What Happened to the Jerusalem Pillars?

In my paper for my Intro to New Testament class, I raised the follow:

Though prominently the disagreements between Paul and the so-called Jerusalem Pillars; what is noteworthy is that Paul seems to have, as well as earn, authority despite the fact that he did not know Jesus personally (and according to tradition, the Jerusalem Pillars did, though Paul does not explicitly suggest this).  One has to wonder about the implications of this, whereby Paul has authority and continues to gain authority even after his death—particularly through these so-called gnostic communities—and yet none of the Jerusalem Pillars’ works survive (presuming they wrote something down in the first place).

This for me draws out an important issue. Just what happened to the Jerusalem Pillars?  Did they die during the First Jewish War?  Did they leave and go to Rome?  Syria?  Alexandria?  And why is it that we have Paul and not the Pillar’s works (if any were written)?  Paul must have received some correspondence, I would think, given that he went to Jerusalem on someone’s wishes.  And I find it hard to believe that none of the Pillars were literate (given that they seemed to hold some “rabbinical” position in the church there).

Are there any theories out there?  Any constructions that might be based in some grounding?

The American Revolution and the Debate Over Gun Control

While doing research for a side project in which I have a great interest (American History), some general myths have been debunked (for me, at least) in the process.  One such myth is the notion of gun access and the American Revolution.  There is this (somewhat fictive) notion in some parts of the country, by certain individuals, that citizen soldiers–every one of them armed with his own gun–turned aside the British occupation and invasion of the colonies.  Some (like David Kopel) have argued that the British attempted to confiscate and limit gun access to the general public and this, somehow, facilitated the start of the American revolution.

The classic (that is to say, the modern, media-driven) impression of the militiaman is that of Mel Gibson, running out of his burning home carrying an assortment of six or more muskets and rifles.  But how accurate is this pro-gun argument?  What does history tell us?

There is no way that the NRA leadership did not squee during this scene.

The notion that an armed populace rising up against the British, angry at the seizure of weapons in Boston, is a simplistic one that does not take into account the variety of other factors leading up to the war.   Interestingly, those American militiamen and minutemen who fought at the first battles of the war–Lexington and Concord–seem to have been armed by the community (generally there were magazine stores, buildings filled with barrels of gun powder, and weapons stores where muskets would be kept somewhere in outlying areas) and also, in some ways, by the British themselves.  As colonies of British empire, communities in the New World were required to keep up an active duty militia of armed men and artillerists with working cannon.  While the wars in Europe spread to the Americas, the French and their Native American allies were a constant threat to the frontier regions of many Northern colonies (all of New England, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, though also Maryland and Virginia).  During the 1760′s, the rise in bloody raids by French and Native forces, along with the burning of crops and farms (and amounting to the deaths of over 200 Pennsylvanians), the edict of arming the general populace and maintaining military associations seemed only reasonable and expected.

It should be noted strongly that certain factors, socially and regionally, led to the consequence of a some-what armed populace–mainly required military enrollment.  However that isn’t to say that everyone was armed; this myth needs to be dispelled.  The notion that every farmer had a rifle is one that is often played upon by politicians and activists without knowing the facts.  For a large part of the war, a good portion of the Continental Army just wasn’t armed (either because munitions were left behind in a struggle or because new munitions had not yet arrived from Europe).

David Kopel writes, “The Patriots of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, resolved: “That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles.””  But even if this had been stated, an attempt to suggest that this had started the war is nothing more than a fantasy.  In Pennsylvania, when the Militia Act went into effect in March of 1777, and classes of men were called up to serve (essentially drafted) and sent to the lower PA counties to participate in the Philadelphia Campaign under General Washington.  It was the job of the local governments to arm and supply provisions for these men, though if men had arms, they were requested to show up with them.

Why is this important? On October 3, 1781, the state of the Lancaster militia, residents of Lancaster who were called up to arms (the men who so gallantly charged the claim that they would raise their illegal arms to fight the British–in Kopel’s fantasy world, that is), had been so depressing that Governor Reed wrote to General Lacey that he had “no arms here, Mr. Moore having last week delivered all in the store to our militia of the town, and after this, you know, there is no recovering them” (which, by the way, supports the contention that these were not arms belonging to individual gun owners, but to a community magazine and storage area).  After which, Reed wrote that, “Colonel Ross called yesterday to inform me that he had a battalion of 690 in the same naked condition.”  The disposition of these troops was such that, without arms, they were useless and so Reed had to actually call them back home (though they were not discharged).  During the Battles of Germantown and Brandywine, hundreds of Pennsylvanians sat around camp in the regions of Chester and Trappe waiting for muskets instead of joining the fight.

These kids are better armed than many of the militia companies during the Revolutionary War.

When the British marched on Lexington and Concord, they did so not to harm any of the people, but to destroy the weapon stores and magazines in those areas to prevent rebellion (though they had already invaded at this point and had established a foothold in Boston–the war had already begun).  In other words, they did not go house to house and remove weapons from individuals (this is a mythic construct), but were headed to a community building where these arms were located to destroy them.  Through good intelligence, colonial militiamen and minutemen had already emptied the magazines and store houses and had armed themselves, some with those very armaments, and prepared for a fight.  Such is confirmed in eyewitness testimony of one Sylvanus Wood, a man who joined with other militia on the green at Lexington.  In 1858 his account was published, wherein he writes that the Captain of the militia at Lexington yelled:

“Every man of you, who is equipped, follow me; and those of you who are not equipped, go into the meeting-house and furnish yourselves from the magazine, and immediately join the company.’

Further supporting my position here is the fact that none of these men were solid shots.  While they may have drilled with weapons on occasion, they were not accustomed to firing a weapon often, as many citizen soldiers weren’t skilled at shooting as the math proves (don’t let your eyes gloss over, keep with me here–it pays off).

Assuming that every casualty inflicted during the battles at Lexington and Concord were the results of musket and rifle fire (they weren’t, some were caused by bayonets and bladed weapons–but for the sake of argument), just 15 out of every 100 rounds fired from the colonial militia (numbers unknown, but said to be around 70 at Lexington and around 1000 by the end of the engagement at Concord)  found their target (inflicting about 15% casualties on the British; about 270).  Of the British forces (numbering about 1800 regulars), they did slightly worse; less than 1 out of every 10 shots fired struck a colonial militiaman, which amounted to about 90 casualties.

While the number of British wounded and dead seems high, at the onset of the Battle of Lexington, the British (numerically superior, about 250 to 70-ish American militiamen) inflicted 19 casualties while receiving none.  So while potentially hundreds of rounds were exchanged in the beginning of the fight, by the British, loosely speaking only 8% hit someone.  Marksmanship just wasn’t important; the value of a musket was not in its accuracy but in the amount of them you could bring to the battlefield.  Most muskets were not rifled, so when a volley is fired by a company of men with muskets, within 50-75 yards, it acts like a shotgun.  Sometimes you hit and most times you didn’t.  But the real value to muskets was their fast-loading time and ability to keep up a continuous and steady fire upon the opposing forces.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have to fire at will, I can’t see a damn thing with all this smoke flying about.”

As well, during the Siege of Boston in 1775-6, the militia participating in the siege had been given spears to use in case of an enemy assault, partly because ammunition stores were low and some men just didn’t have weapons to fire.  Later in the war, the situation had not much changed.  While many Pennsylvania riflemen were expert marksmen, the accuracy rate was abysmal amongst them.  We’d like to think that the hardened frontier made these men crack shots, but even in the thick of combat, as skilled as some of these veteran soldiers were in 1778-9 (like during the Sullivan campaign), hundreds of rounds were expended with few finding their mark.  As has been noted elsewhere, at the skirmish of Wetzell’s Mill, at least two dozen veteran riflemen fired at Lt. Col. Webster as he rode, on his horse, right towards them at close range; somehow, every round expended missed him and his horse.

The implications here are obvious; while some men on the frontier made it their livelihood to hunt for food and defend against attacks from local tribes, a good portion of the population did not bother with them.  Worse yet for Kopel’s position, even those who did own and use guns (which were expensive) did not seem to use them regularly to be efficient with them.

The fact is that the 2nd Amendment has never been about owning a gun.  Such language is not present there at all:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The context–given that it was written during the Revolution–is quite clear, that this is related to the function of an well regulated militia which, by the way, is run by the state government (and which played a key role in the American revolution); today we call them the National Guard.

Not the definition of a ‘well regulated militia’.

The notion of owning a firearm was not unheard of during the period of the Revolution, but it was more common that weapons were kept in community areas specifically for use by the militia who would need them in times of crisis.  In other words, the American colonials had already established a form of gun control, wherein private ownership–even on the frontier (of which most of Pennsylvania was included)–was rare enough that people simply could not arm themselves to fight in the Revolution.  The random speeches and poetic tracts of leaders, notwithstanding as anything more than propaganda, does not prove otherwise.  Attempts to saddle the issue of pro-gun ownership on the founding of this country, when the facts are on the table, are doomed to failure.

Recognizing Fiction in History: “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!”

As I delve further into the background narrative of the Revolutionary War in America, I’m learning a great deal more about the power of rhetoric and fiction in the development of this nation.  The most powerful part about this research are the similarities I have had in my own work on the ancient past.

For example, the famous Patrick Henry speech containing the words ‘Give me liberty, or give me death!’ may have not been Patrick Henry’s at all.  Much like the figure of Jesus, it seems, the next generation of followers (or believers, or patriots in this instance) may have fabricated most–if not all–of Henry’s rousing words.  Certainly, we know he said something, but what that ‘something’ is seems to have been completely forgotten by those individuals who were eyewitnesses.  Jefferson remarked in one instance that he had been persuaded by Henry’s words but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what he had said–not even following the speech!

The words we now know seem to have come from a nineteenth century retelling of the events a few years following Henry’s death (1817).  The author of this retelling (or should we say, reworking) of the speech is one William Wirt (who would have been about 3 years old when Henry delivered his speech).  With eyewitnesses in short supply, and with not many capable of remembering what was said, Wirt seems to have taken liberties with the reconstruction–likely he kept the tone correct, but the words?  Is it possible that ‘Give me liberty, or give me death’ had been Wirt’s and not Henry’s?

Why would someone wholly or even partially invent a speech?  This is not a new phenomena.  The very first ‘historian’ Thucydides invented speeches for his own agendas–idolizing Pericles and portraying him as the ultimate pro-democracy, Athenian statesman in his funeral oration.  Many after Thucydides, including Cicero, accepted his portrayal of the speeches as historically valid, whether they were or not (even though Dionysius of Halicarnassus didn’t much care for it, he stilled suggested it be emulated).

Thucydides wasn’t necessarily being dishonest; he believes he is doing something valuable for humanity.  In fact he appears to have had the same problem faced by Wirt; those who were there just couldn’t get the story straight in their recounting of the events (assuming here that he is telling the truth and not just using this as a rhetorical means to gain forgiveness from his reader for fabricating the speech in the first place).

What I find perhaps most interesting is that no one challenged his portrayal.  No one wrote accounts that his fabrication was a fabrication; no direct attestation from someone who had been there exists, to my knowledge, stating that Wirt’s presentation of Henry is inaccurate.  That, to me, is very telling of the state of usefulness of fabrications; that is to say, they are just as useful as the real thing.

During the time Wirt was writing, his generation started to realize that the veterans of the first war of American Independence had started to die off.  There was a rush, especially before and directly after the Civil War, to create biographies, histories, and lineage notes about various communities, families, and individuals of the Revolution.   Wirt undoubtedly was a part of that national push, especially by elites of society, to develop a cultural history of the time before all the veterans were gone.  In this way, we cannot necessarily fault Wirt for his portrayal of Henry and this famous quote, but we must still–as much as we don’t like it–be suspicious of it.

Book Review: Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth

I received this book in the mail a few days ago courtesy of Frank Zindler:

Yeah…

Frank Zindler even signed it:

As much as I appreciate the gracious sentiment from Frank, I am not sure I deserve such an accolade.  He may feel differently after he reads this review.

Let me say that Frank and Bob Price did a decent job as editors.  The book, published through the American Atheist Press (2013) is, at 567 pages, a collection of 21 essays compiled into four sections and  a concluding chapter. The 21 essays are divided, rather unevenly, between seven contributors: Frank Zindler, Bob Price, Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, D.M. Murdock (Acharya S), Rene Salm, and Earl Doherty (Zindler has the most with nine essays, Earl Doherty comes in next with five essays).

My only gripe as far as editing goes is that there are no indices.  Having an author index, at least a select bibliography, would have been valuable to the volume and at least added some gloss of academia to the volume.  Instead, the lack of an index of any kind only adds to this book’s woes.  More on this in a moment.

At a stock price of over $30 for a paperback that isn’t published through an academic press, I found it wanting for more (or to use Zindler’s words, ‘left…in a state of stunned perplexity’). While I was not a fan of Ehrman’s recent book Did Jesus Exist? (I even wrote a paper which was published last year in the online journal Bible and Interpretation), he is still a scholar–a professional, in fact–who has produced some extremely valuable resources for students and textual critics.  Even if he is misguided, even if he is wrong (his arguments are flawed, but whether or not his conclusions are wrong has yet to be proven in any respect), he earned the right to be treated in a manner that befits his position in the academy.

Some may disagree; that’s fine.  There are ways to attack an argument with passion without resorting to a personal attack.  Instead this volume is, essentially, nearly 600 pages of polemics and rhetoric.   This book should have been a collection worth taking seriously; the last thing mythicism needs is yet another self-published volume full of venom and disgust.  Even if those emotions are justified (and I’m not saying they are), if the mythicist wants to be taken seriously–should they not approach this polarizing and controversial subject in a manner different than the way Ehrman had?  If Ehrman had done nothing else in his volume but demean and belittle every mythicist, does that mean that the mythicist should do the same?  I don’t think so; especially if one wants to have their arguments considered.

The title of this volume bespeaks the purpose: it is a series of essays with the intent to character assassinate.  Price makes no secret of this; he states in the introduction that this book represents a ‘counter-polemical’ because Ehrman started it (seriously).  And Price’s attempts to link the contributors of the volume, in all, and those who support the so-called ‘Christ Myth Theory’ with minimalism is a void one.  While I do argue that I am a sort of ‘New Testament minimalist’, the difference in all of this is that I’ve not made any anti-academic claims or any statement of certainty.  While Thomas Thompson and Philip Davies may be called minimalists, they don’t agree on everything (from dating texts to who may or may not have been historical); the analogy is flawed as what Bob and others are arguing in this volume is that Jesus is a myth, as in lacking any historical function.  And one cannot simply combine Thompson and Davies (or Lemche and Pfoh, etc…, into a comparable ‘David Myth Theory’, now can we?  To my knowledge there exists no volume published by minimalists arguing against Bill Dever or Gary Rendsburg (as much as they might deserve it).

Price also gives D.M. Murdock too much credit.  He is guilty of inflating her credentials in many respects and, while they are friends, it is distracting.  He writes, for example, that ‘her chief sin in Ehrman’s eyes would appear to be her lack of diplomas on the wall’, but that is an oversimplification of what Ehrman argues.  In fact, her ignorance of modern historical methodologies and current studies in various fields is painfully obvious to any of her readers.  She makes mistakes for which she rarely apologizes and continues to argue in the same flawed manner regardless of whether or not she is wrong.  When she feels threatened, she directs her horde of minions (devoted followers–many who have been spammed or trolled by these minions will know what I mean) against the target in an attempt to dissuade (bully) him/her from arguing against her again.  It is distasteful and unwarranted; I am quite surprised that Ehrman was able to keep his composure while speaking of her work as well as he did–a testament to his professionalism (even if the arguments he makes in the book are not).

Also there is a surprising amount of personal correspondence.  Frank produces some 75 pages for his first contribution and more than half of it consists of various email exchanges between Ehrman and himself.  This troubles me as I am not so sure that such a move is ethical.  Certainly Ehrman is busy, as he has actual scholarly work to do (at a prestigious academic institution no less), like teaching students, chairing committees, being a department head, reviewing grad work from students, appearing on doctoral panels, and so on.   When I respond to emails, I am vague and type quickly, especially when I have a lot of them and other pressing matters on my mind.  I can not imagine what Ehrman’s inbox looks like and I cannot begrudge him for being curt or limited or even appearing confused or disgruntled!  The man has a lot to do.  In my humble opinion, it is wholly unwelcome that Zindler dedicated so much space to these emails and also formulated a polemical argument around them; it is quite unfortunate that this appears in this volume.

Another issue I have is the obvious anti-Christian (pro-Atheist) theme that runs through most of the articles.  I get it: published through the American Atheist Press; Frank Zindler, Bob Price, Acharya S, and so on, are atheists; but the whole point–I would imagine–is to not burn the bridges between you and your potential readers.  Additionally, painting Ehrman has someone who wags his finger while, incidentally, allowing ones polemical paper to include finger-wagging against Christians seems to me to be counter-productive.  Especially since one of Ehrman’s arguments is that mythicists are merely angry atheists hellbent on destroying Christianity.

For those interested in owning this volume, I suppose it has one or two redeeming qualities that make it worth owning.

First, Richard Carrier’s online content has been reedited and is as devastating as ever.  But Carrier makes sure to include the caveat that he disagrees with many of the claims made by the rest of the contributors of the volume–so the one of only two individuals in the lot (Bob Price is the other) who has credibility (according to academic standards) has essentially already buried the hatchet in most of the volume.   Obviously, read it and judge for yourself whether his caveat is appropriate (I think it is).  That said, Carrier’s is one of the best that this collection of essays has to offer–but if you’ve read his blog then you really don’t need to buy this book.

Second, I do appreciate Price’s explanation that mythicism is not so easily definable.  But he is also wrong in some respects.  While ten people may have the same conclusion, it does not mean they all reached that conclusion the same way.  Some may have reached the conclusion based on academic curiosity, but some may just have been curious (and also ignorant), others may be conspiracists, others still educated laypeople who have an interest but no real academic discipline or proficiency with the languages.  So what one has are a few people with legitimate work in the field, and most with zero credible work in the field but with lots of speculation and (dis)organized arguments that don’t always show signs of being self-aware of their own limitations.

Third, Doherty has some rather cleverly-written articles in this volume.  But if you want to read Doherty–read him.

In conclusion, I was disappointed.  This book represents the very thing you should never do, not even if you feel it is justified.  This book lacked everything and what it had in abundance was unnecessary polemics.  It was published through a house owned by (or at least in part) one of the coeditors, most of the articles would not make it into an academic publication (e.g., none would pass peer review) due to the careless language or lack of verifiable claims, and what good was said throughout is lost on the flippancy of the rest of the content.  This book actually makes me want to openly apologize to Bart Ehrman on behalf of the contributors–even though I do not count myself among them.

But these criticisms of mine, while they are harsh, can be corrected.  This is the bright side.  If Frank Zindler, et al, felt slighted by Ehrman, why didn’t they do what I did (or Thomas Thompson)?  One need only write a paper and submit it to a journal.  The goal should be to circulate criticisms of the book, respectfully written with valuable contributions to the institution, to the people who need it–scholars.  This has been my biggest complaint about mythicists: they demand to be taken seriously but refuse to do what is necessary to earn that respect.  Alas, Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth is just the most recent example of such a blatant refusal.

Ralph Ellis is a Liar

I have refrained from coming down too hard on Ralph Ellis personally.  I have tried to keep my arguments focused on his unsubstantiated claims.  Alas, Mr. Ellis will not stop personally attacking me; this has gone beyond libel.  Mr. Ellis has even gone so far as to lie about my credibility on his very public website.  This was sent to me today:

Aside from this little projection of Mr. Ellis’ own insecurities, Mr. Ellis knows this is a flat-out lie.  After all he has emails me directly at my rutgers.edu email address during on of his vulgar, unmedicated (I can only presume) harassment rants:

While we all know Mr. Ellis wouldn’t know solid research if it bit him in the pants, even a cursory search on the Rutgers Student Search would prove that I’m a current student:

So either Mr. Ellis is just an outrageously incompetent human being or he is a flat-out deceptive one.  I’m going with a little bit of both at this point.

When Did Josephus Leave Judea? Does it even matter?

Ralph Ellis, in an attempt to defend his claims, has seemed to have misread my argument about Josephus and Abgar bar Ma’nu VI.  He writes, mistakenly, that:

Finally, Verenna also seems to be completely confused about the life of Josephus Flavius, saying he was not in Jerusalem in AD 70. His review says:

Quote:
Abgar Ma’nu VI could not be the individual you claim when you state that “The historical Izas was crucified…[and] taken down [from the cross] by Josephus Flavius” since Josephus was living in Rome, as a court historian, probably on the Palatine Hill–far, far away from Edessa (and Palestine, for that matter).

One hardly know what to make of this assertion. Here is a reviewer of Judaean history, and he does not appear to know that Josephus Flavius was in Judaea in AD 70 – 71. In fact, Josephus says of this very crucifixion event that I mention:

Quote:
as I came back (from Tekoa), I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered. Life 75

So not only was Josephus in Jerusalem at this time, he did indeed come across three of the leaders of the Jewish Revolt being crucified. Since King Izas was one of those leaders, it is axiomatic that King Izas was one of those being crucified. You might also note a similarity with the biblical crucifixion here.

But this speaks of Mr. Ellis’ inability to comprehend what it is that I wrote.  The full quote (taken from here) is:

“In 70-71, when Abgar Ma’nu VI became king, Josephus was on his way to Rome. And in 90-91 when Abgar VI’s rule ended, Josephus was sitting comfortably (probably–chairs back then and all) in his house, paid for by the empire, in Rome, writing his histories and autobiography. He died ten years later. So, no, Abgar VI could not have been crucified and taken down by Josephus–by the way, ‘Flavian’ is the name Josephus adopted after the Jewish War in 70, after he had been granted full citizenship by Titus. Abgar had not yet started his reign when this occurred.”

Notice that my point is in fact that Josephus would not have been around during Abgar VI’s reign; this is precisely my argument.  In fact Abgar bar Ma’nu VI didn’t start his reign until 71 CE; when I wrote 70-71 in the quote above, I was giving Mr. Ellis the benefit of the doubt.  Titus and Josephus were on their way back to Rome in 71, as Josephus mentions:

But when Titus had composed the troubles in Judea, and conjectured that the lands which I had in Judea would bring me no profit, because a garrison to guard the country was afterward to pitch there, he gave me another country in the plain. And when he was going away to Rome, he made choice of me to sail along with him, and paid me great respect: and when we were come to Rome, I had great care taken of me by Vespasian; for he gave me an apartment in his own house, which he lived in before he came to the empire. (Vita, 76)

But is this at all relevant? I suppose I was still giving Mr. Ellis the benefit of the doubt.  Here I was presuming that Mr. Ellis was simply confused; I was under the impression that Mr. Ellis had merely moved the crucifixion of Jesus to the period of the first Jewish war.  After all, how could anyone be so delusional as to think otherwise?  How foolish of me to think that Mr. Ellis just made a mistake; instead, it seems, he meant to argue that Jesus had a history beyond a crucifixion–and that he would be king, no less–twice!

Conventional history be damned, if Mr. Ellis had his way.  We already know that Mr. Ellis picks and chooses his own timeline, regardless of whether or not they conflict with facts.  He claims Paul was born in 37 but ignores the fact that Paul claims to have run from Aretas IV (even though he died around 40CE).  He conflates multiple historical figures, which he admits:

In reality, I have conflated only two pairs of different kings.

a. King Abgarus V of Edessa is King Monobazus of Adiabene.
b. King Manu VI of Edessa is King Izas of Adiabene.

Why have I done so? Because King Abgarus and King Monobazus shared a common wife – Queen Helena of Adiabene/Edessa (and thus King Manu and King Izas shared a common mother). So Thomas Verenna has fabricated a complaint about my work, and then failed to explain why I did conflate two pairs of kings.

Actually, he conflates more than two people.  Still, he is somewhat proud of this fact; as if conflating two historical individuals from different times (ruled 13-50, and 57-71 respectively), separated by another king (Manu V who ruled for seven years between these two), is somehow acceptable methodology.  I’ve dealt with this conflation issue extensively here.  He also conflates Paul and Josephus, and he seems pretty proud of that catastrophe.

And what is this about Abgar and Manu having the same wife?  And what is this about Izates and Manu having the same mother (Abgarus and Izas are not found in the past–these are fabricated names that Mr. Ellis has invented to make his connections seem more plausible)?  This is simply false.  And what is this about his fictional Izas character being crucified at Thecoa?  Really?  He believes this?  I guess so.

So how could he possibly have an issue with conflating the dates here?  Why wouldn’t he just say, ‘Oh well Jesus is Abgar VI bar Ma’nu who was taken down from the cross by Josephus in 70, started his reign a year later in Edessa, and after his reign, was exiled to Britain where he became King Arthur.’  That is exactly what he is arguing (or worse, that his version of Jesus, a conflation of the two kings above, was king prior to the Jewish War, but in his 50′s when he was crucified, escaped crucifixion, went back to rule from 70-71, and then ended up in Britain after being exiled, where he became king again).  Every scenario is less and less probable and more and more ridiculous.

Forget that there is zero evidence for any of these assertions, forget that he’s fumbling through the sources, that he chooses the weakest possible arguments to validate his case; it’s a house made of cards.  So shame on me for reading Mr. Ellis’ content too generously.  What he is actually arguing is way worse than what I had originally imagined.

Because he’s a conspiracy theorist and not a historian.

Aaron Adair on Ralph Ellis and Jesus as King Arthur

In an excellent discussion of some of Mr. Ellis’ bizarre claims, Aaron Adair writes:

In his King Jesus (p. 120), Ellis is trying to connect a bunch of names together etymologically and then connect that to stars and star worship. He wants to related the Egyptian word for star with not only a 3rd century Syrian queen, but also to god names like Ishtar (whom I mentioned before), Astarte, Ashtroreth, and “Zoroastra” (not a misspelling on my part, and one that Ellis uses two in his book plus in the index). He also claims these all derive from ester (אסתר) or aster (αστηρ), again having the meaning of ‘star’. There is so much wrong in just this one paragraph, I need to space it out.

First, his use of the word ‘star’ in Egyptian seems off. According to Hieroglyphs.net, here is the word for star (sba, and not saba)…

This is the paragraph in question:

It’s ‘Zoroaster‘, chief.

About which he continues:

But Ellis isn’t done failing yet. He also claims that all these names are derived from ester, better known probably as the Jewish beauty Esther from the Bible. Her name is more likely derived from or a cognate to the goddess Ishtar mentioned above rather than the other way around. But even this connection is not certain; I would guess in favor of the Ishtar/Esther connection because another figure in the Book of Esther, Mordecai, is almost certainly related to Marduk (Marduka), a major Babylonian deity as was Ishtar, so the parallelism is suggestive. But the real problem is that ester is not the Hebrew word for ‘star’; what would be kokab (כוכב), which in Aramaic becomes kokhba, hence the name of the famous 2nd century Jewish rebel leader bar Kokhba (Son of the Star), a figure Ellis even mentions in this same paragraph. So, quite literally, his lack of knowledge about these words are calling him out in the very paragraph he used them (though he has some weird spelling I haven’t seen before [bar Kokhbar]).

via Jesus was King Arthur, and a Pharaoh, and King of Edessa–The “Scholarship” of Ralph Ellis | Fleeing Nergal, Seeking Stars.

There is much I do not quote from him, so go read what he has to say.  You’ll enjoy it, trust me.  That bar Kokhba spelling is really odd, though; talk about a blunder (and in his indices he lists it as ‘bar Kokhbar’ as well, so this isn’t a typo–he actually spells it with an ‘r’)!  Maybe he is thinking of Admiral Akbar?

It’s a trap!

More Ralph Ellis Conspiracy Nonsense: The Final Debunking

Ralph Ellis has seemingly fallen off the deep end (or into the rabbit hole).  If you thought his previous rants were crazy–but still masochistic enough to read more of the same (or if you are still curious about his position), then you’ll want to see what Steve Caruso has been dealing with for the past few days.  I repost it here into categories to easily follow with some additional commentary:

On Ellis’ ePub Claims

Mr. Ellis has made several glaring errors in Greek throughout his book.  I have drawn attention to this, as have others.  At one point he has βάρβαρος written out as βαρβαροσ (no accent mark).  For those unfamiliar with Greek, the sigma at the end of the word should be what is known as a final sigma (ς) not a standard sigma (σ).

Mr. Ellis has made the argument that his ePub wouldn’t allow it.  Therefore, he thinks this is an unfair criticism.  But is it?  I believe Steve says it best:

Also, it is not “baseless criticism.” If you are not only author but editor and publisher getting it correct falls squarely upon your shoulders. It is this attention to detail that is *essential* for any kind of publication and what peer review and the traditional publishing process seeks to ensure.

If you couldn’t get it printed in Hebrew or Greek, then the accepted practice is to default to a common transliteration scheme, of which there are several.

To use the wrong script or wrong letter forms in a publication, one might as well submit a paper to an SBL session in l337 $3@k.

But I would like to elaborate.  Ellis originally published his work on the website Lulu.  As someone who has worked with Lulu previously (and am familiar with how publishing works on their site), you have exceptional free-range to do anything you want.  Lulu not only makes you the one fully responsible for your own book (formatting, style, font, script, cover design, cover type, etc…), Lulu allows you to upload your file as a PDF or Word document, where you can embed fonts and use unicode and all that good stuff that one does when they want to get their work right.  Lulu also offers editors to review your work (for a cost), but since you profit upwards of 50% or more on your publications through the site, one should easily be able to afford that option.  Mr. Ellis should be aware of this.  If he isn’t, or if he doesn’t quite understand how Lulu works, then he has no one to blame but himself if he makes a mistake.

Mr. Ellis wants to continually make this the problem of someone other than himself.  But is that fair?  No, of course not.  Anyone who takes their work seriously should strive to make it the best they can; they are essentially working to convince you that their perspectives are correct.  Certainly, mistakes happen.  We’re only human.  But Mr. Ellis does not want to take responsibility for his mistakes–it is telling when one cannot graciously accept criticism when it is deserved; it is more telling when that person actively seeks to blame other people for their mistakes, because being wrong would shatter their frail delusional world views.

But this is also why scholars publish through peer review and academic presses, rather than self-publishing.  This sort of mistake would have been caught prior to publication had Mr. Ellis thought to go through the rigorous review process–though he may not have wanted to do so, as actual scholars (credible people in the field with strong proficiency in the languages) would have to critique his work and suggest numerous corrections which, ultimately, would have made him look (and feel) foolish.

Mr. Ellis and His Incredible Shrinking Knowledge of Ancient Languages

I’ve brought this up before: Mr. Ellis lacks a grasp of even the very basics of the ancient languages of which he purports to have knowledge.  Here is a screen grab from his book (available as a preview online, for free, here).

As you can see, this snippet includes the amateurish ‘βαρβαροσ’ mishap.  But what’s more, he suggests that the Latin for beard is ‘barbar’ and that this is somehow connected to the Greek βάρβαρος.  But is it?  Again we see Mr. Ellis does not lack the appropriate knowledge of Latin or Greek to tackle this subject.

First and foremost, the Latin for barbarian is barbaria (nominative case, feminine, 1st declension; essentially a cognate of the Greek).  This can be declined as such:

Sing.

Nom: barbaria
Gen: barbaraeDat: barbarae
Acc: barbariam
Abl: barbariā
Voc: barbaria

Plur.

Nom: barbarae
Gen: barbariārum
Dat: barbariīs
Acc: barbariās
Abl: barbariīs
Voc: barbarae

See a ‘barbar’ there?  No?  Me either.  But what about ‘beard’ in Latin?  Well, Mr. Ellis was close; it isn’t barbar, it is barba (nominative, feminine, 1st declension).  But don’t get your hopes up, as ‘barbar’ is not one of the ways to decline this noun.  In fact the same way one declines barbaria is the same way one declines barba (as they are both feminine, 1st declension nouns).

Sing.

Nom: barba
Gen: barbae
Dat: barbae
Acc: barbam
Abl: barbā
Voc: barba

Plur.

Nom: barbae
Gen: barbārum
Dat: barbīs
Acc: barbās
Abl: barbīs
Voc: barbae

So from whence does Mr. Ellis get ‘barbar?’  The odd thing is that 1st declension is basic Latin 101.  I mean you learn this the first week.  Even the Latin authors don’t use βαρβαρ for beard, but to mock  The only thing I can think of is that Mr. Ellis went to Wiktionary and mistook Catalan for Latin.  There is just no excuse for it.  The word ‘barbar’ does not exist in Latin.  It certainly doesn’t mean ‘beard’ in any case.

But it isn’t just Greek and Latin that Mr. Ellis gets wrong.  Here are some mistakes he makes in his interpretations of the Semitic languages (Mr. Ellis is italicized and quoted, Steve Caruso’s responses are indented).

Mr. Ellis: Likewise, there is no obvious relation between Yakob and James, and yet we know that they are the same name. If you did not have the intermediate forms, how would you know that Yakob was James?

Steve Caruso: Actually, we do. Yakov and James are related thusly:

יעקוב – /ya’-qov/ (Hebrew/Aramaic). The initial name. It means transliterated into:

Ἰάκωβος – /ya-kô-bas (Greek); ע dropped due to it lacking in Greek, -ος ending due to Greek nominative grammar. Transliterated into:

Iacobus – /yah-ko-bus/ (Latin); it split here heading towards the French Jacques /zhaq/, however to get to “James” we must follow a prolific LAtin variant:

Iacomus – /ya-kã-mus/ (late Latin); the B nasalized into M lightening the second vowel which stopped next as:

Iames /yeimz/ later, James /zheimz/ – (French); the the C elided and then dropped due to how Old French into later French constructed syllables. The J in later French stopped sounding like Y and took on the sound /zh/. From here we go finally to:

James /dzeimz/ (English) – Direct transliteration, but different pronunciation as in English of the time J was pronounced /dz/, A in that position in a syllable was pronounced /ey/ after the Vowel Shift, and final S when voiced becomes /z/.

Each and every form along the way here is attested in extant manuscripts and their inter-relation is listed in each era via cognates and other means of cross-identification.

Do you have this paper trail for your perturbations with hundreds of examples? :-)

Mr. Ellis: In reality Yeshua is not the original form of Jesus’ name, because Jesus was not a Judaic Jew.

Steve Caruso: Follow this with me:

ישוע /ye-shu-a’/ – (Aramaic). Meaning “He will save.” Cognate to the Hebrew יהושע /ye-ho-shu-a/ meaning “YHWH will save.” Where the Hebrew forms of many Jewish names are theophoric (specifically Yahwistic) Aramaic forms of these names are not. This was transliterated as:

Ἰησοῦς /yê-sus/ – (Greek). What happened here? Greek cannot express ש /sh/, so it became σ /s/. Greek cannot express ע /`/ within this portion of a word (sometimes χ was used, but it wouldn’t work here with how the vowels fall) so it was dropped. The long ו was represented with the diphthong ου /u/, and the nominative ending -ς /-s/ was added. This then became:

Iesus /yê-sus/ – (Latin). A direct transliteration from the Greek. Each letter equivalent (except for the dropping of ο as in Latin the same sound is merely represented by u; to use /ou/ would give a glided diphthong). It sounds the same. From here it became:

Iesus /yê-sus/ and later Jesus /yê-sus/ – (German). Sounds the same as in Latin and Greek. J in German takes on the sound /y/. From here it landed as:

Iesus /yê-zus/ and later Jesus /dzi-zus/ – (English). Identical spelling, completely different rules of pronunciation. The phonetic value of J settled as /dz/ in English. E in this position within a syllable and word goes from /ê/ to /i/. Finally S becomes voices as /z/ when stuck between vowels.

If, as you contend, we’re starting from “Izas” then we start with the Persian ایزد‎ /i-zad/.

What did that turn into in Greek?

Ἰζάτης /i-za-tês/ – The د was transcribed as τ which is common (as opposed to θ which is commonly used to transcribe softer dentals). Plus the nominative ending -ης /-ês/.

Ἰζάτης /Izates/ bears no resemblance (superficial or etymological) to Ἰησοῦς /Iesous/. Even if you were to shorten it to Ἰζάς /Izas/ it would look even further from Ἰησοῦς /Iesous/.

What about in Hebrew and Aramaic? We find in Bereshit Rabba that Izates is referred to as זוטוס /zotus/ (I’ll even perhaps give זוטיס /zotes/). Not even close.

Jesus is only confusable with Izates when working from selective English transliteration and no euphemism or other device can bridge this wide gap.

Bingo.  Aside from Steve’s gracious deconstruction of Mr. Ellis’ lack of knowledge of Hebrew and Greek here, I want to know what a ‘Judaic Jew’ is–does anyone?  I have never heard this term used, so did he just make it up?  The only thing that remotely makes any sense is that Mr. Ellis is implying that Jesus was not from the region of Judea, but then does he falsely presume that Jews living outside of Judea did not use Hebrew names?  If so, that is one hell of a stretch.  He’d also be wrong, since we have many inscriptions which were written by Jews in the Diaspora that contain Jewish names in Aramaic or Hebrew, but also those which contain Jewish names in Greek–including Ἰησοῦς–and Latin.  Again, this is pretty basic stuff.  What is odd is that Mr. Ellis seems to have just jumped to random conclusions without checking the archaeological evidence (which includes these inscriptions).

Like this one…

…and this one.

And we have plenty of indications that names varied in families.  Some parents bore Hebrew names while their children bore Greek names.  It depended upon location, level of assimilation, level of acculturation, and other socializing factors that Mr. Ellis does not account for in his various speculations and conspiracies.

These screen captures are from William Horbury & David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1992).

So I’m not sure what it is that Mr. Ellis is trying to accomplish with his shuffleboard linguistics, but whatever it is, he is completely wrong on all counts.  And keep in mind, this is only from one section of his book; when you look at the rest of his online content, it is all similar to this nonsense.

Mr. Ellis as a Scholar

Let’s examine his scholarship so far.

Language specialty? No.
Logical Argument? No.
Strict Analysis?  No.

What about his knowledge of scholarship in the field?  Well he fails here too.  Mr. Ellis relies upon dated scholarship (over 100 years old in some instances), like Joseph Thayer (died in 1901), whose work is dated. He thinks this is perfectly acceptable.  It isn’t (and here’s why you should trust nothing prior to 1950 that isn’t validated by modern, contemporary scholarship).

Mr. Ellis’ discussion of βαραββας as βάρβαρος is extremely fringe–it is also wrong (even though the similarities are only superficial–Barabbas is a transliteration of the Aramaic Bar Abbas).  Here is another snippet from Mr. Ellis’ online content about the subject:

In other words, Ellis might as well have said, “I’m just going to make a link here that doesn’t exist and base it entirely on speculation and circumstantial presumptions.” Also note: he gets the ‘final sigma’ right here, so his excuses about ePub’s not accepting Greek font seems to fail.

Those ‘many other commentators’ that argue it means ‘barbarian’?  I can think of no one (see the discussion on Bar Abbas here).  Either Mr. Ellis invented this himself or he is drawing from another conspiracist like him, but I found nothing by any leading scholar on the notion that Barabbas means barbaros.  That doth not bode well.  And his conclusion about the Syriac gospels is just silly; Matthew clearly states that Jesus Barabbas was the full name (no need to go the Syriac gospels) and this is supported by textual critics like the late Bruce Metzger:

Snippet from Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d Rev Ed., Hendrickson Publishers, 2005)

Note the fact that some of our earliest witnesses relate Jesus Barabbas as ‘son of the teacher/father’.  Early Christians made this connection as early as the author of the Gos. Matthew, which says they were interpreting it this way–there is absolutely no discussion by any early author or interpreter (let alone modern) who sees Barabbas as ‘barbarian’.  Mr. Ellis is sorely lacking in any supporting evidence–just speculation.  And that ain’t evidence, no matter how you paint it.

Mr. Ellis’ Delusional World

At the end of the day, these are pretty amateurish mistakes at best–at worst they are they ramblings of a conspiracy nut who can’t be bothered to fact-check his own work.  What Mr. Ellis doesn’t seem to realize is that by publishing content online and also publishing a book (much of which is online) he has made himself a public figure.  In other words, Mr. Ellis has openly presented his ideas to the world and as a result, his work is now under scrutiny.  It can be critiqued, reviewed, analyzed, or rebuked.

Yet for some reason, Mr. Ellis does not think he deserves to be criticized, nor does he believe his work should be scrutinized.  And this is problematic.  Here are some examples:

Mr. Ellis:you are reviewing a book without having read it, and that is – well – highly unprofessional.

But the bottom line here, is that this Greek font business is yet another baseless criticism, and yet Verenna refuses to withdraw it even after being advised of his error.

This is not my invention, the venerable theologian Joseph Thayer suggest this. You cannot criticise me for quoting a respected theologian.

Mr. Ellis does not seem to realize (though he has been told repeatedly) that I have not ‘reviewed his book’ but commented entirely on his online content.  I have made this clear in every blog post I’ve written about his work from the very start.  His inability to comprehend this basic point is troubling and leaves me with little question this is part of the reason why so many of his conclusions are unsound–if he were more careful with his source material, maybe he’d not be a conspiracy theorist.

Additionally, yes Mr. Ellis, we can criticize you and your work.  As I’ve stated before, you wrote the book and all the online content (I presume), and so you are entirely responsible for it.  You did not submit this to an editor, blind peer review, or even a collection of essays.  You didn’t submit this to anyone with any knowledge of the subject–even basic knowledge–to fact-check and proof your work.  So you cannot use the excuse and blame others for your mistakes.

Take these criticisms seriously and maybe you’ll get somewhere.  Right now, no one in the field is likely to take you or your work very seriously until you take some personal responsibility for your own failed conclusions and shoddy scholarship.

Read Also:

• The Aramaic Blog on Ralph Ellis and his ‘Izas Manu’ Creation (Thomas Verenna)
• A New Theory That Jesus Was King of Edessa? Not So Fast, Mr. Ellis! (Thomas Verenna)
• Ralph Ellis, Jesus, and his Myth of the King Jesus of Edessa (Thomas Verenna)
• King Jesus of Edessa by Ralph Ellis — Er.. What? (Steve Caruso)

On the Problem of Free Will and Original Sin

In a conversation about this post, someone remarked to me that god made man in his own image.  There are a lot of implications to this position, but the most troubling for me is the concept of original sin and free will.  So god creates man in the image of himself (so his pattern), but man has the ability to sin.  Ergo god has the ability to sin (because we’re made from his pattern).  It also implies (a) god is not perfect (we are not perfect), (b) god can be evil (we can be evil), (c) god can make mistakes (we make mistakes), and so on.

But perhaps the most troubling position here is the rather absurd way god is portrayed.  That is to say, god is portrayed as a vindictive megalomaniac with serious social and commitment issues.  Think about the Genesis account: God makes the world, god makes man, god tells man he is ruler over the other living things on earth so long as he does not commit sin (eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) even though god made the tree and made man with the ability to eat from the tree. Does god create Satan or does he share the same preexistence as god?  Either way, god creates woman, Satan convinces woman to eat from the tree, woman convinces man to eat from the tree (that god put there), man and woman commit sin, god casts them out from paradise with all these problems (pain during childbirth, working the soil and toiling for survival, etc…).

Now, let me situate this in an analogy focusing on one aspect of creation; that is to say, the idea of creation itself.  Suppose you have all the powers of god for a moment. You decide to create a Ford truck. But what you really want is a Cadillac. You can’t blame the truck. So then you scrap the truck and make another truck, but this time you give it the ability to change into a Cadillac–but then it doesn’t do that, it stays a truck. Still, it isn’t the truck’s fault! You created the damn thing as a truck! Finally, let’s say you scrap the truck, create another truck with the ability to change into a Cadillac, and then try to show it all the amazing benefits it would have it would just change into a Cadillac–and if it doesn’t change into a Cadillac you’re going to burn it in hell for all eternity. But despite your pettiness and threatening tone, the truck remains a truck and in the end you’ve only proven you are a hopeless megalomaniac with sadistic tendencies. You still cannot blame the truck–if you wanted a Cadillac so badly, you just should have made a Cadillac.

If that isn’t twisted enough, how about the whole ‘temptation’ bit in the forest?  Consider this carefully now and don’t just react to what I’m saying.  Give it some thought while reading this analogy.

Let’s say your a parent.  You bake a batch of cookies and place them on the kitchen counter.  You then take your 4 year old and put them in the kitchen and, before leaving, you tell them to not eat the cookies from the cookie jar.  They have free reign of the kitchen, but they can’t eat from the cookie jar.  Then you walk out and lock the child and the cookies in the kitchen behind you.

Now let’s take a moment to reflect: 4 year old, kitchen, cookie jar (not tucked away in some cabinet, but sitting in a reachable position).  Let’s also presume that you have omniscient powers (like god is supposed to have, according to the bible, e.g., “…for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” [1 John 3.20] and”The Lord certainly knows everything that people do; he knows their imaginations and their thoughts and their hearts.” [2 Esdras 16:54]).  So you knew that if you left the cookie jar there full of fresh cookies, your 4 year old would open it up and eat a cookie.

That is just what happens, too.  The child goes over to the cookie dish, eats a cookie, and you burst into the kitchen and you say, ‘well, guess you’re doomed to a lifetime of toil and, by the way, you’re going to burn for eternity.’  And then you shove your 4 year old into an oven.

Too harsh?  I agree.  But this is the story of the Genesis account.  Adam and Eve, who had no knowledge of good and evil (so, they were essentially innocent) and had just been created like five minutes before Satan showed up, committed a very forgivable act (eating fruit from the tree) and instead of doing the logical thing (you know, like removing the tree or putting it out of reach–like make it float or hover twenty feet up–or just not creating the damn tree in the first place) he places the tree within reach and gives creates evil and creates Satan (presumably) and allows all of this to happen even though he knew it was going to happen (because the Dude is all powerful and all knowing).  And still damns man to a lifetime of toil and also misery after death (the Christian view of Hell, for our modern audience).

The most interesting bit though, he could have created Adam and Eve with the ability to not sin.  And since he is god, all powerful, he could have done it so it wouldn’t influence our free will.  He could have created us with the ability to be free without committing murder; we already have limited free will (we can;t just sprout wings and fly, even if we want to do that).  So why not give us, say, wings and not give us the ability to commit murder?  Seems rather odd, right?  If he wanted Adam to not sin, then he should have created a being that couldn’t sin.  It is patently absurd–in fact everything about free will and original sin is absurd.  And if you are still following at this point, you can see why I feel that way.

Using the Bible to Support ‘Pro-Life’ Arguments

Bob Cargill shared an interesting verse this morning from Genesis 6, which portrays a frustrated god that so regretted his creation (man) that he sent a flood across the world that swallowed all life–all life, except a remnant that could fit on a relatively small ship comparatively (based on the measurements in Genesis, it would translate to roughly 500 feet long; smaller than the Titanic).  But I think that Bob’s apt point is that if God is ‘pro-life’ then why would he wipe it clean?  It is important to recognize that  those who take the genesis account seriously, those who take the biblical narratives literally, must believe that we’re not just talking about grown men and women with exceptional cognitive abilities to choose right from wrong, we’re talking about infants and disabled individuals who can not always make decisions on their own due to their limitations (you know, since babies really can’t decide where they are born or who their parents are, let alone make any sort of vital cognitive decision beyond whether or not to poop themselves).  Not to mention the perhaps thousands of women who might have been pregnant at that exact moment god decided to wash away the sins of the world (by quite literally washing away everything that had the potential to sin).

“Seriously, you’re all going to die.”

I know some may seek to justify this by making the argument that Jesus’ death had changed everything.  His coming signified the change in god’s personality, or so goes the argument.  God no longer orders the taking of women and children as war plunder, the dashing of children on rocks, or giant she-bears to go terrorizing and mauling mischievous children who don’t believe in resurrections.  It’s like god spent a few months at rehab and emerged a changed deity; he’s a gentler, kinder god on a 12-step plan to happiness.  While this is pleasant enough for me (I’m grateful we’re not still stoning people for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, don’t get me wrong), the idea that ‘all life is sacred’ is not really a big part of the biblical narrative.  How can it be?

Bob says it best:

People of faith must put their faith – and the claims made about their faith – in a real, modern context. Rather than rushing to regurgitate some worn out apologetic claiming, “God cannot tolerate evil,” or “It’s not genocide if God does it,” people of faith must consider that the one they consider to be the “objective moral foundation” for all things ethical at one point in history killed everyone on earth because he regretted creating them! Imagine this same death sentence on the world’s population today. It is nothing less than genocide.

Dude has ninja angels.

Taken in broader sweeps, the Hebrew Bible is far from being ‘pro-life’; indeed it is quite the opposite, portraying god as a sort of vengeful, wrathful warlord who demands the ultimate tribulation while single-handedly destroying his enemies.  At some points he even permits (and actually participates in) the massacre of a whole family of his loyalist servant (Job), and while he may have given Job back twice what he had, he still killed dozens of people who did not deserve to die (that little fact often gets glossed over in Sunday School).  Imagine your wife and children slain before you; don’t worry, you’ll get a whole new wife and more children.  Does that make it better?  Does that justify it?  No sane human being could find any justification in such atrocious (and needless) acts of violence.   And I would seek to remind everyone that Matthew is pretty clear that Jesus did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matt 10.24)–nor did he come to abolish the law (Matt 5.17; that is, the Torah, and not one iota is to be removed).  The argument commonly made that none of that matters because he fulfilled the law is a non sequitur; he is specifically portrayed to say he did not come to abolish it, and clearly Matthew believed this was true, as he does all he can to situate Jesus as a priestly Moses figure who makes this very claim!

The fact remains, at the end of the day, that using the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament to justify pro-life positions are doomed to fail.  After the bible portrays god as ordering the slaughtering of the first born children of Egypt, any attempt to portray him as someone who cares a great deal about human suffering and human life falls flat on its face.   I’m sorry, but there is no ‘human value’ that god holds dear–only subservience matters to him.  Those who believe are saved (most of the time) and those who do not god deigns them to misery and destruction and torture and death: whether man, woman, child, or those unborn.  It is horrid and obscene.

Anyone who attempts to use the bible to validate their pro-life position is wrong.  Simply put, they need to find a different argument.  I’m not saying I am all for abortion; I’m pro-choice, but I don’t think abortion would be a decision I would support.  But I’m not everyone and I’m not in everyone’s shoes; I’m only in my own.  Objectively, pro-life is unjustified for that very reason, at least that is my opinion.