Right, but more importantly it concerns the way one understands a text. And it is not just limited to Biblical criticism. Heidegger and the whole school of German philsophy is called "hermeneutics" and is very much concenered with the reading of Texts. So it's also a branch of academic philosophy. It also can pertain to any scholarly study of any text. So there is a sumerian hermeneutics, and a Toaist hereneutics, ect.

Meta => I think he's entirely right. That's not to say that there can't be contradictions or that they can never matter. But it depends upon the nature of the criticism. IN other words he's saying that if you just assume that anything that is supernatural is a priori a contradiction becasue you dont' buy the supernatural than anything in the Bible is a contradiction just because it contradicts your world view. But that is no better than saying it is a contradiction because it contradicts me!

Meta => No it's not saying that you just don't interprit it properly. It's saying that everything in it is a contradiction to you from the outset because you want to read it that way. You are finding contradictions where they aren't becasue you are looking for them so hard and becasue you define things in such a way that anthing it says is autormatically a contradiction in your mind.

I have seen this over and over again. When atheists get hold of the Bible common sense and literature classes go out the window. Some of the worst examles (I've never seen you argue so I dont' know but some have said this) "it says his name shall be called wonderful..." But no one in the NT ever calls him wonderful. Obviously it's not saying that he will be named wonderful, but that the name he is given will be blessed by people because they like him.

So anyone who would try to turn that into a contradiction is clealry just reading it in a baised way.

Meta => What's so facile about it? People who dont' appeiciate Lewis often just don't have the educational background to appreiciate where he's comming from. Even though he wrote for the layman, his layman was much better educated than our are (Englishmen of the early to middle part of the century).

The "Trilima"argument fails if it is presented as a stairghtforward problem in logic, because there are more than just those three alternatives. But it's point if not pushed as abosolute. Because Jesus is almost universally admired and yet the calims that he seems to have made for himself indicate a sort of person who would have to be eihter nuts, or very egotisitical, if not the son of God. But his moral teachings are first so how did he arritive at his moral teaching if he was so egotisitical?
[URL=http://www.geocities.com/metagetics/8.htm] Here is my own approach to the Argument[/A]


[URL=http://pub18.ezboard.com/fhavetheologywillarguefrm11] Historical Jesus board[/A]

"Meta => No it's not saying that you just don't interprit it properly. It's saying that everything in it is a contradiction to you from the outset because you want to read it that way. You are finding contradictions where they aren't becasue you are looking for them so hard and becasue you define things in such a way that anthing it says is autormatically a contradiction in your mind."

*#*#*

Yeah, I know about perceptual sets.
I know that what I want to see in the text can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But!

The same can be applied to a Christian - you think it makes sense because it has to - it's the bible. Also - your entire world-view hangs in the balance of this book, so although I would be happy to be shown the bible is true and God is real, you would not like to see the Bible disproven. Therefore you will fight harder and with more subjective "evidence" to make your point true, whereas I would happily believe - who doesn't want a God and a saviour?

Oh, and we work out these biased perceptual sets by argument. If you make a good point against my perception, that will cause disequilibrium and I will be forced to look at the text differently.

Only when you succeed in doing this will I admit my perception alters the text (eisegesis). Otherwise it is likely to me that you are lying - can you sincerely claim that every biblical passage in question by skeptics can be easily explained away with alternative common-sense answers?

Most of the Christians answers I have seen are ludicrous - "Jesus does not mean "hate your parents" (Luke 14:26), but to hate is merely to think of your parents as lesser beings than God".
Fair enough - but why is that a plausible explanation? Can hating someone merely be thinking less of them than The Divine Omni-Man? I thought hate was something very different.

Tom

[This message has been edited by Konnrad (edited November 25, 2000).]

Meta => NO actually I dont' think that. I grant that many Christians do, but I was trained in a liberal seminary so I can allow the Bible to make mistakes, at least on a certain level.



Meta => No actually my whole world view does not hendge entirely on the Bible. I also believe that the Christian tradition is a living tradition, so it also includes the chruche's teaching authority and the works of the great theologians. But it is absurd to think that this makes me "subjective" and you "objective." I doubt first of all that you would "be happy" to see the Bible proven. IT's my experinced that skeptics are very biased and afrid to examine the facts. Moreover, the subject object dichotmy is a prtense. No one has an "objective" reading.

Meta => You have some problem with argument? You dont'value the dialectic as a means of resolving truth? Don't believe "thruth?" or what?


Meta => Wait a minute? It looks as though you just said that either I win the argument or I'm Lying? You really think that's a valid way to look at things? Like I can't be lying and win an argument? Or if I don't win the argument Then I am lying?

I never claimed that every passage can be resolved easily thorugh common sense. I'm caliming that faith can live with ambiguity and that my model of Biblical revelation allows for some kinds of mistakes and non-litreal non-historical material in the Bible.

Most of the Christians answers I have seen are ludicrous - "Jesus does not mean "hate your parents" (Luke 14:26), but to hate is merely to think of your parents as lesser beings than God".


Meta => Now why is that ridiculous? It's stupid to think he literally meant "hate." Why would he want anyone to hate thier parents? Although that's not qutie the answer I would give. Not that he meant "think less of" but he speaking relatively. If your parents are the obsticle to coming to God than hate them relative to giving up God! What is so absurd about that? From reading lots of Mirashim and other Talmudic passages it seems to me that's really the way they talked.


Fair enough - but why is that a plausible explanation? Can hating someone merely be thinking less of them than The Divine Omni-Man? I thought hate was something very different.


Meta => It's not a postiive injunction to really hate your parents. It's a contrasitive statement relative to a choice between parents or following him.




Metacrock:Have Theology, Will Argue

[This message has been edited by Konnrad (edited November 25, 2000).][/B][/QUOTE]

Liz

(Liz) Uh, if he wanted to say "love less," he would have SAID "love less". (Although he may just as easily have said nothing at all resembling the statement - translations from Aramaic to ancient Greek to English can screw up any statement. But if you want to insist the thing's accurate....) It's not as if Greek doesn't have a way to compare two things.

Face it - he said "hate". Not "love less", not any form of comparative. Now get over it.

Liz

Metacrock: "...It's stupid to think he literally meant 'hate.' Why would he want anyone to hate their parents?"

We read in Luke: "Once when hordes of people were traveling with him, he turned and addressed them: 'If any come to me and do not hate their own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--they cannot be my disciple.'" (14:25-26)

Jesus did not get along with his family. According to "Mark," he did not have a father, for one is not mentioned, and he had problems with his mother and other relatives:
"Then his mother and his brothers arrive. While still outside, they send in and ask for him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they say to him, 'Look, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you.' In response he says to them, 'My mother and brothers--who every are they?'"
Mk 3:31-33.

The writer of Matthew quotes Jesus: "Don't get the idea that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. After all, I have come to pit a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A person's enemies are members of the same household." (10:34-36)

According to the writer of Mark, Jesus' relatives thought he was insane: "Then he goes home, and once again a crowd gathers, so they could not even grab a bite to eat. When his relatives heard about it, they came to get him. (You see, they thought he was out of his mind.) (3:20-21)

Other NT passages further establish the fact that Jesus had family problems; hence, he made the comment about the need to hate family members as a perequisite for discipleship.

Use some common sense. Why would he want anyone to hate their parents? Why would anyone follow him if his message was so shallow and silly? Obviously it's comparative. But it would lose it's literary force if he said "anyone who doesn't love his parents less..." come on!

Use some common sense. Why would he want anyone to hate their parents? Why would anyone follow him if his message was so shallow and silly? Obviously it's comparative. But it would lose it's literary force if he said "anyone who doesn't love his parents less..." come on!