Why Atheists are not the Best Adjusted People

This Saturday, Anita and I went to the Ethical Culture Society to hear a psychologist speak. The talk, sponsored by an atheist group, was followed by Q & A. The psychologist was asked by one atheist why surveys have consistently indicted that those who believe in God – and the vast majority of these are probably Christians – are happier than others. Another asked if any studies have shown that atheists exhibit better mental health than others. The psychologist was unable to respond affirmatively to either question.

This is tremendously embarrassing for atheists, who pride themselves for their rationality and their grasp of reality. They therefore think it just that the “good life” should belong to them – not to the deluded theists – but this is not what the studies show.

Consequently, it is a bitter affront to them that Christians should be happier. It’s as if Jacob had stolen their birthright. How then do they explain this “illegitimate usurpation” of what should have been their inheritance? Generally, they seem to credit this reversal of fortunes to supportive Christian community.

However, I think that they are mistaken. Although it might be true that Christians generally enjoy a more fulfilling social life, I think that this is the result of certain cognitive-affective fruit that are gradually born out of a relationship with Christ. Let me try to identify some of the fruits of faith in Christ:

1. The Christian has been given a gift of forgiveness and righteousness (Eph. 2:8-9; 2 Cor. 5:21). Our identity and significance has been established! When this truth has become cemented into our being, we find that we no longer need to prove ourselves or to impress others. The desires may still remain, but these needs can no longer exercise dominion over us. We no longer need to live in denial about ourselves. There’s nothing left to deny. Our Savior can turn every negative into a positive.

2. The Christian can better accept suffering and failure knowing that, even in the midst of these, Christ is working everything together for good (Rom. 8:28). If instead everything that you have is in this life, then there is a greater urgency about getting what one wants here and now.

3. The Christian can better accept his/her inadequacies and insecurities, knowing that it’s no longer about us, but about Christ who now owns us (Gal. 2:20). This enables us to get our sights off ourselves and onto the One who loves us beyond understanding (Eph. 2:16-20).

4. More concerned about God’s opinions, we become less concerned about humankinds opinions and their enslaving effects (Proverbs 29:25).

5. We can also accept our sin and shame, knowing that His blood cleanses us from everything (1 John 1:9).

6. Despite our painful circumstances, we can still hope, convinced that we have an all-powerful God (Gen. 18:14). What can the atheist hope in beyond himself? And because everything rests on his own shoulders, he must deny those things about himself that aren’t worthy of his self-trust.

7. It is a delight to serve the Lord (Psalm 1:2-3), and this gives us meaning and a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

8. It is also so satisfying to have the truth and the understanding that it brings (Proverbs 2: 10-11). It then becomes a wisdom that enables to peacefully navigate the challenges of life.

9. We are co-heirs with Christ for all eternity (Rom. 8:17). Knowing this, we can better endure the disappointments of this life and are less inclined towards envy. We already own the world!

10. When we know that our basic needs are met, we are liberated (John 8:31-32) to attend to the needs of others. Consequently, our relationships tend to become deeper and more fulfilling. Their co-dependent aspects slowly lift as the morning mist.

This is just a partial list of the fruits of a life in Christ. But fruits are produced in season. It had required many years before these truths had percolated down into my heart from superficial believing. Painful trials had to first be transformed by the Spirit, through the Word, into soul-food.

A Representative Case of a Bible Skeptic

Marcus Borg, Professor of Religion, Bible-skeptic and former member of the Jesus Seminar, advances an illogical but common point of view:

“Whether or not Jesus thought he was the messiah, he is the messiah. That is, his messianic status and the truth of the exalted metaphors do not depend upon whether Jesus thought of himself in those terms. Whether any of them go back to Jesus or not, they are the [1st century Christian] community’s testimony to what Jesus had become in their life together.” (“The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions,” co-authored by M. Borg and N.T. Wright, 55)

I know what you’re thinking: “How could Jesus be 'the messiah,' and yet be totally deluded about His identity and mission? And how about all of the passages that reveal that Jesus knew Himself to be the Messiah?” Well, Borg has an answer for this:

“In our earliest gospel, a messianic self-claim is not part of the Jesus’ own message. In Mark, Jesus does not teach about being messiah, Son of God and so forth. To clarify: the issue is not whether Mark thinks Jesus is the messiah and the Son of God. For Mark, Jesus is both.” (56)

However, when I re-examined Mark’s Gospel, the evidence that Jesus thought Himself the Messiah was overwhelming. Here’s just a small sample from the 1st chapter:

1. "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord [YHWH], make straight paths For him.'" (Mark 1:3). Although this doesn’t come from the mouth of Jesus, He later affirms that this does pertain to Him (Mark 9:12-13).

2. “And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’" (Mark 1:11). After such an event, how could Jesus not know that He is the Messiah?

3. About the many self-authenticating miracles that Jesus performed, Borg surprisingly confesses, “In common with the majority of contemporary Jesus scholars, I see the claim that Jesus performed paranormal healings and exorcisms as history remembered. Indeed, more healing stories are told about Jesus than any other figure in Jewish tradition. He must have been a remarkable healer.” (66). If Borg then takes these accounts as historical, how then can he insist that the greatest miracle worker couldn’t have regarded Himself as the Messiah? (Strangely, Borg does not regard the “miracles” as “supernatural intervention.”)

4. "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!" "Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!" (Mark 1:24-25). If even the demons knew that Jesus was the Messiah, how could Jesus not realize this fact?

However, Borg is also aware of these verses and a multitude of similar verses that suggest that Jesus knew that He is the Messiah. While Borg believes that there is an historically accurate core within the Gospels, he also believes that those verses that affirm the Messiah-ship of Jesus were later embellishments by the early church. Nevertheless, he confesses that even the early, more historical layers of Mark:

“Present Jesus as an utterly remarkable figure, but I think the inference that he was the messiah, Son of God, and so forth, was most likely first made by the early Christian movement.” (57)

The evidence coerces Borg to admit that Jesus was an “utterly remarkable figure.” Everything He said and did was remarkable and even radiated the fact that Jesus understood His divine mission. How could Jesus not regard Himself as the Messiah in light of raising the dead (5:41), empowering his disciples to cast out demons (6:7), calming the seas (6:48-51), feeding the multitudes (6:41, 8:20), and healing them (6:55-56)?

How then can Borg deny His self-identity? Although Borg identifies himself as a “Christian,” he refuses to believe what is most fundamental to the Christian faith:

“I have trouble imagining that Jesus saw his own death as salvific…It seems a strange notion to me: that Jesus thought that his own death would accomplish all of this.” (81)

What are Borg’s reasons for his radical views?

“First, with the majority of mainline scholars, I see the passion predictions in Mark as post-Easter creations…Moreover, traces in the gospels indicate that Jesus’ death was a shock to his followers and a shattering of their hopes. This is hard to understand if Jesus had spoken so clearly about his upcoming execution.” (81)

This might be hard for Borg to understand, but the denseness of Jesus’ disciples is a consistent theme throughout the Gospels. They failed to understand very much about Jesus and His mission. Why should we expect it to be any different in regards to His prophecies about His death and resurrection?

However, Borg seems to have a deeper reason to doubt that Jesus believed that He’s the Messiah, who had to die for the sins of the world:

“Honesty compels candor: I find this [the atonement] not only a strange notion, but an unattractive notion to attribute to Jesus. I don’t want Jesus to have seen his death as having the significance that Tom [Wright] gives it. As a Christian, I want Jesus to be an attractive figure.” (82).

I appreciate Borg’s candor and also his desire for “Jesus to be an attractive figure.” However, unredeemed man understandably does not regard the Messiah’s death for the sins of the world as attractive. This death communicates some unattractive facts – that we are sinners who are in desperate need of the Savior and deserve to die for these sins. Only when we confront the depths of our sin and helpless situation, does the Cross become attractive, even glorious!

When we start with skeptical sentiments, we can always find skeptical tools to defend these sentiments. Borg starts with a conception of Jesus that suits his tastes and then exercises the liberty to discount, as later embellishments, those verses that fail to fit his conception. With this type of picking-and-choosing, we can prove anything we want to. And that’s just what many scholars do.

There are many tools available by which scholars can derive the results that suit them. If we start with the idea that Scripture is totally a human phenomenon and then choose investigative tools that coincide with this starting-point, we can assure ourselves that we’ll derive our desired conclusions.

Borg starts with the presupposition that Scripture is just a human product. He then eliminates those verses that could not humanly have been known to the New Testament authors:

“About the events reported between arrest and execution [of Jesus], including the trials before Jesus and Roman authorities, I have little historical confidence. The reason: whatever happened was not witnessed by Jesus’ followers; they had fled and were not there.” (87).

However, Borg’s stance refuses to even consider the possibility that the Bible is also the Word of God (1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Peter 1:20-21) and what was written had supernaturally been revealed. If the Bible is the Word of God, we have to be open to the possibility that some disclosures might have been supernatural. Jesus promised that the Spirit would lead the Apostles into all truth. If we are Christians, we should be open to this reality. However, from the get-go, Borg has ruled this out. He started by presupposing human causality, and it was inevitable that this is where he’d terminate his inquiry. Sadly, for the sake of attaining professional respectability, many Evangelicals do likewise.

MY BOOK - DANIEL MANN

Embracing the Darkness:
How a Jewish sixties Berkeley Radical Learned to Live with Depression, God’s Way



The insights presented within this book, sharpened by decades of depression, desperation and doubt, penetrate far deeper into the essence of faith, growth, and therapy than other similar works while retaining a thoroughly Biblical orientation. Daniel demonstrates how depression became a portal through which to perceive how faith and understanding impact joy, assurance, self-acceptance and intimacy with God.

God is the healer, and faith in His Son is the key! The way we think impacts who we are and how we experience life. This truth is particularly transformational because how we think about God will also determine how we feel about God and our sense of assurance and intimacy with Him. The question of depression, despair and anxiety rests squarely upon this faith issue.



Daniel Mann writes:

Depression had been nipping at my heals as far back as I could remember. I didn’t have a clue about countering it. The various therapies, religions, and lifestyles I resorted to proved little better than quicksand. The more I struggled, the deeper I sank.

I tried to outrun it. In 1970, I left the USA to roam around Europe and the Middle East, always on the move, sleeping in barn and field, anywhere I could find relief.

In 1976, I came to a final way-station that promised ultimate relief, the Messiah. I had an initial “honeymoon” period. I saw and experienced things I couldn’t deny. Nevertheless, depression again blindsided me with another unwelcome visitor--panic attacks. The faith that I thought would weather the storm ran away terrified. The God that I had thought I had come to know, if He indeed existed, didn’t respond to my flimsy and desperate cries for help. Perhaps He did exist, but He just didn’t like me enough. In any event, I found myself devastated for the next several years.

I continued to pray and to seek God for answers, not because I believed that He would eventually answer me, but because I had no other place to turn. I had tried everything else! I didn’t really trust God anymore, but I trusted Him more than anything else.

I was convinced that if Christianity was the truth and Christ died for my sins, I shouldn’t be feeling the way I was. If He loved me, He would answer my prayers. There was no reason why I should be more dysfunctional and suicidal than those who didn’t even have a faith in Christ. Surely, my experience had to disqualify Christianity, but Christ remained my only hope.

I now look back over my years of depression in a way I never thought I’d be able. I never thought I’d be able to honestly thank God for the pain. However, it’s been through the pain and utter despair that He’s taught me so much. I’m reminded of Paul’s cry of anguish: “Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).

Through the ordeal, my Savior has indeed become dear to me in a way that couldn’t have been otherwise. It’s through the ordeal that I’ve come to love Him as He is and to even accept myself despite my many imperfections. My weaknesses serve as a token of His undying love. They remind me of the extent of His love and tender care of this life.



This book started as a course at the New York School of the Bible entitled, “Biblical Principles for Handling Depression and Despair.” It then became a Seminar “Blooming in the Valley” which has been presented at prisons and churches. One prisoner wrote, “This Seminar beats any anti-depressant I’ve ever had.” A pastor wrote that “he had been thinking of giving up both life and ministry before attending the Seminar. “



The book is divided into two major sections. The first deals with the content of the Seminar, along with additional autobiographical material which illuminates my many embarrassing missteps. The final several chapters critique secular counseling. An addendum provides additional autobiographical material for those so interested.

Email me @ knowingscripture@gmail.com

Ignorance is a Good Excuse, but we’re not Ignorant!

The Bible has some bad news for atheists and others who claim that they are unaware that they are violating Divine decrees. The late brilliant British mathematician and atheist, Bertrand Russell, had been asked what he would say to God if he died and was asked, “Why didn’t you believe me?”

Russell famously responded, “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.” However, his terse dismissal is directly contradicted by Scripture:

“What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19-20)

I can imagine Russell’s retort: “Of course, I must admit that we are all aware of strong moral impulses, but how can you blame us if we wrongly ascribed them to mere bio-chemical reactions and therefore didn’t attach much importance to them?”

However, the wisdom of Scripture is prepared for such a retort:

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” (Romans 2:1)

It’s easy to say with our mouths that we just didn’t have enough evidence, but it’s another thing for our lives and behaviors to agree with this assessment. They just don’t agree. Our lives acknowledge that transcendent, absolute laws exist. This is demonstrated by the fact that we “pass judgment do the same things.”

As C.S. Lewis wisely put it, even the atheist will make judgments like, “Give me a bit of your orange. I gave you a bit of mine!” or “Come on; you promised!”

“Now what interests me about theses remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies, ‘To hell with your standard.’ Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse.”

“Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promises to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining, ‘It’s not fair.’” (Mere Christianity)

God’s laws are so persuasively written on our hearts that we can’t but make judgments against others. By doing this, we endorse the very laws or standards about which we assert that we lack the evidence. When we judge others, we are in effect saying, “This is a standard by which I’m judging you!” While our mouth denies this, our lives say affirm these standards.

Here’s the bad news: When we affirm these judgments, we acknowledge that they are just and that everyone, including ourselves, should be subject to them. But there’s also good news. Jesus promised that if we seek, we will find. John extends this great hope:

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9)

However, many atheists protest that we haven’t freewill – that our choices have all been pre-programmed or determined by our chemical-electrical neural circuitry. This, I’d simply like to ask the atheist, “Is not then your rejection of freewill and your responsibility before God just a chemical-electrical reaction?”

To meaningfully deny freewill requires freewill, the very freewill that the atheist claims he lacks. Why then take his denial seriously? I don’t think God will.

Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism

A letter to Christian Evolutionists at BioLogos:

If you are truly Christ-centered, then you have a responsibility to declare the glory of God’s works (Psalm 145:10-12) instead of invoking random and mindless processes to account for these. GOD’S ID is not simply Scripturally warranted (Rom. 1:18-20; Psalm 19); it is also rationally warranted:

1. God’s ID is the only adequate cause to explain the disparate phenomena of consciousness, freewill, intelligibility, fine-tuning, the origins of life, DNA, the cell, absolute moral principles, physical laws, energy, matter...

2. There is no scientific evidence that anything happens naturalistically. Instead of evolution, we observe de-evolution (a reality endemic to the 2nd law of thermodynamics), contrary to Darwinist expectations. One then can even talk about “naturalism of the gaps.”

3. Occam’s Razor (the law of parsimony) requires the simpler explanation over the more complex. Naturalism has to postulate many disparate explanations for the above realities.

4. It makes more sense that the laws of physics have a common ID origin than each existing immutably, independently and un-intelligently:

a. God’s ID can better account for their immutability than a naturalistic world having nothing more than molecules-in-motion.
b. The laws operate uniformly throughout the universe – not like a wave that looses it strength over time and distance – suggesting that they transcend the physical world.
c. They act in harmony – they don’t self-destruct – also suggesting ID.

5. Irreducible complexity is ubiquitous. The simplest life form depends on millions of bits of info coming together at one time. Even the building blocks – proteins – are only produced by living cells.

6. We have no experience with things coming out of nothing as naturalism suggests. Instead, they require a supernatural Creator.

God is therefore the best way to account for our observations.

The Jews: The Sign-People of God

Rumor has it that a certain Russian Czar asked his advisor, “How can you prove to me that there is a God?” The advisor surprisingly answered, “Just look at the Jewish people!”

What did he mean by this? The Hebrew Bible’s prophecies about this wandering nation have been unusual and fulfilled it dramatic ways. Moses declared that God had chosen Israel and had blessed them exceedingly but prophesied:

• You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. (Deut. 8:17-19)

In accordance with God’s direction, Moses had specified the many blessings that would be Israel’s if she remained faithful to God’s covenant (Deut. 28). Since that time, no people has ever been so successful, learned and wealthy as the Jewish people. Achievement has followed them into whatever place Israel had been exiled. Their degrading exilic circumstances, which have destroyed other peoples, have not interfered with God’s blessings to His sign people. He has always brought forth His broken and persecuted people against all the odds and the hatred of the surrounding peoples.

However, as Moses had prophesied in many places (Deut. 32), their successes had allowed them to stray away from their possessive God. Moses had consistently warned them of the consequences:

• The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you…Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. (Deut. 28:36-37; 65-66)

There has never been a people as hated and persecuted as the Jewish people. Yet, from the midst of this hatred, their God had promised restoration to exiled and tormented Israel:

• But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers--their treachery against me and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies--then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the [My promise about the] land.” (Leviticus 26:40-42)

On three occasions, God had rescued His repentant people, brought them back to the land, and re-established their nation.

1. In response to the cries of enslaved Israel’s cries, after hundreds of years of cruel bondage in Egypt, God sent Moses to lead them to redemption and freedom.

2. After the fall of the Babylonian empire in 532, God placed it in the Persian Cyrus’ heart to equip the Jews to return to their own land and rebuild their Temple.

3. Following the two rebellions against Rome (66-70 CE and 132-136 CE), the Jews were expelled from their land. After centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust in Nazi Europe, once again, Israel was restored as a nation in 1948.

No people group has ever returned to its ancestral land -- even once -- after entirely leaving it. Israel has been restored to their Promised Land on three occasions. This is not merely an historical anomaly, it is a sign of Divine intervention, and it doesn’t stop there.

Prophecy reveals that, in the end, Israel will once again be a nation and again without faith towards her God. Her assailants will mercilessly break her, but this time her God will intervene decisively and permanently:

• The LORD will judge [“vindicate” ESV] his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left [to oppose the enemy], slave or free…Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people. (Deut. 32:36; 43)

Humans couldn’t have Invented the Bible; God did!

While the Bible asserts that we are created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27), skeptics claim that instead we created God in our image. Although this is often true, it doesn’t mean that this allegation is always true. In fact, when we examine the Hebrew Bible, it becomes readily apparent that no one would have created this God with His demanding laws and teachings. Let’s start with the Jewish Patriarchs.

1. THE PATRIARCHS: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the forefathers of Judaism, were certainly not role-models. Instead, the Bible reveals that they were cowards, deceivers, liars and worse. We humans don’t create or select such role models, least of all the Fathers of our faith. Instead, we fashion them into the saints with which others would want to identify. This is exactly what the Talmud did with the Patriarchs. It sanitized the Bible’s depiction of them, and made them sinless. In contrast, the Bible’s portraits sharply conflict with what we’d create – so much so, that we feel compelled to re-create them.

2. MOSES: Even the greatest of all Israelites had been forbidden entry into the Promised Land because he had sinned. Aaron also is presented as a humiliated sinner. What hope therefore could the average Israelite entertain about his own future welfare? Not much! Such a revelation could not be the invention of humans who want to maintain a zealous following.

3. THE ISRAELITES: They are not portrayed as faithful to God, but as stubborn and unfaithful. Meanwhile, the Talmud characterizes the Jewish people as spiritually superior, the very thing that the Bible warns against:

• “After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness." No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Deut. 9:4-6)

We humans don’t characteristically write such disparaging things about ourselves and our people, and it gets worse. Almost all the prophets denounce Israel. How is it that the Jewish people would retain as Scripture such thoroughly condemning writings? They must have been convinced that they had no other choice, lest they oppose God.


4. MOSAIC LAWS: While much of Moses’ commands resemble those of other legal systems from that period, notably Hammurabi’s Code, much of it is not characteristic of anything else we find in the ancient Near East. For instance:

• The covenant was transacted with all the people, not just the king.
• The king was required to read the Torah to remind him that he was no better than other people (Deut. 17).
• A day of rest was mandatory for even animals and foreigners (Exodus 20:10).
• The Sabbath (7th) year required the cancellation of debts to protect the poor (Deut. 15:1, 4) – certainly not something that people who make the laws would tolerate.
• The Jubilee (50th) year required that the land be returned to its original owners. In fact, this law was so radical that there is no evidence that Israel ever obeyed it.
• The priestly caste was denied true wealth – land. Instead, God was to be their inheritance.
• The law granted soldiers permission to leave the army if they feared. If any nation granted their soldiers such an out, it would loose its army (Deut. 20).

Similarly, there are many other laws that humans, especially from that period of time would never tolerate. Therefore, these laws must have come from above!

5. MOSAIC THREATS: The warnings for disobedience were severe and demanding. If an Israelite failed to keep the law in just one respect, he was under a curse (Deut. 27:26). We humans would not accept such a threatening religion. Nor would the Rabbis, who qualified this teaching in several ways. For instance, Gerald Sigal, The Jew and the Christian Missionary, wrote,

• [Deuteronomy 27:26] does not refer to the breaking of the Law by an ordinary individual. It is, as the Rabbis explain, a reference to the authorities in power who fail to enforce the rule of the Law in the land of Israel (J.T. Sotah 7:4). The leadership of the nation is thus charged, under pain of the curse, to set the tone for the nation and make the Law the operative force in the life of the nation.

6. PROPHECIES: The Prophets uniformly prophesied (and declared) Israel’s spiritual failure (Deut. 29:4; Joshua 24:19). Moses even taught Israel a song that would serve to continually indict them. Israel would reject their God, and God would bring destruction upon them (Deut 32:15-35). No one would invent a religion foretelling such negative consequences for its own people.

Perhaps even more offensive to Israel, the Prophets also envisioned the hated Gentile nations enjoying the abundant blessings with Israel in the end. Perhaps the most poignant demonstration of the Israelite consternation to this Divine plan is exhibited by Jonah, who rebelled against his call to preach to Nineveh. This is because he feared that his preaching would serve as a vehicle for God blessing the Ninevites.

7. PENTATEUCHAL HOLIDAYS: Of the six prescribed holidays, only one of them is truly commemorative of an historical event – the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread. The other five seem to be prophetic. They look forward to God working events to their glorious culmination. However, this is very unusual – something we humans don’t do! Holidays commemorate past events. Characteristically, all of Israel’s non-divinely-ordained holidays are commemorative. Hanukkah commemorates the cleansing of the Temple and the Maccabean military victories. Purim commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in Persia. T’sha b’Av commemorates the destruction of the Temple. Simchat Torah commemorates the giving of the Law on Sinai.

8. ASSIGNMENT OF DATES: We assign dates to occasions we want to remember. Not so the Torah (Pentateuch). There is no assignment of a date to the giving of the law, to any military victories or momentous defeats. There is no “Victory over Jericho” day or “Pharaoh’s Defeat in the Red Sea” day. Instead, the dates are those that are important to God.

This is only a mere outline of the ways that the Bible is humanly repugnant – not the type of thing that we would create if we had the choice. When we survey the Hebrew Bible, we do not find a human landscape with identifiable benchmarks. Instead, we encounter something entirely alien to our expectations and inclinations – something that doesn’t flatter the ego, but instead humbles us, if we are enabled to see this unearthly terrain through unbiased eyes. But it’s this humbling process that prepares us for a Divine encounter that will leave us unsatisfied with the world we had once inhabited.