When I say 'skeptic' what exactly do I mean? Well, I'm speaking of unbelieving agnostic/atheist skeptics, not of skeptical believers (as opposed to blind faith filled believers) who critically examine the things presented to them. I find skeptics in general (and Oneness Pentcostals in particular) to be the most irrational people that I deal with in any given situation and that's only because of their denial of God. And please let us not be fooled by the old canard that they aren't denying God, they merely don't believe a god exists. Unbelief is active denial no matter how you slice it.
But these chat room skeptics are a breed all their own... The more I interact with them the more I am convinced that they haven't the slightest clue about what they are talking about. They demonstrate night after night that they aren't equipped to actually critique the Bible with any meaningful arguments. All I get is the same ol' same ol' 'the Bible is full of contradictions' bit and then the same lame duck alleged contradictions that have been dealt with by every internet apologist with a website are cut and pasted into the room as if I'm supposed to leave with a new found faith in nothing. Clearly you can see my disappointment.
So I wanted to take this post not to recount any specific encounters (although I just had one about similar stories dealing with Abram & Isaac in Gen. 12; 20 [Abram] and Gen. 26 [Isaac] in which this guy asserted that Isaac's story was just retelling the events of Abram's experience due to some oral tradition), but rather to list off a few reasons why these skeptics haven't engaged in the necessary study to even begin having a problem with Scripture.
- They don't read the source languages (i.e. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek)
- They are not familar with relevant text-critical issues that have direct bearing on certain texts
- They are not familiar with Ancient Near Eastern culture and customs (e.g. practices, literature, mindset, etc...)
- They fail to examine alleged problem passages in their immediate and then overall contexts
- They are inconsistent in their hermeneutics
- They come to the text with anti-supernatural presuppositions which already discount any possibility in believing narrative that recount miracles
- The bring their emotions to the text and fault it simply because they don't like it
There's many more things that I could mention here but I feel that this list is fairly representative of the arguments I encounter (these could also be applied to Jewish anti-missionaries arguing against the New Testament). So when you hear arguments based on a faulty translation in the KJV or arguments based on modern Western ideas and ideals not agreeing with the text of scripture, or even arguments based on the impossibility of miracles, then perhaps you'll be as disappointed with chat room skeptics as I am.
Oh, and if I hear one more skeptic say that 'most scholars' or 'virtually all scholars' say this or believe that then I'm going to vomit! When asked for names I NEVER get any let alone a list big enough to represent the breadth of Biblical scholarship! And for all you Jesus Seminar lovers out there... you're in the minority--the rest of the world laughs at them and what they call scholarship! This favorite group of chatroom skeptics represents less than 2% of the Society of Biblical Literature to which they all belong... representative? Hardly!
B"H
