John 8:38 Scholars, please, listen to Cicero

Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? 

Contrary to what Bible scholars seem to think, ancient people were not all stupid. They did not all think the supernatural was a proper subject of study. Modern scholars could learn from them. The good ones asked questions like "what is truth?" And while not every person was smart (just as today), the Greek philosophers were remarkably popular. Every thinking person was able to realise that the supernatural is at best just a useful simplification of more careful thought, and at worst nonsense. So the supernatural is never a fit subject for study. A good way to spread an idea, perhaps.But a siubject for study? Never.

So I plead with scholars: when you find something about the supernatural, move on. It isn't worth studying. Don't waste your time on it. There are better ancient texts to study.

What brought on this rant? I've just been listening to hours of Bible study from The Bible Geek and History in the Bible and it's driving me crazy. I can't take much more of it. Educated men who should know better are speculating on supernatural beliefs. Stop it! Stop wasting your talents! Report on the texts, yes; use them in an effort to make sense of the universe, definately; but do not us them to look down on others, Move on!

There are plenty of fine thinkers in ancient times. If we cannot find them then maybe the problem lies with us. If we really think these people were that stupid then we should stop and think: "maybe it's me." If we do not understand something it does not always mean the other guy is an idiot.

I was going to end with the famous quotation by Cicero, about realising that we know nothing. But the whole context is so good that I will quote it all. I love Cicero. (He also wrote the best book on religion: "on the nature of the gods". Highly recommended.

Then Varro began as follows: “It is my view, and it is universally agreed, that Socrates was the first person who summoned philosophy away from mysteries veiled in concealment by nature herself, upon which all philosophers before him had been engaged, and led it to the subject of ordinary life, in order to investigate the virtues and vices, and good and evil generally, and to realize that heavenly matters are either remote from our knowledge or else, however fully known, have nothing to do with the good life. The method of discussion pursued by Socrates in almost all the dialogues so diversely and so fully recorded by his hearers is to affirm nothing himself but to refute others, to assert that he knows nothing except the fact of his own ignorance, and that he surpassed all other people in that they think they know things that they do not know but he himself thinks he knows nothing, and that he believed this to have been the reason why Apollo declared him to be the wisest of all men, because all wisdom consists solely in not thinking that you know what you do not know. He used to say this regularly, and remained firm in this opinion, yet nevertheless the whole of his discourses were spent in praising virtue and in exhorting mankind to the zealous pursuit of virtue, as can be gathered from the books of members of the Socratic school, and particularly from those of Plato. (Cicero, Academica, Book 1 section 4, emphasis added)

The bit about virtue resonates with me. As I blogged yesterday, the only reason for studying the Bible is to make the world a better place. Hence I think the only good way to judge the Bible is through economics. If we study it for any other reason, whether it is to be saved or to speculate on what others believe (as if our minds are so great that we can encompass theirs as well), then I think we are doing it wrong.

(EDIT: it's worth noting that Socrates is saying what Karl Popper said over two thousand years later: we cannot prove anything, we can only disprove things. )

Deut 4:2 the best way to interpret the Bible

When I was a Mormon missionary, Deuteronomy 4:2 was one of my favourite verses:

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.

Why? Because it was a perfect answer to those who said "you cannot add to scripture, it says so at the end of Revelation":

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

This illustrates why the Bible can be hard to interpret. A verse can seem plain at first ("don't add to the Bible!") then it doesn't mean what we think it means. Because Moses said the same thing that right at the start, then dozens of others added to the Bible. Well, you say, perhaps Moses was referring to all 66 books? Then how do we know there were not 166 and we still need to add the last ones? Well, you say, the supernatural Holy Spirit said so. But anybody can say this "Holy Spirit" said anything. That proves nothing. We can go round in circles.

So how can we be sure? How can we know which interpretation of the text is the best?

We need to measure what is good

To find the best of anything, be it the best interpretation or the best quality bread, we need some way to measure it. We cannot measure the supernatural, so we need to focus on the not-supernatural. Fortunately the Bible makes many not-supernatural claims. In short, it promises that if we follow its counsel we will have a better life. So how do we measure a better life? What counts as better? Different people like different things.

The science of measuring the good

There is a whole science devoted to the measurement of things we desire: it's called macro-economics. it measures large scale choices. That is, what do people choose to do with their time? How do they choose between alternative uses of their time? 

It's easy to mock economics, but money is the only way to measure these things objectively. If economics is faulty then we need better economics, because it's the only game in town. 

Economics applies to religion just as much as anything else: religions survive because people are fed and have land. The only difference between religion and nationalism is that religious outcomes might take centuries to observe.

Economics makes everything simple

Seeing the Bible in economic terms makes everything simple. When Moses spoke of a kingdom he meant just that, a literal kingdom. And when John said that "God is logic" he meant it. And when we look at the law of Moses the only law that really matters is "who gets the land?"And when Jesus referred to the kingdom of God and gave all those parables involving money, that was no coincidence. There is nothing complicated in the Bible. From the garden of Eden to the promised land to the a parable of the talents, it's all about who gets the land.

Economics is simple because it can be objectively tested. You don't need to take anyone's word for it. The beauty of an economic approach is that anybody can test it: first logically, and if that seems to work, in the real world. 

The Bible has to be logical or it is not real. It has to be is about things you can measure in the here and now, or it is not relevant. 

Conclusion

In this blog I argue that the Bible has a simple economic solution to all our problems (tax land, not work). But even if I am wrong, the economic approach is the only game in town. because only one question matters about the Bible:

Does it work?

Mark 2:5 Bible Goggles on Faith

Sometimes I get angry. I get angry about what Bible Goggles have done to our ability to think. I often want to use words like "faith", but I cannot because the meaning of the word has been destroyed. Faith used to mean "proof based on evidence", but it has been changed to mean "just trust me without evidence." The word "faith" is a victim of "Newspeak:"

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words." (George Orwell, "The Principles of Newspeak", appendix to "1984", emphasis added)

By reversing the meaning of faith, the supernatural believers have made it impossible to talk about what the Bible says on faith.

Faith is a translation of the Greek word "pistis". When the Bible was first written, "pistis" had a perfectly clear definition: it meant proof, based on logic and evidence. Aristotle wrote the definitive text on "pistis" in his book "On Rhetoric". I do not read Greek (except with a great deal of hand holding!) so I defer to an expert commentary:"A Note on the Meaning of Pistis in Aristotle's Rhetoric" by Joseph T. Lienhard (The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 87, No. 4 (Oct., 1966), pp. 446-454). Lienhard analyses Aristotle's use of the word "pistis" argues that, while some people say pistis can mean either the state of mind in the hearer or the means by which that state is produced (i.e. the argument) it cannot mean the state of mind, as Aristotle uses pistis to mean "to demonstrate something" not "to convince somebody". The article concludes that while pistis may have a range of meanings, but the fundamental idea is proof:

Therefore, in its five significant meanings, the word pistis refers in one way or another to the proof, which is simply the means of inducing belief in the audience. [...] the meaning varies enough to allow separate definitions, but not enough to lose the note of "proof" in any of the occurrences.

So pistis means external proof, the opposite of the later religious meaning of belief in the absence of evidence.

"But wait!" you say, "Aristotle was writing around 350 BC, and on a technical topic, perhaps the meaning changed by the time of Jesus in AD 30?" Then I turn to Plutarch (AD 46-120), who often used "pistis" to characterise a woman's relationship to her husband. A woman knew her husband better than anybody, so she was working on proof, not illusions. A memorable illustration of pistis as proof comes in Plutarch's story in his book "on the bravery of women":

When Chiomara, wife of Ortiagon of Galatia, was taken prisoner at the defeat of the Galatians by the Romans in 189 BCE, she was first raped and then ransomed. At the point when she was handed back to the Galatians, she incited one of them to cut off her captor's head. Wrapping it in her tunic, she brought the head to her husband as a tropy. Plutarch captured the horror of the man for whom good faith between enemies is at least as important as that between spouses: 'Woman, pistis is a precious thing!" "Yes," says his wife robustly, "but it is even better that there should only be one man alive who has slept with me." (Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire" By Teresa Morga, p. 48)

The man is a good example of those who changed the meaning of pistis. here we see pistis as both blind acceptance and harsh proof. And harsh proof is the real thing. Those in power, like the husband in the story, want "pistis" to mean blind acceptance. They tell us that women and followers should "have pistis" and not make waves, just accept things, however bad. But that is not real pistis. The true, original, greater, higher, original pistis means proof, even when that proof shocks and discomforts people.

Bible goggles reverse the meaning of pistis ("faith"). When we take off the goggles and see its original meaning then the Bible becomes a completely different book.

intro: about the author

Many years ago, as a believer, I published a book on Bible prophecy. It was full of detailed charts and footnotes, the result of over a decade of careful study. It "proved" that God had foretold events thousands of years before they happened. And at that moment I lost my faith.

My story

A lifetime of searching for proof only proved how little evidence there was for a supernatural God. Indeed, how could there be evidence? If there was evidence it would be a normal part of the natural world, not supernatural.

At that time I ran my local church, I had served as a missionary, and I had a thousand page pro-church web site. But the more I studied, the more I doubted. So I wrote the book to try to convince myself. I found the best evidence I could - prophecies which came true - but the evidence just wasn't good enough. I rushed out a second edition with as many improvements as I could. But it was futile.

The most damning evidence against a supernatural God is not the arguments or evidence: it is his weakness. What good is a weak God? Even if he was real, all his promises of a better world seemed to refer to some distant future, after we die. Sure, people said "Jesus is coming back soon!" but they have always said that. Maybe they could wait for 2000 years, but people are suffering and starving now. The God I worshipped seemed unable to offer anything but excuses.

So I turned my attention to politics and history instead. To cut a long story short, I came to see the world in economic terms. World history is best explained by economic forces. Through good economics we can end poverty and create a just world in our lifetimes. Economics deals in proof and results. While the supernatural God is weak, economics is strong.

During this time I still read the Bible, but not for guidance. I was free to read it own its own terms, and not to "prove" what my church taught me. The Bible is full of people like you and me, some good, some bad, some struggling to make sense of the world. Just like us. And as I read I made four discoveries that changed my life:

What I discovered

1. The closer I looked, the less supernatural the book appeared. 

Miracles that used to seem supernatural now became easy to explain. And teaching that used to seem religious now seemed more philosophical, not much different from what the Greek Platonists and Pythagoreans were saying at the same time. The really supernatural stuff was either highly symbolic (e.g. Daniel, Revelation) or just tagged on at the end: the opinions of Paul and his followers. So, Was the Bible ever about the supernatural? To find out, I read what unbelieving scholars said. But then I made my second discovery:

2. Most unbelieving scholars still believe in the supernatural

(See the link for details). Critics are basically reacting to the believers, using the believers' assumptions. So I wondered, what would we see if we threw aside our supernatural assumptions and just read it like we would read any other book? That is, read it for its internal logic and its connections with the real world?

That is when I began writing this book. And that led to the final discoveries:

3. The only approach that makes sense is economic

The only question that matters about the Bible is "does it work?" And the only way to measure that is through economics. I discuss the reasons here.

4. The Bible has economic answers

The final and most exciting thing was, when I started to see the Bible as a book of economics, everything became simple. Moses taught us to tax land and not work. Read Adam Smith's book "The Wealth of Nations" for why ground rents are the best kind of tax. And if we do that we will create not just a prosperous world but a fair one as well, with no poverty. Read Henry George's book "Progress and Poverty" for why.

Don't take my word for it. The beauty of an economic approach is that you can test it. It is logical. It is about things you can measure in the here and now. The Bible is not supernatural at all.

And so I had come full circle. I began by thinking the Bible had supernatural answers. Then I found out I was wrong. The Bible's answers are not supernatural at all. They are real.

Ex 12:37 why do atheists believe in the supernatural?

The Bible contains very modest claims. For example:

• Around 2000 BC, one family moved from Mesopotamia to Canaan.
• Around 1400 BC Moses led 20,000 Canaanite workers out of Egypt.
• Around AD 30 Jesus predicted that if Judea continues to anger Rome it will end very badly for Judea, (See Mark chapter 13)

So far, so unremarkable. But believers (and often translators) expand these claims to ridiculous proportions:

• 2000 BC becomes an era of major migrations
• 1400 BC involves two million slaves 
• Jesus specifically predicted the events of AD 70 (see Matthew and Luke's updated versions of Jesus' words)

I can see why a believer in the supernatural would do that. It makes people listen. But why do atheist critics accept these obviously absurd translations? I think it's a simple question of priorities.

Why should anybody care what the Bible says? People are busy. All the atheist scholars I have read seem to be reacting to evangelical Christians. So naturally they focus on those Christians' interpretations. But I think it is misleading to present this as scholarship about the Bible. It is not. It is scholarship about a particular reading of the Bible.

By accepting the supernatural interpretation they imply that it has validity. I wish that atheist scholars would abandon the supernatural entirely, and instead ask "what does the text say if we ignore all the supernatural interpretations?"

Other interpretations

The Bible has always supported multiple readings. At the time of Jesus (and just before) the most popular theologian by far was Philo of Alexandria. He argued that scripture must not be taken literally, but as allegory., In the time of Jesus the main Jewish parties (the Pharisees and Sadducees) believed it was literal, but disagreed over what it meant (e.g. what was the nature of the resurrection).

Today's supernatural interpretation is basically the Pharisees' interpretation. Paul, for example, was a Pharisee (see Acts 23:6). The more extreme supernatural ideas, such as a supernatural messiah, supernatural Satan, and supernatural end times, are hard to trace back any further than the 300s AD. The supernatural interpretation is only one of many ancient views and, in my view, is the easiest to dismiss.

Gen 17:5 did Abraham exist? (Camels etc)

The consensus among Bible scholars is that Abraham was not real. They say that his story was made up a thousand years later. Of course, they said the same about the previous chapters of Genesis. They were spectacularly wrong, but would never admit it. So at this point the Bible has a much better record than the Bible scholars.

Let's look at the case against Abraham and see if it stacks up.

General reliability of the text

I argue in this blog that the closer we look at the Bible, the less supernatural it becomes. What we have is a historical record. Sure, historians make mistakes. But an ancient historian would have access to sources that we do not, so the default position should be to trust them unless something contradicts their claims. With that in mind...

Migration from Haran

The scholarly consensus is summed up by the "History in the Bible" podcast. There is simply zero evidence of a large scale migration from Mesopotamia to Canaan around 2000 BC. Case closed. Excape... the Bible does not describe a large scale migration. It describes the movement of one family.  As usual the scholars do not read the text. However, we do know that the names (Abraham, Jacob, etc) are correct for the period: they (or very similar names) appear in records from Mari, Chagar-bazar, etc. So far so good.

Camels

Similarly, the recent discovery about camels was seen as a slam dunk. "No camels in Israel before 900 BC" was the headline. But again, nobody bothers to read the text.

Genesis records how one family came from Mesopotamia, bringing their camels with them, Just one family  They arrived via the north, the fertile crescent, and at least once went back that way to visit those left behind. So they would tend to be in the north. Occasionally we see a list of the family's animals, and it includes their camels. But a crisis occurs in Genesis 32:15, and the camels are split into two groups (Jacob gives some to his brother Esau, to prevent Esau killing him, After that something happens, because the next time we see a list of the family's belongings there are no camels to be seen:

"And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth. And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year." (Genesis 47:15-17)

Camels are never again seen. This later absence of camels was confirmed by archeology to the south of Israel, in the Aravah Valley (the southern continuation of the valley that has the river Jordan and Dead Sea.) That region has extensive copper mining, and made no use of camels until 930 BC.

Why did the family's camels die out after Genesis 32? We now know that a much larger number is needed for animals to survive as a population:

"Minimum viable population [MVP] is usually estimated as the population size necessary to ensure between 90 and 95 percent probability of survival between 100 to 1,000 years into the future. .. An MVP of 500 to 1,000 has often been given as an average for terrestrial vertebrates when inbreeding or genetic variability is ignored. When inbreeding effects are included, estimates of MVP for many species are in the thousands." (Source)

So the Bible says that one family in the north had camels, but their camels did not survive. A thousand years later we see no evidence of camels in the south. So what exactly is the problem?

Sodom and Gomorrah

Although most of the story concerns just one family, there is an unusual reference to a city being destroyed by fire, and the people escaping before hand and not looking back. Archeology has confirmed this for the time and place described.

Rampant parallelism

The bulk of the case against Abraham is so silly that it barely deserves mention: the ability of the human brain to find parallels anywhere. There are far more documents from later centuries than from earlier ones, so scholars naturally study these. They then find numerous parallels and declare that correlation equals causation. But anybody who has read widely knows that parallels can be made anywhere. Indeed, one of my hobbies is finding parallels between the comic the Fantastic Four and the Bible. but I would never dream of claiming the Bible was based on the Fantastic Four. Clearly I lack the confidence needed to be professional Bible scholar.

Columbus and America

The final argument against Abraham is the silliest of all. When the story was re-told in around 600 BC, the writer used the names people were familiar with then. Obviously these were not the earlier names, but so what? In the same way we say that "Columbus discovered America in 1492" even though America would not be named until later (after Amerigo Vespucci). In fact, Columbus never set foot on the mainland, and thought he had found old world islands. No doubt future Bible scholars will use this as proof that the story of Columbus was made up later and is full of inconsistencies.

Summary

In summary, the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph is the story of just one family, so we should not expect much to show up in the archeological record. However, the parts that we would expect (names, events involving whole cities) do show up as expected. Given that the previous chapters seems made up until one day the original source material appeared, there is no reason to think Abraham and co. will be any different.

Gen 19:24 Bible scholars are crazy (Sodom and Gomorrah)

Biblical criticism fascinates me. I understand the desire to attack supernatural belief: the supernatural it is both nonsensical and dangerous. But when critics use that desire to teach their own nonsense then the cure is worse than the disease. We expect scholars to have higher standards than that. Take the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for example.

This summary of the evidence is typical of the scholarly consensus:

"The cities are all destroyed by God and no traces of them have ever been found. The real reason is that they were not there in the first place!"

This is an odd conclusion given the evidence in the same article. He describes how cities were typically burnt:

"Like the Romans at Carthage, Assyrian rulers razed rebellious cities, spread the site with salt and sulphur, and sowed their fields with thistles, leaving desolation. When, in Genesis 19, Yehouah rained fire and sulphur on the wicked cities and left them desolate, He had used the foreigner to serve up the punishment agreed by the parties to the vassalage treaties."

So we see that this was a practice that crossed cultures and spanned millennia (Assyria was founded in 1900 BC and its empire lasted until Babylon conquered in 612; Rome sacked Carthage in 146 BC). Given that earlier cities were easier to burn (they were closer together, with fewer stone buildings) fire was probably the method of choice since time immemorial.

The interesting detail is that, when fighting became futile, the weaker side accepted their fate as the judgment of the gods. The author says the punishment was "agreed" and refers to Isaiah saying such punishments were from God. Genesis records that when the cities were due to be burned the people first left with their belongings, and they had to just accept it: they were not to look back.

In that context the following passage later in the article is interesting.

Sodom and Gomorrah in the mythological timescale of the Jewish scriptures were destroyed in the second millennium BC. R T Schaub and W Rast spent 15 years excavating about 30 ruins around the Dead Sea hoping to find Sodom and Gomorrah. Two towns to the south east of the Dead Sea had been spectacularly abandoned about 2350 BC. They were Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira, the latter of which was burnt up in a fierce conflagration in the season of the grape harvest for carbonized grape skins were found in the ashes. No human remains or small items were found, and the doorways at Numeira had been deliberately blocked with stones, so the people had had time to prepare for the disaster and to escape it with their belongings. Even so, they never returned.

Note that the author places the destruction in the "second millennium" (i.e. between 2000 and 1000 BC), making this seem like a different time period from 2350 BC. But the best internal Bible date suggests the 2067 BC, or the third millennium. Given the margin of error for both dates, this is the same time period.

So let's see. The Bible describes something that seem, at first glance to be highly unlikely: enemies raining fire on a city, and the people escaping beforehand, but not looking back. Then we discover that this was normal practice. And then we discover cities that were abandoned in the right time and the right place, with evidence that the people left first, accepting it as the judgment of God, with no intention of going back.

And what does the scholar conclude? That it never happened.

Sure, whatever you say.