Abbr. Enth.The Good Word
Today I’d like to present you with the first (and perhaps only) strip of The Good Word. The Good Word is a comic I whipped up to illustrate a point I see happening all too often, the Trump card of “Yeah well you’re going to hell” whenever you stump a creationist/fundie. But I’m getting ahead of myself… (click for the full sized image).
1 Peter 3:15 actually reads:
But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
It doesn’t actually demand you have an answer ready for the questions presented in the comic, just for “the hope you have”. I thought it would be safe to use anyway, because I see and hear a lot of Christians preach the verse as it is presented in the comic.
As for the three questions presented, I’ve heard a couple answers for them that I’ll go over to give you all an example of the standards set by Christian apologists. The first one questions how Judas died. According to the book of Matthew he hanged himself, but according to Acts he fell head first and split himself open spilling his guts out. Now let me pull a quote from the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:
There is no contradiction here at all because both are true. A contradiction occurs when one statement excludes the possibility of another. In fact, what happened here is that Judas went and hung himself and then his body later fell down and split open. In other words, the rope or branch of the tree probably broke due to the weight and his body fell down and his bowels spilled out.
And if you believe that then I have a boat full of non-contradicting holy books to sell you. Besides, even if the rope did break he’d fall on his feet, not on his head.
The second point asks about Jesus’ last words. While Matthew and Mark both say that he “Cried out and breathed his last”, in Luke and John we find contradicting verses:
Luke 23:46
Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
John 19:30
When he had recieved the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
CARM also has an order they put these verses in so that he says both of them before he dies, but I couldn’t find an explanation as to how they chose the ordering. It seems to be a bunch of BS trying to explain away an obvious contradiction.
The last question refers to different genealogies of Joseph, Jesus’ step father. Similar to the others above, in two books we have completely different lineages extending from Abraham through King David and to Joseph, in an attempt to fulfill the prophecy that Jesus was the heir of King David. This is a silly way to complete that prophecy anyway, since Jesus and Joseph share no blood, so even if Joseph was King David himself it wouldn’t mean Jesus would be his heir. Here’s a look at the verses in question.
Matthew 1:15-16
Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Luke 3:23-24
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
Again, this seems like an obvious contradiction. Apologist arguments try to say that the verses in Luke are actually the lineage of Mary, but that’s obviously not what the author was trying to present.
The underlying problem here is not the inconsistencies or the contradictions, it’s the method of thought that’s required to hold the Bible as the inerrant word of God. In order to make up such ridiculous explanations for these contradictions you have to already have the mindset that everything in the Bible is true, and that no facts or problems will convince you otherwise. In other words, it requires a completely closed mind. Where the scientific method would have you analyze data and see what we could resolve from that, religion starts off with what they think is the resolution and works backwards to try to find facts that fit in with their beliefs.
Anyway, I kinda enjoyed making the comic, so I may try a couple more and see how it goes. If any of you graphic design goons want to give me color/drawing tips go for it, I’m all ears.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
You son of a bitch, I have been working for weeks making webcomics for ZSN and there you go and bust one out like a son of a bitch.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Maybe they had gale force winds the day Judas died, and so when the rope snapped he was horizontal or tilted more upwards, thus allowing him to fall on his head…and then his…bowels…came….ok, maybe there was a giant bird came and swooped in and plucked Judas from the rope and then flipped him upside down and piledrived (piledrove?) him onto a ridiculously sharp rock and it split him open. You weren’t there-you don’t know! :p
August 1st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
My thought: Judas died hanging, and people left him there. Then when he finally fell down, maybe some animals or some shit got into his corpse, so that it looked like he had fallen and split open? Let’s face it, the writer’s got that whole timeline-of-creation thing a tad bit off, so this wouldn’t be that big of a surprise.
When I was in Catholic school, I was always taught that the contradictions in the stories are because they’re written by different people, not a single one wrote any of it until at least 30 years after Jesus’s death (the last one wrote it like over 100 years later), and people weren’t exactly known for keeping records written down then. So in other words, I was taught that the stories don’t mirror each other, because hey: they’re fucking stories. The important thing to take away are the core lessons (Jesus is Savior, Judas was a dick, etc etc)
Then again, no self-respecting Catholic would ever take the stories in the Bible literally, word-for-word, so hey, maybe I was just brought up a bit more intelligent in my views.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
@HP - Haha, sucker!
@Jill - I’m sure there are people out there who would buy it.
@Tom - Yeah, in my experience Catholics seem to have a very different view of the Bible than the rest of the Christian sects. The more fundamental/evangelical sects believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and as such every word of it is to be read literally and taken as absolute truth. That’s why they can come up with absurdities like this, because if there is a contradiction then it undermines their entire faith. What’s humorous is when they take that mindset to the outside world and try to apply it to science. I often see creationists arguing in a way that if they can find one contradicting thought in the history of evolution, then it means the whole theory is wrong.
Then again, the Catholic faith has its own extremists. A recent news story involved some kid taking a communion wafer back to his seat to show his friends and getting yelled at by a clergy member for it, so he tried to leave. Then they assaulted him and accused him of kidnapping the body of Christ and tried to get him expelled from school. PZ Myers, author of Pharyngula, made an off-hand remark that if he could get a cracker he’d show the world sacrilege, which spawned an overwhelming amount of hate mail and death threats from Catholics. Every village has its idiot…
August 1st, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I’d like to point out (as a heathen) that the Bible is still just a story. Each book of the New Testament has been found to be authored some time after Jesus was crucified and then zombified. Keeping that in mind, couldn’t the description of Judas being ’split in two’ and his guts coming out be an example of symbolism? His ultimate betrayal (which was necessary for Jesus to accomplish his mission) brought to light his duality of conscience. His body split in two could represent his two-faced nature, and his guts consequently spilling could represent Judas’ true self finally being bore: he hung himself, and therefore knowingly commited himself to burn in hell.
Bottom Line: The Bible is up for literary interpretation. Tools like symbolism and foreshadowing should still apply. It should, by no means, be taken literally (or infallibly).
PS: Hi Tristan!
August 1st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
@Reid - Hey buddy, it’s good to hear from you! I’m not sure there are many people who read this who believe that the Bible is anything other than a really old collection of fables and tales, some exaggerated, some just made up. Different sects of Christianity will each try to tell you which parts of the Bible are supposed to be taken literally and which ones are to be taken as metaphors. For example, the books of Genesis and Exodus are written as a narrative, as if the author is telling you about history. On the other hand we have the last book of the Bible, Revelations, which contains a lot of visions, monsters, demons, and destruction, which many sects agree should be taken as metaphors for the end of the world.
In my opinion both accounts of Judas are written as a narrative, but I’m sure some churches will tell you to interpret it one way, and others another way. It’s just the nature of the beast.
The problem with leaving the Bible up for literary interpretation is that the Bible explicitly says it is the word of God and is completely accurate. If we accept it as allegorical then there’s no real way to justify that claim other than it just being wrong. But if the Bible is wrong about something so simple as that then what basis do we have to believe it’s right about anything?
The three options (as I see them) are for the authors to be liars, delusional, or truly God-inspired. I see no reason or evidence to justify a god figure inspiring humans to write a contradictory book, so that leads me to see them as either liars or delusional, neither of whom I would trust to set my moral guidelines up for me.
Sometimes I feel like I could just take my comments and make a new post out of them…
August 1st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Just a note, the Eucharist is not a cracker, it’s a flat piece of bread.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
@HP - lol no its not its rly jesus ur the cracker lol ur dum
It had to be done.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:56 pm
@ HP - No, the Eucharist is more like a flat piece of cardboard they swear to you is edible.
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:01 am
I don’t think they want you to enjoy eating Jesus.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:45 am
You know, I always kinda liked it.