Jesus is not the messiah...

[Guest]

Hello, Steve,

Thank you so much for your response.

I apologize -- I can be a bit obtuse at times. I'm seeking some verification on a few points.

Do you see there being only one temple cleansing during the Passion week, with chronological dislocation in the gospel of Matthew?

Do you see there being only one fig tree episode? Do you consider both versions to be strictly accurate, or do you see some narrative massaging and chronological dislocation? Do you see a single fig tree being commented on twice, on two different occasions?

Thank you for your patience,
Emmet

[Guest]

Hello, Dave,

Thank you for your incisive posting.

I would not consider the information in historical portions of the Jewish scriptures to necessarily be reliable. They are accountable to the same kinds of suspicion as the New Testament accounts (and perhaps a bit more, since they may be more chronologically distant from the period they describe).

Thank you again for your posting.

Shalom,
Emmet

[Guest]

Emmet,

Thanks for the kind words. Not sure that I am replying with great responses like yourself, seeing how you have a better background in this sort of thing than I do, but I appreciate the comment.

Regarding the Ezekiel passage, the chapter emphasizes the principle that the innocent are not put to death for the guilty – at least not judicially. This is a basic principle for divine justice, and the theory of substitutionary atonement violates this principle. Rather, each person lives or dies based upon their own chosen way of being – a way of being that either embraces what is life-giving or clings to something that is eventually fatal. Accordingly, the chapter emphasizes that repentance is the operational pivot from death to life. Sacrifice is not termed inherently essential to the salvific economy.

Isn’t the whole purpose of the sacrifice to be a substitutionary atonement? Now there are several scriptures in both Exodus and Ezekiel that mention a sacrifice has to be without blemish. This is the reason why human sacrifice cannot be accepted because we all inherit the sinful nature (the blemish) through Adam’s seed. Jesus, according to the gospels and Isaiah 7, was not born of man’s seed and therefore did not inherit the sinful nature. This allowed him to be the perfect sacrifice because he was without blemish.


Hebrews 9:13 – 14
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

The Micah passage emphasizes that sacrifice is not the operational pivot for atonement, but rather righteousness. Sacrifice is only ritual – at best an expression or celebration of deeper reality. But when the reality is not present, the ritual does not accomplish atonement.

If atonement is achieved through your own righteousness than how do you know you've obtained enough righteousness to accomplish atonement? Also, can you show me in scripture where the sacrifice is only a ritual? I was under the impression that it was demanded by God for atonement.


Leviticus 17:11

11 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.'

In this verse it specifically states that atonement comes through the blood. Did this ever get rescinded? Or do you interpret this verse to mean something else?

Jesus does not fulfill the requirement either, because he too is a person. His righteousness is his own, and the sins of others are their own.

However, he is not just an ordinary person according to scripture (see answer above). I guess it is a matter of believing if Jesus fulfills the prophecy mentioned in Isaiah or not. Of course there is faith that needs to be taken into consideration, since none of us were there to witness first hand, but I am sure there is evidence to substantiate prophecy fulfillment of Jesus based on harder evidence. Such as where and when he was born, etc. Things that might make you think there is too much coincidence. But all in all, it still comes down to faith.

I would argue that incorrect nuances are false statements. But to answer your question, I mean that although there may have been a greater or lesser inspiration of the holy spirit attendant to the production of the narrative, the level of infilling may not have produced a completely accurate narrative.

How does one determine what is accurate or not? Also, if one part is inaccurate than how can we determine if any of the rest is true? Why would God, when trying to communicate with us, allow any of the narrative to be inaccurate? Wouldn’t that mislead people to think or do something they shouldn’t?

Also, something to note here is that at certain times God goes to great lengths to try and make sure his word gets told correctly. Such as with Moses and the rock, God specifically commands Moses to speak to the rock. The consequences for Moses not following God’s commands were great. There are even other examples of this and it just appears to me that God wouldn’t allow inaccuracies into scripture. Now, there may be nuances, like one angel versus two, but those nuances don’t affect the integrity of the narrative which is trying to convey God’s message.

Thanks again for your time. Take care.

[Guest]

Hi Emmet,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I have some thoughts about a number of your comments, if you will indulge me…

You wrote:

“Suspicion is a normative and essential tool for careful historical inquiry. Although you appear to take issue with it, it should be no more offensive than the perennial skepticism of a vice squad detective; though it may be impolite, it is requisite in the pursuit of truth.”

And also:

“But historiography is not jurisprudence, and because the disciplines are entrusted with different tasks, they involve different standards of credibility and different methodologies.”


When one is suspected of having committed a crime, there is usually a basis for the suspicion—even if the basis proves weak or mistaken upon further examination. Where one is credibly suspected of being complicit in wrong-doing, it is quite appropriate to view any testimony given by that party with a measure of suspicion until cleared.

The same degree of suspicion should not necessarily be imputed to the testimony of innocent witnesses (e.g. the obvious victim or a bystander) in a court of law. While you do not seem to approve of applying standards of sound jurisprudence to the evaluation of the gospel testimonies, you have no difficulty applying the skeptical predisposition of criminal interrogation to them. This does not seem consistent to me, and would appear to betray a bias on your part against these particular witnesses. When competent plain men, who have intimately witnessed the career of a well-known public figure, show themselves willing to forsake earthly comforts and security, and to endure torture and martyrdom for their testimonies, I believe that they are entitled to a more charitable judgment than is one suspected of criminal activity. The credibility of witnesses must be weighed in accordance to the nature of the stake they have in the story they are telling.

You asked:

“How much divergence from a common witness is allowed before a portrayal is sufficiently distinct to raise questions of historical accuracy?”

I see no reason why less-charitable standards of assessment should be applied to written historical narratives than to verbal testimonies. If several witnesses give essentially similar reports of a given occurrence, but some details differ in their accounts, we are left with uncertainty as to which details in the differing portions are the most accurate, but the main event of the story is not necessarily called into question.

You also asked:

“And, specifically, in what way(s) is it unfair to discount the gospel of John?”

The fourth gospel is the only one of the four that explicitly claims to be the testimony of an eye-witness (19:35). It further bears the solemn endorsement of its original custodians as to the truthfulness of its contents (“And we know that his testimony is true”—21:24). While it is possible for any number of conspirators, including the writer and custodians of this document, to give false testimony, there seems no way that the original publishers of the book could have given greater assurances of the reliability of its contents than that which they have provided. Since no objective evidence exists, to my knowledge, that the book contains any falsehoods, it is unfair to accuse these people of presenting false testimony.

Likewise, the attempt to make this gospel’s portrait of Christ incompatible with that in the synoptics depends upon a series of highly subjective (and gratuitously unfriendly) judgment calls concerning the differences that exist between the style of discourse adopted by Christ in His controversies with religious scholars, on the one hand, and that style which He assumed when addressing Galilean peasants, on the other.

The harmonization of the narrative portions of the fourth gospel with those of the other three (like the harmonization of Acts and Galatians) is nowhere near as difficult a task for the friendly scholar or reader as it is to the scholar predisposed to find (or create) difficulties.

At one point, you condescended to say (frankly anticipating and admitting the charge of “elitism”):

“the vast majority of non-professionals simply lack the literacy to properly engage matters of historiography in the New Testament period. For one thing, Mr. Greenleaf was inescapably impoverished by simple fact of his expiring before the archaeological discoveries that revolutionized the field over the subsequent century.”

I admit that I do not keep abreast of every relevant archaeological discovery. However, I am not aware of any that have been widely publicized which cast any legitimate question upon the truthfulness of the gospel narratives. Given the disposition of the mainstream press (e.g., Time, Newsweek, et al) to publish stories as damaging to evangelical Christianity as possible, and my special interest in examining such stories when they appear, I am surprised at my not having heard of any such archaeological discoveries.

I am sure you would not be referring to the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hamadi texts, which no impartial judge could find to undermine faith in the more relevant records of the first disciples. My impression (based upon limited, anecdotal knowledge of archaeology) is that archaeologists, when they do discover anything relevant to the New Testament histories, typically find such things as tend to confirm them. I know you to be a responsible scholar, so you must be able to cite some specific discoveries that tend to damage the credibility of the gospels. I am interested in hearing of them.

You wrote:

“For another thing, Mr. Greenleaf did not have recourse to the pivotal conceptual advances made in the scholarly field in the past century-and-a-quarter.”

I cannot speak for Mr. Greenleaf, but judging from my exposure to the precision of his thought processes in the work above referenced, I would imagine that he would be as unimpressed by these subjective “conceptual advances” as am I. It does indeed require a great deal of sophisticated education to allow one to deny what intelligent plain men find obvious.

I suppose that those who have put in the time and spent the money to earn advanced degrees will always tend to believe that this investment was not wasted, and has paid off in the dividends of a grasp of the truth superior to those who have foregone such formal studies. It is probably an equal tendency among the uneducated (like myself, having only a high school education) to disparage the claim that a command of truth (or even of logical thinking) is the exclusive domain of a formally-trained elite.

The afore-mentioned “intelligent plain man” may see very clearly such things as the scholar has been made blind to by his professors. The conversations of the boy Jesus with the scholars in the temple, and the disputations of the martyr Stephen with his adversaries, would be examples of this phenomenon familiar to Christians. Jesus’ statement, “I thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, and have revealed them unto babes” not only reveals a whimsical side of the Creator, but also resonates with what can be observed in reality in innumerable instances.

I recently heard of a trained scholar, speaking to a roomful of his peers, saying, “I used to be impressed with advanced degrees, until I earned one.” I myself, a man of average intelligence, have easily spotted glaring flaws in the logic of writers who possessed multiple earned degrees. It is plain that formal scholarship does not guarantee that a man has learned how to think clearly.

As for the level of expertise that you have prescribed for the man competent to judge the evidence for the gospels’ veracity, I think it artificial to require “proficiency in at least six languages; intimate familiarity with half-a-dozen-or-so ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, including their bodies of literature and their respective assortments of religious and philosophical movements; knowledge of historical developments and circumstances for roughly a 1000-year period; and practical experience in analogous living conditions”—none of which was possessed by the writers of the gospels, nor Jesus Himself (probably). I do not see why anyone (except for one who has been at pains to obtain such proficiency) would find this necessary.

You suggest that the miraculous elements in the gospels do not figure significantly in your rejection of their authenticity. You wrote:

“I have little quibble to make with wonder-working narratives, though they abound in numerous religious traditions, and there are plausible natural or psychological explanations for at least some miraculous accounts.”

Other comments (appended below) lead me to suspect that this element in the gospels is more decisive with you than you suggest.

You added:

“And perhaps you might agree that the miraculous exploits of those whom one agrees with will seem to be divine confirmation, while those of parties whom one disagrees with will not.”

You apparently have not comprehended the true basis for the Christian’s acceptance of the miracle stories in the Old and New Testaments, and the disregard for those found in mythology and Sufi texts, or those legends associated with the baalei shem.

While it is no doubt correct to observe that “the miraculous exploits of those whom one agrees with will seem to be divine confirmation,” yet it is a shallow assessment, in that it does not consider whether there is a prior, sound basis for what one “agrees with” and brings to any inquiry into a miraculous account. Your statement implies that people adopt a particular religious prejudice without rational warrant, and then believe any silly thing that their sacred books compel them to accept. While this may be true of the adherents to many religions (and of some thoughtless Christians as well), this certainly does not reflect the mental processes of the majority of thinking Christians.

The relative merits of various miracle stories must be evaluated on the basis of their conformity with what is known to be true from the entire field of knowledge about God from other considerations. An atheist, whom I recently debated, compared my belief in the miracles of Jesus with his ad hoc claim that George Washington sprouted wings and flew. Such a comparison, or similar comparisons with the absurd accounts of wonders from mythology or mystical cults, only reveals the shallowness of thought on the part of the one making the comparison.

In a world full of religions and religious miracle accounts, Christians find the reported miracles of Jesus credible for several reasons:

1. None were meaningless “marvels,” but they all functioned reasonably as confirmations or illustrations of His message;

2. Christ’s resurrection, the most documentable miracle in history, gives credibility to the reports that He who was thus raised had earlier exhibited supernatural behavior;

3. There is continuity between the miraculous interventions of God in the Old Testament and the same in the New. A large percentage of Christ’s recorded miracles had precedents in the Old Testament, where God similarly endorsed His messengers with similar miraculous powers;

4. It was prophesied that such miracles would accompany the advent of the messianic age (e.g., Isaiah 35);

5. Similar wonders continued to be performed by Christ through the disciples in the early church, which is the most reasonable (and only documented) explanation of the gospel’s remarkable success in the early days;

6. On occasion, similar miracles have continued to be performed by Christ’s present disciples, in His name, especially on the frontiers of the missionary enterprise.

There is more basis for the Christian’s acceptance of New testament miracles and rejection of occultic phenomena than merely that they find the former to be more “agreeable” to a groundless religious bias.

If a bias, with reference to miracles, exists, it would appear to exist in the excessive skepticism that you seem to justify in your approach. You wrote:

“To wind up, I greatly doubt that ‘the normal rules of evidence’ would result in the acceptance of the gospel narratives as fully accurate. The reason for this is that the gospels claim extraordinary things. As such, they require extraordinary proof, beyond the mere assertion of the half-a-dozen-or-so writers traditionally assigned to the New Testament…”

Reports of the miraculous come from all faith communities, as you have observed. They are believed by those who witnessed them, whether educated or not. Brushes with the supernatural are too universal and widespread to dismiss wholesale. Reports of such often come from the least superstitious of men and women, and, on balance, I am more inclined to take eye-witness testimony at face value (regardless which religion or non-religion claims it) than not. It is another matter, of course, to decide whether a given supernatural occurrence that has been witnessed is from God or from some other supernatural source.

Extraordinary events—whether miraculous or not—occur every day and are read about in the news. The Entebe Rescue was, in my judgment, “extraordinary.” I don’t claim that there was any supernatural intervention in that case—which only makes the story the more extraordinary! I do not know how many eyewitnesses of that rescue may have put their account into writing, but I would be inclined to believe the story if there were only two or three credible witnesses (in keeping with a principle from the Torah).

Given the frequency with which people of all nationalities and religions have claimed to have experienced supernatural interventions, I am not sure why anyone would feel justified in speaking of such reports as “extraordinary.” In the grand scheme of history, it seems that such reports might even be judged to be commonplace. The fact that modern skeptics cannot recall having ever seen a supernatural event may not be due so much to the realities around them as to their perceptive abilities, or lack thereof—or due to accidents of their birth in time and place.

Allowing for the likelihood that an omnipotent God exists, who desires to win the faith of His creatures (propositions that I am assuming that you acknowledge, though you may not), it would seem more “extraordinary” for Him to withhold appropriate, selective, miraculous interventions than for Him to provide them. He would not be obliged to accommodate the curiosity of every wonder-seeker, and therefore, would most likely choose the time and place most suited to His purposes for the working of a miracle.

This is one of the things that make the miracle stories of both testaments more credible than many others. The Bible does not represent the miraculous as an element of everyday life throughout history. The miracles of the Old Testament are concentrated in ministries of a few chosen men during pivotal epochs—essentially, the time of the establishment of the nation Israel (Moses and Joshua), and the time when that nation’s continuance was threatened by apostasy (e.g., Elijah, Elisha, and some other prophets).

The Bible, though acknowledging miraculous interventions of God, is very sparing in its reports of such. For example, the period of judges, the formation of the monarchy, the life of David, Solomon and the most of the kings—these have almost nothing of the miraculous claimed for them in scripture. Some wars during these periods saw supernatural interventions, but much less than we would expect to be reported by a faith community that sincerely believed that God was on their side and that He sometimes would come to their rescue.

The inauguration of the messianic age, with Jesus and His disciples, was another season of many miracles, not unlike that of Moses’ or Elijah’s times. This is entirely in keeping with what one would expect during such a significant transition in the history of Israel. The miraculous powers that had been seen in the greatest prophets were now found to reside in the Messiah and His agents—not in the priests and the rabbis. To one not prejudiced against the possibility of the supernatural, there is nothing less “extraordinary” than the suggestion that this unique period was characterized by signal divine wonders.

To say that the miracles of the New Testament are extraordinary, and require extraordinary proofs, seems to my mind provincial in the extreme. The fact that we are not living in a season characterized by a plethora of direct divine interventions does not enable us to pronounce upon the improbability of God doing any particular unique things in a time of historical transition more significant than our own.

If we reject the reality of miracles out-of-hand, then the report of such in the gospels would not require extraordinary proofs. Rather, no proofs of any kind would be deemed sufficient to overthrow a settled worldview. Thankfully, as a Christian, I don’t feel compelled to be so narrow-minded, and am able to consider the evidence for any proposition, whether it requires a supernatural explanation or not.

The fact that my life has been characterized by timely (I am reticent to say “miraculous”) interventions, which have kept me alive, especially over the past 35 years, goes a long way, also, in confirming my suspicion that those who reject the miraculous accounts of the gospels and Acts are confining themselves to a much-too-narrow universe.

Blessings, my Friend

[Guest]

Emmet,

I hope I am not cluttering the discussion here. I had refrained from responding to your comments on my post thus far, but I wanted make a few observations based upon your most recent post. I admit am no where near your level, so I urge you to turn the IQ dial down in preparation for the next few questions.


An interesting distinction is found between the Judeo-Christian faith and many if not all other religious examinations of our relationship with God; that is, although endowed with a mythological conveying, it is based upon historical and actual events, that are true, in every sense of the word. They are not mere examples of transcendent and moral lessons, but real events, and when these real events become blurred and questioned amidst a pursuit for “truth”, I am afraid those moral and transcendent lessons also become muddied and so does the truth.

How can you (or do you?) accept your Jewish heritage, if it’s very foundations can be scrutinized and even doubted within the historical framework of study you have pursued? I guess the question is, does not your entire existence hinge upon a few single events in history, those of which you truly could never be certain of in the light of “intellectual honesty”? Could we not attribute the encounters with God by Moses as caused by traumatic events, in his case being hunted down for murder? If so, where does this leave us, both Christians and Jews? Do we allow ourselves to slide down the slippery slope lathered with intellectual relativism, or do we allow ourselves to trust, as those with the least mental capacity can only do?


So then, can we not examine whether or not an orange sufficiently tastes like an orange? Of course we can, and we can do so by distinctly examining its many parts, to be sure. I can peel the rind and bite into its flesh like texture, I can squeeze into its flesh and savor its sweet juices, and I can examine the pericarp and taste it too. At some point in this succession, I can be convinced of its orangeness, and that it sufficiently tastes like an orange. At what point is this distinction made, since all of its varying parts, different in texture and taste is all this orange? To say these consequential differences in the varying tastes of its components, because of our educated idea of its flavor, denies the fact that it does taste like one, is to deny the true and complete flavor.

[Guest]

Do you see there being only one temple cleansing during the Passion week, with chronological dislocation in the gospel of Matthew?

Do you see there being only one fig tree episode? Do you consider both versions to be strictly accurate, or do you see some narrative massaging and chronological dislocation? Do you see a single fig tree being commented on twice, on two different occasions?

Hi Emmet, No you were'nt obtuse at all ,i was just trying to be amusing which my wife often tells me i'm not.

Yes i only see one temple cleansing during the Passion week and one fig tree cursing described by two different authors have two different writing styles. Matthew has a style in which he writes by topics and Mark tends to write chronologically.
And i don't think that Matthew is the only author to not always write chronologically, for example i believe Jeremiah did'nt always. The bible although having a great deal of history in it is not meant to be read strictly as a history book but is meant to be God's revelation to mankind revealed through imperfect human beings. So there are crossroads such as this where one if forced to make choices ,do i give the writer the benefit of the doubt or not. Admittedly there is a certain amount of faith required and IMO that's the way God wanted it.

[Guest]

I would not consider the information in historical portions of the Jewish scriptures to necessarily be reliable. They are accountable to the same kinds of suspicion as the New Testament accounts (and perhaps a bit more, since they may be more chronologically distant from the period they describe).

I believe you mentioned in an earlier post that you observe the Sabbath. If you don't mind my asking, why?
On what authority do you observe it?
In your above statement, the Israelite/Jewish scriptures are viewed with the same or greater suspicion, how do you know the authors didn't misrepresent that God required a Sabbath or the circumstances under which the Sabbath commandment was given (Exodus 20,21)?

My point is that the criticisms applied to the Gospels, consistently enforced to all historical texts, would cause someone to disregard the Israelite/Jewish scriptures far more easily than the Gospels.

I'm enjoying the dialogue.

[Guest]

Hello, Steve,

Thank you for the time and energy put into your posting. The farther one runs with a thread, the hairier the posts get, because more and more points of argument or evidence are introduced . And my hairline is receding -- but there's plenty left for further discussion.

When one is suspected of having committed a crime, there is usually a basis for the suspicion …. The same degree of suspicion should not necessarily be imputed to the testimony of innocent witnesses …. While you do not seem to approve of applying standards of sound jurisprudence to the evaluation of the gospel testimonies, you have no difficulty applying the skeptical predisposition of criminal interrogation to them. This does not seem consistent to me, and would appear to betray a bias on your part against these particular witnesses.

I have been disappointed that you persist in injecting legal paradigms into this discussion. I hope that it is recognizable that “sound jurisprudence” is not aimed at establishing the fact of a matter, but rather at regulating social conflict. As such, its purpose is to resolve situations, rather than to determine truth. Declaring a person “not guilty” is not the same as determining innocence. Or to consider civil law, a finding for one party or another does not determine what is rightful -- all it determines is social enforcement, based on implicit social contract. American legal paradigms are immaterial to determining truth.

Beyond this, the “crime” that I have so uncharitably charged these witnesses with is being human, susceptible to the same psychological engines as other human beings. This is not biased. What is more, because their claims entail major demands upon people’s lives, these witnesses should be subjected to critical examination. And when any party makes major demands while refusing critical examination, one may rightfully be concerned about their credibility.

If several witnesses give essentially similar reports of a given occurrence, but some details differ in their accounts, we are left with uncertainty as to which details in the differing portions are the most accurate, but the main event of the story is not necessarily called into question.

This argument stumbles when one enters into analysis of delicate theological discussion, where fine points of detail have major repercussions. The main event of the story at such points is “Jesus taught his disciples.” Granted – but what precisely was he trying to teach them? To fairly understand, the greatest kind of accuracy is imperative. Each gradation of divergence opens the door to misconstrual.


To move ahead to your defense of the gospel of John:

There is plenty of apocryphal material that claims “eyewitness” authority. Such a claim demonstrates nothing per se. [Though even if we were to grant eyewitness status, this would in no way guarantee that the eyewitness had recalled events in full accuracy, nor that his own theological commentary along the way (e. g., the prologue) was trustworthy.]

You choose to characterize different points of criticism as “subjective.” This, naturally, ties back to my “does it taste sufficiently like an orange” query. Even though this is difficult to quantify in absolute terms, it does not remove the significance of whether or not something does taste sufficiently like an orange. So one can fairly disagree about subjective analysis, but one cannot dismiss it altogether. Furthermore, subjective analysis can be underwritten with evidence and experience. To employ our orange parallel, one could introduce similarities in chemical composition as suggestive evidence, and one could appeal to years of experience as a quality tester for Sunkist to demonstrate familiarity with the product.

I would like to know, though, what you would consider to be sufficient objective evidence for considering John questionable. You have referred to a “friendly scholar or reader,” but I would consider friendliness to step beyond the realm of objectivity. And no doubt many friendly readers would consider objective analysis “unfriendly.”

I would also point out that you have commented in terms of incompatibility, which is itself a somewhat subjective descriptor. The sizable margin of difference between the synoptics and John raises the question of reliability, even if it may not reach an observer’s threshold for incompatibility. If John is an orange, then it is an orange that tastes different than other oranges. What is more, it tastes somewhat like a lime, so it is not unfair to question the decision of the grocery co-op to place it in with the oranges.

What is most alarming about John’s margin of divergence is its specific content. If Jesus is indeed God, as John appears to indicate explicitly, why then do the other gospels pass over this in relative quietude? The eruption of such a claim in John is nearly as stunning as the various peculiarities found in apocryphal literature.

I know you to be a responsible scholar, so you must be able to cite some specific discoveries that tend to damage the credibility of the gospels. I am interested in hearing of them.

Actually, I was referring to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi finds. You are right if you are thinking that these finds do not directly challenge the gospels. However, these finds have greatly illuminated our understanding of theological currents in Second Temple Judaism and the early Christian period. I would not argue that these texts are “orthodox” or more reliable representations of history than the gospels. I would argue that they are primary evidence for what some parties in late antiquity were thinking [btw, the Scrolls are tremendously more significant than the Hammadi finds in this regard]. This contributes to one’s appreciation of context -- and it is context that is so essential to properly understanding the significance of the New Testament documents.

I will move from this into the related issue. Your next-to-last theme engages the value of scholarship and topical literacy. In the time I have known you, Steve, I have been impressed by your abilities, and your investment in understanding the scriptures is apparent. But I wonder if there is not more to the exercise than you have thus far appreciated.

You have admitted that there probably is a “tendency among the uneducated … to disparage the claim that a command of truth (or even of logical thinking) is the exclusive domain of a formally-trained elite.” Fair enough. I am making no such claim. I participate in study with the “academically unwashed” regularly, and I find myself enriched by their insights that come from beyond the regular paradigms of the academy.

However, there is also a tendency amongst bible Christians to embrace a certain philistinism. Some of your comments appeal to this populist streak, especially:

It does indeed require a great deal of sophisticated education to allow one to deny what intelligent plain men find obvious.

Well, intelligent plain men have been plain wrong on numerous scores through the centuries, and this fact in no way undermines their claim to intelligence, so they need not take offense. But it must be admitted that one of the cardinal assumptions of biblical Christianity is that the bible is easily and accessibly understood by common folk. This assumption is one of the desperate flaws of the tradition, and the more one learns about the bible and its context, the more apparent it becomes. The proverbial English plowboy is fairly equipped to learn some things from his English bible, yes, but there are many things that he is unlikely to recognize, understand, or even appreciate. To reach the English plowboy, the bible has stepped from at least one language into another, from one sea of cultures into another thousands of miles away, from one historical moment into another centuries apart. This dislocation is often inadequately appreciated until a certain level of literacy has been achieved. For my own part, although I had been a history major as an undergrad and had a decent acquaintance with the bible in my upbringing, it was probably not until well into my graduate studies that a fair appreciation of this came to me.

I will engage your various comments on this subject in some detail.

I suppose that those who have put in the time and spent the money to earn advanced degrees will always tend to believe that this investment was not wasted, and has paid off in the dividends of a grasp of the truth superior to those who have foregone such formal studies.

Actually, you have contraindicated this with your subsequent quote

I recently heard of a trained scholar, speaking to a roomful of his peers, saying, “I used to be impressed with advanced degrees, until I earned one.”

I will easily acknowledge that an advanced degree is no guarantee of literacy or competence. I had one Master’s degree already before I arrived at the epiphany I described above. And I agree that it is very human for one to validate what one has invested time and effort into. Nevertheless, I expect that few amateurs outside the academy develop the requisite skill set. For one thing, it is nearly prohibitive an activity in terms of time investment for someone who has to pursue a living in another field; for another, some of the skills and literacies may be difficult to acquire without outside assistance; for another, the academy exposes individuals to essential skills and literacies that personal drives and interests might easily overlook or undervalue (without being forced to pass a class). But if I have placed an exclusive value upon the academy, let me qualify and correct that. Many professional scholars are inadequately equipped, and it is not impossible for a non-professional scholar to acquire the requisite skill set.

The afore-mentioned “intelligent plain man” may see very clearly such things as the scholar has been made blind to by his professors.

Granted. And competent scholars can clearly see things that intelligent plain men are simply ignorant of. Is this not all this part of validating the dignity of the whole body – for even in one's weakness one can contribute a needed strength?

The conversations of the boy Jesus with the scholars in the temple, and the disputations of the martyr Stephen with his adversaries…. Jesus’ statement, “I thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things
from the wise and the prudent, and have revealed them unto babes” ….

Favored shields for philistinism, I suppose. And I would not deny illustrations their claim on truth, to the extent of its validity. But the word should never be used as a shelter from maturity. It is surely gratuitous for me to toss off a quote of I Corinthians 13:11.

I myself, a man of average intelligence, have easily spotted glaring flaws in the logic of writers who possessed multiple earned degrees. It is plain that formal scholarship does not guarantee that a man has learned how to think clearly.

Have I claimed otherwise? (Excepting your claim to average intelligence, which I suspect is unduly modest.) My particular appeal is to contextual literacy. But I will speculate that a broader field of literacy often leads to greater tendency toward abstract thought, and this has its own dangers.

As for the level of expertise that you have prescribed for the man competent to judge the evidence for the gospels’ veracity, I think it artificial to require “proficiency in at least six languages; intimate familiarity with half-a-dozen-or-so ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, including their bodies of literature and their respective assortments of religious and philosophical movements; knowledge of historical developments and circumstances for roughly a 1000-year period; and practical experience in analogous living conditions”—none of which was possessed by the writers of the gospels, nor Jesus Himself (probably). I do not see why anyone (except for one who has been at pains to obtain such proficiency) would find this necessary.

Persons who lack literacy often fail to see the necessity for it. Such, at any rate, was the case for my own self. But even though the gospel writers or Jesus may have lacked the fullness of literacy which I described, this does not mean that such literacy is not necessary for careful historiography of their lives and ministries. I have not claimed that the gospel writers or Jesus were sufficiently literate to fully appreciate why they thought or acted in certain ways – many people are not (including my own self in my own time, I would imagine).

Now, let me emphasize, the literacy I described is not necessary to have a viable relationship with God. God is near and willing to relate with us in our own circumstances. But the bible is an account of God’s relations with other people, in other circumstances, and those circumstances must be understood intimately to properly appreciate the significance of the text.


On your final point, I really am not very concerned with the miraculous narratives; I suppose that neither of us would believe that miracles prove anything per se, since their antecedents are questionable. When I speak of “extraordinary” things, I refer to theological claims (e. g., that a carpenter’s son was God – or God was a carpenter’s son, if you prefer).

Thank you again, Steve, for the investment you make in our dialogue.

Shalom be'emeth,
Emmet

[Guest]

Emmet,

Because of other commitments tonight and this weekend, I am not able to put into writing the response that is in my head to your recent posting. I am simply saving this spot, where I will post my response as soon as possible.

By the way, I am surprised that you are able to find the time to respond at length to so many correspondents. Either you are a more disciplined manager of your minutes and hours than I am, or else you have fewer conflicting commitments than I have. In any case, I am sure that you have plenty of things to do with your time, so I admire your ability to single-handedly maintain correspondence with so many questioners and opponents simultaneously!

[Guest]

Hello, gentlemen,

Thank you both for your postings. I hope you will pardon my answering you in tandem, due to the overlapping nature of your comments.

To make an initial response, my comments were framed in reference to the historical sections of the Hebrew bible. I will mention briefly that raising questions and involving critical suspicions does not necessarily result in an utter annihilation of data – in either testament. It is not an all-or-nothing affair, as some might try to portray it. Beyond this, doubt about a narrative’s historical accuracy should not inhibit one’s ability to discover moral/transcendent lessons through it, any more than from a sheer fable.

As for my own religious life, it does not hinge upon the historical sections per se, but upon the legal codes preserved in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Formation and transmission of legal material is qualitatively different from historical literature, to some extent. However, it may be granted that there are relevant avenues for critical inquiry even with the legal codes. These are pertinent and applicable, and I am willing to entertain such objections. I am suspicious of the book of Deuteronomy as a possible interloper to the legal tradition, for example.

It is accurate to say that there are broader grounds for critical skepticism toward the Hebrew bible than for the New Testament. It is more shrouded by historical ambiguity, its production is farther removed from the events it describes (probably), and there may be some archaeological contraindication. [But I have to admit that Hebrew bible studies are less a part of my scholastic activity. The literacy quotient for Hebrew bible would add another seven languages, another 2000 years, and a gaggle of cultures to my load, and I have already pretty well focused my scholastic life on the Second Temple/early Christian period.]

If the Hebrew bible fields broader grounds for critical skepticism, then the New Testament fields sharper grounds. To wit, the core of the Hebrew bible does not yield the parallel comparative opportunities of the synoptic gospels. The synoptics open the door to much more refined analysis – and criticism – than the Hebrew text affords.

I should also point out that critical skepticism plays, at most, a partial role in my withholding credence from the New Testament. I withhold credence in large part because the New Testament claims continuity with the Israelite/Jewish faith, but actually involves profound discontinuity. Christianity is, in vague terms, the Jewish Mormonism. Both Christianity and Mormonism claim a continuity with their parent faith which does not actually exist: both make what is not God to be God, and both make God to be what God is not.

As for my devotion to Torah (i.e., the legal codes enumerated above), it is based upon history, but in sizable part my personal history – my decision in the last fourteen years to adhere to its practice as part of my religious life. This is twentieth/twenty-first-century [CE] in nature, not thirteenth [BCE]. Accordingly, I keep Shabbath (per your example, Dave) because it is part of the longtime and/or valued shape of my life, not because it was instituted in the way described by the Hebrew bible. I have experienced, enjoyed, and benefited from the sheer practice of Torah for many years, and the present value of its precepts is not dependent upon the historical veracity of its narrative setting in the Hebrew text. But if I came to understand that part or all of the legal paradigm was not acceptable to God, then I would abandon it. Authority rests with God himself. Everything else is ancillary, and if I should understand that God wishes me to disengage from Torah, then so it will be. But whether the Torah came to be part of covenantal relationship with God in the way the Hebrew bible describes or not -- this does not determine whether or not it is a justifiable paradigm for covenant with God in the present day.

Thank you again, gentlemen, for your highly pertinent posts.

Shalom aleykhem be’emeth,
Emmet



P.S. to chriscarani : Your ending illustration regards identifying an orange as an orange. I agree that there will be complexity and some diversity within the proper field of “orangeness” itself, and that is a relevant part of the question. My question addressed a fruit of indeterminate identity. It is imaginable that some people would identify a tangelo as an orange, if their sense of taste was not adequately honed. If such persons were to describe a tangelo as tasting sufficiently like an orange, then their sense of taste would have betrayed them.