One commenter on yesterday's post wrote that the Bible may have been the work of ordinary humans with very human agendas.
It reminded me of a video I had watched sometime ago.
It reminded me of a video I had watched sometime ago.
I remember reading in our kids' homeschool curriculum about a certain Pharaoh who tried monotheism. It didn't stick.
In a previous video the narrator talks about John Shelby Spong's Why Christianity Must Change or Die.
What we see in this History of God is that religion, God, or at least our concept of god changes and those changes must come in order for the religion to survive.
Great video. When I was questioning Christianity, one of the books I read was The River of God by Gregory J. Riley. He pictures Christianity as a river, and show how tributaries from other, more ancient religions have helped make that river what it is. When I stopped reading the Bible with the assumption that it presented one unified viewpoint, I could clearly see that the religious beliefs of Judaism and Christianity had adapted and reconfigured, based on societal changes and encounters with other cultures and religions. When you look at the vast differences in the way that Mark and John portray Jesus, it is evident that this process was at work even in early Christianity. Geza Vermes' The Changing Faces of Jesus does a good job at looking at the evolution of Jesus in the gospels.
ReplyDeleteNow that I can see this, too, all the contradictions in the New Testament, especially, make so much more sense. Coming from the ultra literal interpretation that I did, I spent hours and hours trying to decode this book as if it were magic.
DeleteYes! I was convinced that if I could find the right (theological) decoder ring, I would get a coherent message. No matter which one I used though, I always ran into trouble. There were always pieces of the puzzle which wouldn't fit no matter which way I turned them. I had too much respect for the text to try and force them to fit, and I couldn't use my scissors to trim off the troublesome edges.
DeleteThe strength of Christianity has been political: the right religion in the right place at the right time to serve the political goals of those in power at the time and the resulting social acceptability of the religion. I suspect the Bible with only the help of the Holy Spirit has made very few converts. I'm not even sure that if the Bible (with or without the excluded texts) were discovered today it would be considered anything other that parable and story telling.
DeleteI tried to post this over the weekend but maybe I did something wrong. Anyway I would be interested in your thoughts on this subject Alice.
Sorry your comment didn't post earlier.
DeleteI became a convert purely on emotional grounds, but had really no idea what was in the Bible. I guess I was a HS only convert at first. I would imagine the vast majority of Christendom through the ages were born into it and didn't really know any different. I agree that if the Bible were discovered today, there would not be anything particularly special about it.
I have always been impressed by the Reformers who stood up to the powers that were in the day and challenged their complete authority over Christianity. It was a step in this direction, I suppose:)
Is it wrong of me to wonder what Susan is going to make of this? Since she apparently just finished identifying our problem as Socinianism, is she frantlically digging around to discover which heretical "-ism" describes people who think that the Bible is a record of human beings trying to communicate with/understand God, rather than God's instruction book for mankind? I mean, at that point it's a bit hard to blame some sort of evil spirit luring people into a false understanding of the Bible.
ReplyDeleteWe're not just talking about a disagreement over what the Bible says, after all. We're talking about a radically, fundamentally different way of looking at what the Bible is, and how to read it.
I don't know Michael, I looked up Socinianism on Wikipedia after the term was dropped here and I don't really understand how a sect of Christianity applies to us? ? ?
DeleteI did notice that they (the soc's) were/are non-trinitarian. I have always been fascinated by non-trinitarians:)
"...I don't really understand how a sect of Christianity applies to us? "
DeleteThat's the thing - I don't think it does. Several of the heresies present new and different takes on how Christianity works, but they're still Christian heresies.I think Susan keeps reaching for those because they make sense to her - those are mistakes she can understand, so to speak. The idea that someone can genuinely reach a point where none of it makes sense to them seems to be too big a leap for her.
Several of the heresies present new and different takes on how Christianity works, but they're still Christian heresies.
DeleteRight. To say that we just plain don't believe any of it anymore is hard for some to accept it seems.
"We're not just talking about a disagreement over what the Bible says, after all. We're talking about a radically, fundamentally different way of looking at what the Bible is, and how to read it."
ReplyDeleteExactly, Michael. Do we grant the Bible a special status before we begin to read it, or do we read it to find out if it shows itself to be different than any other literature?
I certainly granted the Bible special status before reading it. I never thought of it that way before. And I do now see the circular logic (the bible says it's true because the bible says it's true).
DeleteThanks for posting this video ... the author (Evid3nc3) of it has a wider, more comprehensive series that documents his journey from theist to atheism that I found captivating - this vid is only one segment of that journey - the full series is titled "Why I am no longer a Christian" and systematically deconstructs every pillar of his former belief - worth a view :)
ReplyDeleteHi Robert,
DeleteI loved this series and have watched it a few times through in the last several months. His segment on prayer where he explains how he gave up on the idea of intercessory prayer in deference to God's sovereignty was much like my experience in abandoning the idea that God actually answers our prayers. I hope any lurkers out there reading will watch the whole series.