Re: How Likely Is It? (2)
Ian Dorion (dorioni@intellinet.com)
Sat, 03 May 1997 17:57:17 -0600
Farrell Till wrote:
>
> TILL
> When Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites from Egyptian bondage,
> the Hebrew god Yahweh performed wonders unlike anything the world had ever
> seen. Ten plagues were rained down on Egypt with the implication--and
> sometimes even direct statement--that the Israelites were spared the horrors
> of the plagues. When hordes of flies swarmed over Egypt, the land of
> Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, was "set apart" so that "no swarms of
> flies [would] be there" (Ex. 8:22). Likewise, when the plague of murrain
> decimated the flocks of Egypt, the livestock of the Israelites was spared
> (9:6). When the hail came, which was more grievous than any hail that had
> ever struck Egypt (9:24), none fell on the Israelites in the land of Goshen
> (v:26). When darkness fell over the land, the Israelites "had light in
> their dwellings" (10:23), and when the firstborn of Egypt were struck dead,
> the firstborn of the Israelites were saved through the Passover ceremony.
>
> To say the least, those Israelites witnessed some amazing miracles while
> Moses and Aaron worked to gain their release from bondage, but the wonders
> didn't cease when Pharaoh finally relented and gave permission for the
> people to leave Egypt. They saw Yahweh going before them in "a pillar of
> cloud" by day and in "a pillar of fire" by night (13:21). And these were
> not just occasional appearances that Yahweh made to the people, because "the
> pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night departed not from
> before the people" as they marched out of Egypt (v:21).
>
> One would certainly think that the Israelites, having personally seen
> all of these wonders, would have been supremely confident that the power of
> Yahweh was on their side and would deliver them from all harm on their
> journey to the promised land, but such was not the case. They were no
> sooner under way when their faith began to waver. After letting the
> Israelites go, Pharaoh experienced a change of heart and gathered an army to
> go after them. As the Egyptian army drew near, the people cried out in
> protest to Moses:
>
> "Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die
> in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of
> Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, `Let us
> alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better
> for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness"
> (14:11-12).
>
> If there is such a thing as ingratitude, these bellyaching Israelites had to
> be the all-time champions of it. Their God had performed unprecedented
> wonders to obtain their release from slavery and was journeying with them in
> the pillars of cloud and smoke, but then at the first sign of
> trouble--without even giving Yahweh a chance to do his stuff--they raised
> their voices in rebellion.
>
> This reaction of the Israelites, after all the signs and wonders they
> had personally seen, makes the exodus story impossible to believe. If they
> had actually seen the plagues and been miraculously spared their horrifying
> effects, and if on their journey to the Red Sea they had actually seen their
> almighty god traveling with them in pillars of cloud and fire, a more
> probable response to their seeing the Egyptian army overtaking them would
> have been incredulous amusement. "Well, just look at those stupid
> Egyptians," would have been a more likely reaction. "When are they ever
> going to learn!"
>
> A critical reader, rather than swallowing stories like these just
> because they happen to be in the Bible, will apply the same critical methods
> of interpretation to them that he would use in analyzing any other book.
> Carl Lofmark expressed the common-sense, critical method to biblical
> interpretation like this:
>
> "When you lack evidence, the only way to decide whether or not to
> believe something is to ask: Is it likely? If you tell me a bird flew
> past my window, I will probably believe you, even though I did not see
> it myself and I have no evidence. That is because such a thing is
> likely. I have seen it happen before. It is more likely that a bird flew
> past my window, than that you are deceiving me. But if you tell me a pig
> flew past my window, I will not believe you, because my past experience
> tells me that such things do not happen, and so I presume that what you
> reported is false. Thus, where there is no evidence we have to rely on our
> own past experience of the sort of things that really happen (*What Is the
> Bible?* pp. 41-42).
>
> Lofmark applied this principle to several biblical stories-- Noah's flood,
> the virgin birth, the resurrection, the ascension, etc.--to demonstrate that
> much of what is written in the Bible cannot pass the test of likeliness. In
> the absence of corroborating evidence, he concluded, the rational reader
> will view such stories to be only myths and legends in the same way that
> similar stories in the literature of other nations of that era must be
> regarded as myths and legends.
>
> If we apply this principle of likeliness to the events summarized above
> from the exodus story, we have to conclude that they aren't very believable.
> These Israelites had seen Yahweh perform many wonders just days before and
> (according to the story) they knew that this almighty deity was
> journeying with them out of Egypt, so how likely is it that, under these
> circumstances, they would have so soon forgotten all of those signs and
> wonders and been reduced to the shivering cowards who cried out in fear and
> anguish upon seeing the Egyptian army coming in pursuit? It just doesn't
> make sense to believe that they would have so reacted with tangible evidence
> of Yahweh's presence fresh in their memories and even right before their
> eyes in the cloud pillar overhead.
>
> Even if we could somehow convince ourselves that the conduct of the
> Israelites at this point in the exodus was believable, as we continued to
> read, we would immediately encounter a long string of even more unbelievable
> events. As the Egyptian army approached, Moses stretched out his hand, and
> the waters of the Red Sea parted to allow the Israelites to cross on dry
> land. The water formed walls on both sides as the people marched across
> (14:21-22), and when their pursuers followed them into the midst of the sea,
> Yahweh "looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of
> fire and cloud" and caused the wheels of their chariots to fall off (vs:24-
> 25). Moses stretched out his hand again, and the walls of water came back
> together and engulfed the Egyptians. "Not so much as one of them remained"
> (vs:27-28).
>
> Surely, in the entire history of mankind, no one had ever witnessed a
> miracle as amazing as the one that those Israelites witnessed on that day.
> One would think that after seeing the power of Yahweh wielded so decisively
> on their behalf, the people would have been loyal to him till death, but, if
> we are to believe the Bible, it didn't happen that way. The last ripples in
> the sea had hardly settled when the people began to bellyache again, but I
> will save the other incidents of complaint and rebellion for later. For
> now, let's just compare the conduct of the Israelites to modern-day
> born-again Christians. These Christians will wave aside all arguments
> against the Bible with purely subjective arguments about what they "know in
> their
> hearts" and the "personal relationships" that they have with God or Jesus.
> Not a one of them has ever seen anything nearly as amazing as what the
> Israelites saw on the day that Yahweh parted the Red Sea for them and
> destroyed the Egyptian army, yet born-again Christians cannot be shaken from
> their unyielding faith in what their purely subjective experiences tell
> them, whereas the Israelites almost daily witnessed remarkable miracles that
> Yahweh performed on their behalf and yet they slipped back into complaints
> and rebellions hardly before the dust of the last miracle had time to
> settle. How likely is it? Maybe Dave would like to respond to my "biased
> conjecture."
>
> (Adapted from "How Likely Is it?" (*The Skeptical Review,* Autumn 1993, pp.
> 10-11)
>
> Farrell Till
> Skepticism, Inc.
> jftill@midwest.net
(Ian 5/3) Well, David, It looks to me like you're making up for all the
lack of faith the 3 millionn Israili's had. And all the stupidity as
well. Why don't you read IzzAtheist's post on fallacy and then come back
and argue.
Where have all the Christians gone?