgotten you.
We have not violated your covenant.
Our hearts have not deserted you.
We have not strayed from your path.
Yet you have crushed us in the jackal’s desert home.
You have covered us with darkness and death.
…
Wake up, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
Get up! Do not reject us forever.
Why do you look the other way?
Why do you ignore our suffering and oppression?
We collapse in the dust,
lying face down in the dirt.
Rise up! Help us!
Ransom us because of your unfailing love.

2 months in, and we are about 15% of the way done. This month we read through the rest of Exodus and a good bit of Leviticus in the Old Testament and finished Matthew and got a good way through Mark in the New Testament. Leviticus has been surprisingly entertaining, but rather repetitive. In fact, the aspect of the readings which made this month most difficult was their repetitive nature. Leviticus often repeated itself and Exodus. Mark feels very repetitive, which makes sense given that Mark is believed to be one of the sources used by the author of Matthew.

As I mentioned, Leviticus has been surprisingly entertaining. Some of the laws are interesting. Some parts are entertaining. Reading these laws also shows the lack of feasibility of claims that the U.S. system of laws and justice builds off of the Biblical law. Most of the law in Leviticus is based on identifying and maintaining ritual purity. The bits that are reflected in our modern moral and legal beliefs are the claims that are so general as to not really be specific to the Biblical moral code (don’t murder, don’t steal, etc.).

I continue to fail to see examples of God or Jesus’ love for humanity in the Bible. The few claims of that natures we see are weak. Jesus heals some people (but only if they are faithful enough), the psalmists claim that God is loving (usually in the form “God, I know you love me, so why do you let me suffer”).

Proverbs was better this month. Less about immoral women and wicked people, and more good advice. Better, but still sometimes terrible, like the proverbs that imply that wealth can be used as an indicator of someone’s worth).