rlogan

Actually quite productive comments. I was too fixated on combating the notion that preachers are some deviant class of humanity in operating completely without economic interest.

I found this strange "desperation for the exception" out of Freshman economics students. You observe that demand is higher when price is lower. It isn't a theory. It is a fucking fact that is essential to understanding economics, yet there seem to be some that are just relentless in all-out effort to either find some kind of exception or argue with what is obvious by common sense - without really even any training at all.

So her we are now with religious people too, who also operate with economic incentives: they like when things go on sale, they do not like when prices rise, they must make ends meet in their budget, on and on...

And the efforts I see are to go out of our way instead of accepting that they are also driven by basic economic incentives, but to instead pretend they are completely different. No, they are not rich or super-greedy. They are middle class like the vast, vast majority of us. Some are rich, like televangelists - yes. But most are just like us - regular people facing regular economic incentives.

You have a broad array of religious commoddities - Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc. Even within major groups there are niche markets where they fiddle around with dogma.

Acting against major dogma isn't acting against your economic interest when it makes you a celebrity or carves out a niche market for you. Acting against faith in your own God to your own congregation is definitely against your economic interest.

I still respectfully disagree with this silly notion that "how the bible was formed" as some tangential "fine detail" question. It again strikes at the very core of whether there was a Jesus that existed at all.

It is obvious on the face of it that the Christian Bible AKA "New Testament" is set up fraudulently with an appearance that direct disciples wrote contemporaneous accounts of the life of Jesus, and later Paul wrote letters to the churches that developed after the Jesus "big bang".

It is not a "fine detail" that this is completely false. It questions the basic honesty and integrity of those that put the bible together and whether it was the "inspired work of God" or instead charletans duping people or a dictator controlling the population, etc.

People keep pretending "does God exist" is some arcane academic question unrelated to religion. That is ultimately where "who wrote the Bible" leads us.

show_no_mercy

It's probably even deeper than that. Yeah, these preachers need to make a livelihood... but think about it. They had to pay for their education. They might have entered seminary or biblical scholarship under the pretense that everything they learned in church (the simple stuff) was true: inerrancy, original autographs, consistency, etc. but halfway through their seminary discovered that this stuff wasn't as cut-and-dried as they naively thought prior to entering seminary.

What are they gonna do at this point? Wash all that money on education down the drain? No - they have to continue their investment! And make sure that their investment pays off - by getting a job and perpetuating the "simple" version of biblical criticism to their congregations.

It's more than just securing a paycheck. It's securing an investment.

rlogan

I understand the difference between ignorance and lying.

I find it so interesting that people are arguing that "Oh shucks, you can't expect a preacher to know the bible..."

As if a mechanic shouldn't know cars or a pilot how to fly.

The kind of ignorance you have to be discussing is gross willful ignorance. And the level of it is pretty amazing if you just start thinking rationally about what job it is they do. They hold up the bible and shake it, and slam it down on the podium, quote from it loudly and rest all of their assertions upon it.

Every answer to every question they claim to consult the bible. All is found within.

So it demands careful inspection why the sole source of information they claim to be using, and indeed what they assert expert credentials in - why we just accept "oh yea, they shouldn't even know it very well".

We are acting very stupidly when we do this. This is an enormous contradiction: "Preachers claim expertise in Bible...Preachers don't know Bible"

When we introduce the notion that preachers are operating in a market for religion where those that demand it want their mortal fears assuaged, want to feel better about themselves, etc - then contradictions in the Bible, and wilfull ignorance and outright lies by preachers are easily explained.

It does not require posing them as monstrous, evil, savage and inhuman creatures driven by insatiable greed and lust for power.

It requires posing them as NORMAL.

fatpie42

Thanks!

I nearly tried to give an exception myself then. But I thought a little harder and decided my initial idea had been wrong.

I'm a little confused as to how this relates to the discussion about preachers. What counts as higher or lower price within a religion where everything is pretty much complimentary?

Well, as you could see from the Independent article Anthony Freeman was in danger of becoming homeless after losing his post with the Church of England. That said, one might suggest that up until that point he was making himself a celebrity and carving out a niche market, even if only on a local level. He didn't put forward his views as 'acting against faith in God' and some people were clearly inspired by his unusual message. Even losing his position in the priesthood was high profile enough that it probably allowed him a wider audience for his book.

Nevertheless, it seems that in the long run he wasn't really the one getting the most attention. I heard about him in relation to his views on Don Cupitt's 'Sea of Faith' movement. (Don Cupitt is also a member of the Church of England, but because he doesn't preach to a congregation it seems he doesn't have to worry about getting kicked out for being a non-realist about God.) In the end it looks like Anthony Freeman made a bad investment. Seems that way to me at least.

I'm not sure I understand. The Bible was most definitely formed. The different gospels and epistles were written by a variety of authors with different intended audiences and influences. These gospels had additions made to them by other writers later on. Then even later than that there were debates about which bits should be included in the final compilation. How is this a silly notion? What do you mean to say that it isn't a 'fine detail' question? (What is a 'fine detail' question anyway?)

But no one has ever claimed that the gospels were written by disciples (though some have been known to claim that the writer of the gospel of John was related to Jesus - though still not a disciple). The original gospels were anonymous. Nevertheless, if you change 'wrote' to 'dictated' that would be a fair point. Nevertheless, it doesn't make the process of critically assessing these texts any less interesting (especially to Christians who arguably have more reason than anyone to care).

I'd be interested in your reasons for proposing these theories. They sound a little far-fetched. I wouldn't have thought Christianity came together in a vitally different way from other religions. There does not seem to be any reason to cry conspiracy. The gospel texts made whole narratives out of existing pericopes (short stories about Jesus), filling in the gaps based on prophecies they believed to have been fulfilled. Later on they were given more credence than they deserved. - There's no reason to propose a conspiracy. Why propose malice when typical human error (especially in relation to religion) is enough to explain it? - What is really interesting is considering the errors involved.

I'm really not sure I understand.

bacht

What you're describing reminds me of when I went to music school. I entered thinking "yeah, once I'm through this I can make a living doing stuff I like" but I quickly found out that most paying gigs are not very satisfying from a purely aesthetic pov (cruise ships? touring with Celine Dion?)

Don't forget that most priests, ministers, rabbis etc don't make much money even after many years in the job. A middle-aged man-of-the-cloth without other skills may be anxious to keep his post even if he has to dumb down the message to his patrons (tithing members).

rlogan

Complimentary? Churches operate on tithing revenue. Preachers draw salary and also receive specific stipends for things like weddings and funerals. They receive various nontaxable benefits, depending on circumstance, like housing or a vehicle, use of church facilities. Boning the altar boys, etc.

People pay tithes that vary considerably as you compare for example a rural church in Mississippi with a wealthy city suburb. They recruit very different kinds of preachers catering to those demographic profiles.

Apparently so. It buttresses the argument that you shouldn't ask questions.

Regardless, two issues: First, that preachers are subject to economic incentives is absolutely unassailable. I have been pretty emphatic that it is not the exclusive motivation, or that every person is exactly the same.

You have greedy preachers who do phony faith healings and all manner of chicanery and you have run-of-the mill preachers just getting by with drab sermons on being a "good christian".


My exposure was that the bible was "divinely inspired", the "word of God", "infallible" and that was the end of it.


Oh? Here is a poll on a site regarding atheism/agnosticism. 35% of respondents in this poll thought direct disciples wrote the gospels:


http://atheism.about.com/gi/pages/po...he-gospels.htm

What proportion of Christians believe it? Obviously a lot more.




What theories? The Bible was put together by men, not angels. I listed a whole set of possibilities that open up when we reject the idea that God just "poofed" the Bible into existence. I know of the Councils through the 4th century, but most Christians don't. I only know because I questioned faith and looked into it - and now I am not a believer.

Why are you leaping to space alien type of insinuations? At Nicea and other counsels it was clearly the case that a struggle for monopolization of the state religion was at issue. Conspiracy requires secrecy. It was an open matter of a dictator (Constantine) for example forcing a national religion and that this facilitated control over the population.

I guess you don't.

Toto

Ehrmann was on Stephen Colbert tonight. It was a bit of slapstick, and Erhmann seemed to be trying to be a good sport about it.

razlyubleno

Must be before my time... But, yeah, that's pretty bad.

His apologetics are quite valuable IMO. More than anyone else on that side of the fence he has enough knowledge of scholarship to mount reasonable attacks... And it's important to regularly have your assumptions challenged by someone who isn't William Lane Craig, someone whom you can muster a little respect for. I think it was Bertrand Russel who said, "Caution is called for when all the experts agree." Opposition is a good thing, and good opposition is even better.

Ben wrote a damn fine book once upon a time, and on his blog he is forever telling fundamentalists to start using their brains and to be more sophisticated. I can respect that. It opens a channel of communication between people who seldom wish to cooperate.

This is obviously because he is arguing from a position of faith ("I, Ben Witherington III, do affirm the virgin birth, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc."), but if you grant him his faith, if you grant him his faulty premise, you can still admire a lot of his reasoning. He makes some good points about the nature of biblical texts, like his point about chronology in the gospels, for example; and as long as you're willing to cherry-pick his apologetics, there's some substance in there, certainly.

(But, dear God, that James Ossuary/Shroud of Turin thing is incredibly dumb. Isn't that like poisoning your own well?)

razly

Steven Carr

There is no chronology in the earliest Gospel - the one that others copied from.

The author of Luke is very precise in his dating of John the Baptist.

But, of course, his Jesus is then 'about 30', and no attempt is made at dating the death of Jesus or the start of his ministry.

I guess Luke had a good source for John the Baptist.

But Jesus? 'About 30'.....

razlyubleno

Oh, we've misunderstood each other here. Obviously gMark doesn't talk of dates, or specify the age of characters in the narrative. But there is a linear progression of events, and the problem encountered is that the events in Jesus' ministry get shuffled around as the story gets retold from one gospel to the next, and they happen in a different order sometimes. I'll quote the paragraph of Ben's that I was thinking of:

And for what it's worth (not much, I'm sure, since FRDB seems to be Dutch Radical and Jesus mythicist central), the second part of the review is up: http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/...sis-of_08.html

razly