The Bible Undressed

            I knew a woman who told me that God had healed her of carcinoid cancer.  Upon further discussion she had been diagnosed by doctors and treated by doctors with modern medical therapy.  But she credited God with all of that.  Most doctors have similar stories.  God is in a can’t-lose situation: even if doctors do all the work He gets the credit.  But I wonder, which God healed her?  She is a Christian, but how would she know that it was the Judeo-Christian god who healed her?  Perhaps Allah took pity on her.  Maybe the Hindu pantheon intervened for her.  Was it Apollo?  Some universal god that doesn’t even have a name?  Miracles are rather non-specific that way.  Nonetheless, most religions claim miracles either in the past or the present as part of their culture.

            Dr. Bart Ehrman has suggested in his writings (books and blog) that stories of miracles by Jesus and his disciples were key tools of evangelism.[1]  “My god is greater than your god” seems to have been a common evangelistic message.  There are those like Thomas Jefferson who sidestepped all the miracle stories of the Bible to concentrate on the teachings of Jesus, but in my experience in the church it is unusual to hear much about Jesus without hearing about his fantastic miracles.  Yet I would point out that there is not a single miracle in the Bible that has left any tangible proof that can be examined today.  They may have left an impression on believers, but not on skeptics (thus most of the world remains non-Christian).  Let me run through some of the significant miracles described in the Bible to show what I mean.

            One of the earliest stories is of Noah and the ark he built to preserve his family and the animals through a huge flood.  This flood was so great that it covered the mountains (Genesis 7:19, 20).  All humans were lost except for Noah’s family.  All land animals destroyed other than those on the ark.  Consider the devastation this would have caused.  Consider the loss of genetic diversity, as all humans thereafter derived from a single family, and all animals from lone pairs of animals.  And yet none of this can be verified today.  In fact, we know of civilizations that existed at the supposed time of the flood and show no evidence of having been destroyed by it.  We can study genetic diversity and there is no evidence of today’s animals being descended from an original pair just 4,000 years ago. (This figure is derived from calculations based on the genealogies and history given in the Bible. Even if you stretch that time out some it still does not allow for the genetic diversity we see today.) Expeditions to find the ark on Mt. Ararat have come up empty.  And so on.  Even if you believe God somehow miraculously repaired all the damage caused by the flood the point is that there is now no convincing evidence that such an astounding flood and incredible rescue via the ark took place. (I say ‘convincing’ evidence because although some evangelists continue to promote their supposed ‘evidence’ for the flood the vast majority of geologists and biologists remain unconvinced. And there still would be no evidence that Noah’s Ark contained the only survivors of such a flood.)

Noah’s Ark (1846), by the American folk painter Edward Hicks

            In Exodus we read of God working through Moses to liberate the Hebrew people from Egypt.  This involved a series of ten devastating plagues in the land.  For example, a plague of pestilence was sent on the Egyptian livestock, killing them all (9:6).  And two plagues later down came hail and fire, killing all the livestock – again?  (9:25)  Anyway, eventually it is said that the Hebrews left Egypt and there were 600,000 men.  With women and children this must have meant perhaps 2 million people or so.  That would have been a huge number of people at that time in history.  The population of Egypt is thought to have been perhaps 4 to 5 million around that time, so we are talking about close to half of the population of Egypt.  And yet the Egyptians left no records indicating either the devastation caused by the plagues or by the loss of so many slaves.  This huge congregation of Hebrew people then spent 40 years traveling through the Sinai Peninsula and yet according to Israeli archaeologists they left no evidence of their presence[2].  This is remarkable, because other small settlements have been found from that time period, but nothing approaching such a large group which should have left a large footprint.  One of the most astounding and significant events of the Bible and yet today we have no tangible evidence of any of it.

            There are many other miracles in the Old Testament: manna appeared on the ground each day to feed the people during the exodus, the sun stopping in the sky so the Israelite army had time to slaughter their enemies, Elijah raising the widow’s son from the dead, Daniel escaping hungry lions and his friends surviving a fiery furnace, and many more.  None of these miracles left any evidence that can be examined today, unfortunately.

            Let’s fast-forward to the New Testament.

            According to the Gospels Jesus performed many miracles, including casting out evil spirits, and healing various infirmities such as paralysis, withered extremities, blindness and leprosy.  There were miracles of nature like instantly calming a storm and changing vats of water into wine.  He was said to have raised at least three people back to life after death (Jairus’ daughter, the widow’s son in Nain and Lazarus).  Jesus’ disciples were also said to have performed miracles, including speaking in new languages, healing the lame and the sick, casting out demons and even raising the dead (Tabitha and Eutychus).

            Have you ever considered that as soon as these miracles were accomplished their evidence was gone?  Once someone was healed how do you go back and prove they were really sick in the first place?  Perhaps you recall the scene in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail where a man claims a witch turned him into a newt, but then has to admit, “I got better.”  How do you know an evil spirit left the person?  Maybe it was just a psychosomatic condition. After the ‘miracle’ all you have left is a seemingly normal person. Once the water is turned into wine how do you prove it used to be water?  Even with raising someone from the dead: once he or she is alive the evidence of the death is gone.  Perhaps those closest to the formerly dead person are convinced, but for others what is most likely, that someone really came back from the dead or that the family was mistaken, or they are intentionally deceiving you?  This even applies to the most significant miracle in the Bible: the resurrection of Jesus.  How can one go back and prove he was dead?  Even if you are talking to someone who saw Jesus crucified how would you prove he really died or that the person he saw later was that same Jesus?  In early Christianity there was a belief that Jesus had a twin brother, so either the twin may have been crucified instead of Jesus, or people mistook the twin for Jesus after the crucifixion. There is a Gnostic text called the Second Treatise of the Great Seth that claimed that not only did Simon the Cyrene carry the cross for Jesus but ended up crucified in his place.  Today there are still those who hold to the “swoon” theory, that Jesus was not really dead when he was taken down from the cross and later revived.  Could one of these reasons explain why the Gospel of Matthew says some disciples doubted even after seeing the ‘resurrected’ Jesus? (Matthew 28:17)  Christian apologists today still point to the empty tomb as proof of Jesus’ resurrection, but even if there was an empty tomb that the women visited how does one prove that the body is gone because of resurrection?  Or that they even went to the correct tomb?  The Gospel of Matthew points out that there was a story in his day that the disciples stole the body (Matthew 28:11-15); that would explain an empty tomb.  Given the track record of dead people throughout history, what is more likely: resurrection from death, or a mistake about him being dead, or confusion about who died, or which was the correct tomb, or even deliberate deception?  After the fact it is really hard to prove that a resurrection took place.  Especially years later when all you have are stories being told about it.  That is all we have for any of these miracles: stories that cannot be verified.

            Now, in regard to Jesus’ resurrection I know some will respond with the old argument that the original disciples would not have been martyred for a story that they knew to be false.  First, we don’t have reliable information about how the disciples died, just later legends, which again, cannot be verified.  Second, we don’t know why they were killed (if they were).  Consider John the Baptizer: his execution by Herod had nothing to do with his message of a coming Messiah; he was killed for criticizing Herod for marrying his brother’s wife.  Likewise the disciples may have been killed for stepping on the toes of the powerful in a similar way; there is no reason to think they were killed for preaching the resurrection of Jesus.[3]  Third, the disciples may have truly believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, just as Paul came to believe: through a vision (dream, hallucination?).  Visions of deceased loved ones are fairly common.  But they are not objective proof.  And we don’t have any of those disciples around to interview them about their experiences.  All we have are stories about them written at least a generation later (only the most conservative of scholars think any of the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses). And the stories we do have contain significant differences, enough to produce ‘reasonable doubt’ (see my post #41, and perhaps 44 and 36).  So, I hold to my claim: there is no reliable evidence of Jesus’ resurrection, the key point of Christianity. Hence, most of the world’s population are unbelievers.

            Ah, but we are supposed to rely on faith, right?  God honors the one who walks by faith, not sight, correct? (2^nd Corinthians 5:7) Well, the people of Jesus’ day (supposedly) saw plenty of evidence and did not have to rely on faith alone. The apostles who traveled with Jesus would have seen plenty of hard evidence: does that disqualify them? Paul needed a personal visit from Jesus to be convinced: Why didn’t God write him off for his lack of faith? Yet if we ask for similar evidence we are dismissed for lacking faith. When is believing incredible things without good evidence considered a noble thing other than in religion? Is it faith, or gullibility?

            And it is not like miracles always create faith and obedience. Pharaoh saw multiple miracles and yet refused to obey. I think one of the humorous and sad stories of Jesus is when he performs perhaps his most amazing miracle in the Gospel of John: he raises Lazarus back to life after being dead several days, in front of a stunned crowd.  Surely everyone will believe!  No, the religious leaders actually go away and plot to kill poor Lazarus again!  So, according to the Bible itself miracles don’t automatically create faith.  For those of us living after the time of the Bible, it would be nice to have the same chance to believe or not based on such evidence.  But we have none.

            And yet it did not have to be that way.  There are many miracles that one can conceive of that would be long-lasting, essentially eternal.  Let me suggest a few.

            Genesis could begin with a description of the creation process that actually would explain what modern science continues to reveal about the development of the universe and life on earth, so that it would be clear the story had divine inspiration rather than being a fabrication of ancient story tellers.  For example, a mention of the time when huge reptiles roamed the earth, or the slow development of life over millions of years rather than its spontaneous appearance over a few days.  Or if it did not happen that way, at least as explanation of why it only appears to have happened that way. Surely a wise god could write such an account.

            The hull of the ark could have been preserved on Mt. Ararat, so people could see how it conforms to the Noah story, instead of having to rely on a cheesy ark theme park in Kentucky. Evidence of civilizations around the world suddenly disappearing at that time would also help.

            Archaeologists could find the evidence of a huge migration of people from Egypt to Canaan through the Sinai Peninsula around 1300 BCE, and/or uncover Egyptian records of the devastation caused by the plagues and the slave exodus. Perhaps we could find a big collection of soldiers’ implements at the bottom of the Red Sea dated to the time of the Exodus to confirm that part of the story.

            The Ark of the Covenant could be discovered with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, Aaron’s miraculously budded rod and a bowl of manna. (If it just contained the tablets it would not prove anything miraculous, but at least it would support some parts of the story.)

            I am reminded of a silly story that used to be circulated as “proof” of two Bible miracles.  In Joshua 10 God stops the sun and moon in place for a day (note that the sun and moon are stopped, not the earth.  Also, this was to allow more time for Israel to slaughter its enemy: such a good use of a miracle!)  In 2^nd Kings 20 God backs up the sun about an hour, as a sign for King Hezekiah.  So, there was this story of a NASA computer that suddenly came to a halt during its computations.  Long story short, they came to find it was because there were 25 hours missing somehow.  Someone realized that these two stories in the Bible accounted for the missing 25 hours!  Proof!  Anyone with the simplest understanding of time and computers will realize how silly this story is, but it used to be circulated in evangelistic pamphlets.  If we had better miracles we wouldn’t need such absurd stories.

            Now, let’s get creative and conceive of some actual miracles that would leave lasting evidence.

            In Matthew 21:21 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.”  So, Jesus could have done just that.  Today we could go to the shoreline in Israel and see the base of a mountain neatly sliced through with its lopped-off top peaking up through the waves of the nearby sea.

            In Luke 17 we are told that Jesus healed ten lepers.  There is no way to verify that now.  But what if Jesus had taken that opportunity to heal all lepers, all over the world?  We would have records in various societies around the world that suddenly and mysteriously all lepers were cleansed around the year 30 CE.  I suppose that would not prove that Jesus did it, but it would certainly get my attention.

            Speaking of healing, here is something I wish Jesus had done.  Instead of supposedly casting out “evil spirits” to cure diseases that sound like epilepsy and mental illness it would have been nice if Jesus had actually explained to people, through his divine knowledge, the true causes of disease, like problems in the brain, genetics and heredity, and germs.  Instead, people suffering from neurobiological diseases had to bear the dual burden of the disorder itself and the stigma of people thinking they were demon-possessed, a problem that persisted until fairly recent times.  Even today there are unscrupulous faith healers who perpetuate the idea that disease is caused by demons, and they have the cure!  (And a little money for the ministry would be appreciated!) Even today the Roman Catholic church still regularly tries to exorcise people reinforcing the idea that some people’s problems are caused by demons. Jesus could have prevented such quackery by giving a better description of the true causes of mental and physical illness. If Jesus had explained the germ theory of disease we wouldn’t have had to wait until the 19^th Century for medical scientists like Ignaz Semmelweis and Louis Pasteur to do so.  Think of all the countless lives lost unnecessarily due to this lack of knowledge.  It seems to me that if people could believe in evil spirits then they could just as easily believe in germs and genetics.  Jesus’ prescient explanation of germ theory and genetics would have been proven true, but instead all we have are unprovable stories about evil spirits.

            Jesus could have described the Americas, both the geography and the peoples populating the land.  The people of his day might have thought it imaginary, like Atlantis, but after Columbus people would have a hard time explaining how a Galilean peasant obtained such knowledge.

            Jesus could have described the true nature of the solar system and shown people how it explains day and night, tides, lunar phases and more.  How could this peasant know such things?  It wouldn’t absolutely prove he was divine, maybe he was just a genius, but it would be better evidence than unsubstantiated stories of fleeting events.  Jesus could have explained the atomic theory, including the basic subatomic particles.  There are just all kinds of advanced knowledge he could have shared to make it clear it must have had a divine origin.

            When Jesus was resurrected, instead of only leaving some inconsistent stories written down decades after the event, he could have inscribed a cross on the surface of the moon, for all to gaze at in wonder.  I think that would be hard to explain by any natural process, especially if it suddenly appeared around 33 AD.  And it would have given us more reason to travel to the moon rather than just collecting rocks and hitting golf balls.  (Just kidding: I know there was a lot more to it than that!)

            But apparently God does not want to make Himself too obvious.  He prefers to stay in the background and let people believe on the basis of ancient unverifiable stories rather than strong surviving evidence.  If some cannot make that leap of faith and so are lost for all eternity, so be it.  You may complain (justifiably) that the people in the Bible had an unfair advantage: they got to actually see and experience those amazing miracles. They could choose to believe based on solid evidence or if they refused to believe despite the evidence then their condemnation was just. But all we got was a lousy t-shirt.  I mean, all we got are some fantastical unprovable stories. And like a clever t-shirt, maybe good for entertainment value, but not so good as a foundation for one’s life.

Thinking Exercises:

1.  Can you imagine a miracle by Jesus that would have left good evidence for people today?  Do you think such a miracle should be obviously from God (or Jesus), or should it still give people a choice between belief and doubt?

2.  What would it take for you to believe in a modern miracle?  What kind of evidence or proof would you require?  Do you apply that same standard to ancient miracles?

3.  When people witness what they think is a miracle how do they know which god was responsible?  Maybe Vishnu gets mad when you give the credit to Jesus.  Or vice versa.  How would we know? Do such miracles give us any useful information about what to believe and how to live?

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[1] See The Triumph of Christianity by Dr. Ehrman, Simon and Schuster, 2018.

[2] The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman is a very readable book detailing this information.  Touchstone; Reprint edition June 11, 2002.

[3] Also consider Acts 12:1-4. There is no specific reason given for the execution of James or the arrest of Peter other than “it pleased the Jews.”