Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
...Of course you and I both know the line in the sand where actual proof of Jesus is skewed....and further, even if he did exist all that is attributed to him is even further distorted. The Jesus Seminar, for example, concluded that approximately 85% of the words and actions of Jesus as reported in the New Testament are not authentic.
Flatly borrowing lines from the New Testament cannot be taken at face value, the controversy regarding authenticity is too great. In saying that those who do use the NT as a guide to morality and understanding probably dont read or understand the document as its written.
|
How much do you know about the Jesus Seminar? There are certainly some very respectable scholars among them (Such as Chilton, Attridge, Borg, Armstrong, and Mack), but some of the best Jesus scholars were notoriously absent. Among them, Burt Ehrman, N.T. Wright, Craig A. Evans, Todd Klutz, Elaine Paigels, James Dunn, and the list goes on. The Seminar founders Robert Funk J.D. Crossan have been widely cirticized for their work in the field; Crossan in particular has been taken to task for some of his dating methods, which are very cledarly erroneous. The Seminar includes among its ranks Paul Verhoeven, a Hollywood film-maker who brought us such masterpieces as
Showgirls and
Basic Instinct. Also included was Barbara Thiering, who has become a very rich woman through the publication of her off-the-wall theories regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, but has become a pariah among Qumran specialists. Pardon me for not taking much of what the Seminar says or does very seriously, but they lack credibility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
There is nothing wrong with myths and fables as long as one views the parables for what they are. You can learn a great deal from the prose of the ancient.
|
I believe that a glaring problem in the work of hard-core atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens is their total lack of appreciation for myth. In light of how truly inaccessible the historical Jesus is, I have to think that this person is subservient in his importance to the myth that became Jesus Christ. Herein is one of the greatest dangers in adhering to a much too literal reading of Scripture: a failure to grasp the most important part of the faith, the myth of Jesus. I acknowledge the critical importance of attempting to uncover who the historical Jesus was, if only to provide substantiation for the legitimacy of the kind of myth that developed around him.
For example, the story of the adulterous woman in John 7:53–8:11 is certainly a late addition to the text. But the story accords well with a well established perception of Jesus character, and with his typical interaction with women. There is an element of "believable-ness" inherent in the story, and this makes it a legitimate representation of the kind of interaction that Jesus had with such people (I will discuss this in greater detail in my long overdue response to Photon below). Also, several of the parables which you find morally objectionable contain in them a social/political context which cannot be ignored (This is very much how the literalists would have us read Scripture: Ignore context and seek out the most "plain", "harmonious", and narrowly obvious interpretation), such as in Luke 19. The sermon on the Mount must be understood not as propositional truth, but as hyperbole. Your understanding of the saying from John 6 is quite in error, as it quite obviously is not an instruction not to work, but—in accordance with much of John's Gospel—teaches a hightened form of dualism which favours the "sprititual" over the "material". Again, hyperbole and exaggeration is our friend when reading John. It was a common form of rabbinical teaching in Jesus day, it only makes sense that we apply the same sort of understanding to Jesus own very rabbically conditioned statements.
The point is as follows. First and foremost: the Bible is a dangerous book, which requires very a careful and deliberate methodology in its reading. Perhaps this is why the early Church put such a priority on the inherent authority of the "rule of faith", and in the "apostolic teaching" that tended to supersede Scripture. Second, pabable, sapiential wisdom sayings, and apocalyptic discourse are all quite contrary to modern concepts of propositional truth. one cannot, nor should they merely assume that "because the Bible says" such-and-such, that this is the most accurate "meaning" of the text.
I hope that helps to clarify things.