Christian Apologists Just Don't Get It.

I make no bones about it. I do not like Christianity. I found a review from one Christian who goes by the name of David Marshall (whether or not this is a pen name I do not know) and be blogs at Christ the Tao. [http://www.christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/08/aslan-vs-lion-of-judah-ii.html] In his review (in name only) DM commits so many blunders I'm surprised more people have not jumped on his review. That's where I come in. I know I've been silent for a long time but family life has taken its tole on me. Now I have some free time I this will be a nice write up to mark my return. DM's first argument is

(1) Did the Jews kill everything in Palestine?  Aslan gives the impression that the Jews killed every living person and animal in the Promised Land (16), or at least that the Bible claims this.  It was, the Bible claims, only after the Jewish armies had 'utterly destroyed all that breathed' . . . only after every single previous inhabitant of this land was eradicated 'as the Lord God of Israel had commanded' . . . that the Jews were allowed to settle here. (16) The question here is not whether God is recorded as commanding that slaughter.  Nor is it even whether such a slaughter actually occurred.  (If pressed, Aslan would no doubt deny that it did.)  The question is whether the Bible claims that all the people and animals were killed.  But all you have to do is read the bloodiest parts of the Old Testament, to see that in fact, they were not.  A few cities were fully put to the sword.  But most of the locals were either chased out, or remained.  So Aslan misrepresents the text he is criticizing.

Misrepresentation. Aslen quoted the bible accurately and only used the biblical quote to pepper his story about how the Jews “shed so much blood to cleanse the Promised Land of every foreign element” was centuries later forced to labor “under the boot of an imperial pagan power, forced to share the holy city with Gauls, Spaniards, Romans, Greeks, and Syrians – all of them foreigners, all of them heathens....How would the heros of old respond to such humiliation and degreadation?” What does DM's point have to do with what Aslen wrote? I'm not sure. His second complaint is

(2 + 3) What do we know about Q?  How much of the New Testament do the letters of Paul constitute? The Q material, which was compiled around 50 CE, makes no mention of anything that happened before Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist.  The letters of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament, are wholly detached from any event in Jesus' life save his crucifixion and resurrection (though Paul does mention the Last Supper).  That Q existed is a hypothesis.  When it was written is just a guess.  Aslan should read less Crossan (who engages in similar conjectures, also with great confidence), and more NT Wright.  But the really gross error here is Aslan's claim that the letters of Paul "make up the bulk of the New Testament."  Actually, they make up about a quarter of the NT by volume.  (Even in number, which is not the usual meaning of "bulk," they constitute just half -- that is, assuming Aslan admits all the letters ascribed to him were actually written by Paul, which in fact he does not.) 

The Q document is a “hypothesis” but he ignores the reason it was developed to start with. The reason is the very large number of cases where both Luke and Matthew share material which likely means that both writers used the same source. DM doesn't tell his readers about this. Why not? Maybe because he badly wants to believe everything in the Gospels is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Admitting this hypothesis might have merit wrecks this fairy tale of his. There are 37 books that make up the New Testament. Out of that 37 13 were authored by Paul. That leaves us with 14 books not written by him. I would say that 13 out of 37 (half of the books of the NT) would constitute a “bulk” of the New Testament. This is a ridiculous assertion by DM here. Let us take a look at his “two vital misunderstandings” because his “quibbles” are off the charts looney. DM complains that Aslan is misreading the bible because the Gospel writers down play Jesus's cleaning of the temple. DM asserts that the Gospel writers do emphasize this event. Read the four Gospels for yourself. There is nothing in any story or how the story was written that makes this story stand out. It's just one out of dozens. DM's other “vital misunderstanding” is that Jesus was unique and was not “just another miracle worker.” He quotes Aslan: “For the vast majority of Jews in Palestine -- those he claimed to have been sent to free from oppression -- Jesus was neither messiah nor king, but just another traveling miracle worker and professional exorcist roaming through Galilee performing tricks. (102)” I hate to break it to DM but Jesus was not unique. There were dozens of “miracle workers” in Jesus's day roaming the towns and country side healing the sick and performing “miracles” and other “magical” feats. See Richard Carrier's essay “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels.” [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html] DM's quibbling over the different between the two is puzzling. There isn't much of a difference. Look up both definitions. Magic: “the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.;” Miracle: “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.” This looks to me more of DM's ludicrous quibbles. He wants there to be a difference so he can absolve Jesus of being nothing more than the common street performer, fooling the gullible public.