douglas

Ok. I'm getting brave now and posting another question.

I've been reading many of the post on this forum and a common thread seems to be that the God depicted in the OT is cruel. My novice perception is that the Bible depicts humans understanding of God at certain points in time, and as we grow and learn, a deeper understanding is "revealed."

A crude example: early Jews believed that non-Jews sucked and God wanted his "chosen people" to kill them. The book of Jonah "reveals" that maybe God doesn't hate non-Jews after all (ie. God's instruction to Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites.) There's some relationship here between Cyrus, a non-jew, and his freeing of the Jews from exhile, but I'm not sure about the connection at the moment.

In other words, Biblical stories are just snapshots in history and must be viewed in context with what comes before and after. Is this a commonly held view of the bible, or am I way out there in left field?

Malachi151

The view here, or at least for myself, is that the Bible is a collection of sacred texts that were written by people, which are no different from the thousands of other sacred texts written by the thousands of other cultures around the world.

Its all the product of human imagination mixed with some history.

douglas

I guess I'm still trying to sort out the "imagination" from the "history."

In other sacred texts, is it typical to see some kind of thread or building process, where one idea builds on another, similar to the way a scientist builds on the work of others, or a musician is inspired by the songs of other musicians? To me, this is a very human process and has little or nothing to do with divine inspiration. Is the bible in any way reflective of this process, or is it a fairly random assembly of collective sacred texts?

gstafleu

Earl Doherty's argument (Jesus Puzzle) is that the Jesus concept developed from a spiritual, non-human Jesus to the man-walking-the-earth version from the gospels, and that you can trace that development in the NT and other extra-canonical literature of the first and second centuries (and gives lots of examples of that process). Robert Price (The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, Deconstructing Jesus) argues that you can trace the development of the various things Jesus is supposed to have said and done (in gospels and acts) from earlier and contemporary sources (and gives lots of examples of that process).

Gerard Stafleu

Malachi151

Yes, in many ways actually. Judaism is a religion and culture that was actually very highly influenced by outside cultures and religions. "Christianity" and "Islam" are two varients of Judaism that were so influenced by outside cultures that they comepltely split away from the core.

You can see in Judaism, first the polytheism, then the transition to singular tribal gods, then to monotheism.

Almost all of the Jewish mythical figures, such as Moses, Samson, Elijha, etc., can be traced back to previous god of other cultures, which became integrated into the Jewish pantheon as gods, and then transformed into mortal heroes.

Samson is the best known example of a Jewish mythic figure whose story comes from the Babylonian Sun God. Samson's name literally means "of the sun" in Hebrew. His mythology mirrors the mythology of the Babylonain sun god.

The same with Moses most likely. Moses was also probably a sun god in Jewish mythology at first, who became transformed into a human leader. This is probably why Moses was described by the Jews as having rays of light coming out of his head, which became mistranslated as horned by Greeks, leading to the images of "horned Moses".

Also, we have the concept of afterlife that evolved among the Jews, eventually leading in part to the split of Christianity.

Judaism origionally had no afterlife belief, hence the reason that the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible depict all of God's punishments and rewards being dealt immediately in the present tense on earth.

As the Jews mingled with the Egyptians and Greeks, however, they slowly adopted some afterlife belief, the culmination of which was Christianity, which adopted the Greek Hades/Tartarus as hell (even with its description of the lake of fire).

So yes, you can very clearly see the building of ideas in Christianity if you study it.

Anat

douglas, there are enough here who will tell you that the deity depicted in the Greek scriptures is just as a complex combination of nuttiness, cruelty and kindness as the one in the Hebrew scriptures. The seeming difference is only a result of selective memory.

John Kesler

Some Christians embrace "progressive revelation," the idea that God allowed the Israelites to gradually accrue knowledge about God, Satan, the universe, etc. It is an appealing doctrine, because it allows one to reconcile disparate biblical views and to retroject later ideas into the Old Testament (Satan is the garden of Eden serpent, the trinity is mentioned in Genesis 1:26, etc).

Malachi151

The irony of this, however, is that the New Testament, via "Paul", "Peter", and I think some gospels, says that God had always been fully revealed, but the "Gentiles" choose to deny him...

Malachi151

I disagree with that. I think that the NT gives quite a different view of God than the OT.

douglas

So, religious beliefs not only built on ideas within a specific tradition, but took in and assimilated ideas from other traditions. This is probably an obvious statement to most readers of this forum, but it's a new ....uh... revelation to me.

From reading your responses, reading another thread regarding budhism mixing with Christianity, and I'm also reading Karen Armstrong's History of God I'm getting a much clearer picture of what it must have been like to live in these times, and how religious thought developed. It was much more of a mixing pot of ideas than I had previously understood.

The connection between Moses and the Jewish sun God is fascinating to me! Having previously read Randal Helms' Gospel Fictions, the idea that Jesus was made up makes sense, but I'm going to check out "The Jesus Puzzle" anyway.

I'm confused, exhilirated, and scared all at the same time. How fun! Thanks for taking the time to help me. I truly appreciate it.