Judas Bond - You only die twice

Having finished listening to the gospels on MP3s lately, I then embarged on Acts of the Apostles.

My ears nearly fell off when one of the first things that I heard was this:

"Now this man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." (Acts 1:18)

I thought, WTF? I always thought he hung himself, and didn't he just hang himself in Matthew 27:5?

"And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself."

He did. A clear contradiction there. While this won't matter a bit to the liberals, it should be a nut for the inerrantists I thought. As I started up a forum thread on the subject, however, it struck me that for the apologetic there is a perfectly reasonable excu-planation here:

"He hung himself from a tree, but the knot didn't hold and then he fell headlong bursting asunder in the midst, with all his bowels gushing out."

And guess what, here's a real one from CARM.org:

"There is no contradiction here at all because both are true. A contradiction occurs when one statement excludes the possibility of another. In fact, what happened here is that Judas went and hung himself and then his body later fell down and split open. In other words, the rope or branch of the tree probably broke due to the weight and his body fell down and his bowels spilled out. "

I know how they think, all right. The apologetic gut feeling is (when they can't resort to creative use of a thesaurus) always to combine evidence. It doesn't matter if the outcome is unrealistic. Imagine that some Gospel Z appears saying that Judas died from being shot with an arrow. And then Gospel X appears saying that Judas was knocked over by a car. For the apologeticist, this is no problem.

1. He hung himself...
2. the rope broke.
3. As he fell he was penetrated by an arrow
4. and hit by a car
5. and he fell headlong and spilled his guts!

Can anyone honestly say that this is not technically possible? No.

But can such an explanation be defended as a realistic answer? No.

Notice the choice of words in Acts. He fell headlong. That means he fell with the head foremost. (Or at breakneck speed, but I doubt any apologeticist will try that!) I did some search for pictures of Judas, and came across a nice drawing of the two deaths. Well, Horatio Caine just called and said that if you've hung yourself, then you won't fall headlong if the rope breaks. You'll fall down on your feet or knees.

If we see the story in Acts isolated, it's also unrealistic that his body burst asunder from simply falling. The apologeticists will say that if he's hung for a while, then this might happen, but again: there's no rope or hanging in Acts. Some other apologeticist pulls the translation card and actually manages to make headlong become... swollen! In the Norwegian translation (which obviously is not translated from an English bible), the word used is hodestups. Literally: head diving. Frankly, I prefer a scholarly Bible translation any day over apologetical word play and straw clutching.

There's more.

As we remember he got 30 pieces of silver for being a snitch on Jesus. According to Acts, he purchased the aforementioned field:

18 Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness [...]

19 And it became known to all who were living in Jerusalem; so that in their own language that field was called Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood.

He bought a field, and after he accidentally (or by divine will) spilled his guts all over the place, it was called the Field of Blood. Matthew has a completely different explanation:

3 Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

4 saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." But they said, "What is that to us? See to that yourself!"

5 And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.

6 The chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, "It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood."

7 And they conferred together and with the money bought the Potter's Field as a burial place for strangers.

8 For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

He returned the money, and the chief priests bought the field, and since the money was blood money, the field was called the Field of Blood. And the apologetic explanation? Combining evidence! See this example from Lookinguntojesus.net (CARM didn't offer an explanation here.)

"Luke indicates that Judas purchased it, while Matthew reveals that the chief priests bought the field. This is not a contradiction, but a difference of perspective. Indeed, the chief priests conducted the transaction for the field, hoever, it was not with their money. Nor would they have claimed the money. In verse 6, the abominable nature of this money is spoken of. They would not permit it to be included in the treasury, and certainly did not take possession of it for themselves. It had to be disposed of in some fashion. Thus, they purchased the field with it. Was it their field? No, for it was not their money that purchased the field (nor did they want the money or the field). The field was purchased by means of Judas, thus it was his field.

There is no contradiction."

Only that Luke didn't "indicate" anything it in Acts. He was perfectly clear: "this man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of iniquity". He did not write that "Judas went to the chief priests and said: "Would you mind investing these silver pieces in property for me?"

If we go back to Matthew 27:4-5, we see that Judas gets a cold shoulder from the priests, not advice on property. Feeling pretty bad, Judas just throws the money into the temple sanctuary and goes off to hang himself. The priests decide to use the money for something useful, and buys property.

What unites these stories is that Judas got money, and he died and a field was called the Field of Blood. Most likely, that's all that Matthew and Luke had heard about it, but Matthew's story was better written. It's a story that's not mentioned in Mark which as mentioned in my former post predated both and which they drew heavily upon. And further, none of the even earlier Pauline letters mention Judas by name while at least 1Cr 11:23 mentions the betrayal.

Regarding his betrayal of Jesus, there's another strange thing with him. When they come to arrest Jesus, Jesus says in Mark:

14:48 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me?
14:49 I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not: but the scriptures must be fulfilled.

By this time Jesus had become something of a celebrity as he had been teaching in the temple and stepped priests on their toes and frequently called them vipers while working on the Sabbath. Why else would they need to kill him? What Judas does, however, is to indicate to the soldiers who among them is Jesus:

Matthew: Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
Mark: Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away safely.
Luke: he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him.
John: Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons.

It reminds me of the house search in Life of Brian where dimwitted soldiers can't find anything. Not even the most famous preacher in the region (if we are to believe Christians).
John's version is a little more realistic in that Judas had merely reported his whereabouts.

The conclusion?
Independent of eachother Matthew and Luke in Acts improved on the gospel of Mark by adding a well deserved death for Judas, and Mark himself improved on the original story by giving a name to the betrayer: Judas.

No guards at the tomb of Jesus

Long time since I made a post at this blog (but plenty at Daily Atheist). Anyway, I've been reading/listening to the gospels lately and noticed some interesting differences in how they deal with the empty grave. Skepticsannotatedbible.com is naturally an excellent tool for finding differences but I also made some independent reasoning. I discussed some of the issues with Christians on a fourm and as my own original ideas met their resistance, I noticed some parts that withstood pressure.
I have to stress that this is just scratching the surface, but at the same time, it's a very precise scratch that doesn't need lots of reading..

Firstly, we need to state that Matthew is partly based on Mark and was thus written later. (Look up the synoptic problem. Wikipedia link for convenience.)

Now, there are differences in the gospels and there are direct contradictions.
A direct contradiction is that in Matthew 28:2 the grave is closed when the women arrive, while in the other three gospels the grave is open when she/they arrive. The significance here is that in Matthew they arrive at a sealed grave(that is opened by an angel), while the others come to an open grave where anything could have happened. A body is gone. So? Any graverobber, disciple or town loonie could have been there. An open grave doesn't prove anything, but a sealed one is more impressive. (Why would Jesus have to use the door btw?)

OK, but there were guards, no? Yes, in Matthew 27:64 he writes that the sepulchre needs to be secured: "lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead". But none of the other gospels mention any guards.
There is another thing with the guards In Matthew 28:13 the guards (after having reported to the priests that Jesus has left the building) are bribed to say that the disciples stole the body. Clearly, Matthew is addressing a Jewish rumour that the disciples took him.

So what we have here is that Matthew improves on the story about the empty grave. Mark's story is easy to attack for a skeptic. An empty grave without guards prove nothing, but a closed & empty grave with tight security, now that's a real Houdini story.

But 3/4 gospels disagree with Matthew.

What kind of atheist are you?

Nice quiz. Here's my score:

You scored as Scientific Atheist. These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 100% Angry Atheist 58% Militant Atheist 58% Apathetic Atheist 42% Spiritual Atheist 25% Agnostic 17% Theist 0% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Macauley on Religious persecution

I've started reading "In the name of Heaven" by Mary Jane Engh and in the preface, there was this rather perceptive quote I'd like to share:

"I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error." - Thomas Babington Macauley, Critical and Historical Essays"

"But science has done a lot of bad things too, right?"

One of the common Christian arguments you hear when you confront them with all the horrors their religion has caused is that "Science has also caused a lot of bad things too, like the nuclear bomb".

Science. That cold nemesis of religion, always eating away at every precious religious "truth". Worst of all, it happens in a disinterested way. By presenting an analogy between science and religion, then perhaps these scientist know-it-alls would just shut up?

Well, science was responsible for approximately 280 000 deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - in the very same way that carpenters were responsible for the death of Jesus, by making the cross.

Why did they make the atomic bomb? Nuclear fission had become a scientific fact in the late 1930s, but the scientific and historical details are better left to someone else. For this purpose, it suffices to say that the Nazis would have used the bomb if they had been capable of making it, and that's why the Americans wanted to develop it too with the help of European scientists.

This means that the engine behind the development of the nuclear bomb was on an ideological and political level. The Nazis had a very violent ideology, and while the Allies did not, they would have to be prepared to respond to it.Germany, as we know, lost the war before the bomb was used, but the Japanese put up some resistance and the American government decided to try to bring them to their knees with nuclear bombs. No matter what role the scientists had, it was a government decision to drop the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Even a Christian one, if we accept the constant nagging from the American Religious Right that USA is a "Christian nation".)

The Jews wanted to have Jesus crucified. That was a religious wish. Pontius Pilate had it happen, which was a political decision to keep the Jews calm. It was not the carpenter, or the Roman legionaries who had Jesus crucified, even though they provided the technical means.

And the bombs were not dropped over Japan as an interesting experiment for a mad scientist. It was direct, political response to war and to violent ideology and was perceived as a necessity. Whether or not the bombs truly were necessary to finish Japan is up for debate. But by that time the bomb had become an indispensable weapon for the American government who understood that the Russians would be rather interested in it as well.

So, dropping the bombs on Japan was not a scientific decision – it was a political one. And what influences politics? Ideology... and often religion.

Am I saying that the scientists were innocent? No, the lesson after WW2 is that no-one is innocent if they participated or passively accepted it. If you are told to participate in an atrocity, then you have an obligation to refuse. But this does not affect what the driving power is. While Adolf Eichmann was guilty in sending Jews to concentration camps, he would not have done so without Nazi ideology.

Which leads us to the main point: science is merely a tool. It does not have an ideological power, like Nazism – or religion. Scientists merely try to discover things and there is no overall ideological direction, as long as you stick to good scientific methods. Be it nuclear physics or linguistics. Naturally, there have been more focus on ethics within science after the war, but that comes as a form of self-regulation of science, rather than an original scientific ideal.

That science is not an ideology does not mean that scientists themselves do live in a vacuum, however. They have opinions about politics, and they may have opinions about religion. And this may affect their research or area of interest. If a mad scientist was able to create a nuclear bomb by himself and have it dropped over Mecca, what would the reason be for this undertaking? Interest in nuclear physics? Hatred for Islam? Most likely the latter. His ideological or religious part of the brain created the urge to destroy, while the scientific part provided the means.

The crusades are often used as examples of religious atrocities. Would a nuclear bomb be useful in one of the crusades? It probably would, as long as it was not used near a holy site, especially not near Jerusalem. And if it had been used in a crusade, then the nuclear bomb would not have been remembered as a scientific atrocity but a religious atrocity, and rightly so.

The analogy between religion and science is therefore false, because science is just a tool and what we really have to keep in check is the dangerous opinions and beliefs that surround both the scientists, the politicians and the rest of us.

Without war-mongering religions and ideologies, scientists can probably use their skills for more peaceful purposes.

Whose face?

The fundie blog Chester Street ("A Street filled with Conservative, Bible Reading, American Flag Waving, Neighbor Helping, Gun Owning, Animal Loving, Church Going, Regular People.") had a short post a short while ago, where they used the same picture that I posted earlier showing an Iranian woman preparing to be stoned, presumably for adultery.
The title was "The liberal relative rhetoric has a face". In itself, there's nothing wrong with the title or the post. The mindless relativism of a lot of western liberals is certainly worthy of criticism.

But it was not liberal relative rhetoric that got the woman there in the first place. What the picture really-really shows, is the face of illiberal religious rhetoric. You'll find it at the end of Chester Street.

What "Fundamentalist Atheism" might be

I just came across a post on an Atheist blog called The one with Aldacron about "Fundamentalist Atheism" (via Deep Thoughts. )
I certainly share the main sentiments of the blog: Christians who don't understand the difference between wanting to go back to the bronze age and just being hardline Atheist, get no respect from me.

But being in a very philosophical mood, I decided to post some views about the issue.

"Fundamantelist" has become a term to be used about everyone who are very concerned with something. No doubt, the reason for Theists to use it against Atheists is that they want to get a break from very real accusations of fundamentalism. You know, the accusations about terror and violence done in the name of God, referring to a holy scripture accompanied by a "Let's go back to year 0!" attitude. It doesn't stick at all.

However:
The term "Fundamentalist Atheist" can have a meaning, like this:

We already speak of "hard" and "soft" Atheists, but the fundament for Atheism is that there is no god. Not that there is no god like there is no pink unicorn.
But if the boundaries of Atheism get blurred, then "No belief in God" is its fundament.
In this respect, the hard Atheist will insist on Atheism in its purest form, while the softie will open for a certain doubt, albeit theoretical. Some may even be almost Agnostics.

There are even some (but hopefully few) who see Atheism as purely relating to gods - not, say, spirits and those damn pink unicorns. In fact, this type could very well claim to be a fundamentalist Atheist because Atheism as a term do not technically have anything to do with spirits or pink unicorns. "God" does not cover "spirits" and it is not Aspirituality or Apinkunicornism. But I sure hope that this is only a theoretical problem, or we will have to find a new term.
(I do happen to know of a self-proclaimed Atheist who mocked Christians, but believed in Von Däniken theories...)

Well, having said all this, I think (as was the point with the blog post) that the term "Fundamentalist Atheist" as it is used by religious people is completely absurd. However, it can have a meaning as a "back to basics" form of Atheism.