A little backfill: as of recent times (this being posted in Dec 2024 AD) self-styled expert on all things esoterica, Billy Carson, did what many, such as the pop-Nephilologists whom I so oft critique, ensure to never do: he made the tragic error of appearing on a platform wherein he was actually challenged and challenged with someone with credentials to challenge him.
He engaged in a discussion with scholar Wes Huff (“BA in sociology from York University, a Masters of Theological Studies from Tyndale University, and is currently doing a PhD in New Testament at the University of Toronto’s Wycliffe College”) hosted by Mark Minard as part of his web/pod-cast.
Subsequently, after receiving a very well mannered sever thrashing, Carson has filed lawsuits against Huff and Minard—which is only making matters worse for him since he’s just pouring fuel on a raging fire of his own making.
I thought to note a few things that Billy Carson stated during that interaction. Consciously or not, he found himself to utterly cornered by being debunked on so many levels about so many things that he pulled an emotive tactic, he opted to abscond from points against which he could say nothing in defense, except to agree (when his sources where proven to be fraudulent) so he sought to get the audience all hot and bothered by short-circuiting their thinking processes by getting them to feel: it requires no intellect to feel and feelings are much more real than some abstract academically scholarly factoids.
His transition wasn’t even smooth and began thusly, as you can see at this timestamp on the vid, which is at T=1:2213 into it:
We’re missing a big point here: the point that I’m trying to make here is that the Bible is written by people, men, men who are extremely flawed.
And the evidence of that is what they did, they took the information that’s in that biblical text and what they did with it globally to, to other human beings and how they even wrote about it in the Bible how they enslaved and tortured people in the biblical text.
So, in that in that case, even in the book of Deuteronomy, which one of the most brutal books out there, where everything is given, okay to rape women, kill women, kill children, if one person talks against your lord go to that town and kill the whole town, burn town down.
There was some crosstalk during this such as Mark Minard chiming in with, “So brutal…”
Billy Carson continued:
The killing in the Bible is not being done by Satan, that’s why I say I don’t care, I don’t believe in demons and all this other kind of stuff.
Moses goes to the top, he talks to God, he gets his tablet, the first the commandments are, “Thou shalt not kill,” he comes down, as soon as he sees the people making a golden calf, he kills most of them.
Interrupting to reference Abraham being told to sacrifice his son Isaac, Mark Minard chimed in again with, “I’m still, like, in my head, they’re, like, that’s so beautiful, he was willing to sacrifice his Son, as God would, and I’m, like…”
Carson cross talked with something about, “I don’t believe…”
Minard continued:
That’s so mean, that God, it’s beautiful, like, Jesus changed my whole story, no when I’m in heaven and, and I don’t believe God is irrational because He would be smarter than every one of us to be able to literally create everything I, I would be, like, God I don’t, like, why would you tell that dude to kill his son?
Carson chimed in with, “I don’t see any benefit in killing your own kid.”
Minard continued:
And then, right at the last second, He’s like, “No, it’s cool, I was just testing your faith in me.” It’s, like, that seems psychologically, uh, um, to me, when God’s, like, kill your own Son, but then at the last minute says, “Don’t do it, oh, man, you proved your faith to me,” I would be, like, God isn’t there, like, a, I don’t feel like you need to do that to a person, I don’t think that’s, the, such a beautiful story and I’m talking as a Christian that, there’s a lot of things with the Old Testament I, I struggle with…
This is how Billy Carson has earned his bread and I can’t believe it’s not butter: making assertions and expecting his audience to marvel at his fast talking.
Let’s review:
“the Bible is written by people, men, men who are extremely flawed” indeed, such has been known, accepted, and acknowledged for millennia.
“enslaved” it’s very easy to use that bombastic term and it’s sure to get emotive reactions. Yet, it’s much more difficult and time consuming to ask to what he’s referring, whence he’s getting it, is he referring to indentured servitude, to giving people room and board for work after they lost a battle so they don’t starve to death when their governmental infrastructure no longer existed? Well, better just say the word, “enslaved” and quickly move on for maximal effect.
“tortured” again, to what is he referring? One can find and quote and cite plenty of placed in the Bible were record is made of people violating all sorts of ethics. Should we condemn the newspaper when it reports crimes?
There’s literally zero indication that anywhere in the Bible it’s, “okay to rape women” and the punishment for rape is capital punishment.
“kill women, kill children” again, it’s easy to shotgun such assertions and move on but to what is he referring? Sure, capital punishment can be carried out against women if such is the result of the court case. What about in non-court case situations which include killing women and children? Well, there were cases of judgments against extremely unethical cultures who were given centuries to repent but didn’t. And yet, even then, the terminology in such commandments is widely recognized to have been the ancient equivalent of hyperbolic trash talking and we typically see that in the Bible we find such peoples still alive after the exaggeration was that they were wiped out.
Also, much as with, “enslave” the issue of the term, “children” is tricky since it can refer to offspring who are not little kids but just younger than their parents—or course.
As for, “if one person talks against your lord go to that town and kill the whole town, burn town down” I certainly have no idea to what he’s referring.
When it comes to, “‘Thou shalt not kill’…he kills most of them” there is a technical, and yet key, ethical distinction to be made since there’s an ethical and legal difference between killing and murder: and it doesn’t matter how the version you personally read has that key word since it’s the concept that matters and the concepts distinguish a legal and ethical manner in which to take a life versus an illegal and unethical manner.
Billy knows more things that aren’t true than almost anyone else alive today.
As for Minard labored attempts at discussing Abraham, Isaac, and God, here’s a breakdown of the facts—I know, I know, boring facts:
That story is chronologically set when Abraham was just beginning to get to know God.
God tells him to sacrifice his own son and Abraham’s apparently thought: well, of course that’s the cultural zeitgeist, everybody’s doing it so, yeah, this is just common of course, I’m going to sacrifice him to you.
Thus, all of the gods were accepting human sacrifice so, why not?
Now, that’s the case even though we find out that he actually realized that God promised certain things would be accomplished through Isaac. So, even if He has a to resurrect Isaac, He will.
But what comes out of that is God telling us, time and again, this is not who He is, this is not what He wants, He never even imagined that anyone should actually be doing such things.
That is why Christianity, Judaism and. by extension Islam, when faithful to God, have never, ever, practiced human sacrifice. This example of God saying, I understand that this is just common practice and worship of the Pagan gods but I am not like that, you are not to do this, has led to millennia upon millennia’s worth of the overwhelming majority of the planet’s population not doing that.
Because of that event, with which Minard understandably struggles, that turned out to be so good for every society which has learned that about God.
God made a crystal clear that He never wants any such thing done by anybody at any time ever, as a universal imperative, absolute.
This contradiction of the cultural zeitgeist led to millennia worth of the three great monotheistic faiths never ever doing any such a thing because that was the lesson God was teaching: this is not who I am, I do not want this ever, by anybody.
That is why when one lives in a faithful Christian society, in a faithful Jewish one, in a faithful Muslim one, no one has to fear being sacrificed to God: and it’s been that way for millennia.
As for God giving His own Son: not only are we in a different category or phenomena but as Jesus said, “No one takes my life from me. I give it up willingly! I have the power to give it up and the power to receive it back again” (John 10:18).
Jesus wasn’t a human sacrifice to God, He was a God sacrifice for humans.
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