Christopher Hitchens is convinced. There is no doubt in his mind: the Bible approves of the worst kinds of cruelty! According to Hitchens, “The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals. It goes without saying that none of the gruesome, disordered events in Exodus ever took place” (102).
Unfortunately for Christopher Hitchens, any biblical scholar with even a basic understanding of literature and art finds this statement to be, to put it kindly, problematic. First off, we need to realize that the ancient world was a very barbaric and violent place. It should not surprise us to find in the Old Testament the history of Israel in the midst of that violent and barbaric world. What we see in the Bible, therefore, is that God chooses to work within a barbaric and violent world to bring about His purposes. Secondly, his disparaging the Old Testament as being put together by “uncultured human mammals,” is displays his lack of literary and artistic sensibility more than anything else. I have a PhD in the Old Testament—it is a work of literary artistry and genius. For Hitchens to scoff at it would be like someone scoffing at Shakespeare. Thirdly, most biblical scholars would be rather shocked at Hitchens’ out of hand dismissal of the historicity of the Exodus. If nothing else, Hitchens proves himself to be an amateur and hack historian.
Hitchens Hates the New Testament, Too
Hitchens isn’t simply against the Old Testament, though. For that matter, he seems quite narrowly focused on a few select passages from Genesis and Exodus, completely ignoring 90% of the rest of the Old Testament—sort of like Ken Ham. No, Hitchens actually states in chapter eight that the “New Testament exceeds the evil of the Old Testament.” That is quite the statement. I’ve heard people complain about the violence in the Old Testament, but Hitchens actually argues that the New Testament is “more evil” than the Old Testament. How does he get to this conclusion?
One of the first things Hitchens states about the New Testament is that it “is a work of crude carpentry, hammered together long after its purported events, and full of improvised attempts to make things come out right” (110). First off, this statement is pure knee-jerk propaganda. Similar to the comment he made about the “crude and uncultured” authors of the Old Testament, once again, Hitchens proves himself tone-deaf to what literary artistry actually is.
Secondly, Hitchens claims the NT documents were written “long after” the events of Jesus. He writes, “…the four Gospels were not in any sense historical record. Their multiple authors—none of whom published anything until many decades after the Crucifixion—cannot agree on anything of importance” (111). This argument about how much time passed between the actual events of Jesus’ life and when the documents were written is completely misleading. They were written 30-60 years later: a virtual snapshot by ancient standards. As far as the NT letters were concerned, they were written to address events that were happening at the time of their writing; even Revelation was written during Domitian’s persecution of Christians. My point is simple: when you have ancient documents written within 30-60 years of the events in question, you have a really, really reliable historical documents. Hitchens’ claims are completely bogus.
But what is he talking about when he says the Gospels don’t agree on anything of importance regarding the crucifixion? What Gospels is he reading? At virtually every point they agree. Sure, each writer focuses on a few different things in the course of the narrative regarding Jesus arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection, but the major facts are consistent. So why do they focus on different things from time to time? Because they were writing to different audiences and had their own theological focuses that they were emphasizes in the course of their respective books.
The Infancy Narratives
The part of the New Testament that Hitchens focuses on the most is the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. Regarding the flight into Egypt, Hitchens makes this snobbish and ignorant comment: “Incidentally, if the dash to Egypt to conceal a child from Herod’s infanticide campaign has any truth to it, then Hollywood and many, many Christian iconographers have been deceiving us. It would have been very difficult to take a blond, blue-eyed baby to the Nile delta without attracting rather than avoiding attention” (111). This absolutely ridiculous and sophomoric quip is completely irrelevant. Apparently, Hitchens gets his “historical information” about Jesus from bad Hollywood movies. It is ironic how he discounts the gospels themselves as being anchored in history, but then paints his picture of Jesus with the brush of bad Hollywood movies.
As for the biblical claim that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Hitchens dismisses it out of hand for this stated reason: “But then even my attempt to be fair and open-minded in this case, it is subverted by the Gospel of John, which seems to suggest that Jesus was neither born in Bethlehem nor descended from King David. If the apostles do not know or cannot agree, of what use is my analysis?” (115). Now, there is a legitimate scholarly debate on whether or not Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem—I do not personally agree with those scholars who doubt it, but at least they put forth a few thought-provoking arguments.
Hitchens, though, just comes across as both ignorant and arrogant. Sure, it’s true, John doesn’t mention Jesus’ birth at all, and he does not include any genealogies. So what? Does the fact John doesn’t include a birth account or genealogy somehow prove that Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem and wasn’t a descendent of David? Using that logic, since John doesn’t write about Jesus’ birth, I guess Jesus was just never born! Even someone who isn’t a Christian can see that this “evidence” is no evidence at all. If I write a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and choose to focus on his political career, does that “subvert” someone else’s biography in which they claim Lincoln was born in Kentucky and grew up in Illinois? Of course not.
When Hitchens turns his attention to the virgin birth, he shows himself to, again, be incredibly simple-minded. He claims that the virgin birth story “is the easiest possible proof that humans were involved in the manufacture of a legend” (116). Why? Well, Hitchens points to the fact that everything Jesus does comes as a shock to his mother. His logic is this: “If Jesus really was miraculously born to the Virgin Mary, she obviously would know he was God; therefore she shouldn’t be surprised at anything Jesus said or did.”
But let’s think about this in the context of the Jewish Messianic hope of the second Temple period. Mary is told that her child, Jesus will be the savior, the Messiah. Mary, being a good Jew, would have naturally assumed that Jesus would save the Jews from Roman rule, purify the Temple, and inaugurate a literal kingdom of Israel that would finally be fully restored as God’s people. The fact that Jesus runs into constant problems with Pharisees and religious authorities would have no doubt shocked Mary…Jesus was not the kind of Messiah she or any of the Jews were looking for. Her expectations did not match what she saw Jesus doing…that is why she was shocked.
Jesus’ Teachings
Speaking of being shocked, this might shock you: Christopher Hitchens is not a fan of Jesus’ teachings. In fact, he finds them to be quite horrible and immoral! Observe this quote regarding the sayings of Jesus:
“Many are unintelligible and show a belief in magic, several are absurd and show a primitive attitude toward agriculture (this extends to all mentions of plowing and sowing, and all allusions to mustard and fig trees), and many are on the face of it flat-out immoral. The analogy of humans to lilies, for instance, suggests—along with many other injunctions—that things like thrift, innovation, family life, and so forth are a sheer waste of time. This is why some of the Gospels…report people saying at the time that they thought Jesus must be mad” (118).
While reading his book, I found myself from time to time thinking, “He can’t be that stupid, can he? It is difficult for me to believe that Hitchens can be this ridiculous!” He simply cannot be serious in his accusation that Jesus, with his “lilies of the field” parable, was promoting sloth and laziness, can he? Or can he not even understand the simplest parable? Jesus’ teaching is not to worry about what to eat, wear, etc. He’s not saying, “Hey, just sit on the couch and watch porn! Something will turn up!” Furthermore, the reason why many people thought Jesus was mad, was not because he taught laziness was a virtue! He was considered mad because he was claiming to be one with YHWH.
In fact, I don’t think Hitchens was that stupid and ridiculous. Call me cynical, but I have to think that he saw an opportunity to rile people up, sell books, and go on debate tours. I hope Hitchens was too clever to actually believe what he wrote about the sayings of Jesus.
Next time, I will wrap up my review of Christopher Hitchens’ book god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Not one person has clicked like. Hitchens was a light on the historical world and never was beaten in debate.
Two professors at the seminary I attend had a three hour dinner with Hitchens when he was touring to promote this book. He knew many verses, but just the ones to quote to make Christians look stupid and the Bible absurd. When they asked about other passages, he had no familiarity. Toward the end of the evening they explained their view of the biblical narrative and what Christianity is all about. He looked surprised and said “OH….and how many people believe this?” It was clear he did not really understand anything of what Christianity is about. What a sad career.
Wow…that is sad, yet unsurprising, to hear. When I read up on Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris, I was shocked at how biblically illiterate they were, and yet how unabashedly confident they were in their condemnations of things they knew nothing of.