Bible Study for Amateurs #6 – The Bible Is Old
Context, context, context!
Invasion of the Bible Snatchers: Ray Comfort’s ‘Scientific Facts in the Bible’ – A Tent for the Sun
To see other posts in this series, please go to the series’ page.
INTRODUCTION
Ray Comfort in his book Scientific Facts in the Bible: Amazing Truths Written Thousands of Years Before Man Discovered Them quotes from Psalm 19:4-6 (NKJV) and writes,
For many years critics scoffed at these verses, claiming they taught that the sun revolves around the earth. Scientists used to believe the sun was stationary, but discovered recently that it is moving through space at about 600,000 miles per hour. The sun is traveling through the heavens and has a “circuit” just as the Bible says. Its circuit is so large that it would take around 200 million years to complete one orbit.[1]
So, is Comfort right? Is the psalmist describing the sun’s orbit around “the heavens” as opposed to an orbit around the earth?
THE HEAVENS DECLARE
Psalm 19 is a psalm of praise to the god of Israel, Yahweh. It opens with two lines set in parallel:
[A] The heavens are telling the glory of God;
[B] and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (v. 1).
This is synonymous parallelism at work. “The heavens” [hašāmayim] and “the firmament” [hārāqîaʿ] are synonymous; “are telling” and “proclaims” are synonymous; and “the glory of God” and “his handiwork” are synonymous.
For the psalmist, it would have been only natural to think of hašāmayim and hārāqîaʿ as equivalent. The Priestly creation narrative of Genesis 1 describes the Israelite god as creating a barrier for the primordial waters. This barrier is referred to as a rāqîaʿ in v. 6 and its function is to hold back the waters above the rāqîaʿ from the waters below it (v. 7). In v. 8, the rāqîaʿ is referred to by God as šāmayim. Later in the narrative, it is in the rĕqîaʿ hašāmayim (“the dome of the sky,” or “the firmament of heaven”) that God places the sun, moon, and stars (vv. 14-19). On the fifth day of creation, God creates birds that are to fly above the earth ʿl-penê rĕqîaʿ hašāmayim (“on the face of the dome of the sky”; v. 20). The psalm writer was likely familiar with the worldview described in Genesis 1 and his own cosmology reflected it.
According to v. 4, it is in hašāmayim that God “has set a tent for the sun.” This comports with the view of Genesis 1:14-19 that the sun (“the greater light”) is placed in “the dome of the sky,” or “the firmament of the heavens.” That is to say, it is in the barrier that separates the waters above and below that the sun is said to exist. But in Genesis 1, the sun as “the greater light” is said to “rule the day” (Genesis 1:16). At night, a different body rules. So, where does the sun go when it is not ruling? The psalmist tells us: “a tent.” This imagery makes sense of what we read in v. 5 where it describes the sun as that “which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy.” While in the wedding canopy, the bridegroom is hidden from view. But when he comes out, he is in full view of everyone. So too the sun is at night hidden from view in “a tent.” But when morning comes, the sun is in full view of everyone.
It is here we begin to see why Comfort’s eisegesis fails. In order to rescue the text from its implied geocentrism, he has to mangle the meaning of everything else in the passage. This is especially acute in v. 6 which describes the sun’s “rising…from the end of the heavens.” Rising relative to what? He cannot be referring to the sun’s orbit around the galaxy because he is clearly describing the sun’s effect on earth, as the end of v. 6 makes plain. So, what phenomena describe the sun’s rising from one end of the sky to the other? Sunrise and sunset, of course! Additionally, the sun’s orbit around the galaxy takes well over two-hundred million years and, in Comfort’s worldview, the world is only around six-thousand years old. If that’s the case, then the sun has never made a complete circuit like the one that the psalmist describes. Why would the psalm writer offer as an example of God’s glory something that has never occurred? But if the psalmist is instead describing something that everyone knows about (i.e., sunrise and sunset) then this language fits perfectly. Every day is evidence for God’s glory then.
CONCLUSION
Once again, we are left disappointed but not surprised by Comfort’s poor handling of the Bible. It makes you wonder what motivates him: finding the truth or confirming his own views? I think we all know which one it is.
[1] Ray Comfort, Scientific Facts in the Bible: Amazing Truths Written Thousands of Years Before Man Discovered Them (Bellflower, CA: Living Waters Publications, 2016), 12.
Amateur Hour #6 – “To Be Done with Sodom” w/Bernard Lamborelle
In this conversation, I talk with Bernard Lamborelle about his new project ‘To Be Done with Sodom,’ a comic book that serves as a fascinating summary of his book ‘The Covenant.’
Bible Study for Amateurs #5 – Authorship Anonymous
So many of the books of the Bible are anonymous. Why?
There Was No Spain? (Evangelical [Atheist] Eisegesis #1)
The “Exposing Religion” Facebook group seems to think Paul couldn’t have gone to Spain (Romans 15:24, 28) because it didn’t exist. Yikes!
Bible Study for Amateurs #4 – Two Pivotal Moments
86 BCE and 70 CE. Why are these dates important?
Invasion of the Bible Snatchers: Ray Comfort’s ‘Scientific Facts in the Bible’ – Clay Under a Seal
To see other posts in this series, please go to the series’ page.
INTRODUCTION
In Scientific Facts in the Bible: Amazing Truths Written Thousands of Years Before Man Discovered Them, pop-apologist Ray Comfort quotes from Job 38:12-14 (NKJV) and writes,
Modern science has come to understand that the earth’s rotation on its axis is responsible for the sun’s rising and setting. The picture here is of a vessel of clay being turned or rotated upon the potter’s wheel – an accurate analogy of the earth’s rotation.[1]
But is this what the Joban text asserts? Has Comfort correctly understood what the ancient author is saying here?
LIGHT AND SHADOW
Let’s begin with a very simple observation about Job 38:12-14: there is no mention of a potter’s wheel. In his zeal for the Bible to be advanced scientific revelation, Comfort has added to the text an element not actually present. This is definitionally eisegesis and (as we have seen in previous posts) it is Comfort’s preferred method of interacting with biblical texts. He was tempted to do so here because the text refers to things like “morning,” “dawn,” and “clay.” Combining these words with the fact that day and night are the biproduct of the Earth’s rotation on its axis, the apologist finds a prooftext for biblical prescience. Unfortunately, this isn’t what is going on in this passage.
In v. 14, Yahweh tells Job, “It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment” (NRSV).[2] To what does the pronoun “it” refer? In context, the antecedent is “the earth” found in v. 13. We must keep in mind that when Comfort reads “the earth” he is thinking of the planet, but when the Joban author speaks of “the earth” (hāʾāreṣ) he is referring simply to “the land.” It is “the land,” then, that in v. 14 is “changed like clay under the seal.” Note that the author has said nothing about a potter’s wheel. Rather, he refers to “clay under the seal [ḥôtām].” The term ḥôtām refers to a means of authenticating documents that was common in ancient times. For example, in 1 Kings 21, when the Israelite monarch Ahab fails to acquire Naboth’s vineyard for himself and is left depressed, his wife Jezebel concocts a plot to get Naboth killed. She accomplishes this by way of letters that she writes in Ahab’s name and seals them with his ḥôtām (1 Kings 21:8). The impression left by the seal was sign that the letter had come from the king. While in the case of Ahab’s seal it is likely that a signet ring is in view, some seals could be quite ornate, particularly when found on cylinders.[3]
With this background in mind, what is Job 38:14 communicating? In his commentary on the book, David Clines writes,
Just as a seal stamps on a flat and featureless piece of clay a design in relief, so the light of the morning changes the featureless dark earth: what in the darkness had no shape becomes three-dimensional, contoured features appear, and the landscape takes on its varied colors.[4]
Far from describing a planet rotating on its axis, Job 38:14 refers to the way that sunlight, when it stretches across a darkened landscape, makes everything visible and tangible. And in context, it is light that illuminates the world, revealing the wicked so that they can be “shaken out like vermin.”[5]
CONCLUSION
Once again, we observe Comfort reading the biblical texts in an eisegetical manner, and once again we correct him by treating the text with respect. His failure to deal with the text as the text is symptomatic of his overall apologetic which is rooted in laziness, misunderstanding, and, at times, deceptiveness. As with so many would-be defenders of Christianity, Ray Comfort would do well to abandon the apologetic endeavor lest he continues to make the faith he so loves appear to be little more than a circus.
[1] Ray Comfort, Scientific Facts in the Bible: Amazing Truths Written Thousands of Years Before Man Discovered Them (Bellflower, CA: Living Waters Publications, 2016), 11-12.
[2] Unless otherwise noted, all citations of biblical texts are from the New Revised Standard Version.
[3] See the discussion of cylinder seals in Marian H. Feldman, “Mesopotamian Art,” in A Companion to the Ancient Near East, edited by Daniel Snell (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 287-289.
[4] David J. A. Clines, Job 38-42, Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 1105.
[5] Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job, The Old Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1985), 540.
Biblical Studies Carnival #187 (September 2021)
How is it October already? Don’t get me wrong – October contains what is probably my favorite holiday: Halloween. But it just seems like this year has flown by. Or, more accurately, that the years have flown by. My oldest is in eighth grade and my youngest just started kindergarten. And with the COVID pandemic, it feels like I worry for them more than I ever have. These gray hairs aren’t just for show!
This month I have the distinct honor of publishing the 187th iteration of the Biblical Studies Carnival. This is my third time hosting and I really enjoy doing it. You’ll notice a heavy emphasis on topics related to the New Testament. This is for two reasons. First, I tend to pay more attention to New Testament related topics as a force of habit. Second, it seemed like there was more put out in the month of September on the New Testament than on the Hebrew Bible, Apocryphal literature, and other non-NT related subjects. (Or maybe I’m just not looking hard enough. I am an amateur after all!)
In any event, I hope you enjoy my contribution this month.
Hebrew Bible/Hebrew Bible Background
- Who were the Hittites? Claude Mariottini addresses that question in a neat, succinct post.
- James McGrath reflects on David’s census recorded in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- On his YouTube channel, Michael (AKA @mirascriptura) has been doing short videos looking at texts using the technique of mirror reading. At the beginning of the month, he did a video on Psalm 84 and sees it as an attempt to rehabilitate Yahweh’s reputation in light of the fall of Jerusalem and its aftermath.
- Steven Weitzman discusses Deuteronomy and sensory perception (i.e., touch, taste, sight).
- Thanks to Joel Baden, I was made aware of an open access paper by Kevin Burrell entitled “Slavery, the Hebrew Bible, and the Development of Racial Theories in the Nineteenth Century” that appeared in the journal Religions.
- Bob MacDonald is getting ready to publish a new work on the Hebrew Bible entitled The SimHebrew Bible – The Hebrew Bible in Simulated Hebrew – with English Guide.
- Yom Kippur occurred in the middle of the month and Jim Davila linked to some posts he and others have written on the subject.
- Relatedly, Yitzhaq Feder compares and contrasts biblical and post-biblical confessions of sin and their relationship to confessions in ancient Near Eastern literature.
- There’s a new podcast you should subscribe to: The Two Testaments. Featuring Rony Kozman and Will Kyne, this new show seeks to talk about biblical texts by interviewing experts on those texts. The first season will look at the books of Job and Romans.
- Jonathan Ben-Dov goes over several verses in Deuteronomy and looks at how later authors appropriated them for their own theological aims regarding gods, angels, and demons.
- Do we find heaven or hell in the Hebrew Bible? Meghan Henning contends that all we actually find is She’ol. She also talks about 1 Enoch!
- Tom Bolin wrote a post on translating the book of Ecclesiastes for the website Sententiae Antiquae.
- Over at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Kaspars Ozoliņš discusses some of the problems with the translation notes in the English Standard Version. (Don’t shoot the messenger!)
- Twitter user @SumerianHittite linked to a free downloadable version of The Book of Hebrew Script: History, Palaeography, Script Styles, Calligraphy & Design by Ada Yardeni.
- Isabel Cranz talks about royal illnesses in both the Hebrew Bible and in the ancient Near East. Sickening!
- Need a list of all the women prophets in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament? Have no fear! Marg Mowczko has you covered!
Apocrypha/Dead Sea Scrolls
- Over at The Bible and Beyond podcast, Brandon Hawk discusses apocryphal texts and why they are worthy of reading.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls…of New Jersey? Brent Nongbri writes about DSS manuscripts that made their way to the United States and were housed for a while in a Syrian Orthodox Church in New Jersey of all places.
New Testament and Early Christian Literature
- Over at the Biblical Studies Blog, Rob Bradshaw has provided a link to A.H. McNeile’s 1928 commentary on the Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew. It’s free! (Who doesn’t love free stuff?)
- Marg Mowczko offers some insight into Paul’s comments on hair and hair covering in 1 Corinthians 11. In her words, it’s about neither theology nor biology.
- Michael Kok continues his look at Papias with a post from the beginning of September covering the date of Papias’s Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord.
- Some people look at Paul’s “conversion” (yeah, yeah – I know) and find good reason to believe in Jesus’s resurrection. Others like Matthew Hartke look at it and find good reason to doubt. An interesting video!
- Katapetesma looks at John 1 and the Logos in a post from the beginning of the month. He thinks the text should be looked at teleologically rather than ontologically.
- Over at PhD Students to Follow you’ll find an interview of Dr. Nathanael Vette. Vette is the author of the forthcoming Writing with Scripture: Scripturalized Narrative in the Gospel of Mark, a book that I hope is cheap enough that even I can afford it!
- Our beloved Phil Long reviews Herman Bateman’s and Steven Smith’s preaching commentary on the book of Hebrews. And they think Barnabas wrote Hebrews!
- Over at Ancient Jew Review, Robin Faith Walsh, the author of The Origin of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge, 2020), talks with Cavan Concannon about her work.
- Is the Gospel of Thomas a Gnostic text? Mark Edward explains why he thinks that it isn’t.
- In a recent episode of Religion for Breakfast, Andrew Mark Henry talks about the Synoptic Problem. And, as it turns out, Ian Mills helped with the episode!
- Grace Emmett recently surveyed 28 women on why they weren’t working in Pauline studies. The results are disconcerting but not unexpected. Male scholars have a lot of work to do.
- Ian Mills talks with Derek Lambert about the reasons scholars believe Mark’s Gospel came beforethe rest of the canonical Gospels.
- Heather Anne Thiessen briefly discusses one of my favorite stories from the Gospel of Mark – the healing of Bartimaeus and its placement in the Gospel.
- If you’re interested in the book of Revelation, Bart Ehrman recently gave a lecture on the book that covers a wide range of topics including the book’s reception among particular dispensationalists.
- Speaking of the book of Revelation (shameless plug time), I recently interviewed fellow amateur Mark Edward on my new show Amateur Hour about the mysterious book. Check it out!
- Spencer McDaniel talked about how we know the Gospels were originally anonymous.
- Over at Koine Greek, Mike Aubrey goes over the difficulties in using certain Greek dictionaries and lexicons for post-classical Greek (e.g., Koine) using σύμπλοκή (“intertwining”?) as a test case.
- Isaac Soon draws upon the recent work of C. Rebecca Rine to talk about canon lists.
- An online symposium was held to discuss Matthew Thiessen’s 2020 book Jesus and the Forces of Death. So far, Hannah Harrington and Darrell Bock have offered responses to the book in the symposium with Holger Zellentin’s and Malka Simkovich’s own coming in October.
- Ronald Charles reviews Emma Wasserman’s Apocalypse as Holy War. He has but a few quibbles.
Misc.
- Spencer McDaniel wrote a post for his website Tales of Times Forgotten on whether the Bible uses pronouns. This may sound like a ridiculous thing to write about but he’s responding to conversative Lavern Spicer who claimed that “There are no pronouns in the Bible” in a months old tweet.
- Have you heard of the God Bless the USA Bible? Well, if you haven’t you should know that there’s a lot of controversy surrounding it and its implications regarding Christian nationalism in the U.S. Over at Slate, Molly Olmstead has an interesting piece discussing it.
- Bart Ehrman talks about what it was like working as a secretary for the NRSV at the invitation of Bruce Metzger.
- Brent Nongbri and Liv Ingenborg Lied recently signed on with Yale University Press to cowrite a book on textual criticism entitled Working with Manuscripts: A Guide. I’m eager to see this one come to print!
- Drawing on the work of sociologist Samuel Perry, Rob Stegmann talks about how translations of the Bible can be powerful weapons in culture wars. In particular, he considers the English Standard Version.
- Amy-Jill Levine was recently named the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford Seminary. Hurray!
Well, that’s it for this month! If you’re interested in hosting the carnival on your blog, contact Phil Long either on Twitter (@Plong42) or by email (plong42@gmail.com). It’s a great way to showcase your website and it exposes you to the work of others across the blogosphere and more. Dr. Long is looking for people to host in 2022. So, reach out to him and sign up!
In the meantime, here’s who is hosting the carnival in the next few months:
188 October 2021 (Due November 1) – Jim West, Zwingli Redivivus @drjewest
189 November 2021 (Due December 1) – Bob MacDonald at Dust @drmacdonald
190 December 2021 (Due January 1) – Phillip Long, Reading Acts @plong42
Bible Study for Amateurs #3 – Which Bible?
People tend to speak of the Bible. But is there only one?
Bible Study for Amateurs #2 – The Greatest Story Never Told
Is the Bible more of a book or a library?
