Did Jesus Exist? Part 2

Before I started examining the argument from the NT for the existence of Jesus, I wanted to verify that this argument is actually used by Christian Apologists.   

I was surprised to find out that this is not a widely used argument.  Defenses for the existence of Jesus tend to focus on extra-biblical evidence.  However, a significant portion of apologists use both biblical and extra-biblical evidence. For example, at the 4truth.net apologetics web, an article by the ancient historian Paul Maier explicitly appeals to both biblical and extra-biblical evidence on this issue:

Did Jesus Really Exist?

“No, he didn't!" some skeptics claim, thinking that this is a quick, powerful lever with which to pry people away from "the fable of Christianity." But the lever crumbles at its very first use. In fact, there is more evidence that Jesus of Nazareth certainly lived than for most famous figures of the ancient past. This evidence is of two kinds: internal and external, or, if you will, sacred and secular. In both cases, the total evidence is so overpowering, so absolute that only the shallowest of intellects would dare to deny Jesus' existence. 

from "Did Jesus Really Exist?"

by Paul L. Maier, The Russell H. Seibert Professor of Ancient History, Western Michigan University

http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952895

viewed 10/19/13

By 'sacred' evidence, Maier means evidence from the sacred scriptures, the Bible (esp. the New Testament).

A couple of Apologetics websites provide some illumination as to why the focus is usually on extra-biblical evidence.  On the Stand To Reason apologetics web, I found the following explanation:

Sometimes as Christians, we find ourselves trying to defend our faith by appealing to the evidence of the Bible. We believe the Bible to be an accurate, reliable eyewitness account of the life of Jesus, and we have good reason to believe this to be true (see our Power of the Book section!) But let’s face it; there are many people in our lives who just won’t accept the Bible as an eyewitness account. They are looking for something more. They want to know if anyone OTHER than the first believers wrote anything about Jesus, and they want to know if these other accounts of Jesus line up with what the Bible says about our Savior.

from "Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?" 
by J. Warner Wallace

http://www.str.org/articles/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible#.UmMA93CsiSo

viewed 10/19/13

Doubters and skeptics usually have doubts about the historical reliability of the NT, so by appealing to extra-biblical sources a Christian apologist can bypass the whole issue of the reliability of the NT and yet still make a case for the existence of Jesus.  Also, if the apologist can use extra-biblical evidence to persuade a doubter that Jesus really did exist, this will give the apologist a leg up in the effort to persuade the doubter that the NT is an hisotically reliable source.

At The Divine Evidence apologetics web, I found a long article that focused exclusively on the extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus.  There was a brief explanation for this at the end of the article:

I purposely avoided using Biblical evidence to support the existence of Jesus because that would be "using the Bible to prove the Bible." Instead we focused this study on extrabiblical sources. However, early Christian historians and witnesses were unanimous in their accounts that several New Testament books were written by eye witnesses of both Jesus and the apostolic ministry. If these authors were indeed eye witnesses, we can believe they also provide evidence to the historicity of Jesus.

from “The Historicity of Jesus Christ: Did He Really Exist?”
by an unknown author (no indication given of who founded the website or authored the articles)

http://thedevineevidence.com/jesus_history.html

viewed 10/19/13

Here the Christian apologist anticipates a specific objection to the use of the NT as evidence for the existence of Jesus: this would be "using the Bible to prove the Bible."  That sounds like an objection that using NT based evidence would be circular reasoning or would involve the fallacy of begging the question.  The apologist responds by indicating that the NT evidence would be perfectly acceptable, assuming that the NT books used were "written by eye witnesses of both Jesus and the apostolic ministry". 

That hardly seems an adequate response to the charge of begging the question.  If particular books of the NT (such as the Gospels) are assumed to have been written by an "eye witness of...Jesus", then one is assuming that there was in fact a Jesus to be seen and heard.  But that is the very question at issue: Was there in fact a flesh-and-blood Jesus, a Jewish preacher who lived and travelled around Galilee in the first half of the 1st Century  to be seen and heard?  

The assumption that, for example, the Gospel of Matthew was written by an eye witness of the ministry of Jesus appears to beg the question, because this assumes that there was in fact a flesh-and-blood Jesus who had a ministry which could be observed by an eye witness.  If one must first establish the existence of Jesus in order to show that an author of some book was an eye witness of the ministry of Jesus, then using the assumption that the author of a certain book was an eye witness of the ministry of Jesus to prove that a flesh-and-blood Jesus really existed would be reasoning in a circle.  

Although the unidentified Christian apologist put the phrase "using the Bible to prove the Bible" in scare quotes, indicating that the apologist did not agree with this objection, the objection is not so easily cast aside.  This objection deserves more attention, and it will be considered more thoroughly in future posts in this series.

In my brief survey of Christian apologetic web sites, I did however, come across a few that focused on NT evidence for the existence of Jesus.  One such web site is the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM).  On that site I found an article by Matt Slick, the founder of CARM, which focuses on NT evidence for the existence of Jesus:

Was Jesus just a myth?

Was Jesus...simply a mythical figure, a fabrication by religious zealots who wanted a symbol to rally behind for whatever reason they needed at the time? Or, was Jesus an actual person who lived in Israel 2000 years ago? Most often, those who deny Jesus as a historic figure denounce the New Testament...writings, particularly the gospels, as fabrications or highly embellished stories passed down through the years. They must do this. Otherwise, they would have to acknowledge that Jesus lived.

In reality, a person must ignore a great deal of evidence establishing the historic accuracy of the gospels. In other words, the Bible...alone is sufficient evidence that Jesus lived, whether or not the critics want to admit it. But making this claim doesn't establish it as fact. So, let's look at reasons why Jesus is not a mythical creation, but an actual man who lived in Israel.
from "Was Jesus just a myth?"

by Matt Slick

http://carm.org/was-jesus-just-myth

viewed 10/19/13

So, the founder of the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry argues from the NT, particularly from the Gospels, for the conclusion that Jesus actually existed.

At the CompellingTruth.org apologetics web, I found an article that also focused on NT evidence for the existence of Jesus:

Did Jesus exist? Is there historical evidence that Jesus existed?
Typically, when historical evidence of Jesus' existence is sought, what is meant is evidence "outside of the Bible." But the Bible is a reliable historical source of evidence for the existence of Jesus and nothing in the Bible has ever been discredited by secular historians. In terms of ancient evidences, writings less than 200 years after events took place are considered very reliable evidences and the entire New Testament was written within 100 years of Jesus' death. ...
from "Did Jesus Exist?"
by an unknown author

http://www.compellingtruth.org/did-Jesus-exist.html

viewed 10/19/13

While this article focuses on the NT evidence, it does also mention evidence from outside the NT (e.g. Josephus and Lucian), so it does not stick exclusively to NT evidence.

At the web for the Warren Apologetics Center, I found an article that spells out an argument based on NT evidence.

The Logic of the Case for Christ

When one faces the question of the historicity of Jesus Christ, he should remember that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all books of history. And no one has the right to dismiss these books as evidential material concerning Jesus merely on the basis that a claim of divine inspiration is made for them. Their existence as historical documents has to be faced before the issue of inspiration can be considered. 
 Argument #1:
     1.  If (1) A existed and if (2) A said that B existed, and if (3) A is credible, then B existed.
     2.  (1) A existed, and (2) A said that B existed, and (3) A is credible.
     3.  Then B existed.

from "The Logic of the Case for Christ"

by Mac Deaver

http://warrenapologeticscenter.org/resources/articles/jesus-christ/the-logic-of-the-case-for-christ.html

viewed 10/19/13

It is amusing to read an article titled  "The Logic of..." and see in the opening of the article that the author fails to understand the difference between propositions of the form "If___, then___"  and the logical relation of entailment between premises and conclusion.  The conclusion "Then B existed" is not even a complete sentence in English. 

 In a modus ponens argument, the logical connective represented by the words "If___, then___"  drops out, so that the conlcusion is simply the consequent of the conditional statement:  

1. IF P THEN Q.
2. P
Therefore
3. Q

There is no "THEN" in the conclusion here; that is the whole point of a modus ponens; out of the complext conditional statement in premise (1) we get a conclusion (3) that this just a simple proposition.

But setting aside the amazing ignorance of logic in an article with "The Logic of..." in the title, it is clear that the argument outlined here is focused on evidence from the NT for the existence of Jesus.

Finally, I should point out that while Paul Maier's article on the 4truth.net apologetics web uses both NT evidence and extra-biblical evidence, Maier specifically states that the NT evidence would be sufficient by itself:

From the internal, biblical evidence alone, therefore, Jesus' existence is simply categorical. 

from "Did Jesus Really Exist?"

by Paul L. Maier, The Russell H. Seibert Professor of Ancient History, Western Michigan University

http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952895

viewed 10/19/13

So, I conclude that some Christian apologists, including the founder of the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (Matt Slick), focus primarily on NT evidence for the existence of Jesus, and that some Christian apologists, including the ancient historian Paul Maier, who use both NT evidence and extra-biblical evidence believe that the NT evidence is sufficient by itself to establish the existence of Jesus.

Did Jesus Exist? Part 1

I will not officially begin my ten-year project (to write four skeptical books about Jesus) until sometime next year.  However, as I find time this year, I will get started working on the issue 'Did Jesus Exist?'  

The first and most obvious argument to cosider, goes like this:

1. According to the New Testament, Jesus existed.

2. The New Testament is historically reliable.

Therefore:

3. It is very likely that Jesus existed.

The key premise is (2) which asserts the historical reliability of the NT.

Here are some Evangelical Christian defenses of premise (2) that I plan to read and critique:

Essays/Chapters

Blomberg, Craig L. "The Historical Reliability of the New Testament". 
Chapter Six of Reasonable Faith by William Craig.  Wheaton: Crossway, 1984.

Blomberg, Craig L. "Can the Biographies of Jesus be Trusted?" (interview of Blomberg).
Chapter 1 of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Blomberg, Craig L. "Do the Biographies of Jesus Stand Up to Scrutiny?" (interview of Blomberg).
Chapter 2 of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Craig, William L.  "Rediscovering the Historical Jesus: The Evidence for Jesus". Article available on the web:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/rediscovering-the-historical-jesus-the-evidence-for-jesus
Originally published in Faith and Mission 15 (1998): 16-26.

Habermas, Gary. "Why I Believe the New Testament is Historically Reliable". 
Chapter 9 in Why I am a Christian edited by Norman Geisler and Paul Hoffman. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001.

Metzger, Bruce M. "Were Jesus' Biographies Reliably Preserved for Us?" (interview of Metzger).
Chapter 3 of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

McDowell, Josh. "Is the New Testament Historically Reliable?". 
Chapter 3 of The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict. Nashville: Nelson, 1999.

McRay, John. "Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus' Biographies?" (interview of McRay).
Chapter 5 of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Moreland, J.P. "The Historicity of the New Testament" from the BeThinking.org website: 
http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesus/advanced/the-historicity-of-the-new-testament.htm
Chapter 5 from Scaling the Secular City by J.P. Moreland. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.

Yamauchi, Edwin M.  "Is There Credible Evidence for Jesus outside His Biographies?" (interview of Yamauchi).
Chapter 4 of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Books

Barnett, Paul W.  Jesus and the Logic of History.  Leicester and Downers Grove: IVP, 1997.

Barnett, Paul W. Is the New Testament Reliable?  Downers Grove: IVP, 1986.

Bauckham, Richard.  Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006.

Blomberg, Craig L.  The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel.  Leicester and Downers Grove: IVP, 2001.

Blomberg, Craig L.  The Historical Reliability of the Gospels.  Nottingham and Downers Grove: IVP, rev. 2007.

Bruce, F.F.  The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Downers Grove: IVP, 5th edition:1960, reprinted 1974.

Dickson, John.  The Christ Files: How Historians Know What They Know about Jesus.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, rev. 2010.

Eddy, Paul R. and Gregory A. Boyd. The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition.  Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.

Evans, Craig A.  Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels.  Downers Grove: IVP, 2006.

Marshall, I. Howard.  I Believe in the Historical Jesus.  London: Hodder & Stoughton; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977; Vancouver: Regent, 2001.

Roberts, Mark D.  Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Wheaton: Crossway, 2007.

Stanton, Graham.  Gospel Truth? New Light on Jesus and the Gospels.  London: Harper Collins; Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995.

NOTE: I made use of Craig Blomberg's bibliography on this topic to fill out my own list of relevant books that defend the historical reliability of the NT:

http://www.denverseminary.edu/current-students/blombergs-biblical-bibliographies/#Reliability

Plan for a Multi-Volume Critique of Christianity

I have a DRAFT high-level plan for producing a multi-volume critique of Christianity in about ten years.

The topics will focus on beliefs and arguments related to the existence, nature, and character of Jesus:

JESUS TOPICS (from Christian Apologetics)

BOOK 1
1. Did Jesus exist?
2. Is the NT historically reliable?
BOOK 2
3. How should we determine whether Jesus is the divine Son of God?
4. Is the Trilemma a strong argument?
5. The Messianic Prophecy Argument
--a. Is the Messianic Prophecy Argument a strong argument?
--b. What are the implications of the truth or falsehood of the claim "Jesus was the Messiah" for the claim that "Jesus was the divine Son of God"?
BOOK 3
6. How should we determine whether a miracle has occurred?
7. The Resurrection of Jesus
--a. Is the case for the Resurrection of Jesus a strong case?
--b. What are implications of the truth or falsehood of the claim "Jesus rose from the dead" for the claim that "Jesus was the divine Son of God"?
BOOK 4
8. False Prophet Argument
--a. Is the argument that Jesus was a False Prophet a strong argument?
--b. What are the implications of the truth or falsehood of the claim that "Jesus was a false prophet" for the claim that "Jesus was the divine Son of God"?
9. Morally Flawed Person Argument
--a. Is the argument that Jesus was a Morally Flawed Person a strong argument?
--b. What are the implications of the truth or falsehood of the claim that "Jesus was a morally flawed person" for the claim that "Jesus was the divine Son of God"?
10. What are the consequences and implications for Evangelical Christianity of the truth or falsehood of the claim “Jesus was the divine Son of God”?
--a. What are the consequences and implications for Evangelical Christianity if the claim “Jesus was the divine Son of God” is True?
--b. What are the consequences and implications for Evangelical Christianity if the claim “Jesus was the divine Son of God” is False?

Ten topics could be covered in ten years if each topic took exactly one year to cover.  But some topics will require more research and writing than others in order to adequately cover the topic.  So, I looked over the topics and evaluated each one as either small, medium, or large.  I assume that the medium topics will take about one year to cover, the small topics will take about half that time (six months), and the large topics will take about two years to cover.  When I added up the time it came out to 10.5 years.

DRAFT High-Level Plan

Small = 6 months of effort

Medium = 12 months of effort

Large = 24 months of effort

3 Small topics  =    1.5 years

5 Medium topics = 5.0 years

2 Large topics  =    4.0 years

Total =                   10.5 years

Assumption: I will write 10 pages/month

(the number of pages remaining after editing/revising)

Book 1 = 3 years = 360 pages

Book 2 = 2.5 years = 300 pages

Book 3 = 3 years = 360 pages

Book 4 = 2 years = 240 pages

Is Islam Evil? - Part X

James Arlandson gives reason number seven for concluding that Islam is "not the religion of peace":

7. Muhammad in his Quran commands that the hands of male or female thieves should be cut off.

5:38 Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are male or female, as punishment for what they have done—a deterrent from God: God is almighty and wise. 39 But if anyone repents after his wrongdoing and makes amends, God will accept his repentance: God is most forgiving and merciful. (Haleem)
[MAS Abdel Haleem, The Quran, New York: Oxford UP, 2004]

Based on this passage from the Quran and a few anecdotes about Muhammad, Arlandson reached a conclusion about Islam and the Quran:

Thus, harsh and excessive punitive violence sits at the heart of early Islam--in Muhammad's life and in the Quran.  Islam is therefore not the religion of peace.

In part IX of this series, I pointed out some important facts that provide some proper historical context for evaluation of Arlandson's conclusion.  I reminded Arlandson that the history of Christianity, particularly the history of Europe from the 12th through the 19th centuries, includes a great deal of violence, killing, and torture.  I reminded Arlandson of the torturers of the various Inquisitions, and the practice of burning people at the stake, and the use of hanging (which at that time was a cruel and inhumane punishement) to kill thousands of people, often for fairly minor crimes.  I reminded Arlandson of the fact that tens of thousands of women were executed for the crime of witchcraft.  

I concluded that Arlandson needs to acknowledge the vast quantity of violence, death, and cruelty that Christians in Europe produced for a number of centuries, and during a period in history that was about one thousand years after the time that Muhammad put forward the rule about cutting off a person's hand for the crime of stealing.

There is an obvious response that Arlandson and other Christians might make to my objection: 

Christians don't claim to be perfect.  We believe that all men are sinners, including Christians.  We all fall short of the perfect goodness of God.  Given that all are sinners, we also don't claim that Christian countries and societies are perfect or free from sin.  Governments and societies can be no better than the people who make them up.  Yes, Christians and Christian countries have been involved in violence, cruelty, torture, and unjust and excessive punishments.  But the laws and practices of Christian countries do not necessarily reflect the Christian faith and the teachings of the Bible.  Whereas, the cruel and violent practice of cutting off the hand of a thief comes straight from Muhammad and the Quran.  The cruelty, violence, and injustice that some Christians and Christian countries have been involved in is contrary to the teachings of the Bible, but the cruelty, violence, and injustice of Muslims (at least in this instance) stems from faithfully following the teachings of the Quran.

Such a response attempts to place a wedge between the cruelty, violence, and injustice of Christians in Europe (12th through 19th centuries) and the teachings of the Bible.  This response will not work as a defense of Christianity, for the Bible contains rules and teachings that are as bad as, and worse than, the rule in the passage that Arlandson quotes above.  

If Allah and the Quran are to be condemned as morally flawed on the basis of the above passage, then Jehovah and the Bible must also be condemned as morally flawed.  The cruelty, violence, and injustice of Christians in Europe does NOT contrast with the kindness, peacefulness, and justice of Jehovah, but rather is completely consistent with the cruelty, violence, and inustice of Jehovah in the Bible.  Arlandson is simply operating with a double standard.

Not only was the nation of Israel founded on massive genocidal slaughter, but this massive genocidal slaughter was, according to the Bible, the result of the nation of Israel obeying the command of Jehovah to engage in such slaughter of thousands of men, women, teenagers, children, and babies:

But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes in them remain alive.  You shall annihilate them--the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites--just as the LORD your God has commanded...
(Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

Joshua, the bloodthirsty general of the Israelites, made sure this horrific genocidal command was carried out (at least in some cases):

Joshua said to the people “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city [Jericho]. The city and all that is in it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction. …”
[…]
So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout, and the wall [around Jericho] fell down flat; so the people charged straight ahead into the city and captured it. Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.
[…]
They burned down the city, and everything in it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. 
(Joshua 6: 16-17, 20-21, 24)

When Moses brought the tablets with the ten commandments down from mount Sinai he found some Israelites worshipping a golden calf, Moses became angry and demanded violence be used to punish the Israelites:

...then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Who is on the LORD's side" Come to me!" And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.  He said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Put your sword on your side, each of you! Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor.'"  The sons of Levi did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand of the people fell on that day.  Moses said, "Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day." 
(Exodus 32:26-29, NRSV)

These are just a couple of examples of the violence, cruelty, and excessively harsh punishments promoted by Jehovah and the Bible.

Let's consider a passage from the Bible that appears to be rather similar to the passage that Arlandson quoted from the Quran:

Whoever strikes father or mother shall have the hand that was used to strike the parent cut off.
(Exodus 21:15)

If a person steals something of significant value, then Muhammad tells us that Allah demands that one hand of the thief be cut off.  If a person stikes one of his or her parents, then Moses tells us that Jehovah demands that one hand of the offending child be cut off.  

Clearly Allah is cruel and harsh and unjust in demanding that a hand of the thief be cut off, and clearly Jehovah is kind, moderate, and just in demanding that a hand of the child who strikes a parent be cut off.  Or so Arlandson would have us believe.  But this is idiotic, a clearcut example of using a double standard.  If Jehovah demands that the hand of a person be cut off for striking one of his or her parents, then Jehovah is as cruel, violent, and harsh as Allah.  

Alternatively, we could cast the blame for these terrible ideas onto Muhammad and Moses, and say that they falsely represented God as commanding these cruel, violent, and harsh punishments.  In any case, the objection to Muhammad and the Quran is equally applicable to Moses and the Bible.

Oops! Actually...I lied.  The above quotation from Exodus is not accurate.  The actual words from this verse are as follows:

Whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to death. 
(Exodus 21:15, NRSV)

Jehovah has no desire to have the hand of a child cut off for striking a parent.  Rather, Jehovah wants such a child to be killed, to be executed, which in those days meant being stoned to death. That is much better, right?  If your child was going to be punished for a crime, you would much rather have your child stoned to death as opposed to having one hand cut off, right?  I don't think so.  

Most people, if given a choice between these two punishments, would not hesitate to chose to have one hand cut off, rather than to be stoned to death.  Thus, the punishment of being "put to death" is even more harsh, more excessive, more unjust than having one hand cut off.  If we are to use this passage from the Bible and the above passage from the Quran as the primary information for evaluating the degree of cruelty and harshness of Allah and Jehovah, then Jehovah takes the cake as the MOST cruel and MOST harsh of these two deities.

In short, if we are to conclude that Allah is cruel and harsh on the basis of Surah 5:38, then logical consistency and moral integrity demand that we also conclude that Jehovah is cruel and harsh on the basis of Exodus 21:15.

There is no verse in the Bible that calls for the hand of a thief to be cut off.  However, Arlandson fails to mention that there is in fact a Bible passage that does demand the punishment of cutting off a person's hand:

If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and squeezing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.
(Deuteronomy 25:11-12, NRSV)

The words "show no pity"  are a good indication of the harshness and cruelty of this punishment, and of the harshness and cruelty of Jehovah.  
Suppose that the wife believes that her husband was attacked for no good reason; that the attacker was being cruel, mean, or unfair.  Suppose that her husband was being strangled by his attacker, and that her husband was near death from strangulation.  She might grab the balls of the man who was choking the life out of her husband out of love for her husband, and out of anger for what she believed to be cruel and unjust violence against her husband.  She might do this to save her husband's life, even though this would anger the attacker and put her own life at risk, since the man who attacked her husband might well then turn on her, and begin to choke her to death.

Such love and bravery of a woman who "intervenes to rescue her husband" deserves nothing less than the cruelty and violence of having her hand chopped off.  Huh?  When you cut off the hand of a thief, at least you are punishing an actual crime with a legitimate victim.  For example, if the thief stole a shield from one of Mohammad's soldiers, that soldier might be seriously or even mortally wounded as a result of not having a shield available during battle.  

But if you "show no pity" and chop off the hand of any woman who dares put her hand on a man's privates, even if she is doing so out of love and bravery and to save the life of her own husband, then you are not punishing a real crime, you are punishing a good woman for a brave and noble action.  Jehovah is one sick bastard; he takes the prize for cruelty and injustice here, when we compare the quoted passage from the Quran with the above passage from the Bible.

Jehovah prescribed death as the punishment for striking a parent, but also as the punishment for cursing a parent:

Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death. 
(Exodus 21:17, NRSV)

In the footnotes for this verse in my HarperCollins Study Bible, there is an interesting bit of historical information: "Various ancient Near Eastern laws punish rejection of parents with disinheritance or enslavement."  So, apparently Jehovah was not satisfied with the harshness and excessiveness of other Near Eastern laws, and so increased the punishment to death.

Jehovah was rather fond of the death penalty, as we saw in Part VIII of this series, and assigned this as the punishment not only for murder but also for various other (lesser) crimes and misbehaviors:

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
(Leviticus 20:10, New International Version)
If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. 
(Deuteronomy 22:22, New International Version)

In reason number nine, Arlandson condemns the harshness of Allah for punishing adultery with whipping:

9. Muhammad commands in his Quran that adulterers and adulteresses should receive a hundred lashes.

Somehow Arlandson forgot to mention that Jehovah's punishment for adultery was DEATH.  Once again, Jehovah takes the prize for being the MOST cruel and the MOST harsh.

The Bible assigns the death penalty for a number of offenses, some that are fairly minor:

- kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) 
- working on a Saturday (Exodus 31:14-15 and Numbers 15:32-36)
- lying about being a virgin (Deuteronomy 22: 20-21)
- for blasphemy or cursing god (Leviticus 24:15-16) 
- worshipping "any other god" (Deuteronomy 13:6-16 and 17:2-5)
- false prophecy (Deuteronomy 18:20 and 13:1-5)
- having sex with an animal (Exodus 22:19)
- striking your father or mother (Exodus 21:15)
- cursing your father or mother (Exodus 21:17) 
- trying to communicate with the dead (Leviticus 20:17)
- a man having sex with another man (Leviticus 20:13) 
- being a stubborn and rebelious son (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

Recall from the previous post (Part IX) that Christians in Europe killed tens of thousands of innocent women for the crime of witchcraft:

Over the entire duration of the phenomenon of some three centuries, an estimated total of 40,000 to 100,000 people were executed.[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_witch-trials
viewed 9/12/13

Those Christians were simply faithfully following the teachings of the Bible, and the commands of Jehovah:

You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live.
(Exodus 22:18, NRSV)

So, we can lay part of the blame for tens of thousands of murders of innocent women at the feet of Jehovah (and Moses).  Many of the women who were condemned to die for the crime of witchcraft were killed in a horrific way.  They were burned to death at the stake.  

But as cruel and harsh as Jehovah may be, for demanding death as the punishment for many crimes and  misbehaviors, surely we cannot blame Jehovah for this horrific form of torture and execution?  Unfortunately, the moral depravity of Jehovah has no bounds, and we can also place at least part of the blame for this horrific form of punishment on Jehovah and the Bible:

When the daughter of a priest profanes herself through prostitution, she profanes her father; she shall be burned to death.
(Leviticus 21:9, NRSV)

Prostitution is not the same as witchcraft, but both were viewed as "crimes" that women sometimes commit.  Prostitution by the daughter of a priest was considered to be an especially bad thing to do, so Jehovah came up with this great idea for an especially harsh punishment.  So, not only did Jehovah demand that the crime of witchcraft be punished with death, he also came up with the idea of punishing an especially unacceptable female crime by burning the condemned female to death. 

There is another sexual taboo that Jehovah demanded be punished by burning to death the guilty persons:

If a man takes a wife and her mother also [in marriage], it is depravity; they shall be burned to death, both he and they, that there may be no depravity among you.
(Leviticus 20:14, NRSV)

Thus the fine Christian believers of Europe were simply following the commands and the example of Jehovah, when they killed tens of thousands of women for the crime of witchcraft, and executed many of these innocent women by burning them at the stake.

If Arlandson is correct to condemn Islam and the Quran on the basis of the fact that the Quran teaches that the punishment for stealing should be to cut off one hand of the thief, then we are also correct to condemn Christianity and the Bible on the basis of the many passages quoted and refenced in this post, passages that advocate genocide, that advocate the death penalty for striking a parent, the death penalty for cursing a parent, the death penalty for working on a Saturday, the death penalty for sleeping with another man's wife, the death penalty for two men having sex with each other, the death penalty for witchcraft, the death penalty for worshipping the wrong deity, that advocate cutting off the hand of a wife who tries to rescue her husband from an attacker by grabbing the attacker's genitals, and that advocate burning a woman to death for prostitution if she is the daughter of a priest.   

To be logically consistent and to maintain our moral integrity, we must follow Arlandson's reasoning to its logical conclusion:

Harsh and excessive punitive violence sits at the heart of the Bible and Christianity.

Is Islam Evil? - Part IX

James Arlandson gives reason number seven for concluding that Islam is "not the religion of peace":

7. Muhammad in his Quran commands that the hands of male or female thieves should be cut off.

5:38 Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are male or female, as punishment for what they have done—a deterrent from God: God is almighty and wise. 39 But if anyone repents after his wrongdoing and makes amends, God will accept his repentance: God is most forgiving and merciful. (Haleem)

Arlandson also quotes an anecdote about Muhammad:

Ibn Umar said the Prophet had a thief’s hand cut off for a shield worth three dirhams. (Bukhari and note the three hadith below this one)

The shield was fairly expensive. The poor in Muhammad’s armies could not afford one. But is a shield equal to a hand?

This anecdote is a bit problematic because  a shield is part of a person's military gear, so a theft of a weapon or of other military gear (like a shield) could have serious and even deadly consequences for the person whose weapon or shield was stolen.  Treating such thefts lightly could also be problematic for maintaining military disicipline and a well-equipped army or band of soldiers.  The theft of a piece of military equipment should not be equated to the theft of ordinary goods (food, clothing, pottery, livestock) from an ordinary civilian.

This passage from the Quran plus some anecdotes about Muhammad led Arlandson to draw a negative conclusion about Islam:

Thus, harsh and excessive punitive violence sits at the heart of early Islam--in Muhammad's life and in the Quran.  Islam is therefore not the religion of peace.

Cutting off the hand of a theif is indeed "harsh and excessive punitive violence", as Arlandson claims.  God, by definition, is a morally perfectly good person.  But a morally perfectly good person would not encourage such harsh and excessive violence as the punishment for a crime, especially for a minor theft.  In the USA we have established a constitutional prohibition against the use of "cruel and unusual punishment", so local, state, and federal governments cannot impose such excessive and harsh punishments for any crime, even for rape or murder.  

It is rational to conclude that either Allah is NOT God, but is a morally flawed person, or else that Allah is God, but that Muhammad and the Quran falsely represent Allah as encouraging harsh and excessive punishment for the crime of theft.  Either Allah is not God, or else the Quran contains false teachings about the will of Allah.

But before we get too far up on our high horse, it is important to place this harsh punishment in proper historical perspective.  According to Arlandson, the historical context of the passage quoted from the Quran took place about 630 C.E.. Over a thousand years later, in Chirstian-dominated countries, such as Britain, Christians were employing an even more excessive penalty for theft: death by hanging. Britain was a Christian nation, not an Islamic nation, and yet we find that the death penalty was rather freely given out in Britain in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries:

At the beginning of the 19th century, there were no fewer than 222 capital crimes, including such terrible offences as impersonating a Chelsea pensioner and damaging London Bridge! One reason why the number of capital crimes was so high was due to the way that particular offences were broken down into specific crimes. For instance stealing in a shop, a dwelling house, a warehouse and a brothel was each a separate offence. Similarly with arson, burning down a house was distinguished from burning a hayrick. It should be noted that in practice, there were only about seventeen general offences for which a death sentence was generally carried out in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These included murder, attempted murder, arson, rape, sodomy, forgery, uttering (passing forged or counterfeit monies or bills) coining, robbery, highway robbery (in many cases, this was the offence of street robbery, that we would now call mugging), housebreaking, robbery in a dwelling house, returning from transportation, cutting and maiming (grievous bodily harm) and horse, cattle or sheep stealing. For all the other capital offences, transportation to America or Australia was generally substituted for execution.
(from "The history of judicial hanging in Britain 1735 - 1964") 
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/hanging1.html

Between England, Wales, and Scotland, there were about 103 civilian executions per year in the 1700s, or over 10,000 executions from 1700-1799 (see "The history of judicial hanging in Britain 1735 - 1964"). Most of the executions were hangings, and given that humane methods of hanging had not yet been developed, most of those hangings were cruel and painful deaths; death by strangulation that took several minutes.

Hanging was not the only cruel punishment given out in the history of Britain. Other punishments imposed by the "merciful" Christians of Britain include: drawn, hanged, and quartered (a person would be hanged, but cut down while still alive, disemboweled, and then chopped into four pieces with an ax), burning at the stake (the preferred capital punishment for women), boiled to death, and such loving non-capital punishments as whipping, amputation, and branding.

Cutting off a person's hand for stealing something is a harsh and excessive punishment, but death by hanging is even more harsh and excessive.  Given the choice to lose one hand or to be strangled to death, most of us would prefer to have one hand cut off and to go on living.

Some other historical facts that are relevant here are the Inquisition and the witch-hunts in Europe. During the Inquisition Christians cruelly tortured fellow citizens who were suspected of holding religious or theological or philosophical beliefs that were contrary to the teachings of the Church at that time:

Historians use the term "Medieval Inquisition" to describe the various inquisitions that started around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230s) and later the Papal Inquisition (1230s). These inquisitions responded to large popular movements throughout Europe considered apostate or heretical to Christianity, in particular the Cathars in southern France and the Waldensians in both southern France and northern Italy. Other Inquisitions followed after these first inquisition movements. Legal basis for some inquisitorial activity came from Pope Innocent IV's papal bull Ad extirpanda of 1252, which explicitly authorized (and defined the appropriate circumstances for) the use of torture by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions from heretics.^[13] By 1256 inquisitors were given absolution if they used instruments of torture.^[14]

In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227–1241) assigned the duty of carrying out inquisitions to the Dominican Order. They used inquisitorial procedures, a legal practice common at that time. They judged heresy alone, using the local authorities to establish a tribunal and to prosecute heretics. After 1200, a Grand Inquisitor headed each Inquisition. Grand Inquisitions persisted until the mid 19th century.^{[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition}  
viewed 9/12/13

If the Christian torturers managed to force a confession out of a suspected heretic without actually killing the suspect, then the punishment that would be imposed was, in some cases, a horrific death by being burnt at the stake:

In practice, the Inquisition would not itself pronounce sentence, but handed over convicted heretics to secular authorities for the punishment deemed fitting by the Church.^[5] The laws were inclusive of proscriptions against certain religious crimes (heresy, etc.), and the punishments included death by burning, although imprisonment for life or banishment would usually be used. Thus the inquisitors generally knew what would be the fate of anyone so remanded, and cannot be considered to have divorced the means of determining guilt from its effects.^[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_burning
viewed 9/11/13

Witch-hunts occurred in Europe for a number of centuries:

The witch trials in the early modern period were a period of witch hunts between the 15th and 18th centuries,^[1] when across early modern Europe^[2] and to some extent in the European colonies in North America, there was a widespread hysteria that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christendom. Those accused of witchcraft were portrayed as being worshippers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as malevolent sorcery at meetings known as Witches' Sabbaths. Many people were subsequently accused of being witches, and were put on trial for the crime, with varying punishments being applicable in different regions and at different times.

While early trials fall still within the Late Medieval period, the peak of the witch hunt was during the period of the European wars of religion, peaking between about 1580 and 1630. The witch hunts declined in the early 18th century. In Great Britain, their end is marked by the Witchcraft Act of 1735. But sporadic witch-trials continued to be held during the second half of the 18th century, the last known dating to 1782,^[3] though a prosecution was commenced in Tennessee as recently as 1833.^[4][5][6]

Over the entire duration of the phenomenon of some three centuries, an estimated total of 40,000 to 100,000 people were executed.^[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_witch-trials
viewed 9/12/13

During the witch-hunts of Europe thousands of women were burned at the stake for the crime of witchcraft, which, of course, is a crime that none were in fact guilty of:

Burning was also used by Roman Catholics and Protestants during the witch-hunts of Europe. The penal code known as the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina(1532) decreed that sorcery throughout the Holy Roman Empire should be treated as a criminal offence, and if it purported to inflict injury upon any person the witch was to be burnt at the stake. In 1572, Augustus, Elector of Saxony imposed the penalty of burning for witchcraft of every kind, including simple fortunetelling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_burning

viewed 9/11/13

Various cruel forms of torture were used by Christians in France, Britain, Scotland, Germany, Italy, and Spain:

Tortures included the chevalet, in which an accused witch sat on a pointed metal horse with weights strung from her feet.^[28] Sexual humiliation torture included forced sitting on red-hot stools.^[29]Gresillons, also called pennywinkis in Scotland, crushed the tips of fingers and toes in a vice-like device.^[30] The Spanish Boot, or "leg-screw", used mostly in Germany and Scotland, was a steel boot that was placed over the leg of the accused and was tightened. The pressure from the squeezing of the boot would break the shin bone in pieces. An anonymous Scotsman called it "The most severe and cruel pain in the world".^[31] The echelle more commonly known as the "ladder" or "rack" was a long table that the accused would lie upon and be stretched violently. The torture was used so intensely that on many occasions the victim's limbs would be pulled out of the socket and, at times, the limbs would even be torn from the body entirely. On some special occasions a tortillon was used in conjunction with the ladder which would severely squeeze and mutilate the genitals at the same time as the stretching was occurring.^[30] Similar to the ladder was the "lift". It too stretched the limbs of the accused, this time however the victim's feet were strapped to the ground and their arms were tied behind their back before a rope was tied to their hands and lifted upwards. This caused the arms to break before the horrific portion of the stretching began.^[31]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture
viewed 9/12/13

Christians employed punishments that were more harsh, more excessive, and more violent than cutting off the hand of a thief. And Christians did so nearly a thousand years later than the time period when Muhammad put forward this rule. 

So, Arlandson needs to also acknowledge the dirty laundry on his own side of the fence: Christians have a long history of using harsh, excessive, and violent punishments, some of which make cutting off the hand of a thief pale by comparison.