Who are these adolescent apologists all over TikTok? They are just regurgitating the speeches they've heard from their mentors. Not one of them has an original idea. Not one of them shows any effort at scholarship. And they all have zero personality.
You are absolutely on to something. The old model of "TV evangelist spouting prosperity gospel-hour hucksterism" is giving way to new media forms -- and all their companion parasites. And good call: These young parasites lack any stripe of variety or idiosyncratic delivery -- just vanilla, monotone "analysis" on the level of a form letter. Reminds me of all the Young(!) Young Earth Creationists feeding content to their exceptionally clicky, dogmatic fanbase. Also: And ofc the appeal arises from the weaponized contrast of someone young delivering an apologetic, conservative message. "I thought all those young people just did whatever they wanted and don't believe in nothing!!" Look 25 or younger. Recycle evangelical talking bullets with hollow-point apologetics (very hollow). Tiktok and RU-vid it. Profit!
That’s quite possible and I wouldn’t put it past him. I personally don’t think brooks thinks that deeply about words or anything that he says, I think he’s just regurgitating talking points he’s heard. And it’s a very evangelical think to call everything they assert as “probable” or “obvious” or something else in that vain.
@@danielclingen34 from my upbringing, we were taught to lean on the fact it can’t be disproven. If you can’t “know” for sure, then it makes just as much sense to believe it as not. We never even stopped to think what that meant. The real question isn’t about what you can prove, but what is supported by the evidence.
This is the summary of just about all apologetics everywhere. It's like saying "the flood happened" because "there are _some_ other flood legends" even though those legends don't talk about Noah, don't happen at the same time, and we don't see all civilizations stopping cold at "the same time" where "same time" is as close to the same year as the uncertainties of ancient dating permit.
It's just fear, down to the root. They can't accept anyone making so much as a dent into their fundament, out of fear it might eventually crumble. Doesn't show much confidence in their own faith basis.
The worst thing about Brooks and those like him is that they don't respect the texts. They are willing to twist the words beyond recognition to say what they want them to say.
Personally, I'd argue that all of these religions were better off when there were no texts. At least, none that were perceived as being more authoritative than the oral traditions that spawned them and the "revelatory" process that continually updated them. Disrespecting the texts is good. I just wish they were more honest about what they are doing.
And Dan does respect the texts? I don't think so. In this video he resorts to a sophomoric reading of the texts related to the rending of the veil. He is a capable Greek reader, yet he resorts to a wooden grammatical interpretation and ignores the syntax altogether. biblicalmusing.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-internet-is-free-for-all-zone-where.html The result is his conclusion that the accounts are in conflict. They are not. That is not respecting the texts. It is forcing the texts to conform to his presumption based on his Morman background that the Bible is unreliable and must be interpreted by a Mormon exegete. Which he is, of course. Poppycock. He should know better.
You speak on text, but American history text is inaccurate and misleading. lol ppl belive the newspaper because it’s written in the newspaper. This discussion is about biblical passages that date two to four thousand yrs ago. And has been translated multiple times over. From multiple languages. You stated “ twisting of words” what words were twisted?
There’s something so frustrating about how evangelicals demand that the bible be read plainly, until the conversation of contradictions or slavery comes up, and then all of that is thrown out the window. Just making sh!t up to hold onto dogma.
The conversation about slavery is as much of a crock as this conversation about contradictions. All it does is claim that our modern attitude toward slavery is superior, never mind that slavery is alive and well in every corner of the modern world. biblicalmusing.blogspot.com/2023/09/slavery.html The complaint against biblical slavery seems morally hypocritical.
@@doncamp1150 What absolute insanity, get out of here. I already saw you comment with another screed about how Dr. McLellan is an evil MORMON, who hates the TRUTH, and that almost comes off as adult compared to this idiotic waffling about slavery. Stop poisoning the conversational waters around here with your dogmas and what I have taken as REFUSAL TO CONDEMN SLAVERY.
@@doncamp1150 *Slavery* Except for murder, slavery has got to be one of the most immoral things a person can do. Yet slavery is rampant throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments. The Bible clearly approves of slavery in many passages, and it goes so far as to tell how to obtain slaves, how hard you can beat them, and when you can have sex with the female slaves. Many Jews and Christians will try to ignore the moral problems of slavery by saying that these slaves were actually servants or indentured servants. Many translations of the Bible use the word “servant”, “bondservant”, or “manservant” instead of “slave” to make the Bible seem less immoral than it really is. While many slaves may have worked as household servants, that doesn’t mean that they were not slaves who were bought, sold, and treated worse than livestock. *The following passage shows that slaves are clearly property to be bought and sold like livestock.* However, you may purchase male or female *slaves* from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your *slaves* like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT) *The following passage describes how the Hebrew slaves are to be treated.* If you buy a Hebrew *slave,* he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your *slave* and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a *slave,* then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a *slave,* and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the *slave* may plainly declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.’ If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the *slave* will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT) Notice how they can get a male Hebrew slave to become a permanent slave by keeping his wife and children hostage until he says he wants to become a permanent slave. What kind of family values are these? *The following passage describes the sickening practice of sex slavery. How can anyone think it is moral to sell your own daughter as a sex slave?* When a man sells his daughter as a *slave,* she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a *slave* girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT) So these are the Bible family values! A man can buy as many sex slaves as he wants as long as he feeds them, clothes them, and has sex with them! *What does the Bible say about beating slaves? It says you can beat both male and female slaves with a rod so hard that as long as they don’t die right away you are cleared of any wrongdoing.* When a man strikes his male or female *slave* with a rod so hard that the *slave* dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the *slave* survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the *slave* is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB) *You would think that Jesus and the New Testament would have a different view of slavery, but slavery is still approved of in the New Testament, as the following passages show.* *Slaves,* obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT) Christians who are *slaves* should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT) *In the following parable, Jesus clearly approves of beating slaves even if they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong.* The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. “But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given.” (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)
@@epicofatrahasis3775 Exactly! I've been taking a step back from Christianity and deconstructing for about 8 months and can't believe how immoral this book and religion is. It seems like Christianity has all the ear markings of a cult and I feel like I've been stuck in a Christian coma my whole life...
I walked away from the faith once I saw all these discrepancies and contradictions. It was a mental fight for sure and the absolute proudest event in my life. My life is far superior today.
Ive only ever encountered Brook in response to him. I'm now going to have to watch some of his stuff to see if he really is as bad as is made out. I doubt i'll be thanking you later Dan for this. Keep up good work
My answer to this is to get the challenger to reject the inerrancy. Specifically, the literal reading of "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me" is that there are other Gods. The only other readings of that necessitate the use of metaphors or allegories. They have to reject the inerrancy of the Bible to fit their theological conclusion of a monotheistic God.
That's certainly one reading, yes. Another, however, is that those "other gods" were considered unreal---gods made of wood or stone---by the people who worshipped the one "real" God but were nevertheless, despite their unreality as actual deities, objects of veneration which denied the putative true God the worship only He deserved. I wonder whether that passage mentioning those other "gods" might have put that word in quotes, as I just did, if the scribes of that day utilized such punctuation?
You don't seem to be including the possibility that the other "Gods" referred to are fake or made up gods, which would fit in with monotheism. I'm not arguing for inerrancy or even monotheism, just saying.
@@MoreLifePlease Then why mention them? Why say "I have to be your number one god" instead of of "I'm the only one, so worship me"? It's a very strange phrasing if monotheism was what the Bible uniformly said. There is plenty of suggestions in the Bible that other gods exist. During the Egyptian Plague narrative, pharaoh's magicians are able to turn their staffs into snakes. This is not rendered as parlor magic, but the snakes were real. Aaron did the same and his snake ate theirs. But that implies that demonic magic was possible. In 2 Kings 3, the Moabites are unexpectedly successful in battle. We have a stele from them suggesting their god, Chemosh, gave them the victory. While not named as such, the text in the Bible certainly implies that _somebody_, some deity gave Moab their victory. Even the great Solomon allowed polytheism (the excuse was to placate his wife). Samuel and Kings are full of references to pagan gods, especially Asherah, whom was widely believed by the Israelites for centuries. But somehow, that doesn't count, I guess. Sure, the post-exilic writers condemned it, but it is very clear that _before_ the exile, polytheism was widely practiced. Monotheism is something that the Bible retroactively imposes on its own text, but the text still has plenty to inform us that it wasn't that way for a long time.
I actually feel a bit sorry for folks that have to spend their time trying to keep Scripture “free from contradictions” instead of experiencing the beauty and depth of the various stories. What sad and limited way to read the Bible
If you want beautiful and deep stories, you can get it without the BS of the bible. What's beautiful about Job? About a servant being raped to death and cut into pieces?
So based. James Tabor has had some discussions where he says practically the same thing, even going as far as to say that those who try to resolve all of these different contradictions are doing the Bible an injustice because you are trying to slam all these different narratives together when they weren't meant to fit together in the first place. So if someone claims to have a high view of scripture, trying to reconcile and harmonize everything actually causes more harm than good and Tabor's opinion.
@@JopJio What are you doing here, then? Why don't you go find something more to your liking such as Richard Dawkins breathlessly regurgitating 19th century pseudohistory, blissfully unaware that it was thoroughly debunked decades ago?
Faith based on the univocality or the inerrancy of ANY sufficiently old book seems like a dubious proposition to start with. Very Shakey. That's besides the point, though, it's missing the forest for the trees
Right! I was raised being taught univocality and inerrancy of the bible. But for a number of years now, even partially based on things I was taught growing up, that entire notion just seems like idolatry to me. The irony is, despite t he authors not having any concept of a bible, biblical inerrancy seems to be denounced by at least one author of the bible, seeing as Paul pointed out that Peter, at least in Paul’s mind, taught incorrect things. Evangelicals love to point out that nobody is perfect and all are sinful but seem to imply that the writings of these men are somehow perfect.
Regarding the last words, it is perhaps worth mentioning that the four passages demonstrate very different mindsets. The despair of 'Why have you foresaken me' requires a different attitude to the hopeful or resigned 'into your hands i commit my spirit', or even the stoic acceptance of 'it is finished'. It is therefore incongruous to suggest Jesus may have said all of them.
Mark was not a disciple but is described as a companion of Peter. Luke was not a disciple but a companion of Paul. Matthew was one of the disciples, but most scholars doubt he wrote the gospel, a major reason being that it copies 600 verses from Mark, why would an eyewitness copy from a non-eyewitness account? And the gospel of John doesn't claim to be written by John, only that it is the words of "the beloved disciple". Why it intentionally hides the name is a mystery and why it talks about them in the third person is strange. At best it is a scribe recording what this unknown disciple said, so it is still second or third hand.
@@Wertbag99 I like to ask Christians to read Luke 1:1-4 and then have them try to convince me that Luke is an eyewitness account with that passage in mind.
The first thing for anyone in this discussion to realize is that the names "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke", and "John" do not appear in the old manuscripts. No gospel names its author the way the letters of Paul do. So, all the names are scholarly reconstructions by the early church fathers as best they could determine. If they got that bit wrong, and they might have, then we are totally at sea as to who the authors were. That's before we realize that they just aren't eyewitness accounts and don't read like eyewitness accounts. They are also written in Greek. It is not terribly likely that any of the disciples would be able to write or even dictate accounts in literate Greek. Nor was it "translation Greek" that someone made of, say, an original account in Aramaic. So, the authors weren't present and are secondary witnesses. Now, much history is like this, ancient and modern, where some historian makes inquiries and interviews someone, but it does mean that the accounts are second hand and all that comes with such a reality. And, we have the disturbing possibility that they weren't even second hand. A few scholars hold out hope that Matthew may have been in Hebrew originally, but we don't have even a scrap of that text and much about the way it is written suggests that Matthew's author, whomever it was, used the Greek Septuagint as his source for the Old Testament. There was a reference by an early father to a Hebrew Matthew, which is why they hold out this faint hope, but that missing text is very likely not our Matthew. But by attributing Matthew to Matthew, there is the ghost of a claim of at least one eyewitness. Similarly, John Mark _might_ have been present at Gethsemane according to some clever analysis of that text. So, the attributions are an attempt to claim some amount of eyewitness testimony.
Actually you *can* show contradictions in the Bible when it has parallel accounts in different books, e.g. Kings and Chronicles differing on the age of a monarch when he was crowned. But then apologists will say that while there may be a copyist error, but the ORIGINAL texts are inerrant. They somehow can't see that if something false can be introduced by accident, then it can be introduced by intention. If God doesn't preserve inerrancy in the copies, which are all we have, then it makes no sense that he would bother to enforce inerrancy in the originals, since in his omniscience he would know that the originals would be lost in a relatively short time.
Also, if detectable errors could be introduced unintentionally, we have no way to know if undetectable errors have been introduced. Many details are only stated once.
According to Bart Ehrman there are hundreds of contradictions in the NT. They can be proven mathematically by putting them in logic equations. For example, the following statement A: ( n women went to the tomb) is true, it leads to statement B (m woman did not go to the tomb) is true, with n different than m. We see A cannot be B and non B at the same time.
I would definitely name my first born male child, “Rhetorical Prophylaxis.” It’s likely good then, that I married into a family what already had and named the children. 😂
I have absolutely no idea who this Brooks is, though I’ve seen several videos of Dan interacting with his assertions. But I’ve noticed that Brooks speaks with a very unusual cadence. Is this cadence intended to make himself sound more confident or authoritative?
That's how it seems to me, yes. I don't know him, can't speak for him, but I suspect Brooks' spoken style is intended to, as Dan point out, perform confidence in one's conclusions. It's theater.
Hold on. How does someone “disprove” God-breathed? That isn’t a historical question; unless you mean whether or not the philological data leads us to think it should be translated as “life-giving.” But this does not relate to the “data” of whether the Scriptures themselves are inspired by God.
It's amazing how apologists try to create some weird sequencing of Jesus's "last words". The other method is to say that this actually demonstrates that these are actual eye witness accounts. So things are proof that the Bible is legitimate both when there are differences in the gospels and when they agree.
Inspired doesn't necessarily have to mean without error or even dictated to the writer.....though a thing can be "perfect in it's imperfection" like a piece of artwork.
That's just gobbledegook masquerading as an argument. This is a god that is supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient. One who is written as fully aware of human weakness and imperfection; the Bible itself proclaims as much. Such a god could have dictated the book, directly and clearly, in the manner the Quran was said to be constructed (except even clearer!). That's not what anyone claims or can claim about the Bible. It's a jumble of texts with very different purposes. It is also clear that the name "Old Testament" is an invented bit of Christian Propaganda. The "Old Testament" is more properly known as "The Hebrew Scriptures" and not a scrap of it was written with a messiah like Jesus Christ in mind. How do I know this? Well, just listen to Jewish Scholarship on the matter. They are, depending on the scholar, anything but patiently explaining to downright angry about what Christians do to their own text. The Jews were looking for a very different kind of Messiah. It's fundamentally why so few ever converted and why Christians have treated Jews so badly over the centuries. It doesn't help when over half your text has its Christology denied by the original group that had that text.
@@Uryvichk Oh, you'll love this one. Some apologists claim that it is some sort of allegory of the relationship between Christ and Christ's church. Yeah, pretty desperate.
As usual, I love the content. I don’t like the new subtitle format at all though. Gives me flashbacks to the Christopher Reeves Superman movie credits.
I understand that these videos are made from a serious academic standpoint but it reminds me of how an adult should respond when a child asks if the adult likes the child’s latest art project. The adult should tell the child that the adult loves the art work and that it is perfect just the way it is. The child is not going to benefit from constructive criticism and any criticism is likely to hurt the child’s feelings. Another way to look at it is to compare the effort to Sisyphus rolling a bolder up a hill. The effort is futile and ultimately left Sisyphus exhausted, frustrated, and depressed
Hey Dan, I appreciate your videos and your generally even-handed approach. I realize that you'll likely dismiss a lot of this as these sort of "just so" explanations to explain away a contradiction, but the channel "Testify" has this series on "unplanned coincidences".. I think a few of them are a stretch, but a few of them are kind of convincing, too. I'm not interested in a strict word-for-word interpretation of the bible, but I'm curious about the possibility that they were written via interviews with eyewitnesses. Whether those eyewitnesses were taking part in a collective delusion is up to people to decide for themselves, but the way he describes certain timelines matching up, certain obscure local knowledge etc. is intriguing. TBH I haven't read most of these passages so I don't have a sense of how their context. But I do think he's right in theory at least, that if there are enough casual coincidences, it would start to become convincing evidence, and I wonder if there's any current way to quantify or systematize that. I'm curious if you've seen this, and I guess the questions i have are, (1) Are something like unplanned coincidences considered valid historical evidence in general (not specifically in the bible like the ones he points out)? (2) At what point would you start to look at unplanned coincidences as valid historical evidence? Like, how many would there have to be of a certain quality in a set of texts before it started being considered plausible? (3) Where should we draw the line between an unplanned coincidence and a rationalization to handwave away a contradiction? Is there any way of defining this that would be accepted by historians? (4) I'd be interested to get your take on some of the stronger cases, and how your answers to the other questions apply specifically to the bible and what Testify says.
Part of me interprets Brooks videos as hyperfocus, possibly from an underlying neurodivergence, and I feel bad that Dan is coming down on him. Then I remember the videos where Brooks "debunks" literal ten year olds, and I cheer Dan on.
I long ago disengaged from actually caring about the Bible, or anything that it says one way or another. Yet, I don't tire of listening to Dan dissect poorly constructed assertions about it.
I read a harmonization of the resurrection narratives, and with all the running around it reminded me of a Benny Hill sketch. Plus you miss the intent of the author, who is throwing his theology in. Peter had to be first in the tomb for a reason for John. For another Mark, it’s “why would I involve that dope in this story?”
Star trek doesn't explicitly say that Kirk *never* passionately made out with Spock. In fact, we can see from Star Trek: Discovery that homophobia was entirely absent from Star Fleet during Kirk's time...
Star Trek canon is a useful analogy for thinking about biblical canon. The timescales when these works were published is broadly similar; if the earliest writings of Paul in the 50s AD correspond to TOS, Mark is written in the TNG era, Matthew is written when enterprise first airs, John is around the time of the kelvin reboot films, and Luke is Discovery/Strange New Worlds (revisiting older themes but updated for new audiences). Thinking about how different the world was in 1969 vs 2019 helps to remind you how much can change in the 50 year gap between Paul and Luke. More importantly, they're from different authors writing for different audiences who care about different things both in Star Trek and Christianity the audience and later authors do a lot of apologetic work to make it fit together as a single coherent narrative.
@@birkett83 I don't think there's a good parallel in Trek to Matthew and Luke. Luke is trying to take the things people like in Matthew but correct some glaring factual errors and bring some of the divergences back in line with the theology as presented in Mark. You could kinda point at the Kelvin films as doing this. But then the ordering is all out of whack. So we're really only talking conceptually at that point. Which, ehhh, not very clean. Also, just to idly scurry down the warrens of nerdom, I think there's a solid argument to be made that TOS is more like the Hebrew Bible. It's the Ur text from which all later developments are derived. Though the analogy falls apart quickly if you try to say Paul is TNG. Paul is tough in general since he's not so much creating a narrative for Jesus as enforcing theology. He's more akin to producer Rick Berman than anything. Where Roddenberry is the founding Jesus cult. But then that breaks the analogy too. Damn this is hard. I'm gonna spend the next week thinking about this.
@@rainbowkrampus Yeah, comparing specific books of the bible to a specific series was just meant to illustrate how long there is between the writing of different books of the new testament. There are definite similarities in the process of canon building but the biblical authors don't map neatly onto different trek series. In general, later star trek writers (along with the audience) do sometimes try to explain contradictions between older episodes in the series, and most fans gloss over the obvious contradictions for the purpose of building a coherent star-trek canon, rather than treat each episode as a separate work - which is definitely how the original series and most of TNG were written. TNG has a few two-part episodes and more character development than TOS but it's not until DS9 that you really start to see season-long story arcs, and early voyager is also very episodic. Sadly that part of the analogy also breaks down; later trek series having longer story arcs doesn't seem to have any corresponding trend in the new testament.
@@birkett83 I just need a way to make Roddenberry into Moses. Then we can mythologize Roddenberry and start our own cult... I mean... club... Eventually, a thousand years from now, we'll arrive at Picard: The Messiah. In the name of the Kirk, the Picard and the Emissary of the Prophets.
There's one thing that was definitely demonstrably false in the Bible. Nebuchadnezzar's descendant, Belshazzar, was neither king of Babylon nor was he Nebuchadnezzar's son. He was Nebuchadnezzar's grandson. The text frequently calls Belshazzar "the king" when he never held that title.
I get it that apologists can skirt around a lot of apparent contradictions but the one you chose really isn't a contradiction by any stretch. Translating 'καὶ' as “and then” is just wrong in both Luke and Mark's account of the veil. The word 'καὶ' used in Luke and Mark is a flexible connector that can be translated as 'then,' 'and,' or 'also.' It does not strictly indicate chronological sequence like 'and then' does. Greek writers would typically use words like 'τότε,' 'μετὰ ταῦτα,' or 'μετά' instead if they wanted to clearly state chronology of events. Look at the context: Mark finishes the story of Jesus' death and then transitions to the veil being torn using 'καὶ' to connect these events without specifying a strict chronology-he's linking them together. Luke mentions all the cosmological events-the time of day, the unusual darkness, the temple curtain-before moving to Jesus' death. He uses 'καὶ' to tie all these elements together with Jesus' death. There’s no clear statement of chronology, but both accounts see a connection between these events. When people recount events that happen around the same time, they have to choose which to mention first. If I say I ate ice cream and my kids did too, but later say my kids ate ice cream and so did I, would you think I was contradicting myself? Of course not, that would be rediculous. The presumption of a 'contradiction' between the authors of Mark and Luke in these passages is similarly silly.
Added to my best arguments playlist. I think Apologetics are used to keep the faithful in the faith, not convince unbelievers. Thank you for your work and for sharing your knowledge of the bible.
You know what I find odd? That these people is flabbergasted by contradictions in (very) human bible-stories and feels their faith is threatened. I mean, why? If Christ saved them, who cares how some human TOLD IT or even what EVENTS it took for their salvation to be achieved. None of this is our concern as believers. HUMAN frailty wouldn't make GOD frail, now would it?
When people say "errors" they most always mean contradictions. There are contradictions in the New Testament, but there are none that would contradict the orthodoxy of the Gospel. The only one I can find is the ending of Mark. Taking up snakes and drinking poison would be putting God to foolish tests. What Jesus refused to do when being tempted by Satan. But the ending of Mark is a known interpolation. If there is another then please point it out. A contradiction that compromises the orthodoxy of the Gospel would be the only one that really matters.
This is what I call the "Wind in the Willows" Argument - WITW is one of my favorite books - in which using every argument a Christian/Muslim uses to show their book's divine nature I can use to show WITW is divine, and Pan, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, is real. 1. Car, jails, and carriages existed, showing historical accuracy. 2. Animals live in appropriate dens, showing scientific accuracy. 3. You shouldn't be a self-centered jerk because it hurts you and others, showing moral perfection. 4. You can't PROVE animals don't have palatial mansions, talk, write poetry, and go on cross-country adventures. 5. Original manuscripts of WITW exist, so there's more documentary evidence than the bible or quran. Using defenses such as scribal errors or interpretation protects against any other objections. I have yet to find a Christian or Muslim who can counter this - I have, however, been called colorful names by street preachers. Win some, lose some.
Why are bringing Muslims into it??as for manuscript,the quran was revealed and preserved orally,we are not indebted to manuscripts,please stop spreading misinformation
Even as one who actually thinks that some sort of providence (call it inspiration or what you will) is required to explain the "data" of the text of the Bible, it does not excuse fallacious arguments to try to support alleged "inerrancy". Dan, please keep calling them out. Spreading misinformation is no basis for sound faith.
It's quite easy to explain the data of the text, when you *honestly* compare the Bible to other ancient Near Eastern religions and literature. Only then will you understand that there's no deity behind it. But people have to be honest with themselves. --------------------------------------------------------- *The Enuma Elish would later be the inspiration for the Hebrew scribes who created the text now known as the biblical Book of Genesis.* Prior to the 19th century CE, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world and its narratives were thought to be completely original. In the mid-19th century CE, however, European museums, as well as academic and religious institutions, sponsored excavations in Mesopotamia to find physical evidence for historical corroboration of the stories in the Bible. ***These excavations found quite the opposite, however, in that, once cuneiform was translated, it was understood that a number of biblical narratives were Mesopotamian in origin.*** *Famous stories such as the Fall of Man and the Great Flood were originally conceived and written down in Sumer,* translated and modified later in Babylon, and reworked by the Assyrians ***before they were used by the Hebrew scribes for the versions which appear in the Bible.*** ***In revising the Mesopotamian creation story for their own ends, the Hebrew scribes tightened the narrative and the focus but retained the concept of the all-powerful deity who brings order from chaos.*** Marduk, in the Enuma Elish, establishes the recognizable order of the world - *just as God does in the Genesis tale* - and human beings are expected to recognize this great gift and honor the deity through service. *"Enuma Elish - The Babylonian Epic of Creation - Full Text - World History Encyclopedia"* *"Sumerian Is the World's Oldest Written Language | ProLingo"* *"Sumerian Civilization: Inventing the Future - World History Encyclopedia"* ("The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia whose civilization flourished between c. 4100-1750 BCE." "Ancient Israelites and their origins date back to 1800-1200 BCE.") *"The Myth of Adapa - World History Encyclopedia"* Also discussed by Professor Christine Hayes at Yale University in her 1st lecture of the series on the Hebrew Bible from 8:50 to 14:30 minutes, lecture 3 from 28:30 to 41:35 minutes, lecture 4 from 0:00 up to 21:30 minutes and 24:00 up to 35:30 minutes and lecture 7 from 24:20 to 25:10 minutes. From a Biblical scholar: "Many stories in the ancient world have their origins in other stories and were borrowed and modified from other or earlier peoples. *For instance, many of the stories now preserved in the Bible are* ***modified*** *versions of stories that existed in the cultures and traditions of Israel’s* ***older*** *contemporaries.* Stories about the creation of the universe, a cataclysmic universal flood, digging wells as land markers, the naming of important cultic sites, gods giving laws to their people, and even stories about gods decreeing the possession of land to their people were all part of the cultural and literary matrix of the ancient Near East. *Biblical scribes freely* ***adopted and modified*** *these stories as a means to express their own identity, origins, and customs."* *"Stories from the Bible"* by Dr Steven DiMattei, from his website *"Biblical Contradictions"* ------------------------------------------------------------------ In addition, look up the below articles. *"Yahweh was just an ancient Canaanite god. We have been deceived! - Escaping Christian Fundamentalism"* *"Debunking the Devil - Michael A. Sherlock (Author)"* *"The Greatest Trick Religion Ever Pulled: Convincing Us That Satan Exists | Atheomedy"* *"Zoroastrianism And Persian Mythology: The Foundation Of Belief"* (Scroll to the last section: Zoroastrianism is the Foundation of Western Belief) *"10 Ways The Bible Was Influenced By Other Religions - Listverse"* *"January | 2014 | Atheomedy"* - Where the Hell Did the Idea of Hell Come From? *"Retired bishop explains the reason why the Church invented "Hell" - Ideapod"* Watch *"The Origins of Salvation, Judgement and Hell"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica (Sensitive theists should only watch from 7:00 to 17:30 minutes as evangelical Christians are lambasted. He's a former theist and has been studying the scholarship and comparative religions for over 15 years) *"Top Ten Reasons Noah’s Flood is Mythology - The Sensuous Curmudgeon"* *"Forget about Noah's Ark; There Was No Worldwide Flood | Bible Interp"* *"The Search for Noah’s Flood - Biblical Archaeology Society"* *"Eridu Genesis - World History Encyclopedia"* *"The Atrahasis Epic: The Great Flood & the Meaning of Suffering - World History Encyclopedia"* Watch *"How Aron Ra Debunks Noah's Flood"* (8 part series debunking Noah's flood using multiple branches of science) *"The Adam and Eve myth - News24"* *"Before Adam and Eve - Psychology Today"* *"Gilgamesh vs. Noah - Wordpress"* *"Old Testament Tales Were Stolen From Other Cultures - Griffin"* *"Parallelism between “The Hymn to Aten” and Psalm 104 - Project Augustine"* *"Studying the Bible"* - by Dr Steven DiMattei (This particular article from a critical Biblical scholar highlights how the authors of the Hebrew Bible used their *fictional* god as a mouthpiece for their own views and ideologies) *"How do we know that the biblical writers were* ***not*** *writing history?"* -- by Dr Steven DiMattei *"Contradictions in the Bible | Identified verse by verse and explained using the most up-to-date scholarly information about the Bible, its texts, and the men who wrote them"* -- by Dr. Steven DiMattei
@@epicofatrahasis3775 The Bible comprises works written in a range of specific historical contexts. It's unsurprising that its authors had similar assumptions to and drew ideas from surrounding cultures, very much like any religious text written in any era. That doesn't change its underlying message or the uncanniness that such a motley collection can still be unified by a single person, the singlehanded fulfilment of all its themes.
There is no way to prove in an interpretation is wrong, maybe, but any time someone tries to interpret the Bible in any other way besides God's word Christians tend to try to debate them about it so not really true. We're led to believe this is the word of God, as is, no questions so any "interpretations" are easily void. And I'm not a bible basher just pointing out some experiences.
Absolutely agree with you Dan. I would point out, many people lean on their own interpretations of scripture, including you. Off the top of my head, the claim the author of Matthew is trying to link prophecy in the OT to Jesus to show Jesus as the fulfillment of these prophecies. It could possible be true, but we have no data that supports your claim.
Except in Matthew 21, Matthew puts Jesus on a donkey and a colt because his version of Zechariah 9:9 has an "and" added into it. Which he copies into his gospel (21:5) to show that the ridiculous thing he's having Jesus do is because Zechariah wrote that he would. Mark, Luke, and John all have him riding a colt alone, because that's what Zechariah 9:9 actually says. So we know all the gospel writers were likely using the OT prophecies to inform their stories, but Matthew changing the narrative due to a greek scribal error pretty much proves that's what he was doing.
@@Dave01Rhodes Thanks for making my point. “likely” =/= supportive data. You have no data that supports the claim the author of Matthew invented stories about Jesus to link Him to fulfilling OT prophecy, just feels. I appreciate you regurgitating Dan’s recent arguments about the donkeys, but it’s mutually exc from the discussion here. That is not data showing the author invented a story to link Jesus to OT prophecy. He may have, but without supporting data, one would have to be able to read the author’s mind, which I doubt Dan, nor you, have or can done/do. There are many possibilities of about why the author wrote the donkey story as he did, but some of those possibilities could easily be claimed as “likely”. Which is exactly my point - we interpret readings according to our own bias when we lack the data to understand or know the validity or purpose of the words we read. Dan has done this with Matthew. As said before, he could be right, but there is no data that shows his interpretation is correct.
@@PopulusVultDecipi ok well feel free to watch this video again to see why demanding “proof” is a bad faith argument. I can’t prove that it’s what the author of Matthew was doing, but it’s the only plausible explanation for their behavior. So unless you have a better explanation as to why Matthew mangled Mark’s passage about Jesus riding a colt in order to include a donkey specifically to match the included mistranslation of Zechariah 9:9, then there’s no reason to think otherwise.
@@Dave01Rhodes lol - I never demanded proof. Nice try kiddo. I ask for data, which you lack, and your conclusion to those scriptures is no different than the content creator Dan corrects in this video. You keep telling yourself you’re different though. lol!
@@PopulusVultDecipi you dodged the critical point: The only plausible explanation for the text of Matthew 21:1-7 is that Matthew was inserting Zechariah 9:9 into the story to have Jesus fulfill that prophecy. You can claim that there’s “equally valid” explanations, but you didn’t offer any. Unless you can provide a better explanation, the “Matthew was inserting OT prophecies into the gospel” is the only plausible explanation, therefore there’s no reason to deny that that’s what happened. If you disagree, then present another plausible explanation for the discrepancy.
The whole business about how apologists give the authors a free pass over "just because they don't all mention the same things doesn't mean they are all true" is frustrating for a reason because these guys are in the end pushing for, at the very least, the reliability and historical accuracy of the Bible. And what does it say about reliability and historical accuracy when the authors either omit stuff or write accounts about the same event where the accounts cannot all be true? It basically impacts the historical accuracy and reliability of the accounts negatively. Yet we have these apologists who give these authors a completely free pass by saying "it's ok if they wrote different things because they had a different emphasis" or "it isn't a contradiction if they don't have accounts that match or they don't include all the details". This is basically and blatantly admitting to the lack of historical accuracy and reliability of such Bible accounts while simultaneously denying that it is such or that there's any problem for their case by doing so. I've heard this line of reasoning being trotted out for accounts like Matthew's Dead Rising event no less. They are basically claiming that all the events in all the gospels happened, which means that Matthew's Dead Rising event also happened historically. At the same time though they are also saying that the other gospel authors who did not include this particular event in their accounts are still historically reliable and accurate for not doing so because "they are emphasizing different things". Clearly a history defining event like the dead rising from their graves en mass and appearing to many people is not in any way a significant event in history and thus can be omitted from accounts that "emphasize different things (which, seemingly, doesn't seem to include historical accuracy or reliability within that emphasis)
What exactly were the "different goals" in omitting large portions of a guy's statements while he's being crucified, anyway? What were the different authors of the Gospels seeking to accomplish by hiding that Jesus was actually extremely chatty up there and said a bunch of different stuff? Why should I trust that any one of them is telling the truth when each of them decided to just leave large parts out for some unclear rhetorical or theological reason? If we have to assume all four Gospel accounts are true, then every Gospel author (if they were eyewitnesses) should have said that Jesus said a ton of things on the cross and was talking a lot, even if they didn't recall every single statement he made.
WOW! Thank you for the words to describe what I see in these phoney idolators. I am agnostic but these types certainly qualify for hypocrisy and self serving.
Hm, yes to the latter, maybe not so much to the former. Digging into the psychology of people who adhere to these belief systems shows that there is a very strong component of social cohesion at play. Failure to continue to believe these things means risking social pain. We are hard wired to avoid risking social pain when it potentially means isolation from our social group. We're a social species, our survival depends on our belonging to a group. Removal from that group meant certain death for our ancestors. This is the whole cognitive dissonance phenomenon. Ideas that could separate us from our group are effectively shut down by the medial frontal cortex. You can register the idea but not really comprehend it. Since your brain refuses to process it, it's almost like the idea doesn't actually exist or convey what it's meant to convey. So then it becomes super easy to just keep on blasting out the arguments we see from apologists in spite of all of the people pointing out how their reasoning is flawed. So I definitely think you could qualify this as self serving. It objectively is. Their brain is saying "You will not process this information today." All in service of a sense of self preservation. I have difficulty calling it hypocrisy though. I tend to think that there is an element of intent when it comes to hypocrisy and with the whole cognitive dissonance thing, I'm not sure you can call it intent. It's an automatic response, a survival instinct. It can be overcome, sure, but all of us former believers can attest to how difficult that can be. Especially so when we're not aware of things like cognitive dissonance and that we are susceptible to deception by our own brains. I dunno, I definitely think that some apologists are knowingly and willfully deceptive. J. Warner Wallace is at the top of that list for me. But on average, I think they genuinely are not aware that they are being driven to make laughable arguments.
@@rainbowkrampus good answer. I sort of knew that but seeing it in action and having it pointed out is a big learning experience! Thank you! As a kind of rebel since pretty early on I didn’t understand why. I struggle to not be just an animal. I try to think for myself while learning as much as I can. Strait is the gate.
@@nancyhope2205 Makes sense to me. Even knowing about cognitive dissonance conceptually, it still took me a long time encountering it and thinking about it to really internalize its scope and recognize it when it's happening. Always something new to learn. Always something new to master.
Jesus' comment (in the book of Matthew) about "Zechariah son of Berechiah" being stoned is factually incorrect. There's no way around it. BUT someone will try!
Can you define inerrancy? Do you go with Chicago definition or are you defining it differently? I just find the term to be woefully unhelpful, whether you're a card carrying southern baptist or Bart Ehrman.
In response to blue shirt teenager at 0:07: Skeptic's Annotated Bible lists 554 contradictions, but that number can change with time. How do apologists deal with self contradiction within the text? For example, Matthew 5:32 has Jesus saying a fornicating wife can be divorced, but Mark 10:9 has Jesus forbidding divorce in the same situation. I know Dan would deal with it by saying the Bible isn't univocal. But I don't know how people who are committed to univocality deal with it.
The contradictions in the gospels start on the first pages. Was Jesus born before Herod Archelaus came to power, or after he was deposed? Did Mary and Joseph live in Bethlehem or Nazareth before Jesus was born?
I can just imagine the Roman's looking up at Jesus on the cross. "Oi, you dead yet?". "Nope... my lord why have you forsaken me?" "Oi, did you just give up the ghost?". "Nope... Into your hands I commend my spirit" "Oi, was that it? Dead now?". "Nope... now it is finished" "Look, just go stab the dozy geezer, he'll be carrying on all day otherwise"
@@ahmedm1729not everyone thinks that contradictions or improbabilities preclude belief or worship of some deity or religion. Hopefully they can be honest about the shortcomings and just not be dogmatic about it.
You and Ehrman are the only 2 I've heard mention the order of death and curtain tearing. The defense is that the Greek doesn't order them, and that they took place at the same time. Can we get clarity on this please?
I can prove that the writer of the book called Matthew lied about Isaiah 7:14 when he quoted it in Matthew 1:23 and claimed that the virgin birth legend of Jesus "fulfilled" Isaiah 7:14. The reason for this is extremely simple. (Indeed, it's so simple that THE MOMENT any Christian starts engaging in rhetorical gyrations to try to pretend otherwise, I know by that alone that that particular Christian is being dishonest.) All you have to do is actually read Isaiah chapter 7 itself in order to understand what Isaiah 7:14 is referring to in the first place. The Christian who refuses to read this actual context of Isaiah chapter 7 is being dishonest. The Christian who does read Isaiah chapter 7 and then refuses to acknowledge what it actually says is being dishonest. Thus, the writer of the book called Matthew was being dishonest - and every Christian today who follows what the writer of the book called Matthew said and ignores what is actually stated clearly and explicitly in Isaiah chapter 7 is being exactly as dishonest as that New Testament writer was.
Theist Brooks' serious, robotic, and monotonous voice and wooden facial expressions make his uninformed responses sound more than absymal. If he was right once, it was coincidental.
I know!!! It's like a whole generation of homeschool kids hit adolescence and now fancy themselves apologists because they've seen a Ray Comfort video. Ya gotta wonder how they'll feel about these videos when they are in their fifties.
@@tezzerii Thank you for that tender observation regarding my approaching mortality. Now go view some archived footage of " PTL Club " and the like. You will see a lot of pre-mummified anchor people. Methinks this new crop is for a new, young audience, probably of the home-schooled, and thereby uneducated. And say hi to your mom for me.
I remember one time some family members were getting into a bit of a disagreement with me about the contradictions in the crucifixion and resurrection narratives. As soon as I asked questions like “how many people went to the tomb” and “was the stone rolled away or not”, dead silence on their end 😂
How about this: Since the writings of the bible, humans have learned hundreds of thousands of truths about the world we live in. There is not ONE WORD in the bible (or any other ancient text) that could not have been written by the humans alive at that time and place. The bible contradicts provable knowledge on many many occasions. Jesus certainly knew of diseases and "cured" many who were unclean, yet says “Surely you know that nothing that enters someone from the outside can make that person unclean." Just think of the suffering Jesus could have prevented by even mildly explaining that germs cause the most common diseases.
Phenomenally weak argument? You mean like Dan's? He strings together a bunch of sentences that seem to be saying something but really don't. All you have to do to see this is take a sentence and ask obvious questions about it and you'll see it.
I do like Brooks' arguments and agree. He is correct. "Philosophical and Mathematical" sense and proof do work for fleshly and soulish man and your argument for that is okay for man "under the sun" in his unregenerate natural state. But your argument fails when you try to apply this natural method to a supernatural book which ministers to man as a trinity (body, soul, and spirit). For instance to answer only one of your arguments: Mark never says "then" the veil of the temple was rent in twain..." He says "and" the veil of the temple was rent in twain..." giving indication that it was rent at Jesus' death, not after nor before. Luke simply follows Mark's logic and order (sixth hour, darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, sun darkened, veil of temple rent). All happened in same order as Mark's. Difference is that Luke makes different placement and emphasis of death of Christ. Luke's gospel emphasizes Christ, the Man, Mark's gospel emphasizes Christ, God's Servant, His suffering Servant. There is no contradiction at all. Remember from our days of English grammar, the word "and" can mean "after" but also it can mean "at the same time" or "consistent with" or "two as one". Both authors use the word "and". They never use "after" nor "then" in this context. I agree with Brooks. No contradiction at all. In fact, I agree with Brooks altogether. There is no contradiction in the Bible at all and I have studied it for 35 years and read through it 33 times trying to find contradictions. Haven't found one yet. Even the different numbers in Kings and Chronicles are different for a particular reason. Samuel, Nathan, and Gad wrote Samuel and Kings. But Ezra wrote Chronicles and he wrote it for a different purpose. By the way, after studying all the different "versions" objectively, because, like you I was taught the King James was archaic with many mistakes and hard to understand, the day I began reading and studying the King James, I never put it down and have never gone to another version. The number one evidence for me that the Bible is a supernatural book is how it has had a supernatural impact on my life. There is not another book written on earth that can reach my soul and spirit and show me who I really am and the way I look to a holy God who dwells in unapproachable light. Philosophy and Mathematics fail when one stands in the light of God's eternality, holiness, judgment, mercy, grace, love, and perfection, conviction and salvation. But God does want us to put His Word to the test so I commend you for attempting to do that.
Or you could explain all of the things that Jesus said were not given to Moses by God but were from the patriarchs, men. Circumcision of the body, John 7:22. Jesus was referring to circumcision of the heart as what is important. I'm not giving all of the passages but Jesus spoke against food prohibitions, offerings and sacrifices and ritual cleansing--all of Leviticus. Jesus spoke against human rules and traditions. He was quoting Isaiah who got this directly from God. Jesus explained the difference between religion which is of men and spirituality which is actually knowing God. Jesus said that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God.
Make an assertion without providing proof and see how quickly they remember how it works. They are often selective in their lack of understanding of the burden of proof.
@@therealsmalk lol The point being made is epistemic. It's not a real position. If we can just say, "Yeah, but it's possible," there are many more conceivable scenarios that are less inclined to get cut down by Occam's razor than whatever mental gymnastics Christians go through to come to their conclusions.
Joke Response: I CAN RESOLVE THE THE PROBLEM OF WHAT HAPPENED FIRST, JESUS DYING OR THE TEMPLE RENDING. See, Mark and Luke are writing from different perspectives, with regard to Relativity. See, in General Relativity, when two observers are moving in different directions, very very fast, then they can see different events happening in different orders. See, Luke was traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light...
Actual critique though (as an atheist/agnostic), how would an observer (either author, knowing that they werent actually contemporary with Christ) see both the crucifixion AND the temple at the same time? werent they pretty far apart?
interestingly, the 'Bible isn't a science book' line of defensive argument is something Muslim apologists often retreat to. It seems the railroad of bad arguments has started running west as well as east now.
Are there errors in the Bible revision of Mormon prophet Joseph smith for example in Matthew he has two angels sitting on the rock. Any manuscript evidence for that revision. Also in Isaiah 29 there are some extra verses. Does the great Isaiah Scroll support that?
"Do all the reading before making assumptions about the text...."????? Says the guy who insists we can say Jesus's line "It is finished" is not the last thing he said because the text doesn't explicitly say it is? Who's making assumptions about the text? Hmm?
I wish Christians would read the gospels properly and realise that they are not eyewitness accounts. They don't claim to be. And the authors of Matthew and Luke had access to Mark *and deliberately altered it*. That's why they are different, not because they are written by different eyewitnesses!
Dan, a gentleman wrote this. Does he have a point about reconciling this contradiction. He's quoting Greek. "This is another apparent contradiction that seems to be very persuasive. Mark 15:37-39 - Luke 23:45-46. Ehrman points to the contradiction very directly. It is about whether the temple curtain rips and then Jesus died or if Jesus died and then the curtain rips. Luke temple rips in half before Jesus died…“both are not historically accurate” But, a little bit of careful reading reveals there is no contradiction. None! First, let’s note that in both these passages, in Mark and Luke, there are time markers in the text, the rough equivalent of us using ‘when’ or ‘after’ or even more directly ‘at 12pm’. So in Luke, It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. (Luke 23:44-45 ) But when it comes to the verses in question. There are no time markers. Luke And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then (AND) Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. (23:45-46 ESV) Mark And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. (15:37-38) Yes, they describe what happened in a different order. However, the critical point is that there are no temporal indicators in the verses above. The death of Jesus and the curtain ripping are simply joined by a coordinating conjunction (kai) that is translated with the following ‘and, but, also, even, but, yet’. So Luke reads The curtain was torn and Jesus breathed his last. Mark reads Jesus breathed his last and the curtain was torn. If you’re the average girl or guy in the street you can’t see this because a modern translation like the ESV has used then (as above) for the kai when a simple and would have sufficed. This is misleading to the average girl or guy in the street. But it shouldn’t be to a scholar like Bart Ehrman.(2) So, given the coordinating conjunction, the point in Luke and Mark, is that the two events, of Jesus’ death and the curtain being torn, are to be understood as happening simultaneously. That is the point of the narrative. Jesus’ death opened the way up to God. Putting it another way, there is no sequence in their mind between Jesus’ death and the temple curtain being torn. So why the different order in Luke and Mark? That’s simple. When you tell someone about two things that happen at the same time you have to choose to talk about one of them first. You can’t write or speak two sentences at the same time. Luke and Mark just put their sentences in a different order.
