Why Faith Fails The Christian Delusion

by John W. Loftus

descendent of David, who was from that town. Apart from being a logistical

  nightmare, this method of going to one's ancestral hometown to register for

  the census is unheard of in other historical sources. Evangelicals refer to a

  papyrus dated to 104 CE where the prefect of Egypt ordered all "to return to

  their own homes" to register for the census, as supporting evidence for such

  a requirement.56 But such an interpretation is incorrect. Many scholars

  have pointed out that Roman censuses were done for taxation purposes.

  This means that the "homes" being referred to in the order above is to

  where one's properties are. In other words, the location of registration is at

  one's permanent residence not their ancestral hometown.

  • Luke 2:1 states Caesar Augustus ordered a census for "all the world." Yet

  historians know of no such worldwide census. While the Romans did

  periodically conduct censuses at different times in various locations, there is

  simply no evidence that there was ever a simultaneous worldwide census

  under Caesar Augustus.

  • According to Luke (1:26) Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth. But the area

  under the jurisdiction of Qpirinius covered only Judaea, where Bethlehem

  was, not Nazareth. Nazareth in Galilee was under the rule of Herod Antipas

  (d. ca. 40 CE) and would not have been under the control of Qpirinius.

  Given what Luke says, there is no way a census under the supervision of

  this Roman governor could have applied to Joseph and Mary who

  supposedly lived in Nazareth.

  • Finally, the clincher. Both Matthew and Luke said Jesus was born during

  the time of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1, Luke 1:5). Herod's date of death

  is unassailable-it was 4 BCE. The date of Quirinius's census is also firmly

  established-6 CE. In other words, there is a discrepancy of about ten years

  between the two eventsthe death of Herod and the Qpirinius census.'?

  The last point has been doggedly attacked by evangelicals. The reason for such

  determined apologetics is understandable. If the above is unassailable, then the

  case is settled: the Bible contains fiction, and biblical inerrancy is confined to the

  scrap heap of human history. Let us look in detail at some of these apologetic

  attempts.

  The first step is to claim that there was an earlier census under Quirinius that

  was done during the reign of Herod the Great. This means that Qpirinius was

  twice governor of Syria, once between 6 CE and 12 CE and another earlier

  tenure during the reign of Herod the Great. As "evidence" to prop up this, the

  British archaeologist Sir William Ramsay (1851-1939) is normally invoked,

  together with the inscription Sir Ramsey interpreted to mean that Quirinius was

  governor of Syria not once, but twice, separated by a few years on both of the

  occasions mentioned above.58 This argument is obsolete, as it has been proven

  false. The reasons are as follows:

  • The inscription found by Ramsey simply mentioned that Qpirinius was

  honored for his role in achieving a military victory. It was Ramsey who

  guessed that Qpirinius's reward for his role was an earlier appointment,

  prior to 6 CE, as governor of Syria. Nothing in the inscription even suggests

  this. It is not surprising that most historians are of the opinion that the

  inscription does not provide any evidence to support the assertion that

  Qiurinius was governor of Syria earlier than 6 CE.59

  • From Josephus we know most of the Roman governors of Syria around

  that time. Table 6.1 below shows the governors of Syria from 23 BCE to 7

  CE. The two Roman governors of Syria during the last years of Herod's

  reign were Gaius Sentius Saturninus, who held the post from 9 to 6 BCE,

  and Publius Qpintilius Varus, who was his successor from 6 to 4 BCE. It

  was Varus who, as governor, suppressed the uprising that occurred after the

  death of Herod (Antiquities 17:10:1). There are only two "blanks" in the list

  of governors between 23 BCE to 7 CE; once between 13-11 BCE and

  another time between 3-2 BCE. The latter gap is of no consequence, since

  by then Herod was already dead, and the former gap was probably filled by

  Marcus Titius, from 12 to 9 BCE, as we know he was governor sometime in

  that period, and a three-year term was typical.60

  TABLE 6.1 THE GOVERNORS Of, SYRIA BETWEEN 23 BCE TO 7 CE61

  • Qyirinius's career is relatively well documented in our primary sources.

  Tacitus's Annals of Imperial Rome (3:22-23, 3:48), Suetonius's Tiberius (49),

  Strabo's Geography (12:6:5) and Josephus's Antiquities of the.7ews (17:13:5,

  18:1:1) all mention aspects of his career. From these accounts we know that he

  was born sometime before 50 BCE and that he died in 22 CE. We know that he

  was consul of Rome by 12 BCE. He was in Asia Minor between 12 and 6 BCE,

  where he fought the war against the Homonadenses. He was the governor of

  Pamphylia-Galatia between 6 to 1 BCE. And he was serving as the adviser for

  Gains Caesar for several years before 4 CE. Joseph-Lis mentioned Qiiirinius

  several times when he became governor of Syria in 6 CE (Antiquities 17:13:5,

  18:1:1). So we read of Qyirinius's career spanning twenty years from 12 BCE to

  6 CE, yet not once was he mentioned as taking over the governorship of Syria at

  any time during the reign of Herod.62

  The conclusion is inescapable-Quirinius could not have been governor of Syria

  twice.63

  To add on to this insurmountable difficulty there are still others concerning the

  suggestion of an earlier census. For instance, there is no historical evidence for

  any Roman census in Judea before 6 CE. The Romans took direct control of

  Judaea only after that time. Prior to this time the province was a "client

  kingdom"-under Roman domination but not direct Roman rule. The Romans

  have never been known to initiate any census in their client kingdoms. As

  mentioned above, the Roman census is taken primarily for taxation purposes. By

  all accounts Herod the Great was an obedient subject of Rome who paid his dues

  properly. There was no need for Rome to intervene directly with any kind of

  census in Judea prior to 6 CE.64

  With the links now completely severed between the nativity and world history,

  we can now see the rest of the nativity accounts for what they really are-the

  mysterious "wise men from the east" who followed a magical star that could

  "stand above" where the baby Jesus was (Matthew 2:9), the angels who spoke to

  Mary (Luke 1:26-37), to Joseph (Matthew 1:20) and the shepherds (Luke 2:15),

  people who could burst into spontaneous songs of praise (Luke 1:46-55; 1:68-

  79)-are not historical details but elements of a fairy tale. Removed from the

  anchors of history provided by Herod and Qpirinius, the nativity accounts drift

  into the realm of myths and legends.

  FAILED PROPHECIES AND FAKED

  PROPHECIES

  We have all heard evangelical claims about fulfilled prophecies, especially

  messianic prophecies of the OT supposedly fulfilled
in Jesus. Yet such a view is

  erroneous and involves interpreting passages as prophecy that are not prophetic

  at all, or reinterpreting prophetic passages that had nothing to do with the

  Messiah. Modern scholarship has shown that most of these socalled messianic

  prophecies in the OT do not refer to Jesus or the Messiah.65 Critical historical

  scholars identify fewer than half a dozen passages in the OT as genuinely

  messianic. Yet even in these cases, they refer to people and events of their own

  time, not to the distant fiiture.66

  The author of the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, interpreted Hosea 11:1-2 as

  a prophecy of the holy family's return from after the death of Herod (Matthew

  2:14-15). But that passage was actually about the return of the Israelites during

  the Exodus. In Matthew 1:22-23, Isaiah 7:14 is cited as a prophecy of Jesus'

  miraculous birth to a virgin, yet that passage has nothing to do with the virgin

  birth-since the Hebrew word used (almah) did not refer to "virgin" but merely to

  a "young woman." Matthew had used the Greek translation of the Bible, which

  had erroneously translated the Hebrew "young woman" (almah) into "virgin"

  (parthenos).67 Furthermore, the whole context of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:10-17

  refers to events during the time of that prophet and had nothing to do with events

  of the distant futire.68

  More damning to the whole idea of prophecy in the Bible is the presence of

  prophecies we know to have failed. Here are just a few:69

  • Isaiah 19:5-7 claims the river Nile will dry up. The passage was written

  almost three thousand years ago and was clearly meant for his time. Yet to

  this date, the Nile has yet to dry up.

  • Isaiah 17:1-2 asserts Damascus will cease to be a city forever. I think most

  people living today in Damascus, the capital city of Syria, would find such

  a prophecy rather hinny.

  • Ezekiel predicted (26:7-14) that Nebuchadnezzar will destroy the city of

  Tyre. Yet even by the prophet's own later admission, the prophecy failed

  (Ezekiel 29:17-20).

  • Ezekiel tried his hand again at prophecy when he predicted that Egypt will

  become desolate, completely uninhabited, and that Egyptians will be

  scattered to other countries (Ezekiel 29:8-12). Yet Egypt has never been

  desolate, or completely uninhabited, and there never was an Egyptian

  diaspora.

  • Hoping for a third time, Ezekiel tried again. He predicted that

  Nebuchadnezzar will conquer Egypt (29:19-20). Nebuchadnezzar never did

  this.

  • Jeremiah 36:30 prophesied that Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, shall have

  no successor. Yet 2 Kings 24:6 says he was succeeded by his son,

  Jehoiachin.

  One of the techniques modern psychics use in their continuing effort to fleece

  the public is called "postdiction." This involves claiming after the occurrence of

  something sensational that you predicted the event before it happened, but for

  some reason the prediction had been ignored or missed. We find such a method

  distasteful, yet some biblical authors were not above such tactics. A case in point

  is the author of the book attributed to Daniel. That book presents itself as being

  written by the prophet around the sixth century BCE.70 Even as early as the

  third century, pagan critics such as Porphyry (234-ca.305) had already pointed

  out that Daniel's prophecy was remarkably accurate for events leading up to the

  desecration of the temple in Jerusalem in 167 BCE, but totally off for events

  following that. Modern scholars are now in agreement that Daniel was written a

  year or two after 167 BCE.71 Why did the author of Daniel do this? Obviously

  the answer is that if he could present some of his "postdictions" as accurate,

  people would give more credence to his book and to its predictions of the fitire.

  The one "real" prediction in it that could be verified-the location of the death of

  Antiochus IV-has been shown to be completely off the mark. Daniel 11:45

  predicted that Antiochus IV (ca. 215-164 BCE) would die in a location between

  Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea, but he uncooperatively died in Persia.72

  One wonders how different such authors were from the likes of modern-day

  "psychics" who fleece the gullible in order to enrich themselves.

  INERRANT FORGERIES

  There is a class of books called by scholars pseudepigraphy (literally "false

  writing") characterized by pseudonymity ("false name") in which the author

  deliberately tries to present his writing as originating from someone else.73 We

  all know there are many religious writings outside the Jewish and Christian

  canon that are pseudepigraphical. Jewish writings such as the books of Enoch,

  the Assumption of Moses, Wisdom of Solomon, and the Psalms of Solomon are

  all well known to have been written much later than the time of their supposed

  authors. Christian pseudepigraphy outside the canon includes works such as

  Paul's third letter to the Corinthians (3 Corinthians), the Gospel of Thomas, and

  the Letter of Peter to games (found in the PseudoClementine Homilies). All are

  falsely attributed to the various apostles by their actual authors.74

  Are there pseudepigraphical works even in the canonical Bible? The answer is

  something critical scholars have known for years-an unequivocal "Yes." In the

  OT, the book of Daniel,75 some portions of Psalms,76 and the later part of

  Isaiah77 are all known to be pseudonymous. In the NT, the Pastoral Epistles (1

  Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) are considered by a vast majority of critical

  scholars not to have been written by Paul.78 As a summary, the lines of evidence

  that point to the fact that these Epistles were not written by Paul but by someone

  else around 100 CE or later includes all of the following points:

  • The Pastoral Epistles were not attested in any early works until the end of

  the second century. They were first mentioned by Irenaeus around 185

  BCE. The arch-Paulinist Marcion (d. ca.160) did not seem to have been

  aware of the pastorals. When we contrast this to, say, 1 Corinthians, which

  was quoted as early as 95 CE by Clement (1 Clement 47), we can see how

  late the attestation is for the pastorals.79

  • Paul, in the authentic Epistles, always refers to the Gentiles in the second-

  person "you" (e.g., Romans 11:13; 1 Corinthians 12:2), but in Titus the

  first-person plural "we" is used (Titus 3:3) when speaking about Gentiles.

  This inclusion of himself in the same group as Gentiles ("we" instead of

  "you") is not a characteristic of the historical Paul.80

  • A highly organized church simply did not exist in Paul's time. In the

  genuine Pauline Epistles we find that there were many different kinds of

  believers, such as prophets, apostles, and miracle workers, among others.

  These speak whenever they want to and there was no one truly in charge (1

  Corinthians 11:33; 12:28; 14:26-33). In the pastorals, this chaotic structure

  no longer exists. Instead we find a hier archical structure of paid and

  formally appointed offices for bishops, presbyters
and deacons (1 Timothy

  3:1-7; 4:14; 5:27; Titus 1:5-9).81

  • In the authentic Epistles of Paul, he expected the apocalyptic end of the

  world within his own lifetime, or at least the lifetime of most of his flock (1

  Corinthians 7:29-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). In the pastorals, we find

  "Paul" making provisions for the death of his followers by commanding

  them to pass his teachings on (2 Timothy 2:1-14).82

  • Of the 848 different words used in the Pastorals, 306 (or 36 percent) are

  not found anywhere else in the other ten letters of the Pauline corpus.

  Furthermore, of this unique vocabulary, 211 words are very commonly used

  by second-century writers.83

  • Even the words that are shared between the pastorals and genuine Pauline

  Epistles have markedly different meanings. "Faith" for Paul meant a sense

  of trust one has in the redeeming feature of Jesus' death (e.g., Romans 1:16-

  17). However, in the Pastorals the word is used to mean the body of

  teachings of the church (e.g., Titus 1:13).84

  Three other Pauline Epistles (Colossians, Ephesians, and 2 Thessalonians) are

  also considered by a majority of scholars to be pseudonymous.85 2 Peter is

  unanimously considered to be pseudonymous,86 with most scholars also

  lumping 1 Peter into the same category.87 James and Jude are also generally

  considered to be pseudepigraphical works.88

  It is now time to point out the elephant in the room, standing quietly by the

  corner: pseudepigraphs are forgeries! Many critical historical scholars are

  Christians, however nominally. While it is easy for them to explain away the

  inconsistencies and mythological elements present in the Bible as conveyors of

  some "higher truth,"89 forgery is another matter. For it implies a conscious

  attempt to deceive. To prevent such a stigma, they have tried a three-step

  approach. The first is to avoid using the word "forgery" at all cost and use

  abstruse words like "pseudepigraphy" and "pseudynomity" instead. The second

  step is to claim that the disciples of Paul (or Peter or James or Jude) wrote under

  their master's name because the letter "was intended as an extension of his

  thought-an assumption of the great apostle's mantle to continue his work."90 The

  final step is to then say that the ancients accepted pseudepigraphy as something

  normal and would not consider it negatively as we would today. Seeing

  pseudepigraphy as a form of deception "represents a great misunderstanding of

  the ancient world, imposing our modern concepts of authorship and copyright

  most inappropriately," we're told 9I

  Do pseudepigraphers (i.e., forgers!) merely try to reflect or extend the

  thoughts and teachings of the one they are pretending to be? The answer to this

  question is no, not always. Just compare the "pseudepigraphically written" 2

  Thessalonians with what we find in the genuine Pauline Epistles. The real Paul

  in 1 Thessalonians expected the world as we know it to end very soon, during his

  lifetime, as Loftus explains in chapter 12 of this book. Far from carrying the

  mantle of Paul, 2 Thessalonians substantially alters what the self-proclaimed

  apostle to the Gentiles taught. 2 Thessalonians warns its readers "not to be

  deceived" by a "letter as from us" which claims that the return of Christ is

  imminent (2:2-3). Since 1 Thessalonians 1:1 claims to be from Paul, 2

  Thessalonians is in fact calling 1 Thessalonians a deceptive forgery.92 The irony

  of ironies, the forger is calling the original a fake!

  Did the ancients view pseudepigraphy differently from us today? This, too,

  can be shown to be false. Greek and Roman authors warned their audience about

  forgeries written in their names. The famous Greek doctor Galen (ca. 129-ca.