NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/talk/origins/16912

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From: [e-mail] (Bruce Salem)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Who is Christian - a simple answer
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 28 Jan 93 04:45:50 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
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    I would submit that the following is quite relavant to talk.origins
as it deals with the ajenda of religious opposition to evolution and
one of its antedotes.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Timothy Y. Chow) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bruce Salem) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> rlg@omni (Randy garrett) writes:
>>>But Christ taught that He was divine.
>>
>>    Did he now? Or do we simply misread out of all context the code
>>language of Jewish sects in the First Century.  In one sense Christ was
>>divine, by definition, he was the heir of the House of David, the legitimate
>>theocracy, and would have been called divine by that virtue alone, by
>>birth alone, just at the Japanese would have called their Emperior
>>divine up until the end of WWII.
>
>It's more than this, though.  Ignoring skepticism about the Gospels for the
>moment, Jesus claimed to be the Christ (John 4:25-26)

    A woman makes reference to "Messiah" and the "Christ", whom
Jesus claims to be. This would have been the accepted theocratic
acknowledgement of the recognized heir, a formula salutation.

>and the Son of God
>(Matt. 26:63-64), and those who heard him understood him to be blaspheming

    "Son of God" and "Son of Man". These are formula sayings that could
have been made by a legitimate heir to the theocracy. The matter in question
was whether Jesus was the true heir to the throne. The Bible (Matt 2:16)
tells us that Herod tried to eliminate any heirs to the House of David.
Now, 30 years later, this Jesus comes forward claiming to be the heir, is
not believed and called a blasphemer by the high priest. If his claim
were not acceptable to the High Priest, he would have committed a capital
crime, by definition.

>(Matt. 26:65, John 5:18).  These can't be explained as late (you suggest
>fifth century) additions, because we have much earlier manuscript
>attestations (3rd century, and fragments from 2nd century) than that.

    You misunderstand. I did not say that what could be called
the history of the incident is not present, only that its original
context has been glossed over by subsequent people. We are in a much
better position today to understand these events in the context. political
and cultural, that they might have occured. We know that there was a
lively messianic traditions bound up with the political crisis pacipitated
by Roman occupation and dissention within the reliigous community. And
that some of the things attributed to Christ were traditional formulas
of teaching cited in contemporary documents.

>>not much of what he said was new, if he actually said it at
>>all, but part of a tradition of teaching that was well established
>
>I mentioned this in a previous article.  There is plenty of stuff in
>the Gospels that is not just part of a well-established tradition.
>Those who argue that Jesus did not say much new typically begin with
>the *assumption* that the church put words into Jesus' mouth to bolster
>their Christology, and hence that anything in the Gospels resembling
>early church doctrine has to be rejected as historically unreliable.
>The limitations of this assumption and the biases it introduces have
>long been recognized in Biblical scholarship, though incautious use of
>the assumption persists in more popular books.

    Actually, what I have heard is that contemporary writings from
other teachers and sects of Judaism in the area at the time of Christ
contain similar ideas as attributed to Christ in the Gospels. Additionally,
it is not possible to check events in the text but it is possible to find
similar images and sayings in other texts. I am being vague as I do not
have primary texts. My aim is not to be an expert on the historicity of
Christ, but to suggest that it shouldn't even be an issue.

>>Accepting Christ's divinity does not suddenly validate what he said,
>
>This depends on what you mean by "divinity."  If you accept, for example,
>John's Christology, then I don't see how you can still reject what Christ
>teaches.  It's more consistent to reject Jesus' divinity than to accept it
>and reject his teaching.

    But it is not necessary to accept Christ's divinity, whatever
that is, claims of miracles and the Resurection, to accept his teachings.
Most of what is attributed to Christ can stand on its own without need
to argue for divinity execpt by way of fallacy by appeal to authority
which I take to be a fundemental error of many Christians.

>>    In a real sense there is a built in irony in all of this,
>>despite the claim that there is an external all-powerful authority
>>for what constitutes faith, the range of belief and the ways people
>>act suggests that in fact the greatest authority for belief is individual
>>choice
>
>I think you're abusing the word "authority" here.  By saying that individual
>choice is the greatest "authority" for belief, do you just mean that choice
>is the most powerful of the forces that determine what one *actually*
>believes?  This seems to be the most one can deduce from observation, but
>then it seems you want to go on to say that one *ought* to set oneself up
>as the ultimate authority on the question of what one's beliefs *should* be.
>This doesn't follow.  Analogously, the variety of people's moral beliefs
>does not imply moral relativism, as a growing number of (secular) moral
>realists argue.

    I realize that personal choice does not set one up to be an
authority for others, but tell that to some of your Christian brothern,
they seem to have not gotten the message. If you draw the distinction,
it is no assurance that others who call themselves Christian do also.

    The variety of choice, moral or not, and the variation of what
people call absolute may not imply moral relativism, but it supports
much less the notion of trancendant moral absolutes. Note that one
can argue for universal norms without arguing that they are based in
teleology.

>>It is concievable to me that the whole story was an event
>>blown all out of proportion by subsequent legend.
>
>This hypothesis has been beaten to death by scholars.  Legends take time to
>grow, and there just wasn't enough time between the event and the recording
>of the event for any significant legendary development to take place.

    I don't accept this. Look at Elvis mythology and you will change
your mind. If the impetus to hero mytholgizing is an archeotype, then
the process can be as quick and spontaneous as the vigils at Graceland
and the rumors that Elvis still lives.

>Textual evidence suggests that the narrative of Christ's crucifixion and
>resurrection was one of the earliest to assume a fixed form, because it was
>crucial to the early church to get the facts straight on this critical
>issue.  The passion narrative shows very few if any of the legendary
>features surrounding some of the accounts in apocryphal texts.

    Again I'll have to disagree, the whole account of Christ's
life is shot though with images from numerous other hero myths
including the story of Moses in the OT. The low circumstances of the
birth, the estrangement, Abraham in the wilderness, the claim to
high station after a haitus, and the challenge of the claim and the
sacrifice or trial are all part of a pattern of hero myths. These
myths can be taken on another context as a metaphor for individual
spiritual growth and is prehaps their universal appeal. See Joeseph
Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces", and "Masks of God". Cambell
is not liked in many Christian camps because he challenges the basic
assumption of power of authority in literal history, comming up
with an alternative history, instead.

>>    The whole story is a metaphor, an embellished history,
>
>This is possible, but to support this hypothesis you'd need to explain a
>lot of things.  For example, it seems that your historical skepticism is
>very high.  Such skepticism is popular among NT scholars, but it needs to
>be justified.  Secular historians such as Adrian Sherwin-White often
>express surprise at the methods of NT scholars, whose skepticism is far
>more extreme than that which is normal for historical research.  I
>personally don't think that this extreme methodological skepticism is
>justified, especially because the early Christians took pains to ground
>their faith in historical reality.  If they were just concerned with
>abstract spiritual truths, how do you explain Luke's painstaking concern
>for historical accuracy, or Paul's concern with the historicity of Christ's
>resurrection (I Cor. 15:1-14)?

    I recall that some texts were discarded by the Council of
Nicea, 400 years after the history, but....

    I wouldn't say that my historical skepticism is high. I don't
care, frankly, if the whole account in the Bible can be linked with
historical events. If I stay at that level then I buy into the authority
trip of Christians claiming that their creed is the only creed possible.
That is the agenda of many on talk.origins who oppose evolution.

    So I am not out to disprove that the events happened, but that
people who are really concerned about that have a problem with the power
of their beliefs over other beliefs where the presumed history of Christ
becomes a conversion tool.

    Instead we need to get out of that conversion mentality and back
off from the literal and historical meaning of the texts, and their
uniqueness, and see them in a larger and less authoritarian sense. We
can see them in context of traditions in other religions and related
and now diminished traditions, to see them in a more abstract way. This
may not suit your aims, so be it.

    So far as talk.origins is concerned this focus on history and
the literal authority of the events dipicted in the Gospels and other
parts of the Bible is at the root of the bigoted rejection of evolution
and much of science by some Christians, not their reasoned deliberations
about either science or religion. I think that the consistant error is
a mistake in using language that is predicated on authoritarianism and
a reactionary politics.

Bruce Salem