Laera

Quick question:
What's the feeling around the board on the subject of viewing the Bible as a Love Story between God and us?

One of my liberal mom's favorite things is to say that the Bible wasn't written as a science book, nor really a history book, but as a story about the god witnessed by the gospel writers in Jesus. (it's probably worth mentioning that she only accepts those parts of the bible which support her view that god is loving, merciful, and all that good stuff - the rest was just 'a sign of the times and the flaws and opinions of the human hands doing the writing')

Thoughts?

Corwin

Sure... we can consider the Bible to be a love story between God and Us.

Of course, we could also consider the love story that is the Ike and Tina Turner movie......

enrious

Bravo, bravo!

The problem with viewing it as a love story is that it's written from the point of view of a sadistic bastard.

IvanK

She's in good company there. One problem is that no Gospel writers were around in Judea at the beginning of the common era, when Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to have flourished, in order to "witness" anything about him at all. The Markan Gospel, probably the earliest to be written, was most likely put to paper around 70 CE in Rome. It was heavily influenced by the Jewish revolt against Rome of that time and went to great lengths to distance Jesus and his disciples from any hint of antagonism toward Rome. Mark in turn influenced the two other synoptic Gospels. Paul and all four Gospel writers were probably influenced in their turn by Hellenized Jews who brought other mystical, Easternized interpretations into the mix. The four Gospels often contradict each other as well as the letters of Paul and others on which Christian theology is supposedly based, not to mention most of the Old Testament that also forms part of the Christian Bible.

So the question becomes, what are we to make of all this, what are we to believe given the apparent contradictions and redactions throughout the texts and what is that supposed to mean for our lives?

Your mother will tell you that if one reads the Bible in the proper "spirit" it will all become clear, and that it will show the working of that "spirit" through human history. But no two Christians, even those who claim to understand this "spirit," can agree on exactly what the Bible as a whole or any passage in it is supposed to mean. Millions have been butchered throughout history because of petty disagreements over what your mother calls this love story about the Christian God.

Personally I have enough to worry about with what I should do with the next minute or so of my life to be bothered about what might happen after I die or whether there is a supreme being somewhere who loves me and wants me to be happy despite the preponderance of evidence that the universe is a cold dark void of a place and does not care much about me at all.

Laera

My mom's explanation for the discrepancies is this: (btw, her dates for the writings put Mark in 55, Luke in 65, Matthew in 70ish, and John much later - and he was likely 'tripping' - those are her words!)

If you take your grandparents, and all your friends' grandparents, and ask them today to write an account of an event they all witnessed during the depression, you'd get just as many discrepancies - even though they were all eye-witnesses! (and she also believes the Q document of the sayings existed and they all worked from it)

Thoughts?

cloudyphiz

why exactly would eye witnesses need to use source material?
(Q, or mark as a source for matthew and luke)

you'd think, maybe, if they actually saw the stuff happen they'd come up with their own account. or, at least i'd think that.

also, her dates are pretty damned early,
early almost in a mcdowellian or strobellian sense.

-gary

Laera

I doubt she gets them from either person, since she thinks fundamentalists are evil. (they misrepresent god's message and confuse people who would otherwise know the love of god)

Rational Ag

I don't think he was saying that she got them from those sources. I think he was saying that they were dishonestly early, as the scholarship of McDowell and Strobel is generally very much in question.

IvanK

Not many of even the most devout Christian scholars would put Mark as early as 55 CE. Most will put it back a couple years from 70, the year the Temple was destroyed, thus "fulfilling" the prophecy of same Mark ascribes to Jesus. But that wouldn't have been a particularly hard call in 68 or 67, kind of like predicting the Yankees will be in the 2002 baseball playoffs, so it's really neither here nor there.

Your mother's logic gets a little circutuous at times. The Gospels are eyewitness accounts (and therefore by implication reliable), but their discrepancies are to be expected because eyewitness accounts aren't usually reliable. I admit I'm more than a little confused; are we to rely on these "eyewitness accounts" or not? If so, which parts of them are we to rely on and which discount as misremembered?

King Arthur

Bible a love story? Sure! Ever read the Song of Solomon?