by peacefulpete 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Do you not believe that faiths that focus on the unseen have value? Did the Gnostic Christians, and Jews before them, not have real faith?
Demanding 'proof' was a weakness for the Thomas of the G. John. Maybe the modern need to literalize and quantify was what the writer, of the most mystical of the 4 canonical versions of the Jesus story, was mocking.
@ peacefulpete
We all due respect, I believe your mind is broken.
Peacefulpete is merely describing what we learned in our Catholic catechism and what you find in Protestant study Bibles and commentaries
Watchtower teaches Biblical literalism. That what you read is historically true at face value.
Yet the Bible writers used different genres to preserve and pass on their truths. They often employed motifs familiar to the ancient reader. This meant borrowing from popular types and formats of ancient storytelling
While they were sharing "truths," they wrote these using these ancient genres: mythology (origin stories), legend (popular tales), and folklore (oral history of peoples and cultures). We don't use any of these to tell true stories today, but they did in the past
Like the Moses story, where as a babe, he is preserved from pharaoh by being placed in a reed basket and sent down the Nile only to be discovered by Pharaoh's daughter. This is likely not history but a borrowed mythological motif which ancient readers would have immediately recognized as a common theme or indicator used in stories about people chosen by the gods for an important destiny.
The same thing happens in the story of the Sumerian king Sargon I and the tale of Romulus and Remus. The author of Exodus is likely using this same mythological motif, not because they are lying but because they are trying to tell a truth that in reality cannot be put in common words. If you don't know the mythology, you miss the truth the writer is saying which isn't what you read at first blush
In reality how does one describe being chosen and destined by God with all that that truly means? How do you explain Jesus if he really did die and rise from the dead? The Bible writers did not rely on literal forms of expression because the ancients were more complicated in their processes with preserving what they believed were truths. Can you really just say that someone merely died and his body was not there when you looked for it later? That doesn't tell or teach me anything, especially if my eternal life is at stake
We cannot say they were literal facts as measured by today's standards. But they were not asking us to. They wanted us to use their standards. And often that means using and appreciating myths, legends, and folklore
I think we still heavily depend on mythology and folklore for our stories today. But I think we are finally past the point where those can become more than just stories told for entertainment or teaching purposes. But I'm not sure about that, given that Mormonism and Scientology are quite recent and have become established religions with small but devoted followings.
It might be more difficult today to create a new religion, even one built on the framework of previous ones. But I might be overestimating just how powerful such ideas can be, and just how badly people want them to be real.
Thanks for the responses.
Yes, I think sometimes the writer of a Gospel episode was quite simply wishing to comfort or inspire awe. That is a message in itself. If that can be accomplished by writing a story of how this character could calm the sea or heal a leper, that was a sufficient motive.
I think of the "Left Behind " series of books that were so popular. few years ago. I imagine the author had religious motivations and used storytelling to communicate them. Was he trying to deceive? No just communicating his religious beliefs.
In the case of the earliest forms of Christianity, as I understand it, they had an invisible God having sacrificed an invisible Son on an invisible plane of heaven (on a tree, yes trees were thought to be in heaven as earth was thought of as a reflection of heaven) by invisible forces of darkness. How do you make this potentially abstruse, abstract, distant drama meaningful?
By drawing extensively on OT (otherwise sacred stories) and building out a new story with the main "spiritual" elements incorporated.
Now it may not have happened in exactly that way, but, in some fashion, the fondness for midrashic adaptation of existing stories is evident here. When the story making officially stopped by the new Catholicizing movement and only approved stories were Canonized, Christianity became poorer. The faith became a church, the Church was now the faith.
Thanks PP for the Thread, and particularly your post above, that is a very clearly and well expressed summation of what happened.
We of course cannot know what was in the minds of the Gospel Writers, but I think your analogy of the "Left Behind" Books is a good one, and really fits what I imagine the Writer of "Mark" did, he wrote a Novel, then "Luke" and "Matthew" added to it, perhaps in their minds their Works being more the writing of a Gospel.
btt
There are so many things in the Bible that we will never know. Cross or stake is one of them.
was Jesus Michael? Maybe maybe not.
was Abbadon the holder of the keys to the Abyss a goodun or A bad one? He is the master of the demons so would that be Satan or Jesus? The Jws go and for on that one.
It’s all about interpretation. Some religious type's really believe their interpretation is the truth, and you get some just as strong the opposite
Cross and crown I saw in church in Norway
What denomination of church was this, slim boy?
