Uninvented: David the Unlikely King

Uninvented: David the Unlikely King

Sep 10, 2022 | Uninvented

I wrote in Uninvented how impossible it would be to invent the story of David’s choice to be the future king of Israel. What makes it believable, biblical speaking, is that it’s perfectly consistent with God’s choosing those he will use to establish his kingdom on earth, the most unlikely from a human perspective. If you know your Bible, this is not news. However, for those who think the Bible is merely a human book, I encourage them to consider why this is evidence for the veracity of the Bible’s claim to be a divine book.

If it was human, we would expect it to communicate things from a typically human perspective. For example, consistently using weak and terribly flawed people to make a religious story believable is not a good strategy. But the stories told from beginning to the end upend all cultural expectations of the times in which they were written. And not just upend them marginally, but completely and totally. That is a significant fact for the divine historicity of the stories. David’s choice as Israel’s future king is a good example, but several came before.

In the ancient world, the oldest male in the family got all the perks. In the biblical stories, it’s the youngest or younger who gets God’s blessing. If these stories were made up in the ancient world where does this counter cultural message come from if there is no precedent for it? Good question. Without God writing the story, it’s unexplainable. It just is. That’s not a satisfying explanation. God’s purposes in the history of redemption is a much more plausible explanation. So, before they’re even born, God picks Isaac over Esau, the younger over the older. Of Jacob’s twelve sons who will become the twelve tribes of Israel, it is the youngest, Joseph, who ends up of the hero of the story saving Israel from starvation in Egypt. In the Exodus, it is the first-born male who will pay the price of death for the Pharaoh’s sin, not exactly what you’d expect in a culture and society that exalts the first born male.

In the next significant step in redemptive history, there is David, the runt of the litter. The most unlikely of the sons of Jesse to become king of Israel. Saul, Israel’s first king whom he replaces, the prototypical king who stands literally head and shoulders above all his peers, fails miserably. You have to read the story of how the Lord instructs Samuel to pick David (I Sammuel 16) to appreciate how uninvented it would have been in the ancient world; it can only be explained plausibly in divine terms. Samuel gets to Bethlehem, which will be the birthplace of the future Messiah, and picks Jesse because one of his sons will be the future king of Israel. When Samuel sees the most impressive physical specimen among them, he says what any normal human being would, especially in the ancient world: “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.” Nope:

 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Oh, how guilty we all are of looking on appearance as if that is the true measure of the person. Paul says that since Christ died for us, we no longer regard anyone “according to the flesh,” or in the NIV, “from a worldly point of view.” I gotta work on that!

Jesse then parades all seven of his sons before Samuel, and each one is rejected as not chosen by the Lord. Samuel asks Jesse if these are all the sons he has, and his reply is pure uninvented credible:

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.”

What? Not only is he the youngest, but he’s a shepherd! A normal career path to king in the ancient world did not go through the sheep pasture. The high school guidance counselor would say that is not a good move. Anyone tending sheep is most certainly not aspiring to be king.

As we know, the Bible is generally sparse in its description of events, partly by necessity. Writing was a laborious and expensive process, so the fewer words to communicate a message the better. What we don’t often see are the psychological and emotional reactions, unless they are necessary to convey something God in his providence felt we need to know. So, I try to imagine the reactions of Jesse and his sons, and their confusion and utter incredulity it wasn’t one of them chosen to be anointed king.

Samuel then tells them to send for David, and I wonder what the time waiting must have been like. This would have been a huge deal, and they all knew it. There was likely jealousy and envy, and more than a little anger, “You mean, that little snot nosed kid over me!” Yep:

12 So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features.

Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.”

You imagine dad and the sons thinking, it can’t be! But he’s a shepherd! We can’t know how any of this went down, of course, but given how culturally upside-down and inside-out this was, you just can’t make this stuff up!

 

 

Uninvented: Did Moses Write the Pentateuch? Let’s Consider Deuteronomy 31

Uninvented: Did Moses Write the Pentateuch? Let’s Consider Deuteronomy 31

Sep 3, 2022 | Uninvented

The word Pentateuch comes from Greek and means simply “five books” and includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (called the Torah in Hebrew meaning teaching, instruction, or law). For most of Jewish and Christian history it was believed these books were written by Moses, and this chapter near the end tells us why. Before we get there and take a little uninvented look at the topic, let’s take a brief look at some history in biblical criticism regarding this topic.

It wasn’t until the mid-1600s, and a Jewish Philosopher named Spinoza that anyone thought to question whether Moses actually wrote these books. This shocked his Jewish community, and along with his philosophy, did not make him popular; he was excommunicated. But once the genie was out of the bottle, it never went back in. The primary motivation causing Spinoza to deny Mosaic authorship goes back to his very convoluted philosophy which wouldn’t allow for things like God’s creation of the universe ex-nihilo (out of nothing), or seas parting, or God revealing and making himself a people by his supernatural divine power. The industry of biblical criticism learned well what Spinoza practiced: a question-begging anti-supernatural bias. Having been influenced by the growing skeptical philosophy of his day, he assumed miracles couldn’t happen. His strange notion of whatever God was wouldn’t allow it. In effect, he rejected the God of the Bible before he ever got to the Bible because philosophy was his Bible, i.e., his ultimate authority.

Having become a Christian as a freshman in college at Arizona State University (44 years ago!), I decided to take a class having something to do with the Bible. I was excited to learn about this Bible I was recently introduced to, and taking a class seemed like a good way to learn more about it. Little did I know I would get my introduction to biblical criticism, and how scholars treated the Bible as just another human book. I’m very stubborn, so it didn’t cause me to doubt the divine inspiration of Scripture. Rather it ticked me off. As green and ignorant as I was as an 18- or 19-year-old, it was apparent to me these critics were completely arbitrary. Knowing nothing about the logical fallacy of question begging, it was clear to me even then that their God-less assumptions made their “biblical criticism” unpersuasive, to say the least. I learned from that class, and much more in seminary, how non-Christian biblical scholars treated the Pentateuch.

Since they “know” Moses didn’t write it, scholars came up with creative and speculative explanations for who might have. The two dominant ways are the documentary hypotheses, and the JEDP theory. These cholars assume the Bible is merely a human document because their worldview demands it. They can’t prove that, nor do they even try, or does it even occur to them they should. To them it’s obvious what those fundamentalist Christians and Catholics believe is crazy, and intellectually unworthy of true scholars. That’s faith; they believe they’re doing “science.” All the while they’re blindly begging the question, majorly!

Most non-Christian biblical critical scholars, and most are not Christian, believe there are some historical events in the first five books of the Bible, but what has come down to us is mostly oral tradition written down during or after the Babylonian exile of the Jews in the 500s BC. It’s comparable to Homer’s Iliad, an epic poem about the Trojan War written in the late 8th or early 7th century BC. There was likely a war between the Greeks and the Trojans, but Homer, if he wrote it, added a religious subtext of the fictitious gods to some possible historical events. Likewise, non-Christian scholars will say there may have been something to do with Egypt and the Hebrews, but we’re not sure exactly what, and whatever came down to the Jews in Babylon, they in effect took what little history was there, and invented the rest. Or something like that.

That’s quite a claim, but is it true? If it is, the Bible is not what it claims to be, and it’s basically a farce. If we look at Deuteronomy 31 with uninvented eyes, I believe we’ll come to a different conclusion. Moses as the author of the first five books of the Bible is far more plausible than speculative theories based on anti-supernatural bias.

As in the rest of the books of the Pentateuch, the chapter is written in the third person, so we read: “Then Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel . . .” Or, “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel . . .” This implies someone else wrote it, and those of us who believe Moses was the author of the Pentateuch don’t think it was he alone who wrote every word, but that he was the primary author. The real author is God, of course, but the man Moses was its physical author. We read:

9 So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.

The Lord then said:

19 “Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them.

And

22 So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites.

And finally:

24 After Moses finished writing in a book the words of this law from beginning to end, 25 he gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord:

We are confronted with two choices. Either Moses wrote “in a book the words of this law from beginning to end,” or he didn’t. If he didn’t, everything written in the first five books of the Bible, which all Jews considered “the law,” are myths, fairy tales, or outright lies. They are not history, and thus we can’t trust them as truth. If the non-Christian critical scholars are right, then who cares what these books say. I’m not interested. I have better things to do than waste my time on what are essentially lies. If we trust Jesus and the Apostles, however, then Moses indeed “wrote down this law,” and as Jesus tells us quoting from Deuteronomy 8:

“It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

“It is written” means God said it, that settles it! I think I’ll pass on the biblical critic’s question begging and go with Jesus on this.

Saints & Sinners Unplugged Uninvented Interview

Saints & Sinners Unplugged Uninvented Interview

Sep 1, 2022 | Uninvented

I got my big showbiz break on the Saints & Sinners Unplugged podcast hosted by my friend, pastor Ken Jones of Glendale Baptist Church in Miami. This was my first podcast interview to discuss my new international best seller, Uninvented, and I trust there are many more to come. For six years Ken and three other Miami area pastors have engaged in “Gospel conversations for a modern church desperately in need of returning to the basic message of grace through Jesus Christ.” I knew of Ken from his many years as a staple on The White Horse Inn, and when my best friend moved to Miami and started to go to his church, I got to know Ken and learn of the podcast. They had me on to discuss my first book, The Persuasive Christian Parent, and decided they could take a chance on me for a second time, for which I am grateful. 

Uninvented: A Theology Lesson in Abhorrence, So Counter Intuitive It Must Be True

Uninvented: A Theology Lesson in Abhorrence, So Counter Intuitive It Must Be True

Aug 22, 2022 | Uninvented

I recently finished reading Leviticus as I’m making my way from Genesis to Revelation. The book is fascinating in its detailed explanation of how Yahweh, the Lord, established his relationship with the people of Israel. Every word in the Bible, every jot and tittle in the KJV version, is Jesus’s declaration about the relevance of the law and its ultimate fulfillment in him. This fulfillment relates to God’s people of the covenant, those the Lord promised to Abraham’s seed, his offspring, what we now call the church. You can read about these promises in Genesis 12, 15, and 17. It is upon those promises, Paul tells us in Romans 4, that because of the integrity of Almighty God our faith thankfully rests upon him and not on us!

Which brings me to an amazing theology lesson in Leviticus 26 that is in some ways so counter intuitive to us it has to be true. What really gives it verisimilitude (the key concept in Uninvented that makes the Bible like no other ancient book) is how contrary it is to our natural inclinations and perspective on things. The theology we glean from this chapter just doesn’t seem like the way things should be.

If the Bible was made up by human beings, we would expect it to read like it was made up by human beings. It doesn’t. The Bible itself claims to be the revelation of God to man, and it reads exactly like that. The contrary, counter intuitive ideas in this chapter are a perfect example, coming in the use of the word abhor, which appears five times (and once in chapter 20). I would argue this word doesn’t show up in a fictional account of God and man, even in ancient times, in the way it does in this chapter.

The word abhor perfectly captures sinful humanity’s relationship to a holy God. To squeeze the meaning out of it, we can think of synonyms like loathe, despise, detest, hate, abominate, and other such terms of endearment. The tendency of sinful human beings is to think, you know, me and God, we’re ok. Sure, I’m not perfect and all, but really, all things considered, I’m not that bad. A question I was asked at 18 years old makes the point. Standing outside of a party with a friend, a VW Bug stopped across the street, a guy got out of the back, and walking up to us said, “If you died right now, would you go to heaven?” My reply was typically human: “Well, I guess so. I’m a pretty good guy. I go to church, and I haven’t killed anybody.” Now that’s a high bar, isn’t it! Until God transforms our hearts from spiritual stone to flesh, we have no idea just how sinful we are, and how loathsome our sin is to a holy God. Nor, in our natural sinful state how loathsome God is to us. The feeling is mutual. We can neither know or accept this apart from special revelation (God’s written word) and the Holy Spirit opening our hearts and minds.

This mutual hostility seems wrong to us. It’s sort of disturbing when we learn our Creator and we could be, literally, at war. No, that is not hyperbole. According to the Apostle Paul we are by nature, born, as objects of God’s wrath. This alienation we have with God is not a simple misunderstanding. It is, rather, an implacable hostility. Paul says in Colossians 1:21: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” The word the NIV translates as enemies is no minor thing. It is someone openly hostile (at enmity), animated by deep-seated hatred. It implies irreconcilable hostility, proceeding out of a “personal” hatred bent on inflicting harm. Is that how you think of your relationship to God apart from Christ? You should because it’s true! Without grace and God’s initiative to fundamentally change the relationship, which he did for us in Christ, there is only alienation, however it manifests itself.

I’ll leave it for you to read Leviticus 26 yourself, but we might think this mutually hostility between the gods, or God, and man was common understanding in the ancient world. Making sacrifices to the gods was after all a common practice. They had no problem believing God or the gods were angry with them. In fact, all ancient pagan religions were driven by attempts to appease the gods. That was the core of the idolatry that was Israel’s constant temptation. If the people jumped through certain hoops, then the gods would no longer be angry with them, and it would rain or the crops would be abundant, or children born, or wars won. Israel’s God, Yahweh, appeared to be the same way, except his law was much more stringent, and moral, than the pagans. Morality was basically irrelevant to pagan religion.

The radical difference was that Yahweh, the Lord, could not be appeased by sacrifice alone; obedience was required. This becomes abundantly clear in Deuteronomy, where we read of the blessings and curses, and if we’re honest it’s kind of depressing. What the Lord is commanding of the Israelites, his people, those he rescued from Egypt out of slavery “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” is perfection! No wonder we have a problematic relationship with this God. Perfection is required! Someone might say, like I did, I’m a pretty good guy, decent fellow, don’t torture cats or anything. Sorry, not good enough. If we stop at every red light our entire lives, and then run just one, we are guilty, we have broken the law. In God’s economy, one slip, and we’re out. The reason we don’t naturally like God, in fact hate him, is because he is our judge, jury, and executioner!

The answer to our dilemma is, of course, the gospel, and Deuteronomy 26 is preparation for it. In Luke 24 after Jesus was raised from the dead, he explained this:

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

The only logical explanation for the abhorrence we read in this chapter is Jesus. What appears so strange and counter intuitive, now makes perfect sense. As we say in the vernacular, you just don’t make this stuff up!

 

Uninvented: Did the Israelites Hear God’s Voice? Deuteronomy 4

Uninvented: Did the Israelites Hear God’s Voice? Deuteronomy 4

Aug 10, 2022 | Uninvented

Deuteronomy 4 is an amazing passage both in Uninvented and theological terms. I will address the former here and the latter in my next post. If you’ve read Uninvented, you will know I was tempted numerous times to pontificate on the incredible theology in certain passages, but my focus had to remain on my uninvented argument. The question in the book was always, did this happen and in just this way, or not. Was it made up by the authors, mere human fiction to further a religious agenda? Or was it history, and happened pretty much the way the narrative presents it happening? It is either one or the other; there is no in between. One either has to accept the entire narrative or reject it all. Any partial acceptance or rejection is completely arbitrary and requires some human authority to determine what should be accepted and what should not. If we compare how scholars’ approach other ancient literature to how they treat the Bible’s historical claims, we’ll see just how arbitrary and biased they are. The reason is as simple as it is unjustified.

Critics for several hundred years have insisted that anything claiming to be supernatural in the Bible, the miraculous, had to have been invented, made up, fiction, because those kinds of things, those not explained by purely natural, material phenomena simply cannot happen. This, as I contend, is rank, anti-supernatural bias without any justification other than worldview preference. Bob is a materialist (the material is all that exists, there is no spiritual reality), so Bob cannot accept anything that contradicts his materialist worldview. Coming to the text begging the question like this means the reader must reject anything that cannot be explained “naturally.” If we come to the text without that bias, and not rejecting God’s existence and power a priori (i.e., beforehand), we can see if the narrative evinces realness, or verisimilitude as I discuss in the book.

Deuteronomy 4 is a tremendous example of a stark choice readers have. Either the author is lying, or he is telling the truth. The authors of the Bible throughout claim to be eyewitnesses to the works of God for his people. These were not events as portrayed in fairy tales that happened a long, long time ago in a land far, far away, where maybe little snippets of possible historical fact are embellished over time to make up a coherent grand historical narrative. Fairy tales or legends don’t tell coherent grand historical narratives over 2,000 years like the Bible, which even the critics agree is one of or the greatest works of literature in history. As I said over and over in the book, the Bible doesn’t read at all like the myths and legends critics insist it is, and this chapter is an excellent example of why.

Moses here is re-telling the Israelites’ history of their Exodus from Egypt, and how God rescued them, as he says, “from the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance.” The key to this passage, and the challenge before us, is a phrase he uses multiple times, that what happened in their rescue was something they witnessed “with their own eyes.” We only have two options when reading this passage: either the author is telling the truth, or he is not. Critics contend it is the later. Deuteronomy, they claim, was written sometime during the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people in the fourth century BC, not by Moses a thousand years previously. If the critics are right, the author is fabricating a story he knows is not true. On the other hand, if we don’t come to the text assuming miracles can’t happen, thus begging the question, we can let the text speak for itself and see if it reads real. You decide:

9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” 11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.

15 You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire.

33 Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? 34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.

If this is fiction, then the Bible is a monstrous lie. If the critics are right, then there is absolutely nothing of value to be found in the Bible’s pages. I’m not interested in moral lessons told as “nobel lies.” On the other hand, if we’re willing to let the Bible speak as what it claims to be, God’s revelation of the history of the redemption of his people, we’ll let the text speak for itself.

This passage, of course, doesn’t stand in isolation, and it is the grand historical narrative from Genesis to Revelation that makes this passage so powerful, and read so real. God is continuing to reveal himself to his people, those he rescued from slavery in Egypt, allowing them to “hear his voice” so they will know that this God is unlike the gods of any of the other nations on earth. Which is a good segue to the amazing theology in the passage, the topic for the next post. 

Uninvented: Who Invents a Talking Donkey as History?

Uninvented: Who Invents a Talking Donkey as History?

Aug 4, 2022 | Uninvented

One of the strange things about the Bible is that most of it is written as straight-ahead historical narrative, but many of the stories don’t read like any history we’ve encountered outside the Bible. The story of a talking donkey would have to be at the top of that list. If you want anyone to believe a story you’re writing, would you include a talking donkey? So, why put a talking donkey in a story if you want people to believe you’re writing history? That’s a good question. In the first chapter of Uninvented, I give a brief overview of the history of biblical criticism. To understand that history, and its skepticism about the Bible’s historicity, we must understand the Enlightenment assumptions that inform the critics’ perspective.

The fundamental belief of these critics, going back some three hundred years, is anti-supernaturalism. For a variety of complicated historical, philosophical, and cultural reasons, Western intellectuals began to see the universe as a closed system. The world was merely matter, and cause and effect moving that matter, with no room for a God to interfere. Miracles messed with this, so miracles in the Bible had to go. I call this question begging anti-supernatural bias. To “beg the question” is a logical fallacy that means to assume the conclusion without having to prove it. So, a talking donkey? Don’t be ridiculous! Everyone “knows” donkeys can’t talk, therefore, the story of a talking donkey in Numbers 22 must have been made up. It can’t be history because, well, donkeys don’t talk. Question begging at its finest. But let’s get rid of the anti-supernatural bias and look at this story another way.

One of my arguments in Uninvented is that if someone wants to write a believable story, they won’t put stuff in the story that is clearly unbelievable, unless it really happened. If you’re an Enlightenment rationalist any miracle is unbelievable, but if you’re not, some miracles in the Bible are more believable than others. This is where we come to the talking donkey story of Numbers 22. If you’re not familiar with the story, Balaam is a prophet, and the king of Moab, one of Israel’s enemies, is asking for Balaam to curse Israel. He tells the king he can only say what God tells him to say, and it is most definitely not to curse Israel. God was angry with Balaam because he really wanted the rewards the king of Moab could give him, rather than being faithful to what God had said, so the Lord had a donkey rebuke him. When you read this on the surface it sounds like some kind of fairy tale, or a tall tale like the fish getting bigger and bigger with each telling:

21 Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the Moabite officials. 22 But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road.

24 Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides. 25 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat the donkey again.

26 Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. 27 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. 28 Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”

30 The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

“No,” he said.

31 Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

32 The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. 33 The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.”

34 Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now if you are displeased, I will go back.”

With an anti-supernatural bias, you dismiss it immediately as invented, unhistorical, something added to the narrative to maybe teach a lesson about obedience to God. However, without the bias you can ask yourself, why include this in the story if it isn’t real? Everyone knows, even 3,500 years ago, that donkeys can’t talk. If the person who wrote the story, and we believe it to be Moses, wanted to be believed, why write this unless it really happened? And as Christians, we believe in God who is the Creator of everything out of nothing, an all-powerful being to whom nothing is impossible. If he wanted donkey to talk to make a point to a wayward prophet, who are we to say that is not possible?

Regarding miracles specifically, as Christians we don’t have to beg the question and assume miracles can happen, therefore this happened. However, our assumptions do influence how we view the text, and all people come to the text with certain assumptions. We, however, don’t come to the text with an anti-supernatural bias, and dismiss miracles out of hand; that begs the question. Our assumptions are rather more reasonable and logical. God is the Creator of all things out of nothing, an all powerful being who by definition can do anything. As he said to the 90 year-old Sarah when he told her she’d have a child in a year, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” No! This talking donkey story is like every other miracle presented in the Bible, muted, mater of fact, part of the historical narrative. Biblical miracles don’t read at all like legends and myths the biased critics insist they are, including a talking donkey.