Toto

Lighten up, Bede. I never expected to convert you in one post.

Nomad

Let's see if I can get through all 8 of these in one go:

This would be an interesting discovery, to say the least. I have no idea how such a thing could be established however, especially at this late of a date. A more probable scenario is that Mary bore Josephus' child, becoming pregnant before their marriage (a theory supported by Bruce Chilton in "Rabbi Jesus", amongst other scholars).

I agree that a legal document would be a big help. At the same time, supposing we discovered a reliable document that could be attributed to Pilate or Caiaphas that talked about the excecution of Jesus, and how the guards at His tomb talked some kind of rubbish about angels and such, or that the tomb was merely found empty...

Like you, I find speculation about history to be very interesting. But sadly, in the case of the ancients, we usually have to settle on working with what we've got.

I would recommend the wonderful book by Athanasius himself, On the Incarnation. It is a long read, but well worth it. If you can find the book at a library, or buy it here, that is even better.

Chapters 2 and 3 focus specifically on the questions of the divine nature of Christ.

Within the Godhead itself we have the Three Persons, each fulfilling their unique roles. I have no doubt that Jesus was self limited with respect to His knowledge of the timing of the Last Day, knowing that the choice of when this day would take place would be determined by the Father.

Now, could this self limitation be more comprehensive than this, particularily prior to His Resurrection and Ascension? I suppose so. But with regards to matters found in Scripture, He could not be in error, as Jesus is, the Word made flesh, and Scripture is the Word as well. It would not be logical to see Him as lacking in (or in error about) knowledge about things which He had already recorded for us.

I do not have to believe that a document is divinely inspired in order for it to be correct in some of its details. I see no reason to reject all of the ancient texts of other peoples, even Homer's epics are now being found to have some historical truths in them.

True. At the same time, if someone wrote a book discussing the authorship of Hamelet, Othello and Macbeth, it would be a curious title to call it "Who wrote the Shakespearian Plays?" Perhaps authors and publishers could be just a tad more circumspect in their claims (especially in titles and attention grabbing jacket covers ).

I am still wading through a number of books on the NT right now, and if I am going to tackle the OT as well, then I will need to stick with some fairly basic lay level materials. And yes, Calgary is known to have a library (I believe).

I find your faith in modern scholarship and concensus opinion to be interesting. Personally I have been sceptical of a great many claims made that sound too absolute.

In the case of historical studies, we can rarely use the word "fact" at all. "Most probable" and "most plausible" are usually the best we can arrive at safely.

Fair enough. As you probably know, the orthodox Churchs don't really have a problem with this assumption either.

To both? I don't see why these two questions need to be linked.

How about: Did Moses write anything at all?

I think it is a mischaracterization to call an answer to a question defensive or reactive. Often the response of the questioner is as much open to interpretation as is that of the person offering the answer. When I am asked a question about my faith, I offer it. As to what others may think about my state of mind in giving my answer, I would prefer that they not speculate. After all, they hardly know me, do they?

And as for what "liberal" Christians do (just an FYI, but I do hate that expression, even in self identification, as I have no idea what it really means any longer), I do not think that there is any great trick in tossing out a belief one finds problematic. Personally, I would rather choose to admit that I may not have the answer, and that sometimes the only response is that some things are destined to remain a mystery.

Peace,

Nomad

Apikorus

Nomad:

1) I agree it is hardly profitable to speculate wildly about nonexistent sources. I did so in my remarks to Bede not to provoke discussion of the historical issues raised by the hypothesized documents themselves, but rather to challenge or clarify his assertion that articles of faith lie beyond the scope of historical inquiry. You have stepped in to this discussion by reacting to the speculations themselves, and it was never my intention that they be taken seriously.

2) Thanks for the link to Athanasius.

3) You have misunderstood me twice now regarding my question about extrabiblical documents. I of course do not presume that you categorically reject the accuracy of anything outside Scripture. I was asking instead whether you must believe that no part of e.g. Atrahasis is inspired (n.b. not accurate, but inspired). You had answered "no" but I suspect you meant "yes". Could you review the discussion?

4) I didn't know you were in Calgary. Moo.

5) Attributing to me a "faith in modern scholarship and concensus opinion" is a canard. Where have I ever professed such a faith? I do believe that the historical-critical method has opened new paths to understanding the Hebrew Bible (and ancient texts in general), but this view is easily defended.

6) Regarding Moses' literary output, I believe we have essentially zero evidence for a historical Moses, so I'd rather not speculate as to his literary activity. That is not to say that Moses definitely did not exist, or that he was not based on one or more historical characters. It is simply to say that at present it is beyond knowing. Moses is as historical as Odysseus.

7) I think it is defensive and reactive of you to assert that I have mischaracterized traditionalists as being defensive and reactive. (HA!) Seriously, I was not trying to criticize you in particular but rather to contrast orthodox and liberal approaches to doctrine and tradition. I think it is a useful distinction.

8) The basic question of this thread still is: are one's views of Jesus limited in any way by his attitudes toward the Hebrew Bible? In your defense of Jesus' perfect knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, you adduce the NT identification of Jesus with "the Word". How far are you willing to go in your reading of the Word? For example, it is generally agreed that the authors of Deuteronomy consciously revised earlier legislation found in the so-called "covenant code" (Exod 20:22-23:33). (Please let's not descend into accusations of slavish adherence to scholarly consensus. The point is not whether the consensus is demonstrably correct, but rather whether an Orthodox Christian could possibly accept its consequences.) Now even if one abandons the pleasant fiction of Moses authoring the entire Pentateuch, I might think this idea of Deuteronomy as a revisionist document could pose difficulties. Of course one could conceivably dismiss it by saying that God changed his mind and the Deuteronomist was his instrument of change. But traditionalists tend to be very conservative about such things. So I ask you: could you accept the notion that Deuteronomy revised earlier elements of "scripture"?

[ August 13, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Photocrat

God doesn't exist because some Christians have been wrong? How... illogical...

Better idea--I note that that's a positive claim of fact. Ergo, I ask you--prove it! It's at the core of your own beliefs, so you either prove that assertion, withdraw it, or claim you don't have to & become a hypocrite.

[Pretending to believe that we ought to have reasons for what we believe while realizing holding baseless ones you cannot prove counts as hypocracy, as best I understand the term
...]

It reminds me of an archaic prompt from DOS:
Abort, Retry, Fail?

James Still

Toto wrote: "Once you start down that slippery slope of admitting that it is possible to change, you just have to keep going. Eventually, if you are honest or brave enough, you realize that the god of the Bible cannot exist, that god is not necessary to explain creation, that it is possible to live a good live without Christianity, and the whole house of cards collapses."

Of course this is just your projection onto Toto because he says nothing in this eloquent little paragraph about God's existence being predicated on Christian truths. (News flash: Christianity could be dead wrong and God could still exist.)

It's interesting but I guess you'd have to walk in our shoes for a mile before you could really understand. When I read Toto's paragraph I knew *exactly* what he meant. As someone who used to be a theist, I can say that it takes incredible courage to wake up one day and finally admit to yourself that belief in God has slipped away. Once this picture loses its hold on you there's no going back (so stop thinking about the tough questions right now if you want to avoid a similar fate). After a while you realize that the God of the Bible is so paradoxical that it is just too fantastical to take seriously. You also discover that the world doesn't end, life is rich with meaning, integrity, and ethic and that you are quite happy as an atheist.

Even if he doesn't have reasons for his beliefs, who cares? I certainly don't have reasons for my unbelief nor do I think it necessary to provide them. Nonbelief is a consistent and natural assumption. The only hypocrisy is paying lip service to the truth while being intolerant and insisting that everyone believe exactly the same thing.

Peter Kirby

"Even today it is common to refer to the Torah as the Book of Moses."

Yes, but even today it is common to believe that the Pentateuch was written by Moses. I don't find many scholars expressing themselves in this way, excepting of course those who are more conservative.

"Moses was the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, and it is entirely plausible that he did write something down for the people to read, including prophecies about the coming of the Messiah."

Of course, there is a big debate about the historical existence of Moses. I suppose there is also a debate concerning the origins of the belief in a coming Messiah. I haven't looked into this in detail, but I have a hunch that the idea wasn't around at the time of the writing of the Pentateuch, let alone the supposed time of Moses himself.

"Would you apply modern prejudices in such matters, or would you accept that Jesus would have chosen to speak to his audience in a language and manner that would have been comprehensible to them for that period of time?"

Of course, this could minimize the import of the strongest of references of the putative Jesus of the gospels referring to Moses as the author of the Torah. Could we suggest that the whole virgin birth thing was another way that God expressed himself in a language and a manner that would have been comprehensible to them for that period of time, that the inspired evangelists were expressing the greatness of the divine man Jesus through the theologoumenon of the virgin birth?

"Hmmm... have you become a literalist Peter?"

Not at all. To be a full-fledged literalist, I would not only have to interpret the Bible literally but also believe that the Bible is true. But I am willing to work with different hermeneutics as the situation demands. Someone such as Origen viewed the Gospel of John as the spiritual portrait that brings out the meaning of the other three, not as an exact transcription of the Lord's words. I do not deny the validity of such a hermeneutic, although I do wonder about the consistency of its adherents concerning such points as whether the virgin birth is to be taken literally.

"A more probable scenario is that Mary bore Josephus' child..."

Quite a trick for Flavius Josephus, who was yet to be born for some forty years after the death of Herod the Great.

best,
Peter Kirby
http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/writings/

Nomad

Well, as your post was directed to me, I thought you were offering working examples that would satisfy your own curiosity. I did not realize that you were speaking to Bede here. My apologies.

NP. Please let me know what you think.

I do not know what, if anything, has been inspired, outside of what is accepted in the Canonical Bible. As a rule I treat such things as coming strictly from human beings.

LOL! Again, no problem. But just FYI, at the bottom of each of our posts you can see where the individual posters happen to be from (assuming a profile has been filled out). Thus, for example, I can see that you are from Chicago.

I also happen to like the historical critical method of textual criticism, and prefer it over most other methods. At the same time, I would not go so far as to accept that Moses, for example, is largely fictionalized. That requires a level of faith in what are still very young modern sciences that I do not possess.

Interesting. Personally I think that Odysseus was very likely to have been a real person. Clearly I misunderstood your point earlier. Now, given that almost the only evidence we have for anyone (excepting the most famous) from antiquity comes to us from single source documents, what kind of evidence do you demand for the existence of such individuals?

No sweat. I just don’t think that the labels tell us much any longer. At the same time, my point that it is always easier to eject a problematic belief, rather than examine it in detail, or even admit that we do not know the answers remains.

Yes. Christians do not see the Bible as the only means by which God has spoken to us. His Word includes “Tradition”, and this includes oral teachings, and developing doctrines as well. After all, the laws of Moses themselves did not come into being prior to Moses, yet we have a good deal of Biblical history taking place in Genesis. For example, Abraham married his own half-sister, and this was not seen as a violation of God’s laws. Noah lived before the covenant of circumcision, as did Abel and Enoch and others. Even after Moses new laws were created to deal with new circumstances, and old ones were modified to reflect new realities. Such is the nature of mankind, and this appears to reflect God’s own nature of working through an ongoing process, as opposed to an all at once singular revelatory event.

Bottom line, God’s revelation continues to this day. The Church, stretching back into Judaic antiquity has been one of the principle means by which He has revealed Himself, and has been entrusted with the transmission (oral and written and interpretive) of His divine Will and Word. Thus Jesus could tell us:

Matthew 23:1-3a Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.

And Paul echoes this sentiment directly:

1 Timothy 3:15 if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

It is the Church itself that serves as the pillar and foundation of our truth, directed as she is by God Himself.

Matthew 18:17-18 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Nomad

Nomad

Actually, I am not aware of any serious scholar that subscribes to the view that Moses authored the Pentateuch/Torah. The convention of referring to it as the Books of Moses remains, however, even for non-Christian or Jewish scholars.

Given that the promise of the Messiah is included in the oldest known books of the Bible (including Genesis), I find this view to be rather interesting. At the same time, I would not be surprised to find a scholar somewhere that doesn't think the Jews understood their own sacred documents properly. Such is the nature of scholarship, and the desire to say something controversial or novel is quite powerful (and often also quite lucrative), even if it has no factual basis.

This is another interesting speculation Peter, but in my own point I was simply pointing out that authorship of various books (especially religious ones) was often attributed a ruler, even as the people themselves understood that the ruler did not write it himself. Even in relatively modern times we have seen this (i.e. the King James Bible). Extending such an example to specific theological beliefs is quite a leap, and one that I was deliberately not implying in my post.

This was just a joke. Hence the winking icon. I have read your material in the past, and find it to be quite solid and useful, even if I do disagree with much of it.

OOPS! Bitten by the typo bug again. I meant Joseph's child of course. Thanks for the catch.

Be well,

Nomad

lpetrich

Nomad:
Even today it is common to refer to the Torah as the Book of Moses.

LP:
Among which non-Fundies is it common?

Nomad:
It certainly helps to identify what one is talking about, given that the names Genesis, Exodus, ect is a relatively modern invention.

LP:
The names "Genesis", "Exodus", etc. were coined in the Septuagint translation; is that translation a "modern invention"?

Nomad:
Of course a part of the Pentateuch was written by Moses. He wrote the original laws and recorded them for us (Exodus 24:4, 34:28, Deuteronomy 31:9, 22). Given that he was raised in a royal household as a son of the pharoah, it would have been astonishing if he had not written anything down during his life time.

LP:
However, those could be some later generations putting words into his mouth

Nomad:
Now, an interesting question raises itself: it was not uncommon for the ancients to view writings as having come from their rulers, even though it was well known that the ruler himself did not author the work.
Would you apply modern prejudices in such matters, or would you accept that Jesus would have chosen to speak to his audience in a language and manner that would have been comprehensible to them for that period of time?

LP:
Excuses, excuses, excuses. I DON'T believe in dumbing down, at least if I can possibly avoid doing so. There is a heck of a lot that could be revealed in the Bible that wasn't. Like the Earth being shaped like a ball, complete with the solution to Lactantius's Paradox (Divine Institutes 3:24). The sky not being a bowl overhead but an enormous void, with the air fading away after a few days' journey upwards. The Moon being a big ball 1/4 the size of the Earth -- and an airless desert. The Sun being a gigantic fireball that the Moon's path around the Earth could easily fit inside. The Earth traveling around the Sun. The stars being sunlike objects at gigantic distances. The oceans not filling up because water boils from them and enters the air; it may later come out of the air as clouds, and fall from the air as rain. A "nothing number" being meaningful, and numbers less than that also being meaningful. A decimal place system. Etc. etc. etc.

These problems are problems of other supposed revelations, so that's one reason I regard them all as fantasy.

Nomad

Good to see you back Lauren. If I may, is a Fundie like a nigger, or a Spic, or a Chink?

As for your question, Catholics and Orthodox and Lutherans often refer to the first five books of the Bible as the Books of Moses.

Yes.

So? What is your evidence? Might haves, and could haves are interesting, but tell us nothing.

What follows does not address my point at all. Why did you think what you said was somehow connected to my own point?

So? Are any of the things you list theoligically or morally important?

Obviously not.

What problems? That the Bible doesn't talk about science? I assume that you are joking here, since I cannot imagine why you think that your points are serious.

Nomad