A couple of college students in Toronto (what is it with those ferocious godless heathens coming out of that city?) took offense at the patent absurdity of the “Bible and Bible Studies” section of a large bookstore at Yonge and Eglinton, and decided to help organize the shelves by filing their contents more appropriately. They quietly moved the contents to other places in the bookstore, like Fiction, Humour, Sexuality, Erotica, Cuisine, Parenting, Mental Disorder, Parapsychology and the Occult. Then they sent me a photo of the end result.
That’s Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation sitting all alone there.
I can’t really condone this kind of behavior — think of the poor clerks who have to look everywhere to find and restore the bibles to their little ghetto — but it is funny. It’s also godless Canada, so maybe nobody noticed for a few weeks or months. Maybe nobody cared.
Here’s the other side of the story.
The book-shuffler also explains his side.
Behe must be in the diesel engine repair section.
“Fiction, Humour, Sexuality, Erotica, Cuisine, Parenting, Mental Disorder, Parapsychology and the Occult”?
Er, cuisine?
Well, sure, if you think ritual imitations of cannibalism are cuisine…
Well…. The Bible could fit in the cuisine section, just remember all those references to ‘locust and honey’ casserole, and ‘loaves and fishes’ potluck…
As a former clerk at a large bookstore, this kind of thing is really annoying. It creates a lot of work for the already over-worked and under-paid employees, who are also the ones who have to deal with irate customers who want their books and want them five minutes ago.
The worst of the re-shelving by customers was during the 2004 election. Customers got nasty. Books by authors from the other side of the aisle were hidden behind books by authors the customer agreed with. Sometimes, whoever was doing this would shelve the books spine-out so that more could be covered at once. Michael Moore had to stare at the ass of Ann Coulter’s latest. If you wanted a book criticizing Bush, you had to look behind O’Reilly or Medved. In my experience, the vast majority of this re-shelving was done by right-wingers hiding left-wing books. But whichever direction it went, it was equally obnoxious.
Also, putting Bibles in the Sexuality section is pretty cruel to those who don’t fit into the Christian straight ideal, and already have to deal with a load of self-righteous condemnation from the ex-gay crowd. Christians routinely used to put Bibles in that section, as well as in Lesbian/Gay Literature. They also would put tracts, leaflets, and slips of paper advertising Jesus in random books throughout the store. “While you’re looking for the truth, the Truth is looking for you!” and then some Bible verses.
One bookcase.
One bookcase???
That game would take months in Oklahoma! You would run out of non-Bible places to put the damn things before you ran out of Bible crap!
*pouts*
Where to locate the bible was a raging controversy at my library’s recent book sale. The librarians were evenly divided between fiction and non-fiction. A solution was reached with creation of a third section for self help; this included a large pile of L. Ron Hubbard books. Interestingly, Dr. Phil’s book was placed in the fiction section.
I have to admit, I was pretty pissed when Behe’s The Edge of Evolution came out… it seemed to come out in Canada before anyone here noticed, and it caught me off-guard. I immediately picked up the pile (shelved under Evolution! in the Science section!), and deposited it immediately in the Religion section.
One bookcase?
One bookcase???
I don’t honestly ever recall seeing that much space devoted to “Bibles & Bible Studies” in even the largest bookstores. They tend to have a “Religion” section, and that’s likely got Dawkins et al. in.
I like Britain.
Mostly.
I was thinking that my local newspaper, the Washington Post, should put the astrology and religion news together. The religion section on Saturday is a hoot — last week the feature article was on belief among the Burmese that the cyclone was godly retribution because of persecution of Buddhist monks. ????? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/16/AR2008051603347.html
I remember decades ago arriving to the library stacks early and bright one morning at a large NYC university library of which I supervised the shelving, only to find the collection totally, and I mean TOTALLY out of call number order. The culprit was a student worker on LSD who re-arranged the collection via color.
It seems like “Bibles and Bible Studies” was an appropriate place for those books in the first place.
Removing all the New Age mumbo jumbo from the “Science” section would have been my priority.
Many bookstores have, in the religion section, a few shelves marked “Christian Fiction.”
This is a good place for Behe et al.
I was working in a bookstore shortly after the 2000 election recount, when somebody (a customer or coworker) moved George W. Bush’s autobiography from its original section to the True Crime section.
Mean, and work-making for the hapless employees, I agree.
But come on, didn’t you chuckle even a LITTLE bit? I know I did.
I know people that put stickers in the Gideon’s Bibles in hotels. It is kinder, gentler and much more to the point. I suppose these could go on books in bookstores too, but I would never advocate such a thing.
http://www.cafepress.com/antireligion/1116655
I believe! I believe that wrapping the Bibles in Charmin wrapping would have been much more appropriate.
BTW – Get ready for Canadian “writer” Dense O’Dreary (co-author of The Spatula Brain)to complain about this and the Godless Atheistic Church Burnin’ Darwinists on one of her numerous blog-farm links. And be prepared for her world class BAD sentence structure.
Ha, awesome! Those boys make me proud.
Although I do agree that an even sweeter move would be to remove all of the religion crap out of the science section. Nothing pisses me off more.
For about a year I lived just outside of Crystal Lake, IL which is a tiny little northwest suburb of Chicago. When I would hit the major chain bookstores I noticed that the new age stuff eclipsed the christian stuff with an estimated margin of 3 or 4 to one. The Crystal Lake/McHenry area is insanely christian and very socially conservative too. I thought it was odd.
Over the weekend, I saw a Christian bookstore with a large banner across it with the words, “going out of business sale”.
Sign of the times?
As a former overworked, underpaid bookstore clerk, I have to side with the folks who have to put the books back correctly. I prefer a more subtle approach for bookstore prankery, such as putting a *single* copy of, say, The God Delusion face out in the Bibles section. When the 10-year anniversary of Princess Di’s death came around last year and a local B&N had a huge display of titles on her arranged oh-so-reverently, I myself placed a lone copy of JG Ballard’s novel Crash front and center. Heh.
According to this blogger, it wasn’t a whole lotta fun.
Eh? Wasn’t fun? She said:
#4: of course, if you didn’t have to deal with reshelvers, half of you would be laid off.
This bookstore is actually in my neighbourhood, a few minutes’ walk from my house, but I haven’t been there in a couple of weeks. It’s a densely populated area with lots of 20- and 30-somethings. The bookstore is part of a large Canadian chain, kind of like Borders or Barnes and Noble in the USA.
Anyway, it may be a funny prank, but it created a lot of needless extra work for shop clerks who already have to put up with a lot of BS anyway.
This is maybe on the fringes of the topic, but has anyone ever noticed that on Audible (audible.de; also on audible.co.uk), there is a whole section on “Religion and spirituality” but no section devoted to “skepticism”? This is most annoying!
Plus, the Bibile cannnot be found anywhere under “fiction”
>>> I am confused…
I’m in the same boat as ERV. There seems to be a law in South Carolina that Bibles, Bible study guides, Christian fiction and “Inspirational” (apparently only Christians need inspiring) must occupy at least a third of the store.
Guys, please don’t do this sort of thing. It might strike one as funny. However not only does it make for more work for the bookstore employees (as already pointed out) it also is very close to censorship. You are actively interfering with people attempting to get access to information.
This spring, I had some fun at BarnesNoble by placing copies of The God Delusion on the New for Easter table. I sat in the cafe and watched as browsers got all riled up and stormed to the info desk to complain in the harshest terms over the outrage. It was a great entertainment.
Canadians are so hot their bookstores have two separate sections for Sexuality and Erotica?
No wonder we don’t see many Canadians down here in the southern US, where few book stores have either.
If manuals were necessary for procreation, Redneckus Americanus would be long extinct.
When I was in high school, my friends and I did, I confess, migrate Naked Lunch onto the “required summer reading” shelf. In my defense, let me note that we lived in Huntsville, Alabama, and it was either shuffle books or die of stupefaction.
Josh and SteveW,
Wah! Waaah! Waah! You might have a point if they were constantly doing this, but once? It’s a joke – that’s life. Quit yer whining. It’s not censorship, they worked in doing this at least as hard as you have to work undoing it, and it is unquestionably funny. Take it as “performance art” or something. Now this is really funny: http://improveverywhere.com/2002/04/21/warp-zone-wddd/
Get back to work slackers!
Looks like Indigo store signage. I haven’t shopped at Indigo or Chapters in about six or seven years, since CEO Heather Reisman decided she should tell Canadians what they’re allowed to read (made more serious by the fact she controlled something like 90% of the Canadian retail book trade at the time).
… and I though my bookstore was bad.
(You know, the kind where there are two complete aisles for Bibles and Bible-related books, plus at least six more for ‘Christian Fiction’ and ‘Inspirational’… but less than a single shelf for all other religions combined?)
At least they have The God Delusion on display on one of the center tables…
Pierce #28: Yes, of course. Sexuality is non-fiction biology, psychology, etc., with titles like “The birds and the bees: how to talk to your child about sex”. Erotica is mostly fiction and more fun to read, with titles like “My biggest O” and “The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty”.
Evolution has arranged it so manuals aren’t necessary for procreation. They arenecessary for recreation without procreation.
Pierce #28: Yes, of course. Sexuality is non-fiction biology, psychology, etc., with titles like “The birds and the bees: how to talk to your child about sex”. Erotica is mostly fiction and more fun to read, with titles like “My biggest O” and “The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty”.
Evolution has arranged it so manuals aren’t necessary for procreation. They arenecessary for recreation without procreation.
One of the funniest bookstore displays I have seen was done by a bookstore clerk. It was in the late Nineties when all of the conservative hacks were writing up all of those anti-Clinton books.(A quick note, I do not care for the Clintons.) So the display had books by *nn C**lt*r, Barbara Olsen and the rest of that motley crew. In the middle of the display was a copy of Confederacy Of Dunces. It keep me giggling for days.
Nephi: “Over the weekend, I saw a Christian bookstore with a large banner across it with the words, “going out of business sale”.
Sign of the times?”
Maybe, but I think that the real sign of the times is the decline in retail outlets in general, resulting in the fall of mom n’ pop stores and mighty chains (e.g. Tower) alike. Amazon and Ebay have totally changed the landscape of buying and selling. Also, music, magazines, books, video games, and movies used to be only available as physical objects; now they are increasingly downloaded digital information.
Stickers in Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms? Why? I do what I would do with any other piece of disgusting trash left behind in my hotel room… I throw it away. Preferably in the bathroom trash, where I can cover it with slightly less offensive items.
I noticed the other day that the science fiction section of the book store in my mall is bigger than Bibles, Religion, New Age and Religious Fiction combined. The other local book store is large enough that I can avoid those sections entierly, though they usually have Behe in the Science section (until I move it).
Reminded me of this.
I used to work in a Canadian bookstore, yes, with separate sexuality and erotica sections – and eventually, a fetish section thanks to a manager who special ordered a few titles in just to make the girl unpacking them blush. When she shelved them, they sold like hotcakes, so we kept ordering more in, in rapt fascination.
Anyway, one day a very attractive young woman brought “The Joy of Sex” to the cash, and mentioned she was buying it as a gift for her boyfriend, but thought it might be “inappropriate.” When she brought it back a week later for a refund, it was obvious she was dating a moron – if a beautiful woman hands you a book about sex, you read it as if it is the inerrant word of God.
anon, who woudda thunk it, but there is even a site for “Christian Fiction”.
http://www.christianfictionsite.com/
It seems to have run out of material though since the last announcement is from more than a year ago.
…if a beautiful woman hands you a book about sex, you read it as if it is the inerrant word of God.
Fair enough. But still, regardless of who’s handing it to you, it really does take some humility to accept a gift of ‘Sex for Dummies’ graciously…
Or, I mean, it would. If it had ever happened. To me. Which it hasn’t. Ever.
A few years ago, a friend of mine placed stickers similar these on every bible in a local bookstore. I know that it isn’t exactly respectful of others’ property, but we were younger back then. If I were to do this now, I think I’d just slip it between the cover, and not actually glue it on. Same sentiment, without the damage to the bookstore (there are far too few good ones around nowadays).
It seems to me it would have been just as funny, easier and much nicer to the employees to have just swapped the section title with fiction or humor, ect. Plus it might have gone unnoticed for a couple of days.
Also, did PZ misspell humor? Humour? or are there two spellings?
“Also, did PZ misspell humor? Humour? or are there two spellings?”
There are, the one with the second U is Canadian (and UK and Antipedian). I don’t know if there is a corelation between liking longer words with being godless, maybe there should be a study.
Hilarious tactic.
I don’t see moving properly identified books around. OK, I don’t understand any good reason to move any books around in a privately-owned bookstore (please tell me that it was a chain, not an independent–those guys are already endangered), but I could see why someone would move Behe (and a host of other ID and non-ID nonsense) out of the science section.
Protesting the mislabeling of pseudoscience as science is more appropriate, and probably more likely to cause lasting change (not good either way, I’ll wager).
I’d be pissed to see the Bible and its derivatives in the non-fiction section, sure, but in the Bible section? That’s all right. And while it’s more prank than censorship, it’s not the best action for anyone to do who favors free access to the written word.
That said, it’s no big deal from my standpoint. I’m mostly wondering where the employees were as people were bustling about moving a whole shelf of books to various other sections of the bookstore.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
A better title for PZ’s post would’ve been:
“Idiotic losers with nothing better to do”
I’m not the least bit surprised the “reshelving” b.s. came to this.
Nothing better to do than have fun, jsn? Lucky kids. You sound jealous.
When in a hotel room, one must always play “Hide the Bible.” That way you have much of the satisfaction without defacing property, or doing anything else of questionable legality.
I thought Bibles were like soap in hotels. It’s not illegal to steal the soap.
“please tell me that it was a chain, not an independent–those guys are already endangered”
Biggest chain in Canada, unionized work force too if that helps.
“Godless Canada?!” I will have you know that there is a headline in today’s “Hill Times” (the Parliamentary newspaper) that reads: “Hundreds flock to National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa.” Inside, there is a full page and a quarter about the monumental event, attended by a whole lot of Members of Parliament from all parties. One of the MPs quoted “is part of an initiative called the Faith and Justice Commission, which will be a forum to publicly discuss the connection between religion and politics and reaches out to people of different faiths.”
Faith and Justice do not seem especially intertwined, if I recall history. Remember: nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Our Hastings has three shelves, front and back, several shelves wide, for Christian books..
Hans and Frog:
Have you *ever* worked in a retail establishment of any sort? I would guess not. As amusing as such pranks may be, please believe me when I tell you these workers (of which I am one) don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with the aftermath these jokers leave us (do you really think this stuff doesn’t go on constantly??) nor do we need the “job security” thanks very much all the same.
Between answering queries, cashiering, putting away the stuff that gets returned along with the last minute oh-I-don’t-want-this-after-all merchandise, policing the store for trash people can’t be bothered to dispose of properly, merchandise left in random places, the destruction caused by people who just have to open the packaging to see what the product *really* looks like and unsupervised/under-supervised kids, among other things that would make your hair stand on end, believe me when I tell you we have more than enough to do.
Sorry for the rant, but I spent an extra 1 ½ hours at work last night dealing with the above issues because of a “surprise” visit from a district manager today. Which wouldn’t have me so vexed except that the store manager spent last week cutting hours so it was really bad. GRRRR!!
I work in that bookstore and I was the one who came upon those shelves just after it happened. I blogged about it and one of my readers just sent me the link to this site. My manager wasn’t really impressed and although the scavenger hunt was fun, it ate up a lot of our time on a busy Saturday afternoon.
To the culprits: By the time I reached the shelves, the copy of “Letter to a Christian Nation” was gone. They were just empty, so your prank looked more like the work of fundamentalists. Not sure it accomplished your goal.
I currently work in a large university bookstore. People with agendas who reshelve books really annoy me, as it creates a lot of additional work for my staff. I do see the humor in the picture though.
I also have to confess that we shelve Behe in the science section. I thought about changing the section code on the title, but then I realized that we have never actually sold a copy. Leave it in science to languish until it gets returned to the publisher.
Hitchens and Dawkins sell rather well of course, and are always featured at the front of the store.
Those little header cards on the shelves just slide in, right? So instead of moving the books, which is time-consuming and tiring and makes more work for the clerks, why not just print up some new headers and slip them in place? Maybe “Delusional Rantings” or “Outdated Mythology”?
At a Border’s I shop at there was a sign in the Islam section saying that the Quran MUST be shelved on the top shelf with no other books above it. Which I read as, “Quran must be shelved with books on pigs, liquor, and Judaica.” You don’t get to park your new Jag at an extreme angle taking up two spaces in the mall parking lot without getting keyed, and if you insist on some special treatment for your favorite biblio-lobotomizer, then by Darwin’s beard, it WILL get “special treatment.”
You know how when people are smart they are sometimes accused, by mere dint of their intelligence, of being “elitist”? But that’s not elitism. Demanding a top shelf by fiat is elitism, and that of the most odious type.
Is the top shelf so tall that no one can reach it? Then maybe it should be there…
When I retire and run a used bookstore, I’m so definitely going to have a section labeled “Delusional Rantings”. That would be awesome.
I sincerely wish these guys or someone like them would strike down here in the bible belt. From Florida to Tennessee, whenever you walk into a Books-A-Million, Barnes and Noble, or any other major bookseller (sometimes Borders is halfway decent about this…), you’ll find over ten shelves of just bibles, along with multiple other rows of shelves dedicated to Christian fiction, Christian literature, and other Christian titles. (I counted thirteen rows of shelves the last time I was in my Books-A-Million.) But when you go try to find anything on Philosophy, you only have to look on one bookcase of five shelves! And the other religions of the world – all of them are relegated to another single bookcase along the wall.
And God forbid (pun intended) you go into one of these stores looking for anything by Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, or any other atheist author. You people on here who want to decry the re-shelving of books due to their content should probably take the issue up with the chain bookstore managers. The one in my Florida town has actively taken atheists’ books and put them in the wrong sections, behind other texts, and bragged about it to his employees while customers (including me) could hear.
It’s not so funny when it’s turned back around on your side, now is it?
The Bible could fit in the cuisine section, just remember all those references to ‘locust and honey’ casserole, and ‘loaves and fishes’ potluck… – Blaidd Drwg
Google “Biblical diet”! so that’s how Methusaleh lived to 969!
Somehow when I first read that, I thought it said “LDS”…
I saw Letter to a Christian Nation in the Bible Studies section in my local bookstore (also in Canada), and it didn’t even occur to me until just now that it may have been misplaced. I just took it for granted that it belonged there.
Waterstones. Here I coooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeee!!!!
Isn’t “Christian Fiction” somewhat redundant? You could just put the entire “Christian” section there, save for Bible history and the like.
I am astonished at the space taken up by Bibles and other Christian religious literature reported by you people in the Southern US. What a waste of trees!
Over here in UK we have specialised bookshops such as those of the SPCK (Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge) who also stocked general fiction and non fiction works. It was from one of these SPCK shops that I purchased my first copy of Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Natural Selection way back.
What gets us over here is the space devoted to New Age nonsense.
Moving books is one thing but the managers of chain stores are normal instructed by HQ as to which sections to place books. Take it up with head office. In the meantime I have designed a bookmark around Richard Dawkins, his books and web site, print out a number in sheets of five, cut up and then place in books which are in, IMHO, the wrong area. I am pleased to report that one such book mark is still in a copy of one of Alistair McGrath’s (one of Dawkins fleas) books after six months.
To me, the sad part is not a “bible” section or a “religion” section. At the very least, they’re more or less correctly labeled.
The sad part is the “science” section, which at many major bookstores is more than half full of newage crap.
Having worked in a public library for 5 years as a student, I should probably point out how bookstore clercs should whine about reshelving the books.
Try keeping 300.000 books in alphabetical order, when 20.000 people per day are constantly pulling books out, and leaving them tables, in the wrong place or just tossing them back on the shelf. All the while helping people to find stuff that’s not ordered anymore because of abovementioned idiots.
And I still this is funny. Besides, it’s not like you’re going to fired over that. My hobby was putting a little scepticism in the “Required reading – nonfiction” case, while getting rid of the crap.
I spend my last few days at the library reordering the science section, getting rid of Behe and the like. That and loaning “The Necronomicon” to Mr. A. Alhazred, adress unknown.
I’m genuinely curious how many people here have actually read the Bible, or even just the New Testament. It’s easy to comment on and mock something you haven’t even attempted to comprehend.
It’s like someone listening to one movement of one symphony by Mozart or Beethoven and deciding that classical music is “boring.”
Godless Canada? That’s not the Canada I live it, although it would be preferable.
Why yes, twitterwill I have read the bible. The old testament and the new in several translations as well as the torah. I find it odd that you say “at least the new testament” is it’s clear the authors of the sequel depended on the original flick quite a bit (though they did make a sloppy effort to retcon it).
I think you’ll find that more skeptics, atheists, and other freethinkers have read these books than your average religious person. Even those who are very devout tend to just read specific parts….just like you accuse us of.
Dennis (#52):
I thought it was backup toilet paper. Or rolling papers for the smokers.
I have a degree in Biblical Studies from Northwestern College, where Billy Graham once was president of the school. I was a contracted proof-reader for the book of Matthew for a gender-neutral version of the New International Version of the New Testament. I worked for Worldwide Publications, the publishing arm of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Twitterwill, I will put my knowledge of the Bible against yours any time. And I can honestly say that nothing was more instrumental to my becoming an atheist than my knowledge of the Bible. My comparitive study of other religions already convinced me they couldn’t be correct, so when I discovered the same weaknesses and flaws in Christianity and the Bible…well, as Sherlock Holmes said (and I’m paraphrasing), Once one has eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth. And that, friend, is atheism. Thank you, you old scruffy Bible, for setting me free at last–by being so damn impossible to believe that you signposted reality for me.
I’m genuinely curious how many people who leave silly statements like this genuinely think that we have not read the bible. Twitterwill, if you actually took the time to read the comments at this blog, you would know that most of the people here have a better knowledge of this book then the general public or even those who claim to be christian.
You are merely just an other drive by dumbass.
Perhaps more off- than on-topic, The Grauniad is reporting Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology ‘cult’.
I always wonder why they have sections for religion and one for religious fiction…Isn’t it all fiction?
I actually think the funniest thing about this story is the comment tall penguin made in her blog: namely, that they originally thought the stunt was a theft, because the Bible is the most stolen book.
That is hilarious. That is funnier than the entire rest of the story.
How did that old saying go? “Thou shalt not… thou shalt not…” something. Feel? Kneel? Squeal? Eat veal? Well, I’m sure I’ll think of it. In the meantime, I think I’ll steal this Bible.
Sheesh.
And yes, for the record, I don’t approve of these shenanigans and the hassles they create for bookstore employees. I still think it’s funny, though.
I would have thought that it took some time to move all those books to other parts of the bookshop.
What were the staff doing during all that time ? It would suggest either the staff knew what was happening and did not stop them, or were simply not around to stop them. If it was the former it would suggest that the staff did not mind, and if it was the latter maybe it will be a lesson to them in being more attentive to your customers.
I can’t claim to be a bible expert (although I have read most of it), but speaking as a classical music expert I can tell you with authority that 99% of classical music is boring. Including most of Mozart.
Ah, but that 1 per cent!
The Grauniad is reporting Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology ‘cult’. blf@78
From the article:
Demonstrators from the anti-Scientology group, Anonymous, who were outside the church’s £23m headquarters near St Paul’s cathedral, were banned by police from describing Scientology as a cult by police because it was “abusive and insulting”.
Writing on an anti-Scientology website, the teenager facing court said: “I brought a sign to the May 10th protest that said: ‘Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.’
Looks like this guy needs good legal help, and I’m fairly confident he’ll get it – Liberty (UK’s nearest equivalent to ACLU) is on the case. Good luck to him. But I wonder if he really believes that “cults” and “religions” are readily distinguishable? I’d say a “cult” is just a young religion, a religion is just an old cult.
I think this stunt was inappropriate; it can be hard enough to find help at the average big-box bookstore without sending half the staff off to restore books to their original shelves. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh at the picture, and I can certainly understand the temptation. I came pretty close myself a few months ago – I was browsing the science section of the downtown Seattle B&N, and, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE, like a steaming dog-turd in a rose bed, was Denyse O’Leary’s “The Spatula Brain”. I would have reshelved it, but I couldn’t find the “Incoherent Bullshit” section.
@#72 twitterwill —
I have in fact read the Bible, OT and NT, and some of the apocryphal material. But I’m genuinely curious — have you actually read the Qu’ran, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of Mormon, and the Baghavad Gita? What about the Jainist Purvas? The Lotus Sutra? The Dianetics of L Ron Hubbard?
#6
“Where to locate the bible was a raging controversy at my library’s recent book sale. The librarians were evenly divided between fiction and non-fiction. A solution was reached with creation of a third section for self help; this included a large pile of L. Ron Hubbard books. Interestingly, Dr. Phil’s book was placed in the fiction section.”
Nobody suggested Mythology? Seems obvious to me.
-OEJ
The worst thing in the UK is the Newage books next to, and often intermingled, with the philosophy. There is nothing that makes me more fearful for Western intellectual civilization than Kant or Wittgenstein located next to Deepak Chopra.
Poor clerks but MAN that’s funny!!!
I loved pulling pranks like that as a kid.
Greta Christina @ #80 said: “I actually think the funniest thing about this story is the comment tall penguin made in her blog: namely, that they originally thought the stunt was a theft, because the Bible is the most stolen book.”
Hmm. My first thought was of a gaunt guy in a long coat, pacing outside the bookshop and muttering: “Gotta get my fix. Gotta get gotta get my God fix. How? How? Just how?”
And then he goes in and steals a Bible.
Etha:
And you? Have you read all these books? If yes, bravo. I read some parts of the Bible, and the Qu’ran, but it is really boring. I prefer comics…
twitterwill and #72
Well I have. I’ll go further. My grandfather was a Baptist minister and I was brought up by a believing mother who insisted on Sunday School and Church. In my early teens I was babptised and took extra curricular scripture lessons, studying the Bible in depth and sat scripture examinations which I passed with high marks – the highest in the area as it happens. So I have done a little more than simply read the bible.
Indeed it was those very scripture studies whereby I began to notice inconsistancies and contradictions and also the nature of god as expounded by Dawkins at the start of Chapter 2 of The God Delusion. Being keen on each of the sciences and geography I was up with paleantological discoveries of the day and then I happened on Darwin’s ‘The Origin of Species’, in that SPCK shop and the rest, as they say, is history.
@ #82
Actually considering the size and traffic of these stores, you could pull this stunt no problem, especially if you have a few people helping out. Although I find the prank amusing, I do feel for the Chapters (or indigo, doesn’t matter they own most canadian book stores) workers, they’re usually few on duty and are often very busy so this certainly didn’t help. I side with who ever said to just switch the placard title, perhaps “creative delusional fiction” would’ve been appropriate :D
Damn right we canucks are godless, atleast in the more metro areas. Northern Ontario, and other areas is a whole other matter though.
@#89 Daniel R —
No, I haven’t…I was just pointing out the folly of the assertion that you can’t be critical/mocking of a religious belief if you haven’t read their holy book.
I read Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. It changed my life. Just like this guy:
#72 Twitterwill
“I’m genuinely curious how many people here have actually read the Bible, or even just the New Testament. It’s easy to comment on and mock something you haven’t even attempted to comprehend.”
I have read the Bible, NT and OT, more than once. I think you would be surprised how many atheists and agnostics have done so and how few Christians have. Many Christians get the cherry picked crumbs handed to them by their clergy, properly filtered and framed, but don’t bother to dig deeper.
Contrary to your assertion, the more you read the Bible, the easier it is to mock. It is full of inconsistencies, cruelties, and outright falsehoods. If it’s read without the rose-tinted glasses of an apologist, it becomes obvious that it’s a contrivance of man and not the holy word of a supreme being.
-OEJ
bravo to all the commenters here and those who linked over to tall penguin’s blog.
it is always a pleasure to visit pharyngula because the comment threads are so delightfully literate and informed, not to mention laughter producing.
that being said, given the amount of time i have spent in bookstores over my 50+ years, i had heard of shelf-swapping.
as hilarious as it was to read about, i too must chide those who would put the additional burden on our fellow wage-slaves. replacing the signage seems like much the better idea.
and thank you to tall penguin for keeping her sense of humor in spite of the additional burden it caused.
i, for one, do not approve of this.
can you imagine perusing the other shelves, and continuously running into bibles and christian crap? they have a section for it because there’s so much of it that even if they did properly integrate it, it would dilute the other stuff too much. imagine if a bookstore had twice as many lord of the rings books as they did anything else in “fantasy.” we’re talking two shelves worth of JUST the four books themselves, and another two shelves of analysis and literary commentary all by different authors with different titles — as well as cookbooks, songbooks, spin-offs, role-playing strategy guides, etc. it’s make more sense for them to be grouped together than strewn throughout all those other sections.
in any case, the other blog seems to indicate that books were not put in appropriate sections. not even close. putting all the bibles in “fiction” might have been a good joke, but they seemed to have been placed all over the store. and while there are a lot of genres of literature in the bible, this doesn’t seem like a particularly good way to do it. it just comes across more like a fundie christian trying to insert the bible into everything.
and it just makes work for the employees, who are NOT the target. it’s very inconsiderate.
well, for crying out loud …
you would THINK i would “preview” first.
what i meant to say was that i had NEVER heard of shelf-swapping.
the rest of my comment is as intended.
So next we’ll be doing to the same to shelves of Korans, right?
And the Tanakh & Talmud? And the works of other religions?
Oh wait… that would be “hate.”
(To the kangaroo courts of Canada’s so-called Human Rights Commissions, it probably would be.)
But pranks with the Bible? Oooh, so SUBVERSIVE and FUNNY! I salute your faux-transgressive spirit, mighty collegiate freethinkers. Rock on!
No doubt their next project is to obscure or hinder access to books on other irrational, untenable belief systems… like Marxism, say? I cannot wait.
PS – I’m an atheist.
Greta Christina (#80) – I thought that tidbit about the bible being the most stolen book was interesting as well!
Just saw this:
“At a Border’s I shop at there was a sign in the Islam section saying that the Quran MUST be shelved on the top shelf with no other books above it. Which I read as, “Quran must be shelved with books on pigs, liquor, and Judaica.” You don’t get to park your new Jag at an extreme angle taking up two spaces in the mall parking lot without getting keyed, and if you insist on some special treatment for your favorite biblio-lobotomizer, then by Darwin’s beard, it WILL get “special treatment.””
That’s more like it. Bravo.
But… there is still the more important ethical point of appointing ourselves as InfoCops over other peoples’ reading interests.
If we go to a bookstore or a public library and hide – yes, HIDE, let’s not mince words – books we don’t care for, we are betraying our own values. We are acting from no legal, philosophical or ethical principle outside of the desire to control what information others have access to… just like traditional religious censors. Congratulations. What an achievement.
This is not what skepticism, freethought, rationalism, call-it-what-you-will is about. Remember us? We’re the MORE information side. The knowledge-lovers. Pro-science. The empiricists. The ones who are NOT afraid of myths and monsters and the ancient scrolls which tell of such things.
BrainFromArous, you of course raise an excellent point and I don’t really disagree, but isn’t there something very galling about finding, as my girlfriend and I did recently, “Of Pandas And People” in the SCIENCE section of Barnes & Noble? And what about the demand for a place of privilege for the Quran on the top shelf? The last thing I would be in favor of is out-and-out censorship, but I would maintain that what is really going on, at least in some cases, is justifiable. Religion pretending to be science, or the febrile gibberings of nomads pretending to be the Book of Books, is ripe for SOME sort of reprisal. If the bookstore owners and workers are too cowed to do the right thing–keeping the religious books together and offering them no special pride of place–then isn’t a little bit of nondestructive “performance art” commentary warranted? I am not for “my side” becoming a bunch of jerks who can’t stand the very sight of something religious and trying to hide it from whoever wants it…but is this not a way of expressing what we really think, that the religious don’t play fair? “Of Pandas and People” is NOT science–Judge John E. Jones said as much. And the Quran–well, I haven’t read it, but I very much doubt it’s better than a lot of other old books.
I chuckled at the the joke, but realise that extra work would fall on the book store staff.
Nevertheless some way of registering disaproval of particular books (short of censorship) seems necessary in the culture wars. Why not leave books like ‘Of Pandas and People’ in place but turn them upside down? They can still be found easily, and could probably be left upside down as people can generally work out what the title is. If the store staff must tidy the shelves then the work involved, although probably unwelcome, is trivial.
Twitterwill’s comment reminds me of an excellent comment posted by Kingasaurus on the New Jack Chick Tract thread that bears repeating here:
Sounds like twitterwill thinks the words are magic too.
My fundie ex-roommate was the same. Even though we’d been friends for years (pre-his being born again), he had to somehow ‘forget’ that I was raised far more religious than he ever had been and had read the bible cover to cover or else deny that I was (and am) an atheist. He’d trot out some stupid story or parable as if just by hearing it for the first time I’d somehow have a godgasm. Even when I corrected him on the stories (of course, I knew them better), he’d plow on as if I hadn’t just demonstrated that my knowledge of the bible was superior.
A case in point was the story of Solomon and the two prostitutes. Solomon cleverly deduces the real mother of the remaining child by offering to cut it in half. Now, I’m sure Twaddle has some convoluted theology to explain this, but if you encounter an individual whose response to idea of cutting a baby in half is “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!” do you really need God-given wisdom to deduce that she’s batshit fucking insane, and real mother or not, should not be left alone with children? As if the tinfoil hat didn’t already give it away. How is this story even plausible, let alone evidence of superior human wisdom?
My roommate answered this by speculating that the Jews of the time, not being God-fearing folk, were not sensitive to life and death and didn’t care about their children. He didn’t have an answer when I asked if she planned to hollow out her half-baby and serve a spinach dip in it.
Oh yeah. He still believes The Protocols were not a forgery, so he’s got that whole True Christians™ hate Jews thing going on.
Anyways, I’ll put my biblical knowledge against someone like twitterwill’s any day, and I’m sure I know less of the book than most of the posters here. David Marjanović and Moses, just to name two, would absolutely slaughter twitterwill in a How well do you know your bible? contest.
Tall penguins are the best birds.
And did that improve things, or make them more difficult?
I had the National Library of Education under my watch for a few wonderful months. The Reaganauts decided it was a good candidate for contracting out the labor. We had employed a goodly number of handicapped people to maintain order in the library, and they were very good at their work — I wondered sometimes whether the administration had targeted them because they were handicapped, but I got a letter saying that was not so . . .
Anyway, after tests, the contract bidders came in at about 50% of the cost of the low-cost workers we had. It was almost a done deal until one of the library workers came to me to complain she thought the process was unfair. Unfair?
Yes. She explained that the Office of Personnel Management had run timed tests to see who could reshelve books the fastest. The cost savings were based solely on that criterion. The test was unfair, though, this woman said — because the handicapped workers had thought it was important to put the books back in the call number order so they could be found again, and the contractors did not do that.
We checked the shelves. The books the contractors had reshelved were all over the place. Thousands of dollars worth of damage to the order of the library.
I protested to OPM. They said they would stop the process. They waited to make the shift until about a year after I left.
It became necessary to destroy the library to save it, I suppose, in the eyes of the Reaganauts.
I’m a librarian, so I get paid to put books away all day long. That’s my job. The more books I have to put away doesn’t make me groan–I’d have nothing to do otherwise. If I happened to be one of the employees at this particular Barnes & Noble, I would be far too humored to be upset to see such a spectacle. But then I’m a Bible hating atheist. Of course I’d laugh. As long as they put the books in relatively easy to find places, I wouldn’t mind.
I dunno, just seems like dickery, what if similar students hid all the books on secularism and evolution and stuck Bibles in their place for those sections? How would you feel?
Not sure why “Bible and Bible Studies” is a “patent absurdity” ina bookstore, since it is a book after all, and there is such things as apologetics and theology. Totally cool if you think its all a waste of time and space, but all it does is make some employee’s day a little bit harder.
It’s possible to know the Bible according to the letter, but not appreciate its meaning. This is especially true of people who grow up in Christian households.
I’m game, for those who want to challenge me.
Let’s compare notes. What are the different offerings in the book of Leviticus, and how do they typify Christ? (An example: the meal offering typifies the pure humanity of Christ.)
Concerning the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: How is the God of Abraham a picture of God the Father, the God of Isaac a picture of Christ the Son, and the God of Jacob a picture of the Holy Spirit? Please give details about how the stories of the three Patriarchs describe the Triune God as revealed in the New Testament.
Why is the blood of Christ superior to the blood of Abel, and the ministry of Aaron superior to the ministry of Melchizedek?
How is the crossing of the Red Sea different from the crossing of the Jordan, when both are pictures of baptism?
What is the significance of the Jewish feasts in the Gospel of John, and how does Christ fulfill them?
Let’s have at it. I’m game to be slaughtered.
I’m genuinely curious how many people here have actually read the Bible, or even just the New Testament. It’s easy to comment on and mock something you haven’t even attempted to comprehend.
It’s like someone listening to one movement of one symphony by Mozart or Beethoven and deciding that classical music is “boring.”
Hey Twitterwill: Lots of us (myself included) did not come upon godlessness by chance. I read the bible, new and old testaments. Even the “begats.”
And THEN I decided it was utter twaddle, the musings of a primitive mind struggling to explain stuff it didn’t understand. Read it yourself.
I’m always surprised at how many bible-thumpers haven’t read it cover-to-cover. I mean, if you’re going to have a book inform your worldview, even dominate it, don’t you think you ought to know what it says?
It would have been far more easy just to cover up the sign with another one that said “Delusional bullshit” and call it a day.
Then again, I’m really lazy.
As I recall, the story of Solomon’s decision about the baby is actually supposed to be a parable of sorts from Solomon to his political enemies of the time. The baby is meant to represent Israel, and Solomon is saying that he’ll destroy it if he doesn’t get his way. Or something like that, it was a while ago.
Infantile self indulgence alert:
my favourite bookstore prank is to re-sequence the label on the ‘Local History’ shelf ….
BigBob
Gosh, the most I ever do is move “The Edge of Evolution” to the fiction shelves.
twitterwill, re your #108, I know Grim’s Fairy Tales and the Lord of the Rings just as well as you know the bible. I also know they are fiction. I consider everything you wrote about to be fiction, and of almost zero interest. Yes, I have read the bible, some nice poetry, some real horror stories, some nice guidelines (new testament) and some down right hideous things. We have all heard the word of god, atheists, if that is what you wish to call me, just do not believe it matters. That said, I feel for you as a brother, if you know your genesis.
However, I am sure you will find someone to play with.
Ciao
Triangulate. Always triangulate.
Ah, I was just in that bookstore this weekend! I wish I had seen it…
It’s a lame and tiresome prank. If you’re going to pull pranks, at least make them witty and original. And, as a previous poster pointed out, clearly the Bibles were shelved correctly in the first place under “Bibles and Bible Studies”, so it’s not like it even makes a clever statement.
This type of crude, imaginationless stunt sounds like typical BFC work. The BFC is, or at least was, an engineering group at the University of Toronto that tries to pull clever stunts and instead ends up doing things that rank just above vandalism. For example, there was a plaza with square paving stones, and they painted a pixellated version of the BFC logo on it. Nothing clever, nothing risky, the only skill required was the ability to design a pixellated version of their logo, and then match the coordinates of the squares on the piece of paper with the coordinates of the squares in the paved area, and apply the correct colour. And the bookstore prank has about that level of style.
Also, this being Canada, note that college students != university students in normal usage. (“College” refers to either community college (i.e. not a degree-granting institution), or a college within a university, which is an administrative subunit roughly comparable to the way they have colleges at English universities, although in most instances it amounts to being associated with a particular student residence for the students, or having one’s office in a different building, for faculty.) Assuming typical American usage, these were likely “university students” in usual Canadian usage.
Pedantically, if they were University of Toronto students (U of T is near the bookstore in question if it’s the Indigo at Bay and Bloor), they would quite likely also be enrolled in a college at the University (since all undergraduate students in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences there are enrolled in a college), although no one would refer to them as “college students”.
Brownian #103, the wisdom wasn’t in Solomon’s seeing that the one who said “Okay, slice the baby” was batshit insane: it was in his suspecting beforehand that offering to bisect the baby would reveal the true mother –i.e. he was a good enough judge of character to see that the false claimant was batshit insane and to spontaneously come up with a strategy to reveal that. Dunno about you, but I would not be able, for example, to walk into a contentious faculty meeting and do the same.
@#108 twiterwill —
Like much of theology, implicit in your questions is acceptance of the basic Christian doctrines (trinity, etc).
The first part of this question is easily enough answered: the five offerings are the burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering, sin offering, and trespass offering. The second part runs into trouble by assuming theological agreement with the Xian conception of Christ; instead of asking whether or not they typify Christ, it assumes this and then asks how they do. They don’; they are a religious element (sacrifice) common to many ancient superstitions.
Another assumption with the use of how (and as revealed). They don’t describe the triune god, because the triune god doesn’t exist. The trinity was not revealed in the New Testament; it was invented there.
Again, you don’t ask “is the blood of Christ superior”; you ask why it is, assuming that the first answer is yes. It’s not. Both are just hemoglobin in the first case, and wasted time and energy in the second.
Here, you assume that both are pictures of baptism. They’re only readable as such through extensive Xian retconning. Like many myths, they have commonalities and differences, but none of these have to do with baptism, except in the context of later made-up Xian theology.
The Jewish feasts are included as an appeal to John’s target audience, namely, Jewish unbelievers. As John wrote, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John XX 31). Since it was intended to convert, obviously it was important that Jesus be depicted as having fulfilled these, but there’s no evidence that he actually did so.
And you still haven’t answered my question: have you actually read the Qu’ran, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of Mormon, and the Baghavad Gita? What about the Jainist Purvas? The Lotus Sutra? The Dianetics of L Ron Hubbard? Any number of other self-proclaimed holy books? If not, how can you dismiss their possible wisdom out of hand?
Also, I like the moving of the goalposts here:
Twitterwill in #72:
Twitterwill in #108:
It’s always interesting when believers fault skeptics for not having sufficient awareness of a given religion’s writings, doctrine and traditions – going so far as to imply or state outright that this dearth of knowledge might be the cause of unbelief.
This nicely avoids the cold fact that some of the most articulate and scholarly skeptics around came right out of evangelical and ministerial ranks – Bart Erhman, Robert Price, Hector Avalos, etc. – and have encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.
It also a classic case of Special Pleading. I dare say that your average “educated” contemporary Christian could not name the members of Asgard or identify Yggdrasil with a pistol to his head. (No points for Thor; he has his own comic book.)
He knows, he just KNOWS, that the religion of the pagan Scandinavians was nonsense or worse; he feels no obligation to actually learn anything about it. Why should he?
But of course anyone doubting HIS religion either “hasn’t read the Bible” or “doesn’t understand it.” The double standard is jaw-dropping.
Re: Moving Behe from Science–Evolution to Religion.
People who are more likely to buy Behe’s book are probably going to be browsing in the Religion section. Many of them would not be caught dead browsing the evolution section. Those looking specifically for Behe will find him eventually regardless where his book is classified.
So ironically, we are better off with Behe in the science section. Which is appropriate anyways. Classification is not the appropriate place for editorial comment or for deciding the merit of the books contents. And besides, it is the stores decision and wasting people’s time by childish reshelving is simply unethical.
If these kids really wanted to be funny or make a statement, they should set up their own bookstore and organize it so that the Bible, Quran, various New Age stuff, etc. fall into the mythology section. That’s what I would do, at least.
From time to time I think I should read the bible in order to try and better understand where its adherents are coming from – I do have a passing knowledge of it from my early years as a Sunday-school goer – but then I calculate the amount of free time I have against the list of books that I really want to read and decide against it.
It does seem to be a standard Xian comeback – ‘how can you not believe in the bible if you haven’t read it? It could change your life etc.’ – but, as Etha (and others) said, it can just as easily be put to them that they haven’t read the Koran or Dianetics.
I have read (shudder) Battlefield Earth, though – someone let that man start a religion? Why not a good sci-fi writer? Vonnegut had Bokonism in Cat’s Cradle and that’s far better than million-year-old dead alien spirits. And he (Vonnegut) would certainly appreciate the irony…
I actually tried to read the Book of Mormon once. I’ve read the Bible, a bunch of the Upanishads, some Krisna krap, and a little bit of other religious works, but none of them could beat the B.M. for sheer terrible writing (I have not read anything L. Ron wrote, so I accept arguments from that direction). It is written in a style that is so obviously a bad attempt at King-James-Bibleish English that I can not believe that any literate person can assume it to be anything other than a woeful hack of an author who is in way over his head.
@twitterwill: (#109)
ok, i’ll bite. what’s the significance of genesis 22 in the christian faith, and how does it differ from the traditional jewish interpretation? how is this connected to leviticus 18:21?
trick question. christ in no way fits the standards of any levitical offering. nevermind that the correct rituals were not followed, but the question of ownership is a rather large one. see, under levitical law, one gives according to what they can, from their own flock or their own labor. one cannot give their neighbour’s possessions. or their father’s.
the word “offering” is also key here. one offers of a willing heart, not a demand to satiate god’s bloodlust. god makes quite clear in leviticus 5 that non-blood-offerings (that meal offering you cited) are just fine if you have no flock. god makes extra clear through the prophet isaiah (in the very first chapter of his book) that he does not even enjoy sacrifices. similar sentiment is echoed psalms 40 and 51.
please note that this is not a “letter” a thing, but a spirit of the old testament, particularly the book of leviticus, that you seem to have misunderstood. comparing christ’s sacrifice to those offered in leviticus makes no sense even symbolically if one has actually read leviticus without skimming through it out of boredom. you have quite simply missed the meaning of “atonement” as most christians have.
another trick question. the gods of abraham, and of isaac, and of jacob are in fact the same god. singular — one god. not three. not three-in-one. one god, and only one god. to have read different aspects into those stories is just blindly searching for links to false dogma.
that question doesn’t even make sense.
i’m starting to wonder if you’re fishing for platitudes at this point. but i’m also surprised that you picked a relatively unknown name out of the book of genesis, and seem to have connected him to yahweh’s high priest in exodus. which is actually impressive. but let’s talk about melchizedek for a second.
exactly what is a priest of yahweh doing in (jeru)salem while abraham is still wandering in the desert? didn’t god reveal himself to the hebrews, specifically the sons of abraham?
the sea of reeds and they are essentially the same miracle. neither is a picture of baptism — the hebrews never once touch water in either story. one needs to get that “letter” right before they get the meaning. you can’t go willy-nilly on about whatever meaning you want when your meaning contradicts the story.
in any case, let’s talk for a second about the meaning baptism, starting with what john the baptist said of it, and why we then still do it. further, please examine the historical link between christian baptism and jewish ritual cleanliness and the mikvot.
i got a better one for you. why does the siddur at pesach in the gospel of john not line up with the last supper, as in the other gospels?
@Autumn: (#127)
yeah, it makes the bible look valid by comparison. i… i know mormons. they’re good people. some are pretty smart. but. hot damn what a silly book. between the trying-too-hard shakespearean style (already out of use by the time smith wrote), and the fake-hebrew names, and the, well, general absurdity of it all…
i mean, there’s one section that copies, word for word, isaiah 14 in the KJV. isaiah was written after the characters in the B of M were supposed to have left jerusalem. and, if that’s not bad enough, the book was supposed to have been written in some form of egyptian (coptic?), on metal plates that were clearly insufficient in surface area to contain even just that chapter of isaiah, and even if it was written in heiroglyphs, and deciphered it magic glasses. and it matches another translation (one that was in every household at the time), from a different source language, down to the comma. oh, man, i know religion stretches credulity, but COME ON NOW.
Arach,
Don’t forget that choice bit about American Indians being a lost tribe of ancient Israelites.
“To the culprits: By the time I reached the shelves, the copy of ‘Letter to a Christian Nation’ was gone. They were just empty, so your prank looked more like the work of fundamentalists.”
It looked like the work of fundamentalists anyways, imho.
I guess I didn’t find it funny because sometimes atheists like myself a) have crappy jobs and don’t like cleaning up after pranks by religious or non-religious fundamentalists, and b) like to read actual books about the religion we’re rejecting. Having them scattered or hidden doesn’t help or even hurt anyone except the clerks.
But boy, can you imagine the IMPACT this must have had on a religious person looking for Christian books???? I imagine it went something like this:
“Oh noes! The bibles aren’t in the bible section! I guess I’d better buy a Christopher Hitchens book instead and declare him my god; and then move bibles around in other stores. LOL I am so funny and original. LOL those religious morons won’t know what hit them!”
For anyone doubting how truly ridiculous the faux-KJV in the BoM is:
Comfortedest?!
So this is why atheists are better than anyone else. Wow, you guys just keep on proving yourselves. Amazing.
It takes a huge amount of intelligence to pull this off.
This is what I am saying. Atheism really improves humankind.
Just in case most of you didn’t get the obvious (almost all the time you don’t), this was sarcasm.
twitterwill? Your silence is deafening. I told you people would come out to play with you, they did, and you appear to have run. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you went to bed. If that is true, then I will check back on this thread later today for your responses.
Etha, re your #132, I noted the same things when I tried to read the BoM. I have enough trouble reading the regular bible, much less “jesus, the western”. On another note, when do you sleep?????
Question for the room. I usually read the latest post and then play catchup , but the latest is another kennygasm and my filters are still up for him. How goes that, is he any better or still just a little tiresome turd in the punchbowl of discourse? I do wish he would just come out of the closet and be a little clearer about his hopes, hates, fears and needs.
Ciao
Actually, Jeffrey D, I have a life. I left work (where I had some “downtime” to spend here), ate dinner with the family, enjoyed playing with my kids, put them to sleep, took care of some practical matters, and then went to sleep. I didn’t have the time or inclination to come here immediately. I’m here now. So don’t be so quick to say “Your silence is deafening.” Patience, my good man, patience.
I’ll read through some of the responses today as I have time. I do have a real job, which is “feast or famine,” and if time allows I’ll interact with you and other commenters. If I don’t, please don’t presume that I have “run.” You sound like an adolescent school-yard bully who has yet to grow up.
I’ll write more when I can, and when I feel so inclined.
(For the sake of not posting too long, I will quote only what I am responding to directly. Please look at the original post (in this case #121) to understand the context.)
…the five offerings are the burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering, sin offering, and trespass offering. … instead of asking whether or not they typify Christ, it assumes this and then asks how they do. They don’; they are a religious element (sacrifice) common to many ancient superstitions.
Burnt offering = Christ as the fully consecrated one
Meal offering = Christ in His perfect humanity
Peace offering = Christ as the peacemaker, reconciling man to God
Sin offering = Christ as the sacrifice for man’s sinful nature
Trespass offering = Christ as the sacrifice for man’s sinful deeds
You may reject this perspective, but it is a common Christian interpretation. When Jesus spoke to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, He revealed to them that the Old Testament actually spoke about Him. He is, for example, the fulfillment of the offerings, allowing access to God’s house (in the Old Testament, the tabernacle and the temple; in the New Testament, the church).
The trinity was not revealed in the New Testament; it was invented there.
So when Genesis has God saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” that doesn’t count? There are numerous references to the nature of God in the Old Testament as being triune. The most obvious is the God (singular) of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (plural).
God of Abraham = Got the Father: Abraham was the father of faith, and offered his son as a sacrifice.
God of Isaac = Christ the Son: Isaac inherited the riches of his father, and willingly allowed himself to be offered by his father.
God of Jacob = the Holy Spirit: Jacob was transformed into Israel by a process of God’s workmanship.
Again, you don’t ask “is the blood of Christ superior”; you ask why it is, assuming that the first answer is yes. It’s not. Both are just hemoglobin in the first case, and wasted time and energy in the second.
Fine, but I think this indicates a lack of knowledge of the Bible. You and others assume you know the Bible better than many Christians. But the blood of Christ being superior to the blood of Abel is from the book of Hebrews. Have you read the book of Hebrews? You may disagree with it, but at least you should provide an answer that shows you know where the comparison comes from.
The blood of Christ speaks of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The blood of Abel speaks of judgment, vengeance, and condemnation. The blood of Christ is comparable to the blood from the Passover Lamb, which prevents God’s judgment from proceeding against His people.
Here, you assume that both are pictures of baptism. They’re only readable as such through extensive Xian retconning. Like many myths, they have commonalities and differences, but none of these have to do with baptism, except in the context of later made-up Xian theology.
Again, you and others here say that you know the Bible better than most Christians. The reason the Red Sea is considered to be a type of baptism is because of 1 Peter. Have you read 1 Peter? If not, read it and get back to me.
The Jewish feasts are included as an appeal to John’s target audience, namely, Jewish unbelievers.
Wrong. Jesus did particular signs (miracles) that coincided with particular feasts. You may disagree with the significance, or even the historical accuracy, but at least explain it to me. For example, why is the Feast of Tabernacles important, and how was it fulfilled by what Jesus spoke during its celebration?
And you still haven’t answered my question: have you actually read the Qu’ran, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of Mormon, and the Baghavad Gita? What about the Jainist Purvas? The Lotus Sutra? The Dianetics of L Ron Hubbard? Any number of other self-proclaimed holy books? If not, how can you dismiss their possible wisdom out of hand?
I’ve read some of the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, and the Bhagavad Gita (check your spelling). Some books on zen. Skimmed the book of Mormon but found it laughable, like other posters. Studied ancient religions so that would include the Book of the Dead, but never read it. Have not read the others on your list. I do not dismiss any possible wisdom from any source out of hand. I’ve also read Plato in original koine Greek.
From twitterwill – Reponse to Etha Williams at # 122
Also, I like the moving of the goalposts here:
Twitterwill in #72: I’m genuinely curious how many people here have actually read the Bible, or even just the New Testament. It’s easy to comment on and mock something you haven’t even attempted to comprehend.
Twitterwill in #108: It’s possible to know the Bible according to the letter, but not appreciate its meaning.
What goalposts did I move?
On one hand, I think many here (and many atheists and agnostics) talk about the Bible and Christian “mythology” without having read the Bible. I consider that anti-intellectual. Perhaps many here are not like this, but I have met plenty who are.
On the other hand, it’s possible to have read the Bible, and know it objectively, without being open to what it’s really about, the spiritual reality behind the words. “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” So if someone reads the Bible and rejects it, one possibility is that his pride prevents him from actually entering into what is really there. The Bible is not meant only for objective rational knowledge, but for subjective experience. But it requires a revelation of the focus of the Bible (Christ), which is a gift that depends on our willingness to receive it.
twitterwill, re you #135, I gave you benefit of the doubt that you might have gone to bed, which would include your other activities without specifying them, and stated I would check back later. In return, give me the benefit of the doubt and do not accuse me of attempting to bully you. Everyone here has a life and most have jobs or duties that require attention. Giving me the rundown of your schedule is not necessary, just say you are busy.
To be very clear, you own me no comments whatsoever, I asked no questions of you. I see you have begun to answer substantive questions/comments, specifically those posed by Etha and applaud that. I will now go and read the exchanges and consider them.
To be clear on another point, and possibly unnecessarily, I am not asking for an apology or making one. Comments are comments. Opinions are opinions. If you wish mine of you, you are welcome to them for the asking.
Ciao
From twitterwill – Response to BrainFromArous at # 123
This nicely avoids the cold fact that some of the most articulate and scholarly skeptics around came right out of evangelical and ministerial ranks – Bart Erhman, Robert Price, Hector Avalos, etc. – and have encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.
I don’t it is avoiding anything. You could just as easily speak of people who began as atheists or agnostics, or who were militantly anti-Christian, and who then became Christians. They also have encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.
For example, there are millions of Christians (who would call themselves “born again”) in China, and many of them have testified about how they hated God or rejected the notion of God, until they came across a copy of the Bible and read it. You don’t have to agree with their decision, or believe that their experience was valid. But reading the Bible often lays the foundation for faith to those who become Christians. The fact that it sometimes does not isn’t really a “cold fact” that must be avoided.
Statistically, how many Ehrman’s, Price’s, and Avalos’s are there (from Christian to non-Christian), compared to the number of people who went the other direction (from non-Christian to Christian), based on a knowledge of the Bible?
I dare say that your average “educated” contemporary Christian could not name the members of Asgard or identify Yggdrasil with a pistol to his head. (No points for Thor; he has his own comic book.)
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have studied Norse mythology in depth, and am very familiar with Wagnerian opera which of course utilizes Norse and Germanic myths.
He knows, he just KNOWS, that the religion of the pagan Scandinavians was nonsense or worse; he feels no obligation to actually learn anything about it. Why should he?
Let’s be real. Most people don’t argue about the existence of Loki. But whether Christ is the Son of God is a much more relevant question in our culture. I would suspect that you personally do not feel threatened by believers in Norse mythology, because you rarely if ever come across anyone who takes them seriously. But you certainly come across people who take Christianity and/or the Bible seriously. They are all around you. (I don’t mean that in a “we’re taking over so be paranoid” way.)
No doubt for some people, a myth is a myth, and the Christian gospel is as ridiculous as the Gotterdamerung. But millions of people believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believe that this has transformed their lives and will impact their eternal destiny. Very few people believe that the Norse myths have any bearing on their own personal lives.
By the way, are you aware that J.R.R. Tolkein converted C.S. Lewis to Christianity by speaking of Christ as the world’s greatest myth, except that it is true? Read up on it if you haven’t already.
But of course anyone doubting HIS religion either “hasn’t read the Bible” or “doesn’t understand it.” The double standard is jaw-dropping.
See above. I don’t think it is a double standard, because Christianity (regardless of what anyone thinks about it) is a force to be reckoned with in the real world, while Norse mythology is not.
I would add one thing. I often hear the sentiment that the reason people don’t believe in evolution is that they are uneducated. Isn’t it possible that the reason people (such as yourself) don’t believe in Christ is that they are uneducated? Isn’t this also a potential double-standard? My point is that if you are going to mock Christians and insult their intelligence, it might pay to actually know what they believe. Of course, some people do, and are familiar with the Bible. But I suspect many (including some posters here) do not. They think they know more than they really do, and are not qualified to render so many disdainful judgments.
From twitterwill – Response to arachnophilia at # 128
what’s the significance of genesis 22 in the christian faith, and how does it differ from the traditional jewish interpretation? how is this connected to leviticus 18:21?
The significance to the Christian faith is obvious: the offering of Isaac is considered a type (symbolic picture) of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. You will notice, for example, that Isaac bears the wood himself, which is a picture of Christ carrying the cross Himself. I have heard different Jewish interpretations of the passage, so I’m not sure what you mean by “the traditional” one.
Leviticus 18:21 forbids the children of Israel from offering a child to Molech. Molech was a god/idol of the Canaanites and other cultures (which were enemies to Israel). Molech is considered to be the same as Ba’al, who appears often in the Old Testament, i.e. the story of Elijah. Because Abraham was not offering Isaac (his only begotten son, since Ishmael was rejected) to Molech, but rather being faithful to the God who called him out of Ur, there is no connection. Also, the children offered to Molech actually died. Isaac was spared and a ram offered in his place.
trick question. christ in no way fits the standards of any levitical offering.
In typology He does, see above, comment #136.
nevermind that the correct rituals were not followed
How on earth would you know that???
but the question of ownership is a rather large one. see, under levitical law, one gives according to what they can, from their own flock or their own labor. one cannot give their neighbour’s possessions. or their father’s.
I like the way you say, “see, under levitical law…” as if I know nothing about it. Thanks for informing me. Ownership is not relevant to how Christ fulfills the offerings. There were these five main offerings (as well as minor ones like the drink offering and wave offering), and Christians believe that Christ fulfilled them in His life, ministry, and death on the cross. Those offerings are found throughout the Old Testament, and were offered by the Levitical priests continuously, both at the tabernacle in the wilderness and at the temple in Jerusalem.
the word “offering” is also key here. one offers of a willing heart, not a demand to satiate god’s bloodlust. god makes quite clear in leviticus 5 that non-blood-offerings (that meal offering you cited) are just fine if you have no flock. god makes extra clear through the prophet isaiah (in the very first chapter of his book) that he does not even enjoy sacrifices. similar sentiment is echoed psalms 40 and 51.
You need to re-read the Old Testament. For our propitiation, blood is required, symbolized by the sprinkling of blood within the tabernacle on the Day of Atonement. Blood is the only way the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies. (As Christians, blood is the only way we can come into the Holy of Holies, the human spirit where God’s Spirit dwells.) Blood is the only way to be acceptable to God, because His righteousness and holiness cannot contact sin. The offerings according to the law were the Old Testament way of dealing with sin, while Christ’s sacrifice is the New Testameny way of dealing with it. Hence Christ said on the cross, “It is finished,” meaning that the work of redemption is done. Thus the writer of the book of Hebrews could make it explicit that the offerings were no longer required. With that sacrifice God is definitely pleased. (What is your opinion of the book of Hebrews?)
please note that this is not a “letter” a thing, but a spirit of the old testament, particularly the book of leviticus, that you seem to have misunderstood. comparing christ’s sacrifice to those offered in leviticus makes no sense even symbolically if one has actually read leviticus without skimming through it out of boredom.
You can disagree with the interpretation I write about above, but to say that it “makes no sense even symbolically” and that it suggests I have merely skimmed Leviticus out of boredom is silly. I’ve read Leviticus numerous times, and it is not boring. The many Christians throughout history who have written about Leviticus and how the offerings typify Christ did not skim-read through it and were not bored by it. They wrote about the details of each offering painstakingly. You may reject their interpretation, but it doesn’t come from a cursory and shallow reading of Leviticus. I would recommend C.H. Mackintosh as an example of someone who linked the offerings and Christ in a very profound way. Please read him or others like him before saying “you seem to have misunderstood” Leviticus.
you have quite simply missed the meaning of “atonement” as most christians have.
Then explain it to me. I’m surprised that “most Christians” have misunderstood the meaning of “atonement” since it is so central to the faith. How do you define it’s meaning? I assume you are familiar with the Day of Atonement which I mentioned earlier, in which on one day in the year the High Priest (Aaron and his lineage) could enter the Holy of Holies? Let’s talk about the details of that day, and every single thing the High Priest had to do. Then lets talk about the meaning of atonement. Let’s talk about the propitiation cover to the Ark of the Covenant, and why it had to be sprinkled with blood, and how Paul interprets this in the book of Romans. Have you read the book of Romans?
another trick question. the gods of abraham, and of isaac, and of jacob are in fact the same god. singular — one god. not three. not three-in-one. one god, and only one god. to have read different aspects into those stories is just blindly searching for links to false dogma.
Yes, the same God. Just like somehow the Father, Son, and Spirit are the same God. Yet they are three persons. See above in comment 136 where I say more, and feel free to respond. Tell me, are you familiar with the “epiphanies,” the appearances of Christ in the Old Testament before His incarnation?
Why is the blood of Christ superior to the blood of Abel, that question doesn’t even make sense.
It makes perfect sense. See above, comment 136. I suspect you have never read Hebrews. It’s a very difficult and complicated book in the New Testament. Many believe it was written by the apostle Paul. If so, it is his magnum opus.
and the ministry of Aaron superior to the ministry of Melchizedek? i’m starting to wonder if you’re fishing for platitudes at this point. but i’m also surprised that you picked a relatively unknown name out of the book of genesis, and seem to have connected him to yahweh’s high priest in exodus. which is actually impressive.
I didn’t make the connection, the author of Hebrews in the New Testament made the connection. Again, the reason I’m doing all this is because you and others like you who frequent this blog act like you know the Bible better than “most Christians.” I challenge that. I’ll also point out that I purposely made a mistake to see if anyone would catch it. The author of Hebrews speaks of the ministry of Melchizedek being superior to the ministry of Abraham, not the other way around. So if you and others here didn’t catch it, maybe you should reconsider your view that you know the Bible so well, much better than most Christians. Of course, I don’t know how many Christians are experts on the book of Hebrews. But I suspect that many would recognize the name Melchizedek.
but let’s talk about melchizedek for a second. exactly what is a priest of yahweh doing in (jeru)salem while abraham is still wandering in the desert? didn’t god reveal himself to the hebrews, specifically the sons of abraham?
I’ll just tell you to read Hebrews. The important thing about Melchizedek is that there was a ministry that predated the ministry of Aaron. Melchizedek had no genealogy (thus suggesting that he represented something eternal), and his interaction with Abraham includes bread and wine. This is the first appearance of what Christians know as “the Lord’s Table,” or “communion,” where we receive bread and wine as a remembrance of what Christ has done for us. This picture of a priest of the Most High God, partaking of bread and wine with Abraham, points to Christ and His ministry of the New Covenant.
the sea of reeds and they are essentially the same miracle. neither is a picture of baptism — the hebrews never once touch water in either story. one needs to get that “letter” right before they get the meaning. you can’t go willy-nilly on about whatever meaning you want when your meaning contradicts the story.
Have you read 1 Peter? The significance of the crossing of the Red Sea is that it occurs after the slaying and eating of the passover lamb (a picture of Christ’s redemption and salvation, respectively), and that it involves the escaping from the world under Pharoah’s rule. I’m not sure you can say “the hebrews never once touch water” – really? You’re sure of that? But in any case they go through the Red Sea, and the water then collapses on Pharoah’s army that is pursuing them. So baptism is a burial of the former manner of life in the world, destroying all of God’s enemies that formerly kept a person in slavery.
in any case, let’s talk for a second about the meaning baptism, starting with what john the baptist said of it, and why we then still do it. further, please examine the historical link between christian baptism and jewish ritual cleanliness and the mikvot.
I don’t know much about Jewish ritual cleanliness, although that plays an important role in the Gospel of John when Jesus changes the water into wine – he uses six waterpots, you may recall. But the meaning of baptism, to Christians anyway, is clear from Paul, not from John the Baptist: it is a picture of death and resurrection. We are baptized – “buried with Him” – and we come out of the water – “raised in newness of life.” Thus a Christian who is baptized is mystically joined to the death and resurrection of Christ. Our old world (that of Pharoah) is buried under water.
i got a better one for you. why does the siddur at pesach in the gospel of john not line up with the last supper, as in the other gospels?
I suspect you are trying to impress with your use of Hebrew?
Hey, Twitterwill–if most people had one tenth the education in evolution that I have in the Bible, there is no question that they would accept (not believe–it’s not a sentiment about which one might feel differently, but a fact about the world that can be accepted or rejected but not opined away)evolution. I’m glad others took up your (ridiculous) challenge, since it would have been time-consuming to respond to and would have proved less than nothing. With online resources, anyone who can spell “google” in the address bar could come up with a standard dogmatic line on those questions, which uniformally seemed to assume what they hoped to support. There is little doubt that the Christ myth was founded on Hebrew myth and that elements of the story were retrojections. When the authors of the various books of the Greek Testament didn’t know something about Jesus (and they–Paul especially, writing within a couple decades of Jesus’ putative resurrection, seemed to know alarmingly little of his biography), they just pulled out a scroll and used what was in it to fill in the gaps. No idea about Jesus’ birth (or perhaps, “How do we fix a scandal?”)? Not a problem, we’ll just appropriate a text from Isaiah written about a prophecy FULFILLED AT THAT TIME that had nothing to do with Jesus and doesn’t actually talk about virgin conception and use that as the basis for a Jesus nativity story. Don’t know about the crucifixion? Use a few Psalms that were in no way prophetic along with some prophecies that were not about Jesus, flesh out the tale, and claim that this earlier material predicted or presaged or prefigured Jesus. This is a level of dishonesty that would be alarming among crackheads, but passes for biblical scholarship among the already convinced. All the types and figures you refer to are NOT types and figures–they are elements that the Greek Testament writers used (fairly haphazardly) to make up their Christ myth.
And speaking of Greek, Twitterwill, you really read Plato in KOINE Greek? I’m not saying that’s impossible by any stretch, since there were no doubt koine Greek versions of his writing, but those would not have been the ORIGINAL Greek, since Plato was dead before koine, the language the Septuagent and New Testament were written in, was in wide use.
And speaking of Greek, Twitterwill, you really read Plato in KOINE Greek? I’m not saying that’s impossible by any stretch, since there were no doubt koine Greek versions of his writing, but those would not have been the ORIGINAL Greek, since Plato was dead before koine, the language the Septuagent and New Testament were written in, was in wide use.
I suspect that it was a “version” then. My Greek professor, who received his Ph.D. from Cambridge, didn’t seem troubled by it.
That wasn’t a dig, Twitterwill. I learned koine since that was the language the New Testament was written in. But saying you read Plato in koine is no different than my saying I’ve read Beowulf in Middle English–just because it wasn’t written in Middle English doesn’t mean I couldn’t have read it in Middle English. It was the word “original” that surprised me. I would love to try my hand at some koine Plato…I bet that was a real challenge. At least with the New Testament, I can often make a pretty good stab at “translation” just because I recognize enough of the words to recall the English that I know it in. I would have no such luxury with Plato and wouldn’t be able to bluff at all. Of course, after 20-some years, my Greek is probably so rusty I’d feel more frustrated than fulfilled by the exercise.
No problem, Greg.
I’m curious, do you really believe that the very early church could have pulled such a deception off (what you describe in your comment)? It seems unlikely to me. I just don’t think so many people would have given themselves to a myth that could easily have been disproven.
@#112 and #120:
Two comments; two different interpretations.
Why don’t you apply that reasoning to the hundreds of millions of Hindus? Or do you think that the existence of so many believers suggest that there may be some truth to the idea that Shiva cut off the head of Ganesh and then replaced it with the head of an elephant?
Mormon? Eeesh, the most impenetrable book ever. Talk about crap writing…At least the babble occasionally had decent stories and writing. Of course, beyond that, they might as well be identical (and they are – teh stoopid)
The point is, there was a multiplicity of very early churches, not a “very early church.”
There was no central authority to even attempt to pull off any kind of, as you say, “deception.”
The fact of the matter is that the author of the Gospel traditionally attributed to Mark invented large parts of the passion narrative, apparently out of whole cloth, with some “prophetic” material out of the Hebrew scriptures (which the author garbled rather badly) and some standard Greco-Roman mythological tropes sprinkled in.
By the time the authors of “Luke” and “Matthew” were writing, it had apparently spread far and wide and become the standard biographical account of Jesus. Their additions, deletions, and embellishments were refinements of what was always theological fiction, tailored to the communities for whom they were writing.
Furthermore, a good portion of the Pauline writings are not attributable to Paul himself, but to later writers appropriating a famous name to put the stamp of perceived authority on their own theological interests.
You have to consider the ancient world and how a great many texts and traditions were jostling about in the marketplace of theological ideas, clamoring for attention. What we ended up with as “The New Testament” is but a thin slice of all the material available. There were some incredibly divergent traditions about Jesus with just as much currency in the 1st Century CE as any of what came to be the canonical texts.
“Easily disproven” is a red herring, betraying modern notions of evidence and historical accuracy. People would have been interested in disproving what they considered heretical theology, but they did so by inventing or embracing rival theologies, not by questioning the unknowable foundation of the myth, already by then lost to time. In this way are orthodoxies formed and religions invented.
Twitterwill, the truth is that I have no idea what happened. It’s really impossible to reconstruct at this point. Despite what truth-impaired apologists like Lee Stroebel and his ilk say, there really is no extra-biblical evidence for a Jesus biography, and Paul provides almost no biographical information in his writing, the earliest we have from the church. Paul even seems to imply that the crucifixion took place in a spiritual rather than physical realm and that the resurrection was a spiritual resurrection–what does “spirit body” mean, anyway? It’s like solid gas. We know that other communities in the area, like the Qumran sect, created a sort of myth about the Son of Righteousness, constructed from Hebrew scriptures to embody ideals of holiness. So the idea that the Jesus story was a combination of a midrashic messiah and an historical rabbi who was much beloved by his community. I cannot say that is what happened, of course, but two things seems clear to me: By analogy, religions can form and become complex, emotionally satisfying systems without any intentional deception taking place; and as wildly unlikely as EVERY explanation for what happened in the first century that gave rise to Christianity might seem, the naturalistic explanations seem vastly more probable than the supernatural ones, given what we know about humans and how our religions can form. My short answer should just be, “I don’t know what happened.” I’m intrigued by the question, but I see no way of ever getting an answer. But as I have written in a different context, if all I knew of Christianity was what I read in C.S. Lewis, I’d probably still be a Christian–he made an attractive case and did not spurn scientific thought. If all I knew of Christianity was from Lewis and the New Testament, I might find it possible to be a Christian, because there is something inherently appealing in the notion of a god with the courage and love to join his creation in the struggle and sacrifice for them. But knowing the Hebrew Testament, and some philosophy, and some science that removes the necessity for a god (if not the desire for one among many people), I find Christianity to be so vanishingly unlikely as to be not worth thinking about further.
I realize that with a second post on the topic of the bookstore mischief saga, I risk typecasting myself as “the bookstore guy.” Still, there were a lot of responses to the whole thing on Tall Penguin’s blog, and an unbelievable number on PZ’s.
There’s one subset of those that I’d like to address.
When DK and I moved those bibles, it was done less as a political statement or some opening salvo in a campaign of petty bookstore terrorism, but more for sheer shits and giggles. We’d just come out of Harold and Kumar 2, and were in an insolent sort of mood.
There are some, however, who seem to feel that there’s another subtopic which is more systematically misplaced in bookstores. Many comments on Pharyngula suggested that Science shelves should be bereft of such gems as Michael Behe’s intelligent-design manifestos, or any any book on new-age pseudoscience.
It’s with this that I must take issue. When, in my email to Dr Myers (http://phaedronrising.blogspot.com/2008/05/code-indigo.html), I referred to the democratic marketplace of ideas, I was not paying lip service. It is a fundamental tenet of western democratic society that as long as nobody is literally hurt, every opinion has a right to be heard. I’m not saying that every opinion is worth the paper it’s written on, just that anyone has every right to make their case. This is especially the case in the rigors of the scientific process, where any theory – new or old – is continually vetted by a process of peer review and critique.
In the case of Behe’s ID idiocy and New-Age acupressure guides, they belong squarely in the science section. The questions that they address (Who are we? How did we get here? How can the flow of Chi affect my basement grow-op?) are fundamentally scientific ones. Just because a particular author’s answer to a real scientific question is completely insipid does not mean that it does not belong on the Science shelf.
Call me Naïve, but I truly want to believe that in the great marketplace of ideas, theories will ultimately rise and fall on their own merits.
If you want to rid your local science section of wastes of wood-pulp like Behe’s books on Intelligent Design, here’s how to do it.
Let his opinion be heard.
There is only one appropriate response to a ridiculous proposition, and that response is thorough ridicule. Give Behe and his ilk a seat at the table. Engage him. Expose his ideas for the unscrupulous shams that they are. I’m not advocating that anyone treat fools with kid gloves – far from it. All I’m saying is, give these people just enough intellectual rope to hang themselves with, then help them build their gallows.
Here is that my friend and I couldn’t help but correct. The bibles, which span so many topics in the course of their thousands of pages, were relegated to a shelf of their own, separate from all the composite sub-topics that comprise their entirety.
We just felt that there were more appropriate places for a bible to be. Imagine if someone were in the midst of a personal crisis, and the section on Parenting didn’t have a bible handy to supply the relevant passages as advice?
…Obviously, I’m being facetious. Tall Penguin took the stunt with more grace than I likely would have. It was still a lot of fun at the time, but I think satire can be better achieved by other means.
Anyone up for starting a cult?
So you think “many here” do this but also that perhaps they don’t. Huh? Can you identify anyone here who fits that description?
PS: I’ve read the bible. In Finnish.
I have an illustrated Bible among my Bibles; it’s great fun, it’s like reading a comic book. Except for some reason you’re suppose to like the villain, aka that god guy.
twitterwill:
You must only know them by the letter, and not appreciate the meaning, since otherwise you’d be a believing Muslim/Taoist/Hindu, right?
And how about some more fun Bible questions. Can anyone name some weird things God told Ezekiel to eat without Googling?
When I hear Ezekiel, all I think of Donkey %$&#
“It is a fundamental tenet of western democratic society that as long as nobody is literally hurt, every opinion has a right to be heard….This is especially the case in the rigors of the scientific process, where any theory – new or old – is continually vetted by a process of peer review and critique….In the case of Behe’s ID idiocy and New-Age acupressure guides, they belong squarely in the science section. The questions that they address (Who are we? How did we get here?…) are fundamentally scientific ones. Just because a particular author’s answer to a real scientific question is completely insipid does not mean that it does not belong on the Science shelf.”
I agree completely with the fundamental tenet, and it is that and perhaps three people that I would be willing to die to defend. However, when you define science as mere answers to questions about who we are and how we got here, I don’t see how you could keep the Bible, Koran, or any other religious text out of the science section. The point with ID is that it IS religion, or philosophy. You can put a labcoat on it, but there’s still vestaments hiding beneath it. I am happy to read and consider religious and other metaphysicals hypotheses to existential questions. But they are NOT SCIENCE. Basically you have made the error that Behe made on the stand at Kitzmiller, when he admitted that the way he defined science would include astrology. I want there to be lots and lots of books available, including all the ID shit they care to shovel. Frankly, nothing has been better for my education in evolutionary thought than seeing their wrong stuff corrected. It’s a continual source of learning through bad example. But not for a minute do I think that it’s science taken by itself. We have sections for such books: religion and philosophy. What’s so terrible or censorous about books being categorized for what they really are rather than what they pretend to be?
The proper classification for ID/Creationist bullshit is Christian Fiction
I was in a thrift store in a small town in the Mennonite part of Pennsylvania this week and checked out their used books. The sections were labeled:
– Bibles
– Bible Study
– Devotional
– Religious
– Mennonite
– Christian Fiction
– Fiction
– Non-fiction
Interesting world they live in. . .
@twitterwill: (#140)
it has to do with the fact that he wasn’t sacrificed. still don’t know? think about abraham’s relationship with god, and what he did for his nephew lot in sodom. what was he supposed to do for his son?
ooh, you managed to hit three big pet peeves of mine in one sentence. the first is not examining the verse cloesly enough in various translations. “molech” is a bit of vowel-confounding of malak, the word for king. the second is not examining the socio-historical context: there is, in fact, no caananite, levantine, or sumerian deity identifiable with moloch, though the bible makes the connection to ammonites. this is also included among the sexual purity laws — it’s sexually impure to sacrifice your children.
the third is improper usage of the name “israel.” israel exists as a person in genesis, a united kingdom under kings david and solomon, a fractured kingdom under jeroboam and his sons, and as a modern state. 9 times out of 10, when you’re reaching for the name of a country in the bible, it’s “judah.” most of the old testament (all but about two books) was written in judah at roughly the time of the exile, when the country of israel no longer existed. further, because israel and judah were at one point in a civil war, throwing about “enemies of israel” is rather a bad idea, since the righteous kingdom of judah was also an “enemy of israel” in a very literal sense.
“ba’al” is roughly equivalent to “elohim” or “adonai.” it’s a title that means “lord” or “god” and is not a specific entity. just as the J document would say “yahweh elohim” the correct usage of “ba’al” is with a name attached. the god most commonly identified with the biblical ba’al is ba’al hadad.
ok, this is rather boring me, watching you run in circles and miss the whole point. the connection is that human sacrifice is utterly forbidden.
because i have read both leviticus AND the four gospels.
well, evidently you don’t know anything about it, because you go right on insisting on something contradictory to levitical law. you must own what you offer.
er, no. i suggest that you re-read the old testament (especially since those three references i gave you were FROM the old testament). and this time, read it moreacrefully. that “blood is required” is a pauline doctrine, and one that’s not even totally consistent with the new testament. afterall, jesus goes around forgiving sins while he’s alive, with no blood and no sacrifice of any kind required.
you do understand, of course, that any sentence that reads “god cannot…” is blasphemy? god can do whatever he pleases. further, this whole notion of god having to jump through loopholes in his own rules, and sacrifice something to himself to appease his own bloodlust is a little… well. it’s silly. especially if one has read and actually understood leviticus.
er, no. one deals with the sin before they bring the offering. god forgives the sin, without the need for a sacrifice, because god is forgiving. did you not read the parable of the prodigal son? does the father forgive the son only when he comes home, or while he’s still squandering hisinheritance? and does the son bring home a little gift to say “i’m sorry dad?” does the father want to kill the son, but instead takes out his wrath on a fatted calf?
i am too, especially since christ had a good deal to say on the matter. you’d think christians would listen to him. but i think the biblical position on the matter has been covered above. except to say that the sacrifice itself served two purposes, neither of which was “because god likes when his creations bleed to death.” the first reason is that it helps set the person’s heart right, before as well as after. it’s a way for a person to manage guilt — catholics have penitence, ancient israelites had sacrifices. the second reason is that the levites were not allowed to work at anything else but maintaining the temple and performing religious rites. where do you suppose they got food from?
i’m familiar with the mental gymnastics some christians seem to go through to try to connect anachronistic dogma regarding later scripture to earlier scripture. you seem quite willing to make those stretches. perhaps my favourite such “epiphany” is the appearence of the three strangers and abram’s tent in mamre, clearly representing the triune god. until you read the story, that is, and realize that at most one of them is god, and the other two journey on to sodom.
it’s one thing to realize that later authors often try to explain earlier texts (this can be seen in the talmud just as easily as the epistles). but it’s quite another to try to anachronistically read later ideas into earlier stories where they just do not fit. the interpretation must fit the literal story, or it is invalid. or, as they say, “dresh cannot contradict pshat.”
i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have given you credit for an original thought.
considering that abraham wasn’t a priest. did you mean aaron again? certainly, what hebrews has to say of melchizedek is rather peculiar, and open for some discussion i might add. but yes, i had forgotten about hebrews 7. thanks for that.
er, no. that’s what hebrews seems to say, by some accounts. whether it’s talking about the order of the priesthood or the actual person, or is speaking in rather thick metaphors… that’s the part that’s up for discussion. if you look it up a bit, you’ll find all of those interpretations of it. that melchizedek has no genealogy in genesis is rather beside the point. neither does pharoah, and he’s a much more major character. traditional jewish midrashim place him in shem’s family (or possibly shem himself). and of course he represents “something eternal.” he’s a priest, a representative of god.
you can’t be serious. bread and wine were two of the most common elements of food for several thousand years all over the mediterranean. the two are used in parallel all over the bible. further, christ specifically establishes communion at the last supper — it’s not the act of eating bread and wine (two of the most common elements of food!) it’s that we remember him as we do it.
reed sea. the “red sea” would have been quite out of their way. and yes, one of the images the gospel authors use for christ is the passover lamb. but i’ll do you one better, since you mentioned crossing the jordan as well. “jesus” is a germanic rendering of the greek “iesous” which is a rendering of the aramaic “yeshua” which comes from the hebrew “yehoshua” or “joshua.” as joshua lead the hebrews across the jordan into the promised land, where moses could not take them, jesus leads us into a similar spiritual promised land. see, i can play the symbolism game too.
yes. they whole point is that they walk across on dry land. i’m sure you’ve read this story; i’m not sure what part you’re not getting. walking across a formerly wet area is in no way similar to being immersed in water.
reed sea.
baptism cleans the egyptians out of you? in any case, the egyptians were not the enemies of god, they were the enemies of the hebrews. and prior to that point, they were actually quite hospitable and willing to hear all about how great the hebrew’s god is.
er, no. look up “mikvah” or “mikvot.” you’ll be quite surprised to learn that they were quite common in 1st and 2nd century BCE homes in roman-occupied-judea, and for the poor who could not afford such homes, there were public ones. the practice of immersing yourself in water for spiritual reasons dates back well before john the baptist, and was practiced by many jews daily. christian baptism bears a direct relation to jewish ritual cleanliness and the mikvot — they’re practically the same thing.
as for the “water to wine” bit, the only bit you could relate to ritual cleanliness is that jesus was obviously not a nazarite.
and yet, perhaps you should read what the gospels report john said of baptism. it can be found in matthew 3 and luke 3. note that john makes it rather clear that baptism is an issue of cleanliness — repentence of sins — but the baptism of christ will be one of the holy spirit and of fire — death and rebirth. so, did paul screw up? or is he talking about the same baptism of christ that john was, and you screwed up? still, it’s curious that the water ceremony remains.
if i was, you’d have seen a whole lot more of it, and in the actual aramaic alef-bet. and every name i used would have been the modern hebrew spelling. i’m not sure if i’d lose you there (you apparently studied koine greek, maybe you know hebrew better than me, for all i know) but i’d certainly lose most of the rest of the people reading the comments here. no, i’m just not sure what to call a siddur but “a siddur” and if i’m going to say “siddur” i might as well say “pesach” instead of “passover.” but still, you didn’t answer the question:
why does the last supper in the gospel of john not line up with passover, as it does in the synoptic gospels? this is a relatively easy point of standard christian interpretation, and one you’ve more or less been talking about for the entire post. i’m just asking you to sum it all up. why the difference in accounts? why did the different authors make the choice differently? how does this affect the symbolism in each?
@Greg Peterson: (#141)
i think that may be a little strongly worded. what the NT authors did — try to incorporate symbolic elements from earlier texts — is quite different from modern christians do — try to incorporate symbolic elements from newer texts into older ones.
that jesus famously quotes king david on the cross, “eli, eli! lamah shabaqt-ani?” is rather standard literary practice, and nothing to really get all up in arms about. it’s just a quote and one that fits the context of the story particularly well. a holy man being put to death might, indeed, feel as if his god had forsaken him.
it’s when christians try to pretend that king david’s psalm was a prophecy about jesus that we cross the line into dishonesty and crack-headed-ness. it’s a rather basic logical fallacy, putting the cart before the horse. but logic seems to fly right out the window when you deal with some christians. afterall, jesus is magic, right?
so we end up with psalms predicting jesus, and leviticus predicting jesus, and the exodus predicting jesus, and genesis predicting jesus, and… it just never stops. you can go on looking for false connections everywhere you please. and you will keep finding them.
the only exception, really, is the gospel of matthew — as you say, the massively inappropriate usages of (legitimate) prophecy out of context. the “virgin birth” one (possible excusable thanks to matthew evidently reading in greek) is not the only example. it’s just filled with screw-ups, misrepresentations, and even a few false attributions. someone once suggested that it was actually satire, as when you trace all of the prophecies back they are most assuredly NOT about jesus, generally emphasizing things the messiah will do that he did not. that view makes some sense, but poe’s law applies.
I will use the new political term for what I did: I expressed myself “inartfully.” You are of course correct. I think what I had in mind was not so much what they authors did–employed standard literary devices of the day, as you note–but how certain apologists state that people who can’t see Jesus in the Old Testament are being perverse (or ideas to that effect). But your criticism is valid. Lest I be guilty of Danth’s Law.
Way back up in comment 104…
This would be an interesting hypothesis to test, you know. That’s because, unlike Moses, I have not read the Bible anywhere near cover-to-cover, nor have I read anywhere near as much about the Bible as Moses has. And if I had read the Bible, I’d have used the German Unity Translation (which is pretty good — apart from being a modern translation, it has footnotes on passages that are difficult to translate, and footnotes on passages that are missing or different in some early manuscripts), not the KJV which I keep
quotingcopying & pasting from The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, which is not only neatly annotated but also has a search function.(Hm. Was that sentence too long? Should I try again tomorrow?)
That said, the beginning of Matthew 6 (on how you’re not supposed to show off by praying or giving alms in public) is common knowledge where I come from, because it’s preached in the (Catholic) churches. It’s treated as important. I keep being surprised by coming cyber-across American fundies who simply don’t seem to know it.
greg: no problem, i’m just a stickler for keeping “what a book says” and “what people say about a book” entirely separate, especially when they are as different as they are when that book is “the bible.” the bible can actually be a fascinating library of texts if it’s approached with a rational mind, and trying to minimize the cultural biases we have associated with it. other ancient literature doesn’t have nearly the same cultural noise to overcome — when’s the last time you saw someone get in a fight about how to interpret gilgamesh or the enuma elish? in a sense, i agree with twitter that people who criticize the bible generally don’t know enough about it, but at the same time they seem to know a whole lot more about than the people pushing it.
i will say one thing, however. there was a comment above about the relationship of education to acceptence of evolution, and twitterwill commented somewhere about accepting christ through education. this is actually not the case — if one looks a little harder, they’ll find knowledge of the bible is perhaps the greatest impediment to christianity, and the single greatest test of faith. you will also find that education in matters biblical (such as, say, seminary) leads a great many people away from not only “biblical literalism” and young-earth creationism, but away from their faith as well. for instance, when one truly studies the process by which the NT was constructed and it’s vast history of scribal corrections to make things line-up, the NT becomes a very dubious source in one’s mind. if you can’t trust that the text even says the same thing it did 1500 years ago, how can you trust it on the question of whether jesus was a real person or not? most of the educated biblical scholars you’ll talk to academia not only accept evolution, but don’t accept the bible as an accurate picture of history.
david: yeah, what’s with christians and matthew 6 anyways? it seems like everytime i hear a christian speak, on the internet, in church, wherever, they always run to paul’s epistles as the great defining works of what it means to be a christians. it’s like… they forget the gospels exist, and ignore the words of jesus. kind of strange, really.
i was in another city recently, for a wedding, and i went out to play some pool with the bride and groom and other wedding people the night after the wedding. across the street from the bar we went to was some kind of mission, and outside was a group of people shouting various christian-esque nonsenses of the hell-fire sort at the people going into the bar. now, the bride is a good friend of mine, and equally biblically-aware. so i tried to convince her to join me in a shouting match with them when we came out. but sadly, they were gone by the time we came out.
the second thing outta my mouth would have been “MATTHEW CHAPTER 6!” the first, obviously, would have been matthew 7:1 or perhaps 5:22.
Etha Williams, OM, and arachnophilia have in fact pwned me quite impressively in comments 121 and 128.
That might be what some of the smarter Mormons may have interpreted “Reformed Egyptian” as, but Mormon dogma is just “Reformed Egyptian”.
Which is of course just silly. Everyone knows it can only be really enjoyed in the original Klingon.
What exactly didst thou find strange about this? I comforted, thou comfortedest, he/she/it comforted… Compare German. As far as I can tell it’s perfectly fine early-17th-century archaic-poetic English.
The constant repetitions of “and it came to pass” ad infinitum vel nauseam (whichever comes first) are another matter.
LOL!
That’s plural, not triune. It’s not “God”, but “Gods” who are saying that (‘elohim, plural of ‘eloha).
Oh man. Dude! What next? Francis Collins’ tripartite waterfall? Or perhaps you’ll tell us Gilgamesh was a symbol for the trinity because he was two-thirds god, one-third man?
Rather than complaining about the stupid oxide, I’ll just go to bed. It’s almost 3 at night, and I should probably actually get up “tomorrow”.
What a disrespectful and asinine stunt. For someone who believes in the “free marketplace of ideas,” the prankster seems to have little regard for the property rights of the bookstore owner.
As has been pointed out more than once above, the books were properly shelved where they belonged. This was not the case of Behe being removed from the science section.
And it’s not so obvious to me why it’s “patently absurd” to have a Bible and Bible Studies section. Many secular universities have a religious studies program. I took a college course on the Hebrew Bible this semester, and the Bible and Bible Studies section of a bookstore is precisely where I would have had to get the text had I had not ordered it online.
Dennis N – #153
Yeah, I had one of those, too. Didn’t keep me from atheism, though. But you know who I do remember? Esther. She was hot.
Seriously, though – Twitterwill, what’s your point? It was claimed that some of the regular Pharyngula posters knew more about the bible than most Xians. Not all Xians. I don’t recall the exact findings but a recent survery of ‘faithful’ in the US found that many could not answer questions like ‘list the gospels, in order’. Based on that the claim seems fair to me.
Perhaps you’re the world’s best apologist – congratulations. To an extent I admire your dedication and scholarship – though I wish you’d spent your time on something else. But you can twist and rephrase and interpret any or all versions of the bible as much as you like and it won’t change the fact that it’s just a book.
I doubt many atheists are free of belief simply because of the problems they have with the bible. For me it’s only one of the reasons.
Re: Twit & babble scholarship…
My favorite niece knows *all* about Harry Potter! She won a ‘fan’ competition in the UK, so she even has proof of her deep and meaningful knowledge!
If only babble scholars recognized that their particular brand of scholarship is exactly the same as that of my niece – just with a few thousand additional years of ‘fandom’ to give it some presumed ‘legitimacy’ over hers.
If it wasn’t for the establishment of religion, the book would become as studied as Chaucer’s Canterbury tales (in the original middle english) – an intriguing glimpse into the early novel / short story / prose poem forms – but beyond that recognized as incredibly naive and simplistic (apologies to any Chaucerists – don’t mean to belittle – just being forthright.)
tony
I haven’t read all of the comments, but I just wanted to address this: It’s arguable that the trinity was not even invented in the New Testament. There’s verses that speak of the Holy Spirit are sufficiently vague that they could just as easily be an alternative way of speaking of God as understood by the Jewish monotheists of the day (just as the terms “Lord”, “God” and “Almighty” all refer to the same entity).
The Catholic Encyclopedia states:
I suspect the influence of Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism were involved in coming up with the idea of the Trinity as three persons in one God.
Of course, the plurality of “elohim” has been suggested as being a remnant of ancient Hebrew polytheism, referring to God’s female spouse, which idea was also resurrected in Gnosticism, and later, in Kabala.
But that’s religion for you: anyone can claim that anything has some other secret meaning, because the whole business is the privileging of cultural imagination. So what’s one more layer of imagined ideas?
@David Marjanović: (#164)
i certainly wasn’t trying to pwn you. and to be equally respectful, you routinely pwn me in biological and paleontological discussions. :D
er, no. elohim is a peculiar word in hebrew in that its singular and plural forms are in fact identical. it is adapted from the root el (by means of eloha) but is not, in fact, the plural form of it in either biblical or modern hebrew. this linguistic shift seems to have happened well before the bible was written, or could perhaps be explained by hebrew importing the words separately from cognates in another language where they ARE the same word.
i was hoping to avoid a grammatical analysis of this particular point because there’s one solid answer on it. but i’ll break it down a bit. the first part:
contains a singular verb, amar. the verb would take a different form if it were gods (plural) doing the saying. so elohim here is a singular entity. the second part, however is plural:
as far as i can, this is a relatively standard future tense for the plural. but i’m not terribly clear on future tense. the other two words “image” and “likeness” take a -nu “our” ending.
so, to recap, it is one god doing the saying, and perhaps a plural group doing the making, all of which are similar to god in some way.
now, there are a number of ways of reading this. some immediately suggest the trinity — but i am forced to reject this idea because it would be entirely anachronistic and out of place for this text. it does not fit with any of the other portrayals of god in the torah. some have suggested polytheistic routes, a throwback to the council of gods (as seen in ugarit) that almost certainly antedated hebrew monotheism. i find this unlikely, as gen1 is from the P document, one of the newest sources in the torah. some have suggested that god made the angels a part the creation act. this view is also possible, and a little more likely, but not a whole lot better. while the beni elohim (“sons of god” or perhaps “other gods”) are indeed present in genesis, angels take a rather backseat role in the story. god does everything and human beings are the ultimate triumph and goal of that creation in genesis 1. asking the angels what they think seems out of place with the rest of the story. another suggestion is a kind of “royal we” and i think this is getting closer but still rather anachronistic. god does seem to speak of himself in plural, during cases of self-reflection.
the most likely explanation i can see is that it’s simply a quirk of language. when we think out loud, we’re often found saying things like “let’s” do something, even if there’s no “us.” it’s possible that suggestions and self-conversation take a tentative plural form. i would not be entirely surprised if that sort of thing found its way into modern english via the KJV, a literal translation of a hebrew library. wouldn’t be the first example. :D
@tony: (#167)
…not quite. like it or not, harry potter hasn’t spent 2,000 years shaping western culture and identity. those that pretend the bible is just a work of fiction are about as guilty as misrepresenting it as those that pretend the bible is 100% fact. neither is quite accurate of the text itself, which contains a myriad different styles and genres. maybe the bits that actually are histories aren’t all that accurate, but what’s wrong with studying them and their relation to reality? what’s wrong with looking at how the ideology in genesis or leviticus or deuteronomy help shape the course of levantine history, or for that matter, roman history?
@Owlmirror: (#168)
as you say, the idea of the trinity isn’t exactly in the new testament either. though the gospel of john does contain some “father and son are one” kinds of ideas. i suspect that while not actually gnostic itself, the text is trying to incorporate some gnostic tendencies to pull in a gnostic-inclined crowd. so it has some of the mystical stuff, while keeping jesus a real physical person.
yes and no. the consort of yahweh, as she appears in the old testament, seems to have been asherah (ishtar!) but this idea was held as such heresy by the establishment that all physical traces of them were wiped clean out of judah, and many chapters of the bible were devoted to making sure you didn’t worship her. the infamous leviticus 18 is largely prohibitions for the priestly class against the sexual parts of asherah worship.
the qabalist consort of yahweh is shekinah, which in the OT was merely a way to refer to the presence of god (much like your holy spirit example above). in either case, “elohim” as a singular title refers to just yahweh — feminine deities all took on “asherot.” rather, elohim etymologically, seems to come from el’s council of his sons, as seen in ugarit, and not from a male-female pairing.
Yes, but since when? Doesn’t that look like a later development, an attempt to bring the old term into conformity with the new idea of monotheism, that was omitted when “we” and “our” made it too obvious? An attempt perhaps at purging supposed corruptions from a text that was considered holy and untouchable?
(Too bad that this is probably untestable, at least without some terribly early manuscripts that we simply don’t have.)
:-D
So Ashera and Ashtarot* really are the same, t in the middle notwithstanding?
* Known to the Hellenistic Greeks as Astarte.
And in the Book of Job, right?
BTW, the angels are all in 1 Enoch. (A book that only the Ethiopian church still accepts as part of the Bible, even though some epistles that everyone accepts cite it… we’ve been through that a few months ago. Apparently the detailed description of the flat earth was just too embarrassing.)
It appears that Myers is an anarchist. I wonder how he would like it, if someone took his car, and parked it a few blocks away from his house. Owlmirror # 168 it’s easy when your speaking religion to a bunch of atheist who don’t read the bible. That’s quite pretentious. In the book of Genesis, God creates the heavens and the Earth ( Universe). The word “God” is plural for more than one. The proof is that in the 1st verse the Spirit of God (Singular, one of the parts of God) hovers over the waters. He looked up into the dark atmosphere, and said let there be light. He separated the clouds, and started clearing the sky. The light was from the sun. The sun was created in the first verse, along with all the heavens. Later we see a physical God walking with Adam. God the Father is not physical , only the son can be physical . The old testament also calls the future physical incarnation of God (Jesus) as the Son of Man. Jesus later verified this by calling himself the Son of Man. Daniel saw the same Jesus, as John did in the book of revelation, a risen and glorified Christ..
@David Marjanović: (#170)
no. two reasons:
one: the singular verb is consistent throughout the text, except in really, really rare examples such as the above, where god is speaking of himself.
two: the hebrew redacters of the text, and the compilers, were notoriously accurate to the sources. we know this because of all of the other errors and contradictions they knew about but left in anyways.
that tells me that the “looks plural” noun + singular verb construction for sentences about god is something that exists in the source texts, all of them, and indepently. ie: it’s an earlier developement. but we can look at, say, the J document for a possible explanation of how it came to be used that way.
as some know, i’m sure, we call two of the documents that compose the torah “J” for yahweh and “E” for “elohim.” J refers to god as his proper name, followed by a title, “yahweh elohim.” it’s possible elohim here (linguistically) comes from a group of gods, and that the name is to say which one, and this is just a compound phrase. while containing a plural noun, the whole phrase is singular. this would be an old custom even by the time J was written, as it is still quite monotheistic. but as judaism tends into more radical monotheism, and god’s name no longer should be written, they drop the proper name, and are just left with “elohim” being used as a singular noun.
“the same” is sort of a subjective call. all these cultures had linguistically-related gods, and sometimes similar customs and stories relating to them. but in some ways, they still have some cultural identity. so we can link asherah to ishtar and astarte because the names are essentially cognates, but it’s hard to say if they’re “the same.” sort of like asking “do mormons, christians, jews, and muslims all worship the same god?” yes, and no.
indeed. one of the interesting things about the book of job is that we see the council of the sons of god, meeting with god, in a way that’s incredibly similar to other cultures’ polytheistic pantheons.
and yeah, enoch’s interesting, though it’s usage of the sons of god seem to be on the down-stroke so to speak. some of the later works, written in slightly more accepting times, will go back and try to explain the earlier ones and often incorporate ideas that would have been quite heretical to biblical authors during the height of the OT period. job skates by because, while written during that period, the first two chapters seem to be a much older text.
This reminded me: The word for spirit and/or wind, ru’ah (רוח), and the verb associated with it in the verse, hover, mirachefet (מרחפת), are both feminine. This may or may not have influenced the conceptualizations of the shechinah and feminine aspects of God. And the very usage of the word “wind/spirit” might have led to the imagining that the spirit of God was somehow a separate thing from God himself. Maybe.
The Hebrew words Asherah (אשרה) and Ashtoreth (עשתרת) actually have different beginning letters (aleph vs ‘ayin). This may or may not indicate that they were not identical goddesses to begin with, or if they originally were, their linguistic separation took place many years before their names were recorded in the Hebrew bible. Hm. Wikipedia/Astarte mentions that: “According to Mark Smith’s “The Early History of God”, Astarte may be the Iron Age (after 1200 BC) incarnation of the Bronze Age (to 1200 BC) Asherah.” Which seems rather tentative, for whatever that’s worth.
This reminded me that the Samaritans have their own text of the bible. I was inspired to do a bit of cursory research (yes, Wikipedia again), and there is a facsimile edition out there. It looks like the text is mostly the the same as the more usual Jewish one. Which I suppose is not that surprising; the religious/political schism between the Samaritans and the Jews took place long after the fights to have monotheism prevail over polytheism.
@Canuck #35: “Sexuality is non-fiction biology…”
So are you suggesting we should divide the Biology section into non-fiction (for real science)and fiction (for ID, Creationism, etc.)? Sounds like a workable compromise to me.
I define a douche as “someone who makes other people clean up their messes”.
As another former book store employee (during college, even), I’d like to add to the chorus that this was a douchey move. I’m sure they were giggling to themselves in a self-satisfied manner the entire time they were doing it, too. Ooh, putting the Bible into the fiction section. Groundbreaking move. No one has EVER done that before. Clap clap.
It annoys me no end that Christian proselytizers have this weird idea that folks like me have never heard of Jesus, let alone never read the Bible. Like almost every North American who hasn’t spent his life in a coma, I’m quite familiar with Jesus.
When I was six I felt sorry for Jesus and my friend Harold. They were both born on Christmas, which meant they didn’t get two present receiving days. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered Jesus was probably born closer to my birthday in April. By that time, I was in my sixth or seventh year of Catholic school. I realize a true evangelical fundamentalist doesn’t recognize Catholicism as real Christianity. But 12 years of Catholic grade school and high school does mean that I had more than a nodding acquaintance with Jesus and the Bible.
By the time I was in college, I had identified several problems with Catholicism. I looked at various other flavors of Christianity and discovered similar problems with them. I looked at various other religions (there was a Sikh who tried to interest me in his beliefs) and came away unimpressed. In fact, that describes one of my issues with organized religion: I’m unimpressed. Too many religions get too involved in the minutiae of their particular dogmas. Look at the Byzantine homoousios vs homoiousios arguments for a prime example. Incidentally, this particular controversy caused rioting in Constantinople. Who gives a damn? Certainly not I.
Sorry, fundies, but I’m knowledgeable about Jesus and I’m familiar with the Bible. Your ideas that I’ve never heard of the one and haven’t read the other do nothing but irritate me. And don’t give me the argument that “if you really, really, really knew Jesus you’d accept Him.” Special pleading is a logical fallacy.