The God Hypothesis

Much ink and blood has been spilled throughout history over the question of the existence and nature of God.  Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard professor and evolutionary biologist coined the term “Non-overlapping magisteria” (NOMA) to suggest that science and religion exist in distinct and separate spheres of inquiry without any overlap.  Others reject NOMA and maintain that the question of the existence of a supernatural entity is a scientific question best addressed by using the same tools used to solve any other questions of interest.  It is in that spirit that I state God’s existence as a hypothesis to be evaluated using the tools of science, reason and logic. Of course the existence of God is unknowable in a scientific sense and is best thought of in terms of probability.

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist, created a useful a seven-step Spectrum of theistic probability ranging in scale from “1,” strong theist (100% certainty) to “7,” strong atheist (equally certain, “There is no God”).  Please note that the strong theist and strong atheist are both irrational positions since they are assumed to be true without any evidence or argument. Both Carl Jung’s statement, “I do not believe, I know” and the atheist who declares, “There is no God” are both relying on something other than reason. The remaining points on the spectrum are: “2,” De facto theist (“Very high probability, but some uncertainty”), “3,” Leaning towards theism (“I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God”), “4,”  Completely impartial (“God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.”), “5,”  Leaning towards atheism (“I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical”), and “6,”  De facto atheist (“Very low probability, but short of zero”).


In this essay the God Hypothesis is defined as follows:  God is both a supernatural deity and a personal God who created the universe and all its contents including man.  He  performs miracles, answers prayers, and provides for eternal life or damnation.  He  possess the following powers: omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), and omnibenevolence (all-virtuous).  I will refer to God using the conventional masculine pronoun “he” in referring to “him.”  Philosophers and theologians have devised two types of arguments in support of the God’s existence, formal (structured) and informal (anecdotal).  Formal arguments in support include, the Cosmological argument, Anselm's Ontological argument, the Argument from Scripture, and the Argument from design. Informal arguments in favor include the Argument from morality, the Argument from justice, and the Argument from personal experience.  Arguments against include the Epicurean Trilemma, and  Hume’s test for miracles.

                                                Cosmological argument
           
The major premise of the Cosmological argument is, everything must have a cause and if the chain of causes is traced backward, the first cause (God) will be reached.  It is a very powerful, convincing, and easily understood argument.  Even an acknowledged elite-thinker such as Bertram Russell admitted in his book, Why I am not a Christian that he was convinced by the Cosmological argument until he read John Stuart Mill's autobiography.  According to Mills his father taught him that the question “Who made me?” cannot be answered “God,” since it immediately suggests the further question “Who made God?” The Cosmological argument contains the seeds of its own destruction and therefore must be rejected.

                                          Anselm's Ontological argument

Anselm's Ontological argument defines God as a being for which nothing greater can be imagined.  It further defines three categories of possible entities: “1,” things that exist in the understanding alone (such as the tooth fairy), “2,” things that exist in both the understanding and in reality (such as the sun), and  “3,” things that exist in reality but not in the understanding (obviously there are not any examples ).  If God is defined as the greatest conceivable being, than he cannot be in group “3,” since the concept of God is understood even by atheists. He also cannot be in category “1,” because a being in reality would have to be greater than a being only in the understanding and would contradict the major premise of the argument. Therefore by elimination, God must be part of the second category of things that exist in exist both in the understanding and in reality.  Anselm's Ontological argument is rooted on the unproven premise that something that exists in reality must be greater than something that is only imagined.  It can equally be argued that something can be imagined more perfect than anything known in reality.

                                                 Argument from Scripture

The Argument from Scripture is a classical example of a tautological argument or a self-reinforcing pretense of some significant truth. It normally takes the form of “The Bible is the inerrant truth because it was inspired by God” and “The Bible is God’s word because the Bible says so.”  The Argument from Scripture is similar to Lewis Carroll’s  Bellman's Theorem, “What I tell you three times is true” and is proof of nothing except for the lengths people will go in an attempt to defend the indefensible.  There is an old sausage adage that says, “If you love sausage, you should never watch them being made.”  After reading Bart Ehrman’s book,  Misquoting Jesus, The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, one could say the same thing about the Bible.

                                                            Argument from design

The Argument from design or teleological argument is based on the perceived evidence of deliberate design in the natural world.  It was originated by William Paley, an English clergyman and Christian apologist in his 1802 book,  Natural Theology.  Paley argued that if a watch was found in the woods, it would be reasonable to assume that it had a human designer.  Its intricate and complicated combination of parts precludes any possibility that its existence could occur by chance alone.  Paley then extended his argument of complexity to living things and contended that they are also too complex to have arisen by chance and therefore had to be the work of a divine creator called God. Ergo God exists!

The Argument from design reigned supreme until 1859, when Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species and introduced what has been called “The greatest idea that anyone ever had,” the Theory of Evolution through natural selection.  Prior to Darwin, there was not any plausible alternative for explaining the immense diversity and complexity of life on earth. The Theory of Evolution through natural selection is a scientific theory and like all scientific theories must explain something (in this case the diversity and complexity of life), must make predictions (that turn out to be true), and must be falsifiable.  The word “Theory” is being used in the scientific sense as opposed to the common definition that is similar to a “guess.”  In science a theory is a proven hypothesis and is the highest standard of truth obtainable and can even be called a “Law.”

Anything beyond a brief introduction to evolution is better suited for a book rather than a short (hopefully) essay.  For those interested in a more thorough treatment of this important and fascinating subject, a number of excellent books are recommended at the end.  Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary geneticist provided the following definition in his 2009 book, Why Evolution is True:   “Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species–perhaps a self-replicated molecule–that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.”

In spite of the fact that virtually all the scientists in the world accept evolution as a scientific fact, millions of US citizens (mostly lay people) refuse to accept it for religious reasons.  A recent Pew poll indicates that 40% of US citizens reject evolution in favor of the creation story told in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.  These Creationists, mostly fundamentalist Christians read the Bible literally and argue that Creationism or Intelligent Design (ID) is an alternative scientific theory to evolution and should be taught in public schools along side of the theory of evolution.  Note that this in direct opposition to Saint Jerome’s suggestion that a literal interpretation of the Bible is for the illiterate masses and an allegorical one for more advanced minds. Even Saint Augustine, one of the most influential theologians of the Catholic Church said  that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason.

The question of whether ID is a scientific theory or a religious belief was adjudicated in the District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in 2005. The case involved the Dover Area School District requiring the teaching of ID as an alternative to evolution theory.  Eleven parents of students in Dover sued the school board in Tammy Kitzmiller v. the Dover Area School District maintaining that ID was a religious belief and violated the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.   On December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III (a conservative Republican appointed in 2002 by George W. Bush) ruled that ID is not science and permanently barred the board from introducing into any school within the Dover Area School District.  He also prohibited them from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution.  Judge Jones’ 139-page findings of fact was a stunning endorsement of evolution and a major defeat for those promoting ID as a scientific theory.

                                                         Argument from morality

Many apologists have argued that God’s existence is proven by the fact that morality exists in the world.  Their major premise is that without God, man could not be moral because without his presence man would resort to his inherent evil state that began when a talking snake convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.  The Ten Commandments are often cited as an example of the proof of the argument.  Interestingly, there are several sets of “ten commandments” in the Bible including Exodus 20 that lists twenty-six commandments of which only four would be considered today to involve a moral issue.  They are, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, and Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor (perjury).  The prohibition of rape, incests, or slavery does not appear in any of list of commandments. The fact that 46% of world’s people are not followers of any theistic religion and still prohibit murder, stealing, and perjury by law demonstrates morality does not have to come from God.  John Rawls (1921 –  2002), an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral philosophy has shown clearly that morality has developed in all societies by trial and error.  Experience demonstrates that acts such as murder, rape, stealing, slavery and lying are detrimental to the happiness and contentment of all the people and were eventually outlawed by the state regardless and independent of their religious practices.

                                                          Argument from justice

The Argument from justice makes note of injustice in the world and then asserts that God must exist in order to eventually balance the scales of justice.  Caste systems, such as the one in India have long used this argument to quell unrest among the lowest and most disadvantaged classes claiming that they will have it better in their next life.  Saint Thomas Aquinas blurred the line between justice and revenge by suggesting the saints in heaven will be “permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell” in order to “enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly.”  The Argument from justice in addition to its obvious violation of God’s omnibenevolence does damage to William Gladstone’s idea of “Justice delayed, is justice denied” and is one of the least convincing arguments in favor of God’s existence.   

                                            Argument from personal experience

This argument is best personified by the Bellman's Theorem, “What I tell you three times is true.”  It was coined by the Christian apologist Lewis Carroll in his 1876 book, The Hunting of the Snark.  It is a widespread device used by many people (explicitly and implicitly) in support of a host of beliefs ranging from alien abductions and Virgin Mary sightings, to the ability to communicate with the dead.  A fundamentalist Christian once told me that he was “saved” when he woke up in the morning and found the hotel Bible in his room opened to John 3-16 (“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”.  He swears that it was closed  before he went to bed.  Another friend was obsessed with UFO sightings and swore that he had personally witnessed several events that could only be explained by the existence of extraterrestrials.  Richard Dawkins cited a 1992  survey in his book The Magic of Reality indicating that four million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens.  Whitley Striebers’s 1987 book, Communion is the story of his abduction and is billed as his “true story” and is classified “nonfiction.”  José Luis de Jesús Miranda died of cirrhosis of the liver on August 8, 2013.  While living in Miami, Florida he claimed to be the reincarnated Jesus and had over two million followers and believers. The Argument from personal experience can be used to prove anything and must be dismissed by rational people in the absence of evidence and independent verification.

                                                     Epicurean Trilemma

Epicurus (341–270 B.C.E.) was an ancient Greek philosopher and the author of the Epicurean Trilemma, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”  The Epicurean Trilemma has been a thorn in the side of theologians and Christian apologists for over two thousand years and has even spawned the disciple of Theodicy in an attempt to explain away the contradiction between God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence.  The question is, “How can evil exist in a world governed by an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God?” Apologists introduced free will in an attempt to square the circle.  According to this argument, God gave man free will to make choices and it’s man’s bad choices (Satan) that leads to evil and suffering.  This solved one problem, but created two new ones.

First, natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes occur at God’s direction and cannot be attributed to man’s free will.  And second, free will cannot be reconciled with omniscience.   Keep in mind that  “all knowing” requires perfect knowledge of everything that has happened in the past, perfect knowledge of everything happening in the present, and perfect knowledge of everything that will happen in the future.  One example should make it clear why free will cannot exist in the same space with omniscience. Bill, an atheist lives and dies. An omniscient deity would have known that prior to Bill’s birth, life and death. If Bill had changed his mind and became a believer before he died, that would contradict God’s prior knowledge and thus invalidate his omniscience.  Apologists must make a choice,  allow for free will or omniscience, they cannot have both!

                                                        Hume’s test for miracles

David Hume (1711 – 1776),  a Scottish philosopher suggested a way of evaluating claims of miracles. In his words, “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that the falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.”  First, he defined a miracle as a ‘transgression” against one of the laws of nature such as gravity, and further noted that their occurrences would have to be very rare.   For example,  Bill claims that he saw Elvis Presley walking down the street.  If true, that would be a miracle.  There are at least three other explanations: he was mistaken, lying, or even delusional.  According to Hume’s test for miracles, the falsehoods (Bill was mistaken, lying, or delusional) would have to be more miraculous than the fact (seeing Elvis).  The possibility that Bill was mistaken, lying, or delusional does not come close to being more miraculous than the alleged fact of seeing Elvis alive and walking down the street, therefore the alleged miracle must be rejected.

The existence of God along with all the claims for his wondrous deeds is surely the mother of all miracles.  According to Hume the alternatives provided by science, such as the “Big Bang,” and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution would have to be even more miraculous than the idea that man created God, therefore the concept of God must be considered the work of men and not a miracle. Formal arguments such as the Cosmological argument, Anselm's Ontological argument, and the Argument from Scripture are easily defeated and are seldom used anymore by apologists.  The Argument from design has lost its appeal since Darwin’s Theory of Evolution provides an evidence-based explanation for the diversity of life.  Informal arguments such the Argument from morality, the Argument from justice, and the Argument from personal experience are best described as “wishful” thinking and can be used to support virtually any fantasy imaginable. And the Argument from Scripture suffers both from circular reasoning and the Bellman's Theorem.

Although the Epicurean Trilemma and  Hume’s test for miracles do not disprove the existence of God (after all it is impossible to prove a negative), they certainly make the God Hypothesis highly improbable.  The conflict between omnipotence and omnibenevolence, and the tension between free will and omniscience cannot be reconciled without major modifications to the God Hypothesis.  And since all the major religions conflict on major issues, it is a logical conclusion that at best only one can be true.  It has been said that one gets their religion along with their mother’s milk in recognition of the fact that for the vast majority of people, their “chosen” religion is determined by their place of birth and the religion of their parents.  If the God Hypothesis were true it would be reasonable to expect that the choice of one’s religion would be based on something more substantial than ones birth place and “choice” of their parents.  After considering all the arguments I feel that a score of  6.9 (De facto atheist) on Dawkins’ Spectrum of theistic probability scale is the most rational position possible. For me the most compelling arguments against the existence of God are the Epicurean Trilemma and Hume’s test for miracles.  In the words of Stephen Hawking,  “One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary.”  Even if untrue, what is the harm in religious belief?  The answer lies in the words of Voltaire, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”  The truth of this is well documented by countless atrocities committed in the name of God.



Sources

1.  Why Evolution is True (2009) by Jerry Coyne. 
2.  The God Delusion (2006) by Richard Dawkins
3.  Misquoting Jesus, The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (2005) by Bart Ehrman
4.  Why I am not a Christian (1957) by Bertram Russell
5.  The Magic of Reality (2011) by Richard Dawkins
5.  Free Will (5/14/2013) Blog (The Needlefish Chronicles)
6.  The Bible:  God's Word or the work of Man? (5/6/2014)  Blog (The Needlefish Chronicles)

The Bible: God's Word or the work of Man?

           

Professors and students at the Moody Bible Institute are required to sign a statement attesting that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and every word in it is absolutely true.  Ignoring the wisdom of beginning an educational experience with a dogmatic conclusion, if anyone makes a claim concerning the “inerrant word of God,” they have the intellectual obligation of determining just exactly what is God’s word.  Bart Ehrman, a noted biblical scholar and holder of a PHD from Princeton Theological Seminary did an extraordinary job of doing just that in his 2005 best-selling book,  Misquoting Jesus, The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.
 
To understand the history of the New Testament (NT) and its creation, it is helpful to consider the following:  First, the history of Palestine at the time of Jesus was dominated by the conflict between the Jews and Roman authorities.  The Jewish people were waiting for the Messiah to come and lead the Jews to victory over the Romans and establish Israel as a Jewish state.   Second, illiteracy and ignorance were the predominant state of most people living at the time. In Acts 4:13 Peter and John are both described as “unlearned and ignorant men.”  Third, the original stories that eventually became the NT were not committed to writing until at least forty years after Christ died.  Prior to this the “Gospels” were created by word-of-month in a manner described by the Chinese as a “Thousand Whispers.”   Fourth, there was considerable conflict and competition for converts by the various religious factions based on stories about the life and time of Jesus.  In fact, there was little consistency in the first three centuries as to what it meant to be called a “Christian.” Ehrman coined the word Proto-orthodox Christianity to define a diverse group of people in recognition of the fact that Christianity was not a unified belief system until around 325 CE.   And fifth, most of people in the Middle East were pagans at the time.

The Proto-orthodox groups included Docetists, Adoptionists, Jewish-Christian Ebionites, and Gnostics.  As a group the Proto-orthodox Christians competed with each other for acceptance of their religious ideas and were eventually considered heretics by the “Christians.” Docetists believed that Jesus was not a full-flesh-and-blood human and that there were two Gods (the God of the Old Testament (OT) and the God of the NT. Adoptionists held the idea that Jesus was a human born to Joseph and Mary in the traditional manner and who was later adopted by God as the Son at the time he was baptized. The Jewish-Christian Ebionites regarded Jesus as the Messiah rejecting his divinity and insisting on following Jewish law and rites. These various groups were important because they account for a large portion of the significant variations found in various copies of NT manuscripts. The Apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus)  was the most important leader in  the first-century religious movement that culminated into orthodox Christianity in 325 CE.  He died in 67 CE at least forty years after the death of Jesus and it is doubtful if he ever knew any of the disciples.

As Professor Ehrman noted, “There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.” The number of variations in the various ancient manuscripts has been put between 300,000 and 400,000 by a large number of Bible scholars.  Ehrman attributes these variations to unintentional copying errors by the scribes and to intentional changes motivated by advocates for their beliefs as to what the truth should be.  At the time when the NT stories were finally committed to writing the early “Christians” had to rely on amateur scribes because they could not afford to hire professional scribes.  Most of these scribes could not read and simply copied by rote without knowing what they were copying.

This was the situation that existed until the Emperor of Rome, Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 CE.  In 331 CE he ordered fifty Bibles produced at the empire’s expense.  Bishop Eusebius was charged with the task and hired professional scribes to do the writing and also built a special place where the work would take place called a scriptorium.  Their task was to gather up all the copies of the various Gospels and determine which one’s were the “originals” reflecting what the original authors actually said.

The first copy of the NT was written in Greek sometime between 330 and 360 CE It could not have been written before 325 CE because it contains the Eusebian Canons, and it could not have been written after 360 CE because of certain references to Church fathers in the margin.  Pope Damasus I commissioned the Greek Scholar Jerome to translate the Greek NT into Latin and he spent three years (382–385 CE) in Rome working closely with Pope Damasus and the leading Christians to produce what was called the Latin Vulgate (Latin translation of the Bible).

Given the history as sketched out above it is not surprising to learn that today there are literally dozens of versions of the Bible in use.  Currently some version of the Vulgate NT is the most used by Christians rather than the earlier Greek NT (Codex Sinaiticus).  Of course, many of the variations among the numerous manuscripts (both Greek and Latin) were minor, however a number of them are highly significant and will be discussed at length.  For example, the divinity of Jesus was very much in question in the first century and the variations in many manuscripts reflect an attempt to comply with the Pauline story of the virgin birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The similarity of two letters in the Greek alphabet was used to change 1 Timothy (3-16) to support the divinity of Christ.  The difference between the Greek letter theta (Θ) and the omicron (Ο) are slight.  A theta looks like an omicron with a line in the middle.  One feature of the Greek language (nomina sacra) is the custom of abbreviating sacred names.  For example, the Greek word for “God” is  written (ΘΣ) whereas the word “who” is written in Greek as (ΟΣ).  Johann Jakob Wettstein (1693 – 1754), a  Swiss theologian and well-known NT scholar noticed while studying the Codex Alexander manuscript that the book of 1 Timothy (3-16) had been changed.  The line in the middle of the theta was written in a different ink changing the meaning (in referring to Christ) as “God made manifest in the flesh” as opposed to “who was made manifest in the flesh.” This a most important discovery because this verse is often cited as evidence of Jesus’ divinity claims.  The issue of the divinity of Christ has long been disputed both by early church leaders and later Bible scholars. The issue was finally decided by a vote in the Council of Nicaea in the year 325 CE at which time Christ was declared to be the Son of God by a close vote.   The council also decided which Gospels were  to be included in the NT (canonical).  Many Gospels and other writings were excluded, including The Gospel of Mary, Judas, James, and Thomas.

The change to 1 Timothy (3-16) is significant because it is direct evidence of fraud and is not the only example of fraud in the historical record. For example, Christian apologists are fond of quoting the renowned Greek historian Flavius Josephus in support of the authenticity of the Bible.  They cite a passage allegedly from his book, Antiquities of the Jews (94 CE) that references Jesus.  It is important to note that Josephus wrote another book, The Jewish War, nineteen years earlier (much closer to the time of Christ) before he wrote Antiquities of the Jews, and did not mention Jesus at that time. The passage in question referencing Jesus is extremely brief in contrast to Josephus’ usual voluminous and exhaustive style.  As an example, in one case he devoted almost forty chapters to the life of just one king.  He wrote pages on petty robbers and obscure leaders of the time. Who could believe that he only wrote one paragraph about Christ?  It is for these reasons that Kenneth Harding and other scholars consider the reference to Jesus in the Antiquities of the Jews to be a blatant Christian forgery that was added many years later.

In another example of changing scripture to support Jesus’ divinity, Luke 2:33 originally read “his Father and Mother were marveling at what was said about Jesus,” but was later changed to “Joseph and his Mother were marveling at what was said about Jesus.” The original Luke 2:33 would imply that Jesus had an earthly father and mother whereas the changed version is more favorable to Jesus’ divinity.

John (5: 7-8) or the so named Johannine Comma is another important piece of scripture that was changed because it contains the most explicit statement in support of the Doctrine of the Trinity (“Father, Son and Holy Ghost”).  It can be found in the Latin Vulgate, but it is not found in the vast majority of the Greek manuscripts. This has resulted in a long-standing dispute over a major article of Christian doctrine. Isaac Newton one of histories brightest intellectual luminaries and a most pious Christian would not accept the Doctrine of Trinitarianism.  Many other notable historical persons, including Thomas Jefferson also rejected it.  Many Bible scholars believe that John (5: 7-8) was added to the NT and was not part of the majority of earlier manuscripts.

Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that the last twelve verses of Mark 16 (verses 9-20) were not in the original manuscripts and were also added later.  One of the most intriguing and dangerous verses (17-18) reads, “And these are signs that will accompany those who believe: they will cast out demons in my name; they will speak in new tongues; and they will take up snakes in their hands; and if they drink any poison it will not harm them; they will place their hands upon the sick and heal them.” These verses are a favorite of the Pentecostal Christians and in February 2014, Kentucky Pentecostal pastor Jamie Coots was bitten while handling a rattlesnake during a “Snake Salvation” church ritual.  He died after refusing medical treatment.  According to his son, his last words were “Sweet Jesus.”  Or in the words of  Voltaire, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

The tradition of scribes changing the texts during copying was so fragrant and pervasive that the author (perhaps John the Apostle) of  Revelations felt compelled in verses (18-19) to include the following warning: “I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book; and if anyone removes any of the words of the book of this prophecy, God will remove his share from the tree of life and from the holy city as described in this book.”

After years of studying ancient Bible manuscripts, Ehrman concludes that the  Bible is not the inerrant word of God and must be considered the work of men.  He reasoned that if God had inspired the writing of the Bible, the final product would be one consistent work instead of a multitude of manuscripts with their many variations both insignificant and significant. He further concluded that many of the NT scriptural differences can be attributed to the Apostle Paul’s efforts to compete with his various rivals for the acceptance of his version of Christianity by the pagans. Professor Ehrman’s conclusion is most startling considering his background. He was born in Lawrence, Kansas and was raised in a religious family.  At the age of fifteen he was born again and became a fundamental Pentecostalist. He also earned a diploma from the Moody Bible Institute and graduated from Wheaton College (the alma mater of Billy Graham).

 I agree with his conclusion. I also sense that the forty-year delay from the time Christ died and when the first oral histories were committed to writing poses even greater problems for the integrity of the Bible. The oral history of the Gospels is an example of the game “telephone” in which one person whispers a short and simple message to another which is then passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group.  In most cases the final statement bears little or no semblance to the original statement.  To think that the four Gospels could have been transmitted from person to person and maintain the integrity of the original stories for at least forty years is more than absurd.  Paradoxically the early Christian Church leader and author Tertullian (160 - 225 CE) used the idea of absurdity as  “proof” for the truth of Christian doctrine.  In his words, “I believe because it is absurd.”  He also said, “And buried, He rose again: it is certain, because it is impossible.”  In what other pursuit would absurdity and impossibility be offered as evidence that something is true?

David Hume (1711 – 1776),  a Scottish philosopher suggested a way of evaluating claims of miracles. In his words, “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that the falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.”  First, he defined a miracle as a ‘transgression” against one of the laws of nature such as gravity, and further noted that their occurrences would have to be very rare.   For example,  Bill claims that he saw Elvis Presley walking down the street. If true this would be a miracle. There are at least three other explanations; Bill was mistaken, lying, or even delusional.  According to Hume’s test for miracles, the falsehoods (Bill was mistaken, lying, or delusional) would have to be more miraculous than the fact (of seeing Elvis).  The possibility that Bill was mistaken, lying, or delusional does not come close to being more miraculous then the alleged fact of seeing Elvis alive and walking down the street, therefore the alleged miracle must be rejected.  If God revealed  his word to the authors of the Bible, that would be a miracle.  Its “falsehood,” that men wrote the Bible without any supernatural intervention or assistance would have to be more miraculous than divine intervention.  Professor Ehrman’s research clearly shows that the Bible as a work of men and is far less miraculous than it being the product of God. Therefore according to Hume’s test, the Bible must be considered he work of men and not a miracle. 



Sources:

1.  Misquoting Jesus, The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (2005) by Bart D.  Ehrman
2.  Why People Believe Weird Things (1997) by Michael Shermer
3.  The Magic of Realty (2011) by Ricard Dawkins
4.  The Gospel Truth (1/28/2013), Blog (The Needlefish Chronicles)