judge

If one realises a truth that one is unaware of then the metaphor of growth is not wholly inappropriate, even if imperfect.

Magdlyn

Those are a lot of questions, Jeffrey. How would you answer each one?

And how do they related to the quote in the OP?

Clivedurdle

Is not Armstrong epileptic? How she sees religion is very reminiscent of what Persinger thinks.

Student of Sophia

I read the book in question a few days ago, and I would say that you are correct Gerard. I'd also guess that most mythologists would agree.

Jeffrey Gibson

Where is there any hint of a lack of awareness of truth on the part of the audiences that the imparatives you mentioned are addreed to.

In the anceient meditteranean there was no notion that people or trees grew in the sense of being transformed from what they were to what they were not. It was they become what they there genesis had already determined they are.

The idea of a development of personality or self from unshaped to shaped is unknown to them. Life dosen't transform character. It just just reveals what one was set from birth to be.

Have a look at the what is said about this in Malina's The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (or via: amazon.co.uk) and Malina and Rohrbaugh's Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (or via: amazon.co.uk) or Malina and Jerome Neyrey's Portraits of Paul: An Archaeology of Ancient Personality (or via: amazon.co.uk) .

Or do a google search on dyadic personality.

Jeffrey

judge

Did I say there was?

You wrote the following.

Either way we slice it the show can fit. If you want to see it the latter way the metaphor is just as appropriate.

.

As you were trying to put words in my mouth this part is irrelevant. IOW I did not say what you seem to think I did.

Malachi151

Sort of, but its also somewhat dubious.

Misportraying the past in an attempt to make it a better role model for the present isn't honest, isn't scholarship, and IMO isn't useful.

There is also this dichotomy between the idea of portraying bad ideas honestly, in which you run the risk of validating bad ideas, or of dressing them up and reforming the bad ideas, in which case all you really do is breath new life into bad ideas IMO, and give them a credit and level of respect that they never deserved in the first place.

I've seen all of these claims about the supposed lack of literalism in the past, I simply don't see evidence of it.

Magdlyn

Paul?

Gal 4:22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman.
Gal 4:23 But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise.
Gal 4:24 This is allegorically speaking, for these {women} are two covenants: one {proceeding} from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar.
Gal 4:25 Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
Gal 4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.

judge

One can make a very weak case for Jesus having a dyadic personality with a straw or two from the synoptic gospels, but not if one looks to the gospel of John, where his personality is very far removed from such.
There are just too many verses along these lines to list. I'm sure you must be familiar with some of them.

Paul also tells us that after his revelation he "consulted not with flesh and blood"

Magdlyn

Has anyone here besides Student of Sophia and myself read anything by Armstrong? Has anyone seen her on TV or listened, in its entirety, to the recent radio show I linked to yesterday? Just curious, because people just seem to be speculating about Armstrong's approach.

And BTW, her appearances on TV are mere blips compared to her books which are lengthy and cite primary sources at length. They are much more dense than books by others you might consider written for the lay public, such as books by Ehrman.

That said, Armstrong is a bit too pious for my taste. In the radio interview, she asserts that the overriding theme of the Abrahamic religions is compassion (charity), and that theologians tend to set aside (and are justified in doing so) the uglier swathes of the Bible to come to this noble conclusion and cause.