Lazarus, come forth

After watching a delightful zombie movie last night, a Christian who happened to be watching the movie with me made a non sequitur about the biblical Lazarus. The comment was roughly, "If Jesus had only said, 'Come forth,' instead of, 'Lazarus, come forth," then all the dead in the world would have been brought back to life, instead of just Lazarus."

Protestants in America have had a tendency to adopt their doctrine "through the grapevine," as it were, over the past couple of hundred years. Just look at the Rapture, which didn't even exist as a doctrinal concept before the 1700s. The belief that Jesus' failure to include the name of Lazarus while performing his 'raise the dead' miracle would have resulted in a stampede of newly-raised dead sounds like one of these grapevine doctrines.

I've tried to do some lazy google research this morning. The best I can come up with is a sermon from Leonard Ravenhill called Your Day in Court, in which he states:

And then He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus!" As Campbell Morgan says, "He said, 'Lazarus, come forth.' If He had just said 'Come forth,' all the cemetery would have come -- and it wasn't their time yet!"

I cannot find any place where Morgan made this statement or it's equivalent. And unfortunately, Leonard Ravenhill is dead, so interrogating him is out of the question. However, I did find a sermon by Lehman Strauss (also deceased) entitled Death and Afterward, in which there is the statement:

Finally, He said to the brother of Mary and Martha: “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43). In each case Jesus speaks to the person as if he were alive. We can only answer that each was alive. As G. Campbell Morgan says: “The body was dead. The man was not dead. No man is ever dead when his body lies dead!” The soul of man will never enter into a state of non-existence nor unconsciousness.

Ravenhill lived from 1907 to 1994 and started as a minister before World War II. Lehman Strauss lived from 1911 to 1997 and also started as a minister before World War II. A likely explanation for the origin of this doctrine is that Ravenhill's sermon was based Strauss' sermon, since the two were contemporaries. However, Ravenhill apparently misquoted Morgan, and from Ravenhill's misquote, the belief that Jesus might have accidentally raised all the dead within earshot arose.

So it looks like Ravenhill is the origin of this odd doctrine, through a misquotation of Morgan. And thus a new doctrine was born, which has since been quoted by Moody, Swindoll, and an assortment of other preachers. The grapevine doctrine continues....

Immanuel

Damascus, the capital of present-day Syria, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Archaeological evidence shows that the city was inhabited as far back as 8000 to 10,000 BCE. However, Damascus was not recorded as an important city until the arrival of the Arameans. Aramaean, Assyrian, and Hebrew texts all mention an Aramaean state (Aram Damascus) with its capital in Damascus in the 9th century BCE. This state reached its peak under the king Hazael, who defeated the kings of Israel and Judah during his reign.

Around 735 BCE, Ahaz (also called Jehoahaz) reigned as king of Judah. Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel, went to war with Judah. The reasons for this conflict are not clear. An historical explanation is that Ahaz had already been loyal to or a vassal of the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser III. With Rezin and Pekah organizing a rebellion against Assyria, Judah was an excellent target for them[1]. An alternative explanation is that Rezin and Pekah were pressuring Ahaz to join the coalition against Assyria. One biblical explanation is that God sent Rezin and Pekah to attack Judah[2][3]. Another biblical explanation is that Rezin and Pekah had engaged in an evil war against Judah, in order to put a different king on the throne of Judah[4].

According to the Bible, Isaiah at this point was sent to Ahaz by God. Isaiah's purpose was to tell Ahaz that Rezin and Pekah would not succeed in overthrowing him[5]. Isaiah supplied the following prophecy: that a young woman would, in the very near future, give birth to a son whom she would name Immanuel, and that before this son was old enough to know the difference between good and evil, that both Rezin and Pekah would be dethroned or dead.[6]

Isaiah's prophecy can be broken down into two parts — the imminent sign, and the end result. Both parts were prophesied. The point of the imminent sign was to give Ahaz the faith to carry on to see the end result. The imminent sign was the birth of a boy who would be named Immanuel. The end result was that both Rezin and Pekah would be dethroned or dead. By setting the timeframe of the end result based on the timeframe of the sign, Ahaz would know, after seeing the fulfillment of the sign, that the fulfillment of the end result was imminent.

Regardless of the reasons for the conflict, Assyrian and biblical records agree on the course of action upon which Ahaz decided. An inscription preserved in clay records that Tiglath-Pileser III (also called Pul) received tribute from Ahaz[7], which corroborates the biblical account of Ahaz paying tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III in order to secure Assyria's help against Aram and Israel[8][9]. So Ahaz sought the support of Assyria against his foes, rather than trusting God.

Thus, examining the full context of Isaiah 7:14, the fulfillment of the prophecy of Immanuel was clearly intended for the time of Ahaz, in the 8th century BCE, when Judah was threatened by the kings of Israel and Aram. It was not a prophecy whose fulfillment was intended for seven centuries after the death of Ahaz. Considering that Rezin and Pekah were no more than mortal men with standard, 70-year lifespans, a prophecy that said, "Seven hundred years from now, your foes, Rezin and Pekah, will no longer rule Aram and Israel," would hardly be a valuable prophecy. Nor would it be any consolation to Ahaz.

However, the author of Matthew somehow finds it appropriate to attribute the prophecy of Isaiah to the birth of Jesus[10]. First, he misquotes Isaiah, stating that a virgin would give birth to a son. Isaiah only said that a young woman would give birth to a son. Second, Jesus was never called Immanuel. Third, the birth of Jesus would have been roughly 700 years after Ahaz, Rezin, and Pekah were all dead. So whether or not there was a Jesus, and whether or not this Jesus was born of a virgin, attempting to apply the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 to this person is complete folly. The birth of a boy named Immanuel was a sign intended for Ahaz, and Ahaz had already been dead for 700 years.


References

1. John, Paul (2004). The Genesis of Misconception. Trafford Publishing. pp.64. ISBN 1412034817, 9781412034814.
2. 2 Kings 15:37.
3. 2 Chronicles 28:5.
4. Isaiah 7:1,5-6.
5. Isaiah 7:7.
6. Isaiah 7:14-16.
7. Pritchard, James Bennett (1973). The Ancient Near East, Volume 1: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures. Princeton University Press. pp 193. ISBN 0691002002.
8. 2 Kings 16:7-9.
9. 2 Chronicles 28:16.
10. Matthew 1:23.

Kyle Butt misses the point

Kyle Butt's article, Beware of Dawkins’ “Common Sense”, completely misses the point.

First, Butt attempts the following point: "Notice one of Dawkins' reasons for claiming that the practice [of baptism] is wrong — because it goes against 'common sense,'" supporting his point by stating, "....to arrive at his conclusion, Dawkins says that the implications of infant baptism fly in the face of 'everything that ordinary common sense and human feeling see as important'".

For what it's worth, Butt makes two errors here. First, Dawkins is arguing specifically here against the belief that baptism is more important than consent, not (as Butt claims) that baptism is wrong. In fact, Dawkins later argues that baptism is a meaningless gesture. Second, Butt gleefully skips over the examples Dawkins uses to illustrate common sense and human feeling. The full context of Dawkins quote is:

First is the remarkable perception by the religious mind that a sprinkle of water and a brief verbal incantation can totally change a child's life, taking precedence over parental consent, the child's own consent, the child's own happiness and psychological well-being ... over everything that ordinary common sense and human feeling would see as important.

Fortunately, Butt himself at least agrees with Dawkins' statement.

Then, in an attempt to establish a contradiction, Butt says that Dawkins "suggests that 'common sense' is nothing more than an evolved entity that can 'let us down.' If common sense can 'let us down' in our judgments about the physical world, does it not also follow that it can do the same in moral determinations?". He uses the following quote from Dawkins to support his statement: "Common sense lets us down, because common sense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large".

However, Butt has purposefully or ignorantly taken this quote from Dawkins out of context. The full context is as follows:

Our imaginations are not yet tooled-up to penetrate the neighbourhood of the quantum. Nothing at that scale behaves in the way matter — as we are evolved to think — ought to behave. Nor can we cope with the behaviour of objects that move at some appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Common sense lets us down, because common sense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large.

So no, Dawkins is not saying that common sense is unreliable in general. He's saying that common sense is unreliable with respect to quantum theory. And in short, no, Dawkins does not contradict himself. Dawkins implies that common sense and human feeling are both important factors in morality in the first citation (which Butt agrees with), and says that common sense fails with regard to quantum theory in the second citation (which, if Butt knows anything about quantum theory, he would have to agree with).

More generally, Butt claims, "In the end, all he can really conclude is that there are no moral absolutes and we cannot be certain that anything is really right or wrong." But Butt completely misses Dawkins' point regarding religious morality, which Dawkins states clearly in chapter 7: "We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories. Such picking and choosing is a matter of personal decision, just as much, or as little, as the atheist's decision to follow this moral precept or that was a personal decision, without an absolute foundation. If one of these is 'morality flying by the seat of its pants', so is the other."

In closing, the accidental irony from Butt's first and last sentences is incomparable:

Due to Richard Dawkins’ atheistic assumptions, he has the impossible task of trying to arrive at a legitimate set of ethical judgments.

[Dawkins' idea] is wrong because it violates the self-evident rules of logic, dismisses the powerful and irrefutable evidence that a divine Creator exists, and contradicts the Truth revealed by that Creator.

So what "atheistic assumptions" has Dawkins made? And Butt has apparently overlooked the very large religious assumption that he is guilty of — Butt states unequivocally that there is irrefutable evidence that a divine creator exists.

Apologetics Press condones murder of innocent children

Most Christians are familiar with the tale of Moses in the book of Exodus, at least up until the part where Charlton Heston Moses breaks the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in anger. However, few Christians seem to be aware of the atrocities Moses commits while leading the people in the desert. In particular, Numbers 31 gives an account of the genocide that the Israelites perform:

¹ And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ²Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. ³And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the Lord of Midian.
...
⁷And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. ⁸And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. ⁹And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. ¹⁰And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire. ¹¹And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts. ¹²And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho. ¹³And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp. ¹⁴And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle. ¹⁵And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ¹⁶Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. ¹⁷Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. ¹⁸But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

So Moses ordered the Israeli soldiers to kill all the adult Midianite men. After the soldiers brought the women and children back as prisoners, Moses ordered them to kill all the male Midianite children, then to kill all the Midianite women who were not virgins, and then to divide up all the virgin women and children among the Israeli soldiers. I'm assuming they didn't keep the virgin Midianite women for their scintillating conversation.

This is the sort of thing (genocide/enslavement/rape) you would expect to find in a documentary on Hitler or Stalin. But no, this comes from the Hebrew and Christian bibles. And Moses is considered to be a good guy --- a saint and a prophet!

In looking for explanations for how Christians justify this act, I found an explanation provided by Apologetics Press (emphasis added by me):

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/586

However, to allege that the God of the Bible is some sort of “monster” for ordering Israel to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan exhibits an ignorance of biblical teaching. Those inhabitants were destroyed because of their wickedness (Deuteronomy 9:4; 18:9-14). They were so evil that their Creator no longer could abide their corruption. That they had numerous opportunities to repent is evident from the prophetic books (Nineveh did repent, for example, and for a time stayed the day of destruction). Complaining about Jehovah’s order to destroy innocent children is a vain gesture when one realizes that the children were spared an even worse fate of being reared as slaves under the domination of sin. Instead of having to endure the scourge of a life of immorality and wickedness, these innocents were ushered early into the bliss of Paradise. If the male children had been allowed to mature, they most likely would have followed the pagan ways of their forefathers, and eventually would have taken vengeance on the Israelites. Killing the males not only prevented them from falling into the same abominable sins as their parents, but also kept Israel from having to battle them later.

So Apologetics Press justifies Moses' final solution --- the killing of all the male children of his enemies --- by saying that those children would have likely become pagans, and that by killing them as innocent children, they went straight to Heaven instead.

And the meek shall brag about their meekness

So Moses is supposed to be the author of the first five books of the Bible, including the book of Numbers. Take a look at Numbers 12:3:

Num 12:3 (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

So Moses writes here about himself, in the third person, that he is the meekest man on the face of the earth. Doesn't it seem a bit brash for the meekest man on earth to call himself such?

Dinosaurs on the Ark

It's amazing to me that, in the 21st century, there would be a web site claiming that dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark. First, the concept that some people still believe that a flood sent by god destroyed the entire world around 2300 BC; second, that a 600 year old man put his family and two of every animal species on a boat to weather the storm; and third, that among the animals placed on the boat were dinosaurs.

Creation of Evil

If a god reminiscent of the one depicted in Christian mythology exists, then we have to deal with the fact that god created everything. There is nothing that exists that cannot be attributed to god, including evil. The immediate Christian response to this is, "God didn't bring evil into this world; man did." However, god created free will in such a way that it could be used to perform evil, and defined evil in such a way that most means of exercising free will would readily contribute to the spread of evil. He created humans as ignorant creatures, and let them wander without constant supervision, such that they were susceptible to other influences. He created a means by which humans could perform evil, and placed it within easy grasp of these original, ignorant humans. He also created a being named Lucifer and filled him with such pride/ambition that Lucifer sought to take control of god's creation. After creating all of these elements, he threw them all in a pot together, let them simmer, and was then "surprised" when humans committed a sin.

If god is omnipotent, then there are infinitely many universes he could have created, each with its own distinct set of outcomes. If humans have free will, then our actions are non-deterministic, or "random". However, if god is omniscient, then god knows what every human would do even before he created this particular universe. He knew, when he created this universe, that humans would perform evil. So there are only two possibilities --- (1) Of all the infinite universes that god could have created, not a single one was logically possible in which humans did not perform evil, or (2) Of all the infinite universes that god could have created, he purposefully selected one in which humans would perform evil. In either case, it was entirely god's decision to create a universe in which evil exists, since he could have either not created the universe, or created one without evil.

When you consider the presence of the Tree of Knowledge and Lucifer in the Garden of Eden, it seems unlikely that a universe could not have been created without evil. After all, had god not placed either the Tree of Knowledge or Lucifer in the Garden of Eden, then humans would not have performed evil. Thus, god purposefully created a universe in which humans would perform evil. (Therefore, Lucifer furthers god's purposes, since god created this universe knowing there would be evil, and since Lucifer encourages the spread of evil. This implies that Lucifer basically does god's dirty-work --- since god's self-proclaimed goodness prohibits him from directly spreading evil, he created a sentient being to spread evil for him.)

I don't buy the idea of all creation being a moral experiment. Experiments are performed by humans in order to test hypotheses, due to a lack of knowledge. If god is omniscient, then god doesn't need to perform experiments. So why, then, does evil exist? If God's whole purpose was to produce creatures who loved him faithfully, he could have created those exact beings from the start, since he has always known exactly who those people would be, and skipped the whole Earth/damnation part.

Given that there's really no good answer based entirely on Christianity, it would seem that some assumptions are wrong. Perhaps god isn't omnipotent, or isn't omniscient. Perhaps humans do something that god cannot do, or know something that god cannot understand. Perhaps the act of creation itself transformed god into a less-than-perfect entity. Maybe Descartes was wrong --- maybe existence in thought alone is more perfect than existence in reality, and maybe by transforming his thoughts into reality, god screwed up.

Or maybe Judaism/Christianity just didn't consider all this stuff when it was founded, and has changed over time to encompass such concepts as omniscience and omnipotence, and is in fact a load of hogwash.