Mortal Men and Mortal Mayans

Yesterday, Paul Manata responded to a few atheist commenters, doing it in “Pressing the Antithesis” style. One of those atheists, Aaron Kinney, has posted another comment:

Secondly, I also believe that these “mortal men” didn’t know that the ancient Mayans even existed. Now what?

Ill tell you what, just like when you rambled for three posts about me without understanding what “quote mining” is, you fail to see what I was trying to say. So let me be more blunt, now that you agree with me about the ignorance of the authors of the Bible: Where does God come into all of this? If the Bible was inspired, why do these Biblical authors write in such an uninspired and ignorant way? Did God tell the authors “some” but they wrote “all”? Or did God tell them “all” while knowing that they werent aware of the Mayans? Or maybe did they simply make stuff up and wrote a book that wasnt inspired by any supernatual being?

And you totally missed the point of my science comparison. My point was that scientists dont presuppose the validity of a scientific theory before they evaluate it, but you do so with the statements in your Bible.

Ok folks. Don’t get too embarrassed now. This was just something posted in a comments section, nothing serious. So I suppose we can’t hold Kinney to a higher standard than the scholarship on the same level as, “Hey guys. Great post!” But it’s at least worth a quick response. Let’s look at it piece by piece:

So let me be more blunt, now that you agree with me about the ignorance of the authors of the Bible: Where does God come into all of this? If the Bible was inspired, why do these Biblical authors write in such an uninspired and ignorant way?

Wait a minute: where are we getting this from? Who said that God inspired the Biblical authors to write in an uninspired or ignorant way? Let’s do a quick review. You asked the question, “Ever consider that when it says, for example, ‘all the world,’ it says so because the Bible was written by mortal men who didnt [sic] know that the ancient Mayans even existed?” First, we must note that such a statement completely ignores the exegesis that had taken place. In other words, Gene Bridges and Paul Manata offered exegetical insight concerning the usage of the words “all” and “world” in certain passages. But Kinney comes along and, after completely ignoring the presentation, offers a quite lacking alternative. His statement is along the lines of “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Forget that ‘context’ stuff. Just throw it out the window. The important part is that there is an error! The Bible is in error!” Three things must be noted:

1. We don’t start out with our theology and then conclude whether or not the Bible is inspired based upon how well it matches up with our theology. Rather, we start with the presupposition that the Bible is infallibly inspired, and from that we derive our theology. So if, in fact, our theology does not match up with the Bible, we don’t throw out the Bible! We throw out the theology! Luckily for Gene Bridges and Paul Manata, their theology was exegetically based.

2. The whole Mayan allusion is based upon a humanistic assumption. That assumption is that God must offer salvation to all equally, and if the Mayans didn’t get to hear the gospel, then there is injustice on God’s part and error on the Bible’s part. But this is simply an unjustified presupposition on the part of Kinney, and he must prove his assertion.

3. Kinney’s assumptions continue to fill the computer screen. Apparently, he thinks that God must cause the Biblical authors to be omniscient (an attribute that is incommunicable to man, by the way) or else they cannot be truly inspired. But where has he justified such an assertion? Why do the authors need to know about the Mayans before they can pen the Word of God? Kinney’s assumption here based upon numbers 1) and 2) above. That is, he forces his assumptions concerning the nature of the gospel into the text, and then concludes that the text is uninspired and errant. But who made Kinney the standard for judging inspiration? Why must the Bible reflect Kinney’s assumptions in order for it to be inspired? Is Kinney God? Thankfully not!

Did God tell the authors “some” but they wrote “all”? Or did God tell them “all” while knowing that they werent aware of the Mayans? Or maybe did they simply make stuff up and wrote a book that wasnt inspired by any supernatual being?

[sarcasm]Alright, Kinney. You win. Yeah, it’s the last one.[/sarcasm]

Ok, how’s about we review what Gene and Paul said concerning these passages. There is absolutely no confusion regarding what God meant, what he had the Biblical authors pen, and what the Biblical authors meant. It’s called exegesis. We don’t start with assumptions and then eisegete them into the text. We let the text speak for itself. So, Kinney, where have you dealt with the exegesis of the relevant passages? Don’t make a mess of the text based upon your unjustified assumptions. Exegete the passage!

And you totally missed the point of my science comparison. My point was that scientists dont presuppose the validity of a scientific theory before they evaluate it, but you do so with the statements in your Bible.

First of all, the statement “scientists dont presuppose the validity of a scientific theory before they evaluate it” is simply naive. Second of all, the statement, “but you do so with the statements in your Bible” is simply false. Please show where this has been done, specifically in the posts by Gene Bridges or Paul Manata, or even mine here. Don’t just assert. Show it.

Evan May.