Front Page: summer 1990 NO TAKERS Our second issue brought another wave of angry reaction.

Front Page: summer 1990


            NO TAKERS
     
     Our second issue brought another wave of angry reaction.  Some wrote 
REFUSED on their copies and had them returned to us, others sent us terse 
notes calling our publication "junk" or "trash" and asked to have their names 
removed from our mailing list, and still others wrote us long letters express-
ing concerns ranging from dismay over our "apostasy" to warnings of eternal 
damnation. What none of the letter-writers did, however, was to explain away 
any of the Bible discrepancies and inconsistencies discussed in our last issue. 
A short article on the backside of that issue presented a discrepancy between 
II Kings 9; 10:1-30 and Hosea 1:4 concerning Jehu's role in the slaughter of 
the royal families of Israel and Judah.  One "inspired" writer praised Jehu 
for "executing that which is right in mine (Yahweh's) eyes"; the other 
condemned him for the blood he shed at Jezreel. Why? If the Bible is indeed 
a "perfect work of harmony," as so many fundamentalists claim, how could it 
contain a discrepancy as glaring as this one?

     Our article ended with a challenge for "some enterprising inerrantist" to 
explain this discrepancy, but we had no takers. Again why?  If those who 
wrote the Bible were as obviously inspired of God as fundamentalists would 
have us believe, why can't they show us how that there is no discrepancy 
here?  Gleason Archer, the chief apostle of modern day inerrantists, made a 
pathetic try in his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, but, like most "explana-
tions" of "alleged Bible contradictions," his is too ridiculous to warrant seri-
ous consideration. In II Kings 10:30, Yahweh unequivocally declared that 
Jehu had executed "that which  is right in mine eyes" and had done  "unto 
the house of Ahab according to all that was  in mine heart," period, no quali-
fications. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, Yahweh praised Jehu for destroying 
the house of Ahab at Jezreel. Archer claims that the condemnation of the 
house of Jehu in Hosea 1:4 was for sins that Jehu committed after executing 
Yahweh's will at Jezreel, but that "explanation" is about as thin as any you 
will find in Archer's book.  It, at best, conveniently reads into the text 
something that was not even implied in it.  The passage plainly said that in a 
little while Yahweh would avenge "the blood of Jezreel upon the house of 
Jehu," so it was for the "blood of Jezreel" (the slaughter of the royal families 
of Israel and Judah) that Hosea pronounced judgment upon the house of 
Jehu. Let's hope somebody out there can do a better job of "explaining" this 
problem than Archer did.

     Some of  our letter-writers took the time to quote to us II Timothy 3:16 
and II Peter 1:20-21, as if they perhaps thought we were unaware that these 
passages are in the Bible.  Well, we assure you that we are very familiar 
with these and other biblical passages that claim divine inspiration for the 
Bible, but we know too that the Koran and the Book of Mormon also contain 
claims of divine inspiration, so there is nothing unique about the Bible iner-
rancy doctrine. We simply contend that there is sufficient evidence, both 
internal and external, to reject this doctrine, just as most of our readers 
would agree that there is sufficient evidence to reject the claims of inspiration 
made by the Koran and the Book of Mormon.  We publish The Skeptical 
Review specifically for the purpose of allowing our readers the opportunity to 
consider (see NO TAKERS, page 12) evidence that disputes the Bible inerran-
cy claim.  In so doing, we try to give the opposition a fair hearing.  In this 
issue, for example, we are publishing in its entirety an article that Jerry 
McDonald, a fundamentalist minister, wrote in response to Adrian Swindler's 
flat-earth article in our first issue. Do you know of any fundamentalist publi-
cations that would give us the same consideration?  


     Although we have received compliments and expressions of gratitude for 
it, there is nothing particularly noble about our policy of publishing opposi-
tion materials.  Our motives are entirely self-serving. We believe our position 
on the inerrancy issue is a sound one and that its soundness can best be 
demonstrated by giving the opposition the uncensored opportunity to respond 
to our arguments.  Each time we identify a contradiction or discrepancy in 
the Bible text and a competent inerrancy spokesman fails to satisfactorily 
"explain" it, the truth of our position should become more obvious to our 
readers.  In other words, we think that if we give the inerrantists enough 
rope, they will eventually hang themselves.

     From our vantage point, they appear to be proving us right.

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