These were taken directly from the American Atheists’ website in August of 2018
The Sabbath Day
Exodus 20:8 (ESV)
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Romans 14:5 (ESV)
5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
So, the problem here is that Christians are no longer under the Law of Moses:
Romans 7:6 (ESV)
6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
So, this is just a difference in How God relates to His people. God used the Law to govern His people. Now we have been released from the Law and are under grace.
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Incest
Genesis 20:11-12 (ESV)
11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
Genesis 17:15-16 (ESV)
15 And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
Deuteronomy 27:22 (ESV)
22 “‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
So, isn’t this a contradiction? Abraham married his half sister, and God blessed it even though it is forbidden in Deuteronomy. The answer to this is that Abraham was not under the Mosaic Law. The Law wasn’t given to Moses until hundreds of years later. Many theologians I’ve read believe this is because Abraham and Sarah were still close enough to Adam and Eve that their genes had not been corrupted enough to cause birth defects. By the time of Moses, this may no longer have been true, so God warned His people that this was no longer appropriate.
In upcoming blogs, we’ll take the difficulties listed on the American Atheists site and address them. They are some of the more common objections to the Bible’s reliability, and are actually intelligently presented.
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The Permanence of the Earth?
Ecclesiastes 1:4 (ESV)
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
2 Peter 3:10 (ESV)
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
A Couple of points here. First is that Ecclesiastes is written by Solomon, a man who had every earthly pleasure available to him but saw it as empty and futile (vs. 1:2). So, be careful of what is quoted from Ecclesiastes. It is Scripture, of course, but written from a human perspective.
What the real problem here in Ecclesiastes is the Hebrew word translated “forever,” Olam. Olam means a long period of time which can sometimes be, “forever” but can also be translated as “Long ago,” (Ps. 77:5), “enduring” (Eccl. 2:16), and even just as “Long Time,” (Isa 42:14).
So, we see no real contradiction here except, perhaps, in the English translation. In the Greek and Hebrew, there is no contradiction.
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Seeing God
Genesis 32:30 (ESV)
30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
John 1:18 (ESV)
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
This is an interesting difficulty since God appears here to Jacob and again to Abraham (Gen. 18), and, of course, Jesus walked the earth and appeared to thousands of people. How can we rightly say that no one has seen God, then?
I used to tell doubters that God is triune and that no one has seen the triune God. After thinking more on the subject it seems that God had to either manifest bodies as He did in the Old Testament or needed to actually become man as Jesus did in the New Testament in order to be seen. So, since God is Spirit and invisible, no one has seen God in His divine nature, only the human forms produced for that purpose mentioned in the Old Testament and the human nature of Jesus in the New.
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Human Sacrifice
Leviticus 18:21 (ESV)
21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
Judges 11:30-31,39-40 (ESV)
30 And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand,
31 then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” 34 Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. 39 And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow that he had made. She had never known a man, and it became a custom in Israel 40 that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.
I think it’s pretty clear here that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter according to his vow. What this is is often used to attack the reliability of the Bible, equating the words of men to the commands of God. God did not ask Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter. In fact, I believe Jephthah was held accountable by God for such a terrible act. Jephthah was foolish to make the vow in the first place and even more foolish to carry it out. But, God is not to be blamed for the foolishness of man.
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The Power of God
Matthew 19:26 (ESV)
26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Judges 1:19 (ESV)
19 And the LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.
A couple of points here. First, the “he” in Judges 1:19 refers to Judah (the closest antecedent) and not God. So, the verse is telling us that Judah could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain. The reason for this was that they had iron chariots, the high tech weapons of the time, much higher tech than anything the Israelites had.
So, it’s very possible Judah lost faith in what God had said when confronted with a superior force and God withdrew His support. In Joshua 17:14-18, Joshua himself had to give a “pep talk” to the people of Joseph who had the exact same fear, the iron chariots of the people of the plain. This could well have been an issue not of God’s power but Judah’s doubt.
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Personal Injury
Exodus 21:23-25 (ESV)
23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Matthew 5:38-39 (ESV)
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Of course, this is a comparison of Old Testament Law and New Testament grace. God still punishes evil, but in Old Testament Israel, the nation’s civil and criminal laws were given in the Torah. In Matthew 5:38-39, Jesus is giving instruction to the individuals, not to the government. Jesus constantly told us to treat one another as we would like to be treated to win them to Christ. Luke puts the Matthew passage in context:
Luke 6:27-29 (ESV)
27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.
As Christians, we are to love our enemies. Civil law and personal actions are not always the same as Jesus explains in this passage in Luke. The Torah gives the nation of Israel a set of laws by which the nation must be ruled. Jesus never gives instruction for government rule, only for the actions of individual believers.
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Circumcision
Genesis 17:10 (ESV)
10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.
Galatians 5:2 (ESV)
2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.
Once again, the AA site is trying to say the Law is for Christians. Paul is saying that circumcision was a part of the law:
Leviticus 12:3 (ESV)
3 And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
The very next few verses in Galatians explain that:
Galatians 5:3-6 (ESV)
3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.
4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Christians are no longer under the law. Paul says so just a few verses later in Galatians:
Galatians 5:18 (ESV)
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
So, circumcision is in the Law. We are no longer under the Law but under grace. Paul’s argument in Galatians is that if we want to continue to follow the Law, we will be judged by the Law. If we choose to walk under the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, we will receive grace instead. That’s the New Testament in a nutshell.
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Trusting God
Proverbs 12:2 (ESV)
2 A good man obtains favor from the LORD, but a man of evil devices he condemns.
Job 2:3 (ESV)
3 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”
The implication the American Atheists are trying to make here is that trials are not favor in God’s eyes. James would disagree:
James 1:2-4 (ESV)
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Trials build endurance in us so that we might be perfected. In other words, trials are part, and as it turns out, necessary for our sanctification. So, the AA simply looks at the verses from an earthly point of view: “Trials are bad. A pleasant eventful life is good.” God doesn’t see it that way. No contradiction here.
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The Holy Lifestyle
Ecclesiastes 9:7 (ESV)
7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
1 Corinthians 7:30 (ESV)
30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods,
Not really sure what the point here is. God is not endorsing drunkenness in Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes in this passage is just encouraging us to enjoy the life God as given us. According to 1 Cor. 7:30, we should rejoice in our trials (James 1). We are to accept the difficulties of life with humility.
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Punishing Crime
Ezekiel 18:20 (ESV)
20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
Exodus 20:5 (ESV)
5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
Ezekiel 18:20 is addressing those who will not follow the iniquity of their fathers. They will not be held accountable for their fathers:
Ezekiel 18:19-20 (ESV)
19 “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live.
20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
Exodus, in context, is speaking of those who reject God:
Exodus 20:4-6 (ESV)
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
The conclusion should be that the inclination of those fathers who wander from God is that the descendants will do so as well. If the descendants turn to God, they will not carry the same burden of sin as their ancestors.
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Temptation
James 1:13 (ESV)
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
Genesis 22:1 (ESV)
1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
There is a difference between tempting and testing. The KJV translates “tested” in Genesis 22:1 as “tempting.” The language of the KJV does not always carry the same meaning as modern English, so translations are updated or revised. This is one case.
Testing someone is to allow trials in our lives in order to build our faith or to show how far we’ve come in our faith.
Temptations are things which might draw us into sin (James 1:14-15)
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Family Relationships
Exodus 20:12 (ESV)
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Luke 14:26 (ESV)
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
This can be cleared up by reading a parallel passage in Matt. 10:37:
Matthew 10:37-38 (ESV)
37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Jesus is comparing the kind of love we must have for Him against the type of love we have for our families. While we are to love our families, we are to love Jesus so much more that our love for family might look like hatred.
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Resurrection of the Dead
Job 7:9 (ESV)
9 As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;
John 5:28-29 (ESV)
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Job is in despair considering the benefits of death to end his suffering. His is not a theological statement but a statement of concern for his life. He is speaking of what he sees, not of the promises of God.
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End of the World
Matthew 16:28 (ESV)
28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Luke 21:32-33 (ESV)
32 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.
33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Romans 13:11-12 (ESV)
11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
James 5:8 (ESV)
8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
John 2:18 (ESV)
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”
1 Peter 4:7 (ESV)
7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
To put this all in context,
2 Peter 3:8-10 (ESV)
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Jesus has not promised a first century return but that He is coming soon. “Soon” is a subjective term and in the grand scheme of things, can be any length of time. We should always work as though He will be back today but plan as though He will be decades.
AnswersAZ 