AW! Epistles
From Bill Z
Abstract
Sunday, 13 July 2003
From Bill Z. Your commentary on the House of David stelle in telle Dan is standard biblical minimalist conjecture. The main presupposition is always the same. The bible is either purely or largely fictional. Every piece of evidence MUST then be interpreted from that presupposition.
From Mike. I can believe only one thing from your diatribe, and that is that you have not read any of the pages to which you refer. If you have read them, I suggest you read them again because you have not understood what you read, or you forgot it as soon as you read it. In truth, I think that all Christians are so blinded by what you call faith that they cannot understand simple English. That is one reason why they are so dangerous. Christians cannot understand right from wrong when it is explained to them, and that makes them Satanic not sacred. The Tel Dan stele for example does not necessarily mean what you assume it means even if it is not a forgery. I explain it fully on the relevant pages.
If you are interested in a discussion then tell me something that is not explained on the pages, or that is inadequately explained. And cite the point that you disagree with. I have about 10 MB of arguments that show you are talking crap, but I have no intention of searching through it to try to find what you are talking about, to answer you. However, I will answer inline the obvious stupidities in your letter.
The bible is either purely or largely fictional.
That is not the minimalist view, and you would have known it if you could understand what is written. Minimalists say that no one can tell what in the bible is fictional without external evidence. Read the pages!
Every piece of evidence MUST then be interpreted from that presupposition.
If no one can be sure whether a factual biblical statement is true or false, all of it has to be assumed to be false until it is verified. This is a simple legal as well as scientific principle that Christians just cannot get their untrained minds around because they are taught to believe ten impossible things before breakfast.
Your commentary on Shanks is illustrative. You take offense to a comment he made about a biblical minimalist’s reasoning on this. You then proceed to attack, very personally. You demand of others, what you are not willing to apply to yourself. But this is also boilerplate minimalist behavior. Every criticism no matter how mild, is taken as a personal assault. This is extremely unfortunate.
I do not know what you are talking about since you do not cite it, but your conclusions are the opposite of the truth. Jews and Christians are enraged by the minimalists. They start throwing insults. Minimalists are interested in evidence scientifically interpreted, not childish and dishonest beliefs.
The strength of the find is partly indicated by your (i.e. minimalist) resort to a forgery conspiracy. Your hard evidence for this conspiracy is utterly nonexistent. Your soft evidence for this is purely conjectural. Your literary points have been more than amply answered by Price and others. The 1993 and 1994 finds are very solid finds from a hostile witness. The degree of mental gymnastics that requires in your own preexisting belief system you use in this piece shows the extent to which this is true. The find confirms Kings to a very early date. It confirms the House of David, in a manner, consistent with several other examples from the period, as the very human founder of a dynasty, and to almost within 100 years of his lifetime to boot. No wonder why you hate the find.
You are talking through your hat. The find is only important to Jews and Christians because you grasp at straws in the face of overwhelming evidence. No critic has had the chance to examine the finds forensically, and that is suspicious in itself. The find was as ever unstratified. That is suspicious. All of this and more is on the page and cannot be ignored, but the find itself is also utterly ambiguous, and only supports the biased mind. What is more, if genuine, it offers a host of dating problems that I await clarification, but are certainly there. It is all on the page. Read it and try to understand what you read.
Your comments about no one questioning the bible, or David or Jesus until recently lead to the question, What is your definition of “recently”?
You are not giving any reference, so am I supposed to be a prophet?
Minimalists such as yourself, are direct intellectual descendants from the higher critics. Their minimalization of the bible and everything in it, was very total and dates from the 19th century. This is now the 21st century. Is that recent? The higher critics where themselves the product of every increasing attacks on the truth of the bible dating back as early as the 17th century. Is that recent? Why do you even make these comments? You should proudly acknowledge the long intellectual history of those who believe as you do (now approaching 400 years in one form or another). EVERYTHING in the bible has been questioned vigorously for a LONG time and you know it.
You prove here that you have not read the pages. I have covered all this stuff that you think you are telling me. Read the pages before you start talking.
The only logical reason for you to deny your own intellectual history is because readers will find that Pilate, the nine Kings of Judah you mention, Caiaphas and many other figures from the bible that your intellectual ancestors called fictional, have since been confirmed. They where wrong (at least partly).
You are talking more crap than ever. Christians believe there is such a thing as absolute truth. It is their own truth—what they believe—but intelligent people know that truth is continuously revealed by careful and methodical study. It means that scholars can sometimes be wrong, but, when they are, further study will lead to clarification when the evidence is available. You simpletons cannot understand anything so complicated, but that is why sometimes experts change their mind. They are led by evidence not by delusion. No one has any doubt about Pilate or Caiaphas but many of the kings of Judah are known nowhere except in the bible.
Maybe you don’t want interested readers to realize that. Maybe it was just an oversight. Maybe, jus like Bill Clinton, our definitions of what “recently” is simply differ. The truth is that archaeology has been very much a mixed bag. Some support for the bible has been derived, some has not. The actual picture is a complicated mixed bag.
Quite so, but you will not accept what goes against your own fairy-tale beliefs. Your use of archaeology is selective and dishonest.
Besides minimalist history, your commentary about David as some sort of Godlike figure is also quite incorrect.
Nothing proves what I am saying better than this. You know nothing about David other than what you know from the bible, but you KNOW he was not a god! I have a brain that you will say God gave me, but even so I try to use mine. What have you got against yours?
Samuel and Kings present NO SUCH PICTURE of David.
Why should I believe that religious myths are historically true? Only children and half-wits do that.
The David in the bible is an emotional adulterer and a murderer.
Mythical gods are typically like this. Read some of the Greek or Norse myths, and you might learn something there too.
As a man of war, God prevents him from building the temple. The family intrigues presented are extremely human. The David of the bible, to those not of an already existing predisposition to dismiss him, comes off as VERY real. Your comments on this point seem intended more to wave off those not familiar with how the bible actually presents David, then in presenting the truth. But then again, the disagreement may simply be in how we define “godlike”.
You are still proving with every word that you are spouting without having read a word of the pages you are criticising. Any competent writer can create a convincing description of anything. Writers do it all the time. ’Star Trek’ seemed convincing to me. Should I believe it? ’The Last days of Pompeii’ seemed true to life to me and had lots of period detail and historical places and events in it. Should I believe that? Your arguments are fatuous. They assume all along that the bible MUST be true because you have been convinced by a previous generation of fools or crooks that it contains the word of God Almighty. An Almighty God could do a much better job. This book has been written by used car dealers.
In your piece, you take some sideswipes at Moses and Jesus. Here we get to the heart of the matter. Moses is the central figure of Judaism. If he is legendary the entire basis of Judaism is a lie. David is secondary by comparison. Home movies of David could be discovered and confirmed, but without Moses, Judaism remains a fiction. Who knows? Maybe David made Moses up to support his fledgling kingdom. Similarly, Jesus Christ, AS THE SON OF GOD, is the central figure of Christianity (while ADAM, is the second most important figure, for if Adam did not sin, what need was there for a savior?). His mere existence is human history is not enough. There are many sources of his historical existence going from Josephus, to Tactius, to Pliny to Sustenious etc. who date from 50 to 100 years from his time from outside of Christian circles. Extreme minimalist attacks on these references are frankly, laughable.
Sorry, chum, it is your position that would be hilarious if it were not so sad that you are ready to believe anything you are told by supposed ministers quite against the scientific evidence. Again you prove you have not read the pages. The people you mention are all carefully examined and show that you are, as usual, talking through your extremely large hat. Read the pages. I know that Christians convince themselves that they are demigods themselves, but you prove you are dolts and ignoramuses in almost every word you utter.
If applied consistently, their standards would result in EVERY piece of ancient history becoming legendary, and just about every piece of history since ancient times as well. Recent attacks on the historicity of the moon landings show how far this mindset can go.
This is nonsense. I repeat that minimalists go on evidence. They accept historical method, not blank acceptance of whatever some cracked pot who thinks he has a personal line to God tells them. Christians have no choice but to reject evidence because much of it denies their beliefs. As for the moon landings, it surprises me that Christians will believe them, since they reject anything equally valid applied to the bible stories.
But the Christian must not just show that Jesus existed. The basis of the Christian’s faith is that the Jesus of history was the son of God. If this was the case, all historical figures from the old testament he mentioned must ALSO be true. If this is not the case, Jesus was wrong and if he was wrong he was not the son of God. His mere historicity is not enough. The Jesus seminar is as antiChristian as extreme minimalist who deny his historicity, despite their comments to the contrary.
So, you are in a double bind. The evidence for the existence of Jesus in history is slight, and the evidence that he was a son of God is entirely biblical. The biblical evidence is a morass of contradictions and alterations in several accounts that do not agree. Even so, the Christians believe it because they are shit scared that, if they do not, God might burn them forever.
Ultimately, Jesus can be historical, along with David, EVERY King of Judah and Israel, all the prophets, every apostle and figure of the New Testament, and the bible would still be based on legends if Adam, Noah and Moses where only stories. What this means is that your side has a much greater ability to retreat than my side does. So be it. This universe was designed. The life that resides on this earth was also designed. Many features of that life where also designed. A universe with a designer is consistent with miracles, not often, but consistent with that presented in it. If that’s the case, what is presented needs to be treated with a respect at least equal to other ancient literature for nonbelivers and above all other sources for believers. The bible presents a testimony of the designer consistent with the natural world.
This is complete baloney. If you believe all this you are as cracked as your teachers. Read the pages, if you can, and you will learn a different story and one that is entirely consistent with the natural world because it does not need any hypothetical supernatural designers and creators, concepts from the nursery, and Sunday School.
On this, we will not agree. That is the REAL argument. It has gone on in one form or another for thousands of years, and will no doubt go on until the end of time.
Which might not be long, if the Christian leaders of the free world carry on starting wars and blowing non-Christians to smithereens. I realise, by the way, that some Fundamentalists, and Bush and Blair might be among them, actually think they can bring about the Parousia. If it is to come, and God is good, let it be soon, and the Fundamentalists will be surprised to find that they are the ones who are cooked forever. God cannot have given them a brain for them to abuse it.
But that’s okay. The bible is true. There is more evidence out there supporting it, and much of what can be found, will be found. Will this PROVE the bible? No. That’s a matter of faith, and that goes for BOTH sides of this debate. Heck, in the current environment, we can’t even “prove” that we landed on the moon to some people. So “proof” will allude both sides.
Well, you prove that you have no idea of the scientific method, and that it is that gave you your conmfortable lifestyle, including the ability to send electronic mail like this for thousands of miles. For a thousand years when people believed in God because they had to do it or be burnt to a crisp, the world lived in abject poverty, ignorance, and inequality—all ordained by God, of course! What gives us knowledge, and what gives us justice, is doubting what we are told and deliberately seeking evidence to prove it. The Catholic Inquisiton and the Protestant Witch Hunts, had no such ideas of using evidence, and now we know that countless numbers of innocent people were cruelly murdered, and not quickly! Christianity has always been monstrous, and is able to remain monstrous because Christians are trained from school age not to ask for any evidence, let alone proof. All of this is on the pages, but for this reason it is useless for you. You already have the mark of Cain. Your minister gave it to you.
Getting back to this specific subject, the House of David stelle shows that an historical David founded the dynasty of the Kings of Judah as the bible says he did. Nothing more can be said. Could he have been some two bit tribal chieftain? Yes. Could his accomplishments have been overstated? Yes. But exist he did. The stelle stands as a thorn in the side of minimalists. In the same way, the lack of confirmatory evidence about Moses and the conquest, stands as a thorn in the side to those who believe as I do. A confirmation of Moses and/or the conquest would be REALLY major. We’ll see what the future bring.
It shows nothing of the sort. Read the pages. What does ’bytdwd’ mean? A neighbour of mine used to be called Godson. Was he God’s Son too? The word looks like ’House of David,’ but is it, and if it is, what does it mean? You cannot ask these questions because your ministers do not allow you to. All it shows is that something had this name but no one knows what. I am getting bored by repeating what you should have read, and even if you disagreed with, should have understood, but you understand nothing. If he existed, as you said, but was only a two-bit chieftain, then he was not the David of Samuel and Kings. Do you understand that? If his achievements have been overstated, then the minimalist position is upheld. A two-bit scruffy robber baron has been made into the founder of an empire with an extensive court. Get it? Most of the story is untrue. You are suddenly a minimalist, but you just cannot understand it.
When it comes to Moses and what went before, you say nothing at all, because there is nothing to say outside the bible that supports any of it, and much that does the opposite. I do not hope to persuade irrational people to see reason. I hope that I am rational enough not to waste my time on that, but some people might be saved from an idiotic and emotional dependence on fantasy fathers and their fantasy sons. If you have the interest and the character to do it, I suggest you read the pages before you come up with spurious criticisms and commonplace defences of the indefensible.
Another missive from Bill Z. Mike, I have the following comments on: AskWhy! The Truth about the Jewish Scriptures 1. This article is pretty standard minimalist fare. Along that line, the motives and biases of your opponents are assessed, while only angelic truth eminates from your own side. The possibility of very current political biases, as well as older antireligious ones, emanating from your side are never discussed.
You seem to be suggesting that I should argue against my own arguments. That is a very Christian attitude about others, but not one that Christians themselves ever think they should adopt. I have a view, based on a lot of evidence which I present. I feel no compulsion to try to refute my own findings. Why should I?
European history is replete with AntiSemitism. The 60 year old Arab-Israeli conflict has its partisans on both sides. You discuss the predilictions and purposes of Jewish and Christian partisans. But pro-Palestinian partisans have just as a big a stake in having the bible NOT being historical, even if it was, to whatever extent. Many parties, historically ignorant for the most part, feel that Arab terrorism would fade completely away if only Israel would do the same. Usually the most honest and unbiased people are those who are most willing to admit their own. The above article comes out very weak on that score.
I also feel no need to get involved in the foolish arguments of people who think that God determines present day hatreds, especially a supposed God of Love. This God of love has, we are told, foresight, and knew precisely what would happen when he divided the people of the ancient near east into those who were all right, the son of Sarah’ descendants and those who were not, the son of Hagar’s. One was described with kind words and one with offensive words. Plainly you believe all this of your loving God, but I do not believe that a loving God would allow any such things to have been written. My question therefore is why were they? I try to answer the whole question of the Jewish scriptures at some length but you are too idle to read it. They were certainly not written by any God, and if they were, it was not any God of love. Finally, if we are to begin claiming things form 2000 years ago on the spurious basis of ancient texts, then the world would be in chaos. No good God can possibly go about chosing favourites. It proves that He is not good!
Reading on, I find that you are arguing from utter ignorance because you have obviously not read any of the website, except this one page—part of the introduction to it. Like nearly all the Christians that write to me, you already know everything that needs to be known with no effort at all on your part. Presumably God tells you what matters. Save me the bother of having to reply to such pompous and uncritical nonsense.
The article implies that biblical minimalism originated in the 1970’s. That is a patently false impression, probably meant to convey to the reader some type of inevitability and freshness to your side, in what is actually a very old debate. The current version of biblical minimalism has modern antecedants going back to the 17th century. “Higher critical” school rejection of the bible as history in the middle part of the 19th century was TOTAL. Radicals in the French revolution actually changed the calendar in a direct rejection of Christianity in the 1790’s. Decades before the highly influential enlightenment thinker Voltaire had made no secret of his contempt for Christianity or the Judaism from which it sprang. The truth is that in the long battle between biblical partisans and antibiblical partisans, the side with the apparent upper hand has changed back and forth over time. There is no reason to expect this not to continue. New discoveries are made all the time, despite the fact the difficulty of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Fixed positions, as the article takes of the basically legendary nature of the bible, reflect nothing but bias on the part of the writer and his or her partisan camp. Your inability to state where you are coming from in terms of your own ideological predilicitons and the real ebb and flow of the debate, should give one pause, before accepting your conclusions regarding the bible and its historicity.
Ignorance. Read the pages.
This is compounded by your references to Mr. Dever as some sort of rabidly anti Biblical minimalist partisan. You have to be aware that Mr. Dever is a self professed agnostic. He is very much in the moderate camp on the bible, between minimalists, such as yourself on the one side and orthodox Jews and Christians on the other side. Given his agnostic beliefs, his view of the bible as basically sound historically from the time of David forward, is actually very positive evidence for its historicity based on testimoney from a hostile witness. The facts behind the truth of Mr. Dever’s position, versus your own partisan belief that anyone who judges the bible as even somewhat accurate is some sort of religious extremist opposed to true science, explain the confusing nature of your references to him. He is anti minimalist, but agrees with you on Hebrew origins? Could it be that he came to that position because that’s where the facts (based on CURRENT archaeology) lead a nonpartisan?
Read the pages. Dever is non-partisan for your own purposes. Have you read Dever? He quite often sounds like a maniac. I explain Dever’s stance. You have not read it, and your omniscience is faulty.
The foundation set, lets get to your article. The position of the article, like biblical minimalism in general, is a partisan expression of an extreme position, contradicted by many facts which you choose to ignore, belittle or charge as fradulent without any evidence to back up your claims whatsoever. There is no real way of refuting your belief system. You are a fundamentalist, its just that your religion is different from the orthodox Jews and Christians you hold in such contempt. Any evidence refuting your belief that the bible is totally, or almost totally legendary, would be ignored or charged with being fradulent. You have already made up your mind based on many things other than the evidence. The actual facts on the ground are much more complicated, as is usually the case. Some facts give comfort to one side. Other facts give comfort to the other side.
You are rambling and contrary. If you can refute what I have written then do it. You do not, and no one so far has done. You say my position is contradicted by many facts, then claim that despite all these facts they are not worth presenting. My position cannot be refuted. You want your cake and eat it, my friend. That is typical of Christians.
In the case of the bible, an agnostic like Mr. Dever has a very good reason for dividing historical periods the way he does. Prior to the time outlined by the book of Judges, there is NO direct evidence from outside the bible supporting its historicity. Belief in the bible’s historicity prior to this time is based mostly on faith. Mr. Dever has none, so he is making a logical conclusion based on the evidence available currently.
Why are you telling me what is already on the pages. Are you trying to impress your girlfriend? You now get even more tedious by repeating false assertions refuted at length already. Tell me! Can you actually argue with what your opponent presents as evidence or only with what you select as their arguments. Christaians are excellent at arguing with what they select. It comes of listening to sermons. They cannot argue with a live opponent.
I am a Roman Catholic Christian. I am therefore partisan. But I do recognize the lack of archaeological confirmation in facts presented in the bible prior to the time of the Judges. However, this does not mean there is no supporting data from this time:
1. The political situation of Canain as decribed in Genesis as existing around the time of Abraham, actually did exist, and it did exist, not in the time that minimalists claim Genesis was written (600 BC to 100 BC), but rather from the early to middle part of the 2nd millenium BC and only from that period, in which the bible says Abraham actually lived. Why would a writer of pure fiction not decribe something more like the situation he and his readers where in? Could it be possible that he was describing conditions of a considerably different nature because he meant to convey actual history and on the point of small potentates dominating that area around the time of Abraham got it right?
Read the pages, Mr Catholic. Reading is very bad for the soul, I know, which is why the Catholic Church would burn people at the stake for owning a bible 800 years ago. The world is different today. Take advantage of it while it lasts.
2. The price of slaves given in the Joseph story reflected open market prices very accurately from around the middle of the 2nd millenium BC, not the supposed time of the writings of Genesis. Why would this be the case if the story where meant to be purely legendary?
Read the pages. This is dealt with specifically but you are too much of a dunce to have even checked it out using a search engine, even though I have put Google on the pages for you.
3. Asiatic peoples are known to have settled in the very region of Egypt where the bible says the Hebrews settled both prior to, and at the time the bible says. After the Hyskos where overthrown, a reaction against Asiatics in general, of which the Hebrews where a part, would not be unexpected.
Read the pages, mate. Congeniality is not any sort of evidence. Should I believe The Count of Monte Cristo? That too is set in a congenial context. To put it politely, this argument is mushroom manure. I accept that Christians find it persuasive, but that is easy since they already believe it without any evidence.
4. Origins as great warriers or kings or Gods, are to be expected. Origins as slaves are not. Minimalists protest the Exodus story makes sense as legend given the Judaic captivity in Babylon. The problem is they ignore the 1979 find from Numbers from PRIOR to the Babylonians capitivity, “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord shine his face upon you and give you peace”. If this where anything but the bible, this quite lengthy extrabiblical reference to the Book of Numbers specifically, and the Torah more generally, would be used as confirmation to definitively date the first five books of the bible as existing before 600 BC. Why make up a captivity story, if you where not in captivity yet? If minimalists do not acknowledge, the 1979 find as confirming the Torah’s existence from prior to the Babylonian captivity (probably SUBSTANTIALLY before), they are using a unique standard for the bible they do not apply to any other work of ancient literature. In doing this, they further damage their already questionable scholarship.
Listen. The scholarship that is questionable is your own. The reason is plain enough. Scholarship requires skepticism. If you have convinced yourself that the bible is already sacred history, then you are no scholar. Most biblical scholarship is phony. The scholarship of these people is that they can read abstruse ancient lanuages like Hebrew and Assyrian—that no one is interested in unless they are obsessed with the bible—not because they are trying to find out the truth. They already know that, just like you! The supposed citation from Numbers is dealt with on the pages. It was, in fact, a quotation of a popular saying by the author of Numbers.
Certainly nothing definitive on any point. But at the very least, a good case can be made for the period from Abraham to Moses as being protohistorical. Later on, archaeology comes into play in the form of the Mernepeth stelle from 1208 BC and new settlement patterns in the hill country of Palestine from the same general period. Miminalists have always had to stretch deeply, sometimes even ridiculously, to minimize these long established findings as anything but supportive of biblical history as presented in the book of Judges forward.
If you are claiming these as evidence then you truly are a dunce. The stele (if you are trying to impress, get the spelling right) proves nothing except that a place was known as Israel in about 1200, assuming that the dating is right. It might not be. Read the pages, Mr Know All. The settlement patterns do not at all offer evidence for a settlement of former Egyptian slaves. Quite the opposite. Read the pages, Father Tedium.
This information is not new. It existed prior to the most recent rise of biblical minimalism in the 1970’s. Given it, extreme minimalist interpretations of biblical history from the latter period of the United Monarchy or even the divided monarchy prior to Hezekiah and Josiah, have always struck even objective moderates as at the very least open to interpretation. This is especially so since 1993 and 1994 with the Tel Dan find. Minimalists where so enraged that ridiculous charges of fraud where thrown out, in typical minimalist fashion, with no evidence whatsoever. These charges have died down some, but imaginative interpretations of the find on the one hand, along with minimizing David’s kingdom on the other side are now standard minimalist responses to a find that utterly flies in the face of their entire position.
Ho hum! Read the pages, and explain to me how the Tel Dan stele, even if it is not fraudulent (and who has yet authenticated it?), confirms a Davidic empire, state, or even person. There is no evidence anywhere in history of a Davidic or Solomonic empire. It was, I am led to believe, for about 70 years, the most powerful country in the ancient near east, meaning effectively the world. Why did no one notice at the time?
This is reemphasized by recent Carbon 14 dating from Tel Rahov, dating that site to the 10th century BC, once again consistent with the bible. Similar architecture from Hazor and Meggido, confirms that if David’s kingdom was not necessarily the small empire noted in the bible, it was something much more than the “bandit” potentate grudgingly conceded by some biblical minimalists like Finkelstein.
I repeat—explain it! I have more regard for Finkelstein than bible thumpers.
So where does that leave us? Where we have always been I suppose. Orthodox Jews and Christians think the bible is the inspired word of God. Finds contradicting this must be explained away. Biblical minimalists think the bible is totally or largely legendary and absolute proof otherwise is required to change that. When the evidence comes in, they claim fraud or ignore it. But the fig leave of “objectivity” is maintained.
Are you now claiming that Christians and Jews never forge anything. If so, you prove yourself a laughing stock. The bible is the word of God, you say. I say it is a forgery. My position is reasonable and possible. Yours is unreasonable and demands an astonishing miracle to be true. Mine is likely, yours requires a chain of impossibilities that only people desperate for a supernatural comfort blanket will accept. Christians, especially Catholics, have always hated science because its very principles cannot admit belief without adequate evidence. That is why Catholics rarely teach good science, and we have seen recently that Catholic schools will even teach creationism rather than truth.
Meanwhile, a mainstream position of myth prior to Abraham, protohistory from Abraham to 1200 BC, followed by history from 1200 BC forward with a gradual decrease in legendary elements as one moves toward the capture of Jerusalem in 586 BC stands up very well to the actual evidence on the ground. A true mixed bag providing plenty of room for faith. But also requiring so much thought, research and the ability to be flexible with one’s position given changing evidence.
If there is sufficient evidence for it, why do you have to depend on faith? You are really admitting that the evidence is insufficient, and so you depend on faith. But like all Christians you pretend that the evidence is certain or at least adequate. It is not. Read the pages with that quality that Christians are supposed to have but never, in my experience, do have, humility. You ought to go away demanding the Christian brothers or Jesuits, or whatever other set of rogues indoctrinated you as a child, to let you free. If you are a Catholic convert, you can only blame yourself for your ignorance.
Read the pages before you get your next inspiration from God.
