That last post was too horrifying to not investigate further. Here are some more things I’ve found out about Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar and their sixteen children.

Go by the family web site, and the first thing you are hit with is this:

Our prayer is that all who view this site will realize that we are ordinary people with our individual weaknesses and imperfections but yet we serve an extraordinary GOD who delights in demonstrating His great power!

They want you to know right up front that they’re fundies. OK. It’s their site. They can say whatever they want on it. But what else does the site say about them?

Brains!!

Isn’t that what zombies eat? Christofascist zombies should be even more in need of brains than regular zombies.

Well, the very first link on the Duggar family web site is to their Favorite Family Recipes page. Scanning the recipes, I see that I’m mistaken. No brains anywhere (in fact, you’d be hard pressed to find evidence of brains anywhere else on the site).

OK. Let’s see what they really do eat. Tater Tots, Velveeta, ketchup—my, these people sure are white!

Smooooooth!

The next article is How do you make a household of 17 people run smoothly? It was clearly written before the most recent “bundle of joy” rocketed out of Michelle’s uterus (I hope the obstetrician had a catcher’s mitt). Let’s look at the very first paragraph:

Our #1 goal is to lead our children to seek a close relationship with God & give Him every area of their lives.

Translation: “Our #1 goal is to produce 16 mini-fundies.”

We purpose to start each day with a family Bible study, reading a chapter of Proverbs that corresponds with the day of the month.

That first phrase doesn’t make sense to me. “We purpose to start…”? Is that some weird Middle English phrasing that you only see in the King James Bible?

We have heart to heart talks with each of the older children regularly.

The problem with this sentence is “heart to heart”. It’s supposed to be “heart-to-heart”. Hyphens, you see. They say elsewhere that they homeschool. If you’re going to homeschool, you should be qualified to do so! Learn the English language before you try to teach it to your kids!

We try to keep up with their attitudes & actions.

I don’t know how. You’ve got 16 of them. You know, if they wanted to, they could gang up on you. Tie you up in the basement. Take a road trip to Tijuana to see a donkey show. You’ve got to be careful. When they finally break out of that repression, it’s going to be like Hoover Dam has burst.

Proverbs

Anyway, one of the sentences in their opening paragraph has me greatly disturbed. Every day, the entire family gathers in whichever room of the house is large enough to hold them (or possibly in a Wal-Mart parking lot), and they read the chapter of Proverbs that matches the day of the month. Oh joy! There’s 31 chapters! That works out just ducky! That also must be pretty dull. Every month they’re reading the same tired old stories. Why don’t they mix it up a little bit and try reading the rest of the Bible?

OK, let’s find out what these people are reading. Let’s look at a few fun quotes from Proverbs:

…let her breasts satisfy thee at all times…
— Proverbs 5:19

Remind the boys of that every time they go on a date.

Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
— Proverbs 7:18

Of course if a TV show had this scene in it, the fundies would have a conniption.

He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
— Proverbs 13:24

I’m sure Jim Bob tells this to his kids frequently. How much do you want to bet that he believes in corporal punishment?

The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
— Proverbs 16:4

Nice guy. Let’s worship the guy who put all the misery in the world.

Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
— Proverbs 19:18

This gives Jim Bob another chance to remind his kids to behave.

The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.
— Proverbs 20:30

This is how Jim Bob knows when he is done “educating” a misbehaving child. It’s like the pop-up indicator on a Butterball turkey!

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
— Proverbs 22:15

Apparently children are born foolish, so you have to beat it out of them.

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
— Proverbs 23:13

I take it back. Apparently Jim Bob doesn’t need to look for the Butterball indicator. He has the Bible’s permission to flog his kids as much as he wants. It’s perfectly safe. (Reminder: I don’t know whether Jim Bob actually does physically punish his children. I’m just saying that these chapters give him permission. What he chooses to do with that information is up to him.)

Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
— Proverbs 23:14

Well, this kind of contradicts the very last sentence. Maybe the kid will die. But that’s OK! He’s going straight to heaven! Maybe he’ll be one of the 72 virgins that are given to other believers.

A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.
— Proverbs 26:3

Clarification of earlier memo: Not only is it OK to beat your children (who are born foolish), apparently you can beat anyone else that you think is a fool. And just for fun, you can also beat your horse (Just don’t beat your meat. That prohibition is mentioned elsewhere.).

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
— Proverbs 26:11

My, what pleasant imagery! Can I put this scene into a TV show, or will the fundies get upset?

To have respect of persons is not good…
— Proverbs 28:21

This might be one of Jim Bob’s favorite lessons to teach his children: Don’t respect other people!

The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
— Proverbs 29:15

In case you didn’t get the earlier memo, be sure to beat your kids!

A servant will not be corrected by words: for though he understand he will not answer.
— Proverbs 29:19

If your slave burns dinner, don’t tell him to not cook it so long next time. Beat him!

I guess this passage means that it’s OK to own slaves. Well as soon as the fundies finish taking over the country, they can return America to God and repeal the 13th Amendment.

The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
— Proverbs 30:17

Jim Bob should tell the kids this and then let them watch Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. That’ll really freak them out.

Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
— Proverbs 31:7

When a homeless guy asks you for some spare change, give it to him, but be sure to tell him that he can only spend it on alcohol!

Well, that’s enough hilarity for now. If I feel up to it, I’ll make some more fun of these people in a future post.

I stumbled across the above image on the Flickr page of a guy named neilcato. The caption is very funny. The story behind the image is not.

The Flickr page links to a funny column from 2005 by Mark Morford that tells the appalling story of the Duggar family of Arkansas. Yes, they’re fundies. That’s them above. Yes, they have 16 kids. No, they’re not stopping. They say they want more. Mr. Duggar is appropriately named Jim Bob. I would guess that he likes having sex.

The Mark Morford column includes a couple of photographs of what was probably a very happy and special event — the first ten or twelve times!

Morford’s caption is brilliant:

Here they are, the Duggar children and their father Jim Bob Duggar (top center), as their mother Michelle holds the 16th addition to the family. While the birth was successful, doctors were unable to remove the large feral monster squirrel growing from the back of Michelle’s head. Nor were they able to convince any of the daughters that bad Amish-style haircuts actually make God cry.

Morford’s caption reads:

It is not for you to imagine this couple’s physical gyrations. It is not for you to wonder, after giving birth to 16—yes 16—children in a mere 19 years, what this woman’s body must be like, what this man’s weird motivations must be. It is perhaps enough for us to wonder at their infinitely distressing hair, their 16 gleaming white Christian fundamentalist children, and to cry to the gods, why, why, WHY?

You should stroll on over and read the rest of Morford’s column. It’s funny in a sad way, or sad in a funny way. Or something. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Perhaps this [is] the scariest aspect of our squishy birthin’ tale: Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation.

and…

We are burning through the planet’s resources faster than a Republican can eat an endangered caribou stew. Note to Michelle Duggar: If God wanted you to have a massive pile of children, she’d have given your uterus a hydraulic pump and a revolving door. Stop it now.

I found this image on the Flickr page of somebody calling himself Plaid Ninja.

By the way, I’ve always been troubled by the Flintstones’ car. I know this is a cartoon, but most cartoons have at least an internally-consistent logic. In all other gadgets on that program, they always show the lizard inside that powers it. They never showed that with the Flintstones’ car. Fred just gives it a push start, and it runs forever. There’s not even any dead space in the car where a critter might be hiding.

Look how the wheels are attached. I always wondered what held them in. Wouldn’t they just roll right out?

How do they steer that thing? The wheels are attached to an inflexible log.

Look at that canopy. Look how flimsily it’s attached! Why doesn’t it fly off as soon as they’re moving at any appreciable speed?

And why aren’t Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm in child safety seats? How primitive! What is this, the stone age?

A few weeks ago, I came across one of the photos below on another blog (unfortunately, I’ve visited too many blogs recently to remember where I found it; I usually try to credit who tipped me off). It was so amazing, that I had to go to the Flickr page to find out more.

These photographs were taken by Amy Watts of Georgia, who discovered this car somewhere. You can find larger versions of these photographs, plus a few more, on her Flickr page.

If you can’t quite read it, it says “EVOLUTION? THE FOSSILS SAY NO!” Below that it says “EVOLUTION IS A FAIRY TALE FOR GROWN-UPS!” The kicker, of course, is the bumper, which says “GOD BLESS AMERICA!” Blind faith and blind patriotism tend to walk in lockstep. That’s one of many causes of theocracy. These people can’t distinguish the two in their minds.

Another thing I love about this car is the use of exclamation points. It’s not simply enough to call evolution a fairy tale. The owner of this car has to shout it. That’s also accomplished by his use of all capital letters. He who is loudest is right.

Here’s the back of the car. I think what that formula is saying is that the odds of a DNA molecule self-assembling out of raw atoms is astronomical. Of course it is. No scientist has ever claimed that DNA just poofed into existence like Athena popping out of the forehead of Zeus. That leaves us with two possibilities:

(1) The fundie knows this claim is not true, but he makes it anyway. This makes him a liar at best, and a deceptive, manipulative douche at worst.

(2) The fundie is completely ignorant of how science works, and he knows nothing of biology or evolution. This means he is a product of Kansas public schools at best, or a blithering moron at worst.

I’m not sure what to make of the “Big Bang was a dud” statement. There’s nothing to back it up. At least with the above equation, he made a feeble effort to support his claim.

I love the license plate. “No Primate”! Apparently he’s saying something along the lines of we did not evolve from primates. Or is he saying that he is not a primate? Humans are classified as primates, after all, so I’m not sure what that makes him. If he didn’t evolve from primates and/or he isn’t a primate, then we can only conclude that he is some sort of lesser-evolved species, such as pond scum.

The saddest part of this photograph may be too difficult to see in this small version. A sticker in the window says “Georgetown University”. Could it be that the owner of this car is a graduate of Georgetown? We have no way of knowing, of course (because we’ve already established that you can’t believe something just because you see it in print).

Just imagine the implications if it were true! I can only hope that this person doesn’t have a degree in science. If so, don’t let your kids go to Georgetown! Even if his major was something very far removed from science, such as art or drama, this casts Georgetown in a bad light. How can their admission standards be so low as to allow in somebody who must have failed his high school biology and geology classes?

Maybe this guy stuck the Georgetown sticker on there just to lend an air of credibility. Passersby will think “Well, everything I read on this car must be true. The guy went to Georgetown!”

I’m guessing the real story is that this Bozo bought the car used and the Georgetown sticker was already in the back window. Since the guy’s not a primate, he lacks an opposable thumb and is incapable of peeling the sticker off.

The fundies’ blind, rabid adherence to the Noah story continually mystifies me. If you want to believe the Jesus story, fine. All of the alleged miracles in those myths are localized. They don’t require that all of physics, geology, meteorology, etc. be completely thrown out the window. The Noah story is impossible on so many levels that it’s laughable. In fact, it’s probably one of the reasons I enjoy making fun of these people. Anybody who would believe in Noah’s Ark and the Flood has to be a blithering moron.

If you’re a blithering moron but you stay indoors and away from other people, then I have no right to make fun of you. But if you’re a blithering moron and you shout it from the mountaintops, well, don’t be surprised if the echo you hear is tinged with sarcasm.

OK. This one doesn’t even make sense. Maybe this guy is saying that his pecker is wood.

Now we come to this tired old argument again. Fundies are particularly fond of the eye example, because it’s a famous quote from Charles Darwin that they love to take out of context.

Oh, I’m an idiot! This is the one piece of evidence I’ve overlooked! The Earth is only 6000 years old! Evolution couldn’t have happened! We all know that evolution takes millions of years. Well, shoot, fundie! Your fancy car worked! You convinced me! Thank you for educating me and saving my soul!

Sarcasm aside, I do want to thank the fundie for providing me with a lot of laughs. It’s hard to be depressed when all you have to do is go on the internet and see funny pictures like this.

Final question: Just how insecure in your beliefs do you have to be to want to paint them all over your car? It’s like the rabid homophobes who secretly are unsure of their sexuality.

The Watcher over at Fundie Watch alerts us to Conservapedia, the “fair and balanced” internet encyclopedia.

No information source is 100% accurate, and it’s almost impossible to write something completely without bias. Conservatives complain that Wikipedia has a liberal bias, so what do they do? Do they come out with “Neutered-pedia”, an encyclopedia that actually is as unbiased as possible? No! They come out with “Conservapedia”, an encyclopedia so far to the right that it would fall off the right-hand edge of the Earth, if the Earth were flat (as many fundies still seem to think).

I fail to see how making the same mistakes as their opponent, but in the opposite direction (and to a larger degree), solves the problem they complain about.

Wikipedia does have problems. I link to it frequently here, because it is a good source of information on just about anything you can think of. I also believe that its error rate is comparable to other reference sources. (I have, for example, found errors in numerous books on various topics. I’ve even found an error or two in textbooks.) The bottom line is that you can’t believe absolutely everything you read in any one source.

Name one book that is 100% accurate. I dare you! (Savvy readers will realize that I’m baiting the fundies. They have a book that they believe in 100%. Ironically (there’s that word again!), that book is one of the least credible ever written!)

You have to be a wise information-consumer. Know the credibility of what you are reading/hearing/seeing. Who is behind it? What are their qualifications? What are their biases?

Wikipedia is good but not perfect. Their model of collective editing has certain strengths that other sources don’t have (for example, I corrected an error of fact in the Jack Benny article). It also has certain weaknesses. I always keep a tiny bit of doubt in the back of my mind whenever I am reading anything there, but I also keep a tiny bit of doubt when I am reading stuff elsewhere. The size of that doubt changes, depending on the source. (In fact, go back and read my review of Who Was Jesus? You will notice comments throughout the review where I’m trying to assess the credibility of the author and various claims made in the book.)

Conservapedia has a page called Examples of Bias in Wikipedia. In his article about Conservapedia, the Watcher makes fun of some of the more outlandish claims. To be fair, though, a few of the complaints are legitimate. What caught my eye wasn’t the crazy claims that the Watcher already laughed at or the (very few) legitimate claims. I love fundie irony. Here’s one:

In short, Wikipedia is not objective. It is accurate only within its selective use of facts that are convenient to promote a predetermined outcome.

Kind of sounds like the way fundies try to use their feeble understanding of science to “prove” that evolution is impossible!

Here’s the second half of my review of Who Was Jesus?, an ebook by Acharya S. The book can be purchased for a “donation” of $5 or more. I enjoyed the book and recommend it.

Chapter 5: Textual Harmonization

Chapter 5 covers the problems Christians have had with “harmonization”, which is the process of reconciling the conflicting versions of the New Testament (NT). Actually, Christians seem to have a lot of problems with harmonization, since they seem to be incapable of living in harmony with non-Christians without starting wars, or at least complaining a lot about being “persecuted”.

The author states:

The difficulty of harmonization is profound, particularly when the many different manuscripts of the New Testament are factored into the puzzle, with upwards of 150,000 “variant readings,” including not only differences in wording but also errors.

150,000 is a lot of variations! In fact, she then quotes from The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible:

It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the [manuscript] tradition is wholly uniform.

That’s right. Not one sentence is completely reliable. How can this be the inerrant word of God?

She further quotes from The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible:

Many thousands of the variants which are found in the [manuscript] of the NT were put there deliberately. They are not merely the result of error or of careless handling of the text. Many were created for theological or dogmatic reasons… It is because the books of the NT are religious books, sacred books, canonical books, that they were changed to conform to what the copyist believed to be the true reading.

Are we to believe that every single copyist was “divinely inspired”? And even if it were true, why are they divinely inspired in so many different directions? To my mind, this completely destroys all of the Bible’s credibility. The best you can do is use these stories as morality tales.

Chapter 6: The Gospel Dates

When were these things written? The book’s author summarizes the current beliefs of various scholars:

• Matthew: 37 to 100 AD
• Mark: 40 to 73 AD
• Luke: 50-100 AD
• John: 65-100 AD

I’m inclined to believe in the later dates, for various reasons that she summarizes in the book. The earlier dates are mostly proposed by Christian apologists (“Christian Apologetics” is a term which I find peculiar. They have not yet begun to apologize for all of the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity!).

Many Christians are convinced that the gospels were written by the evangelists for whom they are named. This, of course, would not be possible if the later dates are correct. She addresses this issue with this interesting fact:

In reality, it was a fairly common practice in ancient times to attribute falsely to one person a book or letter written by another, and this pseudoepigraphical attribution of authorship was especially rampant with religious texts, occurring with several Old Testament figures and Church fathers, for example.

She then gives further evidence that the gospels were written years later by other people. She also mentions briefly that there is new evidence suggesting that the gospels were actually written toward the end of the Second Century C.E.

All of this just further convinces me that these stories lack credibility.

Chapter 7: Extrabiblical Testimony

That’s all we need, extra Bibles! As if the first one didn’t cause enough problems in the world! Actually, this refers to evidence outside the Bible that can shed light upon the credibility of the stories within the Bible.

This chapter of the book won’t be a surprise to anyone who has approached this subject with an open mind. I suspect, however, that it will cause massive cognitive dissonance among the fundies, who will likely be hearing this for the first time. She does an excellent job of summarizing the evidence:

However, when we go looking for material outside of the New Testament that might validate the events described there, we come up empty-handed. In other words, there is no contemporaneous evidence outside of the New Testament to attest to Christ’s advent and ministry—or even his existence.

This fact is singularly astounding, in consideration of the repeated assertions in the gospels that Christ was famed far and wide, drawing great crowds because of his miraculous healings, causing a fracas with the local and imperial authorities, and, upon his death, creating astonishing and awful miracles and wonders the world had never seen before, including not only an earthquake and the darkening of the sun and moon, but also dead people rising from their graves and visiting people in town.

“Brains!!” (Sorry. Back to the book…)

One would think that if all these things happened, someone somewhere would have written about them. But, inspecting the literary, historical and archaeological record produces nothing.

Chapter 8: Who are Elijah and Elisha?

She summarizes the characters of Elijah and Elisha, then presents a table showing the similarities between Elisha and Jesus, concluding with the question:

Considering these numerous, detailed and remarkable correspondences between Elisha (“God saves”) and Jesus (“God saves”), it is fair to ask whether or not the gospel writers had in mind closely reproducing in Jesus the figure of Elisha and/or other Old Testament characters.

Chapter 9: Jesus as Fulfillment of Prophecy

This leads into the issue of whether Jesus is the messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. This chapter summarizes some of the similarities between Jesus and the prophesies. The author concludes:

On the surface of it, if taken literally the New Testament appears to record the advent of the messiah, as prophesied in the Old Testament. However, there may be a different reason for this appearance. In scrutinizing all of the Old Testament “prophecies” that purportedly relate to the coming messiah, it is evident that the gospels were designed in order to show that these scriptures had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. When these and other [Old Testament] scriptures are studied and seriously considered, therefore, it is logical to ask if they constitute “prophecies” and “prefiguring” of the advent of a historical Jesus Christ—or if they were used as a blueprint in the creation of a fictional messiah.

Chapter 10: Questions about the Gospel Story

This is an excellent chapter. It summarizes some of the many problems with the whole Jesus fable. The author talks briefly about these issues:

• Miracles
• Contradictions
• Errors
• Failed prophecies
• Chronological discrepancies
• Erroneous translations
• Erroneous interpretations
• Lack of character
• Illogic
• Repulsive deeds, sayings, and doctrines

Repeatedly, she uses examples of each of these issues to suggest that much of what the Bible says about Jesus are fictional accounts, designed to “prove” his divinity.

Chapter 11: Conclusion

I like her Conclusion chapter. It does a good job of tying together the evidence presented in earlier chapters. I was predisposed to her thesis from the beginning. I’m sure people with contrary opinions can come up with a few good counter-arguments.

Although this chapter runs more than one page, I’ll leave you with this brief excerpt:

The fact is that, when all the evidence is weighed, it would seem irresponsible and unscientific to merely assume the gospel tale is historical, either in part or as a whole. The most honest perspective would be to approach it as if it is not historical until evidence is presented otherwise.

While researching some trivia about Strom Thurmond, I stumbled across the web site for Strom Thurmond High School! The mind reels! They named a high school for this guy? This is the guy who bailed from the Democratic party in 1948 because of its support for desegregation. (In fact, he joined the Dixiecrats, a new political party whose sole reason for being was to preserve segregation.) This is the guy who, in 1948, said:

I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.

This is the guy who, in 1956, signed the Southern Manifesto, which declared its signatories’ opposition to racial integration in public places.

This is the guy who (quoting Wikipedia):

…supported racial segregation with the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator on the Senate floor, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to derail the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Thurmond finally broke with the Democratic party completely in 1964, because of its increasing support for civil rights. This time, he joined the Republicans, a party more in line with his own racist beliefs.

The High School

Strom Thurmond High School is in Johnston, South Carolina. This is the only high school in Edgefield County, which is where Thurmond himself was born. It’s also where he died 100 years later (and almost all of those 100 years were spent in the U.S. Senate!).

The school mascot is the “Fighting Rebels”. Well, that sure is inclusive! I’m sure all of the black students feel great cheering Johnny Reb.

Here are some fun facts about the school, taken off its web site:

Strom Thurmond first opened its doors in 1961. The very first graduating class was the class of 1962. Many things existed in ‘61 that don’t exist now.

Yes, like “colored” drinking fountains.

In ‘61 the enrollment was 380 students. Today that number has risen to 931 students.

Of course it’s gone up. Black students can enroll now.

The vocational school was not even in existence yet.

Back then, everybody was taught noose-tying and how to find a sturdy tree!

Ms. Bandy retired in 1997. […] She is considered by many people to be one of the most influential people to have graced the halls of Strom Thurmond.

That sounds vaguely obscene.

Many students drove to school and many rode the bus.

I’m sure there were “designated seating zones”, if you catch my drift.

Over the pass two years computers were put in each classroom.

Is that anything like a hall pass? Oh, wait. Did you mean “Over the past two years…”? It’s a good thing you guys don’t teach English. Oh, wait. You do.

Anyway, I don’t want to make fun of this high school too much. Naming a high school after Strom Thurmond just strikes me, as a non-Southerner, as a very odd thing to do.

D.M. Murdock writes under the pen name Acharya S. She’s a scholar, and some would call her a conspiracy theorist. She has two books published, The Christ Conspiracy and Suns of God, neither of which I have read. Wikipedia says:

Her contention is that all religion is founded in earlier myth and that the characters depicted in Christianity are the result of the plagiarizing of those myths to unify the Roman State.

I lean in that direction myself, but I’m open to all evidence.

Acharya has published an ebook, entitled Who Was Jesus? She sells it on her website for a “donation” of $5 or more. (I can’t figure out how to download it for free, so it’s technically not a donation.) The book is only 39 pages long, so you can get through it fairly quickly.

The book is a concise overview of the Jesus story. Who was he? Why are there so many versions? What evidence is there that he existed? There doesn’t appear to be any original research in here, but it’s an excellent summary of others’ work.

I like this book a lot. It’s well organized and edited, the writing is clear, and it makes its case well. I didn’t find any typos or grammatical errors, which is unusual for a self-published book.

I took a few notes while reading the book. Here are my thoughts, reactions, and comments (I’m presenting this in two parts for those of you with short attention spans. Hey, if you’ve got a short attention span, this book is ideal for you!)

Chapters 1–4: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

The book’s first four chapters summarize the events presented in the first four books of the New Testament. It also summarizes the discrepancies among them. All four versions can’t be correct. This just demonstrates to me that this is an oral tradition that wasn’t recorded until much later than the events. Of course, we can’t know that the events even happened.

It appears that there was a common ancestor to all four versions. As the story spread, its details diverged. You can’t take all four versions as the infallible word of God. In fact, you can’t even take one of them, because the divergence shows that they all changed over time. The best you can do is take a synthesis of the four and use it as a parable. Jesus might have existed, and he might have wandered around teaching. There is no evidence that any of the miracles occurred.

She has this to say about the Gospel of Matthew:

it appears that Matthew was concerned with painting Jesus and the disciples in a more favorable light, omitting Jesus’s displays of anger (Mk 3:5) and other overwrought emotionality (Mk 3:21), as well as the evident dimwittedness, hardheartedness and trepidation of the disciples (Mk 6:52; 8:17-21; 9:32). Matthew seems more aware of the (Jewish) readers’ sensibilities concerning religious customs [….]

Concerning these differences between Matthew and Mark, the Catholic Encyclopedia (“Gospel of St. Matthew”) states, “Omissions or alterations of this kind are very numerous.”

This passage shows that Matthew was written (or edited) with a specific human agenda in mind. Many Christians claim that God wrote the Bible through the evangelists. Why would God need to sugar-coat the events? Clearly, Matthew is a very human document.

The author mentions discrepancies between the King James Version (KJV) and the Revised Standard Version (RSV):

The KJV was translated from the Latin or Vulgate text, while the RSV utilized the most ancient Greek texts. Fundamentalist Christians nevertheless believe that the King James Version is “inspired” and “inerrant,” regardless of the fact that the Vulgate upon which it was based differs in many places from the earliest Greek manuscripts, which were not available during the translation of the King James Bible. The fact that various versions of the Bible differ from each other is very significant and needs to be kept in mind.

That’s right. The fundies think that the documents that are closer to the source aren’t credible, but much later versions are! Did God sneak down in the middle of the night sometime during the Renaissance and correct the Latin manuscripts?

The book has this observation about the Gospel of John:

John also appears to be more concerned with Jesus’s sayings and speeches rather than his deeds and miracles, concentrating particularly on Jesus’s interactions with the Jewish authorities, and displaying a more pronounced anti-Jewish tone and sentiment than the other gospels.

I can only surmise that John is Mel Gibson’s favorite Gospel.

The author makes this comment about some of the discrepancies between John and the other three:

There are many other pericopes in John that do not appear in the others. Some of the Johannine pericopes—such as the raising of Lazarus from the dead—are so significant it is difficult to believe that the others would not record them, if they had been aware of them. It is logical to ask if these verses were added later for specific purposes.

It seems likely to me that these events did not occur. They were merely jammed into the story later to make Jesus appear more miraculous.

Moreover, John does not mention the transfiguration, even though he was a witness to it! In his quest to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus, it would be highly logical for John to have reported the transfiguration, if it really happened. Nor does John mention the ascension, which is equally curious in light of his desire to reveal Christ’s divinity.

If you’re going to make up a lie, everybody involved should agree on the story beforehand.

(Next: The Bible as barbershop quartet: Four-part harmony.)