On Creationism

Kent Hovind is, perhaps the very worst of the creationists, so it is with some interest I note that he is now on this third wife in three years. For many years he was married to Jo Hovind, who ended up going to prison for a year due to her involvement in tax fraud. Once Kent got released from his rather longer prison sentence, it was not long before Jo filed for divorce (early 2016) - possibly to distance himself from any further gaol sentences. A few months later, 24th Sptember 2016, and he married Mary Tocco - not a full marriage, but a covenant before God. It looks like she got various assurances that Kent's new business was entirely honest before she got married. However, she later cam to realise that that was not really the case, and, again to avoid ending up in prison , she left him in November 2017. http://kehvrlb.com/mary-tocco-on-leaving-kent-hovind Less than a year later and he has a new wife, Cindi Lincoln, a former friend of Mary's. It is not clear if they ...

I had been under the impression that Deuteronomy requires a rape victim to marry the rapist, but examining more closely I think this is wrong. This is from Deuteronomy 22 (NIV), and the section starts: 13 If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” 15 then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. 16 Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels[b] of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, beca...

What I find fascinating about this story is the way evangelical Christianity has stamped its own narrative on the text. And this is bizarre when we are studying creationism, because creationists use - or supposedly use - a literal reading of Genesis to support their nonsense claims. For example, Answer in Genesis: We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth. So let us look at the "plain meaning of the text", and compare that to what evangelical Christianity tells us happened. "In the day" For once, the King James translates the verse faithfully: Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Here is a Hebrew Bible, translated to English, which again says on that day: But of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil you...

New Testament scholar Gary Habermas has produced what he calls his " Minimal Facts " theory. the idea is that there are certain claims about the Easter story that pretty much all scholars agree on, and he claims that Christianity can be proved from them. Lists seem to vary with from five to twelve supposed facts. Most of them are not controversial - to me at least - such as Jesus was crucified. However, there is one... The Empty Tomb The situation for the Empty Tomb "fact" is rather more dubious. From here : This is a fact that is not supported by the overwhelming majority of New Testament scholars as the other four facts are, however it is still considered to be historically reliable by 75% of New Testament scholars (Habermas and Licona 2004, 70). While this is not an overwhelming percentage, it is still a rather high percentage. There are good reasons for why three out of four scholars advocate for this fact. The evidence for why the tomb was empty on the th...

Kind of odd Christians would so embrace a Muslim idea, but the Kalam argument is very popular with some apologetics. WL Craig is probably the biggest proponent; here is a lecture of his from 2016. Here is the Discovery Institute's take on it - just the same as all the other Christian apologists, note! For this post, I will focus on Craig's argument, which he summarises: Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its beginning. 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning 1. Something cannot come from nothing. To claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1'), you’ve got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, s...

The Gospel of John is quite different to the other gospels. It is dated to 90 to 130 AD, so is later, but it has been suggested that it had multiple authors, or to put it another way, it got revised several times before it achieved (more or less) its final form. This might suggest it is the work of a community somewhat in isolation, and while mainstream Christianity has the passion narrative, which was edited to became Mark, which was itself edited to become Matthew, in John we only have the final product of a similar development process. In John we see a somewhat different theology, which may be due to the time it was written, or could represent the theology of the isolated community - or a mixture of the two. Either way, in John it was believed that Jesus had existed even before his birth, and perhaps for that reason the author felt a nativity story was not needed. Like Luke, John has Jesus appearing in Jerusalem subsequent to the resurrection, indicating some familiarity wit...

While the Gospel of Matthew might be seeking to redress the loss of Judaism in Christianity, the Gospel of Luke veers the other way. It too is based soundly on Mark, and likely shares another source with Matthew (or draws on Matthew), in particular a book of sayings, called Q. Unlike Matthew it makes no attempt to link the narrative to prophecies of the Old Testament. Traditionally the author is Luke, a physician and traveling companion of Paul, but the evidence is not convincing either for or against. It is, however, pretty much agreed the same author wrote both Luke and Acts. Luke has the virgin birth, but the nativity he tells is quite unlike that of Matthew, and the census puts it about six years later! In Luke we see an elaboration of the Jerusalem appearances , after the very brief appearance in Matthew. He was writing sufficiently long after the event that such stories could start to circulate in the community without the people who were actually there refuting it. Luke di...