by wobble 99 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Given that even many non-religious historical documents are products of their time and subject to the political and philosophical inclinations of the authors this sounds like 'game over' to me for the Gospels as any form of authority to run one's life (and others).
If only I had been smart enough to realize this when I was 18 years old!!
Ditto LOL
Except for the parts that aren't, bro :)
LOL, indeed.
The major difference is that they are presented by some Christians as a moral authority resting on divine inspiration.
If people decided to view Socrate's teachings as "divine inspiration" would that make his teachings any less historical?
What people CHOOSE to do is THEIR problem.
Which would mean that they would contain a lot of creative composition, as the amount of ficiton in ancient biography ranged somewhere between that of historiography and the novel.
Agreed.
But the gospels are different from ancient biography in one crucial respect: they heavily utilize non-biographical sources (namely, the scriptures of the OT) as primary source material about their subject, and this use is facilitated through a creative, midrashic process of interpretation. This means that the OT (as well as existing haggadaic stories based on the OT) had a structuring influence on the plot, dialogue, and characters in various gospel narratives. This makes such stories much more suspect in terms of historicity, to the extent to which they were shaped by material that originally had nothing to do with the subject of the biography.
Well, I can't argue that the OT had SOME degree of infulence, but to WHAT degree is still out.
Considering that at times the NT and the OT seem to be at odds over many things, I don't think the OT had THAT much influence on the message but the writers were "OT writers" in the sense that it was the OT "format" that they worked from, since it was what they had been exposed more than any other type of writing/learning.
It wouldn't make Socrates teachings any more or less historical I agree. The difficulty is determining to what extent any such writings are 'accurate'. The problem lies in implications of adopting those writings as divinely inspired and therefore authoritative. I agree that what people choose to do with the writings is the key. It is only THEIR problem if they don't force their choices on others.
At the moment it doesn't matter whether I accept Socrates view or not. In some parts and in many families all over the world if I don't accept God's view as stated by the Bible/Koran/Watchtower (delete as appropriate- what the hell, delete em all) I may find I have problems.
I don't recall in recent times Socrates being cited to support war, murder, exclusion, prejudice etc.
I don't recall in recent times Socrates being cited to support war, murder, exclusion, prejudice etc.
And that is the fundamental issue with the Gospels, people using them to justify their crap.
And when that happens, instead of those people getting called on their BS, we take aim at the "source of the BS", but the problem is that the source is NOT the bible or gospels or scriptures or whatever, it is what PEOPLE MAKE OF THEM.
You shouldn't blame atheistic philosphies when an atheist like Mao or Stalin use them to justify millions and millions of deaths, nor should you blame the Gospels when their message is perverted by those very "same" people ie: extremists with an aggenda for power.
If I were a billionaire........(pardon me while I wait for the thrill to wear off a little.......)
I would pay for 1 hour of network TV time and have the finest scholars alive give a little presentation on how we
came to have the book(s) we call THE BIBLE.
1.Stories
2.Retellings
3.Arguments (pro/con) needing verification
4.Writings which adapted the oral traditions into semi-historical settings with dialogue added
5.Debates, arguments, fights
6.Constantine/Eusebius/Roman authority orders "official" bible to be created.
7. Copying followed by book/manuscript burnings
8. Purges more burnings and excommunications for "outside the box' heresy.
9. Martin Luther/Reform
10. English translations (dropping of the Apocrapha)
11. Modern "versions"
I would make certain the audience understood completely the extreme burden placed on original documents.
I would show the earliest fragments (oldest being about the size of a postage stamp) and how far removed these are from the ACTUAL TIME OF JESUS.
The final summation would emphasize the gap between the copies we have and the silence/lack of evidence back to Jesus himself.
Fade to black.
Well, I can't argue that the OT had SOME degree of infulence, but to WHAT degree is still out.
Considering that at times the NT and the OT seem to be at odds over many things, I don't think the OT had THAT much influence on the message but the writers were "OT writers" in the sense that it was the OT "format" that they worked from, since it was what they had been exposed more than any other type of writing/learning.
PSacramento....On the contrary, the gospel writers (certainly in the case of the author of John who was explicit on this point, cf. John 5:31-39, 45-47, 12:41, 1 John 5:9) regarded the OT as a true and superior witness to Jesus, and thus turned to it as a principal biographical source. This involved a rather free and creative interpretation of passages in the OT, which then supplied many narrative motifs, details, and even wording and phrasing. This process is very similar to the one used by rabbis who invented stories about the patriarchs and Moses, who believed that they were discovering hidden truths in the Torah through midrashic interpretation.
So there are many features of the text that are better explained by the thesis of OT influence in narrative composition than by the alternative. For example, the Matthean and Lukan nativity narratives presume mutually exclusive scenarios and each have a bevy of narrative motifs not found in the other. There are no Magi, star, angelophany to Joseph, divorcing of Joseph and Mary, slaughter of the innocents, sojourn in Egypt in Luke, and there is no census, barren mother motif, priestly setting, Magnificat, etc. in Matthew. If you examine the intertexts and exegetical traditions involved in the two accounts, you will see that the narrative features in Matthew and Luke parallel entirely distinct sets of intertexts and traditions, the former parallels those pertaining to Moses and Luke parallels those pertaining to the prophet Sameul. While the two accounts contain some common themes, the Moses-linked material in Matthew is never found in Luke, and vice versa, the Samuel-linked material in Luke is never found in Matthew (later infancy gospels like the Protevangelium of James, on the other hand, amplifies the influence from the Samuel traditions while also mixing the two sets of motifs in harmonistic fashion). If the two writers were simply giving historical reports, there is no reason why we should find such a distribution, whereas it is neatly accounted by the fact that the authors drew on different sets of traditions (and that Luke has possibly drawn on Josephus for the historical setting). And the traditions involved are not strictly those found in the OT but those which have already been elaborated in midrashic interpretation. It is the same with the story of the wilderness temptation, which draws obviously on the wilderness wandering narratives from the OT, as elaborated in extracanonical storytelling. The two accounts of the death of Judas Iscariot in Matthew and Luke-Acts again are neatly explained by the use of different intertexts in their composition, and it is instructive that later elaboration of the story (such as that found in Papias) drew more detail from the same intertexts. Indeed the whole plot involving Judas and the arrest is explicable from a small number of OT intertexts involving King David and his betrayer Ahithophel, the sheep sold for slaughter in Zechariah (linked to the Ahithophel story by common language), and the betrayal of Joseph by his brothers. And the passion narrative has the highest density of OT exegetical traditions with many details motivated entirely by them (such as the handwashing scene with Pilate and the dialogue attributed to the crowd before him), or employed in different ways by the different writers. So to fulfill the giving of vinegar and gall in Psalm 69:21, Jesus is given wine mixed with gall before the crucifixion in Matthew 27:34 (which assimilates the older Markan reference to wine and myrrh to that in the OT intertext), he is given vinegar mixed with gall before the crucifixion in Barnabas 7:5 (which is even closer to the OT intertext than what is in Matthew, as is generally the case in Barnabas which lacks a narrative per se), whereas Jesus is given vinegar mixed with gall after he has been crucified in Gospel of Peter 5:16 (which fully assimilates the Markan reference to Psalm 69:21, with the giving of gall occurring after Jesus is nailed to the cross and not before as it is in Matthew and Barnabas).
Leo, as always, your knowledge leaves me in awe :)
Now, I am NOT saying that the gospel writers weren't infulenced, just to what degree they were.
Certainly in the parts were they felt a need to legitimize Jesus in regards to OT propehcies and such, that is a given, but beyond that, I am not so sure.
Yes, Luke drew on more than one source for his work, he hints as much in the opening and, if we are to assume that Mark wrote what he was told by Peter, IF indeed that is the Mark in question, then we also can see that Mattews would be a "different" tradition, since Mattew and Peter not only were different apostles and different people, but also went their different ways avter Jesus ressurected.
I think that it makes sense that there be variations at different points because it probably isn't very pausable that all the apostles were with Jesus ALL the time, certainly Peter, James and Joh seemed to be with Jesus more and at more special times.
Certainly there is no indication that Matthew and Peter were at the crucifixtion and as such, their versions may have coem from different "traditions".
I am confused PS. Are your remarks addressed to me? It was not my aim to blame the Bible for anything and I don't think I did. It is a collection of books assembled by adherents of a religious and political tradition. it is a propaganda document. I simply stated that it is dangerous to assert that it is true and divinely inspired. As far as I am concerned it has some interesting passages in it but is of no intrinsic moral value in today's world. I certainly don't believe its own assertion that is 'inspired' in any way. If there is any wisdom or insight in it then as far as I can see this is incidental. The fact alone that it is claimed to originate from God makes it different from other kinds of writing that do not claim divine provenance doesn't it?
If a philosophy can be misused (however you define misuse) by a person either atheistic or otherwise then it is clearly fundamentally flawed or poorly defined. I would say that the Bible is a construct built by people with a philosophy in an attempt to support that same philosophy. I do not think it came into existence independent of such motivation and was adopted by others.
However you look at it, the Bible has been used to support atrocities from time immemorial. If one accepts its assertion that it is from God, one has to wonder what kind of God, if he either endorses such violence or is incapable of having its intentions stated unambiguously.
However you look at it, the Bible has been used to support atrocities from time immemorial. If one accepts its assertion that it is from God, one has to wonder what kind of God, if he either endorses such violence or is incapable of having its intentions stated unambiguously.
I agree that the bible, and to an extent God, have been used as an excuse to commit horrific acts.
Of course those acts were commited beofre God and the bible and have been commited by those that don't follow one or the other, but there is a special "horribleness" to those acts when commited in God's name, even if only as an excuse.
I too have wondered why God permits these things and I asked "why" and, well, the truth be it told, the answer I got was not what I wanted.
Fact is, WE are responsible for ALL that we do.
We, those that commit the acts.
We, those that endorse the acts.
We, those that are too lazy or scared to yell out, "that is NOT what the bibel says and that is NOT what God wants".
I know that for me, it is far to easy to blame God for doing nothing than it is to admit that I DID NOTHING.
