Preponderance of Evidence against Christianity

<title>Preponderance of Evidence against Christianity</title>

There is such a preponderance of evidence against Christianity presented throughout this site that discussing it on the whole or even skimming through it just one place can become extremely difficult. If you wanted a complete list I don't think there is one, but there are in fact quite a number of issues raised on this wiki -- certainly over 100 issues -- and I've begun to wonder a little at the amount of claims we have been able to challenge and/or refute.

== The Mistakes of Jesus
In addition to [[Christian Steamroller]], [[Failed Messianic Prophecies]], [[Did Paul Lie]], [[The Mistakes of Paul]] and so forth, as it turns out almost every time Jesus quoted the scriptures he misinterpreted them.

A great example is Matthew 4:4, cf. Luke 4:4 quotes the Old Testament Deuteronomy 8:3. This is a perfect place to test the verity of the New Testament. Does the New Testament stand up to Old Testament rules and regulations?

But he answered, “It is written, “**‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’**” --Matthew 4:4

And Jesus answered him, “It is written, **‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’**” --Luke 4:4

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that **man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.** --Deuteronomy 8:3

The point of these passages is that one has to keep the law. By using the passage in this way, he trivializes the meaning of 'keeping the commandments' into a trite dismissal of Satan's offer. I.E. the lesson of Deuteronomy 8 is not present in Matthew 4, Luke 4 and so on. It's been subverted into an anticlimactic moment in a parable about Jesus beating Satan's bumbling temptations. Why isn't the point of the text reinforced and people taught to keep the law and the commandments? Because that is antichristian. In fact one may speculate that the entire reason this passage found it's way into the new testament was precisely to poison one's understanding of the hebrew scriptures.

Let's look at a few more. Have you ever read Mark 7:6-7?

== Jesus said What? (Mark 7:6-7)
<blockquote>6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 //in vain do they worship me,// **teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.**’<cite>Mark 7:6-7 (RSV)</cite></blockquote>

<blockquote>‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 //in vain do they worship me,// **teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.**’”<cite>Matthew 15:8-9 (RSV)</cite></blockquote>

<blockquote>And the Lord said: “//Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me,// **and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,**<cite>Isaiah 29:13 (ESV)</cite></blockquote>

When considering the above, one becomes immediately confused. Did Jesus really say this? Jesus, speaking Aramaic and certainly Hebrew (from being raised Jewish) would have had an intimate knowledge of the scriptures. It is inconceivable for him to have committed these errors.

=== Worshipping in Vain
The idea that someone is worshiping in vain means that for all intents and purposes they are //worshipping properly,// yet for whatever reason (left unstated) it is being done in vain. Usually one would assume this is an ironic situation; that the people in question believe they are doing a good job but in reality are not. That is clearly not what Isaiah is saying. Isaiah is saying that they are not worshipping properly in the first place. Their worship is mere lip service. They are not worshipping in vain, they are not even worshipping properly.

=== Teaching man's word as God's word
Jesus states that the Pharisees had been teaching man-made decrees as if they were the word of God. He says clearly "teaching as doctrines the precepts of men," which can just as well be written "teaching the precepts of men as doctrines". Everyone can understand what Jesus is trying to say here. The problem is, that isn't what Isaiah said at all.

Isaiah said that the Jews in question had no actual fear of God, that their "fear of God" was nothing more than a rule taught as one of the commandments, to which they had very little if any emotional connection. He is NOT saying that they were learning some kind of "rabbinic ruleset" that confused them away from learning the law! Jesus is very clear about this throughout his ministry, for example in Matthew 23's "seven woes" passage we read:

* 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
* 13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
* 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell[e] as yourselves.

=== So why did Jesus say these words?
Isaiah's words here echo those of Jeremiah 3:10 in spirit and meaning; "Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.”" (Jeremiah 3:10). They do not mean at all that the correct worship was being done in vain. In fact we may even hearken back to the days when the Lord became angry and sent the Israelites to wander in the desert for 40 years (see also: [[Hebrews 4.8 Analysis]]) -- Verses such as Numbers 11:24, "But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it." and Numbers 32:11-12; "11 ‘Because they have not followed me wholeheartedly, not one of the men twenty years old and upward who came from Egypt will see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 12 except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the Lord wholeheartedly.’"

Thus it seems as if we have a serious problem. I don't believe Jesus said these words because he got the meaning totally wrong. But in that case we look to the author of Mark (and Luke) who also got the message completely wrong. If then these words were placed into the mouth of Jesus by the authors of the New Testament, it would mean this story never happened and that the message given here is flawed at best; certainly nowhere near the weight of the actual teachings of the Old Testament.

==== What about the Septuagint?
It is inconceivable that Jesus would have been unaware of **the meaning of this verse in the original Hebrew**. No matter how you slice it, when we read Mark 7:7 and consider it fully we learn two important things:

# We are being given a message and a meaning which is **different** from the message and the meaning of the Old Testament.
# This message is being used to justify an otherwise new Doctrine, that of replacement theology.

The Elders approach Jesus and say, "“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”" (Mark 7:5) and Jesus fires back with, (Ha!) "9 Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! " (Mark 7:9). Now it can be seen for all to see: Jesus' words here no longer make sense. To someone who //knows the Hebrew scriptures// Jesus's words appear to be non-sequiturs.

As a final thought, Jesus said here 'Honor your Father and Mother' is equal to giving them money or sacrifices. The idea of Honoring your Father and Mother is in respecting them and doing what they say. Considered properly, from a Jewish understanding of the law, it makes no sense to declare by tradition that you cannot give honor to your parents which has already been slated for God (i.e. I'd rather study Torah than listen to my Mother and Father). So what is Jesus really trying to say? What is the real purpose of these words? Can the author really be so ignorant of the true meaning of the Hebrew scriptures? Why then was this story written?

=== Conclusion over Mark 7:6-9
This passage has an interesting message which sort of makes sense. During the time of Jesus there was in fact a movement that noted a lack of spirituality among Jews. Some Jews even felt that the Roman invasion of Jerusalem was punishment for so many Jews simply 'going through the motions'.  The prophets warned Israel of this many times; Psalm 40:6, Hosea 6:6, and many other verses warn the Jews not to merely pay lip service to God.

So it is interesting to see this passage get things so right but at the same time get things so wrong. In Jesus' time, the Sadducees had sided with the Romans and had ditched the Oral Law; there was also as mentioned the social issue over the level of religious ritual versus faith being observed in Jerusalem. We are left to wonder why the author didn't just make the same point in a different way. Or at worst, say nothing. By giving us these writings it seems as if the authors of the gospels are impeaching themselves.

It is also worth noting that Jesus does not directly call for people to breaking the law -- he simply attacks the credibility of the Law by attacking the credibility of those who teach it.

=== notes
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT04LLrJSrw&feature=youtu.be&t=158|Matthew 15:8-9 with Rabbi Michael Skobac]] (Jun 24, 2015)