makerowner

I still don't understand what point you're trying to make. People believe a lot of dumb stuff; I agree. That doesn't change the fact that the text says he died and came back to life. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter; that's what the text says.

welder99

Why not? Isn't that how the Bible works? You can't take it all at face value since it is self-contradictory.

welder99

Even if he did die and come back, I think the point is valid that that's not much of a sacrifice. It's like if Super Mario died for you.

spin

I've already shown in this thread that unicorns are a red herring.

Angels are a force which act, and are obviously real, within the narrative world of the gospels. This suggests that both readers and writers took the notion seriously, just, I would think, as believers today take miracles at Lourdes and Fatima or the virgins after a martyr's death seriously. In fact a lot of christians still take angels seriously -- just consider the TV series in which angels are shown active on the earth in contemporary times.

What angels have to do with your initial topic isn't clear. You were asking about the value of the sacrifice, the process of Jesus's dying on a cross, which is central to the christian religion and obviously to christians it is very important, though I don't really see why. Our positions seem quite different here. You question the sacrifice for its weight, while I question it for its supposed theological necessity. God, by definition, simply doesn't need such a sacrifice, not needing anything. However, that question is not a BC&H matter; the latter is what concerns us here.


spin

spin

If you are interested in how the narrative world works, then you have to enter it. Your analysis is based on the coherence of that world. I don't know what baggage you ring to the subject, but, for instance, you mightn't believe that a person dying on a cross is the basis for a religion, though you get the idea that it was perceived to be so by the writers and their readers.

I don't see that the bible works by jumping in and out of the narrative world. A critical modern reader might do so, but such a reader is apparently not like the ancient reader. The modern reader might read a bit and then think, this is a load of crap, as a metacomment. The comment is not from the book, but from the reader interacting with it, and is a reflection not from the book, but of the reader.

If you are a believing reader, why can't you take it "at face value"? Any contradictions are the result of human writing and only to be expected by the believer. For someone doing BC&H, contradictions are good, because they help to show flaws in the construction of the text, allowing us to understand the construction better.


spin

Boro Nut

That's nested hierarchies fucked then.

Boro Nut

spin

Or perhaps only nixed netaphors.

Toto

dialogue with Chili split off here