rlogan

Thank you. The reason for the frustration was that this is so obvious, so central, so irrefutable that all the silly smoke-blowing to cover it up was over-the-top ridiculous.

Well most of the effort until the above was to deny something pretty essential: Preachers do not speak against their economic interest.


On economic matters I am qualified to speak. I didn't mention it until I ran up against this amazing denial about how preachers too act on economic interests.

There is an equilibrium salary dictated by supply and demand for their labor. No different from any other occupation.

"bare notion" is an interesting way to put a credential that is precisely applicable to the matter at hand. It is hardly "bare".

After your first sentence above, all of that frustration has receded.

The proposition that preachers are completely unaffected by their economic interest is so ludicrous as to deny that they are human.

This has to now become a starting premise, and we are only just beginning now instead of finished with the discussion.

Since preachers are affected by their economic interests, and since it is against their economic interest to speak about these contradictions or even investigate them further upon their discovery, it is quite clearly the case that their incentive is to obscure such things from their congregations.


We also compare other arguments to this one now and see how silly they are by comparison...

cheers...

rlogan

This premise is clearly WRONG. The contradictions in question amount to the very issue of whether Jesus existed as a flesh and blood person, whether there were disciples, whether what we read was authored by who was alleged, etc.

The premise is used as an excuse, and is not factual. The version of Christianity presented is actually a pretty illogical, complicated, bizarre tale - about god sending himself to save us from himself due to making us imperfect in the first place, and having three personages in one, etc...

It is in fact a much simpler story that superstitious people lacking scientific knowledge made things up.

The answers to vexing questions - only vexing because the Christian stance is illogical - is to propose the most ludicrous, complicated scenarios and in the end they throw up the hands and say "God works in mysterious ways..."

It is just non-factual to say Preachers are telling the "simple" story to Congregations, unless you mean by that it is "simpler" in retaining faith when the more complicated apologetics are used to excuse irrational and illogical premises.


you are also mixing up two important periods in the life cycle of a preacher. There is a time in seminary where their full attention is brought to these contradictions that ought well cause them to question some basic matters in Christianity. Learning that different people wrote the Pauline texts, that there were interpolations, that there were very different doctrines, etc...

It is important to speak to what humans do when facing these shattering questions.

I realize it is important to some that these core questions be presented as if they were just tangential and unimportant. But just accepting the Bible as no longer infallible is a huge step in terms of faith.

Some become disillusioned and leave.

What you mean by "academics", we should remind ourselves, is people who are pre-committed to the historical existence as a matter of faith and worthless as some kind of point.

Likewise with "most people". Most people have spent Zero time studying the matter.

Most athiests don't believe in the existence of God or the superstitions surrounding Jesus.

So there.


I am not saying it is exclusively economic interest driving this. Or that you become a billionaire by hiding contradicions from your congregation.

Just that we absolutely must recognize the simple, straightforward incentive of preachers to give their congregations what they want - soothing comfort that heaven awaits them. It is what the market wants. It is what puts food on his table.

What do you mean by the "Roman Period"? In the early 2nd century the vast majority had never even heard of him. Through that century there were substantial sects of Christians themselves that did not even believe in an earthly Jesus.

So this is just talking through your hat.

cheers. Nice hat though.

Amaleq13

Aren't they all?

razlyubleno

Ben Witherington has a fairly in-depth review: http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/...alysis-of.html

On the whole I'm not sure how much I can agree with Ben, since he seems to basically be saying, "If you can't reconcile the gospel accounts, then you don't understand the genre of Graeco-Roman biography, and you're not trying hard enough." Ehrman can say very silly and over-generalized things at times (he's not alone)... but he's basically pretty competent, as far as I can tell. His only real failing is that he reads like old news.

What do other people think of the review?

razly

Solo

....I too have long suspected that some atheists are disgruntled theists in the closet.

Jiri

Toto

I always remember that Ben Witherington wanted to do a DNA match on bone fragments from the James Ossuary with the "blood" from the Shroud of Turin. So it's hard to take him seriously.

His blog post raises all of the obfuscations that inerrantists raise in the face of obvious inconsistencies and contradictions in the gospels, and adds some modern critical research which does nothing to validate the possible accuracy of the gospels as history.

Note that he criticizes Ehrmann for a method that has an "inherent skepticism about the supernatural" - as if there were something wrong with skepticism of the supernatural.

andrewcriddle

I still think you are confusing two issues.

Issue 1/ How far are (some) preachers presenting, (for whatever reasons good or bad), what they themselves believe to be an inaccurate version of things ?

Issue 2/ How far are (some) preachers presenting what is in fact an inaccurate version of things although the preachers do not realise this ?

Issues of sincerity and economic and other interests arise predominantly with issue 1 rather than issue 2.

Andrew Criddle

fatpie42

I'm probably missing the point because I'm coming into the conversation part way through. A quick glance at earlier posts didn't appear to show this to be your central point earlier.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the idea that Preachers never speak against their economic interest is just plain false. The knockdown argument, it would seem to me, would be the case of Anthony Freeman who was dismissed from the Church of England for claiming that he didn't believe God was 'real' (which is actually somewhat different from saying that "God does not exist").

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...s-1380634.html

Ah, that makes more sense. Preachers are as driven by economic interest as anyone else. And just like anyone else, they may sometimes act against economic interest if it conflicts with a matter of personal conscience.

I'd say this was dodgy too. It would depend upon the congregation. A more liberal congregation would be very interest in hearing the smaller details of how the Bible came to be formed as it is. A more conservative congregation, however, would be irritated and possibly angered by such a discussion.

That said, the falling attendance at Church means that more liberal congregations are pretty rare. It tends to be the more conservative believers who stick with Church attendance.


Hope I haven't missed any important details. Like I said, I'm dropping into this discussion right in the middle.

fatpie42

As I understand it, priests within the Church of England in the UK are expected to have some backing in theological studies. Bishops like Rowan Williams and N.T. Wright are well read on theology. This means that they will understand the Bible on a level not easily communicated to a typical congregation. They will know that what they tell their congregation is a simplified, watered-down version of the Bible. They will most likely convey the message of a Bible in a way which brings out what they consider to be the most important moral/spiritual message, rather than dealing accurately with the complex issues of its formation and history.

As such, pretty much all priests with a decent theological training will fully recognise that they are simplifying the Bible to their congregation. That doesn't mean that they are lying, but it does mean that they will inevitably have some inaccuracies.

I've no doubt that their are some preachers who do not have such a full theological training. (To avoid any controversy, I could simply point to child preachers such as the one in the documentary 'Jesus Camp'.) Their understanding of the Bible may be already watered-down and simplified (the evangelicals who insist that the Bible message is clear and simple come to mind). So yes, they will be a different case in that they will not necessarily realise that there are any difficulties in presenting an accurate picture to their congregation.

semiopen

I bought this book, and am glad to see that Christian biblical scholars have reached essentially the same conclusions as Jewish ones.

This discussion recalls a short previous thread of the percentage of Christian biblical scholars who believed in the bible literally. The 75% rate given seemed doubtful to me, if only because I knew that the rate approaches zero for Jewish scholars.

My guess for reasons why clergy ignore this it is a result of lack of knowledge even granting that they took some college courses. These guys are just college kids after all. I met a young Chabad rabbi; from my conversations with him, he had a decent knowledge of the bible but not clearly better than my own as a layperson. I got the distinct impression that his exegesis was based on what the easiest, least controversial acceptable religious opinion was about any given subject, along with a sprinkling of outrageous midrashic interpretations which are easy to remember.

There is also, of course, some catering to congregation members, who unlike me, do not go there for the adult content, and controversy. For example, I mentioned to a woman at a Kabbalah class that women's souls do not transmigrate according to Isaac Luria (admittedly just to pull her chain). She got more upset than I expected and ran to the Rabbi to see if this was true and of course he said it wasn't.

The existence of this discipline was a complete blank for me up until about a year ago.

It's possible to believe in inerrancy without being insane or stupid, but these are perhaps the most complimentary things one can say about the qualtity of this idea.