The claim is often made that the Bible is just a man-made book full of contradictions, and not the inspired word of God that Christians believe it to be. One of the key proponents of this view is best-selling author, Christopher Hitchens.
In 2007, Hitchens wrote God Is Not Great, attempting to discredit all religions. His conclusion? “Religion poisons everything. As well as a menace to civilization, it has become a threat to human survival.” However, there are some flaws to Hitchens' arguments.
Misconceptions of Genesis and Ten Commandments
Hitchens writes, “How can it be proven in one paragraph that this book [Genesis] was written by ignorant men and not by any god? Because man is given ‘dominion’ over all beasts, food and fish. But no dinosaurs or plesiosaurs or pterodactyls are specified, because the authors did not know of their existence.”
One might argue that Genesis doesn’t mention humming birds, eagles, geese or moose either, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. It could be surmised that Genesis did not intend to offer an all-inclusive list of species. Many species seen today may not have existed in Genesis — Clydesdale horses, for example — but their ancestors, from which they later developed, did exist.
Hitchens also critiques the Ten Commandments, taking issue with “a dire warning that the sins of the fathers will be visited on their children ‘even unto the third and fourth generation.’ This negates the moral and reasonable idea that children are innocent of their parents’ offenses.”
If this was what the passage meant, according to the broadly-accepted interpretation of the commandments, Hitchens would have a point. However, such an interpretation does not consider passages like Ezekiel 18:20, which says, “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity…” What Exodus 20:5 means is that the consequences of sin will often affect future generations.
Regarding the Israelites leaving Egypt, Hitchens writes, “There was no flight from Egypt, no wandering in the desert …No Egyptian chronicle mentions this episode either….”
This is somewhat problematic in that history would bear out that a country’s historians tend to give accounts that favor their side and it doesn’t seem likely that they would report that hundreds of thousands of Israelites got away from them, to say nothing of the Red Sea collapsing upon the army.
One factor that leads credence to the reliability of Scripture is the fact that the writers do recall exactly what happened, even in cases where one could assume that it would embarrassed them or cause them to be viewed in a negative light.
Misconceptions on Genealogy and Dating of Scripture
Hitchens states that, “Matthew and Luke cannot concur on the Virgin birth or the genealogy of Jesus.”
The Concordia Self-Study Bible says, “Some scholars suggest that this is because Matthew traces the legal descent of the house of David using only heirs to the throne, while Luke traces the complete line of Joseph to David. A more likely explanation, however, is that Matthew follows the line of Joseph (Jesus’ legal father), while Luke emphasizes that of Mary (Jesus’ blood relative).”
Hitchens also maintains that the four gospels were written decades after the crucifixion.
Christian apologist Greg Koukl writes, “…we know the Apostle Paul died during the Neronian persecution of A.D. 64. Paul was still alive at the close of Acts, so that writing came some time before A.D. 64. Acts was a continuation of Luke's Gospel, which must have been written earlier still. The book of Mark predates Luke, even by the Jesus Seminar's reckoning. This pushes Mark's Gospel into the 50s, just over twenty years after the crucifixion."
Hitchens' Failure to Discredit Christianity
Hitchens appears to be making a career of trying to debunk Christianity and other world religions, frequently engaging in public debates on the subject. He has failed to discredit Christianity, his arguments having been answered over the years by many Christian apologists.
Sources:
- [Concordia Self-Study Bible, ed. Robert G. Hoerber, Commentary on Luke 3:23-38, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1984).
- Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve Publishers, 2007).
- Greg Koukl, “ A Short Argument for the Early Dating of the Gospels.”
Bob Hunter - For over twenty years Bob Hunter has been involved in the field of Christian apologetics. From 1995 to 2008 he was a writer and researcher ...
