Friday, January 30, 2015

The Truth about Biblical Facts

Ruins of 'Peter's" House
Facts are such an interesting thing.  Take for example, the discovery of an old house in Capernaum, Israel in 1968.  One scholar insisted it’s the house that the Apostle Peter lived in because there’s are crosses and the names of Jesus and Peter inscribed on the wall.  Others said, no, it’s just an old house.

Who’s right?  Both could be. 

It could have been Peter’s house.  Based on material and design, it dates from the first century to the 4th century C.E.  Peter must have lived in that range.  He supposedly from Capernaum; the locale is mentioned in all the Gospels. Also, a church was later built on the site, which would imply some connection to a sacred individual.

As a result, there are plenty of websites proclaiming the site as Peter’s home.

Inscribed crosses
However, there are more arguments against than for.  First, there’s no factual evidence that Peter existed. He only appears in the New Testament, books written long after Peter, Jesus and most everyone else had died.  Scholars have long since dispelled the myth of Gospel accuracy.

Second, visitors added the names and crosses.  Despite claims, historians cannot read the words left on the wall.  The religious are sure they say Peter and Jesus; no one else accepts that.

Third, this was a first century home, but what part of the century?  Peter had to have died by the time a horrific Jewish revolt against the Romans ended in 73.  No early Church father is heard of again after that terrible war.  In Christian mythology, Peter died in Rome around 64 C.E. If the house was built later that that, Peter could not have lived there.

Fourth, the cross did not become a symbol of Christianity until later.  Initially, the Jewish Zealots used it as their symbol.  That implies the house was built toward the end of the century when Judaism and Christianity permanently divided.

Fifth, while Christians did build a church there, they did so long after Peter could have lived there.  Many sites in and around Israeli cities have Christian connotations are described as religiously significant, but all were so designated as long as 300 years after Jesus must have lived.  Virtually all to date have been shown to be mistaken, but promoters come down on the side of profit from tourists than accuracy.

The house reflects a vast difference between historians and the general public.  Historians insist that decisions be made on facts.  Unfortunately, hard evidence is difficult with events that occurred thousands of years ago.

As a result, history is not an exact science.
Biblical Exodus

Take the Exodus from Egypt, which is such a prominent part of Jewish history and teachings.  The Bible contains a book largely devoted to Moses, the leader of the exodus of Jewish slaves, as well as tales of plagues and other incredible events associated with this miraculous occurrence.

Historians have little to go on.  The events are not dated or recorded anywhere else.  The name of the pharaoh is not given in the text.   Moreover, there’s no evidence in the Sinai of anyone living there.  There are no graves of people who died on the trek, no discarded bits of clothing, no hint of tents being set up and campfires during the cold desert nights.  In Israel, there’s evidence of cities destroyed, but none match up with the Exodus account.  Also, there’s no evidence of a new culture superseding the existing one which must have happened when the Jews under Joshua supposedly invaded what was then known as Canaan.

Extensive archaeology have found no evidence of an Exodus
There’s no mountain that matches the description as the place where Moses was given the law by God.  In addition, unlike every other people on Earth, Jews never went on a pilgrimage to the locale where such an epiphany took place.

Also, analysis of the biblical account show that Moses was a later addition to the story.  Historical research into other writings has found that the Exodus had little place in Jewish practices until centuries after it must have taken place.

Finally, an Egyptian historian named Manetho writing about 2,300 years ago detailed the dynasties of the pharaohs and included no evidence supporting the biblical account.  For example, no pharaoh drowned, despite the biblical claim.  Manetho’s research so far has held up despite careful comparisons with known records.

In essence, all the evidence is against an Exodus taking place.  That doesn’t mean there can’t be evidence of an Exodus, only that it hasn’t been found.  However, if any evidence is found, it will have to somehow counter the reality that Canaan was not invaded by a foreign culture, although the Bible details the arrival of the former slaves and the destruction they wrought.

As a result, no unbiased historian accepts the historical reality of the Exodus.  It simply could not have happened as described. 

Sodom?
That’s true for Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities described in the Bible as having been destroyed.  Archaeology has uncovered limited evidence of human habitation near the Dead Sea, supposed site of the two cities.  Sadly, the cities don’t have markers giving their names.  As a result, multiple sites have been proposed as home of the two doomed cities.  The name “Sodom” has been found in an ancient carving, but proof of  its existence doesn’t prove it was destroyed as described or was destroyed at all.

As Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University and co-author of the best-selling The Bible Unearthed, noted, “We are probably dealing here with an etiological story, that is, a legend that developed in order to explain a landmark. In other words, people who lived in the later phase of the Iron Age, the later days of the kingdom of Judah, were familiar with the huge ruins of the Early Bronze cities and told a story of how such important places could be destroyed.”

That did not stop true-believers from claiming that Sodom and Gomorrah have been found.  Maybe they have.  Right now, all that’s been found are a few ruined buildings.  They could be anything.  Still, gullible folks immediately proclaimed that the Bible is true.  No, it’s not.  This story may be, but these few ruins aren’t proof of anything except human habitation at some time thousands of years ago.

Doctored photo to create Noah's Ark
That’s true with claims of Noah’s Ark, too.  It hasn’t been found, despite claims to the contrary.  There’s a cottage industry devoted to creating website with such claims.  The only wood ever found on Mt. Ararat, supposed site of the Ark’s landing, turned out to date from modern times.

Nevertheless, the internet is stuffed with such claims about all facts of the Bible.   It’s really sad, too, that some people need invented “facts” to support their beliefs.  Beliefs don’t need a single fact; that’s why they are called beliefs.

Historians, on the other hand, do.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Facebook Debate Pits the Bible vs. the Qur'an



Qur'an
In a recent Facebook discussion, a profoundly Christian writer has been insisting on the superiority of the Christianity Bible over the Islam Qur’an. 

For example, he wrote:  “The Quran is written as a manifesto commanding its believers how to act and suppress those who don't believe a religion based on force and judgment.  The Bible however is written as a collection of writings from many prophets, kings, disciples, and apostles divinely inspired by God with the Old Testament (before Christ) & the New Testament after further being validated by external sources such as the Dead Sea Scrolls showing the texts and messages haven’t changed for thousands of years.”

Really?

Bible
For starters, the Bible and the Qur’an both claim divine inspiration. Any such claim simply verifies a bias.  Not having a direct line to God, I can’t determine which book, if either, has any divine inspiration in it.  I also can’t tell if the Mormon text and multiple other books claimed by other religions are divinely inspired either. 

Given their inherent contradictions and divergent claims, I suspect none are.

In addition, the Qur’an provides a formula for living a better life, with recommendations that nonbelievers be encouraged to follow.  The Bible does exactly the same thing.  In that text, whole tribes of people are massacred simply because they don’t believe.  Those who challenge Moses are swallowed by the desert.  Force is a significant component of the Bible. 

Also, despite the claim of my Facebook friend, all the books have changed over the years.  The Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947, contained all but one book of the current Old Testament, the Book of Esther.  It also contained multiple versions of each now-sacred book and lots of now not-sacred books.


von Tischendorf
The New Testament has been strenuously altered.  In 1844, Lobegott Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf, the leading biblical scholar of his day, found the oldest known version of Mark.  He also found that the older text contained thousands of differences from the version he knew.  As every biblical scholar knows now, the Gospels were all heavily edited as well as the Epistles and Acts.

As for the Qur’an, Muslims for years insisted there was only one version.  That vanished in the 1990s when a second version was found. 

Besides, no one knows how many changes were made from Muhammad’s original pronouncements and publication of them about 30 years later.  At least the time element is close.  The Old Testament ranges over 1,000 years with much written down long after events could have happened.  The New Testament books were first recorded at least two generations after Jesus and further edited for at least another 300 years. 

That’s why the Roman Catholic Church no longer claims the holy books reflect history.  They are simply “the belief of the authors.”

The idea that the book is somehow the exact word of God dates from the 1800s and would have been scoffed at by early Church fathers, just as it is by anyone who has actually studied the texts and their multiple internal contradictions.

Modern version of Noah's ark
My Facebook friend goes on to say that “the Bible's historical accounts have never been refuted and has led to many discoveries thousands in archeology.”

That is, simply, hogwash.  The Bible history has been constantly refuted, so much so that the field of Biblical Archaeology, founded to support biblical writing, no longer exists. Just for starters, archaeology has fully proven that the Passover account in Exodus cannot be remotely accurate.  In fact, even literalists in biblical research accept that everything in the Bible before the time of David is mythology.

And, no, despite my Facebook friend's claims, Noah’s ark has not been found.  It can’t be; it never existed. There never was a worldwide flood. All existing animals could not have fit on a single boat.  Don't even ask about food for them. Somehow, my Facebook friend really thinks that the profound discovery of such an artifact has been ignored by the world media and only recorded in obscure websites created by devout believers.

In his Christian-centered world, my Facebook friend continues: “the morals set in the Bible as a code of ethics have set the foundations of civilization today, being the inspiration of our very own Constitution and freedoms.”
Native Americans practiced democracy.

In that claim, he ignores the Indians, whose profound view of democracy, helped create our country.  He also pretends that Western civilization is the only civilization, shunting aside Asian and Indian cultures as well as Greek and Roman societies that generated the morals to begin with. 

He then tops off his comments with this wonderful irony:  “I find it amusing when I see people of one faith (be it Atheist, Muslims Hindus, Christians, Creationist, Evolutionists, Global Warming etc.) put down another’s faiths without even understanding.”

Which is, of course, exactly what he’s doing.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Cartoon Protests Ignore Real Economic Needs



Protestors in Niger
Apparently, the abuse of minority people like the Berbers does not bother Muslims.  Neither does poverty among its citizens or the huge disparity between wealthy and poor.  They don’t get upset over the lack of free speech or the constant battles between sects of the faith, such as Sunni and Shiite. 

In fact, the only things apparently that get them really angry are cartoons.   

Yesterday, Palestinians in Gaza gathered outside a French cultural center, chanting "Leave Gaza, you French, or we will slaughter you by cutting your throats” because of cartoons published in Charlie Hebdo, a now-famous French satirical magazine.

In Niger, the Associated Press reported:

173 people have been injured; at least 45 churches have been "set ablaze in the capital (Niamey) alone," and a "Christian school and orphanage were also set alight." Numerous sites were pillaged before being burned.  A video from Niamey showed protesters waving Qur'ans and yelling "God is great" while tearing apart Bibles and throwing them onto the ground.

Pakistani protestors
Pakistan was no better.  According to published reports from there:

Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters outside the French consulate. A Pakistani photographer for AFP was shot and wounded, the news agency reported.  At least 200 protesters were involved in the violence, which broke out after Muslim religious parties called on supporters to condemn the cartoon following afternoon prayers, said Ahmed Chinoy, chief of Karachi's Citizen Police Liaison Committee.  Images from the scene showed police in running street fights with demonstrators.  Those protests came after Pakistan's parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the caricatures printed in Charlie Hebdo.

Don’t folks there have more serious concerns?  After all, Pakistan for example stands 126th in the world economically and ranks 29th in economic support for its citizens in its region.  Niger, too, ignores its citizens, ranking 127th in the world economically and 24th in Africa for the economic support it provides its residents, according to the Heritage Foundation. 

No wonder leaders in those countries would rather concentrate on "evil" cartoons.  They provide a wonderful distraction.

One Israeli newspaper quoted a Gaza protestor named Abu Abdallah Makdissi as saying, "Today, we are telling France and world countries that while Islam orders us to respect all religions, it also orders us to punish and kill those who assault and offend Islam's Prophet Mohammed."

Qur'an
No, it doesn’t.  The Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, does not ban images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad in any form.  There are actually only two lines in the sacred text that even offer advice on this subject:

 [Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth... [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him. (42:11)

[Abraham] said to his father and his people: “What are these images to whose worship you cleave?' They said: “We found our fathers worshiping them.” He said: “Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error." (21:52-54)

That teaching parallels the second Commandment in the Jewish teachings: 

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of then that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. (Ex: 20: 4-6)

The Abraham account in the Qur’an is also very similar to a Jewish tale about Abraham objecting to and later destroying idols made in his father’s workshop.

Muslim calligraphy artwork
In Islamic tradition, however, images of Allah, Muhammad and all the major prophets of the Christian and Jewish traditions are prohibited.  Muslims have gotten around their restriction largely by using calligraphy as art, while Jews have simply avoided depicting anything that could be worshiped as a deity.

Not that everyone paid attention to such rules.  Artists in the Middle East, but principally in Persia, regularly produced images of the Prophet starting in the 7th century.

Early drawing of Muhammad
The real objection to the cartoons has to do with the rising hostility between the Christianized West and the Muslim East.  For some strange reason, residents in non-Muslim countries increasingly see Muslims as terrorists. 

This latest series of violent protests against cartoons can’t help that image. 

However, as long as the imaginary teachings of religion overshadow the reality of social disparity, such violent behavior will continue.  The Muslim residents would be far better off protesting against their own civil governments than against drawings published in different lands.

They might also follow the guidance of their own holy book:

 Everybody is the servant of Allah and to treat everyone with love and affection becomes the source of Allah's pleasure and the best man is he who is the best well-wisher of others.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1