(Image Credit: Paul Frederiksen)

It sort of hit my wife and me suddenly late in our process of deconverting. Every Christian rejects something (or a lot of things) in the Bible. Particular things. Things about which the Bible is very clear. It turns out, there’s no other choice.

The Bible contains a lot of paradoxical statements, conflicting accounts that cannot be unraveled and even a formal contradiction or two. It also has commands that the Christian does not wish to obey and descriptions of God that the Christian does not want to worship.

Still, Christians can’t reject the Bible entirely. That would be throwing out the baby Jesus with the holy water. The Bible is the only reason to believe certain things they do hold dear. So, in one way or another, they reject what they don’t like.

Some Christians will dismiss more of the Bible, others less. Some in pious sounding ways, and others more flagrantly. The better educated, more articulate Christians might perform mental genuflections to explain biblical contradictions and write grand systematic theologies to describe their gods, while the uneducated ones might tell you only what they feel in their hearts and the religious yuppies will tell you what meaning they take from the Bible. What each Christian is telling you, though, in her or his own way, is that he or she is god.

The result is a rank and unique pride that claims a divine stamp of approval upon the Christian’s own life, while rejecting both all of the Bible that doesn’t appeal to her or his liking and the gods constructed by other Christians, reflecting other parts of the bible.

It’s an arrogant syncretism of life and religion that we call Self-Projection as God (SPAG).

For a practical demonstration, just pick a pair of contrary or contradictory Bible verses that are on either side of a sensitive issue and ask a Christian what she or he thinks about them. The better you know the Bible and the Christian, the easier it will be to pick the appropriately contrary verses, but the result will always be the same: The Christian will start rationalizing and explaining the contradiction in a way that accommodates them to his or her own life.

Understand that we’re not merely intending to demonstrate simply that the Bible is an inconsistent hodgepodge of ancient mythology and antiquated ethics rife with error. That’s obvious and it’s not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that because the Bible is such mishmash, SPAG is the necessary and universal form of Christianity in practice, an absolute identity: All Christianity is Self-Projection as God.

Vincent Skolny is an entrepreneur and founder of The Avangelism Project

One of the standard arguments we hear for the historicity of the resurrection is the martyrdom of the apostles. Would the followers of Jesus really have sacrificed themselves for a lie?

The argument has a number of weaknesses. One of the greatest is the fact that all the details of this martyrdom comes down to us through tradition, and we have no way of knowing when the traditions originated. They may be early or late, literary or historical.

Acts gives a few stories, like the stoning of Stephen (Act 8:54-60) or the death of James, brother of John (Acts 12:1-2), but nothing of the deaths of the major apostles. The first mention we get of the deaths of Paul and Peter come from First Clement, one of the first popular works of the community, dated between 90-140 CE. But the story is extremely vague, told to fit the theme of jealousy:

There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory. By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance.

After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found notable pattern of patient endurance. (1 Clem 5:4-6, Lightfoot)

Pullquote: There may also be a kernel of history about the execution of the apostles — or there may not. We just don’t know.

Notice there are no details. As far as we can tell from this text the two chief apostles may have died of old age. And what sort of jealousy are we talking about here? The jealousy of the Jews is one traditional answer. The jealousy between their rival factions is another guess. But maybe it was a more prosaic kind of jealousy.

Consider the apocryphal Acts of Peter, dated to the last half of the second century. Look at what is has to say about the persecution of Peter:

And a certain woman which was exceeding beautiful, the wife of Albinus, Caesar’s friend, by name Xanthippe, came, she also, unto Peter, with the rest of the matrons, and withdrew herself, she also, from Albinus. He therefore being mad, and loving Xanthippe, and marvelling that she would not sleep even upon the same bed with him, raged like a wild beast and would have dispatched Peter; for he knew that he was the cause of her separating from his bed. [...]

And whereas there was great trouble in Rome, Albinus made known his state unto Agrippa, saying to him: Either do thou avenge me of Peter that hath withdrawn my wife, or I will avenge myself. And Agrippa said: I have suffered the same at his hand, for he hath withdrawn my concubines. And Albinus said unto him: Why then tarriest thou, Agrippa? let us find him and put him to death for a dealer in curious arts, that we may have our wives again, and avenge them also which are not able to put him to death, whose wives also he hath parted from them. (Acts of Peter, XXXIV, MR James)

Peter is executed for convincing women not to marry or have sex. The same theme is found in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, with Andrew being executed for coming between a woman and her fiancee. The Acts of Paul has a similar story, with Paul being imprisoned for preaching that maidens shouldn’t marry. Paul isn’t executed until much later, when he mouths off to Emperor Nero.

Is this the sort of jealousy to which First Clement refers? The jealousy of a man spurned by his betrothed? I’d guess not. These three noncannocical works all date last half of the second century, and probably represent the arguments that were going on at the time. These stories may only tell us that there was a faction of the community that considered celibacy extremely important, and so they wove that theme into their traditions about the apostles.

There may also be a kernel of history about the execution of the apostles — or there may not. We just don’t know.

Related Post: Martyrdom Does Not Establish Truth

1. We should believe the Bible because Christ believed the Bible.
2. We should believe the Bible because it accurately explains and powerfully changes our lives.

As far as arguments go, I’m afraid I must classify both as terrible.

Christ Believed It

Pullquote: Christ is trustworthy and He trusted God’s Word. So should we.
Aaron Menikoff

Regarding the first point, Menikoff says:

Such reasoning may sound circuitous or circular. It is not…. If Jesus Christ is trustworthy, then His words about the authority of the Bible should be trusted as well. Christ is trustworthy and He trusted God’s Word. So should we. Without faith in Christ, you will not believe the Bible is the self-disclosure of God. With faith in Christ, you cannot help but believe the Bible is God’s Word.

So we should believe the Bible is a reliable guide to the truth about Jesus… because Jesus believed the Bible? Sounds like a circular argument to me. And even if it could be shown that Jesus thought the Bible was reliable, what Bible would he be referring to? Certainly the New Testament wasn’t written when Jesus was alive, so he can’t be referring to that, which is the topic of discussion. We’re asking if the New Testament can be trusted about it’s extraordinary claims about Jesus — you can’t answer it by saying the Jesus of the New Testament trusts the Old Testament, therefore we know we can trust the New Testament. Only a believer could swallow that kind of circular reasoning and then have the audacity to repeat it, insisting it’s not circular.

Menikoff may want the logic to not be circular, but wishing doesn’t make it so. You can’t make logical fallacies go away simply by closing your eyes and insisting they don’t exist.

It’s Life Changing!

Pullquote: People of all religions — and even those of us who are not religious — have life-changing experiences. It’s part of being human.

In my experience there is only one argument that remains for why people believe in the Bible and Christianity — the argument from personal experience. This is known as a “testimony” and evangelism classes teach proselytizers to use them because “they are the one thing that cannot be argued against.”

Which is true, in a way. There’s no reason to argue that a person didn’t have an experience. People of all religions — and even those of us who are not religious — have life-changing experiences. It’s part of being human.

But they don’t always interpret their experiences rationally. A person may have stopped drinking a bottle of vodka a night, but that doesn’t mean Jesus had anything to do with it. They might claim that at first, saying “I once was a drunk, until Jesus picked me up out of the miry clay and changed my life. Thank you Jesus!” Yet if you dig a little deeper, it ends up there is a lot more to the story — usually you’ll find they had the help of a substance abuse program, a new community of friends to help keep them accountable, and/or a new-found religious obsession to take the place of their old addiction.

My life was changed by Christianity. It has also been changed by books I’ve read and experiences I’ve had. One of my favorite books is East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which powerfully describes human nature. Does that mean it’s divinely inspired because it gives insight into our common struggles? Of course not — it’s just a good book.

The Bible is a myth — a sweeping narrative that tries to explain the human condition. Some people (including myself at one time), find it speaks powerfully and provides a framework for understanding the world. It’s a superstitious framework, but it’s better than nothing. For people who are wandering aimlessly, have trouble being moral, or are in a time of crisis, it can be a stabilizing influence. And I’m glad it works for them!

Yet people have the same experience with the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Vedas, and others. Does that mean we must take them all to be reliable guides to truth and their holy prophets? If so, then what truth should we believe — they all contradict each other!

These arguments will not convince someone who is searching for truth. His points will get head nods from the choir, but they are not challenging or persuasive to a skeptic. He’s talking in a different epistemological language that unfortunately makes us talk past each other.

Menikoff already knows his arguments fail. That’s why he says, “Without faith in Christ, you will not believe the Bible is the self-disclosure of God.” In other words, you have to already believe the Bible is reliable to know it’s reliable — which doesn’t help any of us who question it’s reliability.

But who needs facts, when you can stick your head in the sands of faith?

Let’s take a look at Genesis 4:1:

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” (RSV)

If you stop and think about it, that one line has a number of problems. Just what kind of help are we talking about? Remember that God has just increased the pain of labor for Eve, then kicked her out of the garden. It seems odd to be giving God any credit at this point.

There are also problems with the language. The words “the help of” could just as easily be omitted from the translation. But “I have gotten a man (the child?) with the Lord” raises all sorts of questions. What exactly is going on here?

The ancient Jewish sages pondered this question. They were not only concerned with this one line, but also the fact that Cain would go on to kill his brother in a fit of jealousy. Could the answer to the problems of this one line explain the later crime?

Questions of Paternity

Pullquote: Was Cain was really the son of the Satan?

At some point, it occurred to someone that the word Lord could refer to a number of entities. Many of the angels could be referred to as a Lord when addressed by we mere mortals. Including one particular, fallen angel. Could it be that Eve really meant that her son was fathered by this Lord? And could that Lord be … SATAN?

Now, some people will quickly notice a problem here. In the passage quoted above, the word LORD is in all capitals. This signifies (in most translations) that the word being translated is “YHWH,” the four consonants making up the name of God, sometimes called the tetragrammaton. So this interpretation really shouldn’t fly.

But the rules of the interpretive game that the sages were playing required them to stick with the hands that they’d been dealt — even if they knew the deck had been stacked. Since the name of God was too sacred to be spoken, scribes had marked the four letters, or perhaps wrote the word “adonai” — literally “lord” — underneath as a reminder to the reader not to speak the name itself. So the sages seemed to accept this alteration, and interpreted the passage as if the word really were adonai instead of YHWH.

And so it was settled: Cain was really the son of the serpent. His half-demonic nature was what led to his later self-control problems.

Questions of Dating

Pullquote: If you combine it with the story of Lilith, you find that Adam’s first wife ran off, while his second wife had a fling with Satan.

Just as in the case of Lilith, it is extremely difficult to know when this interpretation came about. It is presented clearly in medieval sources, and it is assumed to have deeper roots. But how deep?

There are any number of passages from ancient Hebrew texts that could be interpreted as presuming this legend. For example:

The mother of seven sons expressed also these principles to her children: “I was a pure virgin and did not go outside my father’s house; but I guarded the rib from which woman was made. No seducer corrupted me on a desert plain, nor did the destroyer, the deceitful serpent, defile the purity of my virginity. (4 Maccabees 18:6-8)

In other words, this woman was no Eve. But the connection is not explicitly made. Other passages have similar problems.

There are early Christian sources that might help. One passage that gets cited a lot is from Tertullian: “Having been made pregnant by the seed of the devil … she brought forth a son.” But this translation is suspect, and it ignores the full passage:

For straightway that impatience conceived of the devil’s seed, produced, in the fecundity of malice, anger as her son; and when brought forth, trained him in her own arts. For that very thing which had immersed Adam and Eve in death, taught their son, too, to begin with murder. (On Patience)

Tertullian seems to be saying that Adam and Eve were infected by the serpent with a sense of impatience, which they passed on to Cain.

There are gnostic sources that depict Satan fathering Cain. There are gnostic sources that depict Satan fathering both Cain and Abel. There are gnostic sources that depict Eve escaping from some amorous angels by turning into a tree. It’s perhaps best not to make too much of gnostic sources.

Ancient or medieval, it’s still an interesting take on things. It handily explains Cain’s temper problem. Of course, if you combine it with the story of Lilith, you find that Adam’s first wife ran off, while his second wife had a fling with Satan. If the first humans behaved this way, I think I understand our history a lot better.

God will punish women by aborting their fetus through a miscarriage.

“Give them, O LORD–what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.” (Hosea 9:14)

God teaches the use of a bizarre ritual using cursed “bitter water” to abort a fetus who was conceived through infidelity. (Numbers 5:11-21)

God orders Moses to kill every Midianite woman who was no longer a virgin. (many of these women would obviously have been pregnant) (Numbers 31:15-18)

God promises to destroy the infants of Samaria and rip open the stomachs of pregnant women.

The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open. (Hosea 13:16)

God allows the pregnant women of Tappuah to be ripped open.

At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women. (2 Kings 15:16)

God commands the killing of infants and nursing babies.

Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. (1 Samuel 15:3)

God repays your enemies by destroying their babies.

Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us. He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. (Psalms 137:8-9)

The BEattitude makes a good point:

Apparently all life is precious to the god of the Bible, unless it is a fetus conceived out of wedlock or conception happens within an “enemy” nation that does not worship him. The Bible teaches that abortion is acceptable if God performs it or he commands it to be done through contaminated water or by violent force….

You can be a pro-life supporter, but leave your Bible at home. It’s horrific and violent stories against innocent infants and unborn children have no place in a discussion on morality and the value of human life.

Indeed. The “always pro-life” position does not come from the Bible, but from conscience. If a person really get their morals from the Bible, be afraid — you never know what God might tell them to do next, because God commanded just about every evil imaginable in the Bible.

Our friend Deacon Duncan has been steadily demolishing the apologetic work I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Geisler and Turek. One of his recent entries (X-Files Friday: So Who Cares?) had to do with G&T’s claims for prophecy found in the OT, specifically Psalm 22.

DD does his usual excellent job of showing the flaws in the apologetic argument, but it’s amazing how weak the argument was to begin with. I think that G&T find themselves caught in a trap that was created by Christian history.

Hidden Meanings

Pullquote: Each text had a surface meaning, but also one or more cryptic meanings that had to be ferreted out with time and study.

After returning from the Exile, the Judeans had a problem. Since they had been deprived of the Temple, the focus of their religion had shifted more towards their sacred texts. But their texts were loaded with people behaving badly. The Pentateuch and the Deuteronomic Histories seemed to have been written as a national epic, which explained how Israel and Judah had come into existence. The returning Judeans now needed answers to different questions: What does it mean to be an Israelite? How now shall we live?

They found answers in an ingenious way: by assuming that God had hidden meanings behind the obvious meanings of the text. Each text had a surface meaning, but also one or more cryptic meanings that had to be ferreted out with time and study. Thus was born the image of the Jewish sage, pondering the cryptic meanings of the Torah in search of new wisdom.

By the time of Christianity, the Hellenic world had developed similar techniques. The Greeks had spent centuries trying to reinterpret their myths into something other than the divine soap operas they appeared to be. So Zeus was not actually a randy monarch, but a symbol representing a divine reality that could not be described.

Early Christianity inherited both of these traditions, and it needed them for two reasons. First, because finding these hidden meanings gave them clues to the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Second, because the ancient Roman world was very conservative and suspicious of new religions. By tying themselves to the scriptures of the ancient Hebrews, Christians could depict themselves as the fulfillment of a very old religious tradition.

Surface Meaning

Pullquote: In an attempt to get away from the hierarchy, Martin Luther jettisoned the idea of hidden meanings.

This belief in the hidden meanings of scripture was essential to early Christianity, but it later became a problem. Hidden meanings always seem to multiply. You find a meaning, he finds a meaning, they find another meaning still. How do we decide who’s right? The ancient Jewish scholars used argument and reasoning to come to rough consensus. Catholic theologians seemed to do much the same, backing the current consensus with the authority of the church.

When Martin Luther wanted to break away from the Catholic church, he argued that we didn’t need these structures to find the meanings of the text. He argued that the Bible was clear and obvious in it’s intended meaning, and that the believer did not need scholars to interpret things for him. In an attempt to get away from the hierarchy, Martin Luther jettisoned the idea of hidden meanings.

The Trap

Pullquote: It’s a limp argument, but it’s the best they can do with both their legs caught in the trap of hidden meanings.

This set a trap for later apologists like G&T. The hidden meanings of the OT are still vital to many Christians, as seen in the usual statement that the OT predicts the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. But good Protestants have to argue that these predictions are obvious and clear, which they never are.

We see the end result in Deacon Duncan’s post: a shifting argument that requires the reader to accept that the similarities are “amazing.” Duncan easily dismantles this claim. G&T shy away from the very idea that their interpretation is not the only meaning of the text, but quickly sidle back with an “even if” argument. It’s a limp argument, but it’s the best they can do with both their legs caught in the trap of hidden meanings.

Vorjack is a librarian/archivist and a public historian, living with his wife in history-soaked Albany, New York.

John Shelby Spong once joked that talking to moderate Christians is like watching someone play rummy: they know they have to discard something, but what? “I’ll get rid of the virgin birth, but I have to keep the resurrection. I’ll give up on the divinity of Jesus, but I need some way to hold on to substitutionary atonement.”

The joke, for Spong, was that he’s willing to lay down everything. He’s willing to toss any card that he finds unacceptable, even if that leaves him empty handed. But this raises the question: is he still playing the same game? And if you’re no longer playing the same game, why are you still at the table?

Reluctance

Pullquote: What right does anyone have to define Christianity? I certainly don’t own the copyright, but neither does anyone else.

I am hesitant to bring up the matter of definition. Firstly, because this is the kind of stick that the fundamentalists have used to beat the liberal Christians for a century. The whole point of the original “fundamentals” was to lay out the set of beliefs required to be a real Christian. That’s not an act I want to follow.

Further, what right have I to try and define Christianity? But by the same token, what right does anyone have? I certainly don’t own the copyright, but neither does anyone else. This is probably not a question that’s ever going to be fully answered.

Definition

Pullquote: There seems to be nothing — no biblical passage, no creedal statement, no traditional belief — that all Christians agree on.

The only reason I bring this up at all is that atheist blogs are frequently beset by commenters who are eager to explain the real Christianity. The more even-handed just want to be clear that there are many different interpretations, and that fundamentalism isn’t the only form of Christianity. The latter group is right, of course, but when pressed to provide a criteria for their interpretation, things get vague.

There seems to be nothing — no biblical passage, no creedal statement, no traditional belief — that all Christians agree on. I would think that substitutionary atonement — “Jesus died for your sins” — would be non-negotiable. After all, this is probably the most basic Christian belief, and possibly the original impulse that led to the formation of the first Jewish-Christian sects. And yet I frequently come across self-professed Christians who tell me they reject this basic idea.

To sever yourself from 2,000 years of Christian thought takes brass, and I respect that. But to do so and still say you’re engaged with the tradition seems almost delusional.

Communication

I want to talk about religion. I want to talk about Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. I particularly want to talk about Christianity, since I live in a culture that’s saturated in it. But this gets increasingly difficult as the word itself seems to grow increasingly nebulous.

Is the only thing that unites Christians the fact that they all call themselves Christians? Is anyone who finds the golden rule a good idea a Christian? Are we all Christians now? Are none of us?

“That doesn’t mean I spend every waking hour praying for the death of the president,” said Drake, who leads Buena Park Southern Baptist Church, near Anaheim, Calif. “Of our prayers, 98 percent should be good prayers, and 2 percent should be imprecatory.”

Imprecatory prayers are based on some of the Psalms where you’ll find great moral advice like “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones” (Ps 137:9). Thank God for the moral guidance of the Bible! Where would we be without such enlightening poetry?

So Drake is right in a way. He can find warrant for what he’s doing in the Bible. And others can point to other passages and show why it’s “against” the Bible. People have been cherry picking bible passages for eighteen centuries.

I wish they’d both wake up and realize it doesn’t really matter what the Bible says.

Biblical study is serious business, but sometime you just have to point and laugh.

Today’s reading is from the Epistle of Barnabas, a letter that was written somewhere between 80-120 CE. It was popular in its time, and managed to make it into the Codex Sinaiticus. It was attributed to Paul’s companion Barnabas, but of course this was a 2nd century guess and doesn’t fit the style or the dating.

The Real Meaning

One of the interesting things about the Epistle is that the author never got the memo that Christians were free to ignore the OT prohibitions and purity laws. Instead, the author sets himself to interpreting the “real” meaning of the laws passed down from Moses. The Jews, you see, had never understood:

To this end therefore, my brethren, He that is long-suffering, foreseeing that the people whom He had prepared in His well-beloved would believe in simplicity, manifested to us beforehand concerning all things, that we might not as novices shipwreck ourselves upon their law. (3:6 Lightfoot translation)

So God, realizing that the Jews would interpret his commands shallowly, made sure that this Son would explain things properly to the next group. It’s no wonder that Bart Ehrman considers this work offensive.

Allegorical Interpretations

Having set himself to the task of interpreting the scriptures properly, the author reaches for the Greek style of allegorical interpretation. So when Moses said “don’t eat this or that,” he was actually speaking symbolically:

So then it is not a commandment of God that they should not bite with their teeth, but Moses spake it in spirit. Accordingly he mentioned the swine with this intent. Thou shalt not cleave, saith he, to such men who are like unto swine; that is, when they are in luxury they forget the Lord, but when they are in want they recognize the Lord, just as the swine when it eateth knoweth not his lord, but when it is hungry it crieth out, and when it has received food again it is silent. (10:2-3)

So “don’t eat the pig” becomes “don’t associate with people who behave like a pig.” And, implicitly, don’t behave like a pig yourself. Fair enough.

Where this becomes unintentionally hilarious is when the author combines this scheme with the scientific understanding of the time.

Moreover thou shalt not eat the hare. Why so? Thou shalt not be found a corrupter of boys, nor shalt thou become like such persons; for the hare gaineth one passage in the body every year; for according to the number of years it lives it has just so many orifices. Again, neither shalt thou eat the hyena; thou shalt not, saith He, become an adulterer or a fornicator, neither shalt thou resemble such persons. Why so? Because this animal changeth its nature year by year, and becometh at one time male and at another female. (10:6-7)

And my favorite:

Moreover He hath hated the weasel also and with good reason. Thou shalt not, saith He, become such as those men of whom we hear as working iniquity with their mouth for uncleanness, neither shalt thou cleave unto impure women who work iniquity with their mouth. For this animal conceiveth with its mouth. (10:8)

Got that, kids? When Moses said “don’t eat the weasel,” he really meant “don’t have oral sex.”

Maybe I’m over interpreting this over-interpretation, but I don’t care. Because “eat the weasel” is the best euphemism I’ve ever heard.

Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.

The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections — some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.

And some familiar — very important — passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said….

The Codex also includes much of the Old Testament that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.

That portion includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.

The New Testament portion includes the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas.

You can view the manuscripts at The Codex Sinaiticus Project.

According to the Bible, King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and she conceived. David brought her husband back from war to sleep with his wife. But he wouldn’t, because the other soldier’s couldn’t sleep with their wives and he didn’t think it was fair. So David sent Uriah back to war with a note that he should be put on the frontline to be killed.

God wasn’t happy with David’s murder, so he confronted him about it. David said he was sorry, but that wasn’t good enough for God. So in his magnificent greatness, he murdered David’s new child. And David moved on to serve his great God by slaughtering other nations.

Anyway, with that context in mind, here’s Gov Sanford explaining why he won’t resign:

I have been doing a lot of soul searching on that front. What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very very significant ways. But then picked up the pieces and built from there.

I remain committed to rebuilding the trust that has been committed to me over the next 18 months, and it is my hope that I am able to follow the example set by David in the Bible — who after his fall from grace humbly refocused on the work at hand. By doing so, I will ultimately better serve in every area of my life, and I am committed to doing so.

Gov Sanford, you’re a hypocrite who’s only sorry he got caught. If you weren’t a Bible-thumper and were not using public funds to pay for your fling, then I’d say it was none of our business. But you’re on a political platform and in a religion where you think you are better and more moral than secular folks. Thanks for showing, like so many of your comrades, that’s your position is a bunch of bullshit.

You broke a legal contract with your wife. You stole government money to pay for your infidelity. You lied to your family, your staff,  your government, and your voters.

Yet you won’t resign, because a storybook says a barbarian named King David didn’t resign when he killed an honorable man?

You, sir, are pathetic.