"The Language of God" (surprisingly I like this book!)

Book cover for "The Language of God"

I recently read The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins (published in 2006) and surprisingly, I really liked it! This is a really good book! It gives Collins's perspective, as a scientist and Christian, and it's just very reasonable. It doesn't come across as "let's fight those atheists" or fearful of science. It's about his own reasons for leaving behind atheism and converting to Christianity, and it's about how evolution is just true and Christians should accept that, and creationism and intelligent design just ain't it, and how science and faith are compatible. 

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Francis Collins

Collins was the director of the Human Genome Project. This was a team that sequenced the entire human genome, billions of DNA base pairs, which is pretty amazing. (The title, "The Language of God" refers to the idea that the DNA base pairs are the "language" that God used to create life.)

I've seen Christians make a big deal about how Collins is a Christian. The argument goes, see, Francis Collins is a Christian, and he's a famous scientist! So, our beliefs *are* legit and compatible with science! The assumption is that Collins holds all the same beliefs that the Christians who claim him as a symbol do. Turns out, this assumption is very wrong! All throughout this book, Collins comes across as thoughtful and reasonable, rather than holding on to dogmatic beliefs that we can't question and we just have to keep saying louder.

Case in point: evolution. A big chunk of this book is about how evolution is true and Christians should accept that. Collins discusses creationism, and talks about why it's wrong. He discusses intelligent design, and why it's wrong. And then he talks about theistic evolution, which is the position he holds.

I was totally surprised. I really had no idea what this book was about; I had no idea that Collins accepts evolution and I had no idea that he was openly advocating for Christians to accept evolution. Really, no idea. All those times that I've heard Christians say "look, Francis Collins" as if that proves that their beliefs are reasonable- wow, I really had no idea that he was out here telling Christians to accept evolution. In the Christian subculture I grew up in, we all knew that of course Christians do not believe in evolution.

Inspiration and Incarnation: An Aside About Apologetics

Noah and the dove. Image source.

I'm been reading "Inspiration and Incarnation" by Peter Enns, and blogging about it. I already wrote my post about chapter 2, but here's another fun little paragraph I want to talk about, from that same chapter.

This is in the section discussing the creation story and flood story from Genesis. They are very similar to myths from other ancient cultures. And the myths from other cultures are older. So, what do we do with that? It looks like the bible stories are just borrowed from other myths, rather than being directly from God, but that can't be right, can it? Page 41 talks about what you would do if you're a Christian in an apologetics argument:

If pressed, one could attempt to mount the argument that the Israelite stories were actually older than all the ancient Near Eastern stories but were only recorded later in Hebrew. Such a theory-- for that is what it is, a theory-- assumes that the biblical stories are the pristine originals and that all the other stories are parodies and perversions of the Israelite original, even though the available evidence would be very difficult to square with such a conclusion. But could it have happened this way? Yes, I suppose one could insist on such a thing, but it would be very difficult for someone holding to such a view to have a meaningful conversation with linguists and historians of the ancient world. To argue in such hypothetical terms can sometimes become an excuse for maintaining a way of thinking that is otherwise unsupportable. It is just such explanations that some readers might find problematic, for these explanations seem motivated by a desire to protect dogmatic commitments rather than to engage the available evidence.

!!! This is so real! This is exactly what it's like, to believe in biblical inerrancy, and to do apologetics. 

It's like... you start with the idea that if you're a Christian, you have to believe all these things about the bible. You have to believe it's inerrant. You have to believe there are no mistakes or contradictions- that it's telling 1 consistent story throughout. You have to believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. And that basically every book in the bible was written very close to the time of the events that happened, by whoever seems like the author when you do a very superficial reading of it. Yeah, any talk of "the book of Isaiah was pulled together from multiple authors" or "this was written hundreds of years after these events happened" is bad- you can't even consider that. It would be going against God.

You start with an idea of what the bible is, and then when someone brings up evidence that seems to contradict that, you have to come up with an explanation for why we can totally ignore that evidence and it doesn't matter.

Someone says "other cultures also have flood stories which are similar to the Noah's ark story." You have to say, well, yes, there really *was* a global flood, so that's why there are stories about it. But the Noah's ark story is the truth about it, and all the others are inaccurate. See? Easy. So we can just ignore all those other flood stories, because they're wrong and our version is right. No need to read them or care about what they say.

Someone points out that the 4 gospels don't exactly agree on who saw Jesus and when after the Resurrection. So you have to come up with some convoluted timeline that fits everything in, such that nothing the bible says is *technically* wrong. Even though, if your timeline is the truth, then the biblical writers wrote in a very misleading way, giving their readers an incorrect impression of what actually happened. But, no need to think about that! The important thing is that every isolated statement in the bible is true in some sense. Move along, nothing to see here!

Or any of the other little inconsistencies in the bible. Someone points them out- ugh, probably some internet atheist just looking to cause trouble. You go through and explain why each of these supposed contradictions is actually fine, nothing to see here. You make up all kinds of fan theories for how 2 seemingly-contradictory statements from the bible can both be true at the same time. That's what being a Christian is about, right? (It often goes so far, with Christians taking these fan theories so seriously because they're necessary to uphold the idea of inerrancy, that we don't even realize that they're fan theories and we actually think they are taught by the bible itself.)

And all of your explanations are like... well, it's not *impossible* that it could have happened that way. But if you just look at the evidence we have, other explanations seem far more likely. You're not really engaging with the evidence- you're viewing the evidence as a nuisance, and your task as a good Christian is to find excuses so we can ignore all that evidence.

If you're able to make a case that "it's not impossible" that your beliefs about the bible are right- well, that's good enough! That's what we're going for - "not impossible." You became a Christian for other reasons totally unrelated to biblical inerrancy and apologetics, and then you found out that one of the requirements to be a Christian is to believe certain things about the bible, so you hack a path through the jungle to show it's "not impossible" that those beliefs about the bible are true. There, all done!

But as Enns says, if that's what you're doing, you're not going to be able to have a meaningful conversation with the experts who are actually studying these things. With people who look at the actual evidence and explore the implications of it. People who really take the bible seriously, and spend their careers working to learn more about it. People who ask questions about *why* the biblical writers wrote things which are inconsistencies or mistakes- these are fascinating questions, but of course good Christians who believe in inerrancy are not allowed to ask them.

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Posts about "Inspiration and Incarnation":

Inspiration and Incarnation: Introduction
Inspiration and Incarnation: Other Ancient Near East Literature
Inspiration and Incarnation: An Aside About Apologetics
Inspiration and Incarnation: Wisdom Literature
Inspiration and Incarnation: The Ten Commandments

Related

The Bible and the Pixar Theory 

My mind is blown by how cool the Synoptic Problem is

"The Wise Men Came 2 Years After the Shepherds" Is Just a Fan Theory

Adding Incest to the Story of Cain

The Bible Stories As I Read Them Were Never Actually In The Bible

Who Cut Samson's Hair? (a post about reading the bible for what it is)

Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories

The Rich Man and Lazarus (and Atheism)

Artwork showing the rich man enjoying a feast in his home, with Lazarus outside his door. Image source. 

In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells this parable:

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Reading this parable now, I'm astounded at how the meaning of it is so completely different from how I understood it when I was evangelical.

Here's how I interpret this story now: Jesus introduces us to 2 characters, a rich man and a very poor man. The poor man, Lazarus, begs outside of the rich man's house, for years, but the rich man does not do anything to help him. In the afterlife, Lazarus goes to heaven and the rich man goes to hell- Lazarus goes to heaven because he suffered so much on earth, so he deserves to have a better life, and the rich man goes to hell because he had a good life on earth but didn't help the poor. Jesus doesn't directly state that these are the reasons they went to heaven/hell; it's treated like it's just obvious. Also, these reasons are emphasized by what Abraham tells the rich man- that in his earthly life, the rich man had good things, while Lazarus suffered.

Now that the rich man understands how serious it is that rich people need to help poor people, otherwise they will go to hell and be in agony forever, he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to go and warn his brothers about this. But Abraham says, no, they should already know, because they have access to the teachings of Moses and the prophets. The rich man knows that his brothers won't take Moses and the prophets seriously, because he didn't either during his life, but surely if someone comes back from the dead, that will convince them.

And Abraham says, no, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

The main point of this story is our obligation to help others. And also, that someday there will be justice- God will help people who suffered on earth, and send rich people to hell for not doing anything to help.

The secondary point is, rich people should know this. They have the teachings of Moses and the prophets, or other religions, or moral philosophies. Of course they are able to realize that they have a moral obligation to help others. But they don't want to. They will make excuses. The rich man in the story says his brothers will definitely believe if they see someone come back from the dead, but Abraham tells him, no, they'll still make excuses.

You shouldn't need a miracle, or a religion, or anything like that. It's obvious that people who have enough money for their own life should give to help others. And if you don't accept that basic obvious fact of morality, then even if you did see a miracle, you would still come up with reasons to ignore the people in need around you.

Just reading the parable by itself, without bringing in any of one's own beliefs about heaven and hell, it seems pretty clear that this is what it's saying. If you are rich, you need to use your money to help others, otherwise you will go to hell.

But of course, for evangelicals, Jesus can't possibly be saying that.

Evangelicals "know" the criteria for getting into heaven or hell: It's not about what you do, it's only about your faith in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus, and you "prayed the prayer" to commit your life to him, you will go to heaven. If you didn't do that, then by default you go to hell, because everyone is a sinner and deserves to go to hell. 

Evangelicals strongly disagree with the idea that people go to heaven just because they had a bad life and God feels bad for them. No! God has actual standards! You have to have the correct faith; God's not going to let you in just because They feel bad for you. And as for the rich man going to hell because he didn't help Lazarus- evangelicals would say, there totally are rich people that go to heaven, don't worry if you're a rich person- but maybe it's a little more difficult for rich people because they tend to rely on their money rather than realizing they need Jesus. And of course God *wants* you to use your money to help others, so if you *truly* believe in Jesus (at the level required to go to heaven) then you would do that, but let's be clear, going to heaven does not hinge on whether you helped others, it hinges on your faith in Jesus.

So we have this situation where evangelicals are totally sure this parable cannot mean what it obviously means. (Similar thing for the parable of the sheep and the goats.) Lazarus must have gone to heaven because he believed in Jesus- yeah that's not mentioned at all in the story, but that was definitely the actual reason, despite Abraham's words, "in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony." And the rich man went to hell because he didn't believe in Jesus- and if he had believed in Jesus, then his faith would have inspired him to help Lazarus. And when he talks about sending Lazarus to warn his brothers, he means sending Lazarus to tell them about the necessity of believing in Jesus. And the rich man says that his brothers won't believe just based on Moses and the prophets- I mean, yeah, when you're trying to convince someone of a particular religious doctrine, and your argument is "here are some ancient religious writings" this usually fails to convince them to convert to your religion. The rich man says it would convince them to give up their atheism if they saw an actual resurrection, but that's actually not true either. Atheists are really stubborn and unreasonable like that.

Wait, what? Why are we suddenly criticizing atheists...?

Yes, seriously, this is the interpretation of the parable I had when I was evangelical: There *is* enough evidence, from the bible, from "Moses and the Prophets," that people should *know* they are supposed to believe in Jesus and commit their lives to him. But when you talk to actual atheists, they tell you that's not enough evidence. They may give you examples of what kind of miracles they would have to see, that *would* count as evidence of the supernatural- but they're actually lying about that. Like Jesus says here, even if they saw someone come back from the dead, they would still not believe. So don't feel bad about how your apologetics arguments fail to convince those atheists. It's a *them* problem!

Yes, really. Evangelicals take this parable about how rich people need to help poor people, or else the rich people will go to hell, and turn it into this bizarre cheap shot at atheists. It's such a weird feeling for me, reading this now when I'm so far removed from evangelical ideology, realizing how obviously Jesus' point is that rich people need to help others (or else they will go to hell!) and somehow evangelicals managed to make it not about that at all- because evangelicals already know that the way to get into heaven is believing in Jesus- and then take this line at the end and turn it into a claim that "you know how your atheist friends say they would believe in God if you had better evidence? Well actually they're lying about that."

The rich man in hell wants to send Lazarus to tell his brothers how to avoid going to hell- and so evangelicals know that obviously means he wants Lazarus to tell them to believe in Jesus. That's how you avoid going to hell. Like we're so committed to this idea that faith in Jesus is the be-all-end-all, *the* answer for how to go to heaven, that we don't even read Jesus' actual words in front of us. (Even if we saw someone rise from the dead, we still wouldn't read Jesus' actual words in front of us.)

Try this on for size: This is a parable about rich Christians who don't use their money to help others. They should know that they're supposed to do that. They have Moses and the prophets. They have the bible. They even believe that Someone rose from the dead, and this still fails to convince them that they need to give money to help others.

How many Christians do we see right now, who are sure that Christianity is about political power and making rules to control other people, rather than helping the poor? Jesus was right. His followers believe He rose from the dead, but we still won't do what he said.

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Related

The Parable of the Living Wage

Sheep and Goats

Jesus Weighs in on "Being Right vs Doing Good"

What kind of God will judge how we treat immigrants?

White Privilege and the Rich Young Ruler

Faith, Fruit, and "Do you actually believe your religion?"

Fruit tree. Image source.

In my post The Kingdom of Children: Eschatology, I had a little parenthetical aside that said:

And, to clarify, I'm not saying being religious is better than being non-religious. There's a wide range of different ways that people map their religious beliefs [or lack thereof] onto questions of morality/purpose/how we should live our lives, and I would not say that religious people's mappings are better than non-religious people's.

In other words, we should look at the way that a religious [or atheistic] belief affects people's views on "morality/purpose/how we should live our lives", and that's how we say if the belief is good or bad. We have some sort of "common sense" feel for what good morality is, and that is the yardstick we use to measure and judge religious beliefs.

Here's the thing, though: Yes, that's how I see it now. But when I was evangelical, I would have disagreed with this. I would have said, we can't judge our religious beliefs based on the effects we observe in the real world; the whole point of religion is that we're claiming there is something bigger than the physical world. In view of this bigger spiritual "reality", our behaviors and morality are good and right, though they might appear to be harmful and wrong if you're only looking at the physical world we can see. And if you judge the religious beliefs only by their observable effects in the physical world, you're already assuming an atheistic worldview, where none of the religion's claims are true.

One could argue, if progressive Christians want to live according to the reality of the physical world, and never do anything that seems like a bad idea (but is actually a good idea if the religion's claims about the spiritual world are true), why not just go all the way and be atheists? If you never side with your religion, when assessing a concrete truth claim that people outside your religion would disagree with, which has practical effects on the choices you make in the real world, do you even believe your religion?

Retconning the Old Testament

Text written in Hebrew. Image source.

The Christian bible is divided into 2 parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The New Testament is the part about Jesus- but, you know Christians, we try to make everything about Jesus. We try to make the Old Testament about Jesus too.

In this post, I'm going to call it the Hebrew bible, instead of calling it the Old Testament, because I want to make the point that it belonged to Jewish people first. It was already a thing, even before Jesus was born. It already meant something and could stand on its own- it wasn't incomplete, waiting for Jesus to come along so it could finally make sense.

The way Christians tell the story, though, is that the Jewish people were waiting for so long, looking forward to when the messiah would come. There were prophecies, there were signs that pointed forward to Jesus. And finally Jesus came, and lived and died and rose again, and this ties the whole story together. Now it finally makes sense, and the whole bible is about Jesus.

This is a retcon. As originally written, the Hebrew bible is not about Jesus. Christians read it through the lens of Jesus' life- and yes, I'm a Christian and I do this- but that's putting our own spin on it, and we shouldn't forget that. Our Christian take on the Hebrew bible is not its "real meaning."

The Kingdom of Children: Comparing Religions

Symbols of different religions. Image source.

Chapter 6 of "The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology," by R. L. Stollar, starts out with this quote:

Unquestionably, the central Christian assertion about the identity of Jesus Christ has been that he is both fully human and fully divine. This characterization is unique among world religions.

- Kristin Johnston Largen

I involuntarily rolled my eyes.

It's not that I think this statement is false. I wasn't even thinking about that. The reason I cringed away from this statement is that I have lots of experience listening to Christians' descriptions of other religions and why those other religions are all nonsensical and bad and shallow, not like our faith which is super meaningful and reasonable and powerful.

So any time I come across a Christian saying "here's why our religion is different from all the others, and is better", ugh. Most of the time, it's a total misrepresentation of what other religions teach. It's spreading misinformation. It's a caricature, meant to show how silly those people are who believe differently than us, haha, how silly and misguided they are, believing things that are so obviously wrong. It's just mindlessly repeating talking points that we heard from other Christians, rather than actually listening to people from other religions, to genuinely understand what they believe.

Okay, but, turns out Stollar actually shares my feelings on this. From pages 98-99:

Growing up, I was always interested in other religions. I accepted Jesus into my heart as a young child, yet I was nonetheless fascinated by faiths not my own. Some of my favorite books were the D'Aulaires' books for children on Greek and Norse mythology. I loved the fantastical stories they contained. The images of gods and goddesses fighting and playing filled my imagination with wonder and inspiration.

But the conservative evangelical world I grew up in did not encourage me to pursue my interest in other religions. As I grew older, the only context in which I studied them was to learn how to attack them-- allegedly for the sake of Jesus. When I attended summer worldview camps as a teenager, for example, I was taught flimsy, cardboard caricatures of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. And even then, I was only taught those caricatures of other faiths in order to memorize catchphrases with which I could supposedly refute them.

Now that I am an adult, I have a greater appreciation for world religions. Part of my journey toward this appreciation was getting a master's in Eastern Classics at St. John's College, where I studied religions from China, India, and Japan. For the first time in my life, I appreciated freely religions other than my own. No one was telling me what was "wrong" with them. No one was interrupting my train of thought by insisting, "But Jesus!" I simply learned what other people and cultures think about the world.

I encourage you to give the children in your family, faith community, or religious organization the opportunity to learn about other religions. As I have argued throughout this chapter, learning about other religions is essential to teasing out both the very real differences and similarities between them. This pursuit helps us understand and embody our own faith that much more deeply.

This is so real. "Learning" about other religions, in a conservative Christian context, just to memorize arguments about why those other religions are obviously wrong.

So Stollar understands that, and that's not what he's doing in this chapter. What is he doing in this chapter, then? Well, it's about child gods- ie, religions that have a god character who is a child. Comparing these stories to the Christian story of Jesus being fully god and being born into this world as a human child- and pointing out aspects of these where the Jesus story is "better" than the stories from other religions. (For example, the Jesus story is "better" than the stories where the god had the appearance of a child but still had the mind and powers of a god- Jesus was an actual child, really, going through all the developmental stages. And the Jesus story is "better" than the stories where it is prophesied that the child will *someday* be the savior- Jesus was *already* the savior, even as a child.) I don't think the book actually uses the word "better" but that's how I'm summing this up.

It seems like we *should* be able to talk about this, right? I'm just really skittish here, as an ex-evangelical, ex-apologetics-nerd. But it seems like there should be a way to talk about, hey, I'm a Christian, so logically that means I believe there are aspects of Christianity which are "better" than other religions, there are things about Christianity which are true while other religions are false... ugh... I'm just... I just cringe so hard at this line of thinking. This sounds like an apologetics argument, and I don't do apologetics arguments any more.

I enjoyed reading this chapter of "The Kingdom of Children"- it does seem to be coming from a place of thoughtfully and respectfully seeking to understand the beliefs of other religions. And the parts where it talks about why the Jesus story is "better"- I guess we should read that as "well, this author is a Christian, so of course he believes the Jesus story is better than the other religions' stories, and these are his opinions about why" rather than reading it like... like he's saying you're not allowed to believe in these other religions because it's so obvious that Christianity is better.

Maybe I could try to write something like that. Maybe there is some way I could frame it which doesn't feel like a dishonest apologetics argument. Make it about why I'm a Christian, without making it about why you should be a Christian.

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Posts about "The Kingdom of Children":

"The Kingdom of Children" (a book about child liberation theology)
The Kingdom of Children: Comparing Religions
The Kingdom of Children: Eschatology
The Kingdom of Children: Theology and Play
The Kingdom of Children: Communion and Baptism

Related:

Taking My Kid To Church: "The Belief That Baffled the Best of the Buddhists" 

What is the purpose of apologetics?

What is the purpose of apologetics?

Clip art image of people having a debate. Image source.

I recently published my review of the book "The Case for a Creator". Here's the follow-up post, which asks, what is the purpose of apologetics?

First of all, let's be real here, apologetics isn't about defending Christianity in general- it's about the debate between Christianity and naturalistic atheism. I don't think I've seen any apologetics books specifically dedicated to answering claims from other religions, something along the lines of "okay suppose we assume God exists- here's why it's the Christian God instead of the Muslim God." The assumption is, if you're not a Christian, then you're an atheist.

That's a bit, uh, odd, but let's just accept this framing, and consider the effect of apologetics on people at various points along the "how confident are you about your belief in Christianity and/or atheism" spectrum:

Atheists who get into debates with Christians

The atheists who know what's what and are out there actually participating in these kinds of debates, they are quite unimpressed with apologetics. They say apologetics arguments are really weak and pretty much amount to nothing.

That's interesting, because the way apologetics sells itself, one of the main purposes is to be used in these kinds of debates. So here we see that there's a mismatch between what apologetics claims to be, and what it actually is. It sells itself as "here are some answers you can use to tell those strong outspoken atheists why they're wrong" but it very much does not work on that group.

Non-religious people who are "seeking"/ open to religion

There may be people who aren't religious, but are open to believing in a religion, and are curious and want to see what's out there. Yeah, I think apologetics can be convincing for this group. Author Lee Strobel himself seems to have been in this group (maybe he would disagree with my classifying him that way though?)- his story is that he was an atheist trying to disprove Christianity, but as he investigated and learned more, he actually became convinced that Christianity was true. 

So yes, I would say this makes sense, as a valid use of apologetics. There is evidence for Christianity- it's nowhere near as airtight as apologetics claims, but still... So it makes sense that telling people about this, if they are people who already think maybe they are interested in believing in some kind of religion, might convince them. I think this can be a good thing.

However, I think it kind of misses the point, when apologetics advocates talk about it this way. For the vast majority of people who convert to Christianity, it's not because of apologetics. Nobody is like "I became a Christian because Josephus's writings corroborate what the bible says." Nope, nobody.

Ex-Christians

Apologetics is very much NOT going to be of any use for this group. They already were Christian, they already went through the whole big struggle of doubting their faith, they likely already thought through the supposed "answers" and found them unconvincing, and eventually came to the decision to abandon the whole thing. 

And then the ex-Christian tells a Christian authority figure (parents, pastor, etc) that they no longer believe, and the Christian tries to convince them with apologetics arguments. Uh, don't do this. It's like, instead of actually listening to them, the Christian treats the ex-Christian's feelings and experiences as just annoying doubts to be argued away as fast as possible. The Christian acts like the ex-Christian needs their permission to no longer believe. The Christian buys an apologetics book and gives it to the ex-Christian. Like they're not allowed to say they're not Christian unless they read the whole book and put together a response and present it to the Christian authority figure.

Sometimes the ex-Christian then buys an atheist book and gives it to the Christian, so they can both understand each other. Then the ex-Christian reads their book and the Christian does not read theirs, but still acts like the ex-Christian has not given good enough reasons for leaving their faith.

Anyway, yeah, don't do this. This use of apologetics- as a way to try to make rules about what ex-Christians are allowed to believe or not believe, rather than listening to them- is unloving and it doesn't even "work." Don't do this.

I know that, in this kind of situation, the Christian is genuinely motivated by compassion and concern for their ex-Christian friend. They fear that if they can't convince the ex-Christian to become Christian again, the ex-Christian will go to hell. This mix of love for their friend, and fear of what their God is going to do to their friend... and how it plays out in ways that are really heartless in reality... I mean, I know that very well. I used to be evangelical.

Christians who are doubting

If you're a Christian who is having doubts about your faith, maybe you decide to read some apologetics.

In some cases, this can be reassuring. If your doubts are along the lines of "where did the bible even come from, is it just totally made up or is there some kind of evidence about its history?" Along the lines of, you fear that maybe somebody just made this stuff up for no reason, and nobody ever spent any time caring about whether it was actually true or made sense. If that's what you're concerned about, then yes, it will help you to read about the history behind various Christian beliefs. Yeah, don't worry, it's not like "nobody knows where these beliefs came from, but people at church told me they're true, so I guess they are." People have thought about these things!

But in other cases, apologetics resources act like they have good answers, but they really don't. Things like, the problem of evil- ie, why does God allow evil and suffering in the world? Or, the problem of hell- Christians teach that everyone deserves to go to hell, and the only way you can get out of it is by believing in Jesus the correct way, but doesn't that seem unfair? Yeah, if your misgivings about Christianity are about something that Christians are promoting, or that God is doing, which seems extremely unethical- apologetics resources aren't going to be any help. These resources will try to reassure you that whatever you are concerned about doesn't really matter. And that kind of reassurance will be fine for Christians who are just playing games in debates with atheists, but if you are seriously thinking about these things, taking them so seriously that it's threatening the whole foundation of your faith, well, the apologetics answers aren't going to do you any good.

For Christians who go to apologetics to try to get rid of their doubts, I think there's a lot of fear. The idea that we might be wrong about everything is just too scary- we hope that we're right and Christianity is true- we want to convince ourselves that it is. Following truth wherever it goes is very scary, if you're coming from this kind of Christian background.

For me, I don't really feel scared about that any more. I'm not so incredibly dependent on this needing to be true. If it turns out Christianity is not true, I don't think I would regret anything... "Love your neighbor as yourself" would still be the principle by which we should live our lives. Maybe the other details are more about the way the human mind sets up a narrative to make sense of the world. 

But yeah, one's feelings and one's level of fear are very much dependent on what variety of religion you follow. If you follow a religion that pushes you to do weird things that only make sense if the religion's claims are true (ya know like me when I was evangelical), well, then you'll have a lot more at stake in needing them to be true.

Christians who are confident and not doubting

Honestly, these Christians are the biggest market for apologetics books. Yeah, apologetics is talked about like its purpose is to convince people who are non-Christians or who are on the fence, but I would say it rarely "works" for those groups. The people who actually buy these books are mainly people who are already sure about their Christian beliefs. 

(At this point, my brain was like, hey I'm a Christian and not doubting and I bought "The Case for a Creator." I feel personally attacked.)

Why does this group of people buy apologetics books? Well, when I was evangelical, I read a lot of apologetics stuff because I'm just that kind of nerd. Curious about everything, wanting to know the reasons behind everything. But now I no longer think that apologetics is about that kind of honest curiosity. I *don't* think apologetics is motivated by a desire to follow truth wherever it takes us. It's more about, here are the beliefs that Christians are required to hold, let's try to come up with some arguments to convince ourselves that they're intellectually reasonable.

To a large extent, apologetics is about "we're winning, we're right and those atheists are wrong." It's about making yourself feel better about your beliefs- not about actually seeking to believe things that are true. And a lot of it is about learning some clever arguments that you can use when you meet non-Christians. Get yourself prepared, so you'll know what to say and you might be able to convince them. (I would say this also does not really "work.")

---

So what does this all add up to?

I have a really negative view of apologetics now. A lot of it feels very dishonest to me. Arguments about how God did something bad, but you have to kill your conscience and convince yourself it's not actually bad. Arguments that atheists have given good responses to, long ago, but the same talking points get endlessly repeated in churches because nobody is allowed to actually listen to atheists. Arguments that completely misrepresent science/ quotes from famous evolutionary biologists/ the beliefs of people who disagree with us/ etc.

There's always that fear, that people are going to hell if we can't convince them, so whenever you talk about your faith, it has to be a sales pitch, rather than being honest.

So I want to be like "ugh this is all bad" but I can't do that, because I actually believe a bunch of these arguments. If you asked me what evidence there is for this or that Christian belief that I hold, I would probably give an answer that you could also find in an apologetics book. Because I really do think in those terms.

I think, if you believe in God, there is value in learning about the arguments that people have used, historically, to support that belief. I'm not saying they're all good arguments, lol, they are not, but it's good to at least think through them. I *have* benefitted from reading apologetics and learning about stuff like that.

You know what I really want? If we could separate these 2 ideas:

1. How are one's views on big topics about God/ morality/ science/ etc informed by one's beliefs or lack thereof
2. Trying to convince people that we're right and they're wrong

Yeah, what I want is to read something written by a Christian who has thought about how their Christian beliefs interact with other ideas or scientific facts or whatever- someone who has thought about it a lot and has developed a view that makes sense of it. And the purpose is not to convince anyone to change their religion- the purpose is just to give an example of what a consistent, thoughtful belief system might look like. 

Hey, I don't just want to read a Christian take on that. Let me read the atheist take too. Or any religion. There's a lot of value in listening to other people and learning about how people think. I don't want it to be about debating who's right and who's wrong.

If someone asked me "why are you a Christian"... sure, there are a lot of apologetics arguments that come to mind, but if you want my real honest answer, it's because I just really believe in Jesus. That's not an argument that's meant to convince anyone. It's just a fact about myself. That is the real reason though, if anyone wants to know.

---

What is apologetics for? Who is apologetics for? It claims to be about "defending the faith," about giving evidence to convince people of the truth of Christianity, about debating atheists. I don't think it actually does those things effectively- and yet I can't be entirely negative on it, because I actually do agree with some of the ideas. I just hate how they're framed in this dishonest us-vs-them fashion. What I want instead is thoughtful reflection on what our faith has to say on these topics, just for the sake of thinking through one's beliefs and putting them into words. Not for the sake of persuading anyone to become Christian.

---

Related:

Just reading an apologetics book and asking "why are we doing this?" 

Sure Of What We Hope For

Just reading an apologetics book and asking "why are we doing this?"

Book cover for "The Case for a Creator"

So I was at a used book sale and saw this: The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel, and snatched it up. Because I used to be an apologetics nerd, and I used to be a creationist, and I read Strobel's books "The Case for Christ" and "The Case for Faith" when I was in high school. But then, years later, I read atheist responses to them, and realized that those books came across like "we have such solid evidence for our faith, atheists don't even know what to say", but it's not true, atheists in fact have a lot of things to say. I got really turned off of apologetics after reading atheist responses. The atheists make some good points. Good for them.

Anyway I saw this book, "The Case for a Creator," (published in 2004) and I was like "ooh a creationist book, I wonder how it will come across to me now, since I'm in such a different place than when I read Strobel's other books."

So here's my review of the book, and also some opinions about apologetics in general.

Adding Incest to the Story of Cain

A chart showing the descendants of Adam, in the bible. Image source.

I recently read "Genesis for Normal People," and I want to talk about the story of Cain.

This story is from Genesis 4. Adam and Eve (the first humans) have 2 sons: Cain and Abel. Cain murders Abel. And then the part I want to talk about is what happens after that. 

As punishment for murdering Abel, God says that Cain will have to wander the earth. Cain is really not happy about this- he is afraid that "whoever finds me will kill me." So God puts a mark of some kind on him to tell people not to kill him. Then Cain moves away, and he and his wife have a child, and he builds a city.

"Genesis for Normal People" says this (page 33):

If you have ever read this story to inquisitive children, you know what's coming next-- the dreaded question that terrified Sunday School teachers pray is never asked: "Where did Cain get his wife from?" (I don't know, Susie. Ask your parents.) Along with that question, we can also add, "Where did this posse come from that Cain is so afraid of, and why exactly would one man in exile build a city?"

Even children recognize that if Adam and Eve were the first humans, and if Cain and Abel were their children, and if Abel is dead-- that leaves three people on earth. So Genesis 4 just drops a bunch of other people in our laps without bothering to explain where they came from.

Some, who still want to read Genesis 2-4 as another account of creation, find an answer in Genesis 5:4, where we learn that Adam had "other sons and daughters." So are we supposed to believe that Cain married his sister? Besides the fact that that's gross and a little creepy, let's also remember the story doesn't say that or even suggest it. That is a made-up explanation. And besides, Genesis 5:4 seems to say that these other children were born after Seth, Adam and Eve's replacement child for Abel-- all of that happened after the banishment of Cain and his marriage to his mysterious wife. And finally, think about this: for Cain to find a wife among his sisters while wandering around as a fugitive would mean that at least one sister (actually, a lot of brothers and sisters since Cain builds a city) would have been banished too. But again, the story doesn't say any of that.

Here's a simpler explanation: there were other people living outside of the Garden of Eden all along, even if the story doesn't explain it. Which leads to this: maybe the story of Adam and Eve isn't about the first human beings. Maybe it's about something else. And that something else is this:

The Adam story is a story of Israel in miniature, a preview of coming attractions.

!!!!!! Oh, yes, I read all the apologetics books back in the day, and yes they certainly do talk about the question "where did Cain get his wife?" The answer that's given in the apologetics books is: Cain must have married his sister or niece. And this was okay back then because Adam and Eve had completely perfect genes. But later, many many generations after Adam and Eve, the effects of sin in the world had caused more and more mutations in people's genes- so incest is a bad idea now, but back then at the creation of the world, it was fine.

Yes, really, if you believe that Adam and Eve were the first 2 people, and everyone is descended from them, then you have to get into these fan theories about how sin causes genetic mutations. You have to make arguments that incest was okay back then but not okay now.

"Genesis for Normal People" points out that NONE OF THAT IS IN THE BIBLE! The bible does NOT say "Cain married his sister." People just made that up because it follows logically from Adam and Eve being the only people on earth originally. But don't take it that seriously! It's not a true story!

It's just FASCINATING how Christians go from "I believe the bible" to "incest was okay during the time of Adam and Eve and I will die on this hill" when the bible doesn't say that at all! It doesn't!

(I mean, if you want actual bible stories about incest: Abraham and Sarah were half-brother/half-sister. Jacob married his cousins Rachel and Leah. The bible has incest. But the story of Cain doesn't, unless you need it as part of your fan theories.)

When you believe in inerrancy, and you read the bible, you see things in the stories that actually aren't there. Like the incest in the story of Cain. 

---

Posts about "Genesis for Normal People":

"Genesis for Normal People": Separating "what the writer meant" from "what is true" and "what it means for us"
God Made the Firmament
When the Bible is Racist
To what extent do I care what the biblical writers meant?
Adding Incest to the Story of Cain

Related

Children's Bibles and "turning ambiguity into clear articulations" 

Cain and Family (A Logic Problem) 

The Bible and the Pixar Theory

ICE and Hell

Sticks. Image source.

While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.

Numbers 15:32-36

What do you do with this passage, if you're a good Christian who believes in biblical inerrancy?

The first time reading it, there's a shock, your conscience jumps up and says NO, this is not fair. But you know you can't listen to your conscience, if it says the bible is wrong about something, if it says God was wrong about something. No, you are a good Christian who believes the bible. So, you have to find a way to believe that it was right that this man was executed for the "crime" of gathering wood on the Sabbath.

The apologetics arguments get trotted out. You see, God's laws were very serious, and people DID deserve to die for breaking them. You see, this man was blatantly disrespecting God, acting like he knew better than God. You see, this was around the time period when the Israelites had just come out of Egypt and were establishing themselves as a new nation, setting up their laws to say what kind of nation they would be- and so it was very important to their national identity that everyone got the message that those laws were serious.

There are 2 choices here. You could continue to assert that this was not fair- the bible is wrong about this, God was wrong about this. You would need to change your whole religion. You would need to change your whole perspective on what the bible is, and what kind of God you follow. You would need to ask uncomfortable questions about why the good Christian role models in your church believe in that kind of a God. Or, the second option, you can just make yourself believe everything is fine. That Sabbath-breaker really did deserve to die. The moral of this bible story is, don't gather sticks on the Sabbath if God said not to. Don't break any of God's laws, no matter how minor, because then you'll deserve to die too. Then it will be right for God to order your execution.

---

Most Christians don't know this bible story, about the man who was executed for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. Evangelicals talk a big game about how the bible is so important and special and inerrant and we have to devote ourselves to reading it every day, memorizing it, every single verse is inspired by God and authoritative over our lives. They always talk about that, but very very few actually do it. Very very few have read the whole bible. I was one of the nerds who actually did.

You go to any Sunday school class and ask people what they think about the story of the man who was executed for gathering wood on the Sabbath, and the overwhelming majority will have no idea what you're talking about.

In a way, it's the truly devoted bible nerds who have it the hardest- the way we have to kill our consciences. Sure, churches are full of people saying "we believe the bible" but they don't even know what they're saying. The apologetics nerds know. The apologetics nerds know that we have signed on to worship a God who ordered a man to be executed for gathering wood on the Sabbath. We know. We have done the work of killing our consciences so we can continue to be good Christians who worship this God.

Especially the bible nerds who are children. Adults all around them, telling them "wow it's so great that you're reading the bible all the time." Adults who perhaps don't know what's in the bible- and the kids don't know that the adults don't know. The kids hear "it's so great that you're reading the bible" and understand it to mean "yes, we all believe it was right that this man was executed for gathering wood on the Sabbath, and you need to believe that too, to be a good kid."

But even though most evangelicals don't know this bible story, here are some things they do openly preach: Every sin is an infinite offense against a holy God. All of us deserve to go to hell, because we are all sinners. 

Yes, really. When I was a child, I was taught that since I had committed some average sins that children commit, like hitting my sister, that meant I deserved to die and go to hell. But, they said, the good news is, Jesus came and died on the cross to take our sins away- if we believe in Jesus, we can get out of the punishment we deserve, and go to heaven instead.

(Very interesting that when telling this "good news," you don't need to mention anything about the Resurrection...)

How does this make sense? How can someone deserve to be tortured forever in hell because of some little mistakes they made? Well, according to this ideology, "every sin is an infinite offense against a holy God." In other words, because God is so perfect, even if your sin is just a little bit wrong, it is magnified to be this huge, disgusting, horrific crime, when you look at it in comparison to the holiness of God. God is so perfect, and that's why we all deserve to go to hell.

We all deserve to go to hell. But, fortunately, we can believe in Jesus, to get out of it. But there was always the feeling that it was in some sense wrong that we could escape hell in this way. *We* don't deserve it- it's Jesus covering us, covering up who we really are, to sneak us into heaven. Evangelicals literally say that if you believe in Jesus, "when God looks at you, he doesn't see your sin, he sees Jesus' sinlessness covering you."

Sometimes I happen across non-Christians who seem to assume that Christianity is meant to be about helping people and making the world better, and it's always a bit jarring to me because, where did they get that idea, that is very much NOT what I was taught Christianity is about, in the evangelical church. Or I happen across Christians who were raised in progressive churches, who believe Christianity is about helping people and making the world better, and talk about it like it's the most natural thing- this also shocks me. 

(See: Nothing about the Good News Club shocks me)

Because, yes, I'm still a Christian but I'm not evangelical any more; yes, now I do believe Christianity should be about helping people and making the world better. As Jesus taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." But damn, how hard I had to fight to get here. When I was evangelical, I believed that the main point of Christianity is that we're all sinners who deserve to go to hell, but Jesus died to save us, and we need to spread the good news, to help people escape hell. That stuff about helping people and making the world better, sure, that's nice, we should also do that, but not too much- we don't want it to be a distraction that takes our focus away from the main point, preaching about sin and hell and Jesus' death that saves us. 

Wouldn't it be terrible if we helped people have a better life on earth, but then they went to hell for eternity?

Actually, having compassion for "sinners"/ victims of tragedies might be a bad thing, because it might make us lose sight of how serious God's law is, how BAD sin is- any little tiny sin means that people deserve to go to hell. Kill your conscience before it deceives you into believing there's something wrong with God's justice.

---

Sometime around 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum, and revealed how common it is that unarmed Black people are killed by police. Frequently when this happens, the police and/or random people on the internet come up with all kinds of justifications for why the Black victim deserved to die. Oh, he was a suspect in a robbery. Oh, he didn't comply with the police officer's commands. Oh, he was arrested for using drugs, one time, years ago. Oh, he was wearing a hoodie. Oh, we pored over all his social media and found a photo he posted where he kinda looks like a gang member.

Your conscience jumps up and tells you NO, this is not fair, but then society's anti-black racism supplies you with all these stories you can tell yourself, to get your conscience to calm down and accept everything is okay. Just like with the man in the bible who gathered wood on the Sabbath, wouldn't it be easier to just believe he deserved it? 

Christians who believe in biblical inerrancy have been trained to accept these flimsy justifications for why someone deserved to die for some kind of minor "sin."

(And also, the reason the slogan "Black Lives Matter" is used is to very intentionally NOT make the argument "this specific victim didn't deserve to die, because they were a good person and did things right." To NOT get dragged into arguments about whatever minor things a victim may have done wrong, but instead to say that NOBODY deserves to get shot in the street.)

---

When I was in college and really "on fire for God," I had it all figured out. You see, the reason that sometimes bad things happen is that we all deserve to go to hell anyway- this is God's justice. And the reason good things happen is God's mercy- God loves us and wants to give us good things, even though we don't deserve them.

This is actually a pretty Calvinist way of thinking- some evangelicals are Calvinist and some are not- and it's quite a tidy answer to the Problem of Evil. Maybe it's the only answer I've ever heard that holds together logically (besides just not believing in God at all). 

Why do tragic things happen? Why do people die in earthquakes? Why is there child abuse? Well, actually, we all deserve to have those things happen. Actually, we deserve worse- we all deserve to go to hell. So really, you can't complain about this stuff- you deserve worse. 

It's logical, but it's monstrous.

Better to not have an answer to the Problem of Evil, than to believe in this.

---

The story about the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath comes from the Old Testament, around the time that God was giving the Law to Moses. In the New Testament, Jesus came along and did things a little differently. He treated people with kindness and love, rather than judging them for their sins. People criticized him for spending time with tax collectors and prostitutes and other "sinners."

Evangelicals believe we should follow Jesus' example. We should also show love to sinners (ie, everyone), rather than being mean to them about it. 

But there's always a sense that there was something a little bit... wrong about what Jesus did. That in reality, these people really were sinners, and they really did deserve to go to hell, and Jesus sort of offered them a temporary oasis of acceptance that wasn't really *right*, from the perspective of God's justice. And when we follow Jesus' example, and we love "sinners", we hope that this convinces them to believe in Jesus and get saved- otherwise yeah they'll go to hell, and they'll deserve it.

The message that evangelicals preach is "God loves you even though you are a sinner who deserves to go to hell." Yes, really, literally, they really say this- this isn't me rephrasing it to make it sound worse- they literally put it this way, and they think it's good news. 

I have also literally heard evangelicals say we need to "love the unlovable." Show kindness toward everyone, but always remember they don't deserve it. But that doesn't mean we're better than other people- remember, we also don't deserve anything good.

The message is not "you deserve God's love." LOL! Oh my goodness, LOLOLOLOL! Of course not! HA!

No, the message is: you deserve to go to hell, but fortunately God is doing something that's a little bit wrong, in a certain sense- to let Jesus' suffering count as payment for your sins, so you don't have to go to hell. Be thankful that Jesus lets you sneak in through this loophole, because you sure as hell don't deserve it.

(The Slacktivist has written [here's one link, but if you know of additional links from his blog, please help me out and leave a comment, I remember he has written other posts about this] about how this is sort of contradictory- how evangelicals believe that people deserve to go to hell, but at the same time, we need to warn them about hell, and tell them the good news about Jesus, so they can avoid hell- and if you're too scared to "share the gospel" with your friends, you should feel bad, it's partly your fault if your friends go to hell. So, it's right for God to send people to hell, but also, we should try to prevent it. What?)

But now, I'm not evangelical, and now, I believe people deserve God's love, simply because we are people. We deserve happiness. We all deserve the opportunity to live a good life. Damn, how hard I had to work to get here.

---

Right now, we're seeing a lot of news articles about ICE deporting undocumented immigrants in the US. And what I fear is, evangelicals will say, well, it's fine, they were here illegally, so, they deserve it, right? 

For any small sin we commit, we deserve to die and go to hell. So how can you be upset if someone commits the "sin" of being undocumented, and then they get their whole life uprooted and get deported because of it?

We all deserve to go to hell. We all deserve to go to a prison in El Salvador.

---

But you may have noticed, isn't there a double standard? Isn't the president literally a felon- why does he get to be president, while other people's minor "crimes" mean they get deported?

And we see this in the bible too- there are bible characters who were killed by God for some minor "sin," while other bible characters who commit worse sins are held up as heroes and role models. King David raped Bathsheba and murdered her husband, and at the same time, King David is called "a man after God's own heart" and seen as a great follower of God, whose example we should learn from.

I would explain the logic like this: Yes, people deserve to die for their minor sins. If you read about this happening in the bible, and you are sad for the victims and you think it's unfair, well, you're challenging God. How dare you. But at the same time, yeah, God loves us and doesn't want to give us the punishment we deserve. Isn't it great, when we see people not getting the punishment they deserve? Isn't it great that David, though he was a sinner like we are, still got to be the king and was loved by God?

So basically what it shakes out to is: When bad things happen to some strangers far away, it's best if you can convince yourself to not care. Wouldn't it be easier to find some minor thing they did wrong, and to believe they deserved what happened to them? But when something bad happens to someone we can relate to, we care about them and we want to fight for them and help them. And we say, isn't it wonderful that God is merciful and forgiving?

(Hmm, this seems like it might be a little bit racist.)

(And, to clarify, I'm not saying *every* time something bad happens far away, evangelicals believe it's fine. I'm saying evangelicals believe it's fine when they have an incentive to believe that those who did it are "the good guys"- ie, God, the US government, etc.)

---

As I've said before, the belief that "we all deserve to go to hell" ruins anything good about Christianity. It can be used to excuse any kind of atrocity. I worry about what's going on right now with immigrants being deported. I worry because I know that evangelicals- who believe in the bible and believe in hell- have been trained not to care.

---

Related:

I Deserve God's Love 

Everyone Else's Nadab and Abihu Fanfics 

"Sodom and Gomorrah" is a story about living in a "bad neighborhood" 

"Christians Aren't Perfect" When It's Convenient

John Piper Said "There Are No Innocent Children" and I am Not the Least Bit Surprised 

Yes, I Want Justice (A post about white evangelicals and #BlackLivesMatter)

Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories

Diagram showing what God made on each of the 6 days of creation. Image source.

I've been reading the book "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles," which IS AMAZING. One of the chapters is called "Conflating Creation, Combining Christmas, and Ostracizing the Other," by Mark Roncace. Let's talk about it.

So, this chapter is about how the bible has 2 different creation stories- Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And 2 different stories about Jesus birth, found in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2. Roncace examines many different children's bibles to see how they handle these stories. Do they tell only 1 of the creation stories, or both? Do they combine them? Same for the Christmas stories.

Here's how the chapter is introduced (p 193):

The Bible is a collection of books written by many different people in a variety of places over a long period of time in multiple languages to diverse audiences in a plethora of social, religious, political, and economic contexts. Children's Bibles are different. They, generally, present the Bible as a single book and are written by one person in one place, time, and language to a fairly specific audience. Moreover, while the canonical Bible naturally features a diversity of stories from multiple points of view, children's Bibles do not. Instead, they harmonize the canon's disparate voices. This ubiquitous tendency among children's Bibles thus eliminates one of the richest and most pertinent aspects of the Bible: its inherent otherness.

Bibles for children are, of course, shorter than the canonical version, so it is to be expected that some of the diversity will be lost. ... But still, abridged children's versions have plenty of opportunities to make the Bible's diversity apparent to its younger readers. Instead, they purposefully eschew such opportunities by blending the different stories or presenting only one of them.

!!!!!! Oh my goodness, this!

Children's bibles are NOT the bible. That has been pointed out by many of the essays in "Text, Image, & Otherness," and I'm so glad I read this book because it's such a good point. In this chapter specifically, we discuss how children's bibles are not the bible because the actual bible has different parts that disagree with each other, but children's bibles are "harmonized" so that the whole thing tells one consistent story throughout. No contradictions.

In this blog post I'll just talk about the creation story. If you want to hear about the Christmas part too, let me know in the comment section~

So, the 2 creation stories in the bible are:

Genesis 1: This is the story about the 6 days of creation. For each day, it says which things God created on that day. Day 1 is let there be light, etc etc etc, Day 6 is the creation of land animals and people. Male and female are created in the image of God.

Genesis 2: This is the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Adam is created first, but none of the animals are found to be a good partner for Adam, so God creates Eve from Adam's rib.

These are 2 different stories.

When I was evangelical, I had no idea that these were 2 different stories. I had read both of these in children's bibles, and also in the actual bible, many times. If you had asked me what Genesis 1 says, and what Genesis 2 says, I totally could have told you which parts were in which chapter. I knew these chapters very well. I totally never viewed them as being separate, contradictory stories though. 

It just totally never occurred to me. I believed the bible stories were true- that they really happened in the same universe that we live in- so obviously they both fit together onto 1 timeline.

From time to time, I would come across lists of supposed "bible contradictions," and the issue about 2 creation stories would be on those lists. I thought, "No, these aren't 2 stories. Genesis 2 is just giving more details about Day 6 of Genesis 1."

And actually, some English translators also try to pass these off as 1 non-contradictory story. In Genesis 2, after God creates the man, verse 8 says, "Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed." This is the NIV translation of the bible- but "had planted" is a choice- I have heard that "planted" would make more sense as a translation. (I don't know much about ancient Hebrew so I'm not sure I'm getting the details right, but this is what I've heard about the translation.) So if it's "planted", then you have a story like this:

1. First God creates Adam
2. Then God creates plants, and plants a garden, and puts Adam in the garden

But Genesis 1 says that God created plants on the 3rd day, and people on the 6th day, so the order of events in Genesis 2 doesn't match. 

But if it's "had planted", then Genesis 2 reads like this:

1. First God creates plants, and plants a garden
2. Then God creates Adam and puts him in the garden

So if you're translating the bible, and you really really believe it's all true and can't possibly have contradictions, you will translate it as "had planted" even though "planted" might be the expected translation of that word.

Take a look at this link to see how different versions of the bible translate this verse.

(Another way to reconcile this difference is to say that God created plants on day 3, then made Adam on day 6, and put some of the plants into a garden, and put Adam in it- so the planting a garden was a separate thing from when God first created plants. All of these attempts to reconcile the contradiction totally miss the point, though. The point is, it's 2 stories.)

Actually, even now that I've been ex-evangelical for a long time, and I haven't believed in biblical inerrancy for a long time, I still subconsciously think of the creation stories as if Genesis 2 is zooming in on Day 6 of Genesis 1 to give more detail about the creation of humans specifically. I wonder what it would even feel like to really internalize the fact that these are TWO DIFFERENT STORIES.

Page 194 of "Text, Image, & Otherness" says this:

While most readers of the present volume are presumably aware of the two disparate creation stories, the majority of people are not, as professors can attest by their students' lack of knowledge about these supposedly well-known passages. Perhaps children's Bibles are in part to blame, for they inevitably fail to present the two stories independently.

Wow, what would it look like for children's bibles to present these as 2 separate stories? You'd have to pretty explicitly say these are not true stories. I can't really imagine a children's bible doing that.

This chapter of "Text, Image, & Otherness" says that some children's bibles combine the stories- ie, the way I always understood the creation story back then. But, there's this problem (p 195):

Conflating the stories in this fashion omits the profound notion that male and female are created simultaneously and in God's image.

Wow. Hold up.

So, maybe one of the main points of the Genesis 1 version of the story is that male and female are created simultaneously, and that they are both made in God's image.

Wow. I mean, yes I always believed that men and women are both equally made in God's image, but the idea that being created at the same time is a significant detail is totally new to me. It's hard for me to even think in that direction, because I know the Adam and Eve story and I'm always subconsciously filling in Genesis 1 with the details from there.

But what if Genesis 1 is saying that men and women were created at the same time? And that this is important? Not like the woman is an afterthought, right?

I mean, I also feel it's hard to make a big deal about "this is important" because we're very explicitly saying that these are not true stories, so how can you really fixate on details like that and make a big deal out of them?

Anyway, my point is, this biblical-inerrancy fan theory that these 2 stories are happening in the same universe really changes the story. If you believe the fan theory, then you end up imagining a version of the story which isn't what the writers wrote at all.

Then "Text, Image, & Otherness" mentions another way that some children's bibles handle these 2 creation stories. Some children's bibles show only the man being created on day 6. And then God looks at the creation and declares it "very good," and then you move on to the story where Eve is created, OH MY GOODNESS. Whoaaaa, not cool. 

Yeah, first you believe the bible has no contradictions, then before you know it you're teaching kids that women aren't part of the "very good" creation God originally made, YIKES.

(Another common way for children's bibles to deal with this is to only tell 1 of the creation stories and just skip the other. Which is okay I guess, but both stories are making different points, so it's nice to have both.)

Then there's this part on p 200:

Finally, a couple of children's Bibles include both stories independently and relatively completely. They are both Jewish, not Christian, Bibles, which is perhaps not surprising since we are, after all, dealing with the Jewish Scriptures, and Judaism has a long, complex history of wrestling with its own sacred text. The only harmonizing redaction by the JPS Illustrated Children's Bible (Frankel 2009) is to retain the name God for the second story. A Child's Garden of Torah: A Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible (Grishaver 1998) significantly summarizes both stories for its audience, but does not blend the two accounts. It also features some surprisingly difficult questions for its young audience-- for example, What do day one and day four have in common?-- but none of these prompts a child to explore the differences between the two versions. In short, out of approximately thirty-five children's Bibles readily available in the United States, I was able to find only two that present both canonical creation stories. The rest conflate and eliminate.

Interesting! There are a few Jewish children's bibles that present the 2 *separate* creation stories, just like the actual bible does. Jewish people have been reading these stories way longer than Christians have, and there seems to be a tradition of really exploring the stories and accepting different interpretations of them- unlike the evangelical Christian approach of trying to make sure everyone believes the "correct" interpretation.

One more quote I want to copy from "Text, Image, & Otherness" (p 205):

In our globalized world, it seems self-evident that cultivating an understanding and appreciation of different views and ideas is an important task for parents and teachers. Children must learn to thrive among people of different races, languages, cultures, and religious traditions. The Bible, indeed, offers a wonderful resource for the facilitation of these skills and habits. Readers learn to listen carefully and attentively, to engage, evaluate, and interact with different voices in the text-- that is, they learn to think critically and to be spiritually and ethically sensitive human beings. But those opportunities vanish when children encounter rewritten versions that conflate stories and omit the various genres present in the canonical Bible. Children's Bibles ostracize the other instead of offering its readers the chance to meet and learn how to treat the other.

This is spot-on, and also very sad.

The bible is so rich and complex. There are so many characters. Writers were writing from different perspectives and for different purposes. Yes, the bible definitely can be a helpful resource for learning to listen to and empathize with a diverse range of people. But wow, that's so not what it was for me. When I was evangelical, everything was so black-and-white... All the violence in the bible that God commands, I had to force myself to believe it was right... God commands his people to commit genocide, to kill every person in the Canaanite cities they conquered, and I was a good Christian who believed all the correct things, and that meant believing that it was right to kill all those people. They were sinners, they deserved it. 

This is the exact opposite of learning empathy. If you read about the violence commanded by God in the bible, and you feel sad for the victims, well you need to stop if you want to be a good obedient Christian. God said those people deserved to die. How dare you disagree with God? Kill your conscience if it's getting in the way.

One especially ironic part of the quote above is the idea that children need to learn to accept people from different "religious traditions." Wow, I was very much taught that the bible said THE EXACT OPPOSITE of that. The bible was about how Christians are the only ones who know the real Truth, and everyone else's religion is bad and wrong, and they're all going to hell- we have to convince them to abandon their own religions and convert to Christianity.

Really sad, huh? Reading the bible could have been a way to learn about and value diversity, to empathize with both the winners and the victims of the stories. But no, not if you believe in inerrancy. Then reading the bible is about how we're right and everyone else is wrong, and God can kill you if he wants because you're a sinner.

That's why I'm so interested in feminist readings of the bible now. There's so much there, so much that I was never really allowed to think about when I was evangelical, even though I read the bible every day. I know these stories so well, but I find that if you just turn them at a slightly different angle, there are things that I never noticed before- like Genesis 1 and 2 being two different stories- and it's mind-blowing.

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Posts about "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles":

"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)
David and Jonathan's (One-Sided) Friendship 
Who Cut Samson's Hair? (a post about reading the bible for what it is) 
The way we write children's bibles is "an act of bad faith" 
Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories
Children's Bibles and "presenting mass slaughter to children" 
Children's Bibles and "turning ambiguity into clear articulations"
Children's Bibles and the Victims of the Flood 
The Problem of Equating the Bible's God with a Real God

Related:

If God Metaphorically Made the World in 6 Days, What Does That Even Mean? 

"The Wise Men Came 2 Years After the Shepherds" Is Just a Fan Theory

The Bible Stories As I Read Them Were Never Actually In The Bible 

The Bible and the Pixar Theory