John Lennox posed a question that stops you mid-thought: "If we are prepared to take seriously the kind of argument that Tegmark makes, Harari makes, and a whole host of other people make, well, I'd like just to say, why don't we go back and take seriously the Biblical account, which parallels them eerily closely? And there's far more evidence for its truth."

This isn't a throwaway line. It's a challenge to intellectual consistency.

We're willing to entertain speculative theories about AI consciousness, digital immortality, and humanity's technological transcendence. We read Harari's Homo Deus and Tegmark's Life 3.0 with academic seriousness. We debate whether machines will become conscious, whether we'll merge with AI, whether technology will make us gods.

But when the Biblical narrative says similar things-about humanity's desire to be like God, about deception, about the consequences of unchecked ambition-we dismiss it as ancient mythology.

Why?

The Parallels Are Eerie

The Desire to Be Like God

Genesis 3:5: "You will be like God, knowing good and evil."

This is the original temptation. Not just knowledge, but godhood. The serpent's promise wasn't information. It was transformation. Transcendence.

Now look at the AI narrative. Harari writes about humanity becoming gods through technology. Tegmark explores how AI might surpass human intelligence and create new forms of consciousness. The transhumanist movement explicitly aims to transcend biological limitations.

The language is different. The goal is the same: we shall be as gods.

The Problem of Deception

Jesus warned repeatedly about deception. Matthew 24:4: "Watch out that no one deceives you."

Lennox points out that the top AI researchers-the "five I's" as he calls them-are warning about the same thing. Deepfakes. Misinformation. The erosion of truth. The chaos that follows when you can't trust what you see or hear.

The Biblical account predicted this. Not the technology, but the pattern. When humanity pursues godhood, deception follows. Because the promise of transcendence is itself a deception.

The Consequences of Unchecked Ambition

Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel. Humanity united in building a tower to reach heaven. God scatters them, not out of jealousy, but because "nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

This isn't about limiting human potential. It's about recognizing that unlimited power in the hands of fallen humanity leads to catastrophe.

Now we're building towers again. Not of brick, but of code. Not to reach heaven, but to create it. And the same warning applies: if we can do it, should we?

Why We Ignore the Biblical Account

It Requires Moral Accountability

The AI narrative is exciting because it's amoral. It's about what's possible, not what's right. It's about capability, not responsibility.

The Biblical narrative is uncomfortable because it's deeply moral. It says: you are accountable. Your choices have consequences. Your ambitions have limits.

We prefer the story where we're the heroes building the future. Not the story where we're the fallen creatures repeating ancient mistakes.

It Challenges Our Autonomy

The AI narrative assumes human autonomy. We decide. We build. We transcend. We become gods.

The Biblical narrative says: you're not autonomous. You're created. You're accountable to something beyond yourself. And your attempts at godhood will fail because you're not God.

This is offensive to modern sensibilities. We want to be the authors of our own story. The Biblical account says we're characters in a larger narrative.

It's Unfashionable

Let's be honest. Taking the Bible seriously in academic or tech circles is social suicide. You can cite Harari, Tegmark, Bostrom. You can't cite Genesis without being dismissed as a fundamentalist.

But intellectual fashion isn't the same as intellectual rigor. If the parallels are there, if the evidence supports it, dismissing it because it's unfashionable is lazy thinking.

The Evidence Lennox Mentions

Lennox says there's "far more evidence for its truth." What does he mean?

Historical Evidence

The Biblical texts are among the most well-attested ancient documents. The manuscript evidence for the New Testament alone dwarfs other ancient texts we accept without question.

The historical claims-places, people, events-have been repeatedly confirmed by archaeology. Not all of them, but enough to establish that these aren't pure mythology.

Predictive Power

The Biblical narrative predicted patterns we're seeing play out. The desire for godhood. The problem of deception. The consequences of unchecked ambition.

These aren't vague prophecies. They're specific warnings about human nature and its trajectory.

Explanatory Power

The Biblical account explains why we keep making the same mistakes. Why every technological revolution promises utopia and delivers new problems. Why we can't seem to learn from history.

It's not because we lack intelligence. It's because we're fallen. We're broken. And no amount of technology fixes that.

The Question We're Not Asking

If the Biblical account parallels modern AI narratives this closely, and if it has more historical and explanatory evidence, why are we ignoring it?

Is it because the evidence is weak? Or because the implications are uncomfortable?

Lennox isn't saying "stop building AI." He's saying "take the warnings seriously." The Biblical account isn't anti-technology. It's anti-hubris.

What This Means for AI

If the Biblical pattern holds, here's what we should expect:

The promise of transcendence will fail. AI won't make us gods. It will reveal that we're still human, with all the limitations and brokenness that entails.

Deception will increase. Deepfakes are just the beginning. The erosion of truth will accelerate. And we'll discover that technological solutions to deception create new forms of deception.

Unchecked ambition will have consequences. If we build AI without moral constraints, driven by "if we can do it, we should do it," we'll face catastrophic outcomes. Not because the technology is evil, but because we are.

The Challenge

Lennox's challenge is simple: intellectual consistency.

If you're willing to take Harari seriously when he talks about humanity becoming gods through technology, why not take Genesis seriously when it talks about the same thing?

If you're willing to consider Tegmark's speculations about AI consciousness, why not consider the Biblical account of consciousness and its source?

If you're willing to worry about AI deception based on expert warnings, why not consider the Biblical warnings about deception that predate them by millennia?

You don't have to believe the Biblical account. But you should at least examine it with the same intellectual rigor you apply to modern theories.

Because the parallels are too close to ignore. And the evidence is stronger than most people realize.

What We Should Do

Take the Biblical account seriously. Not as mythology, but as a framework for understanding human nature and its patterns.

Recognize that the desire to be like God is ancient. And that every generation thinks their technology will finally achieve it.

Understand that deception isn't a bug in the system. It's a feature of fallen humanity. And technology amplifies it.

Build AI with humility. Not the false humility that says "we're just exploring possibilities," but the real humility that says "we're broken creatures with limited wisdom and unlimited ambition."

Sit at the ethics table. As Lennox says, Christians who are scientifically minded should go into AI. Not to stop progress, but to ask the questions that need asking.

Because the technology moves faster than the ethics. And someone needs to slow down and ask: just because we can, should we?

The Biblical account has been asking that question for thousands of years.

Maybe it's time we listened.