Ray A
Tragically, he learns only too late that the "evidence" had misrepresented reality, and that Iago, the "friend" who had simply put the "facts" together and let them speak for themselves, was neither unbiased nor honest. Thus, under certain circumstances it may be rational and entirely right to believe against the seeming "evidence."
This is the FULL context of the Peterson quote, not just your own bolding Ray. With the FULL context, I accept what Peterson says. If evidence is biased and dishonest, then to believe it is utterly stupid. For instance, I just finished reading Michael S. Heiser's Ph.D Dissertation on the Divine Council of the Gods (2004). And I only started it on Monday..... it's that incredibly fascinating. It's 264 pages, with lots and lots of Hebrew and analysis. A simply masterful superb piece of work! Absolutely the finest elaboration and exploration of the Hebrew I have ever seen, bar none.
All the evidence for Mark S. Smith's view has been accepted by pretty much all the other scholars, so that an apparent concensus of scholarship has occurred concerning the evolution of ancient Israel's faith from a Polytheism into an "Intolerant Monotheism," which literally denies that any other gods even exist.
Heiser went against the evidence, did not merely accept it (and it had been analyzed in Hebrew as well) and using computer data bases for both the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls has largely shown that the concensus evidence is wrong. The Council of the Gods did not disappear with monotheism following after it after the Babylonian Exile. Heiser has shown that the bias of scholarship and its assumption (even though arriving at a concensus!) is simply wrong. The actual evidence shows the Council of the Gods, and certainly Divine Plurality of gods continued on into Christianity to 100 C.E. This also shockingly means that the entire substratum of the New Testament is based on the Divine plural beings called "Sons of God."
Not angels or mere human judges, but literally what the Hebrew reads and means,
GODS. Heiser is electrifyingly powerful on that! He makes the LDS contentions for that view appear weak compared to his analysis in the Hebrew - WHEW!
Simply superb work!
Ancient Israel never believed in an "Intolerant Monotheism." That so-called "evidence," and "truth" is nothing of the sort. To accept said "evidence" and "truth" would be wrong. Heiser didn't do so, and we all are better for it. There simply is
no monotheism in ancient Israelite religious thinking and world view, and that includes the Deutero-Isaiah passages in Isaiah 40, etc. also. To quote Dr. Peterson -
"Thus, under certain circumstances it may be rational and entirely right to believe against the seeming "evidence." I present Heiser's Doctoral Dissertation as absolutely perfect proof of the correctness of Peterson's assertion. You would do well to read Heiser's materials.
Here is his website wherein he has many articles on this. You can also contact him and purchase his Doctoral Dissertation. It is WELL worth the dough! Best money you will spend. I've never read anything quite so thorough or like it for singular attention to detail of evidence, and using Hebrew and Greek to boot. Pure delightful.
http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/