ROUND TWO!

A Rebuttal Against Darrell Conder's Reply Defending Mystery Babylon

corrected first edition

by Eric V. Snow

PERSONAL BACKGROUND, SOURCE ISSUES, AND THE LIMITATIONS OF BGJ EXAMINED

Introduction and Explanation of the Controversy............................ 4

Some Personal Background................................................... 4

My Dependence on Non-WCG Scholarship Nothing New........................... 5

Were Typical WCG Laymembers Familiar with Traditional Christian

Apologetics?............................................................ 6

The Need for Bluntness to Avoid Deception about Mystery

Babylon's Contents...................................................... 7

The Need for Truth in Advertising.......................................... 9

Unbelief as the Logical Outcome of Conder's Mode of Argumentation.......... 9

How Citing a Scholar Who Would Oppose Your Overall Viewpoint

is Powerful............................................................ 10

Fox's Statement Against Seeing Parallels Between Paganism

and Christianity....................................................... 11

Conder's Mistake in Adopting Higher Critic Methodology, Not Just

Their "Facts".......................................................... 13

A Sample of How Conder's Reasoning Could Be Deployed Against the

Old Testament.......................................................... 14

Are the Higher Critics Unbiased?.......................................... 16

Since Both Sides Are Biased, Charges about this Prove Little.............. 17

Why My Academic Experience Makes Me Suspicious of Mystery

Babylon's Sources...................................................... 18

The Need to Know the Scholarly Climate of Opinion on Secondary Works: The

Historiography of American Slavery as an Example.......................... 18

Why Mystery Babylon Doesn't Represent True Scholarship.................... 19

The Scholarly Climate of Opinion on the Christian/Pagan Tie Revisited..... 20

Why ICF Leans on McDowell and Nash So Much................................ 22

How Being Too Open-Minded Can Cause Your Brains to Fall Out............... 23

How Both Sides' Sources Are Arguably Biased............................... 24

Conder's Passing Over Many of ICF's Arguments Imply Their Correctness..... 24

Most of the Messianic Text Rebuttals Made by ICF Against MB

Overlooked in BGJ...................................................... 25

Other Points Conder Overlooks When Criticizing ICF........................ 25

Mistakenly Understanding a Challenge, Conder Fails to Provide

Source Citations....................................................... 26

Conder Mistakenly Claims Three Footnote Problems Exist in ICF............. 27

Why Is Christianity a Fraud? Cites Herbert W. Armstrong................... 28

Why the True Religion Would Satisfy Emotions as Well as Reason............ 29

MIRACLES--HOW DO WE KNOW THEY HAPPENED?

Conder's Arguments Against Miracles Are Like the Philosopher

David Hume's........................................................... 30

Some Basic Arguments Against Hume's Critique Against Belief in Miracles... 31

Just How Do We "Prove" a Miracle Occurred?................................ 33

Evidence from Hostile Sources That Jesus Could Do Miracles................ 34

Testing Miracle Claims by Their Intrinsic Plausibility or Absurdity....... 36

Why Pagan Myths Are Intrinsically Unreliable Accounts of Miracles......... 38

Why Should This Eyewitness Evidence Be Believed?.......................... 40

Further Internal Evidence for Believing in the New Testament.............. 41

Why the Ebionites' Denial of the Virgin Birth Proves Nothing.............. 41

Many Higher Critics "Edit" the NT Instead of Throwing It Out Entirely:

Why Refuting Naturalistic Explanations of the Resurrection Isn't

Truly Circular......................................................... 42

The Higher Critics Did Devise Naturalistic Explanations for

the Resurrection....................................................... 43

Why Claiming the Gospels Are Legends Doesn't Dispose of

the Resurrection....................................................... 44

FURTHER EVIDENCE FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT'S RELIABILITY

How the Book of Acts Implies the New Testament Was Written

Before C. 63 A.D....................................................... 45

The New Testament Wasn't Subject to a Long Period of Oral Tradition....... 46

Why Oral Transmission Was More Reliable in the Past Than It Is Today...... 47

Internal Evidence That Oral/Written Transmission Accurately Preserved

Jesus' Words........................................................... 49

Miscellaneous Attacks on the Resurrection Reports Rebutted................ 49

Why Public Debates with Heretics Before a Local Church Is a Bad Idea...... 50

Was Eusebius a Reliable Historian?........................................ 51

The Fundamental Discontinuity in Sunday-Keeping Christianity

Started 313 A.D........................................................ 45

Good Evidence for the Apostles Being Given the Option to Avoid Dying

for a Lie.............................................................. 54

Why the Counter-Example of the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith

Proves Nothing......................................................... 55

Animal Sacrifices Revisited............................................... 56

Why Will There Be Animal Sacrifices in the Millennium?:

A Tentative Solution................................................... 57

Do Any First-Century Fragments of the New Testament Exist? Oops!......... 58

Significant Portions of the NT Are in Manuscripts Older than

C. 325-350 A.D......................................................... 59

How Skepticism about Primary Sources Can Destroy One's Own Arguments...... 61

Two Reasons for the Sunday-Keeping Church's Early Leaders'

Basic Reliability...................................................... 62

Could Average People in First-Century Judea Speak Greek?.................. 63

Why Would the Aramaic- or Hebrew-Speaking Disciples Quote from a Greek

OT Translation?........................................................ 64

Did Jesus Permanently Prohibit Evangelizing the Gentiles?................. 65

Did the Same Man Write the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of

the Apostles?.......................................................... 65

How the Semitic Constructions of the Gospels' Greek Indicate No Later

"Church Father" Wrote Them............................................. 66

Further External Evidence for Luke's Reliability.......................... 67

"Higher" and "Lower" Textual Criticism Differentiated..................... 69

The Bibliographical Test for a Document's Reliability Defended............ 70

The Variations in the New Testament's Text Revisited...................... 72

The Sunday-Keeping Church Was the Main Agent God Used to Ascertain

the Canon.............................................................. 74

The Genealogies of Christ Revisited....................................... 75

Was First-Century Samaritan Religion Largely Pagan?....................... 77

HISTORICAL METHOLODGICAL ISSUES AS RELATED TO EXAMINING THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

Conder Confuses Citing the Primary Sources with Using the

Original Manuscripts................................................... 78

Primary and Secondary Sources Distinguished............................... 78

Why Printed Primary Sources Are Sometimes All That Historians Need........ 79

The Need to Check Out Primary Sources in Historiographical Debates........ 79

The Argument from Burned Books Is an Argument from Silence................ 81

Medieval Catholicism's Burning of Books Compared to Josiah's

Image-Smashing......................................................... 81

The Date(s) of Composition Aren't the Dates for Surviving

Ancient Manuscripts.................................................... 82

WERE THE PAGAN MYSTERY RELIGIONS LIKE CHRISTIANITY?

Was Mithraism a Major Force in First-Century Rome?........................ 84

Evidence for Mithraism's Origination from Asia Minor, Not Persia

or India............................................................... 85

Mithraism Didn't Have a Strong Presence in Rome in the First Century...... 86

Some Specific Ways Mithraism Differs from Christianity.................... 87

Mere Preexistence Doesn't Prove Dependence................................ 89

The Need to Look at the Specific Meanings of Communion and Baptism........ 90

How Some Borrowing by Pagan Religions from Christianity Could

Have Happened.......................................................... 92

A Curious Custom of the Roman Army Misinterpreted......................... 93

How Could Latin American Indian Beliefs Be Like Christianity's?........... 94

Are Some Accounts of Various Pagan Gods Similar to the NT on

Jesus' Life?........................................................... 95

Did the Word "Cannibal" Originate in Phoenician or in Caribbean Indian?... 96

The Early Pagan References to Jesus Briefly Resurveyed.................... 97

ISSUES RELATED TO THE MESSIANIC TEXTS REEXAMINED AND CONCLUSION

Does the Old Testament Doctrine about God Contradict the

the New Testament's?................................................... 99

The Duality Principle of Interpreting Scripture Defended................. 100

What Was the Original Reading in Psalms 22:16?........................... 101

Was the Septuagint Reliably Translated and Transmitted for the Psalms?... 102

Why Others Should Avoid Reading Mystery Babylon.......................... 103

Conclusion: How Interpreting the Facts Is More Important Than the Facts

Themselves in This Debate............................................. 105

ABSTRACT

This essay replies against Darrell Conder's "By-gosh Josh: An Answer to Eric V. Snow." It defends the New Testament as historically reliable, and Christianity as not depending on pagan religion for its doctrinal content.

INTRODUCTION AND EXPLANATION OF THE CONTROVERSY

As expected, Darrell Conder has written a reply to my rebuttal of his book, Mystery Babylon and the Lost Ten Tribes in the End Time. Entitled "By-gosh Josh: An Answer to Eric V. Snow," (BGJ) it replies to my essay, "Is Christianity a Fraud? A Preliminary Assessment of the Conder Thesis" (ICF).[1] To help those unfamiliar with this controversy, Darrell Conder's book Mystery Babylon (MB) attacks Christianity through three basic arguments: (1) the New Testament is said to be historically unreliable, (2) the teachings of the pagan mystery religions of the Roman empire determined the doctrines of first-century church, and (3) the New Testament cites out of context and mistakenly the messianic texts of the Old Testament as referring to Jesus Christ in advance. Being not an atheist, agnostic, or deist, Conder defends the Old Testament as inspired by God, so he advocates conversion to some type of Judaism, "the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." The purpose of my rebuttal, "Is Christianity a Fraud?," was to use the standard arguments of modern Christian apologetics to refute Conder's contentions. Below, Conder's "By-gosh Josh," which largely restates his arguments in Mystery Babylon, is weighed and found wanting once again.

Conder mistakenly believes my rebuttal is a "paper attacking the Holy Scriptures of Israel" (p. 1). But since I'm a hard-shell fundamentalist who denies evolution, I count myself as a staunch defender of the Old Testament (the OT, or, as the Jews call it, Tanakh). The draft booklet I recently completed for a possible local evangelism campaign by my congregation (which is the Lansing, Michigan (UCG-AIA) church, not Ann Arbor) has about 18 pages of material defending the Old Testament as inspired by God using fulfilled prophecy and archeological data.[2]

SOME PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Since Conder's reply raises the issue of my intellectual and religious background (BGJ, pp. 5, 6), I really need to tell the reader something of my religious background, since mine differs sharply from his. Since I was raised as an evolutionist by parents who attended the Unitarian-Universalist Church (even that lasted only for about two years with any consistency), I certainly wasn't brought up as any kind of steadfast believer in the Bible. I distinctly remember being taught evolution in Sunday school. Once my father (now deceased) told me as a child that my maternal grandmother was wrong to believe we hadn't evolved from monkeys while pointing at pictures on one page of some book as it dealt with the subject. As a result, soon after I first started reading the writings of Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA), the long-time human leader of the Worldwide Church of God, as a teenager in 1982, I remember mentally ridiculing him. He said something about mankind having been on the earth for only 6000 years in an editorial (personal) in the Plain Truth magazine. "Yeah, sure, Mr. Armstrong." But some months later I encountered Dr. Henry Morris' The Incredible Birth of Planet Earth, which outlined the arguments for creationism in a brief, easy-to-read format. Although I had read other things some on the subject in earlier months, this book directly led me to give up evolution as false. Later on, while working in Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1985, I got for free from a traditional Christian Josh McDowell's book, More Than a Carpenter. This book fired my imagination, for before I had just taken the resurrection on faith, although I had felt the existence of God could be proven. Later, through a book offered by the Conservative Book Club that summarized his thinking, I first encountered C.S. Lewis (besides as the author of the Narnia Chronicles that a childhood friend had). Although Lewis converted from atheism, he never believed the Bible was completely infallible. Through such books as Miracles, The Screwtape Letters, and The Problem of Pain, he defended traditional Christianity by philosophical arguments. He wasn't a "fundamentalist minister," (BGJ, p. 17), but the one-time professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge University. With this kind of background, I had an open mind when I formally accepted Christianity, knowing full well some of the arguments used against it by the time I was baptized in 1987. Claiming I approached "New Testament study not from a desire to know the truth one way or the other, but to be reassured that his faith is valid" (BGJ, p. 6) ignores how I wasn't really raised as a Christian of any kind.

MY DEPENDENCE ON NON-WCG SCHOLARSHIP NOTHING NEW

So now--why does my personal story matter in this context? Because I was introduced to modern Christian apologetics through sources outside the Worldwide Church of God, it left a permanent mark on me. I admired, and still admire, men such as Dr. Henry Morris, Duane Gish, C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Francis Schaeffer, Don Stewart, F.F. Bruce, and R.C. Sproul who defend the Bible and Christianity. Despite they have teachings I disagree with, such as on the Trinity and the immortality of the soul, I could see beyond that. This reality, combined with the practical experience of having attended the Seventh-day Adventist church for nine months before attending the WCG, always permanently restrained how harsh I was on traditional Christians when I believed the Worldwide Church of God was the one true church. With one eye on the disasters predicted in The United States and Britain in Prophecy if we didn't repent, I said more than once over the years that if everyone in America was either a [non-hypocritical] Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) or a Jehovah's Witness (JW), most of our problems would be solved. I know full well my intellectual foundation in refuting atheism and agnosticism largely lays outside the writings of Herbert W. Armstrong. HWA's writings led me to embrace Christianity for the first time seriously, and to most of the specific doctrines and interpretations of the Bible I still hold. However, for dealing with the intellectual basis of the (largely) deistic background I was raised in, the answers largely came from elsewhere. (My father's father had been a dogmatic atheist who, on his deathbed, proclaimed there was no God. A few weeks earlier as death approached, told my father and one of his nieces, while they discussed how they discovered there was no Santa Claus as children, noted Jesus Christ was in the same category). I've had plenty of experience in dealing with those on the other side of the fence. I've been an undergrad student in philosophy, and a grad student in history at a secular, state-run university with its share of "political correctness" (Michigan State). I also became fascinated by the novels of Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead), a renowned atheist and critic of Christian ethics, around the same time I first read HWA's writings. As a result, I greatly appreciate what those defending traditional Christianity have done and did. I had read many books on Christian apologetics and creationism long before I ever heard of Darrell Conder's Mystery Babylon and the Ten Lost Tribes in the End Times. It's for this reason I don't see the Conder thesis as anything terribly "new" or as "never-before presented material," but as a retread of standard arguments by unbelievers against the NT.

WERE TYPICAL WCG LAYMEMBERS FAMILIAR WITH TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS?

Conder says he didn't spend much time citing the works of traditional Christian apologists in MB because "I grew up in a church [the WCG] where the kind of fundamentalist scholarship you are referring to Eric, was crammed down my throat" (BGJ, p. 34). As explained above, my personal experience was directly the opposite, since basically irreligious parents raised me. The "church" they attended was really a social club. Conder's statement raises another issue, worth some consideration: How often were traditional Christian apologetics used in the WCG, especially before c. 1990? Although Ambassador College did this some--I know that it used Henry Morris and John C. Whitcomb's seminal scientific creationist work, The Genesis Flood--in my experience much less was done among the laity in local congregations. Now HWA was like Catholicism's "Angelic Doctor" St. Thomas Aquinas in believing God's existence could be proven. He insisted that the Bible could be proven to be the word of God.[3] Nevertheless, I encountered three men, all raised in the church who attended the same secular university I did, who all held to some kind of fideism (meaning, believing God's existence couldn't be proven by human reason, but it should be believed in by faith alone). One, having been raised in the WCG, despite majoring in zoology as a doctoral student at a secular university, apparently never had read a scientific creationist book! Another, who later attended Ambassador College, had openly started to become a bit skeptical of the Bible, focusing on the Old Testament especially. After gaining permission from a local minister, I gave him books by Paul Little, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Josh McDowell to try to staunch his creeping unbelief. This program today appears to have been largely successful, even if he has since accepted the WCG's doctrine changes on the OT Law. This experience shows that knowledge of standard Christian apologetics shouldn't be assumed, whether in the old WCG or in the various COGs today. In order to help those who may think Conder's viewpoint was some dramatic new revelation, I cited in reply McDowell and company extensively to show that most of the questions Conder raised were nothing new. Standard answers for them exist. Conder's personal experience appears to be atypical. Apparently, the average laymember of the old WCG or the various COGs today don't have much familiarity with what others outside have written defending belief in the Bible. Perhaps ironically, in this regard, my experience was similarly atypical. After all, didn't we reason that we were the one true church, and thought little of religious value was written outside our fellowship (excluding perhaps childrearing/marriage/psychological advice)? It's because (in part) the WCG neglected traditional Christian apologetics for years under the Tkach administration and even earlier that Conder's arguments seem persuasive to so many. The WCG's drift towards fideism, a less literal interpretation of Genesis, and more liberal views on evolution under the Tkach administration hardly strengthened the present-time laymembers of the various COGs' resistance against Conder's arguments.

THE NEED FOR BLUNTNESS TO AVOID DECEPTION ABOUT MYSTERY BABYLON'S CONTENTS

Consider the following book description. If you only knew this statement about its contents, what subjects would you think it covered?

When the Northern Kingdom of Israel was carried away into Assyrian captivity more than 2,500 years ago, it was because they had turned from their Creator to worship the detestable deity known as Baal, the supreme god of the Babylonian Trinity. Even while in Assyria, and knowing that their captivity was punishment for their apostasy, Israel still continued on their detestable course. Eventually Assyria fell and the Ten Tribes disappeared into what is now the South of Russia, and have since become known as the "Lost" Ten Tribes of Israel. Although these chosen people of Elohim may be lost to the world, they are not lost to their Creator--He is anything but finished with the Children of Israel! The Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had promised that in the end-time the Ten Tribes of Israel will be the most powerful nations the world has ever seen. Yet, even in the midst of their tremendous blessings, the scourge of their forefathers will be the fate of the Ten Tribes. The Elohim of ancient Israel has foretold through His prophets that the end time-time Israelites will be enmeshed in the worship of Baal. One of the major proofs of Israel's end-time identity would be this national baalistic religion. In [book and author omitted] presented tremendous documentation to lay the groundwork for his research on the identity of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel. His second book continues with one of the most important proofs of Israel's identity--their end-time religion! For those who have read [omitted], there is no need to convince you that it was a book with many surprising details that have long lay hidden in history. You can expect the same type of material in [omitted]. The author writes: "I know that there are a number of excellent books out there on the identity of the Ten Tribes, so I didn't want my research to be just a repeat of the material already available. What I've spent the past several years doing was looking for the never-before considered aspects of this most important subject, and it has paid off in never-before presented material on the lost Ten Tribes." [Omitted] has achieved his goal. What you are going to read in [omitted] latest book, without any doubt, will cause you to look at the end-time House of Israel with renewed interest, and leave you with the profound knowledge that Israel's Creator is going to do what He has promised! Proof number two, which is really what this volume is all about, will pick up where [omitted] left off. If you read only one book this year, this should be it! Paperback, 8 1/2 x 11, 159 pages. Item #401 Price: $19.95[4]

After reading this description of Mystery Babylon and the Lost Ten Tribes in the End Time, the typical reader would assume it describes some book on the history of the Ten Lost Tribes and their religious beliefs, past and present. He or she would never think this book is, in reality, a full-throttled assault on the New Testament and belief in Jesus as humanity's Savior. Nowhere does it state the author's three main contentions about first-century Christianity being a pagan mystery religion, the New Testament's misapplying the Old Testament's messianic texts to Jesus, or the New Testament being unhistorical and plagued with contradictions. This "description" of Mystery Babylon and the Ten Lost Tribes in the End Time can only be deemed deceptive. Evidently, the real contents are concealed, because if they were unveiled to the unwary Christian reader of Commonwealth Publishing's catalog, they most likely then wouldn't order the book. Even the title itself is rather misleading: Something like First-Century Christianity Proven to Be a Pagan Mystery Religion would label its subject matter much more accurately.

Conder's general letter appealing for funds and subscriptions to support Yair Davidy's Tribesman magazine is similarly covert. After mentioning on page 2 that his second book (MB) was going into production, he states: "I will tell you in advance that the book will stir up some controversy, because it will be anything but the usual lost Ten Tribe material!" Later on page 3, concealing his true views from the reader, he writes in an even-handed manner: "It is interesting that the orthodox Jews strongly believe in a literal fulfillment of these prophecies and therefore [in] the reunification of the Twelve Tribes. . . . The Churches of God believe that this will come at the second coming of Jesus. Whether a first or second coming, one way that event is going to take place is by the preaching of the identity message to the nations of Israel--all Twelve Tribes! Whether Jew or Christian, the understanding of just who we are as a people is of paramount importance." No clear rejection of Christianity is present here. True, he could deny this was deceptive, since, after all, he wrote this at the bottom of page 1: "Also thanks to Mr. Armstrong, I understood completely that the end-time descendants of Israel would be caught up in the religion of Baal--that they would be worshipping a false god in a counterfeit religion called Christianity."[5] But he surely knows that the typical "Armstrongite" reader would take this sentence in its context (in light of its first half) as a reference to traditional Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, not the primitive, first-century church.

THE NEED FOR TRUTH IN ADVERTIZING

In light of these stealth tactics, the shock approach was a requirement in reply. Hence, hunting for startling quotes that would illustrate Mystery Babylon's contents was completely intentional, complete with the original italicizing and all-capitals to help ensure readers would know this was serious. None of these quotes are "out of context"--if they misconstrue the teachings of Mystery Babylon, they will happily be withdrawn, upon proof. My choice of a title, Is Christianity a Fraud?, was for the same reason. But there's another reason for taking a shock approach. We in the Church of God have spent months, even years by now, debating minutiae, such as church government, the finer points of administration, Sacred Names, the Jewish Calendar, new moons, the date for Passover and Pentecost, etc. Administering the shock treatment helped make it crystal clear that Conder's teachings weren't over some additional minor quibble, but struck at the core of Christianity. If Christianity is true, but a true Christian abandons it to follow Conder's teachings, this action will cost him his salvation, unlike (say) mistakenly observing Passover on the wrong day. The WCG's apostasy in the 1989-97 period in repudiating Mr. Armstrong's teachings that differed from evangelical Protestantism's is as nothing compared to Conder's "doctrine changes" in throwing out the New Testament as a unhistorical, heathen-influenced, contradictory set of myths.

UNBELIEF AS THE LOGICAL OUTCOME OF CONDER'S MODE OF ARGUMENTATION

Saying that I believe somehow that "Judaism, agnosticism, atheism, and liberalism [are] one and the same" (BGJ, p. 1) sets up and knocks down a straw man. Who could be that ignorant? As I said the first time (ICF, p. 4), Conder's originality chiefly consists of turning higher critic arguments by agnostics, atheists, and religious liberals against the New Testament only, while holding onto the Old Testament as the sole word of God. In this regard, however, a Jew arguing against belief in the New Testament often sounds like an atheist or agnostic, since, due to disbelieving in it equally, they use similar arguments against faith in it. Another straw man argument is to imply I believe that various Christian reference books were originally intended to be in the "service of Judaism," insinuating somehow that would mean I believe in some absurd New World Order conspiracy theory that links the Jews and the Vatican together (see BGJ, p. 14). Obviously, these works weren't written to uphold the doctrines of Judaism, but what Conder does is select various higher critic arguments from them that attack the NT and the traditional Christian interpretation of the OT, while (usually) ignoring their arguments against the OT. But by attacking the Old Testament as well, the atheist or agnostic merely is merely being more consistent than the Jew (or Conder), since both often deploy the same kinds of arguments. Against the charge that he may eventually become an atheist, agnostic, or deist, Conder is hardly fully reassuring:

What he's trying to do here is to warn people away from my book by noting that "higher critic scholarship" could lead them on to critically examine the so-called Old Testament, after which they might wind up an atheist. All I can say to Eric's observation is, yes, I fully realize the implications of "higher criticism" when applied to the Holy Scriptures. And Eric, I can say that if I find that the Holy Scriptures can't withstand the light of truth, then you are right, I will end up wherever that leads. (BGJ, p. 4)

Later he adds:

Eric ends his assessment of the book of Daniel by essentially asking if I would accept the scholarship of my "liberal higher critics" when they pointed out flaws with the "Old Testament["]? The answer to that Eric is yes. After careful consideration, which would include an exhaustive study into the accumulated scholarship on the matter, I would believe what the evidence told me: I would choose hard fact over you, Herbert W. Armstrong, and Josh McDowell anytime! (BGJ, p. 6)

By using the argument from silence, hyper-skepticism about miracle accounts in historical documents, and a priori (ahead of the facts) assumptions against the supernatural, the Pandora's box thereby opened can just as easily destroy faith in the Old Testament. The question then becomes whether and when Conder consistently takes these kinds of arguments to their logical conclusion, and deploys them against the Old Testament as well.

HOW CITING A SCHOLAR WHO WOULD OPPOSE YOUR OVERALL VIEWPOINT IS POWERFUL

Mentioning my use of the historian Robin Lane Fox (p. 24 of ICF), Conder seemingly properly complains (BGJ, p. 2): "For instance, he accuses me of using the works of "higher critics" to back up my points, while he turns around and uses them when it suits him." Two points need to be made in reply to this argument. First, if a scholar makes a statement that may conflict with his overall philosophical viewpoint, or others with similar overall perspectives, it's perfectly legitimate for those in opposition to cite them to bolster their own cause. Such concessions then have far more weight than when citing scholars who are in general argument with the view one advocates. Creationist scientists are masters at this. For example, Henry Morris in Scientific Creationism cites perhaps the leading past defender of neo-Darwinism, George Gaylord Simpson, to show gaps exist in the fossil record: "The fossil record doesn't even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary theories, and special creationist theories and even ahistorical theories."[6] Clearly, this concession has far more impact than if Morris had cited (say) fellow creationist scientist Duane Gish make a similar statement. Likewise, when a scholar who's not a theological conservative starts saying the entire NT was written before 70 A.D. (John A.T. Robinson), his testimony has more weight than if I cited (say) F.F. Bruce as upholding this position (which he may not).[7]

FOX'S STATEMENT AGAINST SEEING PARALLELS BETWEEN PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY

Consequently, it's very useful for me to cite the fundamental thesis of historian Robin Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians since it totally opposes that of Mystery Babylon. Fox is an enemy of Christianity, but he DENIES that paganism and Christianity are fundamentally alike. Since his book's main point is to make a side-by-side analysis of both, this statement has even more impact:

Was Christianity, perhaps, not so very novel in the pagan world? Even before Constantine, Christians and pagans have been seen as members of a "common Mediterranean religious culture," in whose changes the role of foreign ideas was minimal, nothing more than "alien thistle-seeds, drifting into the tidy garden of classical Greco-Roman Culture." I wish to establish the opposite view. Early Christianity arrived with very distinctive roots. Grafted onto the Old Testament, it was not easily smothered, not even by the established ground cover of the pagan towns. The Christian groups retained and passed on ideals which have continued to recur in their history, giving it familiar patterns. These roots did not die away, although proofs of "pagan continuity" have been sought in the developing types of Christian worship. The cult of saints and worship at the graves of the dead have been seen as a pagan legacy, as have the Christian shrines of healing and smaller details of Christian practice, dancing, feasting and the use of spells and divination. Emphasis on these "pagan survivals" has opened long perspectives. In the West, it has led to the study of popular religion and medieval folklore as if they were living alternatives to Christian culture. In the East, it has encouraged the myth that Hellenism endured from pagan antiquity to Byzantium and far beyond, to become the national heritage of modern Greeks. However, almost all of this continuity is spurious. Many of its details were set in Christian contexts which changes their meaning entirely. Other details merely belonged in contexts which nobody wished to make Christian. They were part of a "neutral technology of life" and it would be as unreal to expect them to change "as to expect modern man to Christianize the design of an automobile or to produce a Marxist wrist-watch."[8]

A priori, you would suspect that Fox, since he denies Christianity, would labor long and hard at finding similarities in paganism to Christianity, just as James Frazer, an atheist or agnostic, did in the second edition of The Golden Bough.[9] But since he denies paganism is like early Christianity, or even (apparently) post-313 A.D. Roman Catholicism, his willingness to overcome any presumed unbeliever's prejudices to see the two as similar makes the above quote positively deadly against Mystery Babylon. Similarly, Conder's explanation that Harnack was a theological liberal (BGJ, p. 2) merely plays into my hands, since he opposed attempts that asserted paganism's beliefs determined the NT's theology. It merely makes Nash's citation of him still stronger, since skeptics usually wish to wield any weapon available against Christianity. Conder, of course, does similar things--citing the works of mainline liberal "Christians" against fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible (OT and NT) is one of Mystery Babylon's stocks in trade. He states (BGJ, p. 2): "As we shall see later, even when I use Christian sources to make my points against the validity and historicity of the NT, Eric finds fundamentalist excuses to denounce them." But once it's realized these people often aren't true believers in Christianity in the evangelical/fundamentalist sense, their weight as concessions diminishes in direct proportion. Even in Haley's day (fl. 1874) this kind of Christianity was a major problem:

It is a lamentable fact that there is abroad in the world, and bearing the name of Christianity, a spirit which, as Canon Wordsworth well says, "speaks fair words of Christ, and yet it loves to invent discrepancies, and to imagine contradictions in the narratives which his apostles and evangelists delivered of his birth, his temptation, his miracles, his agony, his sufferings, his resurrection, and ascension."[10]

They label themselves "Christian," but they don't accept the contents of the Bible as being true or even mainly true. Continually prowling about, they seek further reasons not to believe in it, or all of it, like atheists, agnostics, and deists.

CONDER'S MISTAKE IN ADOPTING HIGHER CRITIC METHODOLOGY, NOT JUST THEIR "FACTS"

The second general point about citing the works of scholars holding views the user would disagree with concerns Conder's inconsistency in using from them types of arguments against the NT that are equally deadly against the OT. For example, after citing Ferrar Fenton[11] as a case in point, Conder asks: "Now Eric, I'm not saying that you are wrong in using authors or sources with whom you may at times disagree. My point is that you are being hypocritical when you denounce others who employ the same methods that you yourself use" (BGJ, p. 23). After all, Conder could argue that he accepts what higher critics have to say about the NT, but rejects them concerning the OT, just as I accept McDowell as he defends the Bible, but I reject most of his analysis of the old WCG's doctrines. But this analogy breaks down, because if Conder used the same methods of reasoning that higher critics do against the OT, it too would fall before his critical pen. No longer is the issue the incidental doctrinal views of this or that traditional Christian or higher critic scholar that Conder or I cite would disagree with many of our beliefs, but Conder's adoption of certain overall procedures to analyzing Scripture. Some of these techniques include the argument from silence, the (implicit) a priori rejection of supernatural intervention in the world (in places), uncritical citations of (liberal) scholarship, and a knee-jerk skeptical rejection of accounts of the miraculous in ancient historical documents. The ghost of skeptical philosopher David Hume (1711-76) certainly lurks in BGJ. Although I did concede (footnote 43, p. 24-25, ICF) that this kind of argument has a point, differences do appear between how Conder and I use these scholars who hold views we would oppose, since the logical culmination of the higher critics' modes of reasoning he uses results destroys belief in the OT as well as NT, while the logical culmination of my acceptance the means of reasoning of traditional Christian apologetics ultimately protects belief in both the OT and NT.

A SAMPLE OF HOW CONDER'S REASONING COULD BE DEPLOYED AGAINST THE OLD TESTAMENT

Let's illustrate how devastating some of Conder's arguments could be when deployed against the Old Testament. Here below OT examples [in brackets] are substituted for the NT ones he uses when he summarized many of his objections against Christianity:

To accept [such and so's pro-OT argument] as "evidence," one has to accept--on faith--[the Jews'] word that [Moses] mentioned in the [Jews'] own [Torah] actually lived. They would then have to accept--on faith--that the accounts of [the Red Sea parting] and [the manna falling in the wilderness] were written down by [Moses] "a few days or weeks" after [these events happened]. If they are willing to accept these two claims, they then have to accept that there was no possibility that [Moses and Joshua] were telling a lie, they'd have to also overlook the fact that [Moses and Joshua], who were supposedly reporting the most stupendous event in world history only "a few days or weeks" earlier had written down confusing and conflicting accounts [over when Israel left Egypt on the Passover and the two "creation accounts" of Gen. 1 and 2]. Further, because we don't have the "original" writings [i.e., the autograph], they would need to have faith that the surviving manuscripts weren't tampered with [over the roughly 1300 year period between the time Israel wandered in the Wilderness and the copying of the Dead Sea Scrolls]; to do that they need to ignore the fact that these manuscripts surfaced [from an Israel that frequently fell into apostasy and worshipped false gods, making questionable how well the Pentateuch was preserved as it passed through the hands of numerous unknown redactors and editors over the centuries (see BGJ, p. 17 on NT)]. Having this behind them they'd then have to ignore the thousands of extant [Old] Testament manuscripts which prove that indeed tampering was a way of life with [Old] Testament preservation [as illustrated by the Soperim's corrections and the addition of a false punctuation mark in Dan. 9:25 to deny its application to Jesus]. The next thing they'd have to do would be to place their faith in men like Josh McDowell, Gleason Archer, and Eric Snow and believe that the contradictions and historical inaccuracies that they read in [the parallel accounts of II Samuel, I and II Kings, and I and II Chronicles] with their own eyes, aren't really there? If they can believe all of this, then they can have faith in Josh McDowell's evidence from [a defender of the OT]. (BGJ, p. 31)

Similarly, consider these statements: "There are two problems with this so-called evidence: 1) if [ancient Israel] accepted [the parting of the Red Sea] story that doesn't prove [it parted]: 2) the assertion that [ancient Israel] accepted [the Red Sea parted] cannot be proven outside the traditions of [the Jews themselves]" (BGJ, p. 7). "The reason that many historians don't accept the [Old] Testament as reliable but do accept the writings of Julius Caesar is because his writings do not form the nucleus of a religion, hence there has been no temptation to corrupt it" (BGJ, p. 26). "A [fifteenth century b.c.] document declaring [the Red Sea's parting] doesn't make it so" (BGJ, p. 30, fn 86). "A true historian wants more than [OT] stories backed by the word of biased [Jews] declaring their belief in [the slaying of all of Egypt's firstborn]" (BGJ, p. 8). Although the inserted examples don't always quite fit, and the slams against how well the Masoretic text was preserved really are unfair, most of the inserted examples made above are congruent with standard higher critic reasoning about the OT, illustrating what Conder's approach to the NT could do to the OT. It's positively naive to believe the OT has no problems in harmonizing its parallel accounts, just like it requires ingenuity to fit together some of the Gospels' reports of the same events. Indeed, due to the theory of evolution and uniformitarian (gradual change) geology, the level of skepticism aimed against Genesis is higher than that against any other book of the Bible, OT or NT. So now, what can prevent Conder from directing the same higher critics' methods of reasoning against the OT, if he was logically consistent? The real issue isn't what "facts" these higher critic scholars may find against the Bible's reliability, but what principles of interpretation and the overall philosophy they bring to their work. As always, if one's premises and foundations are wrong, the resultant conclusions will be similarly awry. The GIGO principle is inescapable: Garbage in, garbage out. Despite being a creationist with nothing higher than an M.A. in history or more scientific than a B.A. in marketing, I am not intimidated by the (presumed) fact that 95%+ of all scientists with Ph.D's in the biological sciences accept evolution and reject creationism. What matters is the philosophical principles they use to justify evolution and rule out creationism, not the alleged "facts" they cite for it, which often fit a creationist model for the earth's origin just as easily or better. Similarly, no fundamentalist should be intimidated out of his or her faith by (say) Conder's citation of Dr. Burton L. Mack, "recently retired John Wesley Professor of the New Testament at the School of Theology at Claremont" (BGJ, p. 16) and his book, Who Wrote the New Testament? The same goes for any other of a pack of higher critics with impressive credentials. Marvin L. Lubenow notes that it has been said that more than 500 doctoral dissertations were written on Piltdown man--now known to be a notorious fraud. The scholarly consensus that accepted Piltdown for decades (c. 1917-53) was built on quicksand.[12] Assuming Conder's claim is true that an "overwhelming 1997 consensus" exists that Luke was wrong about the timing of the census under Quirinius, this really proves little (BGJ, p. 22). Similarly, an "overwhelming 1997 consensus" exists among biological scientists that evolution is true. What matters are the facts of the case, not the interpretative assumptions and conclusions of (liberal) scholars. Higher criticism on the Old and New Testaments has generated a similar amount of rubbish, based upon false, a priori assumptions used to guide interpretation. The documentary hypothesis (JEDP theory), which still savages Old Testament interpretation by attributing to the Pentateuch multiple anonymous authorship, was originally launched partly by the nineteenth century higher critics' belief that Moses couldn't have written anything because writing hadn't yet been invented![13] Whenever reading some scholar with impressive credentials attacking the Bible, always remember that it's not so much the facts as the interpretation of them that matters and the a priori, often latent, assumptions he or she has when interpreting them: False premises lead to false conclusions.

ARE THE HIGHER CRITICS UNBIASED?

Conder implies that the skeptical scholars he cites are unbiased: "The sources I use critically examine both history and the New Testament itself for accuracy and historicity, and they are not motivated by illogical Christian emotions" (BGJ, p. 2). "The clarity of [Isaac Asimov's] commentary comes from the fact that he was not reared by religious parents and therefore had no religious doctrinal bias when researching and commenting on the Bible" (BGJ, p. 6). But illogical anti-Christian emotions also beat in the breast of many an unbeliever, because the Christian God demands actions of people they often don't wish to perform and beliefs they often don't wish to uphold. The English author and intellectual Aldous Huxley (1894-1963, best known for the novel Brave New World) was a staunch atheist. One time, however, he conceded his and others' motivation for their irreligion wasn't necessarily a choice born of pure logic and reason:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption . . . For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.[14]

Then consider the biases of the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778). While looking through Voltaire's library, one Swedish traveler found Calmet's commentary on the Bible. In it he found "slips of paper inserted, on which the difficulties noticed by Calmet were set down, without a word about the solutions which were given by him. 'This,' adds the Swede, who was otherwise a great admirer of Voltaire, 'was not honorable.'"[15] Voltaire jotted down on paper for future reference the discrepancies Calmet noted, but deliberately ignored the solutions offered: Is this biased, or what? Similarly, Voltaire, who was a deeply anticlerical deist, managed to mention Jesus' name in his universal history of the world just once, and only after Constantine crossed the Milvian Bridge for battle (the fourth century A.D.)[16] Many other cases of scholars betraying a knee-jerk unbelieving bias against Christianity that distorts the historical understanding of the past could be cited, such as Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but the above suffices to make the point.

SINCE BOTH SIDES ARE BIASED, CHARGES ABOUT THIS PROVE LITTLE

Although I'll readily concede many of the scholars I cite are fundamentalist or evangelical Christians who are (inevitably) biased, so too are the skeptical scholars Conder often references. As much as the former want the Bible to be true (They've devoted their lives to Jesus!), the latter want it to be false (The God of the Bible cramps their sexual and personal freedoms too much!). So then the point is what facts are brought by either side to the table, or reasonably sound arguments they make from those facts when either I or Conder cite them. Properly, the citation of somebody's mere opinion on (say) when the NT was first written proves little (unless the reason for that opinion elsewhere appears in the work but was omitted in the quote). But it's another matter, however, if they have some reasonable argument or fact for why they date it to a certain period. Hence, when I quoted the archeologist William Albright twice on p. 8 of ICF on the date of the NT's composition, I concede to merely cite him (the first time) saying it was a first-century document doesn't prove much. (At least, no more than "expert testimony" in a courtroom setting might be worth, knowing both the prosecution and defense pay for experts who'll contradict each other). But when he (the second time) adds the Qumran discoveries (the Dead Sea Scrolls) confirm this, then further research into why he ties the two together becomes necessary before dismissing it as the biased opinion of some Christian believer. (Actually, he was a moderate, being neither a fundamentalist nor an entrenched skeptic). Naturally, some purported "fact" a scholar brings to the discussion could be false, such as Isaac Asimov's claim the kind of census conducted by the Romans described in Luke 2:1 was absurd. Or, some logical fallacy may be committed, such as circular reasoning (assuming implicitly in a premise what someone wishes to prove in the conclusion) or equivocation (using the same term in different ways in an argument). Clearly, it's necessary to look to the facts and to sound arguments developed using them, and beyond (ad hominem) charges and counter-charges about this or that scholar having a pro- or anti-Christian bias, for then neither side can really prove anything.

WHY MY ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE MAKES ME SUSPICIOUS OF MYSTERY BABYLON'S SOURCES

Since I recently finished an M.A. in history at Michigan State, I'm someone with basic familiarity with how historians argue with one another about how to interpret the past in the light of primary sources. My expertise is not in ancient history, Biblical or classical, but I specialized as a Europeanist in the labor history of England. But since my M.A. thesis topic compared English farmworkers during the Industrial Revolution with American slaves before the Civil War (c. 1750-1870), I ended up spending more time looking at primary sources dealing with American slaves than English agricultural workers. (And since the rough draft of my thesis came to about 400 pages single spaced before my committee accepted about 100 pages of it for the simple reason of length, not quality, this was no "quickie" project causing me to gain only a passing knowledge of the primary and secondary sources). Having spent so much time looking at scholarly journal articles and secondary works by historians that interpreted the primary documents, I have a good "feel" for how academic arguments are really conducted in history through attending a typical state-run secular university.

THE NEED TO KNOW THE SCHOLARLY CLIMATE OF OPINION ON SECONDARY WORKS: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN SLAVERY AS AN EXAMPLE

So why should I tout my academic credentials in this context (and hopefully not arrogantly)? If I, while writing my thesis, had uncritically used the works of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips on African-American slavery, I would have tied it to obsolete, racist scholarship. By no means is American Negro Slavery (1918) entirely wrong, but it is continuously tinctured with racist assumptions about blacks which undermine the soundness of its interpretations of the evidence. Yet through this work and others, Phillips was the reigning historian on the subject in the profession until being decisively overthrown by Kenneth Stampp's The Peculiar Institution (1956). To really intelligently use secondary sources in academic debates, often it's necessary to know how other scholars in the same discipline view them. Before wading into the historiography of American slavery, it's necessary to know the problems of racism found in Phillips' work, the biased optimistic tendencies and overkill on econometric theory of Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974), and the grossly distorted, if ingenious, analogy between concentration camps and American slavery is carried way too far as a way of arguing that the slaves' personalities often did resemble the "Sambo" stereotype found in Stanley Elkins' Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (1959). Because the scholarly consensus can change, whether due to the discovery of new sources, or new interpretations of old sources, it can be problematic to use secondary works that were originally written more than one or two generations ago. As a true academic debate rages, or just merely simmers, it's necessary to become familiar with "the climate of opinion" on a given subject and its literature before one can intelligently use older secondary works (which, by definition, interpret and make generalizations from the primary sources).

WHY MYSTERY BABYLON DOESN'T REPRESENT TRUE SCHOLARSHIP

As a result, as I looked over Mystery Babylon, I soon saw the work didn't cite fairly recent heavyweight monographs or scholarly journal articles, but was based on a fairly narrow foundation of authors deeply critical of Christianity in works (often) written many decades ago. Leaning significantly upon encyclopedias, Mystery Babylon clearly presented itself not as a work of true scholarship (re: BGJ, pp. 4, 16). If Mystery Babylon was scholarly, it would contain the kinds of references found in (say) James L. Price's, The New Testament: Its History and Theology (a basically liberal work). It wouldn't be loaded with citations of Walker (42), Doane (20), Asimov (12),[17] old editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica (8), Frazer (6), Legge (6), Wheless (6), Kautsky (5), Hislop (5), Graves (4), Drazin (3), Graham (2), etc. (All figures exact or nearly so, counting sources referenced in footnotes only). By comparison, journal articles and monographs (books on a narrow subject) in the history of American slavery or English Farmworkers never cite encyclopedias as a source that I'm aware of. Besides the New and Old Testament, Mystery Babylon usually cites the primary sources through secondary works. For example, it appears that Conder never directly cites a printed edition for any primary source on the mystery religions. Such authors as Hislop (1877), Doane (1882), and Frazer (1890; 1900; 1911-15) are hardly up-to-date works, and the first two (undeniably) are polemical in nature (i.e., engaged in making an aggressive attack on somebody else's ideas). Robert Ackerman, Frazer's biographer, notes that his work was regarded as hopelessly passe' even in the 1930s while he yet lived, due to using a comparative method that yanks rituals and myths from the context of various cultures to fill in the gaps in a cultural evolutionary chain that extends upwards to modern civilization.[18] Although Conder goes to considerable length to defend Isaac Asimov's credentials (BGJ, p. 6), the fact remains that when a man trained in biochemistry writes a commentary on the Bible, his level of expertise is going to be no higher than most other outsiders. The realm of academia is so specialized that when a scholar or scientist writes or speaks out on something outside his area of special training, it should be regarded as having little more weight than what a typical college-educated member of the public would think on it.[19] (Presently, on the global warming debate, it's conspicuous how scientists outside the field of meteorology/climatology appear to be much more convinced of its reality than those within it, the real experts). The field of history, for example, is extremely specialized these days: The opinion of a Chinese historian on the soundness of an English or African historian's work really holds no more weight than what (say) a journalist doing book reviews for New York Times might write. True, this reality doesn't mean these books are necessarily wrong because they were written so many years ago or by someone outside their area of expertise. But they shouldn't be used uncritically as "Authorities." Still, Conder's complaint that I use old works like him in many cases is justified.

THE SCHOLARLY CLIMATE OF OPINION ON THE CHRISTIAN/PAGAN TIE REVISITED