Deconversion stories from The Skeptical Review
Kelly
The Emperor's Clothes...
I have recently learned about your publication through your web site. Oddly enough, I learned about it through Greg Koukl's Stand to Reason web site, www. str.org, a Christian apologetics organization. Whichever way, I am happy to have found your articles. I do have some reservations about some of your articles, however. My main reservation is that biblical errancy efforts seem somewhat like criticizing the clothes the emperor is no longer wearing. The issue isn't just whether this verse or that is flawed; I find scholarly textual analysis of the Bible is miles beyond this.
I was a thoroughly serious, studious Christian up to the age of 24, that is, until I started doing my undergraduate engineering studying on the third floor of the University Research Library at UCLA. I would procrastinate by picking up a book or two on Biblical analysis. Almost the entire floor is dedicated to research on the Bible as if it were some sort of archeological find.
What I found is that for more than 70 years, biblical scholars have been amassing a growing consensus on a core set of theories on the evolution and development of the biblical texts that are all but incontrovertible. In very general terms, I derive from this consensus the following set of near-facts: (1) The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and the gospel of John simply cannot be reconciled in their details of the storyline of Jesus's ministry. (2) As for the synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke agree in order of events only when the events are also contained in Mark. These agreements reflect textual agreement rather than thematic agreement, which indicates they copied the text of a document [Matthew and Luke copied Mark or its precursor document] rather than gathering independent facts and accounts. In fact, scholars seem to agree that the copying was of a written document not the copying of an oral tradition. (3) To the extent the rest of Matthew and Luke agree in subject matter [albeit out of order], the agreements again reflect the copying of another single written document, termed Quelle or Q, which was identified in 1838 by Christian Weisse. Today, Q is well accepted by biblical scholars. (4) The rest of Matthew and Luke disagree irreconcilably. Mostly, this is the nativity and the resurrection, I believe. The strong implication is that the synoptic gospels contain agreement only because Matthew and Luke copied two existing texts, Mark and Q. Apart from this large-scale copying, at least one of the copying authors (Matthew and/or Luke) didn't know the first thing about Jesus's life and times. (5) In the midst of all this literary copying, the amount of literary license that the authors of Matthew and Luke granted themselves, altering the meaning of Jesus's words and deeds, should by itself be sufficient reason to doubt every verse of the Bible. (6) Mark is a set of short stories which themselves may contain some degree of accurate oral tradition, but the connective tissue between each story, the overall storyline of Jesus's ministry, was shown to be the author's own creation as early as Karl Ludwig Schmidt in 1919. (7) Q is an interesting document, parts of which can be pieced together from Matthew and Luke. It appears to have had its own evolution, but the earliest version of Q may well have been accurate, even nearly contemporaneous, reflections of Jesus's sayings. (8) The gospel of John also contains facts and subtleties that indicate that its earliest version may have contained reliable and accurate information of Jesus's life; at least it enjoys more corroboration than Mark. In John, however, Jesus talks just like the author writes when the author is writing in his own voice. Much has been written on this point. It is possible, however, that the author was a close follower of Jesus and so aligned in thought with Jesus that he sounds like Jesus. There is evidence that Johnlike cosmic discourse was alive and well in the Essene sect, which was centered near the desert region where John the Baptist and Jesus were claimed to have begun. (9) The Acts of the Apostles is a classic deification of the apostles and Paul. This was a common occurrence in literature about nonbiblical figures throughout the Roman empire in that era. Few scholars address Acts as much more than whole-cloth fiction. Unlike the Acts story, Paul never mentioned any blinding revelation from Jesus when he was desperately trying to justify his authority in Galatians, 1 Thessalonians and elsewhere. Also, his description of his compromise with the Jerusalem "pillars" pales in comparison with his near coronation found in Acts. (10) The authentic Pauline letters [1 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Philippians., Philemon, Galatians and Romans] are probably the most reliable documents in the New Testament. They show a quickly evolving mind. Some of his earliest thoughts were very scary, e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4-5; others were just screwy, e.g., Galatians 3-4. Generally, however, it appears Paul never knew the first thing about Jesus's teachings, nor did he get along with hardly anyone who knew Jesus. In fact, Paul reduces Jesus's entire life and ministry to simply the idea that he was sinless, was crucified, and was resurrected for our sins. Paul's letters include some later editorial insertions, such as 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16. (11) Several books attributed to Paul sound nothing like him, such as Colossians, Ephesians, Hebrews, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus. (12) Second Peter includes nearly all of Jude, which is an entirely unnoteworthy book of its own. (13) Revelation is the rantings of a madman.
There is certainly much more that can said about any one of these points, and other points not included above. I would just turn the attention of anyone interested in these points to authors like Burton L. Mack, John Dominic Crossan, and Paula Fredriksen, whom I find most accessible to most of us. Alternatively, the reader could go to the nearest university research library. However, in such libraries, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone that seriously analyzes simple questions of errancy.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The points that Kelly raised are too numerous to discuss individually, but they are all problems that biblical scholars have long recognized. Many major seminaries now teach their students this realistic view of the Bible, and the traditional biblical inerrancy doctrine survives primarily in fundamentalist Bible colleges. It is interesting to note that Kelly was a Christian until he took the time to research the Bible seriously. In the process of his research, he saw things that are incompatible with the inspired, inerrant view of the Bible. This is a familiar story.
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