This came up on my Quiz Show (Bible Contradictions) video recently. It’s an analogy I’ve heard before.
Here’s an expanded version of my response.
What the commenter fails to realize is that in making this analogy he opens the new testament accounts up to some very unfavorable comparisons. And I start salivating.
Mark’s gospel was written probably in the 70s CE, and was the first. Matthew’s most probably came next, and Luke’s in the 90s. John’s not until the 2nd century.
So let’s put that on a Titanic time-frame. That would have the first written account (the first to survive long, anyway) of the Titanic’s sinking coming out in the 1950s. It would need to be written by people who weren’t there, who didn’t see it happen, and who were getting their ‘facts’ from 40-50 years of word of mouth. Different versions, claiming to be authoritative, would still be emerging in the 1980s.
For this analogy to work, the first written account, and all subsequent accounts, would need to be written in a language other than English, the most common language spoken on the boat, and thus the language of the eye-witnesses. You’d have to trust that nothing of any consequence got mixed up in translation.
But that’s only just getting us started. It’s not yet biblical enough. Let’s have these first written accounts from the 1950s made ONLY by hand. Hand-written accounts, never ever to be printed or copied on any technology that didn’t exist before the 14th century; including modern paper. Add to that that we’re not allowed to look at these documents just yet. We have to wait a few centuries. And we can’t look at the originals, they have to be lost. To “know” what happened that night in the middle of the Atlantic, we only get to look at whatever is left at the end of a few centuries of copying everything by hand, letter by letter, word by word, page by page.
Now, add into the mix for the bulk of this copying-copies-of-copies period, warring factions of Titanicists, some of whom claim certainty that it went down intact, others claiming it split in two. Let them battle it out for a few centuries like the Gnostics, Marcionites and Ebionites did over the early Christian writings, altering the written accounts (in subsequent papyrus and parchment copies) as they distribute and hand-copy each one- towards favoring their side of the story. Let’s have some copies add new details after a few decades, like we know the early Christians (and some not-so-early Christians) did, and let’s have others drop details, or alter them. We’ll know they did it, because we’ll end up, at the end of this busy period of copying and copying copies of copies, a wide variety of discrepant texts, with changes apparently made along very obvious ideological lines.
Let this experiment run for a couple of decades, or centuries if you’re brave. And now, if the reliability of these accounts isn’t under enough doubt, let’s have the story be filled with SUPERNATURAL EVENTS – because we all know how much THAT adds to the trustworthiness of any text. So, let’s have it included in these reports that the boat wasn’t constructed by Harland and Wolff in a ship-yard in Belfast, it appeared unto The White Star Line and its arrival was heralded by angels. It didn’t need to carry food for its passengers – their meals were manifested magically (even if they consisted only of fish and bread). It wasn’t brought to an untimely end by an ice-berg, it was a horde of sea-demons (escaped from a group of possessed pigs that had run into a lake once,… hmmmm…..) that breached its hull. And best of all, after the boat sank, it resurfaced, tipped upside-down and floated up into the sky. And promised to one day return.
And you can communicate telepathically to Captain Smith, and he (He) hears everything you mutter to him in your mind.
Of course, no analogy is perfect. But if anything I’m going to broad with this, biting off more new testament scholarship than I can chew. But hey~ he started it!! with HIS terrible analogy!!!
No, you wouldn’t say “The Titanic disaster never happened,” or that reports of it even sinking at all were entirely wrong in every single detail. But neither would you trust that four written accounts, all of them discrepant, all of them originally written by non-eye-witnesses based on 40-80 years of hearsay, all of them lost and only represented by copies of copies of copies of them which we later come to know were being butchered by amateurs and altered by people with an agenda, were worth basing your world-view upon.
Instead I’d look at those documents and say “OK, there was a boat called Titanic, it isn’t here now… I guess it probably sank. And all this other stuff is obviously overblown exaggerations of things that in all likelihood never even happened.” Would anyone dispute that given the documents I’ve imagineered here, that’s the most sensible approach to take?
How about this, then? “Yes, there was a man called Yeshua, he isn’t here now. I guess he probably lived and died like every other human. And all that other stuff about him doing supernatural stuff is obviously overblown exaggerations of things that in all likelihood never even happened.” Say that to a zealous believer, though, and you’re told that you’re not looking at it the right way, that you’re closed minded, or that you need the assistance of a supernatural spirit to help you suspend your rational disbelief. And that if you can’t, an eternity of possibly torturous separation from God awaits.
43 comments
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John Kruger
November 8, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Had a good laugh on this one. I have never heard that particular biblical legitimacy argument before.
Historical accounts can be inaccurate! That means we should trust the historical account of the Bible, even though it has no other sources to corroborate it and also contains supernatural events!
How about we put very limited trust into historical accounts until we have better evidence to back them up, hmm?
MattintheCrown
November 8, 2012 at 2:22 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I wouldn’t even assume the Titanic actually had existed, given that evidence.
eric
November 8, 2012 at 2:22 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Ask them if their logic applies to the Upanishads or other nonchristian holy books. When they say “no,” you’ve established that this is just post hoc reasoning and they don’t really believe in the validity of their own argument – its just an excuse to assert their preferred conclusion.
hugo
November 8, 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
if the story of the Titanic was written like the bible I would not even believe there ever was a boat (like MattintheCrown says).
As with the bible the location of sinking would not be very accurate and could probably be anywhere on earth land or sea.
Of course as with the bible there would be a large following who would look everywhere, come up with possible locations every few years and waste time and money to find this boat.
If they got lucky and actually found it only then would I believe there was a boat (I’m not even going into how they’d be able to prove that it was “the boat of the book”) but even then finding the actual Titanic would not validate in the slightest all the magical stuff that was made up around it.
ccfoo242
November 8, 2012 at 2:45 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
And would James Cameron be considered a pariah for proving the boat didn’t ascend into Heaven?
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
November 8, 2012 at 4:54 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Two thousand years from now, will historians write about the historical figure Spock (may he live long and prosper) who died for his shipmates and rose again on the holy planet Genesis?
tyro
November 8, 2012 at 5:48 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I’m with MattinTheCrown – that sounds pretty insane and I don’t know if I’d even say there was a real boat called Titanic which sank.
I know it was just an accident, but “Titanic” means Titan-like, one of the early gods and of course many of these legends were filled with stories of hubris and failure. If we just had these weird accounts of the Titanic, even the name itself seems to be hinting that it was fictitious, a story of a ship-builder so puffed up with hubris that it was destined to fail like Icarus.
The coincidence is that many of the biblical names seem equally chosen to imply fiction, not reality. Not that it’s a clincher (since the Titanic really did exist), but in your scenario there’s a lot that’s pointing towards a cautionary fable only.
Makoto
November 8, 2012 at 6:53 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Don’t forget the other fun and logical extension of this analogy – competing religions.
Sure, you say you have writings showing that there was a boat called the Titanic and it set sail and maybe it broke in half or maybe not, but it definitely sank on its maiden voyage.
Wait a while.. and then someone else chimes in that well, yes, the Titanic was a ship and it did set sail, but it wasn’t all that special, no more so than other boats that had sailed previously. Probably it didn’t even sink at all, according to these new writings. But then along came a better ship, which these new writings tell all about, and how much more important it was when it sank.
And then you get holy wars between the Titanic-ists and the Lusitania-ists.
I’m not sure how to work Scientology into this. The Titanic sank when it flew into a volcano?
mandrellian
November 8, 2012 at 8:06 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
#6:
I really, really hope so. There could be worse things than humanity uniting under the motto “Live long and prosper.” Or “KHAAAN!” becoming our favourite four-letter word
catof many faces
November 8, 2012 at 8:10 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
My faith is in this inerrant titanic “http://youtu.be/Vn9-FkcbwGA”
Sorry, I’m not sure how to put a link in properly
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
November 8, 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@mandrellian, #9:
Quite. Also, we have writings that mention the word “Genesis” going back thousands of years before the birth of Spock, and it is incontrovertible that planets exist. Even though there are no known Vulcans around today (possibly due to the genocidal actions of Nero, although Orthodox Trekkers continue to insist the Gospel of Abrams is apocryphal, having been written about fifty years after the original texts) we have confirmed instances of the word “Vulcan” going back as far as, and possibly further than, “Genesis”.
CHECKMATE, non-Trekkers!
craigrheinheimer
November 8, 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Got to love that the go-to analogy is a sinking ship.
Priceless.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
November 8, 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Also, anyone who doubts the truth of Spock and his wise teaching that “the needs of many outweigh the needs of the few” will be exiled to the wastelands of Ceti Alpha V with Khan to suffer the trials of the Kobayashi Maru for all eternity. Doubt at your peril, unbelievers!
Sorry, too much fun. I’ll stop now.
jamessweet
November 8, 2012 at 9:14 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Two points to add:
First, if I were going to make a big chart and in one column put “FACTS THAT SUPPORT TITANIC’S SINKING” and in the other column I’d add “FACTS THAT SUGGEST THE TITANIC NEVER SANK”, I think it would be fair to put “Contradictory accounts regarding whether or not the ship was intact” in the latter column. For what little it’s worth, this is evidence that would be supportive of an argument that the Titanic never sank; or at the very least, it supports the argument that the eyewitness accounts are unreliable, and that any facts gleaned from those accounts alone should be considered highly suspect. It’s just that, you know, there’s overwhelming evidence in the other column for the Titanic… not so much for Jesus.
Second, that the Bible contradicts itself is not really evidence against the existence of God per se, but it is pretty strong evidence against the reliability of the Bible. If there were a new book to be published on the Titanic, and it stated on page 53 that “The Titanic definitely sank intact” and it stated on page 437 that “There is no doubt the Titanic broke in two before it sank”, that would be a pretty damning indictment of said book. If the book were furthermore riddled with similar contradictions, we might discard it altogether as completely useless for telling us anything about the Titanic.
I might still believe the Titanic sunk, but I surely wouldn’t believe anything I read in this hypothetical defective book about it. And if that were the ONLY book reporting that the Titanic sunk, well…
Kevin K
November 9, 2012 at 12:35 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
But of course, there’s more than merely a collection of post hoc writings about the Titanic. There are artifacts. There are non-eyewitness documents with regard to the existence of the Titanic that have nothing to do with its sinking. If we only had the eyewitness accounts to rely on, we wouldn’t have very much.
In the instance the existence of a Joshua from Nazareth, we got nothing.
No birth records. No independent corroboration that he lived at all. No independent corroboration of his 3-year ministry. No one not connected with the “eyewitness” accounts noticed the flocks and flocks of people who came to his sermons. Not one of the dozens of chroniclers of the place and time (whose writings HAVE survived, FWIW) seems to have noticed the quite revolutionary action of riding into Jerusalem as a king. Not one of them noticed the crowds of supporters. No one noticed the overturning of the money-changing tables (in and of itself an act of revolution – akin to launching a SCUD missile at the Capitol building.). Not one of them noticed that this amazing “new king” got arrested by the religious authorities, not one of them noticed him being delivered to Pilate, not one of them noticed that he was crucified. Not one. Even from a guy whose hobby was to recount the doings of the various Messiahs roaming the countryside. Dozens and dozens of them, all recounted by this guy. No Joshua of Nazareth. Not. One. Peep.
And THEN, decades later after these alleged events, we start getting these confusing uncorroborated accounts. We’re supposed to buy this?
Given that level of corroboration, I wouldn’t believe in the Titanic, either.
Didaktylos
November 9, 2012 at 10:52 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Oh and just to complicate matters let us also assume that are a few versions of Morgan Robertson’s “Futility” kicking about as well …
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
November 9, 2012 at 12:22 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Man, someone needs to phone James Cameron. We need a remake using NSC’s script, I’d totally go and see that movie.
hausdorff
November 9, 2012 at 3:32 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
This is a great analogy. Putting the ridiculousness of the bible into a more modern concept really drives the point home about how insane the whole thing is. I don’t think any reasonable person can listen to your hypothetical and conclude that they would believe all of those things about the titanic. In fact, if they didn’t know you were drawing the parallel between it and Jesus they would probably refuse to even accept that such a ship definitely existed based on that little information.
eequalsfb
November 9, 2012 at 4:48 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
After 20 years of oral tradition, a minnow can easily become a whale.
If an illegitimate, hippie, Jewish carpenter was able to make a similar transition, to become a perfect moral example, teacher and personal savior after the same amount of time, that wouldn’t surprise me.
The Lorax
November 9, 2012 at 5:29 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Speaking of ships that don’t exist…
3D
November 9, 2012 at 8:36 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
> Instead I’d look at those documents and say “OK,
> there was a boat called Titanic, it isn’t here now…
> I guess it probably sank. And all this other stuff
> is obviously overblown exaggerations of things that
> in all likelihood never even happened.” Would
> anyone dispute that given the documents I’ve
> imagineered here, that’s the most sensible approach
> to take?
Is it really defensible to assume Jesus existed at all though, given all the discrepancies you cited?
hausdorff
November 9, 2012 at 8:40 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
#21 (3D)
I think it would be a mistake to assume Jesus existed, however I think it is an equally big mistake to look at the discrepancies and assume he didn’t. It seems that at this point we don’t have a good way to determine with much accuracy one way or the other.
NonStampCollector
November 9, 2012 at 11:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@3D and @hausdorff
There are several very good reasons to assume that Jesus did exist. Bart Ehrman wrote a book about exactly that question earlier this year and I’ve heard him defend his position (as a Jesus-realist) in many interviews. I was convinced enough that I didn’t feel I needed to buy the book!
John Morales
November 10, 2012 at 12:18 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
[meta]
NSC, Richard Carrier Blogs right here, you know.
keithroragen
November 10, 2012 at 5:09 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Nobody ever said eyewitnesses were infallible. The Bible is supposed to be infallible.
Kendal
November 10, 2012 at 9:03 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Biblical contradictions and discrepancies disprove any claim of truth. Unlike science, the bible does not revise its position on facts, it does not revise its stance on matters or accounts.
Also @NonStampCollector I bought and read Ehrman’s ‘Did Jesus Exist’ (Kindle edition)it’s a good read. There are some gems in there, I particularly like the bit where he unpacks where the term ‘born again’ was clearly added in by a writer. The fact that the term ‘born again’ is an artifact of creative editing is a perfect example of how blind adherence sets people up for failage.
wholething
November 10, 2012 at 11:28 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The analogy should include The Wreck of the Titan for a prophecy.
Like Kendal, I also read Erhman’s Did Jesus Exist? Seeing all the evidence presented together looked very thin.
When you look at the Epistles written before the Gospels, you see lots of talk about the crucifixion and resurrection in regard to theology but no details of either. There are no references to a first century Jesus such as teachings or even an anecdote from his alleged companions. (1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 says the Jews killed Jesus, but the next verse says God’s wrath had come because of it, while verse 1:10 says God’s wrath had not yet come.)
Many scholars have traced Mark’s writings to their sources and, combined, account for nearly every passage. They are based on the stories of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Odysseus. Bartimaeus’ father probably comes from Plato. The other gospels are based on the fictions created by Mark.
Josephus listed all the High Priests of the Temple from Herod’s time until the destruction. Four of the eighteen priests were named “Jesus”. So, yeah, there were probably a lot of Yeshuas walking around, but the New Testament isn’t about any of them.
NonStampCollector
November 11, 2012 at 1:10 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Kendall @26
Yeah, it’s great when Jesus is credited with making puns in a language he didn’t speak!
John Morales
November 11, 2012 at 2:35 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
[OT]
Further to #24: Carrier’s Archive for the ‘Bart Ehrman’ Category.
NonStampCollector
November 11, 2012 at 2:43 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I’m aware that there are two sides to the “Jesus was real / Jesus is a myth” debate. That’s fine.
wholething
November 11, 2012 at 3:22 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@23
I have read a dozen Ehrman books and will continue to read him. I had the same opinion you expressed in the post until I read Did Jesus Exist? Alot of his arguments were based on imaginary documents. He used an ad hominem on Earl Doherty, saying he was crying “interpolation” like all mythicists do, even though it is the general consensus that the passage is an interpolation (The 1 Thessalonian passage I mentioned above). Ehrman used the verse in another book to establish Paul’s attitude toward the Jews.
Since it can be shown that the Epistles do not support a first century Jesus, the Gospels can be shown to be based on fiction, and the exta-biblical evidence can only show that there were people in the late first century who believed there was an early first century Jesus, there is no good reason to entertain the idea of a real Jesus.
Jafafa Hots
November 11, 2012 at 4:08 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“Yes, there was a man called Yeshua, he isn’t here now. I guess he probably lived and died like every other human. And all that other stuff about him doing supernatural stuff is obviously overblown exaggerations of things that in all likelihood never even happened.”
I used that argument once with a Jehovah’s Witness who came to the door.
We were actually talking because I hadn’t used my usual tactic of opening the door in my underwear.
His response was to sarcastically call me a fool for believing that there was a man named George Washington, since I’d never met him and only ever read of him. The whole “contemporary accounts and things written in his own hand versus twelfth-hand re-re-re-translated accounts written many years later” thing didn’t phase him, and he left chuckling to himself about what a fool I was.
And I hadn’t even claimed ol’ George could perform supernatural acts.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
November 11, 2012 at 11:56 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Just out of interest, anyone know if the claim about Titanic eyewitnesses is correct?
horsehairbraider
November 11, 2012 at 2:48 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@#33: Yes, that is true. Initially, nearly everyone claimed that the Titanic went down intact. The eyewitnesses drew pictures of this, and it was accepted that it went down in one piece for a long time, although you also had people claiming it went down in two pieces. Then more recent study showed that as the front half went down and the various compartments filled with water, it broke in half, not able to stand the strain of all the weight. However I should point out that no one is stating *exactly* how it went down, just what the evidence shows most probably. Those scientists! You can never get a straight answer out of them…
@NonStampCollector: brilliant. Loved this.
eddyline
November 11, 2012 at 3:00 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Also, Hebrew has no vowels as such; it uses accents above and below the consonants to note the voweling. This helped to mystify the Torah, as did the lack of punctuation. If the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, it would have been that much easier to force errors into subsequent copies.
Draken
November 11, 2012 at 4:52 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@33: There may have been a couple of whales, for all I know. They might still be singing about it.
Michael
November 11, 2012 at 6:25 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Reading that made my day!
I’d just add that in a few centuries, the polar ice cap and Greenland’s glaciers will have melted, so that would cast doubt on whether icebergs actually existed, making the sea demons that sank it explanation a valid alternative theory.
Crudely Wrott
November 15, 2012 at 11:50 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@ # 10, catof many faces
For the best account of the Titanic story, please take thirteen and a half minutes to listen to this explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XFYMjkFYPg
I’m sure that you, and everyone else, will find the mysteries solved and your curiosities answered in a most agreeable fashion.
Marcus Ranum
November 15, 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
You titanicists are all splitters! The real ship was the Minnow, and she was on a holy 3-hour tour!
steve314
November 15, 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Hi,
I always enjoy the opportunity to share your videos with folks that haven’t seen them.
This post was just as enjoyable – keep up the good work!
Tony ∞ºQueer Duck Hivemind Minionº∞
November 17, 2012 at 12:09 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
NSC:
No complaints here.
Satan throws way better parties and he doesn’t demand worship or human sacrifice. Plus he doesn’t lie to you like god.
innesreid
November 23, 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I really like this analogy. It would make a great nonstampcollector video.
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December 9, 2012 at 10:29 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
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