THE BEST SKEPTICS HAVE
TO OFFER
When one listens to the boasts of
atheists, he may at first feel intimidated by their braggadocio. All that is needed, however, to calm one’s
nerves is to examine their inflated claims.
Charles Eugene, who responded to Michelle Walker’s letter to the editor
(see last week’s article) concluded his reply thus: “The Bible is full of errors,
contradictions, and absurdities. See for yourself at
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/”.
Okay. We went to the Web site and took a look. It contains much more than can be discussed
in one article, but one of the categories is called “Absurdities.” We did not bother to print it, since there
are several hundred listed. Curious as
to the comments about the book of Acts, we scrolled down to it and decided to
use the first ten of these. But before
we do that, the reader should be prepared to see in these “absurdities” the attitude
which Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians 2:11-15:
For what man knows the things of a
man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the
things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of
the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that
have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words
which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned.
But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly
judged by no one.
Calvinists
wrongly apply this passage, saying that without the Holy Spirit within, a
person cannot under-stand the Word of God.
Paul did not say that. He said
that the natural man does not receive spiritual things. Why not?
The answer is that he has no spiritual appetite. In other words, his life is bound to this
world, and spiritual concepts seem like a foreign language. The attitude
expressed by “the natural man” (one devoid of spiritual understanding) will be
obvious from the very beginning.
“643. Those who heard the
apostles speaking in tongues thought they were drunk. Maybe they were.
“644. Peter says that
their strange behavior (speaking in tongues, etc.) was to be expected since
they were living in ‘the last days.’ 2:17” First of all, Peter was not explaining
strange behavior, and there is no “etc.” These remarks are calculated to embellish the
situation rather than merely describe it.
Second, Peter was quoting from the prophet Joel, who said these things
would occur in “the last days.” Since
the “absurdity” is not explained, we will assume that the skeptic who put this
together thinks that 2,000 years is too long a time to qualify for that
description. This is the danger of
mocking that concerning which a natural man lacks understanding.
In the Bible,
“the last days” refers not to the end of time (an assumption
made by atheists and premillennialists alike)—but to
the era of Christianity. The “former”
era was the Law of Moses. Perhaps some
day, when the skeptics can afford to take a break from their haranguing, they
might notice that the Bible is divided into two main sections—the Old Testament
and the New Testament. The New Testament
focuses on the life of Christ, Who ushers in a new age—“the last days.” If the world lasts ten thousand more years, we
will still be in “the last days.” A true
Bible student lets the Scriptures define its own terminology.
“645. Jesus did a little
time in hell. 2:31.”
The Greek word translated “hell” here is Hades, referring to the realm of the dead, and not Gehenna,
referring to eternal torment. If the
skeptic knows the difference, he is just trying to be cute; if he does not, he
is a sloppy “scholar.”
“646. Philip made
‘unclean spirits’ scream as they left the bodies of the people they possessed. 8:7.” First, the
statement is not accurate. Philip did
not make the unclean spirits scream; when he cast them out, they chose to cry
out with a loud voice. Second, where is
the absurdity? Does the skeptic have
some special ability in dealing with unclean spirits that would render this account
foolish and inaccurate?
“647. Peter has a dream
in which God show [sic] him ‘wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls.’ The
voice (God’s?) says, ‘Rise, Peter: kill and eat.’
“648. Peter says that Jesus healed ‘all who
were oppressed of the devil.’ (Including Judas?) 10:38.” What Peter says of
the Lord is accurate. How did He heal
those oppressed by the devil? He healed
their sicknesses and cast out the demons that possessed them. Judas, as an apostle, did the same thing—for a
time. When he betrayed Jesus, he was
neither physically ill nor possessed by a demon. He had, however, chosen to exercise his free
will and do the devil’s work. The
skeptic is trying to confuse free will with demon possession. Jesus never came to take away our freedom; if
He had, the skeptic would not have been allowed to embarrass himself this way.
Number 649
basically repeats 647. “650. Paul meets ‘a
certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination.’ 16:16.” Okay, and the
absurdity is what?
“651. The philosophers in
“652. Now this is funny. Paul, a guy
converted to Christianity because he heard voices, calls the Greeks too darned
superstitious—Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! 17:22.” First of all, Paul
did not hear voices. What kind of
credibility can be placed in the skeptic when he cannot discern the difference
between the singular and the plural?
Acts 9:4 says, “Then he fell to the ground, and heard a
voice (emph. gws) saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting Me?’” Paul did not hear
voices; he heard THE Voice of Jesus
Christ, the Messiah.
Second, the
skeptic is trying to equate Paul with the Son of Sam or some other lunatic who
murders people because of strange voices in his head. Actually, Paul was in favor of putting Christians
to death BEFORE he heard the voice; afterward he harmed no one. The propagator of this Web site shows his
prejudice by trying to put the worst possible (not to mention unfair) interpretation
on Paul’s conversion.
Third, the
atheist ties himself to the King James when it is convenient. Too
superstitious is translated “very religious” in other versions (the NKJ,
for example). Paul’s point was that they
had altars to every god they could think of, including one “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD”
(Acts
Fourth, the Web
site has no intent at setting forth an honest appraisal of the Scriptures. If anything, the one who wrote these alleged
“absurdities” is himself absurd. Could anyone agree that even one of these
listed qualifies as absurd, unless motivated by extreme prejudice?
Failed Prophecies
Another category
the browser notices is “Failed Prophecies.”
Not so many of these are listed, but once again we went to the book of
Acts to see what the typical fare might be.
The first three of these we will examine.
“136. Peter wrongly
claims that Dt. 18:18-19 refers to
Jesus, saying that those who refuse to follow him (all non-Christians) must be
killed. 3:23.” It is difficult to imagine how much more confused someone
could be than to make a statement this inaccurate. This kind of thinking, however, occurs from
reading the Bible with a predisposition toward finding errors instead of trying
to develop a sense of context. Any
writer’s words can be twisted by some amateur trying to make a point, if he
ignores the overall theme of the work and the definitions the author
provides. But the first thing to notice
here is that the skeptic fails to mention how Paul wrongly applied the verses
in Deuteronomy to Jesus. The second part
of his sentence would be unpleasant (if true), but it does not disprove the
prophecy.
The words that Peter spoke in Acts 3:22-23
follow:
“For Moses truly said to the Fathers,
‘The Lord your God will raise up for you
a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him shall you hear in all things,
whatever He says to you. And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not
hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’”
Where is the
authorization for killing? Who is to do
the killing? These questions cannot be
answered because of the passive construction: those who refuse to hear Jesus shall
be utterly destroyed. Again, we
ask, “By whom?” The text does not
authorize Jewish believers to execute their fellow Jews who rejected this
Prophet. Gentile Christians are not told
to put to death those who have not obeyed the Gospel. Nowhere in the New Testament are Christians
told to fight and kill those who are not followers of Jesus. That anyone remotely familiar with the
contents of the new covenant could make such a statement is an absurdity.
God is the one
who will destroy the unbeliever from among His people on the Day of Judgment (2
Thess. 1: 8; Rev. 1:9). He does not desire to consign people to hell,
but if they are so hard-hearted as to reject the loving sacrifice He made on
the cross, He will not over-rule their free will. The choice is theirs.
“137. This verse admits
that God’s promise to Abraham was not fulfilled. (See Gen. 12:7,
“And God gave him no inheritance in
it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He
promised to give it to him for a possession, and to
his descendants after him.”
Stephen does not
contradict anything previously said.
When God made the promise to Abraham concerning land, He was not
promising it to him personally. Even though he says you and your descendants,
it is obvious that He means Abraham as the head of the nation that would come
from him—not him individually.
Although Abraham
lived in the land, he never owned all that God promised. In Genesis 13:14-15 God told him: “Lift your
eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward,
and west-ward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your
descendants forever.” Abraham saw what
would be his (in the national sense).
God also, however, pointed out that his descendants would be in another
land 400 years (Gen. 15:13). The only
point Stephen makes is that Abraham did not personally inherit the land—not
even a foot of it, which we (Christians) al-ready knew from reading
Genesis.
Did Abraham’s
descendants receive the land? Yes. Joshua
“138. Gen.
49:10 says that all of
The scepter shall not depart from
Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until
Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.
This verse does
indeed prophesy about the Christ. He is
the Lawgiver spoken of in this passage.
But where exactly does it say that all the kings will be from
The answer is
that they received the scepter when God ordained the first king to reign from
the tribe of
Before God gave
the scepter to the tribe of
These alleged failed
prophecies” have not been well-researched.
They are based on erroneous conclusions that an honest Bible student
would not make. It is a shame that some
are so biased against the Scriptures that they cannot give them a fair
hearing. But we are also blessed by
their blindness, because they show in a way that could not otherwise be
demonstrated how poor are the objections to the inspired Word
of God.
These few
“absurdities” and “failed prophecies” are a random sampling of what is on this
Web site. The others are pretty much all
the same—things taken out of context, misrepresented, or unexplained. These efforts are the best that the atheist
can do, and it shows us how utterly justified we have been to have believed in
the first place. We already had
sufficient evidence to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God when we
obeyed the Gospel. All of our study has
but confirmed the Truth. The Bible can
withstand the assault of atheism and skepticism—especially when the charges are
so ludicrous. Let us never be ashamed to
study and defend the Word of God.
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