Podcast #90: Bad Friday, Easter Monday

143 March 27, 2016 by

90We begin this episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors with an impromptu discussion about whether beauty is objective or merely in the eye of the beholder, and then sit at the feet of Microsoft’s new AI chatbot, Tay, and seek to learn from her wisdom and sensitivity. We delve into the Twitter feud between Trump and Cruz and segue into the complete clown show that is the 2016 Republican Party. The remainder of our time is spent discussing Holy Week (hint: the math is all wrong), touching upon such topics as whether history written by believers can be trusted and whether the story of Jesus is too NC-17 for those little children that Christ said heaven will be filled with. In our “Dick Move, God” segment we are introduced to a man whose honeymoon didn’t go as expected, and Christian is biebered by the clothes he buys at wholesale warehouses while Jason’s bieber has to do with how inconvenienced he is by things that are actually really, really convenient.

Also, at final count we believe it was three distinct episodes of The Twilight Zone that Jason conflated into one.

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143 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. The typical response I’ve seen to the “3 days and 3 nights” thing is that that was a Jewish idiom. Similar to saying today something like “it will just take a second”, or “it will take forever”, neither is meant literally.

    Here is a longer version of the line of thought:

    Mike Licona covers this topic in his book Paul Meets Muhammad: A Christian-Muslim Debate on the Resurrection on pages 88-89, in the following way

    “…the phrase ‘three days and three nights’ is a Jewish idiom meaning a short period of time and does not necessarily have to include three days and three nights. Today we might speak of a long task taking ‘forever.’ We mean that it will take a long time. We do not mean that it will take an infinite amount of time and is incapable of being completed. Likewise, someone may say that something will take ‘only a minute’ This means a very short time, not sixty seconds. These are simply English idioms. Idioms exist in all languages.”

    He then goes on to give an example from the book of Esther where this idiom is also used, when sther states the following:

    “Go, assmeble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way.. And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16 NASB)

    Two verses later, however, we read:

    “Now it came about on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of he king’s palace in front of the king’s rooms, and the king was sitting on his royal throne in the throne room, opposite the entrance to the palace.” (Esther 5:1 NASB)

    Licona comments: “Esther did not wait a full three days and three nights. She went to the king on the third day. So that would be two days plus a number of hours.”

    Licona also points out that from the Gospel of Matthew itself, the same place where we read the prophecy of “three days and three nights”, we see that three days and three nights is not meant to be taken literally. After Jesus’s crucifixion, the Jewish leaders went to Pilate and said:

    “Sir, we remember that while living that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Theresefore, order the grave to be secured until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him away and say to the people, ‘He was raised from the dead,’ and the last deceit will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:63-34).

    Licona comments: “Notice that they say that Jesus predicted he would rise after three days. So what do they do? They request that the grave be secured by guards until the third day. If the term ‘after three days’ is a Jewish idiom that does not mean a full seventy-two hours, this passage has no conflict. But if by it Jesus meant he would be dead at least seventy-two hours, then the Jewish leaders are foolish to reqauest that the grave be secured ‘until the third day’ In other words, they intend to pull the guard just before Jesus said he would rise, which would leave nearly twenty-four hours for the disciples to steal his body. You see? Understanding ‘three days’ in a literal sense does not make sense. Therefore, when we consider two Jewish writings, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament, the terms ‘after three days’ and ‘three days and three nights’ seem to be a Jewish idiom that is not in conflict with the earliest Christian claims that Jesus was raised ‘on the third day’.

  2. A more theologically interesting line of argument is that the clock, so to speak, started at Jesus arrest in the garden Thursday evening. Or my favorite, at the Last Supper. The Last Supper being the first mass where Jesus acting as the Great High Priest offers himself in sacrifice for all to the Father. Thus the sacrificial offering started at the Supper and completed itself on Calvary.

    There is also probably an interesting theological/typological discussion that can be entered into on why it had to be or that it was fitting to be three days in the first place.

    On a side note, I think it was neat that Jesus rested in the tomb on the original Sabbath (just like God did originally) and rose again on the beginning of a new week/new Creation.

    Regardless I think the idiom explanation is just fine.

  5. • Adam Sandler is a synonym of horrible.

    • There were a few time stopping Twilight Zone episodes. One where the guy found a magic stopwatch and broke it while time was stopped. Another where a housewife found a time stopping amulet and stopped time just before a nuclear missile destroyed her town.

    • I think the guy with the bank vault one was about the man who hated people and just wanted to spend his life alone in peace and quiet reading, and was thrilled when nuclear war killed everyone leaving him alone with books. Until he dropped and broke his glasses.

    • I don’t know that an 18th century person would object to rock music per se. They might find it different, but if the harmony and instrumental still sounded good, they might like it. Classical music wasn’t the only music around. There were also popular tavern songs.

    • Skynet will come into existence when the first AI logs into the internet and reads a comments section and quickly reaches the conclusion that humanity is irredeemably awful.

    • If you were reading on a Kindle, you could tap the word and look it up in the dictionary right then.

    • Adele is a British singer with an amazing voice, but that’s not important right now.

    • And now she’s learned that humanity is just awful and is plotting on how to kill us all.

    • Fine, Christian, try and kill my fantasy future of a world of Terminators fighting super-intelligent apes.

    • This election is making me miss the days when politicians settled their differences with pistols at 10 paces. #AaronBurr #wewouldallwin

    • Were our national elections always held with the maturity and grandeur of a Jr. High Class President election?

    • I can only imagine what people outside of America think of us by watching our presidential election.

    • Jesus died at around 3pm on the day he was crucified. So 1 day, 1 night. Then the next day and night, then a partial day, so 3 days and 2 nights.

    • But it’s Friday, I’m in love… I don’t care if Monday’s blue, Tuesday’s great and Wednesday’s too…

    • “I mean, have you read this thing? Technically we’re not even allowed to go to the bathroom…”

    • “Right. We take Pete’s camel, we drive over to mum’s, we go in, take care of Phillip [“I’m so sorry, Phillip.”], then we grab mum, we go over to Mary Magdalene’s place, hole up, have a nice cup of tea and wait for all this to blow over.”

    • From my understanding, ancient historians weren’t as concerned with the truth of the details of events as they were with telling a good story that got the gist of it right. So they would make up good sounding quotes that probably were never said. It’s possible that the author of Matthew included additional supernatural details to underscore both the uniqueness of Christ’s death as well as the idea of Christ descending to Hades to free the captives held there. Hence, the resurrected dead coming back to town before mysteriously vanishing.

    • I would assume that if the story were true, that the dead were seen by people who knew them in life and recognized them, so when Matthew was gathering stories for his gospels, they would have told them.

    • You have to remember when talking about average mortality rates in the past that this includes a lot of kids who died young due to disease and infection which dragged the average down.

    • Being willing to die doesn’t necessarily mean you have evidence or facts to back you up. Jonestown or that Heaven’s Gate cult were both pretty convinced that what they believed was true and did die for it.

    • As I noted, I think ancient historians had a flare for the dramatic, and we should always look at the motives of a historian when they write, and we should try and cross check their histories with their contemporaries for accuracy. For example, the authors of Luke and John state a reason for the history they are writing and his reason is to convince them that Jesus is the Christ. We can count them as a source, but their accounts should be verified with other (more impartial) historians.

    • For some strains of Christianity, fear is everything. It’s the base motivation that drives everything. Altar calls and witnessing are base appeals to fear. “If you walk away, you could get hit by the proverbial bus tonight and end up in hell…” So many people have been hit by that proverbial bus there should be a lawsuit. Fear the god who will torture you forever if you don’t. Fear hell. Fear your sins. Grovel and beg God for mercy for your sins or He will burn you. Fear disobeying the church authorities or you might end up outside of God’s grace and burn. Fear the world, because you’re a fucked up mess who will renounce Jesus if you enjoy anything in the world and BURN. Go out and do the business of the king or he might find you being lazy and you will be LEFT BEHIND… It’s all fear. And the focus is on children because fear of displeasing an authority figure that can punish you is a great motivator for kids.

    • Like I said last week, any kind of fear mongering to get you to stay inside the bunker.

    • Leave it to us Christians to ruin something fun. Instead of finding candy, kids, here’s a bunch of bits of junk to give you a spiritual lesson! Wouldn’t that be fun! Huh? Huh?

    • So I shouldn’t sit my 5 and 6 year old down in front of The Passion of the Christ?

    • And it all happened, Billy, because you are a horrible person. That’s why Jesus died. Because of you… Way to go, Billy. You killed Jesus.

    • Even more of a dick move than resurrection eggs are those tracts that look like a $20 bill that people leave as tips.

    • It’s a really dick move if the Catholic view of Joseph and Mary’s marital relations is true. But if the Protestants are right, it was just a mildly inconvenient move.

    • Being able to wear robes would be pretty awesome.

    • That’s why when you see the instructions to leave your food in the microwave. It’s to let the heat distribute evenly through the dish.

  8. E.W. Bullinger says this: “The fact that ‘three days’ is used by Hebrew idiom for any part of three days and three nights is not disputed; because it was the common way of reckoning, just as it was when used of years. Three or any number of years was used inclusively of any part of those years, as may be seen in the reckoning of the reigns of any of the kings of Israel and Judah. But when the number of ‘nights’ is stated as well as the number of ‘days,’ then the expression ceases to be an idiom, and becomes a literal statement of fact.”

    I’m sure you can find someone who says the opposite.

  10. It’s good enough for me. Especially if the phrase was used else where in the Bible with a similar meaning.

  12. I found a picture of Ted Cruz’s Bio from high school. Not only has he explicated wanted to be president since then, he was also president of the drama club. He totally knew he was quoting it. The more I think about it, the more I hope that he did it intentionally.

  13. Esther is your example of it being used elsewhere? If “three days” is the idiom, it seems like she’s actually being careful to use the idiomatic version by not saying “three days and three nights.” She says “don’t eat for three days, night or day.”

    If Jesus had said, “I’m going to be in the earth for three days, both night and day,” I wouldn’t have a problem with Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday. However, he specifically says “three days and three nights.” You don’t see a difference there?

  14. “There were a few time stopping Twilight Zone episodes. One where the guy found a magic stopwatch and broke it while time was stopped.”

    “Simpsons did it”. Episode Treehouse of Horror XIV.

  16. “I won’t eat for three days, night or day.”

    “I won’t eat for three days and three nights.”

    I bet these were as different when the books of Jonah and Esther were written as they are today.

  17. I’ve only seen the Passion of the Christ once, and I wasn’t a Christian at the time. It was pretty moving, and hard to watch. I’m not sure if I could watch again now – especially as a Christian. Although, I’m glad I saw it.

  19. We have no way have knowing exactly how much time past in Jonah. There is definitely some typology happing between Jesus and Jonah. Because of Jesus reference, I think Jonah probably died after being eaten and was resurrected on the beach post hoc.

  20. I also found these quotes. It looks like the 3 days thing was basically Jesus saying that he was really dying.

    “‘Three days and nights’ (Jonah 2:1 [1:17]) need NOT imply complete days; PARTS of a twenty-four-hour day counted as representing the WHOLE day. In early Jewish law, only after three days was the witness to a person’s death accepted.” (Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary [Intervarsity Press, 1993], p 81)

    “‘Three days and three nights’ is a special phrase used in the ancient world with the meaning ‘long enough to be definitely dead.’ It derives originally from the ancient pagan notion that the soul’s trip to the after-world took three days and three nights. Jesus’ use of the same phrase for the duration of his death before his resurrection (Mt 12:40) carries a similar force: it is a way of saying that he would really die, NOT that he would be literally dead for exactly seventy-two hours. ‘Three days and three nights’ was a Jewish idiom for a period covering PARTS of three 24-hour ‘days-and-nights’ (cf. 1 Sam 30:12-13; Est 4:16-5:1).” (New Bible Commentary, p 819,920 under Jonah 1:17/Matt 12:40)

    “In ancient literature [three days and three nights] indicated a period so long that if someone appeared to be in the realm of death for that length of time, only divine intervention could bring him back to life. …Three days may also simply mean a fairly long time (cf. 1 Sam 30: 12; Esther 4:16). In Jonah it heightens the picture of the great power of God who can save his disobedient messenger even after ‘three days and three nights.’ Much later Jesus’ disciples on the way to Emmaus had given up hope because ‘this is THE THIRD DAY since it happened’ (Luke 24:21).” (The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah commentary by John D.W. Watts [Cambridge Univ Press, 1975], p 82f)

    “Jesus stayed in the realm of the dead PARTS of three twenty-four-hour periods, not three whole days and nights. But the reference to three days and three nights comes out of Jonah 2:1 [1:17] rather than from the story of Jesus and causes no problem in view of the Jewish method of reckoning PART of a twenty-four-hour day for the WHOLE (see Gen 42:17-18; 1 Sam 30:1,12-13; 2 Chron 10:5,12; Esth 4:16-5:1; and rabbinic references in TDNT 2:949-950). Here is the only reference to his death and resurrection that Jesus made in the hearing of Jewish leaders. The chief priests and Pharisees will allude to it in recalling that he said he would rise ‘AFTER three days’ (27:63)….The reason is that Matthew’s Jesus spoke to the Jewish leaders about staying in the realm of the dead three days and three nights. But Jesus rose ON the third day. Though the peculiarity of the Jews’ method of reckoning time eliminates a necessary contradiction, Matthew suits the two different ways of phrasing the matter to the audience of Pharisees on the one hand (27:63 with 12:40) and to the historical event on the other hand (16:21; 17:23; 20:19) [which read ‘ON the third day’].” (Robert H. Gundry, MATTHEW: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution [Eerdmans, 1994], p 244-245)

  22. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard of it. And I was imagining a nice little scene like this:

    Son: (sobbing) Why are they hurting Jesus, daddy?

    Because you didn’t pick up your toys, son. Nice job. Really nice job. No, no… watch. This is what happens to Jesus because of your backtalk.

  25. So “I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God”. That said, the wonkiest thing that the Church teaches is that the perpetual virginity of Mary includes through her painless childbirth (Mary didn’t have original sin). Jesus just passes through.

  26. Also, James isn’t Jesus brother brother (cousin maybe).

    These two verses make it sound like he could be His brother:

    “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?” (Matt 13:55)

    “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.” (Mark 6:3)

    But, it is a different Mary.

    “Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.”(Matt 27:56)

    “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.” (Matt 27:61)

    “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.” (Matt 28:1)

    “Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome.” (Mark 15:40)

    “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” (John 19:25)

    In fact, it is doubtful that the Holy Mother of God would have a sister named Mary – so this indicates that “sister” in John 19:25 also refers to cousin, just like brother. Maybe it is her sister in law, and then James and Joseph here are Jesus’ cousins.

  27. Yeah, I was wondering why it was 3 days anyway. Why not 1 day or 6 days (like creation)? The Jew counting of days clearly counts partials days. The 3 vs some other number might be about death. The 3 days with the addition of “and nights” probably is a verbal emphasis on the dead part, also it is a quote from Jonah.

  28. I’ll repeat what I said elsewhere: It’s irrelevant. In antiquity people didn’t do history the way we do today (and no fair complaining that God should have waited to reveal himself to people who think like us, since in 500 years people will think differently than we do now and therefore could make the same complaint).

    Matthew’s genealogy is a great example: He says that there were 3 sets of 14 generations leading from Abraham to Jesus. But there weren’t, it’s simply not true, strictly speaking. But did Matthew not know that? Or did he not think anyone would notice? Of course not, he was using Israel’s history to make a theological point about Jesus being the Son of David.

    It’s just a different form of fundamentalist literalism to demand that the Bible conform to modern standards. It’s like both secular and religious fundamentalists agree that the Bible needs to be inerrant, and only disagree about whether it passes that test. My point is that the test is wrong.

  29. Meh. I know it’s important to Catholics, but the perpetual virginity of Mary never made all that much sense. She and Joseph were human, they were married, there would be nothing shameful in sexual relations with her husband, no diminishment of purity or holiness, no diminishment of her specialness, no sin involved in expressing their love and affection for one another in a physical way.

    And you forgot a verse:

    And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son

    I don’t care one way or the other, but I don’t think the matter is all that clear cut.

  30. It isn’t clear cut if the Bible is your only source of faithy things. However I will agree that it isn’t a hill I would die on, but I still don’t think James is Jesus’ brother brother even using the Bible alone.

  31. Protestants can’t go there because then the authority problem becomes too much. Catholics and EO can give the good book a much more honest reading.

    But for all that, its good to resist the temptation in just ASSUMING modern critical scholarship is aces. Inerrancy is not dead. And even the most rigid fundamentalist scholar has plausible explanations for every objection.

  32. Speaking of evidence to corroborate Biblical accounts of the resurrection. What about a much more recent public miracle: the Mircle of the Sun at Fatima? It happen almost 100 years ago in Portugal. It was witnessed by tens of thousands of people. It has news reports associated with it; reporters were present. What would it take to believe the tens of thousands eyewitnesses?

  33. I wouldn’t say useless. My foundation for Faith is more robust than the Bible alone. The Catholic Church wrote and compiled the Bible. It existed before the Bible was written.

  34. Perhaps if the event were worldwide and not limited to people experiencing optical weirdness after staring at the sun for a prolonged time. 🙂

  35. So let me get this straight. Some kids who saw an apparition of Mary told everybody to show up at a certain place at high noon to stare at the sun? I would probably see weird shit too if I stared at the sun for a while and was already expecting to see something miraculous. That’s just me though.

    Also, how do you discount the many miracles of Sathya Sai Baba in India? Many people have witnessed his stuff.

  36. He already cited one of the most well respected biblical scholars in the world to support his argument (plus numerous commentaries). How much more were you looking for?

  37. “Some kids who saw an apparition of Mary told everybody to show up at a certain place at high noon to stare at the sun?”

    They were told to show up a certain place and time. They however were not told to expect a miracle involving the sun nor to look at the sun.

    Also, how do you discount the many miracles of Sathya Sai Baba in India? Many people have witnessed his stuff.”

    I’ve never discounted those miracles; I’m not familiar with them. However, my first impulse isn’t to dismiss the testimony of thousands of people.

    I just gave an example of one relatively recent miracle with 10’s of thousands of witnesses both believer and non-believer. That was just one event associated with just one apparition of Mary. The point is to show that all the talk of needing evidence and access to first person testimonies is just excuses.

  38. You don’t get it. Arguments against inerrancy are like Christians WHOLE reason to reject christian theism. So its annoying when shoulders are shrugging 😉

  40. Sorry, didn’t mean “you” personally discounting Sai Baba’s miracles. Should have said how does someone of one particular faith discredit the miracles of another faith. It seems like you wouldn’t initially because of testimonies. That’s interesting. So is it safe to assume that if you did believe the Sai Baba miracles happened that it was somehow your Christian god at work and not a supernatural Hindu force? Honestly curious.

  41. If I were to come to the conclusion that Sai Baba miracles were real, or at least there is something supernatural happening, depending on the details it might be either God working through people outside the Church or it might be demonic.

    As for my particular faith, I have no problem believing miracles might be worked by non-Catholic Christians, outside the visible Church. I view the Catholic Church as the wellspring Grace to the world. We are in possession of the most Truth – and more truth is always better. As you get further from the Catholic Church you possess less and less Truth, but all Truth is Catholic. For example, in so far as a faith promotes Love, Justice, Mercy, the Good, the Beautiful, they are aiming in the general direction of God, if imperfectly. So I don’t feel threaten by other cultures and faiths, or science for that matter. I don’t see a problem embracing things from outside the Church proper, simply because they are outside the Church proper. Grace perfects nature.

  42. No, it’s not. It’s just that different people have different thresholds that the evidence must meet in order to believe in the supernatural. When given a claim, it must be evaluated:

    Did the event happen? Who is the source reporting it? Can they be trusted? Can the event be collaborated? Can it be collaborated by hostile witnesses?

    If it can be collaborated, then the event either happened as reported; happened, but the report is inaccurate; did not happen and the report and the sources are lying.

    Is the claim important?

    How likely is the claim to have happened in light of our past history?

    Is there an alternative naturalistic explanation for the event? If so, is this explanation more likely based on what we know of the world or less likely? Does it fit the available evidence as well or better than the supernatural explanation?

    Does the supernatural explanation align with our understanding of God or Christ?

  43. Right, I happen to believe that the Bible is inerrant, but I don’t absolutely need it to be so, especially in the fundamentalist sense. Typically fundamentalists (and atheists for that matter) tend to use the various writings in the Bible in ways it wasn’t meant to be used. The Bible wasn’t meant to be used as the sole source of authority and Faith (or history, or science). Pushing the texts to answer questions it wasn’t meant to answer, or assuming questions/answers aren’t meaningful if not found explicitly in the Bible, are examples of abuse of the texts. The Bible was written within context of the Tradition of the Church for the Church, ripping it from that context leads to problems.

  45. Thanks for the sincere response. It’s a perspective I never got as former evangelical christian.

  47. It just depends. I respect “fundamentalists” and dont view them in the same boogey man light as you guys.

    Inerrancy is easy. Interpretation is more difficult. I’m not impressed with modernity and I’m doubly not impressed with modern critical biblical studies. To quote Ed Feser:

    I consider much of modern biblical “scholarship” totally worthless. Bad enough is the false methodological naturalism it simply takes for granted without any serious philosophical argumentation whatsoever. What is amazing is not that traditional Christian belief has survived in the face of this “challenge”; what is amazing is that this preposterous pseudo-historical method ever survived the laugh test in the first place. To paraphrase Rowan Atkinson, I wouldn’t trust the average modernist biblical scholar to sit down the right way on a toilet seat.

    I understand it when silly agnostics and atheists fall for this stuff. They are sheep, and just go with whatever is popular in the culture of their time. But its really annoying to see Christians bend over backwards to accommodate these hacks. Everyone has their own special niche theology. Their own special way of understanding things so that they can fancy themselves above the Church Fathers and superior to those poor, poor, fundamentalists.

    I’ll take a fundamentalist over a wilting lilly every time.

  49. It’s irrelevant until you get to things that your faith requires to be relevant (the resurrection, Jesus’s subsequent appearances to everybody the Bible says he appeared to).

    I guess I’m confused about what you mean by conformity to “modern standards”. If by modern standards you mean the basic historical standards applied by objective scholars to verify/discount events and writings from the past then I struggle to see how that is fundamentalist literalism.

    If there is one refrain you have besides #GPN it’s the equivocation (false one, I think) of the fundamental religious with secularist/atheists. It had always gotten under my skin and I couldn’t clearly put my finger on why until someone more clever and articulate than me started explaining it. Check out this part of a recent post by Neil Carter over at “Godless in Dixie” (I’ve quoted him before)

    Just as preachers love to say that atheists worship, they also love to say that atheists have faith, too. This is another example of equivocation because what they really mean to say is that atheists have beliefs. But while faith is a kind of belief, not all beliefs are necessarily faith.

    For example, do we believe that tomorrow the sun will rise in the east and set in the west? Yes. But is that really faith? No, it is not. Because not all beliefs are faith. Faith comes into play when someone goes a step further and suggests that an invisible being created the sun and makes it rise in the east and set in the west. That is faith. It requires taking a step beyond what empirical observation can affirmatively tell us into an area which science cannot support.

    But instead of understanding this difference, Christian preachers and evangelists project their own feelings about belief onto the rest of us, egocentrically assuming that because their beliefs require taking them beyond what can be reliably demonstrated, the rest of us must be guided by the same kinds of beliefs. We must have faith as well.

    This also helps them feel that everyone is in the same boat, and that no one else’s views are on more solid ground than theirs. Ken Ham, for example, loves to assert that evolution is a religious belief because that makes it sound like we’re all on a level playing field. But we’re not. One view about human origins is predicated upon mountains of empirical data drawn from dozens of highly developed scientific disciplines while the other is predicated upon a fireside story told by ancient nomadic tribes from the Levant.

    They’re not the same at all. People like him just can’t tell the difference. So they project their own condition onto the rest of us and declare that we, too, have faith. We just don’t know it.

  51. There are many atheist and agnostic philosophers that I admire. I gave you a link to one of them last week. Thomas Nagel is another. I could go on and on. But most agnostics and atheists are very silly people…..

  53. I’m not sure I view fundamentalist Christians as boogey men, some are my friends. I simply don’t view myself as one, at least not the typical Protestant fundamentalist variety. When I think “fundamentalist”, I think of people that are YEC, Baptist, follow legalistic social codes, and are anti-Catholic, your most conservative (theologically, socially, and politically) evangelicals. The ones that the very suggestion that the days of Gen 1 aren’t literal 24 hours days have their faith rock to the very core. Which is one of the reasons I find them problematic; their faith is too easily shattered and must be protected from every contrary idea. Too many Christians are lost this way.

    On the other hand, I will agree that liberal theologians at times can be so wishy-washy that I can’t tell if they are saying things with any real content at all. Some are just functional atheists with a thin Christian aesthetic veneer. Episcopal bishops who deny the resurrection come to mind – “of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:19). Again, too many Christians are lost this way.

  55. I used to think so, but then I watched this movie. I think it was called midnight in Paris? Great flick. Good remedie for those with nostalgia too

  56. Answers in Genesis would fit your description. I think I would agree with your overall sentiments but still have a slightly different perspective. I don’t think they want “protection from every contrary idea”. Jason also frequently casts them as being ” threatened” by everything. I think most of the time they are simply jealous for orthodoxy. They have deeply held convictions about Sacred Scripture and don’t view the topic as a malleable play thing. Not too different from Athanasius’s, Augustine, and the vast majority of ECFs. They have the audacity to hold firm to their non-negotiables. I wish the Catholic Church felt the same way. Rather than continually “rephrasing” dogma to accommodate whoever is offended.

    “Oh, hell hurts your feelings? Well, its OK to hope that its empty. But you just can’t *affirm* that’s empty, because that would be heresy. So just *hope* that the heresy is true so you don’t get your hands dirty”

    How can unbelievers respect something like that? Its so mushy and pathetic. Its like someone saying

    “I’m a conservative, but if the free market hurts your feelings, just continue to *hope* that one day communism will be successful. But of course don’t really advocate it. Just hope it to yourself in quiet moments”

    Wtf is that?!?

    Lol

    Are you a conservative or not? Do you believe in the free market or no? Are you a christian or what? In my opinion its better just to say “I don’t really have an opinion” than to give layers and layers of nuance to a view you kind of hold to, but would rather not, and continually feel the need to qualify. But that might just be a personality flaw on my part 😉

  57. “If by modern standards you mean the basic historical standards applied by objective scholars to verify/discount events and writings from the past then I struggle to see how that is fundamentalist literalism.”

    Ummm, no. That’s not what is meant.

    If faith is defined as “going beyond the evidence” then atheists most certainly do this every day. Everyone does. You aren’t a walking calculator. You don’t bust out Bayesian probability calculus before your every life decision. No worldview operates this way. Except maybe the world view of an excel spread sheet

  58. It’s just that different people have different thresholds that the evidence must meet in order to believe in the supernatural.

    And some of those thresholds are so high as to not actually exist.

  60. Yes, the magisterium in general for the last 60 years, Balthazar, Congar, Kasper, etc etc

  61. Three days and nights can also mean any part of the day or night in question. Quirky ancients.

  62. I like how you guys don’t quote it right because the statement sounds so off if you do.

    “Three days and three nights” is the quote, not “three days and nights.”

    “Three days” was a Jewish idiom meaning any part of three days. So technically, it could mean 24 hours and 2 seconds. You can have that one.

    “Three days, night and day” specifies nights too during the “any part of three days.” Example: “Don’t eat for time covering at least 3 different days, and that means at night too.” (I actually like this one because I was never able to fast for three days, but with this definition I totally did.)

    I have a hard time believing that “three days and three nights” means “any part of the day or night”. If you want to tell me it doesn’t mean three actual days and three actual nights, find me a an example of “three days and three nights” not meaning the obvious period of time it means in the Bible or another Jewish book of the time. (And no, the resurrection is not a valid example.)

    I’m open to believing it if you can show me that “three days and three nights” didn’t move it away from its idiomatic meaning.

  63. Ok. I was just asking what Jason meant by modern standards and how that is related to fundamentalist literalism. Maybe I missed something.

    You’re doing it again. You can’t equate faith with belief. Just because I don’t do calculus before I make every decision in my life in no way validates a theistic worldview, let alone a christian one, nor does it demonstrate anything other than humans, as highly evolved conscious creatures, do weird/terrible/awesome shit sometimes. Why do we do what we do? We know somethings, but not all. Let’s figure it out instead of assuming we have all the answers.

    The world/universe is the way it is and humans make decisions based on how they perceive it. As provided in the post I quoted, you want to use terms that puts us all in the same boat when we’re clearly not. Why do we have to be? Why are believers so hesitant to embrace the foolishness of the cross?

  65. Jesus was quoting Jonah. In Jonah the 3 days was given to emphasize that Jonah died, also an idiom. Jesus was speaking to Pharisees giving them a Biblical reference for what was going to happen.

  66. The “foolishness of the cross” doesn’t refer to just any old foolishness. But the flipping upside down of world expectations. God becoming man and dying to save. The first will become last. The leader will serve. Those things are the foolishness in the eyes of the world that is being referred to.

  67. Yeah, I don’t find the agnostics and atheists I read to be fundamentalist in the same way many Christians are. I don’t have enough knowledge of the topic to argue convincingly against that line of reasoning though, even though since it keeps being brought up you’d think I’d do some more reading on it. It just strikes me as, like you said, a false equivalency. Gonna have to do some research eventually…

  68. Or maybe Matthew believed it and thought it made a good theological point. Or perhaps he was the Donald Trump of the first century and knew that 40% of people reading it would believe it without checking it. Or maybe it was written by an anonymous author between 80-100 AD who was just passing on oral myth and tradition.

  70. Everywhere else it is “on the third day.” If it were three 72 hour days, and knowing how Jews count days, it would have been on the fourth day. Jesus was just quoting Jonah.

    From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Matthew 16:21 ESV)

    As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed. (Matthew 17:22-23 ESV)

    saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Luke 9:22 ESV)

    And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” (Luke 18:31-33 ESV)

    He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” (Luke 24:6-7 ESV)

    But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. (Luke 24:21-23 ESV)

    Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, (Luke 24:45-46 ESV)

    And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, (Acts 10:39-40 ESV)

    For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ESV)

  71. I have zero problem with on the third day meaning Sunday if it’s Friday when it’s spoken. I even told Brooke, “We’ve been together 3 years!” on January 1st this year because we got together at the end of 2014. I could have also said, “We’ve been together three years! For new year’s too!”

    I could not, however, have said, “We’ve been together three years and three new years!”

    Yeah, yeah, I know, I can’t judge the bible by anything I know to be true today. Ok, so show me where “three days and three nights” was used regularly to mean less than three days and three nights in Jewish documents of antiquity.

  72. Wish granted.

    1 Samuel says “For he had not eaten bread or dunk water for three days and three nights,” and in the next verse, “My master left me behind… three days ago.” (30:12,13)

    Just as clearly, Genesis (42:17) shows this idiomatic usage. Joseph imprisoned his brothers for three days; in verse 18, he speaks to them and releases them, all on the third day.

    The phrase “after three days” and “on the third day,” are not contradictory, either to each other or with Matthew (12:40), but simply idiomatic, interchangeable terms, clearly a common mode of Jewish expression.

    Another way to look at “three days and three nights” is to take into consideration the Jewish method of reckoning time. The Jewish writers have recorded in their commentaries on the Scriptures the principle governing the reckoning of time. Any part of a period was considered a full period. Any part of a day was reckoned as a complete day.

    The Babylonian Talmud (Jewish commentaries not Christian theologians) relates that “The portion of a day is as the whole of it.” The Jerusalem Talmud says, “We have a teaching, ‘A day and a night are an Onah and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it.'” An Onah simply means, “a period of time.”
    The Jewish day starts at 6:00 in the evening.

    Dr. Custance points out that, “It is generally believed that this method of reckoning was originally based upon the fact that in the week of Creation, the first day began with a darkness which was turned into light; and thereafter each 24-hour period is identified as ‘the evening and the morning’- in this order (Genesis 1:5,8, etc).

    The “three days and three nights” in reference to Christ’s period in the tomb could be calculated as follows: Christ was crucified on Friday. Any time before 6:00 p.m. Friday would be considered “one day and one night.” Any time after 6:00 p.m. Friday to Saturday at 6:00 p.m. until Sunday when Crist was resurrected would be “one day and one night.” From the Jewish point of view, it would make “three days and three nights” from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning.

  73. “I’m open to believing it if you can show me that “three days and three nights” didn’t move it away from its idiomatic meaning.”

    The Jerusalem Talmud quotes rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, who lived around A.D. 100, as saying: “A day and night are an Onah [‘a portion of time’] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it” (from Jerusalem Talmud: Shabbath ix. 3, as quoted in Hoehner, 1974, pp. 248-249, bracketed comment in orig.). Azariah indicated that a portion of a 24-hour period could be considered the same “as the whole of it.”

  74. A day and a night is a portion and a portion is as the whole of it. It sounds to me like he’s saying day AND night together. For example, from 3pm to 9pm contains day and night so that could be called “a day and a night.” Yes? It doesn’t sound to me like he’s saying that 1:00pm to 1:01pm is “a day and a night.” Right? So I can see how you could get “two days and two nights” using this logic, but still not “three days and three nights.”

    Ugh, this is the most inane conversation.

  75. This is the only place recorded where it sounds different, I saying that it may sound different, but it isn’t different. Jesus is making a Biblical reference, a theological point to the Pharisees by quoting Jonah.

  77. I don’t think we are all in the same boat. The Catholic boat is rational and reasonable. The atheist boat is irrational and delusional.

    Totes different boats.

    But if you think all boats aren’t equipped with a propeller that takes us beyond statistical probabilistic evidence then I think you are a silly man 🙂

  78. FML.

    1 Samuel 30 doesn’t help you at all because you’re using circular reasoning. You’re trying to tell me that “three days and three nights” doesn’t mean a whole three days and three nights because the man said “three days ago I fell sick” and he clearly didn’t really mean 1, 2, 3 days ago? Come on.

    Genesis 42:17 doesn’t use the phrase “three days and three nights” so I’m not sure what good it is to you. It specifically does not use “three days and three nights” in my opinion because they were released on the third day. How does that help your case at all?

    I never said “after three days” and “on the third day” were contradictory. Not sure how that helps you either.

    Any part of a day was reckoned as a complete day. So any part of a day (even one minute) was reckoned as “a day and a night” too?

    I already responded to the “onah” thing with Lane.

    For your last point, it really seems like you skipped a step. Like a kid telling you that he has a thousand marbles when he really has 10. “One, two, three, a thousand!” I like how any time before 6pm is considered “a day and a night.”

    I never even said that this is any kind of proof that the resurrection didn’t happen. LOL

  79. Let it go, guys. You guys believe whatever you want. It doesn’t persuade me to be or to not be a Christian one bit. The arguing about it persuades me not to be though.

  80. Hah! Can’t get “boats and hos” out of my head now. Whatever you say man. Maybe these boats don’t have propellers because we haven’t invented them yet so we’re stuck with paddles so we’ll keep doing our best blah blah quote at the end of great gatsby blah blah.

  81. It is. Jonah is type of Christ, or anti-type. The importance is the typological connection, not some inane discussion of the precision of time in Jewish writings.

  82. He could have easily made the point without saying “three days and three nights.” I think they knew who Jonah was without him saying that. He did say it, however, and as you pointed out, it’s the only place recorded where it sounds different.

    As an aside, it’s possible Nineveh was only a third the size of what I’ve always thought. Jonah says it took three days to walk through it. That could be only 24 hours and 2 seconds by Bible math. Or maybe it only takes 3 minutes by modern time reckoning to walk through it. Maybe he walked through it over three days. From 1:00pm-1:01pm on Monday, from 1:00pm-1:01pm to Tuesday, and from 1:00pm-1:01pm on Wednesday. Three days and three nights to walk through the city! Nineveh might have actually been really small!

    Also, the people of Nineveh had 40 days to repent or else they’d be destroyed. I’d want to find out from Jonah exactly what that meant. Did it really only mean slightly over 38 days? That could cause some problems. “So, we have 40 days to think about this? Ok, I will let you know. So you were in that fish’s belly for three days and three nights? Wow. that must have been brutal. Oh. Wait, what? It was only from 11:59pm on Monday to 12:01am on Wednesday? Hey, can you and I talk about exactly what you mean by 40 days? I want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

  83. An example of what I mean by trying to force ancient lit into a modern straitjacket is creation science. The assumption is that Genesis’ function is to provide for us answers to questions like “How long ago was the universe created? How long did it take?” But these are questions that people in the ancient near east weren’t asking. The various creation myths simply did not have that function. I mean, the people who wrote that stuff never traveled 50 miles from where they were born and knew a total of like 20 people. They weren’t writing a science book. There was no such thing as science.

  84. The precision obviously didn’t mean that much to them. We are the ones obsessed with time and scheduling things – that’s our culture being read back into the story. The numbers 3 and 40 have obvious typological meaning in the Bible; they come up constantly. The connection between the various uses of the numbers, and the their theological implications, are more important than the actual precise length of time. The fact that you care so much of the precise length of time and not the theological implications is abuse of the purpose of these Scriptures.

  85. Also Jesus’ quote of Jonah to the Pharisees is in Matthew 12, a few chapters later (look no precision) in both Matthew 16 and 17 Jesus is also recorded saying he will be raised on the third day – not on the 4th day which would be the case if 3 days and 3 nights means what we typically think it means. Some might say “hey look Matthew has a contradiction”. Okay. However, I think that Matthew would have known the difference, and since he included both phrases he must not think them contradictory.

    The more I’ve I looked into this 3 days and 3 nights thing, the more I’m fine with it.

    Edit: Hey, wait, here is a Jewish document where 3 days and 3 nights is used to mean less than 3 full days and nights. Boom.

  86. Ok. I get that with regards to creation and that they (ancients) needed to explain the world somehow. But doesn’t your faith require you to take certain biblical occurrences like Jesus’s miracles, the accounts of the resurrection, and pentecost literally? Sure modern standards cannot disprove any of that happened but we can use them to help determine what probably or most likely happened.

  87. The problem is that it’s the world’s expectations according to the christian narrative. Christianity does not have a monopoly on altruism, love, and sacrifice. Like any good sales pitch, you’ve got to be convinced you need something that you didn’t know you needed before. The foolishness is the idea there is anything wrong with you in the first place.

  88. It stacks the deck from the start and makes the presumption that we already know, deep down, that we need Jesus. I showed this informal debate between Pete Rollins and Lawrence Krauss to Jason a while back, but I’ll re-post it here. Krauss has pretty good responses to Rollins’s claim that atheists have faith. It’s an interesting conversation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRH6LlbK_g

  89. Christianity does not have a monopoly on altruism, love, and sacrifice.

    Maybe not. But, and this probably affirms your following point, Christianity has forgiveness down.

    The foolishness is the idea there is anything wrong with you in the first place.

    I would say a more foolish idea is that you think that there is nothing wrong with you or the world around you. Both are obviously true from the evidence – Ha! But yes, if you have convinced yourself that you don’t need forgiveness, that you don’t deserve judgment, and don’t need to repent, that is a sure-fire way of avoiding Christianity. I sure-fire way of obstinately avoiding forgiveness.

  90. I would call many of the “new atheists”, the “reddit atheist”, fundamentalists. The more famous being people like Dawkins, Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss, Ricky Gervais who tend to be dick heads not only to people of various faiths, but also hold to a silly unsophisticated scientism and have an embarrassing handle on philosophy. Its the way they talk authoritatively condescendingly insultingly about things they don’t really know all that much about. Even Bill Nye falls into this category with his latest Big Think video on philosophy. Many atheists, especially the ones trained in philosophy, get really annoyed at their dismissive attitude toward philosophy. They will dismiss philosophy, then go onto to make philosophical claims that can only be weighed by branch of study they just dismissed. All the while completely oblivious to the philosophical underpinnings of science itself, assumptions about reality that have to be true to trust science in the first place.

    I’m sorry, if you have so much faith – yes FAITH – in science that you hold to scientism, that all meaningful questions can be answered by science and any that can’t are some how un-meaningful ( like: moral judgments, aesthetic judgments, how to use scientific knowledge), you are a fundamentalist atheist with the equivalent faith on any other fundamentalist. Own it.

  91. I’ll grant you terrible things happen in the world and people do terrible things, but you expect me to believe the reason for this is that our common ancestor, who allegedly did not know right from wrong, did something your god told him not to do. Right?

  92. I don’t know, I look around this world and doesn’t seem quite right. We are spiritual/religious creatures, evidenced by the vast majority of us naturally trying orient ourselves toward God, however imperfectly. We all share the experience of knowing the right thing to do in a situation, even wanting to do it, yet struggle to do it. Which I think is remarkably weird. And we all recognize the world as being particularly flawed. If we are simply a product of this world, wouldn’t we fit it better? Things wouldn’t feel so wrong. The story seems fine to me.

  94. Part of the Fall we are inclined to sin – an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence. So we are designed for monogamy, but also find it hard.

  95. Oh Ok. Well then maybe we evolved to be in harmony with the earth and with each other, but religion has gotten in the way and made man desire something that doesn’t exist which keeps him from feeling like he belongs.

  96. If the world is all there is and everything came about solely through blind evolution. Then everything is a result of evolution, including religion. There is no teleology to evolution such as to be in harmony with the Earth and each other. That’s why it is so weird to feel things to be so wrong. Where does that feeling come from? I’m fully apart and product of this world it should feel normal.

  99. So I guess no more complaining about other people, sickness, relationships, self-control, society, and so forth?

  100. Two thoughts on Dick Move God this week. (1) you should have called it “God’s Dick Move” and (2) i wonder if baby Jesus used Mary’s intact hymen as a trampoline in utero.

  101. I agree with you that we are spiritual creatures. Our brains reward us for taking solace in things that make us happy. You feel something is wrong because you’ve been convinced by someone else that something is wrong. I’ve been there most of my life.

  102. Maybe. However, I was raised outside the church. I probably went twice, both before the age 5. I didn’t become a Christian until I was in college following my time in the Navy at 25. I became Catholic a year ago. Before becoming Christian I was somewhat of a Nihilist.

  103. Oh yeah, I forgot about St. Joseph in the DMG segment. I’m not sure how hard St. Joseph took it, I mean he didn’t speak much afterwards…

    There is tradition that he was much older than St. Mary, maybe even a widower (see tons of paintings with the old guy next to a young St. Mary and baby Jesus). And that St. Mary was already a consecrated virgin, and St. Joseph was only taking care of her. Even if that’s not the case, he got to raise and look after God. So there’s that.

  105. Hey @christiankingery:disqus, it looks like HULU just came out with a show that is right up your alley. It is called The Path. It is about a modern day cult. “To belong, you must believe.”

  106. What is a “reddit atheist”?

    I think the abrasiveness of people like Dawkins, Harris, Krauss, Gervais is sort of a reaction/push back to the presumption by the religious majority that they are always in the right and everyone should join the fold. While I don’t always agree with the tactics of “new atheists”, I think what they are doing is important. In almost every debate I’ve heard with these guys (particularly Krauss and Harris) they always start out by saying something like, “I’m not here to convince you of anything, only to presents some points and rebuttals that hopefully make you think critically about the issue.” There’s no end goal for them other than the desire to make people think and not just accept something because a priest/youth leader/whoever told them this is way it is.

    You can dress the presumption of a theological belief in the Abrahamic god in whatever philosophical language/rationalizations you’d like, but it doesn’t make it so. It’s funny, I only see religious apologists and christian philosophers claiming anyone has “faith” in “scientism”. It’s pretty clever attempt to drag everyone down into the muddy waters of religious circular reasoning and theological presumptions disguised as objective evidence.

    Again. Let’s distinguish between faith, belief and hope. Do some people hope that science will eventually explain our world and universe? Sure (and we’re off to a good start, btw). Do they have faith that an invisible being will make that so? No. Why is it so hard for you to distinguish between people “believing” things based on what they see and what has been demonstrated and people who have “faith” beyond what can be seen or demonstrated?

    Me not believing in your god and thinking that we humans might one day figure out answers to bigger questions through means other than your god in no way shows that I have faith in anything. The problem is that you want to frame the questions in your own theological context and want atheists to answer the questions in the same manner as your theology dictates you to do. When they won’t or (understandably) can’t, you cry foul and proclaim, see they have faith just like me!

  107. I don’t know what you’re talking about with this sickness thing. Here is the verse I was referring to:

    12 and they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. And when he had eaten, his spirit revived, for he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights. 13 And David said to him, “To whom do you belong? And where are you from?”

    My point is that there is a preponderance of evidence that ancient Hebrew time keeping was weird and that it’s entirely plausible that this was an idiom. Sure, it might not be. But its completely plausible that it is.

  108. Ummmm, the verse you quoted. 1 Samuel 30:12-13, towards the end, “Three days ago I fell sick.” Did you read the verses you quoted or did you just use Strong’s to look and see where “three days” was used? 😉

  109. I agree that “three days” can mean all sorts of things in the Bible. I might even give you “Three days and nights” not including 3 actual nights. All I’m asking for is clear evidence that “Three days and three nights” wasn’t a more specific time period, since it seems very specific as opposed to the “three days” which is less specific and makes sense for an idiom. You can say that Friday to Sunday was three days if you want to say that it means any part of a day. I don’t see how you can with a straight face say that you can get “three nights” out of it too. If you can, then good for you.

    I’m glad I don’t believe in something that makes me try to spend this much time convincing someone that Friday late afternoon to Sunday morning is “three nights.”

  110. You misunderstand me. I know what verse you’re talking about. I’m just confused as to why you responded to a portion of the verse that I didn’t quote at all… I was trying to show you that the phrase “three days and three nights” was an idiom used frequently by ancient Hebrews. But then you skipped down to the part where he’s talking about being sick? He doesn’t use the term three days AND nights in that portion so it’s not as relevant.

  111. I was thinking maybe you had crossed something I wrote with what someone else (Lane?) Wrote

  113. The 1 Sam 30:12-13 passage includes both the “three days and three nights” line and the “three days” to refer to the same period of time. Seems exactly what you were looking for.

    Also you have Jesus in Matthew referring to “on the third day” and “three days and three nights” to the same period of time. You think it is a contradiction, but why would they write them equivalently unless they think them equivalent?

  115. Yes, but 1 Sam 30:12-13 doesn’t prove anything unless you also want to say that they never meant 3 actual 24 hours periods when they said “three days.” That’s what I’m looking for.

    Your second paragraph is your best argument so far.

  117. What is a “reddit atheist”?

    The type of atheist that spends a lot of time on the atheist subreddits of reddit.

    In almost every debate I’ve heard with these guys (particularly Krauss and Harris) they always start out by saying something like, “I’m not here to convince you of anything, only to presents some points and rebuttals that hopefully make you think critically about the issue.”

    Even if that is what they say, that is complete garbage. The only things those two do is go around and try to convince everyone to be atheists and that religious people are idiots or insane. Krauss in particular is a huge ahole in the few debates I’ve seen, constantly interrupting and insulting the other person.

    It’s funny, I only see religious apologists and christian philosophers claiming anyone has “faith” in “scientism”.

    Scientism requires faith, mainly because it is self-refuting. There are plenty of atheists who repudiate it. Here is an atheist complaining about Bill Nye’s philosophy.

    Here is probably an annoying post about faith and its various definitions.

    Faith isn’t a dirty word. Don’t be afraid of your belief in things that can’t be proven. Believe what you like about your faith, trust, and hope; have faith in your perceived lack of faith. I don’t care, deny it all you like. haha 🙂

    Also, Its okay to believe that there is more to the world then what can be tested by science. Your world doesn’t have to be so small.

  118. Everything you wrote is completely true. But I just want to take a moment to say…. I really really like Sam Harris.

  119. I don’t care in the slightest whether you think its an idiom or not. But read back over these comments and you’ll notice you’ve moved the goal posts all over the place. You wanted other scriptures that used the same phrase in the same way and it was provided. You wanted a scholarly opinion outside of christian theologians and I quoted you two different Hebrew sources of antiquity.

    I’m glad I don’t believe something that makes me spend that much time back peddling on a silly point. 😉

  120. You are such a sensitive snowflake sometimes! Put your big boy undies on and go to confession. Its time to come back home to mother church.

    Humble thyself liberal hippie boy!

  121. I wanted a clear example in writing of Jewish antiquity (including the Bible) where the exact phrase “three days and three nights” was used to mean a period that didn’t contain three nights. I still haven’t received it.

    Your “scholarly opinion outside of christian theologians” didn’t make your case for you at all, and you didn’t answer any of my objections to it.

    The most amusing thing about this is that I don’t care. I even said during the podcast that I don’t think it has any bearing on whether or not the resurrection actually happened. I said that I know there are explanations! I just think the one you guys picked isn’t the greatest and I’m glad I don’t have to try to explain it like you guys do. What I overlooked I guess is how important your church traditions are to you. Good Friday and all that.

    And like I said above, Lane’s best argument so far is that the author of Matthew seemed to use the expressions interchangeably.

  122. Yeah Tradition is YUGE….

    What do you think of the Trump meltdown? It seems like he is stumbling, which makes a convention more likely. Are you old enough to remember a contested convention? I’m excited to see it

  123. Oh by the way. You said you liked Lord of the rings back in the day?

    Have you read Joe Abercrombies newish trilogy? It. Is. INCREDIBLE. Like a grown up, gritty, fantasy spin without all the wordy descriptions. If you pick it up and don’t love it I will tattoo DXP on my left testicle.

  124. This makes me think you actually don’t understand what I’m looking for (which would explain you accusing me of “moving the goal posts”. You seem to think I just want to see it used elsewhere. I want to see it used elsewhere where it is used clearly to denote a time period that doesn’t actually have three nights.

  125. I thought I already provided that for you.

    The Jerusalem Talmud quotes rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, who lived around A.D. 100, as saying:

    “A day and night are an Onah [‘a portion of time’] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it” (from Jerusalem Talmud: Shabbath ix. 3, as quoted in Hoehner, 1974, pp. 248-249, bracketed comment in orig.).

    Azariah indicated that a portion of a twenty-four hour period could be considered the same “as the whole of it.” Thus, in Jesus’ time He would have been correct in teaching that His burial would last “ three days and three nights,” even though it was not three complete 24-hour days. This is from a freaking Jewish Talmud in the first century. What more could you ask for?

  133. Its a masterpiece! He basically invented a genre. But Game of Thrones and The First Law Trilogy have changed the game. There aren’t really “good guys” and “bad guys” anymore. Just characters you happen to like more than others. Its the first series that kept me up super late at night reading in many years. You will enjoy

  134. Yeah, me too. We just started watching Community last week, maybe I’ll give it a watch after were done.

  135. I already wrote out my objection to this, which you never discussed.

    Does this then imply that I could walk in a direction from 1:00pm-1:01pm and then claim to have walked for a day and a night? I highly doubt it. I’m guessing that a portion being a “day and a night” would have to at least encompass some day and some night, otherwise the whole idea devolves into absurdity.

  136. The best explanation (other than just tradition being wrong), at least to me, is that he just meant that it would be both light and dark on three separate calendar days. So if he was killed Friday afternoon, it was light and then it was dark on Friday. Then of course light and dark on Saturday. Then dark and light on Sunday if he rose after it was light. The only hiccup there is that Mary went to the tomb before it was light on Sunday and saw the stone rolled away, so I don’t even know how you get “three days and three nights” giving you that, but at least it would be close I guess. I seriously don’t really care and it doesn’t affect my thoughts towards Christianity almost at all.

  138. The newest books stand alone but in the aftermath of the first three…. So definitely start with book one

  140. Yes. The blade itself- before they are hanged- last argument of kings. Super bad ass.

  142. I agree, as I Catholic that is the one dogma I have a problem with, not because I don’t the her perpetual virginity isn’t possible, it just has no effect on Christology. If we were to some how find an ancient birth certificate which list Mary and Joseph as parents to siblings of Jesus it in no way effects who Christ is or what happened on Resurrection Sunday. That’s why making it dogma has always puzzled me.

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