I'm in the midst of doing my review posts for the new testament. My original plan was to simply do those every day, but it turns out they take a long time to write and I need a little breathing room, so today I want to quickly talk about something that came up in the comments of my recent post about women. TWF mentioned something he calls the one verse test, basically, if you are making an argument that a particular position is supported biblically, find the verse that supports your position the most and remove it from the discussion. If you can still support your argument biblically then great, but if your argument falls apart then this shows how weak it really is.
Things that seem to be important to the authors of the bible are said over and over. A great example of this is that the apocalypse is right around the corner, I found 17 different verses that forward this idea so this argument is quite strong. On the other hand, I have only found one verse (Luke 20:35) that supports the idea that married people are not eligible for resurrection, so my case for this argument is much weaker.
A nice thing about this idea is that if you only have one verse supporting your argument, you are very vulnerable to translation issues, or even things being manipulated (either intentionally or accidentally) by the early church. And there is even the possibility that you are simply misreading something or misunderstanding what is really written in the book. But the more verses you have supporting the argument, the less chance there is for these types of mistakes. It's much more likely that there was such an error in one verse compared to 17 separate verses.
So if the apocalypse was right around the corner when the Bible was written maybe that meant that the Bible was indeed the apocalypse it has proved to be.
ReplyDeleteI guess that could mean we are in the new earth right now
DeleteI'd like people to apply this test to stuff I say as well.
ReplyDeleteIt would make sense, anything really important you will probably wind up saying more than once.
DeleteWell explained, Hausdorff, and thanks for the shout out. :-)
ReplyDeleteRegarding the timing of the (apparently delayed) end, most apologists go for 2 Peter 3:8:
"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." NIV
It's an attempt to say "time is relative," "God works on His own timeline," and "what may seem like a long wait to us is trivial to Him." But this is the only verse with that sentiment that I know of. So, under the one verse test, it would be dropped out, and you'd be left with odd arguments like Guzik's running-along-the-edge-of-the-cliff as the best defense for why the end hasn't happened. And, as you've pointed out, that's a pretty poor defense.
Agreed. The other thing about 2 Peter 3:8, is that it makes all end times predictions completely ridiculous (well they already are ridiculous, but now even more so). If God speaks of a day as 1000 years, how can you possible pinpoint the end times?
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