Jesus’ Story Is An Obvious
Rehashing Of Numerous Previous Characters
Perhaps even more compelling
is the story of Christ himself. As it turns out it’s not even remotely
original. It is instead nothing more than a collection of bits and pieces from
dozens of other stories that came long before.
The
article claims that the Bible is not original, but the thing that’s not even
remotely original is the article itself. There’s not anything that hasn’t been
refuted many times over, and much of this information is available freely on
the Internet for anyone who cares to do the research. We have a few articles on
our site, for example, Was Christianity plagiarized from pagan myths? For much of this, I’m going to be
referring you to resources on the Tekton Apologetics Ministry page, as there’s
much more information on pagan parallels there. Some general background is
available at: Was the story of Jesus stolen from
pagan savior figures? More
specific information on several of the alleged pre-Christs is available at Were Bible stories and characters
stolen from pagan myths? For
general information about the figures, I went to Wikipedia (not a site I
generally recommend, but okay for really general information like this) and a
few other sites that a Google search can easily bring up.
Here are some examples.
Asklepios healed the sick,
raised the dead, and was known as the savior and redeemer.
The
term Soter was
applied to Asklepios, an appellation that Christians argue only applies to
Jesus. But ‘savior’ can mean many different things, and there is no indication
that Asklepios was known as a savior in the same sense that Jesus is. Since
he’s a god of medicine, and maybe a deification of an actual person who was a
physician, we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s credited with healing people,
and he is credited with raising Hippolytus from the dead, though he was killed
for doing it and accepting gold for it.
A cut
and paste job on ancient beliefs could have been applied to the life of Jesus
no matter what actually happened. But superficial parallels aside, the claims
of Christianity are unique.
In short, yes, there are some superficial
similarities, but nothing substantial or unexpected, and certainly nothing that
one could argue that Christians took from Asklepios-worship. Also, ancient
mythology was rich and varied. It might be argued that they anticipated most
possible situations. So a cut and paste job on ancient beliefs could have been
applied to the life of Jesus no matter what actually happened. But superficial
parallels aside, the claims of Christianity are unique.
Hercules was born of a
divine father and mortal mother …
… and was known as the
savior of the world.
Like many Greek heroes and demigods, Hercules
fought lots of battles, killed lots of bad guys, etc. He was credited with
making the world safe for mankind because he killed many monsters. In exactly
what sense do they mean he was the ‘savior of the world’? And I couldn’t find
any record of the actual phrase “savior of the world” being used of him.
Prophets foretold his birth
and claimed he would be a king, which started a search by a leader who wanted
to kill him.
I
couldn’t find any accounts of prophets foretelling Hercules’s birth, or that he
would be a king. The closest I could find relates toHeracles (not
the same person as Heracles is the Greek hero from whom the Roman Hercules is
derived). According to the Greek legend, Heracles’ mother Alcmene was
simultaneously pregnant with Heracles by Zeus and his half brother Iphicles by
her husband. Knowing that Heracles would be a descendant of Perseus, Hera
tricked Zeus into vowing that the next-born descendant of Perseus would be High
King. Zeus did so thinking that Heracles would be born next, but Hera made the
goddess of childbirth delay Heracles’ birth while causing another descendant of
Perseus to be born prematurely.
The ‘leader who wanted to kill him’ is Hera,
Zeus’s jealous wife. Hardly counts as a parallel with Jesus.
He walked on water and told
his mother, “Don’t cry, I’m going to heaven.” when he died. As he passed he
said, “It is finished.”
I was unable to find any reference to Heracles
or Hercules walking on water, or anything that could reasonably be interpreted
as close to walking on water. His mother isn’t even present at the version of
his death I was able to find, and I wasn’t able to find anything approximating
‘it is finished’ in the death story, either.
Dionysus was literally the
“Son of God”, …
So was every member of the pantheon and all the
demigods who resulted from Zeus’s numerous trysts. Hardly a comparison with
Jesus.
… was born of a virgin
mother, …
Nope, a result of divine fornication, as with
Zeus’s other kids.
… and was commonly depicted
riding a donkey.
So because other figures ride donkeys, Jesus
can’t? That’s a trivial comparison. And the symbolism of the donkey is hardly
the same.
He healed the sick and
turned water to wine.
I
was unable to find any healing attributed to Dionysus, and he was the god of the vine, but I
couldn’t find any accounts of him turning water into wine.
He was killed but was
resurrected and became immortal.
Depending
on which myth is under consideration, he either was reincarnated or didn’t
die—in the most common version, his mother is killed, leaving the fetal
Dionysus behind. Zeus sews the fetus into his thigh and carries him until he is
ready to be born. And a lot of the demigods eventually became immortal, but the
idea of true bodily resurrection was repugnant to Greeks, which is why Paul had
to straighten out the Corinthian Church
regarding the resurrection (see 1 Corinthians 15 and The Resurrection and Genesis).
His greatest accomplishment
was his own death, which delivers humanity itself.
I can find no connection between his death and
delivering humanity. He was known as a bringer of peace, but this had more to
do with him bringing wine and festivals with him.
Osiris did the same things.
He was born of a virgin, …
He was the son of Geb and Nut. Again, not a virgin
birth.
… was considered the first
true king of the people, …
Osiris was known as the ‘king of the living’
sometimes, but that’s hardly surprising, and hardly a parallel for the
Messianic role that Jesus claimed.
… and when he died he rose
from the grave and went to heaven.
There are two events in Osiris’ life which
could be said to be resuscitations of sorts. First, after Osiris was killed,
his wife Isis used a spell to temporarily bring him back from the dead long
enough to become pregnant by him (and so we get Horus, who I’ll address below).
She hid his body, but when his brother (who murdered him) found the body, he
tore it into 14 pieces, 13 of which Isis
gathered together and bandaged for a proper burial. The other gods were
impressed by her devotion and brought him back to life and made him the god of
the underworld.
As with most of these ‘parallels’, simply
telling the stories that are the alleged parallels is enough to refute the idea
that the story of Jesus is based on them in any sense.
Osiris’s son, Horus, was
known as the “light of the world”, “The good shepherd”, and “the lamb”. He was
also referred to as, “The way, the truth, and the life.” His symbol was a
cross.
There’s
absolutely no evidence for any of
this in any reputable source. The burden of proof is therefore on those that
make these claims to document them.
Mithra’s birthday was
celebrated on the 25th of December, his birth was witnessed by local shepherds
who brought him gifts, had 12 disciples, and when he was done on earth he had a
final meal before going up to heaven. On judgment day he’ll return to pass
judgment on the living and the dead. The good will go to heaven, and the evil
will die in a giant fire. His holiday is on Sunday (he’s the Sun God). His
followers called themselves “brothers”, and their leaders “fathers”. They had
baptism and a meal ritual where symbolic flesh and blood were eaten. Heaven was
in the sky, and hell was below with demons and sinners.
A
lot of Mithraism post-dates Christianity, and there is legitimate cross-pollination,
but it’s Mithraism borrowing from Christianity, not the other way around. The
only way that Christianity borrowed from Mithraism was in art.
Third and fourth century Christians took the Mithraic images of Mithra slaying
the bull and shooting arrows at a rock to get water out of it, and made
lookalikes of Samson killing the lion and Moses getting water from the rock at
Horeb. See the Tekton article: Was the story of Jesus stolen from
that of the Persian deity Mithra?
Krishna had
a miraculous conception that wise men were able to come to because they were
guided by a star. After he was born an area ruler tried to have him found and
killed. His parents were warned by a divine messenger, however, and they
escaped and was met by shepherds. The boy grew up to be the mediator between
God and man.
Who actually thinks people in Palestine had
significant contact with Hinduism, much less that they’d model their Savior on
very foreign pagan deities? Krishna’s
‘miraculous conception’ is his mom being impregnated by ‘mental transmission’
from his completely human father. No wise men or stars that I was able to find.
Rulers trying to kill babies that might grow up to threaten them is a common
theme. No shepherds that I can find, and the function of mediator is also one
that I couldn’t find explicitly brought out. Although both ‘mediator’ and ‘god’
take on very different meanings when one realizes that we’re dealing with a
polytheistic religion.
Buddha’s mother was told by
an angel that she’d give birth to a holy child destined to be a savior.
I found no indication of this. Maya dreamed
that a white elephant with six tusks entered her side, and ten months later
gave birth. In any case, Buddhism doesn’t have a ‘savior’; Buddha is supposed
to have shown the way to ‘Nirvana’, freedom from the endless reincarnational
cycles of death and rebirth into a suffering world.
As a child he teaches the
priests in his temple about religion while his parents look for him.
As a
child, he was shielded from religion because he was
destined to be a great prince, but the Brahmins prophesied that he would choose
a religious life over political office.
He starts his religious career
at roughly 30 years of age …
29 to be exact.
… and is said to have
spoken to 12 disciples on his deathbed.
He had 2 chief disciples, eleven great
disciples, and ten lay disciples. Which 12? I couldn’t find any reference to
twelve disciples. His last words that I can find were instructing his attendant
to convince Cunda that his death had nothing to do with the meal he offered to
him.
One of the disciples is his
favorite, and another is a traitor.
Pretty much everyone will have a favourite out
of a group of people, and disciples betraying their masters is also a common
theme.
He and his disciples
abstain from wealth and travel around speaking in parables and metaphors.
Asceticism and this form of teaching were quite
common. But are there any substantial similarities in the particulars of any of
that teaching?
He called himself “the son
of man” and was referred to as, “prophet”, “master”, and “Lord”.
No evidence of the first one that I could find,
and the last three are so vague as to be useless in ascertaining any connection
between the two.
He healed the sick, cured
the blind and deaf, and he walked on water. One of his disciples tried to walk
on water as well but sunk because his faith wasn’t strong enough.
General miracle working is vague and practically
ubiquitous in all religious traditions. The story about the disciple walking on
water has minimal similarity with the story of Peter.
The legend follows:
SOUTH of Savatthi is a
great river, on the banks of which lay a hamlet of five hundred houses. Thinking
of the salvation of the people, the World-honored One resolved to go to the
village and preach the doctrine. Having come to the riverside he sat down
beneath a tree, and the villagers seeing the glory of his appearance approached
him with reverence; but when he began to preach, they believed him not.
When the world-honored
Buddha had left Savatthi Sariputta felt a desire to see the Lord and to hear
him preach. Coming to the river where the water was deep and the current
strong, he said to himself: “This stream shall not prevent me. I shall go and
see the Blessed One, and he stepped upon the water which was as firm under his
feet as a slab of granite. When he arrived at a place in the middle of the
stream where the waves were high, Sariputta’s heart gave way, and he began to
sink. But rousing his faith and renewing his mental effort, he proceeded as
before and reached the other bank.
The people of the village
were astonished to see Sariputta, and they asked how he could cross the stream
where there was neither a bridge nor a ferry. Sariputta replied: “I lived in
ignorance until I heard the voice of the Buddha. As I was anxious to hear the
doctrine of salvation, I crossed the river and I walked over its troubled
waters because I had faith. Faith. nothing else, enabled me to do so, and now I
am here in the bliss of the Master’s presence.”
The World-honored One
added: “Sariputta, thou hast spoken well. Faith like thine alone can save the
world from the yawning gulf of migration and enable men to walk dryshod to the
other shore.” And the Blessed One urged to the villagers the necessity of ever
advancing in the conquest of sorrow and of casting off all shackles so as to
cross the river of worldliness and attain deliverance from death. Hearing the
words of the Tathagata, the villagers were filled with joy and believing in the
doctrines of the Blessed One embraced the five rules and took refuge in his
name.
But
the earliest account of Buddha’s life was written in the second century AD,
far too late for Christianity to be copied from it. Indeed, by that time this
legend might be copied from Christianity.
Apollonius of Tyana (a
contemporary of Jesus) performed countless miracles (healing sick and crippled,
restored sight, casted out demons, etc.) His birth was of a virgin, foretold by
an angel. He knew scripture really well as a child. He was crucified, rose from
the dead and appeared to his disciples to prove his power before going to
heaven to sit at the right hand of the father. He was known as, “The Son of
God”.
The problem, of course, is that these previous narratives existed hundreds to
thousands of years before Jesus did.
The only valid point of comparison
between Apollonius and Jesus is that they both performed miracles. And the
stories of Apollonius were written no earlier than 217 AD.
See more in this Tekton article.
Logic Sets In
Many are familiar with
Occam’s Razor, which states that, all things being equal, one should not seek
complex explanations when more simple ones are available.
The
gross inaccuracies contained in the above show that all things aren’t equal. And this source hasn’t
even considered the social and religious dynamics which would preclude a Jewish
sect from adapting pagan religious stories to their new first-century AD religion. For
example, there are at least 17 factors that meant Christianity could not have
succeeded in the ancient world, unless it were backed up with irrefutable proof
of the Resurrection, as shown in The Impossible Faith.
No one disputes that these
other stories predate the Judeo-Christian Bible, …
Really? The Mithra stories that most closely
parallel Jesus are after Him. Apollonius’ biography wasn’t written until the
third century, and Buddha’s was in the second century (six centuries after the
events it reports).
… so we really only have
two options:
The religious explanation
is that while the other stories were very much the same as those in the Bible,
they are all false.
No,
our explanation is that those myths aren’t even very similar to the Gospels.
And the places there are superficial similarities are exactly where we would
expect to find them, but in the particulars, Christianity is unique (the only one with a
genuinely virgin birth, genuine resurrection, some unique miracles).
And
even if the stories did predate
Jesus, this would not necessarily mean that the Jesus narratives were false
(this would commit the genetic fallacy).
Yet when we carefully analyze these particular claims, we see that there is
little to no documented evidence that Christianity borrowed heavily from pagan
religions. Thus, the pendulum swings strongly in the opposite direction from
where the article writer wants it.
But when they occur in the
Bible (despite it being much the same content), this time the stories are true.
I
don’t say that a story is true just because
it appears in the Bible (there are some stories, parables, which are in the
Bible but aren’t historical; the Bible never presents them as such), and I
don’t reject something just because it doesn’t appear in the Bible (some of the
extra-biblical myths may have their source in a distorted history). But unlike
the myths, we have solid evidence that the Bible presents a trustworthy
historical account. For instance, the Gospels present four different accounts
that corroborate each other (and contrary to many assertions, the Gospels can
be harmonized). Acts corroborates parts of Paul’s letters. And in the Old
Testament, we’ve found evidence of many people groups, places, and events that
were only previously known from Scripture, and hence many had doubted the
Bible’s accuracy. See for example articles like A
former chief magistrate examines the witnesses to the resurrection and Easter’s
earliest creed.
One explanation of the
resemblances to the earlier myths is that Satan created them to lead people
astray from the true Messiah that would come much later. So essentially, an
ultra-powerful and evil being (Created by God) influenced humanity to create
deceptive stories—thousands of years before the real version—so that people
wouldn’t believe the real thing when they saw it.
Some of them may be directly satanic, some may
be distorted ancestor worship, some may be the product of visions/hallucinations.
I don’t really care that much about where they came from. What does it matter?
These skeptics need to deal with the Gospel’s truth claims, not resort to
history-free diversions.
The alternative explanation
is that the nature of storytelling during the period was such that central
themes propagated through time. This combined with the natural tendency to have
certain repeating elements in human stories, and the fact that the Bible
stories came after the other ones, explains the similarities to previous myths.
There are central themes, and these are
precisely the ones we find echoed in all the stories (attempted murder of the
infant prince by jealous adversary, miracle-working teacher, tragic death,
living on in some sense). But again, in the particulars, Christianity is
unique. There is no comparison to Christianity.
A
common feature of all these alleged pagan derivations is the huge time gap of
many centuries between the person and the legends. Conversely, the Gospels were
written by people who knew Jesus personally, or by those who knew such people
personally.
This
is probably also a good place to bring out another thing that makes
Christianity unique. People said that Heracles, Dionysus, etc., did all these
things, but no one claimed to be eyewitnesses of these things. A common feature
of all these alleged pagan derivations is the huge time gap of many centuries
between the person and the legends. Conversely, the Gospels were written by
people who knew Jesus personally, or by those who knew such people personally
(see Gospel Dates and Reliability). The first people to spread
the Gospel said, in essence, “Jesus did miracles, taught, was crucified and
raised from the dead, and we saw it!” This is the crucial
difference. Christianity started at a time when if it weren’t true, the Jewish
authorities should have been able to drag the corpse from the tomb, if there
still was a corpse (and they would have had no qualms about doing so).
And since the stories of
worldwide floods, virgin births, and people rising from the dead that the Bible
is based on were false to begin with (which everyone agrees on)—they are also
false in the Bible.
The
worldwide flood stories (where did we go from ‘Christ copycats’ to flood
stories?) are all based on the same historical event, which the Bible records accurately. And that
is particularly appalling logic. So if A, B, and C lie about having done a
certain thing, D can’t be telling the truth? Does the existence of counterfeit
money disprove real money?
In short, the Bible is
simply another iteration of the same themes that came long before it.
Which of these two
explanations makes more sense to you?
The first is a strawman and the second
literally makes no sense. I prefer our explanation to either of them.
Republished on
Freethoughtpedia.com with permission by Daniel Meissler[1].
Hopefully that’s a pseudonym, because he should
be ashamed of such nonsense; and the Freethought people were too sloppy even to
get his name right.
It’s
only rank ignorance, both of the social world of early Christianity, and of the
particulars of those other religions, that allows things like this to survive.
It’s hard to decide whether to counter these with serious arguments like the
above, or with hysterical laughter. They want us to question our faith, and this is the best they have to offer?
In short, only someone who hasn’t done his
homework would ever reject Christianity on the basis of pagan parallels.
Christianity has been shown to be historically reliable, and to reflect events
that actually happened. Even the Jewish opponents of Jesus had to explain away
the empty tomb somehow. The pastor’s son, being an agnostic, questions
Christianity. That’s okay; our faith will withstand scrutiny if he’s open to
answers. But he should equally question this swill he’s swallowing, because if
he questions his sources at the most basic level as I’ve done here, they won’t
withstand the examination.
Did
God create over billions of years?
And why is it important?
Published: 6 October 2011(GMT+10)
Often, people challenge biblical creationists
with comments along the lines of, “I believe God created, and I don’t believe
in evolution, but He could have taken billions of years, so what’s the big deal
about the age of the earth?” Some claim that an emphasis on ‘6 literal days,
6,000 years ago’ even keeps people away from the faith, so “Why be so dogmatic?
Why emphasize something so strongly that’s not a salvation issue?”
It
might come as a surprise that we agree—to a point. The timescale in
and of itself is not
the important issue. So why does CMI emphasize it? It’s important because the
issue ultimately comes down to, “Does the Bible actually mean what it plainly
says?” It therefore goes to the heart of the trustworthiness of Scripture. As
such, compromising with long ages also severely undermines the whole gospel
message, thus creating crises of faith for many as well as huge problems with
evangelism.
The implications of a
long-age timescale
The
idea of millions or billions of years simply is not found anywhere in
Scripture; it is a concept derived from outside of the Bible.
First,
we need to understand where the concept of an old earth came from. The idea of
millions or billions of years simply is not found anywhere in Scripture; it is
a concept derived from outsideof the Bible. In 1830, Charles
Lyell, a Scottish lawyer, released his book Principles of Geology. He stated that
one of his aims was “To free the science [of geology] from Moses.”1 He built his ideas
upon those of another geologist, James Hutton, who advocated a uniformitarian
interpretation of the world’s geology. Lyell argued that the thousands of feet
of sedimentary layers (laid down by water or some other moving fluid) all over
the earth were the result of long, slow, gradual processes over millions or
billions of years (instead of the processes of Noah’s Flood). He believed that
processes observed in the present must be used to explain the geological
history of the earth. So, if we currently see rivers laying down sediment at an
average rate of say 1 mm (4/100thof
an inch) per year, then a layer of sedimentary rock such as sandstone which is
1,000 meters (3,300 feet) thick must have taken about a million years to form.
This ‘present is the key to the past’ assumption (and its variants) is a
cornerstone of modern geology. It involves a rejection of the biblical account
of a global watery cataclysm. The millions of years assigned to the various
layers in the ‘geological column’ were adopted long before
the advent of radiometric dating methods—well before
radioactivity was even discovered.
Image by Daniel Smartt
But
here’s the theological problem. Those rock layers don’t just have rocks or
granules in them. They contain fossils. And these fossils are indisputable
evidence of death—and not just of death, but carnivory, disease and suffering.
There are remains that have tooth marks in them, and even animals fossilized in
the process of eating other animals. There is evidence of disease, cancers, and
infection; and general suffering from wounds, broken bones, etc. Biblically, we
understand these things only began to happen after the Fall. But because of the
Bible’s detailed genealogies, there’s no way for the biblical Adam to exist
millions of years ago, before death and suffering started happening in the
uniformitarian time scale. The implication of long-age belief is that God
ordained death before the Fall of man, but the Bible clearly
states that it was Adam’s actions that brought death into the world (Romans 5:12).
The god of an old earth
The
idea that death was in creation before the Fall has major implications for the
character of God. The same problem arises if one thinks that God used evolution
to create. Evolution is a random and wasteful process that requires millions of
‘unfit’ organisms to die. Countless transitional forms would have arisen, only
to fall as casualties in the great march ‘forward’. At some point, this
allegedly ‘good’ God-ordained lottery of death finally resulted in humans, and
then God looked at His image-bearers, standing on top of layers upon layers of
rocks filled with the remains of billions of dead things, and proclaimed His
whole creation—along with the evidence of all the death and suffering that went
into creating it—to be ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31). So we can
see that long ages don’t fit in the biblical view, whether or not someone
believes in evolution along with it.
At the end of day 6 God pronounced his finished creation as
very good. If evolution were true , would Adam and Eve have been standing on a
fossil graveyard of death and struggle over millions of years that God called
good. The Bible describes death as the last enemy to be destroyed
To
summarize, the age of the earth was derived from the rock layers, which have
fossils in them, which puts death, suffering and disease before the Fall. The
Bible is clear that there was no death before Adam (Romans 5:12).
The gospel of an old earth
Some
alleged ‘experts’ try to sidestep this ‘very good’ issue by saying that the
Fall only caused human death
and disease. This cannot be true. For one thing, Romans 8:19–22 clearly teaches that the curse of
death and suffering following Adam’s Fall affected “the whole creation”, i.e.
the entire physical universe.
But
even if we set that aside for the sake of argument, there is another problem,
because we have human remains that are ‘dated’ as hundreds of thousands of
years old. This is well before any possible biblical date for Adam, which
places him in the Garden about 6,000 years ago. Many compromising positions see
these remains as those of ‘pre-Adamites’—soulless non-human animals. But these
skeletons fall within the normal range of human variation. And Neandertals, for
example, show signs of art, culture and even religion. And recently, the sequencing
of actual Neandertal DNA shows
that many of us carry Neandertal genes—i.e. we are the same created kind. To
call them ‘non-human animals’ seems entirely contrived to salvage the long-age
belief system.
Also, Romans 5:12 states that “sin came into the world
through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because
all sinned”. It gives no indication that the Fall caused only human death. To distort the
interpretation of Romans 5 to say that death was limited to
humans would mean that Adam’s sin only brought a partial Fall to God’s creation; yet Romans 8:19–20 tells us the whole creation groans under the
weight of sin and is subjected to futility. And Genesis 3:17–19 tells us that the very ground was
cursed so that it produced thorns and thistles.2 If only a partial
Fall occurred, then why will God destroy all creation to bring about a new one
instead of a partial restoration? Why not just restore humans if the rest of
creation is still “very good”?
If only
a partial Fall occurred, then why will God destroy all creation to bring about
a new one instead of a partial restoration? Why not just restore humans if the
rest of creation is still ‘very good’?
Death the last enemy
A
central part of the gospel is that death is the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26).
Death intruded into a perfect world because of sin, and it is so serious that
Jesus’ victory over death cannot be entirely manifested while there is a single
believer in the grave. Are we expected to believe that something the Bible
authors described as an enemy was used or overseen by God for millions of years
and was called ”very good”?
A major
part of the gospel is the hope we have in this Resurrection and restoration of
the creation to its original perfect state. The Bible is clear about the New
Heavens and Earth as a place where there is no carnivory, no death, no
suffering, and no sin (Isaiah 65:17–25;Revelation 21:1–5). But
how can this be called a restoration if such a state never existed?
An evolutionist Anglican priest gave a good
summary of what accepting death before the Fall means for Christian theology:
“ … Fossils are the remains
of creatures that lived and died for over a billion years before Homo Sapiens
evolved. Death is as old as life itself by all but a split second. Can it
therefore be God’s punishment for Sin? The fossil record demonstrates that some
form of evil has existed throughout time. On the large scale it is evident in
natural disasters. … On the individual scale there is ample evidence of
painful, crippling disease and the activity of parasites. We see that living
things have suffered in dying, with arthritis, a tumor, or simply being eaten
by other creatures. From the dawn of time, the possibility of life and death,
good and evil, have always existed. At no point is there any discontinuity;
there was never a time when death appeared, or a moment when the evil [sic] changed
the nature of the universe. God made the world as it is … evolution as the
instrument of change and diversity. People try to tell us that Adam had a
perfect relationship with God until he sinned, and all we need to do is repent
and accept Jesus in order to restore that original relationship. But perfection
like this never existed. There never was such a world. Trying to return to it,
either in reality or spiritually, is a delusion. Unfortunately it is still
central to much evangelical preaching.”3
The
Bible is clear about the New Creation as a place where there is no carnivory,
no death, no suffering, and no sin. But how can this be a restoration if such a
state never existed?
So, one can now see the slippery slope that
ensues if we allow for billions of years with or without evolution, because it
puts death and suffering before the Fall. Its logical corollary is that it also
places evil before the Fall (which no longer exists in his view, as such, since
there was nowhere to fall from). And in the process it rules out the hope of a
return to a perfect state, since there can be no return to what never was. The
gospel itself has been destroyed in the process.
So
what did Jesus come to save us from, if not death, suffering, sin, and
separation from God? What do we do with passages like Hebrews 9:22, which says
“ … the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without
the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”, if death and bloodshed were
occurring as ‘natural’ processes for millions of years before Adam? The death
of Christ becomes insignificant and unable to pay for our sins. And what is our
hope if it is not in the Resurrection and the New Heavens and Earth?
If death is natural, why do we mourn it so? Why
can we not accept death as a ‘normal’ part of life? This view robs the gospel
of its power and Jesus’ sacrifice of its significance. Following the thought to
its natural conclusion has led many people to abandon the Christian faith
altogether.
The effect on the church
Practically
every Christian leader and theologian who lays out his reasons for believing in
long ages rather than the biblical timescale has to admit that Genesis—when
read at face value, in the Hebrew as well as the English translations—teaches a
straightforward creation in six normal-length days.
The
widespread teaching of evolution has dire consequences for our youth, who are leaving
the church in droves.
Christians who ‘hang in there’ but accept a billions-of-years timescale will
have a much harder time defending their faith, and thus, this affects church
growth. One of the major stumbling blocks to faith is the question: “Why does a
good God allow all the death and suffering in the world?” Such believers cannot
adequately explain the origin of death and suffering as a reaction to human
sin.
Conversely,
believers who have a biblical view of the world’s history have a logical
platform for introducing God to people with no scriptural background.
Incidentally, this was precisely the approach that Paul used when preaching to
similar Gentile audiences (Acts 14:15–17; 17:23–31).
In Lystra, he used creation as a key identifying factor that set God apart from
mere men like himself and Barnabas. And in Athens he
took the philosophers and stoics of the day ‘back to Genesis’ to lay a
foundation to introduce them to the true God in the hope that they would repent
from their useless idolatry.
If
belief in the Bible as plainly written strengthens one’s ability to explain the
gospel, and compromise can have such damaging effects, why would anyone
compromise? Practically every Christian leader and theologian who lays out his
reasons for believing in long ages rather than the biblical timescale has to
admit that Genesis—when read at face value, in the Hebrew as well as the
English translations—teaches a straightforward creation in six normal-length
days. And that this is powerfully backed up by Exodus 20:11, part of
the Ten Commandments, which shows the Genesis days were understood as
normal-length days, with no room for millions of years or gaps in the text to
insert them. But they unfortunately accept that science has somehow ‘proved’
millions of years, which is actually not the case.
Inconsistent Christianity?
While it
is possible to be a Christian and believe in an old earth, it would
indicate that one has either not thought through the consequences, or that the
Bible is not the ultimate authority for one’s faith. If Genesis is not real
literal history, how can one know where the truth actually does begin in
Scripture? Today’s ‘science’ also ‘proves’ that men don’t rise from the dead.
So if we allow that same science to tell us that Jesus has not risen from the
dead (which would be consistent in the compromiser’s worldview) then our “preaching
is in vain and your faith is in vain,” as the Apostle Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 15:14).
Placing our trust in man-made philosophies is reminiscent of the man that Jesus
described in Matthew 7:26 when He said: “But everyone who hears
these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man
who built his house on sand.” Conversely, in verses 24–25 He stated: “everyone
who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man
who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the
winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its
foundation on the rock.”
And because Jesus clearly believed in a literal
historical Genesis, so should we.
