Wondering

Nan Christianity, Holy Bible, , , ,

bible

Over on another blog there have been some very lengthy discussions between a couple of Christians and the (non-believing ex-Lutheran) blog owner related to biblical events and people and associated beliefs about same.

In his posts, the blog owner usually presents a passage of scripture, accompanied by his personal thoughts, and occasionally remarks and/or information from outside sources that support his topic.

As would be expected, nearly every post is refuted by the Christians who regularly visit his blog.

So why am I pinpointing this particular blog? Because nearly every question or comment made by the blog owner (and/or any non-believer who visits the blog) invariably results in multiple references to –and/or quotes by– the opinions/writings of various and sundry published Christian apologists. Very little “personal” input by the blog visitor is provided … except when it can be validated by these apologists.

While I appreciate there are scores of individuals who make a living “interpreting” bible scripture via research –and even through study of the original language– there are times when it seems these same folks are unable to see the forest for the trees.  IOW, they get so caught up in their attempts to “explain” the intent of the original writers that (I feel) they lose sight of the simplicity of the message itself.

I recognize there is much imagery in the bible and it would be foolish to accept every scripture literally. Yet some believers seem unable to discern the difference and feel they must explain the “meaning” behind some of the most direct text.

Certainly the bible teaches that believers must be able to account for their faith (Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15), but sometimes it feels to me like these folks go way overboard in their “reasons.”

Although I’m fully aware there are those who feel it’s vitally important to understand and/or defend scripture, I often question why. Can they not simply let it stand on its own? Considering that the bible story revolves around people and places totally foreign to those of us living in today’s world, how can any of us possibly know the actual  thoughts and motives of the ancient writers?

74 thoughts on “Wondering”

  1. I’ll venture the intent of the anonymous gospel writers was to co-opt the Messiah idea, discredit the Jews and paint them in as bad a light as possible.
    The history of the Christian church would certainly add credence to this view

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  2. Scripture has been twisted and misused to justify a range of horrific acts, from the Crusades to slavery. Really, if you left Scripture to stand for itself, how could any practicing Christian be anti-Semitic? Jesus was a Jew, and call the Last Supper what you will, it was a Passover Seder.

    Some of the distortion was intentional. The Counsels in 332 and 432 edited the text and discarding whole books that didn’t align with what they wanted people to believe. Jewish scholars had done that previously to the Torah, or Old Testament in Christian parlance. When Emperor Constantine chaired the second major revision, the goal was not the streamlining of the message but the maintenance of the integrity of the Roman Empire. The third major editing was the King James version in the 1600s, which apparently contains stories about Jesus that did not appear in prior versions. The Smithsonian Institute did a major show on the evolution of the Bible some years ago — much to the consternation of the Christian right wing who want to pretend that none of this happened.

    People haven’t left Scripture to stand for itself, and while doing so is a reasonable position to take — allowing personal interpretation is in line with Jesus’ precept about communicating with God in private — it’s 2,000 years too late to take it. We can’t undo the harm that humans have done with a simple do-over.

    The real challenge is in clearing away the debris of change and getting back to the original message. That’s why ancient scrolls found in caves are so essential.

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  4. Sorry. The annual subscription is $20 and there’s probably a new subscriber offer. I’ve been reading it for awhile and a subscriber for the last two years. Some of the articles are accessible through the “Pocket” feature on Firefox but this magazine has had the best coverage of viruses (including Covid) of any source out there, short of reading technical reports from research labs.

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    • Vic, I appreciate your recommendation (and I fully appreciate NG’s value), but I already have way too many reading sources as it is. In fact, I just “unsubscribed” to a couple of them in the last few days because, along with blog reading/commenting, I could never get to them!

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  5. Understood. The core of this article is an interview with Tom Bissell, author of “Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the 12”. There is evidence for the existence of Peter, John, James and Thomas, but not for the others. The writing about Judas in the Gospels isn’t consistent, and he may be a composite of multiple people representing an unknown traitor. Bissell argues that in the 1st century AD, there was no norm about writing being factually accurate and “apostolic enthusiasm” may have shaped some of the writing. Paul certainly existed as well, but he was not one of the 12. Bissell also notes that in the first and second century there were rival versions of Christianity that the core church sought to suppress. The Copts survived, but the Sethian version, whose core text included a “Gospel of Judas”, did not. “There were a lot of really diverse forms of Christianity floating around in the first two hundred years of the faith. And some of them were really odd. ”
    So we have a religion version of Darwin. Does survival of the fittest mean survival of the most truthful?

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    • Vic, for me to believe Jesus as the Christ means that he overshadows scriptures, and to so prove him central in my life. And keep at it no matter the consequences and lack of answers. What’s your take?

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      • My belief is that there is a substantial gap between what Jesus taught and what modern religion says he taught. Jesus in the portion of the Scriptures that appears to be most “clean” is a young radical, an enemy to wealth and to the rigidity of the High Priests and friend to the poor, outcast and defenseless. The rich never see Heaven. There’s an apt quote attributed to Andrew Carnegie that the man who lives in poverty and the man who dies rich are both failures in the eyes of God. Of course, the religion sought money and the protection of powerful emperors to enable it to grow, which meant that it had to bury Jesus’ message and offer something more palatable. Which it is still doing.

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      • “Paul certainly existed as well.”
        Do you know of any independent evidence out there to demonstrate the veracity of the claim Paul was a genuine historical figure?

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        • Excellent point and rebuttal Ark regarding INDEPENDENT sources/evidence not only for Saul of Tarsus (Paul), but for that matter INDEPENDENT sources outside Greco-Roman Christendom too. Independent ALSO means, btw (Arnold? anyone else that’s a Faith-Follower of Christos), outside of the 1st- thru 3rd-generation earliest/early Roman Church Fathers, i.e. Secular sources.

          The severe lack of Independent sources for either New Testament figure is seriously problematic for any and all Christians! There are at least 41 known Pagan and Jewish authors/historians during Jesus’ lifetime or within less-than 100 years of his life that aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author (Josephus), and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers (Pliny the Younger & Suetonius), there is no mention of a Jesus Christ. Nor within a century of Jesus’ life do any of these authors/historians make any mention of the later disciples or apostles. See my table below…

          This fact of literally no independent sources, for either figure, makes (blind) Faith-followers of a Greco-Roman demigod (Apotheosis) completely random, their own imaginations of a non-existent Savior, by all generations the last 2-millenia, both A) bogus, or B) so subjective to each individual believer that Jesus Christos can just as easily be Sasquatch/Bigfoot to one person and Casper the Friendly Ghost to another! 🙂

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  6. Nan, here’s another historical fact that is never shared or taught in most all American seminaries to would-be pastors, missionaries, or apologists, much less the average congregationalist, especially far-right evangelical-fundy churches. It’s from my recent blog-post “The Failures of Koine Greek & Christianity“… if I may Ma’am. It addresses directly the highly UNreliable testaments of both the Old and New:

    …a less known early Roman Church Father realized even in about 90–95 CE that some of the Gospel translations were inaccurate and problematic. Papias of Hierapolis, as quoted by Eusebius, stated this:

    “Matthew collected the oracles [literally: “words”] in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could.”

    — EUSEBIUS. “ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY” 3.39.14–17

    “Each interpreted them as best he could!” Wow. So not only was it known by Roman Church Fathers that the gospels Mark and Matthew, sometimes referred to as the most Jewish of gospels, but also widely recognized among the 1st– and 2nd-generation Fathers that the Greeks and other non-Hebrews, i.e. Gentiles, Roman pagans, Greeks, notably had difficult times understanding, translating Mishnaic Hebrew and Hebraisms into Greek and other languages.

    Bottom-line, the historical context of Sectarian Homeland Jews of the 1st-century CE—including Yeshua bar Yosef—are very poorly portrayed and transliterated by the Greco-Roman copyists and scribes as well as the earliest (Roman) Church Fathers into THEIR OWN cultural fabrication of a Iesoús Christós, or Greek/Hellenic Jesus Christ. They are not even the same man, period.

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    • Thank you! I didn’t know that and am glad to learn. That said, some of the later edits were with purpose. If I recall correctly, Jesus advocated for a personal relationship between the individual and God, as in “ go to your bedroom, close the door and pray.” There isn’t a place for money, congregations or buildings in that picture. Paul starts down that road, not Jesus. And the focus on the individual relationship does nothing for Constantine.

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  7. My education is such that my responses will never address the historical complexities and ambiguities of these matters in such detail as your learned followers, Nan. But it seems to me that the same debate keeps resurfacing in one form or another all the time – with one side arguing the case for proof of a Judeo-Christian God based on fairly sketchy evidence from a couple of millenniums ago, and the other side refuting it based upon the same evidence (or lack there of).
    I think we can all agree that we can never be sure of precise historical details, and that the older are such records the more difficult they become to either validate or otherwise. So surely, if we are looking for proof of God’s existence (in the present) it would make more sense to, rather than go through ancient moth-eaten texts allegedly written by persons who may or may not have existed, look for proof of God in the here and now.

    I’ve had a little glance around the place myself, for such proof, and I have so far uncovered sweet fuck-all. Circumstantial evidence supporting the No case, however, keeps mounting up every day.

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    • It seems clear enough that it is fiction.

      The question arises as to whether this is historical fiction (story telling loosely based on actual historical events), or whether it is creative fiction. Personally, it doesn’t much matter to me either way. So I’ll just see it as fiction.

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      • One question comes to mind: if you had never heard of Jesus or the bible or religion, and no one ever told you squat about it, how would you KNOW it was all out there? Everything you have learned about religion has been already written down, assimilated, and openly discussed.
        If those religious events were never mentioned, where would your knowledge of any of it come from? And saying “I’d feel it inside me” isn’t the answer. If you didn’t know you had lungs you’d never know they existed, unless someone told you about them…

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        • I tend to think it’s an inherent need/trait of humans in general to have “something” bigger than themselves to look up to and, as we’ve seen throughout history, to deify. Jesus isn’t the only one.

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  8. I never look at religious blogs, and rarely (if ever) allow any religious comments or sentiment to appear on my own. If people want to believe in legends, that’s fine with me. But when they try to argue with non-believers, I have no time for them. Life’s too short to debate blind faith.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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    • Agree totally. I don’t have them in my life, because they are too exhausting. And something in their brains will not allow them to even consider, otherwise. They don’t really want the truth, but only want what they believe to be the truth.

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  9. Belief demands that you are not sure, that you do not know, there is no way you can ever know or be sure of … that in which you believe is the truth. So you have to keep reading about it, talking about it, trying to get others to believe as you do, so it makes sense believers never STFU about their beliefs … it’s written in the many holy works (not just the Christian NT) to bring “the truth” whatever that is to “unbelievers” regardless of their beliefs or wish to be left alone.

    It’s really quite rude.

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  10. There are lot’s of different ways to troll

    That’s one of them

    I actually still visit religious blogs run by enlightened believers, and of course regularly of those by ex-believers, a class I loosely fit in ~ atheism is by definition No Religion, that’s it …

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  11. Your editor is one of the most sensitive …

    … picking it back up where it left me off ~ All else is fluff. An interpretation. The Word of Men

    I could be bias because I’ve been engaged in Operation Just Let Them Speak since inception but I’ve noted at a couple of the aformentioned there seems to be a little bit of that going on. Post a line of scripture ~ by their actions you will know them ~ and then leave it open for the believers to tear apart. I do it, sort of, my favorite of course put it in the closet but my comments are closed. It’s not my ‘style’

    I’ve long lamented the language we use to talk about religion is rooted in religion

    The Word of Men …

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  12. Hello Nan. I find your post very interesting, and the comments even more so. I am a person who owes a lot to very religious people who when I was a child saved my life, and yet when as an adult when I rejected the plan they had for my life, they then shunned me. I would like to add a comment that I feel is relevant, but if you disagree, please delete it at your pleasure.

    I found your blog and Arks because I was looking for coherent arguments against religion, especially forced religion. Your own book was so eye-opening, and the back and forth on both mentioned blogs was enlightening. But in the end it simply became a repeat and rehash of the same topics over and over with little application to currently happening Christian attempts to force their religion on non-religious people. Sorry, I grew tired and looked for new input, new arguments that dealt with the things I was seeing around me being done by republicans to limit my own freedoms.

    I started to feel very negative towards religions, even the most benign interpretations, it felt like it was a constant attack on me personally. Lucky for me, I had a few people start to follow my blogs. They espoused a different approach of their view of their faith, they were not antagonistic, angry, nor demanding I give up all I was. I have to admit, I was not welcoming and often combative. To this day Roger often can get me to deeply ponder my opinion on the Christian faith to the point I looked up, and now I am posting videos from a well respected video channel on religion.

    But I have learned there are people out there like Roger and Ali, a few others who really use their faith like I do the personal code I have followed all my life. These people showed me they’re religious people that are not bigots and haters. Which leads me to the point of your post. These rare few people did not argue theocratic points, they did not want to debate scholarly issues. They simply spoke of how their faith, their belief related to them personally.

    I damn well could understand that, I had the same sort of code, but I did not base mine in a holy writing, at least as I understood my self. So those people have done far more in my view / life to promote or share their religion than any of the others that used the bible to demand I conform to their views. To those people who did have religion as a hammer I always wanted to argue, was marshalling my forces against them.

    The end of my point is this, those that lived their beliefs as their personal way and only offered it but never demanded or forced it as conditions as conversation were inspirational and I was far more willing to listen to them, give them the space they gave me to be myself, and not only live agreeable together but actually find friendships and companionship.

    Nan, I hope I have not used up too much of your comment space. I just felt this was an important topic that needed more than I, who often runs very long when offering my opinion, could do in a few short sentences.
    Loves and hugs

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    • Ark, I think he gets that … but he simply doesn’t care. This is his belief and since he feels it works for him, nothing you or anyone else says is going to change his mind. Yes, he’s made some concessions related to bible scripture/stories, but he’s sticking with his faith/belief in Christ –primarily because he feels it has made him a better person. So please, let him off the hook. OK?

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      • Of course. I just wonder why he bothers trying to engage atheists when he knows full well our … well certainly my position.
        But your blog, your rules.
        Mum’s the word

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        • I don’t think he’s engaging atheists as much as he’s “testifying.” According to their “Good Book,” that’s what they’re supposed to do (even though most all of us who follow the same blogs already KNOW where he stands).

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          • I wish the discussion to be fair. I’m certainly not defending modern religion. However, in response to a couple of comments here:
            1. Both Flavius Josephus and Tacitus mention Jesus (briefly) in their writings and refer to his condemnation by Pilot as an actual event. These are accounts in reasonably close proximity to when he was alive.
            2. There is archiological evidence that appears to correspond to some of the events mentioned in the Gospels.
            There is external support for a least a portion of the narrative being factual. Which of course leaves a lot unsupported. And we know there were parables added by King James’ writers that are completely false.

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        • OK, Arnold, I’ll go along with you … BUT … as I’ve pointed out on several occasions … I prefer comments that relate to the post topic. Sorry, but I’m a stickler on this.

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  15. Its a control issue and the need of some to say “look I’m right and you better believe me or else face the heavenly or not so heavenly consequences.
    Other side of the coin of conspiracy theories…I get tired of it

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  16. I was once told that stirring the pot and controversy make successful blogs. I agree. It’s what they do (bible thumpers and the x-Lutheran). I once thought that I believed in god. I used to teach bible (Bible Study) and Religious Education. I was never a biblical literalist. None of that matters now. I worked through it and at some point in my life I have likely take all sides except for literal interpretations (6 literal days and all that).

    When I erased the existence (or the want of it) of all gods, deities, and associated things (Devils, Spirits, Angels, Heavens, and Hells) from my mind’s believing eye (it was one conclusion), nothing lower in my former belief hierarchy was relevant. Religions, scriptures (The Bible), and practices (except when wiccans dance naked around the fire) become pointless trinkets and toys with which people entertain themselves. They’re pointless. They are also usually steeped in/with emotion.

    However, when the religious beliefs of others affects my life (or others lives) in a negative way, I will take what action I can. Separation of church and state, and all of that.

    But that’s just me. 🙂

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