A Guiding Light in the Darkness...
I am enclosing a check for $12, $6 for the past year's subscription and $6 for the upcoming year. Why am I paying for something that was clearly stated as free, you ask? Because the work of enlightening mankind is worthy of financial support as well as words of encouragement. Farrell, I appreciate the work you and your staff do by explaining the truth about religious claims, which most of us in this country have grown up believing to some degree or another to be somewhat true, somehow. The question floating around in my generation seemed to be, "What do I feel and why do I feel it?" The idea being, I suppose, to get in touch with our feelings, the I'm OK, you're OK feeling. Well, feeling good is good, but is what I feel good about true? Ah, therein was the problem. I didn't know what was true and what was, well, a lie. I had to ask myself a more important question, "What do I know and how do I know it?"
This being the information age, I turned to the Internet, typed in Christianity, religion, atheism, and my thinking light instantly came on and has stayed on ever since. I discovered The Skeptical Review, requested a subscription and was soon engrossed in article after article explaining the ins and outs of many Biblical claims and how they misrepresent truth and why. Although I have expanded my search for truth, your journal fills a much needed void. The fear of knowing need not be a fear of learning. It is a challenge to all "believers" to seek the guiding light of truth through honest inquiry, not through the blindness of faith. Truth is truly a guiding light in the darkness and that is the meaning and value of enlightenment. May that light forever shine bright.
(Gloria Nyquest, 10500 Highway 10 East, Missoula, MT 59802; e-mail, nyquest@Montana.com)
EDITOR'S NOTE: For two years now, I have been expressing my belief that the internet will bring about dramatic changes in religion, because the internet ended the ability of the religious establishment to control information. Religious leaders and advocates can no longer suppress information by just not making anything detrimental to common beliefs available in churches and public and school libraries. Now anyone, almost anywhere in the world, who can use a keyboard can access information that even a decade ago could have been screened from the public. Ms. Nyquest's letter is just one of many that we have received from people who discovered TSR by browsing the internet. Not a week goes by that we don't receive subscription requests from people who discovered our web site. I want to express my appreciation to the Internet Infidels who have made the secular web available to publications like The Skeptical Review.
Thank you for sending me The Skeptical Review. I'm an atheist who was raised on the Bible until the age of 24. I was born in Israel, and I'm an ex-Jewish Israeli since coming to the USA in 1979. As a child, you are never able to doubt the information that you are given in school. The seeds of doubts start when you are a little older and wiser and realize that some of the stuff they fed you is part of brainwashing. I thank my fortune that I was able by myself to sort it out and come to the conclusion that you don't have to believe everything grown-ups tell you. As a Jew (ex- Jew), I still am fascinated by the Bible as far as history is concerned, plus other things in it. That is why I'm happy to read your magazine. It helps me to understand a lot of things that I never before was skeptical about. My eyes are now more wide open!!! Thank you again.
I'd like to mention that I read the book by Dennis McKinsey The Encyclopedia of Biblical errancy. It's most illuminating and educational. Half of it is dedicated to the New Testament, which as an ex-Jew I'm not familiar with, so it sounds strange to me. I do prefer to read about the Old Testament, especially your article about "prophecies." It was educational for me. Enclosed you will find a check for back issues and The Jackson-Till and Geisler-Till debates.
I belong to Atheists United, which I joined in 1995, and I'd like to mention that I have met a lot of American Jewish atheists. Quite interesting!
(Jesse Illous, 15240 Kittridge Street, Apt. 222, Van Nuys, CA 91405)
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy that Mr. Illous referred to was written by Dennis McKinsey, the editor of Biblical Errancy, and published by Prometheus Books. Information about the book can be obtained from McKinsey at 2500 Punderson Drive, Hilliard, OH 43026; e-mail, klomckin@ infinet.com.
Dave Matson defines a miracle, in his letter to TSR, as a "violation of scientific law." The issue of miracles is a major--if not the major--area of contention between the believer and the non-believer, the inerrantist and the skeptic errantist.
According to Dave, a violation of scientific law can be termed a "miracle," yet where I completely disagree with Dave's comments is that a "miracle" does not, at all, have to violate scientific law to be considered a "miracle."
A miracle is based on perception--not necessarily in reality. What is a miracle to one may not be to another. It is, in the broad sense of the term, something which is beyond our own personal understanding and/or acceptance. The ignorant will find much more "miraculous" than the learned.
If I took my cellular phone back to ancient Greece and began making calls (assuming someone else went back with me with a phone), there would, no doubt, be many Greeks totally dumbfounded by what they were seeing. Surely many would consider this contraption a "miracle." And if they found out they could fly, or found out that light could be used for healing, or found out that we have visited the moon, they would continue to be amazed by these "miracles." To us, these things may be incredible but not "miracles"--but to the Greeks...?
Failure to understand can be the progeny of a "miracle," as can ignorance. Only an omniscient being, should it exist, would consider nothing a "miracle."
No, Dave, a miracle is not a "violation of scientific law." One area where we do agree is that scientific laws, as far as we know, cannot be broken--so, if this is your definition of a "miracle," then I do agree with you--there are no miracles. The real question lies in whether or not we are aware of all the "scientific laws" we may be subject to.
Dave, as many skeptics do, is judging events in the Bible as being implausible based on the assumption that he has absolute knowledge of all scientific laws. As a result, anything beyond his/ our comprehension, or "outside" of that understanding, is unknowable, and therefore impossible. He labels these "miracles" and dismisses them and, as a result, dismisses their "source," in its entirety.
But the real truth is that Dave, like all of us, may not know all there is to know concerning our existence and that there may be other scientific laws still undiscovered (unless, of course, he is that omniscient being I spoke of above). This suggests that there may be rational explanations for seemingly "impossible" occurrences lurking out there waiting for science to discover them. And there are countless examples of this occurring throughout history.
I agree with Farrell's comments on Dave's letter. It is a good letter, logically presented. But it starts out with a false and mistaken premise, and we all know logical arguments can be built on false premises.
Dave, in the second sentence of his letter, asks the question: "Is not it (a miracle), in its fullest sense, a violation of scientific laws?" To that, I answer, "No, it is not. Scientific laws, to my knowledge, cannot be violated."
(Dave Court, 25 Mitchem Drive, Etobicoke, ON, Canada M8W 258; e-mail, hoover1@netcom.ca)
MATSON'S REPLY: You have brought up a good point! Your definition of a miracle is certainly a practical one, a miracle being an event that is totally beyond the understanding of the observer to the point of awe. As you pointed out, such a miracle need not violate scientific law. A computer would certainly strike the ancient Greek mathematicians as a miracle.
The central core of my reasoning, however, remains unchanged. The rational mind is still obliged to choose the probable explanation over the improbable. The thrust of your argument is as follows: "Dave, as many skeptics do, is judging events in the Bible as being implausible based on the assumption that he has absolute knowledge of all scientific laws. As a result, anything beyond his/our comprehension, or `outside' of that understanding, is unknowable, and therefore impossible; he labels these `miracles' and dismisses them and, as a result, dismisses their `source,' in its entirety."
The flaw in your argument is that I don't have to assume that my knowledge of scientific law is complete or correct. Therefore, it does not follow that I am claiming that anything outside of such laws is impossible. All I know is that "law X" has been tested rigorously over the years by numerous, trained individuals, under various circumstances and extreme conditions, and has always proven true within a certain range of the variables under consideration. Now, it's theoretically possible that one more test under unusual circumstances might overthrow those data in favor of a miracle. But, which is more likely true, a well documented scientific law (having survived rigorous testing over the years) or a third-hand claim that such a law is in error, a claim whose circumstances are lost forever to us?
My reason for rejecting biblical miracles, in my last letter and now, is not that they are a priori impossible. It is that they lack the kind of documentation that is so necessary to compete with scientific laws. In this case, a miracle (to the modern mind), your definition or mine, boils down to a claim that our understanding of a well tested principle(s) is wrong. That is an extraordinary claim given the degree to which that principle(s) has been tested and found to be true. On one hand, we have our understanding of a principle that is backed by a huge amount of research and observation. On the other hand, unless one makes unjustified a priori assumptions about the Bible, we have what can only be described as totally undocumented claims of miracles. The rational choice is obvious, especially given that similar miracle claims invariably accompany most religions.
Extraordinary claims always require extraordinary evidence. If you wish to argue that a well established view of science is wrong, in favor of a miracle, then you need some awesome evidence! A few biblical miracles lend themselves to plausible scientific explanations, but most, such as the claim that a metal axe head can be made to float by a magical spell, run squarely against our understanding of scientific principles. You are free, of course, to believe in the undocumented miracle at the expense of the well established scientific principle, on the idea that the miracle might be true, but don't fool yourself by thinking that you have made a rational choice. The rational mind notes the total lack of any serious documentation for the miracles of the Bible and compares that with the heavily tested and documented principles of science. Under those circumstances, it rejects the conflicting biblical miracles as an inferior hypothesis. We reject the inferior hypothesis as improbable; we do not say that it is impossible.
Therefore, we reject Bible miracles (where they run counter to well tested principles) as improbable scenarios.
After reading Dr. James Price's article in the May/June issue of The Skeptical Review, I felt inspired to write a letter for the "Mailbag." A key sentence in the doctor's article is, "The inerrancy of the Bible depends on the truth of fulfilled prophecy, but fulfilled prophecy does not depend on the Bible being inerrant in every detail; it depends only on the truth of the relevant details of the prophecy."
What a mouthful. And what a cop-out!
In other words, Dr. Price, prophecy is the only aspect of the Bible that matters? In the controversy over divine inspiration and inerrancy, or lack thereof, all the contradictions, cruelties, incongruities, plagiarisms, mythological transferences, absurdities, and obvious untruths in the Bible are insignificant. The only criterion that counts is whether a prophecy came true. That offsets all of the unholy attributes of the Bible and its deity.
Let's consider the first one third of Dr. Price's mouthful: "The inerrancy of the Bible depends on the truth of fulfilled prophecy...." Dr. Price cannot accuse me of taking this out of context, because it is a separate point and can be written as a free-standing sentence. Saying biblical inerrancy is dependent on fulfilled prophecy is analogous to saying only the debits in a bookkeeper's ledger amount to any importance, but the credits have no value. What about the Bible's recording of past events? Shouldn't a Bible author recounting the story of Adam and Eve be just as accurate in looking back at that past event and putting the information into the sacred page as a prophet is in writing about the future? The author of the events concerning the creation and fall of man was not a spectator at those events, just as Jeremiah was not around at the time his prophecies were to be fulfilled. The Bible logically must be as reliant on "reverse prophecy" for its inerrancy as it is upon correct predictions of the future. Therefore, Price's claim that "the inerrancy of the Bible depends on the truth of fulfilled prophecy" is incomplete and fallacious. Furthermore, by emphasizing prophecy so strongly, Dr. Price deemphasizes not only the retelling of past events but other elements of the "word of God" as well, such as family values, social ethics, morality, promise-keeping, historical accuracy, and harmony of content in the books of The Book.
Now for the second part of the key mouthful: "(F)ulfilled prophecy does not depend on the Bible being inerrant in every detail." To the skeptic, I'm afraid it does. After learning of the many failed prophecies and contradictions in the Bible, the skeptic cannot acknowledge a "fulfilled" prognostication as anything but a coincidence or a product of editing ex post facto.
My final question for Dr. Price regarding this middle third: "Does `in every detail' encompass other prophecies besides the one in Jeremiah 25:11?" If yes, Dr. Price implicitly admits that some prophecies can be errant, can be unfulfilled, without affecting the validity of other prophecies. In other words, the totality of prophecy is true even if details of particular prophecies never come to pass. This is illogical to the max. If divine, the Bible is automatically a work of harmony.
The last section of Dr. Price's mouthful says prophecy fulfillment "depends only on the truth of the relevant details of a given prophecy." Restated and reduced to a simpler state, this example of convoluted logic redundantly says that a fulfilled prophecy depends on the truth of itself. We can also fairly ask, "Well, then, who determines what details are relevant?"
I get the impression that Dr. Price deems a detail relevant if he finds historical correlation to support it or another passage of the Bible that harmonizes with it, but discards a detail as irrelevant if he finds no supporting evidence. Dr. Price seems to "pick and choose" his pet prophecy details, just as Christians pick and choose their own pet verses and commands of God by selecting those that comfortably fit into their lifestyle and socio-economic niche and conveniently ignoring those that they find uncomfortable or that would involve sacrifice or change.
In the initial paragraph of "Solving the Jeremiah Problem," we discover another of many weaknesses in Dr. Price's argument. This weakness reads, "Further, the fulfillment of the prophecy is documented by contemporary extrabiblical historic records, the validity of which is denied by none."
I'm afraid this is simply not true. Three well known authorities on the Bible who do deny validity come to mind. These authorities give different durations for the Babylonian captivity than the duration Dr. Price so stubbornly insists upon, and the fact that one of these authorities is a Bible apologist certainly doesn't help resurrect Price's sagging argument. Two of these authorities were atheists, so such a balance in biases certainly puts a kink in Price's hose.
The first of these is Isaac Asimov, who was an expert in many things, including the Bible. In 1967, Asimov wrote, "(T)he period of exile was not seventy years. From the destruction of the temple in 586 B. C. to Cyrus's proclamation in 538 B. C. was a lapse of only 48 years.
"Of course, Jeremiah and the chronicler may not have thought of seventy years as representing a precise length of time.... Seventy years may merely have meant the `lifetime of a man' to them.
"On the other hand, the seventy years that were accomplished at Babylon may refer to the duration of the Chaldean Empire, which from the accession of Nebuchadnezzar to that of Cyrus lasted sixty-seven years" (Guide to the Bible, Volume 1, The Old Testament).
As if one were needed, here's another blow to Dr. Price's insistence on a literal fulfillment of seventy years, by eminent Bible scholar Robin Lane Fox: "In 597 B. C., the king of Judah was sent east as a royal captive to Babylon. Some of his subjects went with him, and ten years later, in 587, the city of Jerusalem fell to a second invasion by Babylonian troops"(The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible).
The third authority who is at variance with Dr. Price's opinion of a 70-year exile is Werner Keller, author of The Bible as History. This work, which is most definitely pro-Bible, lists the years of the Babylonian exile as 586 to 538 B. C., concurring with Dr. Asimov and falling short of Dr. Price by 22 years.
(Christopher Edsall, 555 North Council Road, Apt. F, Oklahoma City, OK 73127.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Edsall points out a problem that I have tried unsuccessfully to get Dr. Price to see. He cannot claim amazing prophecy fulfillment when the event alleged to be the fulfillment is fraught with as much controversy as this one is. If even those who are Bible believers cannot agree that the Judeans spent 70 years in Babylonian captivity, how can Dr. Price reasonably expect rational people to accept this as a genuine case of prophecy fulfillment? Dr. Price obviously has a bias that makes him predisposed to accept everything claimed in the Bible, but rational people cannot and will not do this.
I read with interest the letter, "The Emperor's Clothes," by Kelly Cunningham in the July/August 1997 issue of TSR. He complains that "Biblical errancy efforts seem somewhat like criticizing the clothes the emperor is no longer wearing. The issue isn't just whether this verse or that is flawed; I find scholarly textual analysis of the Bible is miles beyond this." Well, Mr. Cunningham is certainly right on all counts, and I am in full agreement with his points challenging belief in Bible inerrancy. However, he either ignores or is unaware of an important fact of life. Let me try to make my point with the following example. Last year I attended the annual conferences of both the American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Each meeting was well attended by their standards. There were between one hundred fifty and two hundred attendees at each. However, at the recent annual convention of the Southern Baptist Association, there were around fourteen thousand attendees. As freethinkers we must never forget that we remain a feared and hated minority awash in a sea of Bible-believing Christians.
Yes, the Bible was thoroughly discredited long ago, as Mr. Cunningham points out, and it's all there in the literature for anyone to read. But, except for some Bible scholars and a few isolated freethinkers like us, who bothers? Most pulpit audiences remain blissfully ignorant of these works. Their preachers or priests may be vaguely aware of them, but they are not about to reveal it. If you asked the average churchgoers who Burton L. Mack is, they would probably identify him as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys.
We freethinkers may be small in number; we certainly do not have access to huge sums of money; we lack political clout, but we do have one important thing on our side--the facts. Therefore, we must continue to drive the point of biblical errancy home again and again and, if necessary, again. To the scholar and to the informed freethinker such repetition of the obvious may be downright boring, as Mr. Cunningham suggests, but it remains the most effective weapon in our limited arsenal.
(Louis W. Cable, 102 Spyglass Dr., Lufkin, TX 75901; e-mail, lwcable@inu. net)
EDITOR'S NOTE: I am repeatedly asked, "Why do you do this [oppose biblical inerrantists]?" My answer has always been the same. History has shown that when religion controls government, enlightenment and freedom suffer. If biblicists are not opposed by those who know the absurdity of their claims, they will continue to hoodwink political bodies into giving them concessions and a favored status that will erode personal rights and freedoms. If people who know the absurdity of their position won't oppose them, who will?
Whether or not god "visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation" just doesn't matter, because that lousy, vengeful, murderous god of the bible is a creation of primitive, vulgar, cruel people who thought the earth was flat.
Atheism is not a religion. An atheist is free of any gods, demons, heavens, hells, or dogmas of any kind. No manmade superstitions! We love our brains and our reasoning power. Voltaire was one of us, up to and including his dying day. (Attention, Mr. Casao.) The lies made up after his death, that he adored Christ and repented, are another self-serving attempt by Christians to convince us that no one could really be free of religion.
To god, a really bad sin is not murder, torture, incest, wife-beating, theft, or corruption. It is worshiping some other god. Oh, puleeez! Blasphemy is an unpardonable sin as well, as you point out, Mr. Hutchinson. I say to you that you can be a "sinner" if you want to, but I am a fine human being, and it is thanks to my character, not some bloody sacrifice.
(Dorothy B. Thompson, P. O. Box 562, Bandon, OR 97411.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Ms. Thompson made a point that I wonder about every time I read the Bible, especially the Old Testament. I wonder why it took me so long to see that the Bible is obviously the work of superstitious people living in primitive times when gods were thought to be active in human affairs. Once one is able to see this, he can't read the Bible without thinking, "How stupid I was!"
After reading "Keep them barefooted and pregnant" Sept/Oct 1997, I find that you are not knowledgeable in the historical background as to why "women are to keep silent in the churches."
The part where women are to "ask their husbands at home" was said because in church, men sat on one side of the building and women sat on the other side. Whenever a woman did not understand what the minister was saying, she would ask her husband, who was sitting on the other side of the sanctuary, what did the minister mean. So it was disruptive to others. This is the historical background of this.
Woman [sic] are permitted to teach and encouraged to do so. Acts 2:17-18 indicates that "sons and daughters shall prophecy [sic]." The word "prophecy" [sic] means "to preach" or "foretell." Phillip [sic] the evangelist in the book of Acts had 4 daughters who were prophetess[es] (Women preachers).
Woman [sic] are not given a bad rap in the Bible as you would have your readers to believe. It was Adam's fault that Eve fell into temptation. He was given charge over his family. The man is to oversee the affairs of the family to make sure they are in order, since woman [sic] are to be treated as a weaker vessel. Yet, they are one in the sight of God as husband and wife in marriage (and not shacking up either).
You must really be reaching for straws to make the Bible look bad.
(SuprDave@lightspeed.net)
EDITOR'S NOTE: When "SuprDave's" letter arrived by e-mail, I sent a reply asking him for his mailing address so that I could publish it with his letter. He refused to send it, and so I am printing his letter with only his e-mail address. In refusing to send his mailing address, "Suprdave" said, "I'm really not interested in submitting my name and address since it will probably result in [a] stampede." If I had written this letter, I don't think I would want my name attached to it either.
He arbitrarily declared a "historical background" for Paul's commandment that women keep silent in the churches and apparently expects us to accept it, even though he gave no supporting evidence. Only a cursory examination of the text is sufficient to see that "SuprDave's" explanation is unlikely. In the passage in question, Paul said, "As in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silence in the churches," so this was obviously a commandment that Paul expected all churches to observe and not just some where there may have been a custom of women sitting on one side and men on the other. Furthermore, "SuprDave's" explanation is even more sexist than Paul's probable meaning, because it supposes that women would be so intellectually inferior to men that they would have to constantly ask their husbands what the preacher meant. The scenario that this explanation presents is also too ridiculous to deserve serious comment, because it supposes situations, where wives would be calling across the room to say, "Hey, Stephanas, what did the preacher mean by that?" What we have in "Suprdave's" historical explanation is just another absurd effort to circumvent an obvious textual embarrassment in the Bible. It's no wonder he didn't want his name published with this letter.
It was so nice of "SuprDave" to put some of the blame for the "fall" on Adam, but that does nothing to remove the fact that the Bible is obviously sexist in its teachings. "SuprDave," for example, said nothing about Paul's statement to Timothy, "Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness" (1 Tim. 2:11- 12). It's hard to find in this only a scenario in which Paul was trying to regulate women who were speaking to their husbands across the room during sermons. It's an obvious command for women to shut up and be in subjection to men.
"SuprDave" is certainly right about other biblical passages that refer to women prophesying, but these are all references in non-Pauline books. The only thing they would prove is that there was disagreement between Luke (in this case) and Paul. The former seemed to think that women could sometimes assume teaching duties in the church; the other thought that they should keep quiet and stay in their places. This is just another case of discrepancy in the biblical text, but biblicists like "SuprDave" would never admit it. They apparently want us to believe that their omniscient, omnipotent deity was so stupid that he couldn't inspire clear writing, and so he has to depend on the "SuprDaves" of the world to explain what this omnimax deity really meant.
I just read Farrell's article on the supposed martyrdom of the apostles where he explained that not only the martyrdom but the very existence of many of the apostles is highly questionable. Farrell concluded, "No doubt many Christians who read this article will lay it aside and continue like parrots to ask the same question: `Why would the apostles have died for something they knew was false?'"
There are a few possibilities/realities that were overlooked: (1) Many people have died for many false beliefs. This includes people from various religions and cults--the Mormon founder Joseph Smith, for one. (2) There is no proof that the "apostles" were in fact 1st-generation witnesses of the ministry of Jesus. Except for Paul who was admittedly not an apostolic witness to Jesus, and whose very conversion story has inconsistencies, it is difficult to ascertain whether or not the gospels and epistles attributed to the various "apostles" were in fact written by the people whose names they carry. The gospel writers never identified themselves. Jesus, important as he is supposed to be, never wrote anything down, and the gospel stories about his ministry contain many contradictions. There is no proof that the people "spreading the good news" in fact knew Jesus personally. Most of the Jewish prophets gave their names to their prophetic books and identified themselves by name, and still the authorship of their final forms is questionable. This cannot even be said about any of the gospels, whose authorship is highly questionable. The "apostles" themselves may have been nothing more than duped believers. (3) Even if the apostles did know Jesus and were in fact in love with his persona and charisma and were loyal to him, they might well have been willing to risk their freedom and lives for him, or for the claims about him, especially if they were making their living off the stories about him. (4) The apostles, once they were arrested, had very little say in the matter. They were at the mercy of their executioners. They didn't "die for what they believed"; rather, they were murdered, and it seems unlikely that once they were in the sadistic hands of their murderers they had any say in the matter.
(Yoel Wasserman, P. O. Box 998, Aspen, CO 81612; e-mail, core@rof.net)
You never cease to amaze me with your knowledge of the Bible and your ability to refute religionists in such an in-depth and polite manner. I grew up in a Christian family and later became an extreme Bible-thumper. After praying and reading the "Good Book" every day, a funny thing happened: I started to know the Bible. I started to realize how savage everyone in the Old Testament was, so I avoided reading it. It tested my faith too much. Then I noticed the contradictions in the New Testament (specifically the gospels), but I couldn't very well read the Bible every day and avoid the Old Testament and the New Testament.
After a great deal of "soul-searching," I finally had to be honest and admit to myself that I just don't believe. I've had many doubts about that decision, but I have to be as honest as I can. I can't believe in that book.
Your publication has helped so much in keeping me on the straight and narrow. I can't thank you enough. Enclosed is $12 for two more years.
(J. C. Douglas, P. O. Box 5546, Ocala, FL 34478-5546.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Douglas's experience was similar to mine. I
first became aware of glaring inconsistencies in the Bible by studying
parallel accounts in the synoptic gospels, but once my mind was opened
to the probability that errors were in the Bible, I was able to see the
absurdity of claiming that God's ways are higher than our ways as a
defense of the many Old Testament atrocities. These stories soon
bothered me so much that I went through a period when I refused to read
the Old Testament, but that did nothing to help my condition. In
reading the New Testament, I continued to see problems there too. The
journey toward an enlightened view of the Bible begins with the initial
recognition that it just may contain errors.
