Grace Driscoll Does Not Masturbate

Strawberry Boy reveals it in his epic chapter on masturbation in the booklet, Porn Again Christian.

Mark Driscoll, a man obsessed by sex, and even more so, by gay sex, and even more passionately, obsessed by proper sexual activity, writes:

First, masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. If a man were to masturbate while engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy with his wife then he would not be doing so in a homosexual way. However, any man who does so without his wife in the room is bordering on homosexuality activity, particularly if he's watching himself in a mirror and being turned on by his own male body.

What?  If Mark is such an expert on anything that smells sexual, he should really know better.  If a woman is masturbating, well..., a woman is most definitely involved.  Oddly enough, further up in this laughable chapter, Strawberry Boy even acknowledges that women do masturbate but quickly adds that men do it more, subsequently dismissing the notion, at all.

Boy is Mark missing out.  I won't elaborate on what I mean by that.  But try it any way you want and you'll be glad you did.  Just don't do it with Monty Python swimming (pun intended) through your head.

Every sperm is saaaaaacred, every sperm is greeeeeat.  If a sperm is waaaaasted, god gets quite iraaate!

Now that that song is stuck in your head...

Mark goes on to say that the Bible doesn't specifically condemn masturbation and yet, it really does in a roundabout way.  But before he goes on to explain those creative references, he wants to save his guilty pleasure from being "Bobitted" (youch!  that hurt!) by claiming, in record time (yes, I could actually see the smoke trailing off the quickly written ink of these words, into the yonder reaches of the cyberworld), the following:

What I am not counting as masturbation is the manual stimulation between married people whereby a husband and wife enjoy pleasuring one another's genitals, as taught in the Scriptures, either orally (Song 2:3; 4:12) or with their hands (Song 2:6).

He HAS to keep his one tool for masturbation available - his wife's hand!  But, alas, Song of Solomon says nothing about pleasuring genitalia with feet, knees, elbows, nose, maybe a little usage of a few chompers, or even the ever-popular "Rabbit".  Sadly, Solomon had no rechargeable batteries to use, let alone un-rippable rubber (trust me...that rubber on that fine piece of machinery that opens doors to new sexual realms DOES. NOT. TEAR!).  Curse those lousy scriptures that are silent as to various body parts and toys!

Then, as he promised, Strawberry Boy takes us through a list of questions, with added scripture references to guilt us into not wanting to masturbate.  Let me take his test and see how spiritual I am.

1. Can you masturbate without lusting? - Job 31:1 - "I made a covenant with my eyes, how then could I gaze at a virgin?"

Well...yes!  I can masturbate without lusting.  And then....no.  I can't.  But sometimes I can.  And damn....sometimes I do it when my wife is away and all I can think of is her.  Maybe that's okay and all godly and stuff!?  But then, I think of Job's question and I think, "You dumbass!  With your eyes, brotha!"  Then I think of other questions like, can I have sex without lusting, can I walk past a restaurant without lusting, can I lust without lusting, can I lust about lust without lusting.  I get all twirled up in my head and come to, grasping my....oh...let's move on.

2. Can you masturbate in a way that builds oneness with your spouse, pulling you together more intimately through the act? - Genesis 2:24 - "A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh."

Whoa.  Wait up here, young sir Mark.  That's kind of a creepy reference to use here.  So...what you're saying is, prior to gettin' jiggy wif it with my bride, my mama and papa were supposed to assist me in pleasuring myself?  That scripture reference makes no sense at all.  But, I digress.  I'll answer the question.  Yes.

But I have a small problem with the way the question is formed.  I imagine myself, laying on my large bed, my wife on the far side, both of us pleasuring ourselves.  Then, as you, Sir Driscoll, so eloquently state, she turns to her side, grabs my unit, and pulls me over to her.  Not that I want to be all up in your business, Mark, but....DAMN!  That hurts!

3.  Can you masturbate without experiencing shame? - Genesis 2:24.

I read and reread that scripture reference a billion times and I still can't, for the life of me, figure out how it pertains to the question.  But yes, I can!  I used to experience shame, when it was beaten into my head by religious people that what I was doing was sinful.  But then, so was talking to a girl.  So was tapping a rock beat on the table.  So was interrupting my mother.  So was not tithing.  So many things that, today, as I look back, were stupid little rules to keep you in line, are normal, pleasant, and contribute to everyday happiness.  Why focus so much on anything sexual.  It's a small and yet very large part of life.  But seriously, so insignificant.  It doesn't need so many words to pillory it.

4. Can you masturbate with a clear conscience? - Titus 1:15 - "To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled."

Um...that reference is talking about EVERYTHING in life.  If you have an impure mind, even sex with your wife is impure.  So, who cares.  I don't want to answer this question because Jim Carrey does it so well.  Start watching at 5:30.  Apparently, Driscoll has never had a mind-blowing orgasm.

I could go on and deal with the fifth question.  But it's really just more of the same.  Mark Driscoll has decided that masturbation is bad and then went through the Bible to prove his point, trying very very hard to inject his ideas into the text where it simply doesn't fit - or rather, makes him look like a fool.  It's called prooftexting.

I won't pretend to be writing off his analysis based on his incorrect reading of the Bible, because I don't really care what the Bible says about sex - or sin, for that matter.  No book that tells me not to murder and then its god tells his people to murder whole nations, right down to the children, kidnap and rape women, and then sets up rules for proper slavery is ever going to to get close to my penis.  I might find a verse that tells me to cut it off and have to follow it.  Oh wait!

If your [penis] causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better to lose one member of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. - Matthew 5:29

OUCH!

Come join me where sexual activity is free and enjoyable.  You don't need a stone age or bronze age or pro-raping women age book telling you how.  Clearly it has no clue.

David Barton Doesn't Know His Bible

Recently, on his WallBuilders Radio Show, David Barton made some remarks about how Christians should think while casting their vote.  Barton framed his position the way that all politicians do - as a dichotomous argument, where there is only one right and everything else is wrong.

As usual, this framing doesn't work.  Barton was decrying the fact that there was a Religious Right and a Religious Left.  He said that there shouldn't be a Religious Right OR Left but only a religious biblicist contingency.  He goes on to state that, if the Bible doesn't speak of it, Christians shouldn't worry themselves about it (climate change, health care, etc.). What he says next reveals his complete lack of knowledge (or, more than likely, his blind acceptance of right wing principles, simply because it increases ratings) of his Bible.

Where does the Bible line up on education? Alright, that's where I am.  Where does the Bible line up on taxation?  Okay, that's where I am.  Where does the Bible line up on social programs? Alright, that's where I am.

If you're at all familiar with theology, you immediately see the problem here.  The reason why there are over 30,000 different denominations of Christianity is because the interpretations of life issues contained in the Bible can be concluded in many different ways.  Couple that with stories that are considered to be prescriptive, rather than descriptive and parables that have many meanings, and you find yourself completely confused as to where you should take a stand.

This is why many religious people boil their faith down to simple truthisms like The Golden Rule or "Love God, Love People".  It's so much easier than trying to navigate all the pretzelified logic.

But let's take a look at Barton's comments a bit more closely.

Where does the Bible line up on education? Alright, that's where I am.

David, David, David.  You are there, but so many other Christians are not.  The Bible says nothing about education.  In the Psalms, it does talk about teaching children the statutes of the god of the Bible, something that many wouldn't really want to do, being that that god wasn't all that nice.  In Proverbs, it says to beat your children with a rod and they'll turn out fine.  On the other hand, Jesus says to not hurt the children.  You see, David?  It isn't really all that cut and dry.

But the Bible doesn't talk about how to teach your kids math and reading.  It doesn't say to teach them at home rather than regular school.  It doesn't say to only allow education funding to be at the local or state level, rather than the federal level.  It doesn't say whether or not to teach a child to a test, rather than teaching them for knowledge.  It doesn't say whether or not to allow a district to increase a tax levy or not. It doesn't speak of whether or not to have strict statutes against bullying.  There is much about education that the Bible does not speak of and thus leads to many differing positions within the Christian community.

Where does the Bible line up on taxation?  Okay, that's where I am.

Really, David?  Are you?  Maybe you think you are.  But, in reality, your position only encompasses one interpretation of taxation in the Bible.

Jesus says to "give unto Caesar what is Caesar's" after his disciples find money in fish.  That can be interpreted in several ways.  First, we are to pay all taxes without question.  That positions wouldn't line up with yours, Mr. Barton.  Or, maybe it means that we are to go fishing and find money in order to pay our taxes.  Jesus also told the rich ruler to sell everything and follow him.  David, have you sold everything and followed Him?  There is also the parable of the ten talents where the one man saves his money and is ridiculed.  Then, another man invests it and makes more money and is warmly treated.  Some people make taxation arguments from that story.

But the Bible doesn't speak about cutting or increasing taxes.  It doesn't speak about whether to give more in order to reduce your tax bill.  It doesn't speak about whether we should remove the home interest deduction from our tax loopholes.  It doesn't speak about the marriage penalty or whether one should claim 18 exemptions or 3.  It doesn't speak of whether it is alright to harbor your money overseas or whether we should file taxes in another state if we only made a few dollars there.  There is much about taxation it does not speak to.

Which leads into Barton's final point:

Where does the Bible line up on social programs? Alright, that's where I am.

The early church owned everything commonly.  In fact, if we wanted to see how important it was to Peter that the early church owned everything commonly, all one has to do is look at how he treated Ananias and Sapphira.  He cursed them and they died when they held back a bit of the money they made from the sale of their personal property, rather than giving it all to the Christian commune.  Yeah.  It was that important, David.  You can also use the story of the ten talents to further the Republican position of keeping all your money and not giving it away but it really doesn't speak to that.  After all, the guy who just kept the money was excoriated.

So, Mr. Barton.  To your point about not voting on issues that aren't in the Bible, my recommendation is to just sit out every single election from President to local dog catcher (the Bible god says nothing about animal control although he says a lot about butchering them and burning them on altars, wasting the meat).  But, more importantly, David Barton, it is time to stop pretending that there is exactly one position for everything in the Bible.  There isn't.  Many issues are not even addressed, let alone addressed in twenty different ways.

Kirk Cameron has No Clue About Biblical Marriage

While on Piers Morgan's show on CNN (yeah, as usual, I'm late to the party), Kirk Cameron said that homosexuality is against what God created as perfect in the Bible with Adam and Eve, in Genesis.

Unfortunately for Kirk, he seems to be parroting right wing talking points without having actually read the Bible from cover to cover, which I have done myself, at least twenty times.  This should actually surprise many people who have heard Kirk's conversion story, where he says that, from that day forward, the Scriptures came alive to him.  It would seem that only a few select Scriptures came alive.  The rest he conveniently ignored.

You see, Adam and Eve were not married.  According to the book of Genesis, they were a man and a woman, but they weren't married.  There was no marriage.  No marriage license was issued to them.  God did not perform a marriage ceremony in a church with a hallowed vow that the Eve would forever obey Adam and Adam would throw his dirty socks on the table and Even would have to smile sweetly, kneel down, and rub his feet.  There wasn't even a law that gave Adam and Eve the right to get married.  Also, because there wasn't a law that Adam and Eve could be married, there was also no implied principle that Adam couldn't marry another man.

Wait...there wasn't another man he could marry anyway?  Oh...riiiight.  Which brings me to the reason why Kirk Cameron has obviously not read the Bible thoroughly.

In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve had kids the old fashioned way.  No artificial means were necessary, no adoptions available.  No, they simply "knew" each other.  But their generations carried on, correct?  Yep.  Kirk, brothers and sisters got busy with each other in Genesis.  They had kids and cousins had kids and uncles and nieces had kids.  All kinds of relatives had relations with relatives near and far and they all had kids together.  It was all one big, happy family there for a while.

Then God does weird things in his inerrant and completely inspired word (Kirk Cameron's assumption).  He orders a prophet of his to buy a prostitute and take her for his wife.  His own blessed people get pissed at a foreigner who slept with one of their women, so they circumcise all the foreigners of the land, then murder them - then they steal their wives and daughters for themselves.  One of God's tribes were short on estrogen so they lay in wait, at God's command, for women to come out and dance, then they kidnapped them and took them for their own wives (You can watch this live in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers).

Many men of renown, godly men, men after God's own heart, had many wives.  The stories around these women were beautiful (especially David's women) and not once was it condemned by God.  He had many an opportunity to ridicule David for his polygamous practices but nary a word.  None.  In the case of Solomon, God only cared that he married foreign wives.  Yes, God would be considered racist if he wasn't so perfect and holy that we don't get to pick on him for doing everything he tells us not to do.

Kirk, there are many more stories of all shapes and sizes about marriages in the Bible.  Only, they were never called "marriages".  Unfortunately for your rhetoric, the Bible never says that marriage should be between a man and a woman.  Right wing leaders would want you to think that the Bible says that.  But it doesn't.

Rather than looking at all the cool ways one can get married if they follow the literal Bible, why not adopt the REAL talking points between those covers.  Like the fact that homosexuals need to die, right along with rebellious children.  The fact that destruction of civilization pointed to the sexual deviancy of the people in those societies that were destroyed.  Those are the real principles on homosexuality in the Bible.

Don't look to the Bible to define other's lives, Kirk.  It gets messy in a hurry.  That's simply because you're relying on sheepherders and camel riders who thoughts that a whisper of wind was the breath of the gods.  Let's progress together and accept the reality that people are people and they deserve the same love and respect as those you claim should be the picture of a great society.  In the arena of ideas, your arguments have no basis and you will lose.  It's inevitable.

Love,

I. C.

2 Timothy 3:16 is not referring to "The Holy Bible"

If the Holy Bible, as we know it today, formed by counsels of men (no women), with agenda of their own, with simple majority votes for what to include and what to discard, were the Scriptures referred to in 2 Timothy 3:16, we would expect that those said Scriptures would make sense.  After all, if the Bible is God-breathed, wouldn't we expect that nothing in those pages would ever contradict itself?

In simple terms, we can declare that a contradiction proves a fallacy.  If a statement about something is true and yet another statement about that something contradicts the first statement, one of those statements must be false.  It doesn't necessarily disprove the something being statemented, but it does prove that the two statements are both false until one of them can be proven true, rejecting the other.

Unfortunately, the Bible cannot, as a single organism, be declared to be contradiction free.  Those who claim it is, are doing themselves a disservice when the time comes to defend their belief system, being that they have to use pretzelified explanations to spelunk through many of their holy book's premises.  If the Bible contradicts itself, then we must reject the Bible as the sole source of truth.  We cannot view it as God's word (I'll explain why, in a bit). 

Does that mean we reject everything from the ancient pages of this book?  Absolutely not!  But it does mean that you can decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong.  You do not have to take the Bible as one organism, but can take away anything you desire from it or nothing at all.  But again, you simply cannot treat it as holy words from an all knowing, all powerful being.  This cannot be true.

Let me explain in six verses:

Malachi 3:6 - For I am the Lord, I do not change...

Hebrews 13:8 - Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

We can use Jesus Christ in this example because, according to John (yes, using the full Bible as a single organism), Jesus was God as God was Jesus.  They both, together, whether they were one or two, transcended all of history, past, present, and future, as God.  Thus, if God does not change and Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, God simply cannot change.  If God cannot change, then nothing in what is considered his word can say one thing about God and then, somewhere else in that same "Word" say the opposite.  If he cannot change, he cannot change.  Now that we have established the iron-man status of God, let's move on.

Deuteronomy 6:16 - You shall not put the Lord your God to the test...

Luke 4:12 - And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

Matthew 4:7 - "Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test'."

We have now established that testing God is forbidden.  But what about Malachi?

Malachi 3:10 - "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."

Here, we see God telling the Israelites to test him.  Now, it has been argued that God was really just telling them to test him with something good and in Deuteronomy, he was referring to testing him with something evil.  In saying this, the person making the argument misses a key point of logic.

After all, when God tells the Israelites to test him, what exactly is he saying?  Simple.  He is saying, if you give me the tithes you are supposed to give me, as I decreed in my law to you, nothing but good will come of it.  But then, he also tells his people to test him with evil, rob him, don't give him his due tithes, and what will he do?  Curse them.  Not just the individual who isn't tithing, but the whole nation of Israel.

As you can see, God clearly contradicts himself in the Bible, provided you are treating the Bible as an infallible, inerrant, singular organism - the holy and final words of God.

This begs many questions.  What is 2 Timothy 3:16 really referring to?  I have illuminated just one of the many contradictions in the book we know as the Holy Bible.  Is the Holy Bible the Scriptures?  It doesn't appear so.  Then, if not, what of the Bible is true, and what of the Bible is simply fiction, a work of men's minds, attempting to make the best word picture of things not able to be explained by the limited knowledge of their day?  If the Bible is not God's word, can we really stand on any of it as unadulterated truth?  Can we simply use logic and reason and take from the Holy Bible what we desire to live by and nothing more, nothing less?

The Golden Rule is a great example of what I would harvest from the pages of the Bible.  What about loving your enemies?  What about not killing and really not killing.  Take it as common sense, not as an absolute truth from a god who has broken every one of his laws - especially the killing one.  How about giving to others and being sacrificial when people are in need.  Turning the other cheek comes to mind.  What about working your rear end off to be successful?  Many awesome ideas about life can be gleaned from this book's pages.  And yet, many other ideas about life can be discovered in other books, from other people, from culture, from your own brilliant mind.

Think!  Think for yourself.  Grab wisdom and knowledge from every source available to you.  The Bible is an excellent resource for many things.  It is also a miserable failure in many other areas.  Feel free to reject any or all of it.  It isn't infallible.  It's not inerrant.  It isn't God's word.  It can't be. 

Response to Greg Koukl's, Ancient Words, Ever True - Part 1

Greg Koukl founded, and is the current leader of, Stand To Reason.  He teaches those he considers Christians how to reason in their faith.  The Bible states that a Christian is to give answer to that which they believe at a moment's notice.  Greg's ministry is to equip them with good reason and logic to do just that.


Greg published the article Ancient Words, Ever True, which asserts that the Bible is supernaturally written.  He sees it a road map for life today and hits on six points to build up his premise. 


I will be responding to Greg's article in a series of 6 - 7 posts.  This post will address his introduction to the topic while subsequent posts will address each one of his five individual points, with a wrapping up of my conclusions on his article, Greg's outlook on life, and how his relates to mine.


You can find the full article here.

*****

Greg immediately jumps into the topic by quoting a passage from a very famous book - Mere Christianity by the renowned C. S. Lewis.  I respect Lewis as a writer and more importantly, as a thinker.  While we differ in some of our final conclusions, the fact that he asked questions and wrote about them, as well as lived a life that was much different from what would be considered, in many circles, a "godly" life, causes me to feel a sort of warm kinsmanship with the fellow.


The quote:


"Being aware of God while gazing on the ocean is all well and good,  but if you want to go anywhere on that sparkling sea, you must have a map".


There are a few problems with this quote that are not apparent if you just read Koukl's material.  First of all, the quote is not found in Lewis' writings at all.  It is merely a paraphrase.  One of my readers may ask, "Why even mention this issue then, if it is indeed, just a paraphrase?  If Koukl proves his point with a correct paraphrase, then its fair game, right?"


You would be correct.  Except for the fact that Koukl is squeezing the exact opposite intent of Chapter 23 in Mere Christianity that Lewis was putting forth.  Koukl says that the words of the Bible are the map and uses Lewis' quote as an apt pointer to that end.  C.S. Lewis, was rather speaking of the importance of experience in life and theology.


He tells a story of a man who experienced God in a desert and later found theology to be dry and meaningless.  He agreed with this man and then surmised that theology was a collection of the experiences of hundreds, even thousands of men and women and thus, the collection of experiences could potentially make theology palatable to this desert character.  Koukl, on the other hand, asserts that the paraphrased quote is proof from a great writer that experience was worthless and should be discounted. 


To start out on this footing is a poor foreshadowing of what to expect in this article.


Koukl moves on to explain why experience cannot be trusted.  He sources experiences from three religions he considers to be in error - Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the "fun to beat on" New Agers.  What Koukl doesn't do is to cite people he may consider to be real Christians.  He never cites stalwarts like George Meuller, Elizabeth Elliot, or even Amy Carmichael - who wrote many books about pain and suffering experiences that taught her about who God was, to her.  This is a classic way to use facts to skew your argument toward your agenda.  Perfectly legitimate experiences by real human beings that give them an extrabiblical sense of who God is - for THEM!


Koukl goes further by stating that if the three hatchet religions have different experiences, then they all can't be right.  This is a fair point, until you realize that Koukl is asserting that only HIS idea of who Jesus Christ is is the correct one.  Koukl does not allow for the possibility of his religion being incorrect, nor does he allow for the unexplainable possibility that maybe, just maybe, religion is decidedly personal, and God reveals himself to mankind, individually, with different manifestations, fitting perfectly into that person's life.


Greg attempts to answer those questions I just posed by making a simple point.  "Classically, Christians have turned to details recorded in Scripture as authoritative, objective grounds for truth. God has spoken in the ancient words of the Bible."

What Greg doesn't say is that the Bible was not what the early Christian church used as their authoritative text.  They had God experiences, Jesus’ words as reported to them through a game of telephone, as well as the original Jewish texts.  They had experiences like the tongues of fire at Pentecost, as well as angels opening prison doors in answer to their prayers.

In fact, the Bible, as we know it today, was not completely put together until 1546, 1563, and 1672.  These were just over-arching councils and meetings of men (no women involved, of course).  Other editions of the Bible were put out as history marched forward.  Many translations have come about and not one person agrees completely with another on all of the verses in any text.  Hardly a map set in stone to reveal the TRUE idea of who God is or what he wants for our lives.

Koukl then adds to his premise that the Bible is a road map of life by saying that, after all, God said "Thus saith the Lord..." hundreds of times.  This is obviously problematic because that road map would not work for us today.  As human beings, we have progressed well beyond the understanding of primitive cultures (not that we always act on our enlightened understanding).

Let me illustrate my point by paraphrasing some "Thus saith the Lord..." quotes from the Bible:

1 Chronicles 21 – God gives David three choices because of his sin and ends up killing 70,000 men.  Why?  Because David counted his armies.

Deuteronomy 3 – God orders the destruction of many cities, including the murder of all men, women, and children.  The Israelites get to keep the plunder.

 Joshua 6 – God orders the full destruction of Jericho including all men, women, children, and livestock.  After the totality of destruction and murder, Joshua curses the city saying that any man who rebuilt it would have his firstborn die.

Exodus 21 – Slavery is mandated.

Exodus 21 – If the master provides a wife to the slave, when he is allowed to go free, the wife and kids are the masters.  If the guy does not want to be freed, the master mutilates his face and owns the slave forever.

Exodus 21 – Hitting a father or a mother means death.

Exodus 21 – Cursing your father or mother means death.

Exodus 21 – Beating a slave is perfectly fine, as long as they end up recovering in a day or two.

Exodus 21 – If the owner of livestock has been warned that he has a dangerous animal and that animal causes another person harm or death, the owner should be killed.

Exodus 21 – If this same livestock causes harm to or kills a slave, the owner needs to just pay a fine.

Exodus 22 – Raping a virgin makes her your wife by default.

Exodus 22 – Witches must die.

Exodus  22 – Worship of any other god means death.

Some of those, you may agree with.  But, put them all together and then try and make a case that we should follow all of them as a road map of life.  I don't think anyone would succeed in doing that.


Then, Koukl moves on to prophecies where the New Testament writers affirmed things prophesied or written in the Old Testament.  This is also problematic.  Many prophecies quoted in the New Testament simply do not exist in the Old, are misquoted, do not say what the New Testament writer says they say, or are elsewhere in the text and not where the writer stated they were.

For instance, when Jesus stated that it was written he would rise on the third day, as Paul stated was also written, it just wasn’t true.  It isn’t found in the Old Testament, anywhere.  And, worse yet, extrapolating that prophecy from Jonah in the belly of the whale is just too convenient and doesn’t make any sense.

Also, Matthew says that Jeremiah predicted the thirty pieces of silver fiasco in the Passion Narratives.  But, Jeremiah never said anything of the sort.  Some have said that Matthew actually meant the words of Zechariah applied here.  But wait, the road map?  Can there be a mistake and it still be a perfect road map?  Worse yet, the Zechariah piece is a specific story about something that happened at the time of Zechariah.  Pretending it is a prophecy does not make it a prophecy.

Matthew also stated that Jesus was prophesied to be a Nazarene (from Nazareth).  But, not only has the town of Nazareth never been found, the words and this prophecy also do not exist.  How can a perfect life road map be missing a key ingredient of prophecy that it states it actually DOES include?

There are more, but I digress.

Then, Koukl states the well known verse where Paul says that all scripture is given by inspiration.  But Paul was not and could not have been speaking of his very words he was speaking at that moment.  In fact, several times, Paul says, “God doesn’t say this…I do!”  Did Paul really think he was speaking or writing God’s words?  By his own confession, he did not. My best guess is that, in this letter, Paul was merely speaking of the Jewish scriptures as they knew them (which is decidedly NOT the same as the Old Testament as we know it today).

Koukl: "Of course, just claiming it’s so doesn’t make it so. How do we know? Do we have any evidence God has spoken in the Bible? The challenge can be reduced to a simple question: What kind of book is the Bible? I submit there are only two plausible answers. The Bible is merely a book by man about God, or it is a book given by God through man, to man."

I disagree with there only being two possibilities.  Isn’t it plausible that SOME of the Bible was given to man through God and the rest is poppycock?  Or, maybe some of it was written by man and little bits of God’s wisdom was injected into it.  Or, it may be plausible that all of the Bible is the writer’s best idea of who God is with their own spiritual experiences that validate those assertions.  That makes it true for that individual, but it doesn’t necessarily make it true for all of mankind.

Koukl then answers his own questions by stating that, if the Bible was human, it had human limitations to it, but if it was supernaturally written by God, "then God is the ultimate author and His word is the last word."


Really Greg Koukl? So, slavery is ok?  Women are to be subordinate to men?  Homosexuality is wrong?  Casting the evil eye at your parents is grounds for being stoned?  If we don’t believe in God, we must be put to death?  Hellfire is reserved for those who do not believe in God or who reject him, including those who never had a chance because they weren’t privy to this perfect road map?

Koukl finally sums up his introduction by stating that he sees six evidences of the Bible being supernatural.  I will address his first point in Part 2.

I realize this is a bit technical, but bear with me.  I think it is an important discussion to have.  Is the Bible inerrant?  Infallible?  What does it mean for mankind if it is not?  And, if it is not, is it probable that Christianity is simply another religion, dreamed up by ancient peoples when they didn't have explanations for all of life's unanswered questions?