The following is Skeptic Peter Kirby's response to our tongue-in-cheek questionnaire for Skeptics. I wanted to highlight it because intelligent Skeptics like Kirby or Kyle Gerkin were NOT of course our target, and it is easy to see why. Though we obviously disagree with some of Kirby's answers, and will insert some comments in italics noting where and how, Kirby's replies make for a huge differences from those of Skeptics in that "other" camp who use bigotry as a plumb line. From here on our comments are in italics.
For
space I have omitted answers I didn't choose.
You walk into the home of a
friend in the Ancient Near East. He says, "You have extremely honored me by
coming into my abode. I am not worthy of it. This house is yours; you may burn
it if you wish. My children are also at your disposal; I would sacrifice them
all for your pleasure." What do you do?
D. Reply, "I am unworthy of your
honor and of being a guest in your home." No brainer. But I would wonder why
I'm so honored. See what I mean, right away? Kirby we will see took some time to grasp the Bible in social context. No cries of how horrid this person must be to want to burn their children.
You need to know something about the social world of
the New Testament. Who should you ask?
D. Bruce Malina or Richard Rohrbaugh.
But I also like Gerd Theissen, Stegemann & Stegemann, Richard Horsley,
and Helmut Koester. These folks are not exactly in the field I had in mind, but they are at least scholars.
There is evidence that the pagan deity Mithra was
thought to have been crucified and resurrected, but the evidence dates around
400 AD. What does this mean?
D. Mithraism was influenced by Christianity, if
anything. Of course some mystery religions were influenced by Christianity.
Syncretism and borrowing usually goes both ways, if it all.
Luke
14:26 has Jesus saying we should hate our family. What is the meaning of this?
D. It's extremist language typical of ancient writers like Poimanes, who
said: "If you do not hate your body first, O child, you will not be able to love
yourself." In other words, it's hyperbole. It also suggests that some
Christians had trouble cohabiting with their families because of religious
issues and that they needed to be told to put Jesus first with this
saying. Here we disagree with the implication of the saying being created for a need, but at least here Kirby recognizes the metaphor rather than doing a Barker and claiming it teaches real hatred.
Why did God order the Amalekites exterminated?
C. Because
God is a vengeful and spiteful idiot. As a reader response to the Old
Testament story, the action of having the Amalekites exterminated seems vengeful
and does not seem to be rationally justified. That is allowed; reader-response is of course a modern phenomenon that does not care what the original context of the text is.
What sort of religious
practices did the Canaanites engage in for hundreds of years?
B. It doesn't
matter. Their religion was as good as anyone else's. Is there evidence that
Canaanite society had religious beliefs that were more harmful to their people
than most other ANE religions of the time period? It's not self-evident that
Israelitism is the only game in town worth being called 'good', as much value as
I find in some of the Hebrew Scriptures. Yes, and this is why I gave the link to Miller's detailed article. Kirby did not follow the link, but even in this answer he is obviously heading in the right direction.
Matthew 2:15 cites Jesus
fulfilling a verse in Hosea in his trip to Egypt. But Hosea was talking about
Israel. What's up?
D. Matthew was using a typical Jewish exegetical
procedure. But the Qumraners were wrong too if they thought that their pesher
was necesarily in the mind of the ancient Hebrew authors. Agreed, though they would probably have said it was in the mind of God.
According
to Gen. 30-31, what was the actual cause of Jacob's goats being striped or
spotted?
B. Sympathetic magic. This is the closest in spirit to the
correct answer. The author did not have a grasp of modern genetics. The NAB note
says, "Jacob's strategem was based on the widespread notion among simple people
that visual stimuli can have prenatal effects on the offspring of breeding
animals. Thus, the rods on which Jacob had whittled stripes or bands or chevron
marks were thought to cause the female goats that looked at them to bear kids
with lighter-colored marks on their dark hair, while the gray ewes were thought
to bear lambs with dark marks on them simply by visual cross-breeding with the
dark goats." The Oxford Bible Commentary says, "To gain an advantage over Laban
Jacob had recourse to a trick based on a superstitious, farmers' belief (taken
seriously by the author) that newborn animals (and also human babies) can derive
certain characteristics from the visual impressions experienced by their mothers
at the moment of conception." (p. 57) Speiser writes in the his commentary on
Genesis, "Nevertheless, Jacob finds a way to outwit his father-in-law, through
prenatal conditioning of the flock by means of visual aids--in conformance with
universal folk beliefs." (p. 238) My answer to this was in the link. Kirby did not comment on the verse where Jacob credits God, not the sticks, for his success.
The OT law has a rule about having
barriers around your roof. Why?
D. It was because ancient people went out on
their roof for work and recreation; the barrier was like a balcony railing.
No brainer. You still find this in modern cities as densely populated as
ancient ones. Someone needs to tell Dennis McKinsey!
In Matt. 6:19-34 Jesus talks about not storing up
treasures on earth. This means:
D. Jesus was giving his contemporaries the
same advice as other sages of the time, which was the only sensible alternative
in an era prior to mutual funds and safe deposit boxes, and when the average
lifespan was 35. I like the Thomas 63 version more: Jesus said, "There was a
rich man who had considerable wealth. He said, 'I shall invest my wealth so as
to sow, reap, plant, and fill my barns with crops, lest I run short of
something.' These things are what he was thinking in his heart, and that very
night the man died. Whoever has ears should listen!"
What do you
think of Luke 6:29-30? ("Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that
taketh away thy goods ask them not again.")
B. I think it's a little
unreasonable. Even in ancient times, you could refuse and should, if you
needed the thing more badly than the other guy. Cycle, schmyckle, it's my only
plow. As I note in the link, though, it is not unreasonable given social conditions. he man who demands your plow is as likely as not to kill you.
Lev. 11:19 says that the bat is a bird. This means:
D.
Translators have unwittingly anachronized by imposing a category of distinction
upon the text that didn't exist at the time. Don't blame the translators.
Blame the people who expect our English word to have 100% correspondence to the
original concept. I asked whether translators might not be among the group doing this!
What was a primary source for language and concepts
describing the doctrine of the Trinity?
D. Pre-NT Jewish Wisdom traditions.
Indeed Wisdom herself is part of the Trinity! Theophilus of Antioch is the
first Christian to refer to the Trinity with the Greek word for it, in Ad
Autolycum 2.15: "In like manner also the three days which were before the
luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His
wisdom." This is great because Kirby is the first Skeptic I have met who knows about any part of the Wisdom tradition, though ironically, some may have learned of it from G. A. Wells!
In 1999, a Biblical scholar wrote a paper for a
peer-reviewed scholarly journal of Biblical studies in which he argued for a new
and better understanding of a certain Hebrew word. How should we react?
C.
Check to see if the author teaches at a fundamentalist Bible college. This
applies only if the new interpretation is doctrinally important to
fundamentalism and only if the article sans arguments is being touted as
authoritative. Obviously I disagree. The answer could be easily reversed for folks from Harvard and Claremont.
What does Proverbs 26:4-5 tell us?
D. The passage
is describing a dilemma, not two absolutes. I have written an essay on The Value of
Proverbs.
According to the Bible, how big are stars?
C.
They're tiny objects that could easily fall onto the ground of Earth. I don't
believe ahead of time that the Bible must be harmonizable with later
science. Obviously I disagree.
According to the Bible, when was Jesus born?
B. 0 A. D.
I picked this answer because it's not serious. The Bible doesn't provide an
absolute chronology of the life of Jesus, or a specific window of time. Rather,
based on incidental details mentioned, and our independent knowledge of the time
from Josephus and inscriptions, we deduce these time periods. And different
scholars deduce different time periods, often favoring different verses. Yet, if
you asked St. Luke how many years ago Jesus was born, I bet he couldn't give you
a definite answer.
One Gospel says that Heli was Joseph's father. The
other says Jacob. What's the deal?
A. Obviously, these people can't keep
simple facts straight. The name of Joseph's father is not the kind of thing
to be handed down accurately through oral tradition, as it is not ethically or
doctrinally significant nor even particularly interesting, nor would it be
common knowledge. Someone along the line had to guess. I disagree of course. Genealogies were regularly passed down by oral tradition in Jewish and other socieities.
You find a
Hebrew manuscript showing a discrepancy in the number of horse stalls Solomon
had between the Kings and Chronicles accounts. The obvious conclusion is:
D.
There was a minor scribal error, in which the evidence suggests an extra zero
was added. This does not affect critical doctrines. Though it is possible
that a scribe was intentionally inflating numbers, it is also possible that it's
just the scribal version of a typo.
What shape is the Earth,
according to the Bible?
A. Flat as a pancake. This is inferred from the
pre-scientific context and various specific uses of imagery. But really, it
should not disturb people that ancient Hebrews thought like other peoples of the
time. Obviously I disagree with the answer and did give a link to details. But do not the difference between Kirby and foam-mouthers who would take "A" to mean they can dismiss the whole book.
A hypothetical group of self-styled scholars forms a seminar of
sorts and, beginning with the assumption that Jesus could not have said anything
eschatological in nature, uses colored beads to sift through the gospels and
declare which passages are probably not the actual words of Jesus. In the end,
they are left with a thoroughly non-eschatological Jesus. They are:
C. A
brave, minority voice for rational tolerance in our modern era, making
contributions to the quest of finding the historical Jesus. This is a
legitimate scholarly question about the HJ, and there are arguments on both
sides. Obviously I substantially disagree. I stand here with the likes of Philip Jenkins who have seen the Seminar as a self-indulgent waste of time.
According to the Bible, how are we saved?
E. There is
no systematic theology of salvation that is found in the various books. The Old
Testament is of little use in providing this kind of doctrine. There are verses
that suggest the necessity of sacraments. Obviously I disagree and gave a link. I proposed to Kirby that we debate this at a future date on TWeb.
Christmas celebrations
include trees. Which of the following is true?
D. This is completely
irrelevant to any discussion of ancient Christian beliefs.
Enuma
Elish provides a creation account of Apsu and Tiamat giving birth to Anshar and
Kishar, who bears Anu, who bears Ea, but Ea kills Apsu, Marduk is born, Tiamat
takes Kingu as husband, Ea loses to Tiamat, as does Anu, and Marduk cuts
Tiamat's body in half, forming the sky and earth. Which of the following is
true?
D. Genesis is nothing like this story and may have even been written
to counter the false notions of its contemporary pagan creation myths. Of
course it is also a creation myth. Obviously the answer within the Skeptical paradigm, but at least a step up!
Hume noted that a savage who had
never seen ice would be rational not to believe its existence. Which conclusion
is true?
C. Experience is a great teacher. But you can also learn from
trustworthy reports.
Christians must all be wrong because they cannot
agree on something like the procedures for and recipients of baptism. Applying
this same standard, which conclusion is produced?
A. Fish cannot exist
because we cannot decide whether to use English or Latin names for them. The
procedure for baptism is a culturally bound definition.
1 Corinthians
7:1 says it is good for a man not to touch a woman. This means:
D. It is a
figure of speech for sexual intercourse. Perhaps Paul could use the touch of
a good woman! Hmm, could Mother Theresa have used the touch of a good man?
1 Samuel 20:41 says, "And as soon as the lad was gone,
David arose out of a place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground,
and bowed himself three times; and they (i.e., Jonathan and David) kissed one
another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded..." This means:
D.
David and Jonathan were expressing the sort of intense emotion typical of
Easterners even today. See Understanding Arabs by Margaret K. Nydell.
I used that book for an oral presentation in interpersonal communication across
cultures. Kudos to Kirby for doing so. This is the kind of thing more of these Skeptics need to read.
A man on the street is running around with a sign that
says, "JESUS IS COMING! YOU WILL BURN!" The obvious conclusion is that:
D.
One should stay a few hundred feet away from this individual, whose eschatology
is not particularly sophisticated anyway. The threat of hell is mainly an
embarrassment to sophisticated theology and a means of keeping the more simple
in the group from fear.
A skeptic remarks on the intellectual
bankruptcy of religions and is applauded for his rationalism. A Christian
remarks on the intellectual bankruptcy of skepticism and is:
B. A
judgmental, intolerant, hateful fanatic. Most Christians I know in real life
consider skepticism to be a rational intellectual option. Perhaps, but this does miss the point of the inconsistency of the Skeptics under consideration. For Kirby B would be a correct answer, though, since he is not the Skeptical counterpart of this Christian.
In one
place Jesus says the disciples can take a staff (Mark 6:8); elsewhere he says
they can't (Matt. 10:10, Luke 9:1-6). The obvious conclusion:
B. Staves were
out of fashion when Matt and Luke wrote. More likely, itinerant radicalism
was not a big part of the settled churches of Matthew and Luke, so the
particulars of the saying didn't matter much anymore. Obviously I disagree and gave an answering link.
A Christian
tells you that willful sin is open rebellion that will lead to eternal damnation
unless you repent. Your response is:
C. "Why can't God just forgive sin?"
I mean, eventually, anyway. Glenn Miller has a huge series on this, of course.
A spacecraft, clearly not from earth,
is found on the moon. Some claim that it must have been designed by aliens. You
respond by saying:
D. "Only aliens could have designed this, so obviously
aliens exist." This would be shown especially if we can use the evidence to
figure out future technologies. I do that in Master of Orion II and it's a bunch
of fun.
What is a 'straw man'?
D. Something frequently burned by
Skeptics. Most people don't appreciate alternative takes on Christianity or,
generally, don't look into or understand religions in which they don't believe.
This applies to religionists and atheists.
How much of a skeptic are
you? When you suddenly smell smoke, you...
D. Assume that your wife is done
cooking dinner. I would have prima facie evidence of a fire, a claim worth
investigating post haste. But I wouldn't believe that there was a fire with
dogmatic certainty at first, and especially if there were contrary indications
after I investigated. Shortcircuited electronics and burned food have made me
think I smelled smoke.
What do you consider sufficient proof of
evolution?
C. The fossil record. Also genetics, biogeography, diachronic
physiology, and especially the way that they intermesh. Obviously my creationist friends would take issue.
What do you
consider sufficient proof of Christ's resurrection?
B. A videotape that
recorded the event. This is on the right track: stronger inductive evidence
trumping other inductive evidence. See my essay on Naturalistic
Inquiry. We hope to address this essay of Kirby's sometime in the near future.
In Numbers 31, Moses ordered his army officers to kill
all of the male children, kill all of the nonvirgin females, but to save alive
all of the virgin girls for his troops. This means:
C. The Israelites needed
someone to cook dinner for them after 40 years of manna. The nonvirgins
wouldn't be as desirable as wives. As the link I gave showed, this is not the case.
You live in a world with
multitudes of vastly different belief systems with many different kinds of
beliefs within those systems, one of which happens to be evangelical
Christianity. What does this mean?
D. We should systematically investigate
the claims of each worldview, from the monotheistic religions to atheism to
eastern religions and others, and deduce from the evidence which belief system
is most logical and has the "ring of truth" to it. So sad that so many
don't.
Since there is no classical historian at all that believes
Jesus Christ was a myth, which of the following is true?
D. This is a valid
appeal to authority, so they are probably right that there was a historical
Jesus However, a valid defeater to the appeal to authority is personal
experience of the primary data, at which point the discussion should turn away
from the psychology of authorities and towards the reality of evidence. And I am
not a Jesus Myther.
Hume taught that anything that it is irrational
to believe in something that doesn't conform to personal experience. Your
reaction should be:
A. Preach on, brutha Hume! See again my Naturalistic
Inquiry essay for something in the same tradition.
You find that, so
far, Theoretical Physicists are unable to reconcile Quantum Physics and
Relativity. What do you do?
D. You decide that more research by scientists
will eventually find the deeper truths underlying both theories. This is
because there is vaild data supporting both theories, and thus any unifying
theory would work with the same established facts.
You wish to refute
material on this site or in the links above. What is the proper course of
action?
E. Just do it.
I'll count E as valuing at 1.
My score
is 264. It says, "Now THAT is an open mind. Good show!" Thanks for the
fun, JP. Thanks for the decent answers, Peter!