Description: 22 general objections with Jesus as the subject. This chapter is composed of "questions about Jesus" put together in a pamphlet distributed by BE. I think it is fair to surmise that this means that these are 22 of the best or hardest-hitting "questions" that BE could come up with on this subject. Indeed we need not even make any surmises: Our subject calls these "some of the best questions one could ever employ while confronting Christianity in general and the Bible in particular" [35], and "twenty-two of the best questions one could ever employ in the struggle against Christianity in general and Jesus in particular. Every rational person should find them to be a welcome addition to his or her antisuperstition portfolio." [52] That pretty wells seals the matter. Our subject clearly believes these to be among the best questions in his own portfolio. Their use in a pamphlet; their special allotment in a chapter of EBE; these very direct statements, all mean that if these questions are easily dealt with, a serious wound is dealt to the competency of our subject and the credibility of his mission. These 22 questions are our subject's elite troops (along with 24 others in the chapter following). All others are mere foot soldiers.

Meeting the Opposition: Our subject offers in addition to his own comments "some of the responses that apologists often use in opposition to the questions that are posed," adding that "Armed with information of this kind, analysts of the Bible will be far better prepared to confront Christians on their own turf. One should always know what lies in the other side's arsenal before engaging in ideological combat." [35]

Our subject here sells the reader a bill of goods. The "responses" used are from the lowest-level apologetics resources available: General-interest books for the lay reader. One will not find here responses from professional journals of study or from high-ranking scholars; although given our subject's disdain for heavy digging into sources, this isn't surprising. It may well be that skeptics will come off of this advice smelling good, but that will last only as long as they stick to low-level exchanges like radio debates, where sound bites score higher than scholarship.

Darkness Reigns: Also as a primer, our subject observes that "many people do not even realize that problems exist within the Bible." [35] Fair enough. It is also fair to say that many people do not realize that these "problems" are overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, due to our own lack of knowledge or comprehension. Of course our subject will have none of this: His only response is to label any attempts at solution as a case of conspiracy. He quotes Bucaille as referring to "subtle explanations calculated to reassure (the Christian reader) and orchestrated by an apologetic lyricism." [36] Our subject himself refers to "obfuscations" and "smokescreens." So might we expect from those who will not read an ancient text in any terms but those of their own 20th-century mind. To those thusly connived and convinced by their own cleverness, any explanation is merely an irrational and desperate attempt to cover up the obvious. Trying to show otherwise makes you party to the illusion. Whether the data supports the polemic, however, remains to be seen.

1. Now answered here.

2. Now answered here.

3. Reference to the idea that Jesus never existed; see Selling Snake Oil and this article on this subject. There is no reason to resort to the theory that Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday, a theory which our subject devotes a great deal of space to arguing about.

The old, "Jesus was not in the tomb 72 hours" objection; see the relevant item as one o the replies in this longer essay here. essay on this subject.

vs.

Now answered here .

Answered here and here.

Answered here.

I'll keep this answer here, because I don't see how our subject supposes this to constitute a lie by Jesus. What's the explanation? It is asked, "How could they have entered paradise that day when Jesus lay in the tomb for three days?" Paradise, of course, was the Jewish abode of spirits (not the bodies!) of the righteous dead. (cf. 2 Cor. 12:4) This is the same as someone saying today, "I'll see you in heaven" with a time prior to the resurrection of all men in mind. (Of course, our critic would no doubt wish to fuss about that as well, object that Paradise was a figment, etc...but that's not the point. McKinsey is truly ignorant to have composed this one.)

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Our subject says: "In effect, Paul is saying that Jesus lied. Either that or Paul is rewriting the script and has usurped the leadership of Jesus in Christianity." Now answered here.

As a side note, it is worthwhile to note that McKinsey endorses by quotation (but never "flatly states" support for) the idea that Paul was the true founder of Christianity who distorted the teachings of Jesus. In this regard he quotes two highly relevant authorities: the playwright George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom were certainly better informed than authors like E. P. Sanders, W. D. Davies, and David Wenham, who have clearly been in error when deducing that Paul presents nothing that is not in continuity with both mainstream Judaism and with the teachings of Jesus. It is amazing how being a "freethinker" allows one to deem whatever sources as authoritative (and dismiss or ignore as unauthoritative) as are needed to make one's case.

Now answered here. I would also like to know how our subject knows that this is "one of those problems that is systematically ignored and evaded by nearly all apologists." [41] Is this our subject's way of saying that no one he has read has ever addressed it? If so, does it perhaps occur to him that it has not been addressed because it is not actually a problem? It is very clever, as well as extremely psychologically manipulative, to state the matter in terms that suggest a coverup, conspiracy, or evasion, but the claim has about as much credence as charges of alien abductions or government plots at Roswell. Nobody is evading anything on this issue -- our subject is simply too incompetent and uninformed to realize that his argument isn't valid. It is very typical of our subject's "sound bite scholarship" to throw bare word-correspondences in the air like this and think that he has discovered a problem that either no one has found before or else is being covered up.

9, 10. A series of objections to the Trinity, which is termed "one of the most ludicrous religious ideas ever proposed." It is clear that our subject's grasp upon Trinitarian theology is rather tenuous. He states in the ninth objection, "According to Christian theology, Jesus is God." He then hauls up verses like John 14:28 and cites them as Jesus "denying that he is God's equal." This is followed upon by selected quotes from "apologists" who, he says, "admit that the Trinity is incomprehensible."

Incomprehensible to them, perhaps, and also incomprehensible to our subject and his irrelevant sources like Ingersoll, but not to me, nor to anyone who has bothered to investigate the relevant background material. I will point the reader first to my essay on the divine claims of Jesus (here), especially my material on Jesus' claim to be divine Wisdom. With this foundation, we may provide the following observations and general responses to our subject's rather inane inquiries. His errors begin with the statement, "According to Christian theology, Jesus is God." This is not specific enough. According to Christian theology, Jesus is not "God" but "God the Son", the Word/Wisdom of God. Recognizing this basic distinction defuses all of our subject's sub-objections in objections 9 and 10: The "denials" of equality with God above; who Jesus was talking to on the cross when addressing the Father; the allegation of tritheism; the supposed problem of the relation of Jesus to Mary (which makes no distinction between the physical and legal derivation of the incarnate Jesus and the non-corporeal spiritual derivation of Jesus). At best our subject shows the inadequacies of certain analogies used to explain the Trinity, but until he confronts the Wisdom concept, he is addressing nothing but inadequate modern conceptions and problems with modern terminology.

vs.

Now answered here and here. Our subject here uses the same "skeptical chauvinist" arguments used by a Skeptic that we have addressed elsewhere. His further comments are also telling [44]:

I have often told apologists who constantly use this tactic that they should set aside the King James, the New American Standard, the Revised Standard, and every other well known version of the Bible on the market, and instead write their own version of the Bible, and send me a copy, which I would be glad to critique. Frankly, I'm becoming rather tired of people telling me that they have a more accurate version of what a particular verse should say...This kind of defense has to be squashed immediately; otherwise, apologists will be able to run from version to version as expediency dictates and choose the wording they prefer...

A few observations are in order. First, this is not simply a matter of translations, but also a matter of meanings in context. The interpretations we have offered of John 2:4 and Luke 14:26 both rely upon parallel phrases found in other ancient literature (Greek and rabbinic) and literary design for the period. One may not arbitrarily assume in the context of ancient literature (derived as it is from a primarily oral period) that words carry the same degree and shades of meaning that they do in our own day. Second, note how our subject has automatically dismissed out of hand as "expediency" the act of going from one version to another, when the issue is not versions, but meanings in context as we have delineated above. He has jumped from "write your own version" to "don't jump from one version to another" and classed these together as "expediency".

12. Now answered here.

It is our view that these verses were fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem. If our subject is able to address and refute the arguments here, then we will take the matter further. We therefore see no need to address his own remarks which interpret "generation" as race, etc.

14. Now answered here.

15. Now answered here.

16. This is a complaint series about the Matthean and Lukan genealogies. See Glenn Miller's work on this subject and here.

17. Mark 8:34. See here.

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Now answered here

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Now answered here. A brief note is also in order on our subject's dismissal of Christian martyrdoms. He claims that the history of martyrdoms is "based far more on Christian mythology than sound history." In this he does not interact at all with any of the works of secular historians and relevant authorities (i.e., Michael Grant, Robert Wilken, Rodney Stark) who, while noting that many late accounts of martyrdom have the taste of myth, nevertheless affirm that such martyrdoms (along with less "permanent" types of persecution!) did indeed take place. Our subject also confounds the issue by demanding "biblical confirmation" of such sacrifices; it is hardly necessary that such evidence MUST be found in the Bible to be true, and until our subject deals with the evidence outside the Bible critically, rather than simply ignoring it, his arguments are merely wind. But then again, if he wants biblical confirmation, he might try reading Paul's own admission (Gal. 1) that he persecuted the church with "zeal" -- a word that recalls the responses of Phineas in the OT and the Maccabees in the intertestamental period who killed their opponents.

20. This is a repeat and composite of previous objections.

21. This is a set of complaints about the Atonement and original sin. For the former, see our reply to D terp wiz. For the latter, see here. Not surprisingly, our subject makes some of the same errors in thought as D terp wiz, including the attempt to equate temporal human justice with divine justice.

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Jesus is accused of "indecisiveness" in terms of whom Christians are to have missions to. Context means all here: Jesus is the first instance refers to his own, personal ministry on earth; the latter verse refers to a time after the resurrection. At the same time, it is obvious since Jesus did go on to heal the woman's daughter, and the fact that he was already in Gentile territory, that this was far from being an established and absolute prohibition, but was rather some sort of test of response for faith. (In issue #46 of the EBE newsletter, James White made a similar point, noting that there is no indication that Matt. 15:24 was intended as referring to a mission for all time! Our subject replied by suggesting that this means that one could say the same of the Ten Commandments -- as if a comment by Jesus in response to a specific situation and a covenant law spoken from Mount Sinai could be treated on exactly equal terms!)

Other cited verses:

Matt. 10:5-6 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel." This has no applicability outside of this specific mission episode; it is hardly expressed as a general principle.

John 4:22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. - This also has no applicability to the subject at hand.