Prior Probability of the Resurrection

People have been arguing for centuries over the evidence for, or against, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

What is often forgotten, though, is that the probability of an event requires relating two things: (1) the evidence for that event (which is what we usually think of), but also (2) the prior probability that the event would occur. 

Richard Carrier Proves the Gospel, by Accident

With a little Help from Chinese Tradition . . .

Proof that St. Mark
traveled in China.

Internet Gnu sensation, Richard Carrier, recently had a falling-out with academic historians who study the historical Jesus.  Carrier maintains that, after all, there may be no Jesus to study -- the man likely never lived.  This makes him a "mythicist," and therefore one of the targets of a new book by the yet more influential skeptic, Bart Ehrman: Did Jesus Exist?  The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.

Doris Brougham, my favorite "televangelist."

Have you seen the scene in Airplane! where the chief air-traffic controller McCroskey, played by Lloyd Bridges, is trying to prevent a jetliner from crashing, manage the media, run his office, and deal with family matters, all at once?

         Hold all takeoffs. I don't want another
         plane in the air. When the 508 reports,
         bring it straight in.

         Put out a general bulletin to suspend all
         meal service on flights out of Los
         Angeles.

         Tell all dispatchers to remain at their
         posts. It's going to be a long night.

Carrier vs. Ehrman: Epic Drama Queen Smackdown!

The world often asks the wrong questions.  "Did Jesus live?" is one that has become popular lately,  The right question is, "Did Jesus live after he died?"  If he didn't, then his life, while no doubt inspirational, might just as well be an inspirational myth. 

Richard Carrier, with a newly-minted doctorate from Columbia shining brightly like a sheriff's badge on his vest, has recently come out guns-ablazing in favor of the "Christ mythicist" position.  Bart Erhman, who is on Carrier's side in the real debate, finds this more than a little ridiculous, and has just written a book to refute the "Christ myth" crowd. 

Isaiah vs. Nostradamus

Does the Old Testament prophecy the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?  Blaise Pascal, inventor of the probability calculus and therefore an expert judge of odds, considered prophecy a very strong argument for the truth of Christianity.  (He did not simply tell people to gamble on God because the payback is better if you're right, as he is often represented by critics who have not read Pensees for themselves.) 

But it is often claimed that in fact, the Gospel writers, Matthew being most guilty, projected prophecies of Christ onto the ancients.  Isaiah was taken out of context.  He didn't really mean to say anything about a coming Messiah.  He had something (Israel?) or someone (Jeremiah?) else in mind, when he wrote those great and mysterious passages about the "Suffering Servant" (Isaiah 52-53). 

Who is dumbing down our fortune cookies?

The media has been abuzz lately with concerns about Wall Street.   Is Big Oil gouging consumers?  Has Big Auto been corrupted by crony capitalism?  Is the Green Anti-Industrial Complex ruining us for competition with China and India?  Is the 1% somehow oppressing the 99%?

All the while, a far more insidious perversion of the market seems to be taking place right under our noses -- literally. 

Band of Brothers: Gospels as Eyewitness Accounts

Richard Winters

I have lately been reading (or listening to) two books that, like chocolate and strawberries, while very different, go well together. 

The first is Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, by Stephen Ambrose.  This well-told and moving story centers on several members of a company that paratrooped into Normandy and took out German guns firing on Utah Beach, fought brutal warfare in the frozen trenches of Belgium in the Battle of the Bulge, and waltzed into Hitler's mountain redoubt, sipping on Himler's massive stash of alcohol, and driving Hitler's staff cars, through Bavaria, sometimes perhaps a bit drunkenly, after peace broke out. 

Ambrose is a wonderful historian, and the book is lively, humane, and full of surprises.  The main hero of the book is Richard Winter, ultimately Major Winter, a brilliant battlefield officer, a teatotaller who lets his men drink within reason, a gentle warrior who kills maybe twenty Germans in battle with the weapons in his own hands, but ensured that those who surrendered lived, and refused to shoot an injured Canadian goose. 

The second book is Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony.  Bauckham is professor emeritus at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and a fellow of the British Academy.  He's not as colorful a writer as  Ambrose, or even N.T. Wright, but in a slow and steady way, with some repetition, makes a strong, informed case that the four stories of Jesus' "band of brothers" that we call the gospels, are based on eyewitness accounts. 

John Loftus "reproves" Christianity.

Our new e-book, True Reason, just came out yesterday, and already John Loftus, the target of one of my chapters, has responded. To give them credit, they do rise early in Indiana.  (Pity their governor isn't on the Republican ticket -- but 'nother topic, 'nother day.)

So let me match that, and show why John's "Outsider Test for Faith" may "reprove" Christianity rhetorically, in the sense of attempting to show it is wrong, but actually "re-proves" Christianity, in the sense of showing again why it is intellectually fitting that so much of the world has flocked to the banner of Christ.

Real Faith: E-book announcement

An e-book called Real Reason, of which I wrote a good portion, is now available:
http://www.amazon.com/True-Rea...

The thirteen Christian authors of this book rebut what I like to call the "Blind Faith Meme."

William Lane Craig is the best-known contributor. 

Other philosophers, theologians, and historians, and a few younger Christian thinkers, also write chapters. 

Despite the claim that the Christian view of faith is muddled, we did not seem to find agreeing with one another on this subject difficult, writing a coherent defense of Faith and Reason, in 13 different hands. (Well, actually, 26, since none of us were writing in long-hand, I think!)

Aside from writing two chapters, and an appendix (which will probably be added later), I also helped edit two other chapters. My chapters are entitled: "The Marriage of Faith and Reason" and "John Loftus and the Outsider-Insider Test for Faith.")

What most struck me was the continuity of our arguments. (Those that I have read, so far.) 

This book should be an effective, one-stop answer to perhaps the most common misconception about the Christian faith on the market today -- that Christianity promotes "faith in the absence of reason" or "in the teeth of the evidence." 

Having interacted with "New Atheists" now for several years on a daily basis, and with others who held the same false notions of faith long before that, I think one can hardly exagerrate how central the question is today.  Watch popular movies like the Matrix series, or read any great popular science book, and the relevance of faith becomes clear.  In a sense, this question lies at the tipping point between "modernism" and "post-modernism."  I think a clear, biblical view of faith can help us understand life better, and avoid many of the grossest and most common intellectual errors of "this age of the world." 

It's also quite reasonably priced! 

So please: read, enjoy, and pass the word along. 

"How do you test the hypothesis of God?"

A gentleman named Harry Marks asked me this morning:

"David Marshall, How would you test the hypothesis of God?"

Ode to Blind Faith (and John Loftus).

Dedicated to all those who spread the Blind Faith Meme.

God told Abe to camp by Tel Aviv,
While giving no cause to believe
That would satisfy scientists named Steve
Isaac laughed, and Sarah felt empirically relieved. 

Hang-gliding Moses ascended Sinai.
In the face of Reason -- off he did fly!
Jehovah seemed epistemologically shy.  
Madame Ramses stayed home and cried.

Elijah lugged twelve rocks together.
His mind clean at the end of its tether.
"No proof!  And now all this bad weather!
Worse -- the smell of barbecued leather!"

Our Lord refused to give any syn.
Not a single trigonometrical line.
Nor did he heal all the empirically blind.
But three days later, fished Galilee without any line. 

-- David Marshall, 3/9/2012

Contra Hedrick: On Faith & Demographics

Among critics of The Truth Behind the New Atheism, the best-known so far have been Victor Stenger, who dedicated a good part of a chapter in The New Atheism to rebutting my analysis of faith and reason, and Hector Avalos, who attacked me over my claim that the Gospel liberates slaves, beginning with this piece.  (I responded here and here.) Several wild-eyed Internet critics have been even more persistent, but less worth responding to.   

A more interesting Web critic has been Landon Hedrick, a doctoral student in philosophy. 

I love (hate) sex!

For all the best scientific reasons.
 

Real-life vampires are not 
cool!

Not that there haven't been times when it was personal.  When I was working as a free-lance missionary in Taiwan, for example, I often got lonely.  It's a beautiful island, which is what the word "Formosa" apparently means, but nothing was more beautiful than the friendly smile of the pretty girls who lived there.  However, my work in trying help young women who had been forced into prostitution, was the opposite of an aphrodesiac.  Seeing how those sad young girls were put on the assembly line to have sex with strangers until they were used up, then cut loose to die early deaths, disgusted me with the whole enterprise of sex, and with a good portion of the human race.

My last blog included part of a dialogue with Anne Rice, author of famous books on vampires.  Looking over reviews for one of Rice's non-vampire, non-Christian books, I got a bit of a feeling of having been duped. This older, well-read, and somewhat moralistic (when decrying the crimes of Christianity) lady, having made millions and received her fifteen years of fame, chose to write about: spanking. Torture. Sexual slavery. Border-line pedophilia. 

And come to think of it, the "vampire cult" is essentially about sexual predation.  In fact, it is a lot like the use Chinese men made of those girls in Snake Alley, Taiwan, as justified by traditional Taoist quackery:

“According  to Pengzu the Long-Lived . . . If a man wishes to derive the greatest benefit . . . He also had better choose young maidens . . . My late master handed down these methods and himself used them to live for 3000 years.  If combined with drugs, they will even lead to immortality.”

“The Queen Mother of the West attained the Tao by cultivating her yin energy.  As soon as she had intercourse with a man he would immediately take sick, while her complexion would be ever more radiant . . . She always ate curds and plucked the 5-stringed lute in order to harmonize here heart and concentrate her mind . . . “ 

This latter quote reminds us that women can be sexual predators, too.  (And some of these girls had been sold out by their mothers!)  My own feeling is that both sexes abuse one another, and their same-sex rivals, about equally, though in different ways.  (And that Sandra Fluke, the 30 year old Georgetown "coed" who wants the school, or perhaps the state, to pay for her sexual activity, abuses her fellow-citizens' wallets, not to mention intellects.) 

I should also say, unlike Anne Rice, I don't see sexual abuse as all that interesting.  I enjoy trying new cuisines: Indian samosas, Dai baked fish, Russian soups, the regional cuisines of China.  But all these foods do just one thing: they deliver nutrients through the mouth to the stomach.  So many of these sexual fantasies seem boring and stupid, like pouring soup into the ear instead of the mouth, just to be "exotic."  As G. K. Chesterton recognized, "conventional" sex, in its full form, is as exciting as it gets, already. "Kinky" innovations "lack the realization of sex," as he put it. 

Yesterday morning, Mark Driscoll preached about porn addiction.  The flagship church for Mars Hill Fellowship is located just across the Ship Canal from Seattle Pacific University, and just a few miles from the University of Washington, so there are a lot of young people in the audience.  Blunt as usual, his edgy sense of humor rather subdued, Driscoll challenged his young congregation, and the tens of thousands who watch his sermons on-line, to grow up and live productive and pure lives.  He illustrated his points by interspersing the sermonizing with an interview with a former porn star, a pretty, but broken young woman.

Her life had been a series of abuses and broken dreams, which began when she was abused by a neighbor.  She was like those girls I saw in Taiwan.  She brought to mind my grandfather's comments about the fertile bottomland of the Kent Valley, that was filled with warehouses, and could no longer grow crops.  Only the warehouse of her life was filled with dung piles and trash heaps.  Christ had begun to tear that broken structure down, to make room for a cottage fit for living in, a garden and perhaps a home.   

As a human, I can't help but take the beauty and the ugliness of sex personally.  As a Christian, I think the Gospel gets things right, or rather Jesus gets things right, that are usually out of joint. 

But what we Christians don't often do, is step back and look at sex, and what it means for the world, outside of our own, parochial, human concerns.  Driscoll's interest in sex, when not personal (and very monogamous), is pastoral, and limited to homo googlus sapiens, the on-line generation of porn addicts. 

Biologist Nick Lane looks at the bigger picture in Life Ascending.  He notes that "some of the best minds in biology have wrestled with the problem of sex."  (I bet!)  Sex is a peculiar thing, he points out.  It's kind of a waste, producing equal numbers of males and females, when only one can bare children.  Wouldn't it be more efficient to produce assexually, through cloning?  And it's hard to find a mate, with lots of head-butting and Romeo-and-Juliet type drama along the way.  Plus when you get a particularly fortuitous gene mix, and a scientific genius appears, his kids are likely to play the guitar for some basement rock band, the potential diffused by the random sorting.

Still, our world would be a drab place without it:

Sex!

"It may be that, without sex, large complex forms of life are simply not possible at all: we would all disintigrate in a matter of generations, doomed to decay like the degenerate Y chromosome.  Either way, sex makes the difference between a silent and introspective planet, full of dour self-replicating things (I'm reminded of the Ancient Mariner's 'thousand thousand slimy things'), and the explosion of pleasure and glory all around us.  A world without sex is a world without the songs of men and women or birds or frogs, without the flamboyant colours of flowers, without gladiatorial contests, poetry, love or rapture.  A world without much interest." (124)

Indeed, aside from things like lemons, lupine crowning the slopes of Mount Rainier, mallard drakes, penguins nursing eggs through the winter, Medieval allegory, we recall the holidays, Christmas presents, meals around a table, sports (which serves man in place of butting antlers), butterflies and hummingbirds that, as Lane puts it:

More sex!

"Must be tiny, for no larger bird could hover motionless over the deep throat of a flower . . . They have been seduced by the enchanted potions of plants into a life of bondage, moving relentlessly from flower to flower, distributing pollen, or collapsing in a coma and quite possibly dying."

But who can say the life of a hummingbird is a sad thing? 

As humans, we inherit and imbibe all of that: still more, we can see the beauty and enter into the trajedy.  Unlike the hummingbird, we can also choose to rest our passions.  Yet the joining of unlikes to create something new, can also be transposed to describe our union with God, the "wedding feast of the Lamb."

Still more sex!

It is not a coincidence, or an anthropomorphism.  We are not projecting our provincial mating mores on Ultimate Reality.  All Nature echoes and prepares us for marriage, which by definition involves the joining of unlikes: from two up-quarks and one down-quark in a proton, to protons and electrons in a hydrogen atom, to two hydrogen and one oxygen atom in a molecule of water, to the complex assembly of atoms that makes proteins, proteins that make tissues, tissues that make organs, and organs that make bodies.  Then bodies join in sex, creating the smallest "platoon," as Burke put it, that constitutes the elementary particle of clan, village, tribe, state, empire or civilization, and the ephemeral hope or pipe-dream of a "United Nations," or the "Federation" of biologically unrelated sentient beings that the Bible anticipates, long before Star Trek.  

This is the Music of Life.  It is complex, sometimes difficult, with discords, beat and a rhythm, and strange, exotic, heart-felt riffs. 

"Women!  Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!" 

And verse-visa. 

But especially the latter.

Spring is in the air! 

Interviews with a Vampire Novelist: Anne Rice drives stakes through the heart of Christianity

Mrs. Rice does not
come across as this
spooky "in person." 

Interview I: Are Evangelicals Anti-Semitic?

While I have not read her vampire books, which have sold tens of millions of copies, or her perhaps more scandalous "Christian" books, I should begin by saying that I like and respect Mrs. Rice.  She is an intelligent, educated woman who asks a lot of interesting questions, and is humble enough to wear her heart on her sleave, even when mucking around with (to her) exotic Internet denizens, such as yours truly. 

I also think Anne is wrong about many things, and is grossly unfair to Christians, especially those who are theologically or politically conservative. 

In late 2011, I had the chance to "talk" with her for quite a while on-line, along with other people, when she started a discussion forum on Amazon.com to talk about the problems she sees with Christianity. 

I came late to the game, after a month or so of discussion. 

The conversation was long, and included other people.  For the sake of clarity and time, I'll focus on comments between the two of us, cutting where helpful to make the conversation flow.

Rice is an emotional dialogue partner.  Readers may find my failure to answer some of her questions frustrating, too.  You may find my focus on the issue of Christian ant-Semitism, in this first dialogue, too narrow, given all the shots Anne takes at the Gospel.  Anne also seems loath to come to grips with my arguments, or back up her own, in this first round.  All this seems understandable: this is an informal conversation, and both of us (but no doubt especially Mrs. Rice) have other things to do.  The dialogue improves in later rounds, if I'm not mistaken. 
Nevertheless, I think some readers may find these talks interesting, as a portrait (or at least a cartoon sketch) of a writer whose thoughts and feelings seem to be in flux.  I hope those of you who are attracted to the Dark Side, for instance the Democratic Party, find this interesting. 

Final warning: this first post is fairly long.  Later posts will probably be a bit shorter.  (For those of you who were hoping the final warning would involve creatures of the dark with fangs, sorry to disappoint.) 

I.  Comments from where I came in. 

Anne Rice: I cannot accept a lot of Christian theology. And frankly I am hardly alone.

I think many churches today are trying to rescue Jesus from the theologies of the past. They want to preach a Jesus of love and get away from the theologies that involve the constant threat of Hellfire. But do these churches succeed?

I myself cannot accept Atonement theory, not at all. I find it very unconvincing, and I have never encountered a brand of atonement theory that did not argue for the literal interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve. This is something I cannot force myself to believe.

But Jesus Christ remains of the utmost importance to me.

What do you think?

Can He be reclaimed by those of us who cannot accept the theologies of the past?

AR: Theo, I cannot help but wonder why you believe these things. You mentioned having studied the bible for decades with a pastor teacher.  Why do you think that a Supreme Being would reveal so much in one book, or collection of writings, and that human beings would have to study this book so intensely in order to know this Supreme Being?

Doesn't really make much sense, does it? ---- The God who made DNA, and black holes in space, the Big Bang, evolution, all of that --- putting such a difficult series of revelations in one book to one human tribe in one very small part of the world, and then demanding that humans study it intensely. Doesn't make sense now, does it?

And of course we know it doesn't work ---- for every person claiming to understand it, we get a point of view, an approach, a theology, a religion, and then the arguing starts, Protestants damning Catholics, Catholics scorning Protestants and all the independents haggling over who is saved and how.

Doesn't all of this raise your suspicions? Aren't you even a little curious that such intellectual striving might not have much at all to do with a Supreme Being?

Myself, in twelve years of studying the bible and Christianity, I came to believe the religion is based on absurdities and contradictions, and a great deal of nonsense.

Christians think semantics can solve metaphysical problems. Just "say it" another way, or quote yet another passage.  But that just doesn't work, really.

Christians have to "study it" to convince themselves that all of these absurd and contradictory things are true. They've convinced themselves of their withering superiority to the Jews, and of all sorts of things based on this or that phrase or sentence from Scripture while ignoring so many others.

I don't think we're hard enough on Christians. And I don't think Christians are hard enough on themselves . . .

All those poor pious Jews singing psalms and feeling so close to Godand so devoted to him --- only to be corrected and told by Christians in the First Century, guess what, you're really the enemy of God and if you don't buy into Christ you're going to burn forever? Come on.

You would think that your Supreme Being would at least have told the Jews they were all going to Hell, wouldn't you? Instead of that pontificating from Sinai, he might have just given them an even break.

And then there's the beauty of the Old Testament, the magnificent poetry of Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, the Psalms.

And none of it matters, says Paul. They were the enemies of God until Jesus came along. What a bunch of fools the Jews were, according to Christians. Come on.

Sorry, my friend, it simply doesn't add up.

What comes across in these threads is that Christians are into personal empowerment. This religion makes them feel so good, helps them not to drink, cheat on the wife, that sort of thing.

And I think it makes some feel quite learned. After all they have studied Scripture, indeed, for years. And that must make one quite proud, indeed, to know at least one subject thoroughly.

But there is little logic to this, and the claims for revelation aren't credible, and last but not least, the world did not end as Jesus and Paul claimed it would.

No, it just didn't, did it?

I think you need to demand some hard answers, yourselves, and we should perhaps be demanding some hard answers from you.

Enough of the coddling . . .

We're told we're to respect you, but I don't know if I can.  After all, we do live in a vast and wonderful universe.  And you're claiming that the Maker is saving you, but not us. That's a pretty obnoxious claim when you get right down to it, and I don't think you have much to back it up.

Sorry for being so blunt.  But the truth matters. It really does.  And I'm tired of soft peddling what I feel is the truth.

II.  First Response and dialogue. 

DM: "Doesn't really make much sense, does it? ---- The God who made DNA, and black holes in space, the Big Bang, evolution, all of that --- putting such a difficult series of revelations in one book to one human tribe in one very small part of the world, and then demanding that humans study it intensely. Doesn't make sense now, does it?"

The early scientists talked of God revealing himself through two books -- Scripture, and the Book of Nature. Since empirically, the Bible has in fact changed history in many ways -- not least through early science -- apparently this was not such an ineffective way to communicate, after all. But I have no problem with the idea that God also spoke to and through, say, Lao Zi.

"And of course we know it doesn't work ---- for every person claiming to understand it, we get a point of view, an approach, a theology, a religion, and then the arguing starts, Protestants damning Catholics, Catholics scorning Protestants and all the independents haggling over who is saved and how."

That's because people like to argue. Witness the Internet. Witness the Amazon comments forums. I've been damned to hell by atheists more than once, online. For one with a sense of irony, this can actually be pleasurable. It is also ironic, of course, that Christians talk so much about love, and still throw pots and pans at one another -- but such is human nature.

"Myself, in twelve years of studying the bible and Christianity, I came to believe the religion is based on absurdities and contradictions, and a great deal of nonsense."

And in 45 years of studying both, I have come to believe that Christianity is true, though there are a lot of difficulties and unanswered questions. And I don't think it helps to offer a child's understanding of Christianity up for refutation -- throw out the bathwater, not the baby.

Paul doesn't say none of the OT matters, at all. He clearly loved the Jewish traditions and found deeper meaning in the prophets than ever before. But if he was harsh on Jewish (and Christian, BTW) failure, so were those very prophets you mention. They agree with him!

Pascal was being a little unfair when he wrote of "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars . . ." (You can hardly accuse him of dismissing the OT, though!) Some of the philosophers an scholars were keen in knowing God experientially, too. You assume so many boundaries to Christian orthodoxy. I deny that they are as normative as you seem to think. I am just now finishing my dissertation on this very question, but wrote my first book on it -- True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture -- more than 15 years ago. I wish you'd check into Fulfillment Theology: it is intellectually exciting and also orthodox in a way that embraces truth wherever it is found, allowing us to appreciate, say, Confucius or Lao Zi, and God's work in the universe, more deeply. It also joins us intellectually with some of the wisest and most sympathetic thinkers in human history.

DM: I find many passages in the OT much harsher towards "the Jews" than anything in the NT.

When I was in seminary, I tried to reconcile James and Galatians. I came to the conclusion that Paul was talking about the ceremonial law, not the moral law.

I open Paul at random:

"Then what advantage has the Jew? . . . Much in every way. First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God."

That's a lot more positive about the OT than, say, Richard Dawkins, or even many modern Jews. If Paul reinterpretted Jewish tradition around Jesus, and found he could thus "save" most of it intellectually, that's far more than secular Jews do, maybe more than most religious Jews do, either, and infinitely more than the Gnostics.

As we learn more, our view of reality broadens, without losing the truth that appeared in the picture at first glance -- like rising in a rocket from earth. I can't claim to know anything special about eternity. Paul made it possible for billions of Gentiles to be intellectually-fulfilled "Jews," in essence. If Paul was anti-Jewish, his actually historical effect on human society -- among which was to make the Jewish scriptures the planet's best-seller -- may be the most startling paradox in history.

AR: That's a rather novel way of looking at it, David -- your statement:

"If Paul was anti-Jewish, his actually historical effect on human society must be the most startling paradox in history."

Hmmm.  I don't see it that way

AR: I think the study of Paul yields the obvious, based on his own words. He suggests that the Jews are in fact the enemies of God, and can only be reconciled to God through jesus Christ.

I see no evidence in the O.T. that God or the Jews thought the Jews
were the enemies of God.

Atonement theory and its absurdities (eternal Hellfire, a wrathful God damning a world based on Adam and Eve et al) is rooted in Paul. There is no way to escape this.  The O.T. does not support supercessionist Christianity.  It does not support the cliches offered again and again by Christians as to why Christ had to come, and how the Jews had "failed." The "failure" just isn't there. Ultimately the reasons for Christ come off as rationalization because He was crucified.

DM: Let me put it this way. I once took a flight across China, from Shanghai to Kunming. Across the aisle was a Chinese man, who turned out to be a leading scientist. Inside his jacket, he carried a copy of the Union Version Bible. His uncle was a respected elder in the church, and he peppered me with questions about the Bible (before I even said I was a Christian, as I recall.)

If it weren't for Paul, is it likely that a Chinese scientist flying over central China would carry a copy of the Jewish Scriptures, in Chinese, in his jacket?

AR: I have to confess, I'm not getting your point. Which is what? That Christians don't benefit from education? That Christians wouldn't be helped by knowing something about the evolution of their basic ideas?  That Christians wouldn't benefit from some perspective on the history of their religion? That they should just read the N.T.? Is that what you're suggesting?

If that is your point, I'm afraid I can't agree with you.  I must come down on the side of education.

No matter how much one studies the N.T. it can be wondrously illuminating and inspiring to read Josephus and Philo, and Tacitus ---  No matter how long and hard one studies the bible, it can be a a powerful thing to read learned commentary on the obscure Greek words, and possible mistranslations, to seek knowledge as to the history of interpretations, and their evolution.

I think education is a beautiful and wonderful thing.

It's a joy to read some body like N.T. Wright or Craig S. Keener because these biblical scholars are so finely educated, and have so much light to shed on the text of the N.T.

Why do you think some Christians put so little value on education in general?

You lost me there, David. I don't know what you're talking about . . .

DM: You're right, Anne, you did badly miss my point.

The point is, in my experience, education has made the NT seem more remarkable, not less, as you seem to assume it should.

Why do some Christians not value education? It may be that some perceive that a lot of college professors have a chip on their shoulders about Christianity. It may be that some correctly recognize an unwarranted intellectual snobbery on the part of some scholars and science, that is too easily assumed to bleed over from areas where they really are experts, into everything else. But I'm speculating, because I can't claim to know many people who don't value education.

The point here is that far from having it in for Jewish tradition, Paul is one of the reasons why Jewish tradition is now univerally known and partially followed by billions of people around the world.

AR: Did anyone here suggest Paul had it in for Jewish tradition? I don't quite "get" that.

Paul took aim at the Law as given by God on Sinai.  He felt that circumcision was no longer necessary.

All this is pretty clear, isn't it?

Judaism still is a vigorous and healthy religion.  It has withstood 2,000 years of Christian criticism and persecution.

DM: Anne: Sure, Paul denied that circumcision was no longer necessary -- and I don't mean any disrespect to orthodox Jewish friends to say I'm glad of it!

But what are you saying, then, about Paul and Jewish tradition? One of the characteristics of Fulfillment Theology, as I understand it, is that it is dialectic -- it sees both good and bad in the tradition, and reconstitutes them into a viable new form that remains in some sense faithful to the original. That's what I see Paul, and other NT writers, doing with their beloved Jewish tradition, with Christ as the interpretive key. In a sense, this is what everyone has to do with an old tradition, as new facts come to light -- and the Incarnation, death of Jesus, and Resurrection, were empirical facts that Paul's letters are reflecting on, and trying to figure out.

I seem to share with you a great respect for the Jewish people, and their amazing success in preserving their traditions and community over thousands of years of exile. I actually see that as the work of God, also the reconstitution of their nation, as I think many Jews do, too.

But Christians have NOT persecuted Jews for 2000 years. I know of none in the first 300 years, and very little until the 11th Century. As Rodney Stark points out (Rene Girard does much to explain this, too), persecution of Jews was generally a symptom of larger civilizational struggles in Europe. (This is very clear from Richard Fletcher's account in The Barbarian Conversion, too.) It was like two continental masses colliding, with little volcanoes erupting at points in the continental plate -- the masses being Islam and Christianity, the volcaoes being pogroms. This happened in both Europe and in the Muslim world, as similiar persecutions occur of minorities in China, Japan, India, and everywhere else where people are people.

Most often, the Church protected Jews against this persecution, though not always as vigorously as you might wish. The worst of it often came from non-Christians, including Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, Muslims, communists, and of course worst of all, the Nazis. Even some East Asian cults have been anti-Semitic, strangely enough, even in Japan.

Lots of Christians were guilty as well. I share your repugnance for the crimes Christians have committed against Jews. But given the larger pattern, I don't think Christian theology is a necessary or sufficient explanation for that. I think people who use the NT to justify attacking Jews, are engaged in grossly dishonest rationalization.

AR: David, I don't think the picture you give here of Christian antisemitism can stand up under scrutiny.

DM: Where did I err? Sounds like you know a lot about the subject; I'm willing to be corrected.

One thing I've always been intrigued about: that most of the world's Jews lived in Europe, by 19th and 20th Centuries. They didn't start out there. Somewhere along the line, someone seems to have done a lot of voting with their feet. If "Christendom" (a dubious word) was as horrible as it is often portrayed, it seems pretty strange.

But I like the American system better, where religions compete freely. There has been some bigotry, but no pogroms, so far as I know.

AR: David, research into Jewish history is one of my passions.  It was the story of the Jews in history that drew me back to God.

And I do know something of the subject. I'm not a professional historian.  I'm familiar with the persecutions of Jews during the time of the Crusades and the time of the Black Death, and earlier expulsions of the Jews from England and France, and later from Spain. I have researched Jewish life in Renaissance Italy.

What I have not studied in detail is what happened right after Constantine's conversion. I'm in Europe right now, and my Jewish library is of course at home in California. I need to check references there.
I am also familiar with the kinds of remarks Luther and Calvin made about Jews, etc. which can be found online.

David, your statement here: "One thing I've always been intrigued about: that most of the world's Jews lived in Europe, by 19th and 20th Centuries. They didn't start out there. Somewhere along the line, someone seems to have done a lot of voting with their feet. If "Christendom" (a dubious word) was as horrible as it is often portrayed, it seems pretty strange."

This strikes me as a really bizarre statement. Where exactly did you expect these Jews to live?
In Muslim countries?  You do know that when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 a.d. they drove the Jews out of their own city, don't you? You are familiar with what is called the Jewish Diaspora?

What do you think all these Jews should have done, exactly?

I'm not sure oppressed peoples in any culture can ever be seen as voting for anything with their feet.
Women are treated pretty badly in Saudi Arabia. They're not voting with their feet for anything when they remain where they were born and where their families live.

Perhaps you're putting a burden here on Jews that is quite unfair.

The peasants of Czarist Russia weren't voting for Czarist Russia with their feet by remaining where they were born and where their families lived.

DM: The issue here is the effect of Christian theology on treatment of Jews. No serious person denies that Jews have often been mistreated in "Christian" countries. My question is whether they have been treated worse in traditional Europe than elsewhere, so that there is an effect (Christian anti-semitism) which must have a theological rather than just sociological cause.

To answer that question, one has to begin with the fact that the Jewish people began in Israel. Babylonian, Egyptian and Roman anti-Semitism, culminating in the destruction of Israel, are part of the data.

Where else could the Jews have gone? Somewhere closer, of course. Somewhere warmer, maybe. Many commentators claim that Islamic civilization was richer and treated the Jews better than Europe did, during the Middle Ages. It is, therefore, significant that while many Jews did remain in the Middle East, most did not. What exactly does it signify? I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking. But it certainly undermines the likelihood that Christian theology was the "independent variable" that "caused" anti-Semitism.

People living in Israel could, one might think, also have gone east, into India. Some did, I think. Some Jews did make it as far as China, and eventually assimilated there, though I admit that would have been too long a journey for mass emigration.

But I think at some point in history, yes, Jews must have found relative welcome in Russia, or so many wouldn't have gone there. You know they didn't go there for the weather.

American history is also relevant to this issue. Jews have lived in America for almost 400 years, in a dominantly and often zealously Christian culture, at peace with their neighbors, thank God.

So as bad as Medieval anti-Semitism could be, even before opening the NT and finding a bunch of Jewish writings by Jews who loved their traditions, from a bird's eye perspective, it seems unlikely that Christianity was the cause of that anti-semitism.

This has nothing to do with "putting burdens on the Jews." I'm asking why most chose to move to quasi-Christian Europe.

Of course oppressed people often "vote with their feet." That's why America has so many Cubans, Vietnamese, Russians, Cambodians, Irish, Koreans, and, yes, Jews. Indeed, that's a large part of the history of the Jewish people.

AR: David, this may be so.  But any time you have a large block of irrational people trying to get control of political power for their own religious objectives (deminionists led by Bachmann, Perry, or fanatical Catholics like Santorum) you have a dangerous situation.

Irrationality is dangerous. Secular humanism is based on reason, solid principles of reason, the idea that law is arrived at by reason, not revelation. America was brought into existence by rational men. And Irrationality always poses a threat.

America has always rejected this kind of hysteria and I am confident they will again.

David, there are so many inaccurate statements here, I don't know where to begin. I really don't have at my fingertips the numbers of Jews who lived in thriving communities throughout the Middle East until the creation of the State of Israel. I know that Iraq and Syria had some of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, and there have been ancient communities in India.

Nor do I have figures on how early Jews migrated to Russia, and throughout all the other countries of the world. I do know there were Jewish merchants working in Russia before the conversion of the country to "orthodox" or Eastern Christianity which became Russian orthodox Christianity.

I think you are way underestimating their numbers. Europe was one place that Jews lived. Jews have lived everywhere.  Again, I simply don't have the facts and the figures. Wish I did.

I sense that you feel uneasy about the record of Christian persecution of Jews. You're trying to avoid the topic somehow, with simplistic suggestions that "it couldn't have been all that bad, etc." I suggest more reading.

Find out about the massacres and the persecutions.  There are many excellent books on Jewish history.
I would say face up to it.

Millions cannot vote with their feet. Jews migrated to America along with all the other immigrants. What is your point? The presence of ancient Jewish communities throughout Europe, dating back to before Roman times, does not mean Christian persecution wasn't cruel and ghastly and completely immoral.

Why is it Christians don't want to take responsibility for the dark side of the religion? I simply don't get it.

DM: Again, what am I wrong about? Some 12 million Jews lived in Europe before Hitler came along; half were murdered. When Israel became a state, most Jews were expelled or left Islamic states in the ME; the total of immigrants to Israel from those sources were less than a million. No doubt others went to the US, etc. But clearly, the vast majority of the world's Jews lived in Europe and the Americans before WWII.

According to Josephus (says Wiki), by far the main Jewish populations at the time of Christ were in Palestine, Syria, Babylon, and Egypt.

Of course Christian persecution was "cruel and ghastly and completely immoral." I think I've admitted that, already, more than once. I am appalled by it, I admit and renounce it. But let's not blame everyone for the crimes of a few. Let's set historically accurate boundaries around the issue.

What I want is truth. You comment just now about how evangelicals are anti-semites is I think not true. What makes you think most evangelicals feel that way? What evidence can you point to? I have seen very little evidence, having grown up in the community, that evangelicals have it in for Jews. Let's be fair about the facts, first, then decide what they signify.

Millions can and do "vote with their feet," all the time. The partition of India, for instance, resulted in the displacement of some 10 million people, alone, who largely walked away from their homes. The founding of Israel led to maybe 2 million people moving, one way or the other, in a year or so. 2 million Nationalist Chinese went to Taiwan after the communists took over; others went elsewhere, often on foot. This is a common story throughout human history.

But I don't think we need to disagree on principle, here. Persecution of the weak and marginalized is always disgusting, whoever is responsible.

AR: "But let's not blame everyone for the crimes of a few. Let's set historically accurate boundaries around the issue. "

I don't see you doing that here. You seem to be trying to draw attention away from the persecution of the Jews by Christians over time.

Your speculation is interesting but beside the point. Christians have persecuted Jews for thousands of years and it was more than the actions of a few. The documentation is easy to find. There are innumerable studies of what happened right through the Holocaust.

Again this "voting with their feet" idea seems suspect. You seem to be saying, "well, it couldn't have been all that bad."

Again, that's beside the point.

I do think Christianity is in crisis today with regard to anti-semitism. It's having to learn to live without it, and this is going to be tough.

As we can see in this thread, casual denigration of the Jews, casual statements of superiority to them, casual judgments of them abound.

With regard to Evangelicals, I think their anti-semitism is so thoroughly documented that no one needs to argue you it here.

DM: "I don't see you doing that here. You seem to be trying to draw attention away from the persecution of the Jews by Christians over time."

Then you're not really reading fairly. I have admitted that persecution many times, here. What I deny is that it is caused by NT theology. I also have pointed to several larger patterns in the context of which it should be understood: (1) general scapegoating of minorities; (2) persecution in times of civilizational stress; and (3) anti-Semitism in many non-Christian civilizations.

The issue is not the fact of persecution, but its cause.

"I do think Christianity is in crisis today with regard to anti-semitism. It's having to learn to live without it, and this is going to be tough."

This is a strange comment. Maybe you mean something broader than usual, by the term "anti-Semitism." But you seem to think that Christianity needs to persecute Jews to get along? Is that really what you're saying? If so, what about all those time and periods when there were no Jews to persecute, but still lots of Christians? What are 150 million Asian Christians and 500 million African Christians going to do?

"As we can see in this thread, casual denigration of the Jews, casual statements of superiority to them, casual judgments of them abound."

I haven't read the whole thread; it's a long one. But there's a difference between: (a) denigrating Jews as a racial group, and (b) claiming that the beliefs one holds are superior to some other beliefs. (a) is what we call "racism," and is usually pretty obnoxious. (b) is naturally implied by any set of beliefs. If you think something is true, naturally you think what is true is superior to ideas that are less true -- that's why you believe it. This is true of ANY belief system, including atheist or pluralist positions, like that, say, of John Hick or Wilfred Cantwell Smith.

I haven't seen much of (a) among evangelicals. If anyone did that here, then I'll be on your side in disavowing their comments, and rebuking them.

"With regard to Evangelicals, I think their anti-semitism is so thoroughly documented that no one needs to argue you it here."

Heh. Well that makes it easy, doesn't it? No evidence is needed! Or can you cite this alleged "thorough documentation?"

Let me just say this, though: whoever "documented" this alleged "fact" was, I have to think, most likely a liar. Because as a generalization, having lived among evangelicals for half a century, that is certainly a lie.

Let me recommend you open a dialogue with the orthodox Jewish talk-show host, Michael Medved. A large portion of his audience seems to be evangelicals. He's a very smart fellow, spends his life talking across religious lines, and knows this issue extremely well. As a well-known writer, I imagine you would probably have access to him. He would, I am sure, give you a better perspective on how evangelicals feel about Jews.

I didn't ask for a "complete education on Christian anti-semitism in the West."  I asked you to define and defend your claims in this forum.

You still haven't answered my most fundamental question: what do you mean by "anti-Semitism?" Do you mean (1) The opinion that one's own beliefs contain more of the truth than Judaism does? or (2) An active hatred of the Jewish people?

You seem to be committing the fallacy of equivocation: you are attempting to apply to (1) the stigma that belongs to (2). So I have to ask that you choose between the two, and stick with whichever meaning you choose.

You keep on implying that I'm ignorant of something important, but have yet to explain what that is. What important claim have I made that you (or Carroll) can show to be false?

"I have no idea what percentage of Evangelicals are "guilty" of anything, of course. And I think you know this."

Then you shouldn't make such sweeping accusations. I'm glad, though, that you admit you lack any serious empirical basis for blanketly claiming that "evangelicals are anti-Semitic." That's a pretty serious charge, and should be backed up by serious evidence, if made.

"I get the impressing you are stunningly and irresponsibly ignorant about the history of your belief system in this regard, and you want to protect your ignorance."

And I get the impression that your "impression" is based on nothing at all that I have said.

Rather than answer reasonable questions, define your terms, and defend your claims, you now relapse into patronizing ad hominem that ought, frankly, to be beneath you:

"There is a lot we can accomplish in these threads, but the full education of an ignorant person we cannot accomplish here, for obvious reasons."

I strike you as an "ignorant" person, do I? So what glaringly ignorant comment have I made, that forced this opinion on you? What are my supposed errors?

Come on, now, Anne, I think you're better than this. Please engage with facts, logic, and evidence, not this nebulous and thin form of ad hominem. I know you're not at home with your library, but surely you can do better to explain and defend your comments.

AR:  there's little I can add to my earlier posts. I've addressed the issues again and again.

Again and again, I've discussed here the problems of Christian supercessionism and how I feel after years of study that the Old Testament does not support Christian supercessionism.

The Old Testament does not support the casual attitude of spiritual superiority to the Jews expressed here and in other places by so many Christians.

On the Christian persecution of Jews for the last 2,000 years, I have provided some summary info from Wikipedia and some bibliography.

Again, there's not a whole lot more that I can add, or feel moved to add. Again, the material is out there on both this subjects if you want to read it. I stand by my frequent observations here that some Christians are woefully ignorant about Judaism, Jesus as a Jew, and the history of the Christian religion as regards the Jews.

I don't feel moved to go into any further detail, and I've explained why.

What you really want here is an extended engagement with you, on your terms, though you've already indicated you are close minded on the subject and not likely to believe people who offer you other opinions or material to support different conclusions.

I'm not finding this fruitful or illuminating enough to continue it.

Again, I think you face some real problems here with your lack of knowledge and lack of curiosity in these matters.

I'm sorry I can't give you what you seem to want, but I am suspicious of what you seem to want.

By the way, David, I won't be sacking my Jewish library to offer you a crash course in all this when I do get home.  I think I've offered enough general information and enough bibliography.

DM: Sorry, Nicholls' thesis is obviously incoherent:

"The Nazis chose the Jews as the target of their hate because two thousand years of Christian teaching had accustomed the world to do so."

Dr. Richard Weikart explains one of the problems with that claim in From Darwin to Hitler. Hitler didn't just target Jews. He also targeted Poles, the mentally retarded, and Gypsies, among others.

Did Christian theology also prepare the world to hate the mentally retarded? Hardly. In fact, Christian theology was distinguished for the care it lavished on the marginalized and weak, for two thousand years.

Weikart argues that Social Darwinism was the real driving force behind Nazi ideology, and furnishes numerous telling quotes to show that this is so. One could also cite Hitler himself, who in Mein Kampf describes how the communists inspired him to their hateful methods.

The "Christ-killer" slur has always been an obviously stupid rationalization for scapegoating that comes natural in times of civilizational stress. No honest person could read the NT and suppose it teaches followers of Jesus to persecute his own people.

AR: Thanks, David. I'm glad you considered the book. I've given you my best thoughts on the entire subject. Don't have any more to give. Thanks again for sharing your responses here.

DM: Anne: Here's what you HAVEN'T done:

* You haven't defined "anti-Semitism," despite my repeated requests that you do so, and the obvious importance of doing so.

*You haven't explained which of the two meanings I gave you prefer. It seems, from the following review, that Carroll also conflates these two meanings:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_2_128/ai_71578793/

* You haven't offered a scrap of evidence to defend your claim that American evangelicals in general are "anti-Semitic." You now admit, in fact, that you can't back that claim up in more than a very subjective way.

*You haven't acknowledged the fact that the "2000 years" you keep referring to is an over-generalization.

* You haven't dealt with the fact that real anti-Semitism has been common in non-Christian cultures, undermining the claim that it is "caused" by Christian theology.

* You haven't dealt with the fact that there are other causes for anti-Semitism that seem to explain it better than Christian theology.

* You haven't pointed to any serious errors I have committed, that justify describing me as "ignorant."

It is possible that Christian theology has in some indirect way been a contributing cause of anti-Semitism. Stranger things have happened. But I think you and Carroll both are engaging in a bit of anachronistic thinking. The Holocaust was a shock that alerted most sane people to a lot of things, including the injustice of racism and the long European history of anti-semitism. I have a lot of problems with Christian institutions: I think the Gospel was diluted by Roman power, European superstitions, and the competition with Islam, and perverted by human nature. But I think you're mistaking the bathwater for the baby.

Of course you don't need to engage with my arguments more seriously if you don't want to. But I don't think I'm the only one who thinks you could stand to back up your claims here a little better, or better yet, mellow out a few of them, at least a little.

AR: David, I have nothing to add to my earlier posts. If you will go back I think you will see I did provide info on many of your questions.   Thank you for sharing.

Again, there is ample info out there to answer all your questions and address all the issues you raise.

DM: That's fine, Anne. I'm heading up to Vancouver this morning to give a series of lectures (a mostly historical approach to understanding world religions, actually), then off to Asia for a month for research, on Tuesday, so I probably wouldn't have much time to respond if you tried to seriously answer my challenges, anyway.

Looks like you've moved on to the subject of life after death, though. Interesting topic; about which, I confess, I truly do have almost everything to learn. (But hopefully not too soon. :-) )

Note: skipping a shorter post related to our discussion, here's Part III of Interview with a Vampire Novelist.