Another “Living Fossil,” the Platypus! God's Practical Joke, or, Evidence for Evolution? (Also, The Young-Earth Creationist's Long March Idea)

Platypus

The platypus “almost single-handedly (or, perhaps better, single-web-footedly) overturned the earlier creationist classification of animals that followed a Great-Chain-of-Being model. With its hodgepodge of physical traits and behaviors it offered ‘an unexpected bridge between the categories of mammal/quadruped and reptiles and birds.’ That bridge helped set evolutionary theory on a new course. See Moyalʼs, Platypus: The Extraordinary Story of How a Curious Creature Baffled the World. The platypus played an explicit role in Charles Darwinʼs ideas on isolation, species diversity, and natural selection, and he branded it a prime example of a ‘living fossil’ that had managed to find an unoccupied ecological niche and live, relatively undisturbed, while fellow creatures marched toward extinction.

The monotremes, the group to which the Platypus belongs, are among the earliest forms of mammals. When the first monotreme, a platypus, was sent back to England scientists did not believe it was real, they thought it was an elaborate hoax. After all how could a mammal have a duckʼs bill, webbed feet, spurs on its hind legs and lay eggs? These mammals retain many reptilian characteristics in that they lay eggs, have a single genital opening, the cloaca. Even their limbs are attached to their body more like those of a reptile than a mammal. Also the male platypus is the only known venomous mammal, another reptilian trait.

Of the known living monotremes, two species, the platypus and echidna, lives in Australia while another echidna species lives in New Guinea. So they are all found in Australasia. The reason these species have survived is that when they were isolated on the Australian continent with the marsupials they adapted to very specific habitats allowing them to compete successfully with the marsupials. This specific adaptation has made them vulnerable to changes in their habitat and for this reason attention needs to be given to preserving their habitats to prevent extinction.

Until human beings brought modern day mammals to Australia it didnʼt have any true mammals, it just had marsupials and less than a handful of monotreme species that included the Platypus.

The Difference Between Monotremes, Mammals and Marsupials (Monotremes are the earliest of the three)

Sharing a common ancestry, marsupials and mammals evolved for millions of years in two increasingly different directions having a lot to do with changes in their reproduction systems. Marsupial species lack a womb with a placenta where the young live prior to birth, nor do they have mammary glands, instead the young are born early on and then have to climb into a pouch where they lick sweat off of hairs inside the pouch in which they continue to grow, eventually emerging from the pouch. Both marsupials and mammals feed their young via modified sweat glands. But mammals evolved in the direction of keeping their young in a watery womb with a placenta until birth, and after birth feeding them rich quantities of milk via mammary glands. But even earlier than marsupials and mammals in the fossil record are monotremes (such as the platypus which still laid eggs like a reptile).

Modern mammals (with placentas and mammary glands) spread and diversified all over the world, nudging out marsupials nearly everywhere, except in Australia, because Australia broke off from the Asian continent long before mammals evolved. Australia was the first landmass to be isolated from the supercontinent Pangaea. So Australia became an entire continent cut off from the evolutionary development of mammals. Thatʼs why Australia came to be filled with nothing but marsupials along with the only three known monotreme species (some of the most primitive of mammals, before they evolved placentas) which includes the platypus.

After the separation of Australia from the mainland of Asia it was isolated for a while but later formed a land bridge with Antarctica and then marsupials from South America crossed that land bridge and then that bridge was broken after Antarctica move away from Australia, leaving the marsupials to diversify and fill all the niches on the new continent, i.e., rodent-like marsupials, dog-like marsupials, gliding marsupials, digging mole-like marsupials, and kangaroos (including even tree kangaroos!). Interestingly, marsupials never evolved either a “bat” form, nor a “seal” form, nor a “porpoise/whale” form as mammals did.

Far fewer species of marsupial were able to survive in the mammal-dominated world of the other continents. For instance the marsupial known as the opossum inhabits the United States and another 80 or so species thrive in South America, but some 220 species are found only in the Australasian region.

The Young-Earth Creationistsʼ Long March of the Marsupials (and Monotremes)

Creationists at “Answers in Genesis” believe a hoard of marsupials and some monotremes disembarked from Noahʼs ark in Turkey and then promptly began a long march to Australia, the only continent where such a hoard of marsupial species are found today.

The marsupial population of Australia contains animals found nowhere else on earth—not even in fossil form. Are we to suppose that those marsupials managed to travel from the landing place of Noahʼs ark to… Australia? What a long perilous post-Flood journey. I guess God guided them. But you donʼt hear about that miracle in the Bible. Why not? Itʼs at least as good as the story about God herding the Israelites through the desert, only these marsupials were herded through a denuded post-Flood earth undergoing cataclysmic aftershocks. This menagerie of wombats and koalas, bandicoots and kangaroos (not to mention the flightless moa and kiwi birds of New Zealand) had to keep ahead of lions-ʼn-tigers-ʼn-bears all the way to Indonesia, and then—although the superior placental mammals could not manage it—reach the continent of Australia. As if this were not mind-boggling enough, it turns out that the types of marsupials that made it to Australia just happened to form an ensemble able to fill all the ecological niches available!

Thus, there were marsupial moles, marsupial ant-eaters, marsupial mice, marsupial grazers, marsupial carnivores, marsupial frugivores, etc.—not one of which can be found anywhere else in the world. If this highly diversified marsupial population evolved from one or a few primitive generalized marsupials that reached Australia millions of years before it separated from Indonesia (and before mammals had evolved on the mainland), then this peculiar situation is understandable. But if all these creatures had to journey from Turkey to Australia as an ensemble, it is incredible beyond computation. [Frank Zindler, “The Kiwi Question,” American Atheist, May 1988]

Molecular biology and anatomy both demonstrate that, of living marsupial groups, koalas are most closely related to wombats. And both the living species and fossilized remains of koalas and wombats are found only in Australia. In other words they evolved there from shared marsupial ancestors that had been living on that continent even before the land bridge that connected Australia with Antarctica had dissolved. Click here for a Video illustrating The Evolution Of Mammals And Their Dispersal as the continents shifted their positions over geologic time.

Such fragile creatures as the platypus and the blind marsupial mole raced across the land bridge to Australia quicker than the Malaysian tigers and other robust placentals? [Robert A. Moore, The Impossible Voyage of Noahʼs Ark]

A “Living Fossil”

Darwin was proven right concerning his suspicion that the platypus was a “living fossil.” Fossil evidence of a platypus-like jaw was discovered in Australia that dates back earlier than the fossils of any other known marsupial or modern mammalian fossil. And fossil evidence of a cousin of the platypus has even been found thatʼs dated earlier still, before Australia broke off from Antarctica.

More about Platypus genome sequencing, and evolution see Wikipedia.

Creationists Love to Talk About “Living Fossils” Like the Coelacanth, Shark, Horseshoe Crab, etc. So Long As Evolutionists Aren't Allowed A Word in Edgewise.

Living Fossils Aren't Really a Thing, video

Creation took six days. Evolution took billions of years. Hence it takes a bit longer to explain the Big History of the cosmos and planet earth than it does to read the creation story in Genesis chapter one. Likewise it takes a bit longer to discuss the evidence for evolution than it does to say, “God Did It.” Below is a typical “argument for creationism” that amounts to “Look a Living Fossil!” The “argument” is then followed by a discussion of the evidence for evolution.

Evolution, Not for Everyone

Added comment by an ex-creationst:

Iʼve mentioned before that I went to a fundamentalist Baptist high school. My first introduction to the Coelacanth was through a heavily biased (and flawed) biology textbook from Bob Jones University, which (to the best of my memory) described the Coelacanth as a “living fossil” and took that description literally. Evolution couldnʼt possibly be real, I was told, because here was this Coelacanth, utterly unchanged 65 million years (air quotes implied) after it was supposed to be extinct. If evolution were real, why would it ignore the Coelacanth? [or the shark, the horseshoe crab, etc.?]
Source

Response

“Living Fossils” are the exceptions that prove the evolutionary rule. They stand out because the vast majority of species in the fossil record are NOT alive today. But as we will see such cases fit into a clear geological-evolutionary pattern.

Speaking of fish species, the most diverse and abundant species today are not the same as yesterday. The majority of fish species today are osteichthyes or bony fish, an extremely diverse and abundant group consisting of over 29,000 species—in fact they constitute the largest class of vertebrates (i.e., species with backbones) in existence today. But such was not the case in the past. There were times in the past when jawless fish filled the sea, then fish with armour, and then cartilaginous fish, in that order, before bony fish ruled the sea. There are only some cousins of the more ancient species alive today and in far less abundance than their ancestors were in the distant past.

Coelacanths

The most numerous species of fossilized coelacanth show up in the expected place in the evolutionary geological record, and also have anatomical features, that place them in the fish-to-tetrapod evolutionary bush.

The coelacanth is a type of Sarcopterygian (sometimes considered synonymous with Crossopterygian fish), an “actinist Sarcopterygii” to be exact. They used to be far more abundant in the distant past than they are today. Another group of Sarcopterygii was the “rhipidistian Sarcopterygii” which were the shallow-water group, and they are extinct, unless you count all of the land-lubbing tetrapods that evolved from them. (Therefore the Sarcopterygii didnʼt all remain the same. Far from it.)

As for “actinist Sarcopterygii” or coelacanths, not even all of them have remained the same. Living coelacanths found in Madagascar are neither the same type of coelacanth fossils that have been found in rocks that are 360 million years old, nor are they exactly the same type of coelacanth found in strata about 80 million years old; though the living species does resemble the younger fossil species more closely than it does the oldest known coelacanth fossil species. Hence differences are tracible through time as evolution would expect. The oldest known coelacanth species, the ones that are known from before 80 million years ago, were far more diverse (more than 120 different known fossil species) smaller, lacked certain internal structures found in modern coelacanths and belonged to a different genera and suborder. Modern coelacanths also belong to a different genera than the 80 million year genera. See the book, Coelacanth. W. W. Norton and Company, New York and London, 1991, page 78:

One point has to be emphasized; The living coelacanth is not a living fossil in the very strict sense that members of the species L. chaumnae itself have ever been found as a fossil. In fact, no other species assignable to the Genus Latimeria has been found as a fossil either. Latimeria and the Cretaceous fossil Genus Macropoma are quite closely related, and we could possibly include them in the same family. Beyond that, all fossil coelacanths belong to the order Coelacanthini. [Keith Littleton, New Orleans, LA]

Why No Coelacanth Fossils For 70 Million Years?

Don Lindsay explains:

You might well ask: is it really possible for a group of species to live for millions of years and yet leave no fossils? First, note that fossil hunts are done on dry land. Thatʼs partly because itʼs easier, and partly because watery environments are usually undergoing deposition, which covers everything up. On land, rocks are eroding, and fossils get revealed. So, where do dry-land rocks come from? Well, some were formed on land, and some in fresh water, and some in shallow sea water. But very few were formed in deep sea water. Plate tectonics makes it clear why this should be. The deep ocean floor is constantly being destroyed, sucked down into the earth at subduction zones. It is unlikely for a piece of deep ocean floor to wind up as a dry-land rock. Now, imagine a creature that lives only in the open ocean, and is unlikely to venture close to shore. (Perhaps it lives in the depths.) That creature will leave no fossils that we are likely to find. So, the answer is, yes. It is possible to leave no fossils. Does Latimeria live in the depths? Well, close. Theyʼve been seen in caves about 200 meters down, and they die from decompression when brought to the surface. Also, if a creature lives in a small geographic area, it is possible that no one ever looked in the right place. The first colony of Latimeria is off one single island (Grand Comoro) in the Indian Ocean. And, the whole population there is only a few hundred fish. The second colony hasnʼt been located yet, so it canʼt be large. Source

Living coelacanths, Latimeria chalumnae,and Latimeria menadoensis are possibly the sole remaining representatives of a once widespread family of Sarcopterygian (fleshy-finned) coelacanth fishes (more than 120 species are known from fossils). That dwindled down to only a single known fossilized Coelacanth species by the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. And likewise, only a single genus is known to still be alive today, and it more closely resembles the genus from 65 million years ago, not the over 120 different species know from 360 million years to 65 million years ago. SOURCE

Sharks

Sharks also once had their “golden age.” The evolutionary record of their ancestors shows that the earliest shark-like species started out fairly small, and only grew larger over time, till the “golden age” of sharks, and then their diversity declined.
(Source) Some of the variety of ancient shark species:

While the earliest fossil sharks superficially resembled modern sharks, later species from the ‘golden age of sharks’ appeared in all manner of curious shapes and sizes. Top, Cladoselache; middle, Helicoprion; bottom, Stethocanthus.

Horseshoe Crabs

Kasaoka City Horseshoe Crab (kabutogani) Museum (hakubutsukan) is the only horseshoe crab museum in the world. The museum opened March 16, 1990 with the purpose of protecting and promoting the breeding of this “living fossil.” This museum holds the worldʼs foremost collection of information on the evolution of this creature.

Evolution of the Horseshoe Crab

The ancestors of the modern horseshoe crab evolved from trilobite ancestors in the Early Cambrian period approximately 550 million years ago. It was not until the Carboniferous period (354 to 290 million years ago) that the horseshoe shape developed. True horseshoe crabs do not appear until the Late Jurassic period, with fossils discovered in the Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria. dsc.discovery.com

The trilobite is an arthropod that dates back to the Paleozoic Era, and preceded not only the horseshoe crab and the sea scorpion but all other arthropods, crustacea and insects in the fossil record. (So, not all trilobites stayed the same, they evolved. *smile*) For instance trilobites preceded sea scorpions that preceded both the the scorpion and the spider in the fossil record. So the horseshoe crabʼs closest living cousins include spiders and scorpions. (So as I said, not all trilobites stayed the same, some trilobites evolved. *smile*)

Horseshoe crab fossils have been found in Europe and North America. The horseshoe crab evolved on the Laurasian Continent during the Paleozoic Era. The horseshoe crab reached Asia parallel to the Thetis Sea (check an ancient geology map), when the Atlantic Ocean was formed near the end the Mesozoic Era.

There are four distinct species of horseshoe crabs living on earth now. One lives on the beaches of the East Coast of the USA. Three others live in Japan and on the southeastern shore of the Asian continent.

Today there are only 3 genera and 5 species of Xiphosura (Horseshoe crabs and their extinct relatives) left alive, but they were much more numerous and diverse during the Palaeozoic era.

Surviving horseshoe crabs

(Limulus) are ‘living fossils’, barely changed in some 250 million years (since early Triassic time)…The exoskeleton generally consists of three parts, the large, semicircular cephalothorax, or prosoma, the usually smaller, subtriangular and in earlier forms “trilobite”-like opisthosoma, and the long stout tail-spine or telson (which is actually the end part of the opisthosoma)…The compound eyes are small (and absent in some early forms), and there are six pairs of legs (in the living Limulus) but no antennae.

Paleomerus and Lemoneites are very early forms that were either Aglaspids or transitional between the Aglaspida and the Xiphosura.

The late Cambrian (Caerfai epoch) marine family Eolimulidae is generally considered a true Xiphosuran,but again more research needs to be done if more is to be known about the early history of this interesting group.


Further Creationist Questions

Question #1: In the billions of generations through the millions of years that fruit flies have had to evolve, why have they not become or at least spawned something else?

Reply: About 500 species of fruit flies are found only on the Hawaiian islands, a chain of islands whose oldest rose up from the sea approximately 8 million years ago. Concerning the evolution of new fruit fly genera. . .

Reading a book on Drosophilia, I discovered the answer to the question of why no new genera of fruit flies have evolved in Hawaii despite the hundreds of species. It is due simply to the classification approach used by Drosophilia workers. The Hawaiian lineage is apparently descended from within the genus Drosophilia, as presently defined. Based on cladistic terminology, one genus should not give rise to another genus. Rather than reclassifying the 2000 or so “Drosophilia” into multiple genera, fruit fly workers use a variety of subgenera and informal terms to group them. In fact, genus names have been proposed for some of the Hawaiian lineages. [Dr. David Campbell, Biology Department, Saint Maryʼs College of Maryland]

And in answer to the question, “How to test that all Hawaiian fruit flies descended from one common ancestral population that began with a founder event,” the answer is to “Select many characters of Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian fruit flies, and use them to develop a phylogeny, using some related fly as an outgroup.” (Source) Such characters include the fact that Hawaiian fruit flies are larger and more brightly colored compared with the rest of the fruit flies on earth, and have even evolved a type of “song” that the mainland fruit flies never evolved. Obviously, some new morphologies and behaviors peculiar to certain species of fruit flies have evolved on the Hawaiian islands.

About 25% of all fruit fly species worldwide are found on those tiny Hawaiian islands. Ecologists believe Hawaii has so many kinds of fruit flies because the islands were isolated for millions of years and the environment varies greatly from beaches to tall mountains and lush green tropical valleys. When the first fruit flies arrived, they were able to evolve quickly because there were few competing species of flies. When people first arrived at the islands centuries ago they also found that there were thousands of unique species of birds, plants, and other life forms. While it is the fruit flies that are the best known, many other insect groups have diversified also. Hawaii boasts a carnivorous caterpillar, the happy face spider and a whole host of other fascinating endemic arthropods, many of which are brilliantly illustrated in the book, Hawaiian Insects and Their Kin by Francis Howarth and William Mull. Lush, and also in the book, Remains of a Rainbow; Rare Plants and Animals of Hawaiʼi by David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton. Published by National Geographic. See also Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology, and Evolution by Alan Ziegler. Published by University of Hawaii Press which traces the natural history of the Hawaiian Archipelago, such as island formation in a chain due to plate tectonics slowly moving over a lava spewing point in the ocean far below, as well as plant and animal evolution, flightless birds and their fossil sites.

Sadly, people have over time brought many new species with them to the islands, and the competition is driving most of the native species into extinction. Even the unique Hawaiian fruit flies are disappearing, replaced by flies from other parts of the world.


Question #2: Consider dogs. We have St. Bernards, Chihuahuas, Great Danes, poodles, and hundreds of other breeds of dogs. But not only are those animals all mammals, they are all dogs.

Reply: Then what were the “dog-bears” of the Miocene? Dogs or bears?


For further reading see this article by ex-creationist/geologist, Glenn Morton, Living Fossils: There Are None

Eric Hoffer quotations — on the similar psychological drives that animate adherents of mass movements be they Christian, Fascist or Communist

Eric Hoffer

Below are some quotations from The True Believer.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves. p.22

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other peopleʼs business.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

One of the most potent attractions of a mass movement is its offering of a substitute for individual hope. This attraction is particularly effective in a society imbued with the idea of progress. p.23


The embracing of a substitute will necessarily be passionate and extreme. We can have qualified confidence in ourselves, but the faith we have in our nation, religion, race or holy cause has to be extravagant and uncompromising. A substitute embraced in moderation cannot supplant and efface the self we want to forget. We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it.

The chief passion of the frustrated is ‘to belong.’ p.45


An effective mass movement cultivates the idea of sin. It depicts the autonomous self not only as barren and helpless but also as vile. To confess and repent is to slough off oneʼs individual distinctness and separateness, and salvation is found in losing oneself in the holy oneness of the congregation. p.55-56


What ails the frustrated? It is the consciousness of an irremediably blemished self. Their chief desire is to escape that self-and it is this desire which manifests itself in a propensity for united action and self-sacrifice. p.58


Both united action and self-sacrifice require self-diminution. In order to become part of a compact whole, the individual has to forgo much. He has to give up privacy, individual judgment and often individual possessions. To school a person to united action is, therefore, to ready him for acts of self-denial. p.59


All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them.

The technique for fostering a readiness to fight and to die consists in separating the individual from his flesh-and-blood self — in not allowing him to be his real self. This can be achieved by the thorough assimilation of the individual into a compact collective body-by endowing him with an imaginary self (make-believe); by implanting in him a deprecating attitude toward the present and riveting his interest on things that are not yet; by interposing a fact-proof screen between him and reality (doctrine); by preventing through the injection of passions, the establishment of a stable equilibrium between the individual and his self (fanaticism). p.59-60


To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness. The most drastic way to achieve this end is by the complete assimilation of the individual into a collective body. The fully assimilated individual does not see himself and others as human beings. p.60


He has no purpose, worth and destiny apart from his collective body; and as long as that body lives he cannot really die.

To be cast out from the group should be equivalent to being cut off from life. p.61


The readiness for self-sacrifice is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. p.75


All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.

It is the true believerʼs ability to ‘shut his eyes and stop his ears’ to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger nor disheartened by obstacle nor baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence. Strength of faith, as Bergson pointed out, manifests itself not in moving mountains but in not seeing mountains to move.

Thus the effectiveness of a doctrine should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity or the validity of the truths it embodies, but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from his self and the world as it is. What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine; It must be ‘contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure.’

The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth.

In order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength. p.76


If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable. One has to get to heaven or the distant future to determine the truth of an effective doctrine. When some part of the doctrine is relatively simple, there is a tendency among the faithful to complicate and obscure it. Simple words are made pregnant with meaning and made to look like symbols in a secret message. There is thus an illiterate air about the most literate true believer. He seems to use words as if he were ignorant of their true meaning. Hence, too, his taste for quibbling, hair-splitting and scholastic tortuousness.

To be in possession of an absolute truth is to have a net of familiarity spread over the whole of eternity. There are no surprises and no unknowns. All question have already been answered, all decisions made, all eventualities foreseen. The true believer is without wonder and hesitation. ‘Who knows Jesus knows the reason of all things.’ The true doctrine is a master key to all the worldʼs problems. With it the world can be taken apart and put together. p.77


An active mass movement rejects the present and centers its interest on the future. It is from this attitude that it derives its strength, for it can proceed recklessly with the present-with the health, wealth and lives of its followers. But it must act as if it had already read the book of the future to the last word. Its doctrine is proclaimed as a key to that book.

The urge to escape our real self is also the urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic.

They ask to be deceived. What Stresemann said of the Germans is true of the frustrated in general: ‘[They] pray not only for [their] daily bread, but also for [their] daily illusion’. The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led. p.78


A peculiar side of credulity is that it is often joined with a proneness to imposture. The association of believing and lying is not characteristic solely of children. They inability or unwillingness to see things as they are promotes both gullibility and charlatanism.

Only the individual who has comes to terms with his self have a dispassionate attitude toward the world. p.79


By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance. They also employ direct means to effect an enduring estrangement from the self. They depict an autonomous, self-sufficient existence not only as barren and meaningless but also as depraved and evil. Man on his own is a helpless, miserable and sinful creature. His only salvation is in rejecting his self and in finding a new life in the bosom of a holy corporate body-be it a church, a nation or a party. In its turn, this vilification of the self keeps passion at a white heat.

He [the fanatic]embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. p.80


Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness. p.89


A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds. p.90

Their clamor for a millennium is shot through with a hatred for all that exists, and a craving for the end of the world. p.91-92


The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish.

There is also this: when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom-freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.

To cite Adolf Hitler, “Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook.” [Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943), p 171.]


Thus hatred is not only a means to unification but also its product. Renan says that we have never, since the world began, heard of a merciful nation. Nor, one may add, have we heard of a merciful church or a merciful revolutionary party. p.93


Imitation is an essential unifying agent. The development of a close-knit group is inconceivable without a diffusion of uniformity. The one-mindedness and Gleichschaltung [meaning ‘coordination,’ ‘making the same,’ ‘bringing into line,’ is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J. Evans translated the term as ‘forcible-coordination’ in his most recent work on Nazi Germany] prized by every mass movement are achieved as much by imitation as by obedience. Obedience itself consists as much in the imitation of an example as in the following of a precept.

The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness; and both these ends are reached by imitation. p.94


The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.

Finally, the lack of self-confidence characteristic of the frustrated also stimulates their imitativeness. The more we mistrust our judgment and luck, the more we are ready to follow the example of others. p.95


Imitation is often a shortcut to a solution. We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability or the time to work out an independent solution. People in a hurry will imitate more readily than people at leisure. Hustling thus tends to produce uniformity. And in the deliberate fusing of individuals into a compact group, incessant action will play a considerable role. p.96


The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the single-handed defiance of the world.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. p.107


The total surrender of a distinct self is a prerequisite for the attainment of both unity and self-sacrifice; and there is probably no more direct way of realizing this surrender than by inculcating and extolling the habit of blind obedience.

All mass movements rank obedience with the highest of virtues and put it on a level with faith: ‘union of minds requires not only a perfect accord in the one Faith, but complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and the Roman Pontiff as to God Himself’. [Leo XIII, Sepientiae Christianae. According to Luther, “Disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonest..” Quoted by Jerome Frank, Fate and Freedom (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1945), p. 281] Obedience is not only the first law of God, but also the first tenet of a revolutionary party and of fervent nationalism. p.108


Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.

Strict orthodoxy is as much the result of mutual suspicion as of ardent faith. p.114


For Further Eric Hoffer Gems

“Quotes” and “Good Reads: Eric Hoffer” and “Hoffer Quotes”

Crisis After Crisis Among Evangelicals Concerning Biblical Authority

Volcano and Lightning
Click on the image to view it full size, you wonʼt be disappointed, itʼs from the volcano in Iceland that erupted.

Christians are tireless debunkers of each othersʼ interpretations of the Bible (perhaps because many of them still believe the stakes are infinitely high, and they fear one unorthodox interpretation can lead to another down a slippery slope toward damnation). Thanks to the internet, questions of biblical interpretation flow instantly and without ceasing. Everyone from aged scholars to eager young seminarians and born again newbies are commenting on blogs, engaging in online forums and Facebook discussions, commenting on books at amazon.com, tweeting, contributing to carnivals like the Biblical Studies Carnival, and newsgroups like CrossTalk2, or emailing each other. Books and articles on biblical studies have never been easier to seek and obtain (at the very least one can read abstracts and portions of books online and request the item at your local library via document delivery).

Having said that, I donʼt think I need to enumerate the controversies between Christians (but click here for a sampling). Instead I am sharing information about topics that biblical scholars (not just “Evangelical Christian” biblical scholars) are researching and discussing today per the latest edition of Old Testament Abstracts, a tri-annual publication that sums up the contents of current articles and books. (There is also a sister publication called New Testament Abstracts.)

Todayʼs Topics Add Fuel to Tomorrowʼs Flames

Daniel Vainstub, “Human Sacrifices in Canaan and Israel,” Beer-sheva 19 (2010), 117-204 (in Hebrew).

“The existence of infant sacrifices in biblical times both in the Canaanite culture and in Israel has been a matter of intense controversy in the scholarship of the last eight decades. Paradoxically, the more relevant data emerges, the wider the scholarly discensus grows. Some hold that the practice never existed among the Canaanites or the Israelites, while others aver that it was a deeply rooted practice both in the Canaanite homeland and the Punic cities of the West. Vainstubʼs comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of the issue includes an up-to-date survey of the divergent opinions concerning it and offers new insights based on an array of evidence, epigraphic, linguistic, artistic, and literary. The study highlights the significant degree of parallelism among the various sources, and comes to the conclusion that infant sacrifices to Baal by parents were indeed a strongly rooted custom in Bronze and Iron Age Canaan. The practices was taken over by the Israelites, and persisted until its abolition by Josiah. Later on, the practice was limited to the Phoenician coastal area until it was completely eradicated by the Persians there during the 5th century. B.C. Such sacrifices continued in the Phoenician colonies in the West for another 400 years.”

Herve Tremblay, O.P., “Yahve contre Baal?” ScEs 61 (2009)

“Tremblay pulls together conclusions from different fields of research. If Baal is the god of Canaan, Yhwh was not originally from there and was ‘imported’ from the South. The people of Israel did not come from outside the country but emerged out of inner division within Canaanite society. In a process of ethnic and religious distinction that lasted several centuries, Yhwh was adopted as the national God by the Israelites.”

Martin Leurenberger, “Jhwhs Herkunft aus dem Suden…” ZAW 122 (2010)

The ‘Berlin thesis’ of Kockert and Pfeiffer has challenged the regnant hypothesis of the southern origin of Yhwh. Leurenbergerʼs article defends the southern origin hypothesis via a more comprehensive evaluation of the relevant archaeological data and biblical texts. The results of his investigation of these two bodies of data correlate with each other, and thereby substantiate the emergence of the solitary weather-god Yhwh in the Late Bronze Age Araba.”

Douglas S. Earlʼs writings figured prominently in v.34 (2011) Old Testament Abstracts.
Earlʼs book, The Joshua Delusion was summarized in which Earl claims [the book of] Joshua is a symbolic rather than historical narrative. Three of his articles were also summarized:

Douglas S. Earl, “‘Minimalism’ and Old Testament Theological Hermeneutics,” JTI 4 (2010)

In recent OT scholarship there is a growing tendency to understand the portrayal of Israel in the OT as bearing little relation to the ancient Israel of history—the so-called minimalist stance. In particular, the existence of a united monarchy under David is now widely questioned and often actually denied. Readers of the OT with theological concerns often appears to either reject or disengage from these trends and their implications for the study of the OT. But might theological interpreters not rather fruitfully engage with minimalist readings of the OT? Taking John Van Seterʼs 2009 The Biblical Saga of King David as a test case of a radically revisionist reading of the life of David, EARL explores the implications of a reading of this sort for a hermeneutical and theological perspective.”

Douglas S. Earl, “The Christian Significance of Deuteronomy 7,” JTI 3 (2009)

“Earl says that Deuteronomy, chapter 7 is perhaps the primary articulation of the herem concept in the OT, this commanding the utter annihilation of the local inhabitants of the promised land that Israel is about to enter, and is, as such, a deeply problematic text… Earl raises the question of the contemporary Christian significance of Deut. 7, exploring the hermeneutical issues the passage generates for a Christian reading of the OT.”

Douglas S. Earl, “Toward a Christian Hermeneutic of Old Testament Narrative: Why Genesis 34 Fails to Find Christian Significance,” CBQ 73 (2011)

“Interpreters have come to conflicting positive and negative assessments of the actions of the brothers Simeon and Levi verses the actions of their father Jacob in the story of the rape of Dinah, Genesis 34… Earl discusses different scholarly readings of the text, only to find Sternberg on track in his reading … that spotlights the underlying ideology that both structures and is reinforced by the text, viz., the importance of endogamy [=the practice of marrying or requiring to marry within oneʼs own ethnic, religious, or social group] in Israel. One is either an Israelite (like Dinah) or one is not (like Shechem), and there is no chance of mediation or transformation (in this narrative even via circumcision) between the two categories. Thus, the narrative evokes the disastrous consequences of exogamy and mingling. For Christianity, which is based on shared faith, not genealogy, mediation and transformation are essential to the construction of identity. Hence, Genesis 34 is problematical for Christianity, both theologically and ethically, at its structural and narrative levels.”

Grzegorz Szamocki, “Polityczne i spolecezno-religijne …”

“Szamocki notes the difficulty of aligning the particulars of the Book of Joshua with the historical truth concerning the proto-Israelites. Historical-critical research regarding selected texts of the book allows one to conclude that these recʼd their basic shape in the postexilic period. In particular, the analogies between the history of the proto-Israelites as described in the book and the experiences of the Israelites involved in the restoration of social and religious life in the province of Yehud suggest that the texts in question have a parenetical and catechetical character: i.e., they are intended to teach the postexilic community about its new chance for reordering its life now that it is back in the land via a resolute commitment to the Torah and faith in Godʼs guidance of them.”

Volker Wagner, “Profanitat und Sakralisierung…” VT 60 (2010).

“Wagner argues that male circumcision was not widely practiced in Israel and did not possess any religious or specific cultic significance until after the Exile. A theologization and sacralization of the practice are only attested in very late texts of the OT, i.e., Gen 34:15-17; Lev 12:3; Josh 5:2-7; 9:24-25. Against this background, W. associates the practice of circumcision to the end of the monarchy and the need for greater cultic distinctiveness during the Exile in Babylon (whose population did not circumcise). This development led to a broad dissemination of the practice of circumcision in Judaism.”

Lukasz Niesiorowski-Spano, “Origin Myths and Holy Places in the Old Testament: A Study of Aetiological Narratives” [aetiology = “the story or stories told about how a place received its name”] (International Seminar, 2011)

“Niesiorowski-Spanoʼs monograph examines the aetiologies of a series of extra-Jerusalem cultic sites as related in the Books of Genesis, Joshua, and Judges, viz., Beersheba, Bethel, Dan, Hebron (and Mamre), Ophrah, Shechem and Gilgal, plus the Transjordanian locales Galeed, Mahanaim and Penuel. Basing on the evidence of the relevant biblical texts, archaeological discoveries, and such extra-biblical documents as Jubilees, Josephus, and Pseudo-Philo, N.-S. endeavors to trace the tradition-history of the aetiologies in question and their final literary fixation, as well as the nature of the cult (and the deity worshiped) at the given site. On this basis he concludes that the materials studied by him, while they do—in some cases at least—draw on older materials, received their final redaction in the Hasmonean period (160-110 B.C.), the territorial realities and aspirations of which they reflect. The fact that the Jerusalem priests responsible for these materials included such accounts accrediting the sacral character of an array of extra-Jerusalem sites would indicate, according to N.-S., that Jerusalem was not, in fact, regarded by them as the sole legitimate place of worship—Jerusalem attained that status in Judaism only after the catastrophe of 70 A.D.

Next time … some excerpts from New Testament Abstracts!