Is the Bible full of fantastic creatures? Part 5: Seers

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The prophets Isaiah and Moses @ The Creation Museum

Up next in our series on what  I’m calling fantastic creatures – creatures which some people believe don’t exist, and thus they conclude the Bible is full of fairy stories and make believe – is seers.  This is from a list posted to a tweet:

“He follows a holy book with a jealous & genocidal god, ghosts, zombies, seers, devils, demons, witches, satyrs, unicorns, talking animals, a man who lived in a fish and a 7 headed dragon.”[1]
(Not listed but also already covered: The Cockatrice)

For this one, it is not a terminology issue, or a translation issue,  or a misunderstanding of Biblical genres of anything of that sort. This is squarely a worldview issue.  There’s a simple question to answer to demonstrate that fact: Continue Reading

Star of Bethlehem – Divine Preparation for the Incarnation

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A Christmas Meditation

The naiveté  of those who doubt that Jesus is the messiah because they suppose that he arranged to fulfill the requirements and prophecies of the messiah himself always amuses me – particularly at this time of  year when the preparations of God for the arrival of the messiah are so apparent.

It reminds me of the naiveté of the comic character Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes – an active and curious child who with his stuffed tiger (who is alive to Calvin) always gets into amusing situations.  In one instance Calvin asks his father: Continue Reading

Is the Bible full of fantastic creatures? Part 4: Witches and Ghosts

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Some people disbelieve the Bible because they find what I’m calling fantastic creatures – creatures which they believe don’t exist, and thus they conclude the Bible is full of fairy stories and make believe. But nothing could be further from the truth. So in this series we’re looking at the reality behind the creatures which the atheist who tweeted the below finds objectionable:

“He follows a holy book with a jealous & genocidal god, ghosts, zombies, seers, devils, demons, witches, satyrs, unicorns, talking animals, a man who lived in a fish and a 7 headed dragon.”[1]
(Not listed but also covered: The Cockatrice)

And though this is not the season for Halloween, next up we’re looking at witches and ghosts.

Are there Witches in the Bible? 

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Paley’s Watchmaker Argument – Undefeated once Understood

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Paley’s watch maker argument – an argument for the existence of God by the clearly apparent design in nature is one of the most powerful arguments for God’s existence. How do I know? One need merely take a look at all the skeptics who try (unsuccessfully) to refute it. From Youtube bloggers to high profile atheists like Richard Dawkins, doubters repeatedly try to show the argument invalid – and fail miserably. Why all the effort? Because it is so clear, so easy to understand, so obvious, that it is a powerful argument for the existence of God.

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Creation, Craig and the myth of a “mytho-historical” Genesis

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My seminary apologetics teacher Dr. William Lane Craig has a quite serious problem on his hands.  He’s painted himself into a corner.  Dr. Craig has built a career and made and name for himself in apologetics and is well respected in the field. He now faces a problem that could undo all the good work he has done in defending the faith. What problem could possibly be so severe you wonder? Like the man cutting off the branch he’s sitting on, Craig is heading in the direction of undermining most if not all the work he has done in defending the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He appears ready to embrace the creation account as “mytho-historical.” Continue Reading

Is the Bible full of fantastic creatures? Part 3: Cockatrice

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The creature sculpted into the fountain above is the mythical cockatrice. It was not included in the below list from one atheist in his attempt to mock the Bible and the Christian faith for including what he considers unbelievable creatures:

“He follows a holy book with a jealous & genocidal god, ghosts, zombies, seers, devils, demons, witches, satyrs, unicorns, talking animals, a man who lived in a fish and a 7 headed dragon.”[1]

Like many atheists he’s grossly wrong in many of his presumptions. And since I’m sure someone with an anti-Bible axe to grind will point to the cockatrice as an unbelievable creature in the Bible I’ve included it. Though not mentioned in this atheist’s  list, this is a good place to handle it – following an article on the satyr – because a lot of similar dynamics are involved. Of particular note is the use of Hebrew rhyme – the repetition of a single idea. In Is 34.14   we looked at the use of rhyme when a satyr – an idol for a pagan demonic god represented by a goat – was used in the context of judgment. In contrast here we see Hebrew rhyme used with the word the KJV translates as “cockatrice”  in the context of the glorious reign of Christ on earth, in a passage about the effects of the curse being removed. 

So what’s going on here? Is the Bible really referring to the mythical beast, a winged serpent with a rooster’s head and deadly gaze, hatched from a cock’s egg? Or is something else going on? With a little history and some good dictionaries, it’s easy to see both the intent of the word (a poisonous viper such as an asp or Egyptian cobra), and a likely reason why those more common words weren’t used. Continue Reading

Is the Bible full of fantastic creatures? Part 2: Satyrs, devils and demons

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We continue now into our investigation of a claim made by an atheist who charges that the Bible is full of what he considers unbelievable natural and supernatural characters and creatures:

“He follows a holy book with a jealous & genocidal god, ghosts, zombies, seers, devils, demons, witches, satyrs, unicorns, talking animals, a man who lived in a fish and a 7 headed dragon.”[1]

In my previous article I dealt with unicorns and his misunderstanding of God as a “jealous & genocidal god.”  Now we move onto satyrs – and as it turns out devils and demons fit in here too, so we’ll cover them instead of Jonah as I indicated in the previous article. Continue Reading

Is the Shroud of Turin Authentic? The Unconsidered Evidence

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The Shroud of Turin

Summary
In their article “Is the Shroud of Turin Authentic – or Is it a Forgery” Creation Ministries International (CMI) supports the theory that the Shroud of Turin is not the authentic burial shroud of Christ – it is a medieval forgery. This article refutes that theory, along with the main reasons CMI gives for rejecting authenticity.

This article relies primarily on the testimony of Shroud of Turin Research Project (STRP) members and other expert testimony to demonstrate there is a wealth of evidence CMI apparently did not consider before drawing their conclusions. This article is intended to inform the reader of those evidences and make available the testimony of the STRP members and other expert witnesses so that readers may judge for themselves whether CMI has reached the correct conclusion. It is the position of this article that they did not. The reader is encouraged to click on the links to view the referenced testimonies.

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Are Unicorns In The Bible?

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Sidebar to: Is the Bible full of fantastic creatures? Part 1: Jealous God and Unicorns? 

First of all, let’s dispense with the idea that the Bible speaks of the mythical magical type of unicorns pictured above – the type that most people think about when they hear the word “unicorn”.  In fact the word “unicorn”-  as it is understood today, is so far removed from the meaning of the original Hebrew word ראם (reh-ahm) that modern translations have chosen to not even use the word, preferring instead “wild ox.” Some translations using “wild ox”: NIV, ESV, NKJV, NASB, NRSV among others. That’s appropriate since 1. “wild ox” is the primary meaning given in the standard reference – BDB[1]  and 2. Its a word that could refer to what many commentators conclude the Hebrew word points to – the aurochs – a wild ox now extinct. The problem with that understanding is that all the wild oxen we’re familiar with have two horns. Which gets back to the main question I want to examine:

Does the Bible Really Refer to a Unicorn?

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Is the Bible full of fantastic creatures? Part 1: Jealous God and Unicorns?

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An atheist on twitter was frustrated that I was following my own advice about not providing evidence to mockers.[1] So in his frustration he did what mockers do: engaged in ridicule and mocking. In an attempt to deride and ridicule the faith he proceeded to tell others what he thinks I believe:

“He follows a holy book with a jealous & genocidal god, ghosts, zombies, seers, devils, demons, witches, satyrs, unicorns, talking animals, a man who lived in a fish and a 7 headed dragon.”[2]

Clearly he takes exception to all of these. But since he is an atheist, that neither surprises, nor concerns me. The question I do want to address however is what are we believers and people who are seeking the truth to think about what many would consider mythical creatures in the list?  With that in mind let’s look at what the Bible has to say about each of these items, plus one that is usually questioned, but not in his list: a talking snake. So let’s look at these one by one in the light of what the holy book – the Bible – says about them. But before I start, let me highlight the main problem: Continue Reading