Mad as HELL!

On Wednesday I was driving back from the Lab and listening to NPR Radio. Terry Gross' "Fresh Air" was on, and her guest was some pseudo-intellectual, Christian-bashing knucklehead trying to trash the Bible.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101389895

Now before you listen to it, hear me out. I'm not pissed off just because I'm a Christian reacting to attacks on the Bible. As a Bible teacher, I'm used to all that. Arrogant know-alls attacking the Word of God are as old as the hills. No big deal. What really burned me about this interview was the intellectual dishonesty. The guy's arguments make no sense, and Terry Gross lets him get away with it. He makes loose inferences and undocumented statements of "fact", along with logical fallacies that any competent interviewer would tear to shreds. But NPR lets him get away unchallenged, because he's bashing Christians.

Now here's the facts:

1. We ascribe the four gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the authors. There is good reason to believe that those four men (two eyewitnesses, and two later compilers) were the authors, BUT it isn't a point of dogma for us, and it doesn't need to be. The real question is: are the accounts accurate and reliable. The answer is yes.

2. Critics of the Bible like to whine that "the Bible can't be inerrant because the gospel writers contradict each other." Wrong, bucko. The fact that the gospel writers bring slightly differing viewpoints PROVES their validity. That is exactly what we would expect from eyewitness testimony! If the four writers wrote exactly the same thing, THEN we could suspect that they were simply copying, or that the whole thing was some made up myth cleverly concocted. Instead, we have four men (actually six: Matthew (aka Levi the cynical tax collector turned Christian), Mark (Peter's secretary), Luke (Paul's follower), and John). These are real people with passions, prejudices, and limited perspectives. All guided by the hand of the Holy Spirit bringing us four fascinating perspectives on the most important story ever.

3. Inerrancy does not imply Newtonian exactitude. In fact, only a small portion of humanity would expect that. The Bible is a wonderful compendium of God's integrated message of salvation through Christ, brought to us in three languages--two oriental languages (Hebrew and Aramaic), and one occidental language (Koine Greek). When you take the time to really study the Scriptures, you come away in awe at how all these different authors tell the same amazing story.

Listen to this radio show. It will make you a stronger Christian when you see how these dopes deceive each other and pretend to be intellectuals.

But it still pisses me off!