aikido7

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: aikido7 ]</p>

aikido7

NOGO, NOGO, NOGO! What are we going to do with you?

In my opinion: you still take the Bible literally to take on the literalistic fundamentalists. You see contradictions as evidence of deception or ignorance instead of rich variations in received history and tradition.

First of all, Passover is a remembrance of a story that Jews tell to celebrate(d) their freedom from bondage under the Egyptian Pharaoh. It is a story of that bondage, their freedom, their journey through the wilderness and their final destination. As the Haggadah litergy states, the story is not just about the past but also about the present, the redemption of "us, too, the living." I suppose one can focus on a primitive idea of a vengeful God in the celebration, but that would be like remembering what Custer's Last Stand was really like during Thanksgiving dinner.

It is a true story (which may have actually happened!) Like all sacred stories, it points beyond itself to a wider meaning. As the ancient American Indian shaman once said, "I have no idea that the story I am going to tell you actually happened; I only know that it is true."

You are like the character Peter Bly, of whom William Wordsworth sang:

NOGO, there is a way to decide which parts of the Bible to take at face value, based on a best-guess, commonsense application of the scholarly criteria I cited in a previous post.

In the Hebrew Bible, God is described to be everything from a rock and an eagle to an old woman weeping and a gardener. I don't think Jesus was a "literalist" in his conception of God. He was a paraboler and a subverter of conventional ideas about God and Palestinian reality, and appears to indicate that he felt called to a special mission.

Certainly Jesus celebrated Passover; he was a Jew. I don't know if he "celebrated Passover the day before he died." We have no way of knowing this. The gospel accounts of his last days are contradictory in the details. John's deviation from "the last supper" is an obvious example--but not the only one.

Whether Jesus sent instructions to his disciples to go to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" is still being debated by Bible pundits. Both references come only from Matthew. The early Christians led by Peter (Gal 2:7-8) clearly saw their purpose to preach to fellow Jews. Paul, however, saw himself as the evangelist to the gentiles. What did THE REAL Jesus say?

This goes back to my original thread: most fundamentalists and many skeptics continue to see the New Testament as four harmonizable accounts of some sort of a modern, secular biography of Jesus. The gospels are faith documents with multiple agendas and different layers of interpretation painted over some meagre historical facts.

NOGO

Aikido7

Thank you for the lesson.
I agree with everything that you said.
Passover is a celebration of freedom.
Freedom from slavery.
Yet where do you see in the Bible a clear denounciation of slavery. You don`t! In fact some passages clearly condone it.
Faith can be a beautiful thing as well but there is a dark side to it. The belief, for example, that God is somehow on our side because we believe in him or say the correct prayers or belong to the right religious group.
Killing the unfaithful has been a favourite passtime of well meaning believers throughout history. Saying that if you do not believe you are condemned is just a milder version of the same idea.

We can celebrate freedom without murdering children. So when I say that you are selective I mean that you ignore this very dark side of your faith. You can find this dark side not only in the bible itself but also in various religious organizations today. In fact witness the present day divisions in the Christian faith itself. Have you ever lived through a inter-faith mariage?

We know that religious wars have been among bloodiest and most savage. The minute you mix God into human affairs you get zealotry to a level otherwise unattainable. The attack on the World Trade Centre is a prime example.

I tend to paint a negetive picture of religion and faith simply because believers talk about it as if it was all rosy. It isn`t?

godfry n. glad

aikido7 initiated this thread with the following embedded in his post:

I'm rather amused that you think that by de-emphasizing the literal and instead focusing on meaning that pointless debate will be minimized.

It seems to me that such a course would be counterproductive, in that an emphasis upon "meaning" would be dependent upon interpretation and the interpretations based upon "meaning" of symbolic discourse are manifold. Yet, you seem to think that allowing the proliferation of interpretation will similify the debate. From my perspective, it has not done so in the past and seems unlikely to do so in the future.

Why is it that you think that pointless arguments based upon differing interpretations of the symbolic "meaning" of the source documents will be any more enlightening than those based upon a literal interpretation?

You see, I think you should accept my interpretation that the source documents are meaningless babble and should be disposed of entirely. But, hey, that's _my_ interpretation.

godfry

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: godfry n. glad ]</p>

NOGO

I am always amazed at the way the essense of a verse is dropped, ignored or swept under the rug.
Mt 10 does not simply say go to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" as you state above. It says "DO NOT GO the way of the Gentiles and Samaritans, go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel".
Funny the way such important parts of my point simply disappear.

Also strange is the way you have suddenly backed off from your criterion. Apologist say that since Jesus' baptism was an embarrassment to the early church then it must historic which proves the historicity of Jesus himself. Mt 10 is also an embarrassment to the early church but the only thing that you will admit to in this case is that it is still under debate.

aikido7

Religion is not rosy; faith is not rosy; I am not rosy and neither are you.
The Russian Nobel Prizewinner Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote:
"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to seperate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

According to Matthew's gospel,Jesus of Nazareth is made to say:
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
(Italics mine)

My shorthand concerning Matthew 10 was not intended to obfuscate or minimize the text. Essentially, the verse speaks to a mission within Judaism, not to the Gentiles as Paul preached.

I tend to think that Jesus was baptized by John; I also tend to think there were two developing steams of early Christian tradition represented by preaching to the Jews only and an outreach to the Gentiles and pagans. Scholars have come down on both sides of the question.

If you think I contradict myself, you could be right--although I have a difference of opinion with you on that point...

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: aikido7 ]</p>

aikido7

One is bound to be frustrated in searching for any bottom-line "truth" in dialogue, but in my opinion arguing competing literalisms gets nowhere.

A respectful exchange of meaning can bring about understanding and fruitful exploration. If one's intent is to protect, then not much light will be shed. If one's intent is to learn, then insight is encouraged and made possible.

For example, if one person simply denies an accusation or a fact, the other person usually tends to cycle into a pattern of "Yes it is," and then the response from the other tends to be "No it isn't." That kind of argument can go on all day.

If, on the other hand, when faced with a new fact or an accusation one does not deny that fact or accusation but instead calmly asks for evidence of the other's point of view then the relationship shifts and learning on both sides may occur. But hey--just my opinion!

I am not aware of persuasive evidence that shows the extant "source documents are meaningless babble and should be disposed of entirely." But maybe there is and therefore maybe they should. Show me specific evidence and we can discuss it together.

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: aikido7 ]</p>

NOGO

Perhaps we have come to the end of what can reasonably be expected with debate over the net.
I tend to think that you are defering to the Scholars on such points as "preaching to the Jews only and preaching to the Gentiles" thus avoiding the conclusion.

Scholars do argue over minute points such as these but I don't know anyone waiting for their verdict before deciding what this all means to them.

For me the mere fact there was two tradictions is already damning enough. Basically it goes like this. If Jesus was God and he came down to earth to save humanity from some sin in Genesis then I would have expected that he would have stated his purpose clearly enough so that only one tradition would result. The fact that we have two clearly points to imaginitive writers and very creative story telling.

This is the kind of conclusion that I think you are avoiding but I could be wrong.

Is this literalisms? I tend to think that it is fundamental.

Thank you for the exchange
NOGO

[ February 22, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

James Still

Here's the problem as I see it: NoGo, you approach the text from a realist assumption, which Aikido does not share, and the disagreements between the two of you are over this difference rather than from interpretations of the text itself.

What do I mean by a realist assumption? It is a mindset bequeathed from logical positivism that privileges propositional statements over all else. The believer asks, "What would Jesus do?" and the realist stops him short and wants to know whether Jesus existed or not. (For if Jesus did not exist, then who gives a damn what he would do?) As an atheist I of course have a great deal of empathy for this point of view. However, I think it has severe limitations along the lines that Aikido has suggested. What if the question draws its meaning, not from existential considerations, but from ethical considerations? Isn't it just an unnecessary realist bias to insist that the deeds of Jesus cannot be contemplated unless such a person actually existed? In other words, if I were to ask what Paul Bunyan would do in such-and-such a situation it seems clear that I am not assuming the reality of a lumberman of the 19th century. Rather, I'm familiar with the stories about him (what he did, how he behaved, what he said) and am merely extrapolating from the idea I have of him in order to apply that idea in a wholly different context.

I could be mistaken but I think this is all that Aikido wants us to understand. The stories about Jesus in the NT texts are pregnant with meaning and wisdom; to turn every aspect of those stories into cut and dried analysis of a narrow theological plan of salvation is to miss the point. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the NT texts (like all great literature) contain universal truths that are enormously meaningful and speak volumes about the human condition. That fact persists even after all of the discussions about who gets into heaven and who goes to hell and whether or not Jesus was a historical figure or a pagan mosaic of other archetypes. Of course, it is necessary to consider realism and history in discussions but not every discussion must be about realist considerations to be valid. Just my two cents...

[ February 22, 2002: Message edited by: James Still ]</p>

aikido7

First off, thank you for this excange as well. You have forced me to confront some of my own ineffectual meanderings and to try and express my point of view more clearly (accent on the word "try"!). My only frustration comes from feeling that I am misunderstood on some fundamental points. James Still's posting above and his other comments have been very helpful; he is outside the fray and can see things in a way which we cannot. (There is strength in diversity!)

As to your quote above (which I have admittedly taken out of context), I will say that what the contradiction you have posed does mean to me is that first-century Judaism expressed itself in myriad ways (which is a modern scholarly consensus) and that I have no clear idea (from the Bible) whether Jesus intended his message to the Jews only or saw a wider application as Paul did. I lean toward the idea that Paul expanded Jesus' idea in this regard (as he did practically everything else) so any "mission to the Gentiles" would be non-historical when applied to Jesus himself.

Unfortunately, Paul's preaching and letters ARE part of Christianity, like it or not. But there may be hope. I am predicting that more scholarly attention will come to be paid to a thorough analysis of his writings so believers and skeptics alike can become more literate of Christian origins.

Getting back to my original post, I still feel that many readers see the Hebrew Bible and New
Testament as straight story and biography handed down to us post-moderns all of a piece, in a complete and "perfect" form.

Skeptics and atheists often see the stories and dismiss them outright, for we are living in a post-modern world after all.

Fundamentalists and evangelicals see the stories and "bend heaven and earth" to get them to make sense for them--for they are also living in the world but base their life in that world on those stories.

Both sides read the world wrong and cry out that it deceives them.

Anyone can still proclaim that "Jesus Saves," but the new reality is already here so perhaps they need to be more aware and responsible--maybe by clarifying their mental bumperstickers with "(MY interpretation of) JESUS SAVES."

Thanks again for your respectful postings, NOGO. I do appreciate it!

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: aikido7 ]</p>