This headline is a quote is from an apologist on Carm.org attempting to prove that the story of Noah’s Ark actually happened. The article was quite comical, but I thought his comment was worth discussing.
Christians have a special gift for discerning which parts of the Bible are real and which parts are parables, allegories or Jewish folklore. Every Christian has a different opinion.
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and is quoted confirming scripture in the gospels over and over again. This leads you to only 3 rational conclusions. Jesus is the Son of God and is confirming that the Old Testament stories are true. Jesus was a liar and a lunatic. Or the gospels are false testimony with inaccurate quotations of a man that may or may not have actually existed. So I ask Christians, which is it?
Let’s look at a few of the examples when Jesus confirmed Old Testament scripture:
The Ark
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” —Matthew 24:37-39
Sodom and Gomorra
“It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back.” —Luke 17:28-32
Adam and Eve and the creation story
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” —Matthew 19:4-6
Cain and Able from the creation story
“From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.” —Luke 11:51
Jonah living in a whale’s belly for three days
“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” —Matthew 12:40
How many Christians actually believe the creation story? How many believe the story of Noah’s Ark? And how many think a man can live in the belly of a whale for three days? Jesus not only believed it, he confirmed the stories in the Gospels. Is it possible for Jesus to be a liar and the Son of Man? If not, how is it possible to disagree with Jesus and still call yourself a Christian?
Tags: Agnostic, Atheist, Belief, Believe, Faith, False, God, Gospel, Jesus, Jewish, Liar, Lord, Lunatic, Man-Made, Old Testament. Truth
October 22, 2009 at 11:40 pm |
Also… “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Uh, hmm. Crucified Friday, back up and at ‘em early Sunday morning. How’s that “three days and three nights?”
November 9, 2009 at 3:12 pm |
That’s not accurate, biblically.
November 23, 2009 at 12:35 pm |
The Bible says nothing about being crucified on Friday or being raised on Sunday.
October 23, 2009 at 1:30 am |
It is all fairy tales and creative story telling. All of it. The stories of the OT were well known to all in that day and age, Jesus, if he existed at all, would have known them and preached them, but that does not mean that these events ever actually happened.
Many primitive cultures in that region had much the same fables and tales, with very little to no difference at all. If it weren’t for Constantine’s conversion then we could all very well be worshiping Zeus or some other Roman or Greek god right now.
November 9, 2009 at 3:13 pm |
Nah. The Bible seems to be the only prophetic book I’ve seen written.
October 23, 2009 at 5:15 am |
I can understand why christians would cling to these types of verses. I figure if you get honest answers they will be pointing out how you are misunderstanding what they really mean. I don’t get why christians need the bible anyway.
October 23, 2009 at 7:24 am |
This leads you to only 3 rational conclusions. Jesus is the Son of God and is confirming that the Old Testament stories are true. Jesus was a liar and a lunatic. Or the gospels are false testimony with inaccurate quotations of a man that may or may not have actually existed. So I ask Christians, which is it?
This is not the way C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell posit the question. Liar and Lunatic are two distinct possibilities. That means you are suggesting four distinct possibilities. The fourth, that Jesus was a legend and never said any of those things, is not a possibility those apologists raise.
October 23, 2009 at 7:34 am |
Yes, they could easily be separated into two distinct possibilities. I’ve studied several writings by C.S. Lewis.
I don’t feel it warrants two distinctions, because you would have to be a little of both to do what Jesus supposedly did. Anyone person claiming to be God and willing to commit suicide via crucifixion would have serious mental issues. Whether he knowingly deceived people or not.
October 23, 2009 at 8:29 am |
Liat, lunatic, lord, or LEGEND! The quadrilemma! I love it and am going to use it.
Hey, maybe we can refer to the Jesus is God idea as the ‘I AM’ LEGEND
October 23, 2009 at 8:34 am |
Christians have a special gift for discerning which parts of the Bible are real and which parts are parables, allegories or Jewish folklore.
Heh. Thanks for the early morning laugh.
Every Christian has a different opinion.
And every one is sure that the Holy Spirit made it clear to him/her personally. … Sheesh!
And how many think a man can live in the belly of a whale for three days?
Hey, didn’t you read all those cool stories from ICR about fishermen falling overboard then being found later when the other pulled in a whale and cut it open. PROOF I tell you. … Sheesh again.
how is it possible to disagree with Jesus and still call yourself a Christian?
Well the Holy Spirit made it clear to me that what Jesus really meant was……….
October 23, 2009 at 9:51 am |
Assume everything about Noah is true. Even, the wild silly apologetics’ stuff. The story is still full of poop.
How many people were on the Ark? 8?
How many animals were on the ark? 15,000? Really, ok *shrug*
Noah and his family fed and cared for them? Yes, bible says so? Ok.
If you use averages, the average size of an animal on the ark was about that of a sheep. *shrug* OK. (To lazy to argue that point)
The Ark only had one teeny tiny window at the top. The Ark was covered to make it water tight, so I assume it be mostly air tight (except for our one little window); you know the one the giraffe sticks its head out.
A Sheep poops about 4 pounds of poop a day.
The average sheep eats about 20 pounds of hay each day (although there could be super God food on board)
Let us do the math. 15,000 animals to be fed each day by 8 people who are good hard workers that work 16 hours per day. Each person would have to feed 1875 animals /day or 117 animals per hour or 2 animals every minute or, approximately one animal every 30 seconds, for 16 hours a day.
15,000 animals poop 4 pounds of poop a day, and for at least the first 40 days it’s raining biblical amounts so, we better keep the window closed, and can’t shovel poop out, that makes 60,000 pounds of poop, per day or 2.4 million pounds of poop in 40 days.
So, we have 8 people in a closed container, with 2.4 million pounds of poop on board, no ventilation and no place to shovel it. (Do not light a match)
WAIT!! There was a window, so if each person shoveled poop for 16 hours per day, then each person, would shovel 7500 pounds of poop per day (3.75 tons per person per day). Oh, wait, never mind they were busy feeding the animals.
No matter how you look at it, there’s too much poop.
October 23, 2009 at 11:07 am |
Great. I am using this math.
October 24, 2009 at 10:36 am |
“Assume everything about Noah is true.”
Why?
The story isn’t supposed to be about how 15,000 animals survived for 40 days on the arc.
The story is about God’s judgement and how he was willing to spare Noah, his family, the animals and how everything started over with God’s promise that he would never destroy the earth again.
That has nothing to do with thousands of pounds of hay or shoveling poop.
October 24, 2009 at 4:42 pm |
Well perhaps to you, this story might appear to be a metaphor for…whatever you think it is…but if you take a look at this:
Even, the wild silly apologetics’ stuff.
He is clearly implying that his response was directed to more of those who hold the Bible in a literal sense.
Its not a bad metaphor/story though if not taken literally; it is a good representation of the consequences of overexploitation of earthly resources.
October 26, 2009 at 8:38 am |
It’s a really fucking terrible metaphor. Noah, the most righteous man, gets off the Ark, gets drunk, falls down naked, and causes his son to sin in such a manner he and his offspring are banished from God’s kingdom. God, all knowing, and all loving kills everything in a temper tantrum, except one drunk and his family.
Yes, Johnny, every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten.
God, who is all knowing and all loving who knew you before you were born, knew his design would fail, and he would have to destroy all life on earth, but the life that is restored after the flood is even more sinful than the days of Noah. So God’s destruction of the earth was an horrible failure. What a great metaphor.
October 26, 2009 at 8:44 am |
God’s promise that he would never destroy the earth again.
At least not with a flood. But fire, earthquake, famine, plague, meteors, etc are all still options. Somehow I don’t feel greatly reassured.
October 23, 2009 at 10:22 am |
Sometimes. I wonder just how insane Xians are…
October 23, 2009 at 11:15 am |
Well I hate to be saying the same thing over and over…
Why do you assume that when Jesus quotes from the OT that his intention is to confirm its factual content? Why would Jesus even care if the stories were factual or not – he is using them to order principles, not to confirm them as evidence of actual historical events.
We often use illustrations from Shakespeare to make certain ethical or moral points. If Romeo and Juliette never existed as real people, does that negate what this story says about star-crossed lovers? Hardly.
October 23, 2009 at 12:52 pm |
It is impossible to read the above verses and see them as Jesus using fictional stories to “order principles”. Using words like “remember”, “in the days of Noah”, “in the days of Lot”, “haven’t you read”, “from the blood of Able”?
Why would the Creator of the universe (in the flesh) decide to use fictional folklore to illustrate his principles and to prophecy his resurrection and second coming? If Jesus was using the stories as an illustration or allegory he would have said so as he repeatedly did in the Gospels. Every time he told a parable, he set it up or explained after the metaphorical meaning of the story. These scriptural stories were explained as fact, because Jewish people believed they were fact.
If Jesus and/or God are perfect, they certainly could have done better than using folklore to illustrate eternally important information. God would have known people today would discover the stories were fictional. Does this god want to send people to hell or does he desire them to be in heaven as Christianity teaches? This method of teaching and spreading divine word makes it very easy to discount Christian theology simply because of flawed teaching and texts.
October 23, 2009 at 3:20 pm |
Inconsistency isn’t seemly when you’re talking about divine texts.
If you’re going to have a book that is basically the determinant of who goes to hell and who doesn’t (seeing as how all of the criteria for the entire belief is in this book), you might as well make sure that everything is clearly outlined.
It absolutely matters when something is metaphorical or literal. If it’s up to the interpretation of the reader, who is there to tell them whether they’re right or wrong? When the stakes are so high, it is negligence in the highest degree to leave your instruction manual up to chance.
If the vast majority of lawnmower owners had their hands lopped off due to misuse, you’d imagine that the manufacturer would figure something was wrong with the machine or unclear with the manual, try to make amends with those who were disfigured because of the vague manual, and then be sure to call for a recall until the mowers were looked over and the manuals were all replaced with something more proper.
You would think that God would hold himself accountable to even this lowly standard. Clearly there’s something wrong with God’s plan or God’s book if the vast majority of people have “chosen” Hell.
October 23, 2009 at 11:19 am |
I think the correct question to ask is… what makes God, Jesus and the Bible more trustworthy than a conman? What makes a religion more believable than a pyramid scheme? What makes a religion’s promises less empty than that of people who can’t walk the talk?
Some may say that “blind faith” is a lot different from “faith” – and as much as I have something to say against that fallacy, I request that we leave it aside for the purposes of this question.
Let’s also exclude the fact that less people oppose or speak out against their respective Gods – than soldiers against wayward officers, and dissatisfied countrymen against their politicians. Which, incidentally, doesn’t necessarily imply truth, just as silence doesn’t necessarily imply consent.
The point is to compare “religion” against “a basic lie presented as truth”.
Not to compare “a believer” with “someone who has fallen for the lie”.
So, what makes a religion’s words more believable than anything else, even words backed by evidence, fact and experience?
October 23, 2009 at 1:01 pm |
This is one of the key things from my top 20 list that got Christians so upset with me several months ago.
I have rejected every other religion my entire life. Religion is a cultural and globally regional phenomena. It has nothing to do with truth.
October 24, 2009 at 12:17 am |
Christianity has everything to do with truth – revealed truth.
What you are saying is that you only accept truth when it comes to you in rational form.
But God did not choose to come to us in rational form – he comes to us in such a way as requires faith, not measurements, logical deductions or observations.
Christianity will never be rational – that is incompatible with its mission to gain believers.
October 24, 2009 at 1:06 am
And I can similarly say that the truth revealed to me has equal or more weight than the truth revealed to you.
You may disagree with me, but fact is, the truth that is revealed to me also comes from the same God.
I was told my revealed truth by practically the same person. I, too, have no physical proof and have to rely on faith.
So what makes your view more believable than mine?
Now, if you want to discount me for not being true to God, fine. But look at yourself versus another believer.
Even you admit that the truth, as it is revealed to you, is different.
If you cannot accept that God is telling different groups a different tale, that’s fine. It has nothing to do with how people interpret the revealed truth – which is my point.
Believers tend to have differing views of the same thing. Each believer claims that his view is correct. What makes you “more correct”?
And that’s the entire point.
October 27, 2009 at 7:17 am
WHY did you select the denomination you belong to, among the 3,500 or so Christian groups? Revelation? – Jesus said “Paul, I want you to join the XYZ Church.” Parental influence, location of church, chance reading of their literature? Or, did you examine the beliefs of various groups and select one based on (shudder) reason? Since you say God does not choose to come to us in rational form, maybe you should select your doctrine by taking a long bus ride and getting off at the church where you would have to make the greatest leap of faith to believe the preachings.
October 23, 2009 at 2:26 pm |
Chrestianity came before Christianity. Marcionism before Catholicism. Jesus was first called Chrestos (Morally Excellent One) not Christos TMessiah, Anointed One). He was first understood to be a Stranger God from outside our universe who came to defeat the “ruler of this world” the Creator of this universe by doing good and getting crucified by this world’s god for it. And once the “god of this world” crucified him, he essentially blackmailed the god of this world to relinquish to him everyone who will believe in him. Jesus was believed to have come from Bethsaida not Nazareth and he was the opponent of the OT god not his son. Marcion’s gospel had Jesus thrown off the cliff in Bethsaida (not almost thrown off in Nazareth like in Luke). Jesus was also not born but descended from heaven with his bod), as in John 6:51 and as he says “of all those born of women none is greater than John” implying he himself was not born. The Catholics invented the virgin birth and the connection of Jesus to the Ot via false interpretations of the Ot such as you find in Matt’s first 2 chapters even inventing a prophecy to connect him to the OT by playing word games between Nazirite and Nazareth and making up a prophecy found nowhere in the Ot! Namely “he shall be called a Nazarene” per Matt 2:23. The one dunk baptism into Jesus death that Paul teaches in Rom 6 was then replaced by a three dunk baptism into the names of the trinity! And when the Marcionites and other groups like them became persecuted by the Catholics who were being funded by the Roman government to change Chrestianity into Christianity and thus wordlify it and destroy it, the pre-Catholic sects added Catholics doctrines to their own books in mocking ways. See John. At the wedding in Cana the narrator introduces Jesus’ mother (to appease the Catholics) but then has Jesus disrespect her with “woman what is there between me and you?” Thus denying she is his mother (to show his own sect he doesn’t really believe jesus was born of a woman but is an alien god descended as man wihout birth per John 6:51). “I am the bread come down from heaven…and the bread is my flesh”–that is, I came down from heaven having my flesh already–i was not born of a woman.
October 23, 2009 at 2:47 pm |
The original idea was that the god of the OT was so unstable and evil that somebody needed to save us from him because he intended to send everyone righteous and unrighteous alike to hell. So the Good God way out there somewhere sent his son the Stranger, Jesus Chrestos who ransomed us from the evil god of this world. You know even in the Catholic canon that is used today as the “New Testament” Paul refers to a “god of this world” who has blinded the eyes of the Jews so they won’t believe. Christians interpret that to be the devil. But Paul quotes an OT passage that indicates it is Yahweh. That’s the original idea shiningthrough, that Yahweh is an evil genocidal maniac racist god who will torment us all on this earth and unless somebody does something to stop him will torment us forever in hell too, and therefore Jesus came from another God to save us from Yahweh, and he made Yahweh agree to relinquish everyone who believes in him to his Father’s domain when they die, but in response Yahweh has blinded his own special people so they will not believe in Jesus. Chrestianity (Marcionism) makes a lot more sense than ‘orthodox’ Christianity (Catholocism, Protestantism) right? In the Catho-Prot system the same god blind his own people. “No its the devil.” You can put that spin on Paul, but only until the OT passage that this blinding is based on is pointed out! Yahweh says in Jeremiah “if a prophet is deceived, I deceived him” but Paul says God cannot lie. Originally, in the Marcionite canon (not called the New Twstament but ‘the gospel and apostolicon’) these were two different gods. But Catholicism was hired by Rome to make them one. Marcion had only the love your enemies of the sermon on the mount and opposed the OT’s genocides as from an evil god. Catholicism and by extension Protestantism must claim that the same god was once a genocidal maniac but now is a passifist turn to the other cheek guy, and at the same time they must rectify that with “I Yahweh do not change” and “Jesus Christ the same yesterday today and forever.” Christianity is a sad parody of Marcionism (Chrestianity) a religion that actually had a consistency to it and good morals without being bogged down with duplicity and confusion.
October 23, 2009 at 3:00 pm |
The conflict between the two religions was huge in the second century. Justin Martyr writing about 138 tells us that there are Marcionites in “ever nation under heaven” and that Marcion is “still alive and still teahcing” implying he is really old by this time. Later Catholic writers invent a story that Marcion was born a Catholic and that his father was a bishop and his own father excommunicated Marcion for having sex out of wedlock and then Marcion went to Rome in 140 (being about 25) to buy back his fellowship in Catholicism with a small fortune which they rejected (as if the Catholic church would ever turn down money) and Marcion got so mad he began starting a new church 4 years later in 144! But wait! Justin Martyr had already said in 138 that Marcion was “still alvie and still teahcing” meaning he was old in 138 and had been teahcing a long time already, and Justin had already said in 138 that there were Marcionites in every nation–clearly Marcion had started his church not only before 138 but a long time beforee 138. The later stroy is bunk. Interestingly we don’t find Catholicism being universal in 138 but we do Marcionism. Catholicism can’t claim universal status until 180 (with Ireneaus) except by lying and reversing the historical situations of Marcionism and Catholicism. But thwir own boy Justin Martyr makes it easy to call them out on this!
October 24, 2009 at 12:11 am |
Marcionism is a form of Gnosticism which is essentially the rejection of the God of the OT. Gnosticism attached itself to Greek Christianity in the 2nd century. Ireneaus and others – now known as the proto-orthodox – believed that the story of Jesus was incomplete without understanding his Jewish background, and this meant keeping the OT.
Gnosticism insisted that Jesus provided secret knowledge to a select few – the Catholic church was so named because anyone could join, there was no secret membership needed.
At the same time there was a group called the Ebionites who believed that to be Christian you first had to become a Jew – circumcision, dietary laws, etc – the OT and the whole of Hebrew Law. They believed that Jesus was an observant Jew and his followers should be likewise.
The Ebionites were strongest in and around Jerusalem – the book of Acts gives hints of this. But the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD and the expulsion of the Jews in early 2nd century sealed the fate of the Ebionites. Christianity had to survive in the wider Greek culture and so Christian history from this time is a battle between the proto-orthodox and the Gnostics.
What eventuated as the Catholic church was the result of the reaction against the Ebionites on one hand and Marcionism and Gnostic influence on the other.
October 23, 2009 at 3:03 pm |
You mean that Jesus was a Jew that believed in Jewish myths like every other Jew at the time? Get out of here.
October 23, 2009 at 8:16 pm |
He HAD to, because those myths were passed down by his alleged father. <_<
October 24, 2009 at 2:08 pm |
There are plenty who are raised as Jews today who don’t believe in Judaism, and plenty who were raised Christians who don’t believe in Christianity. Why assume that because Jesus was raised as a Jew he must have believed whole-heartedly in the Old Testament stories?
October 24, 2009 at 2:16 pm |
Nor is it certain that every other Jew at the time believed these stories. Read the book Heavely Torah by Rabbi Joshua Heschel. He shows that within Judaism of the first century and even earlier there were splits in Judaism some said the whole Torah was from God, and some said Moses made parts of it up. Some said Moses made parts of it up by interpretation of what was revealed by God. Some said Moses just pulled it out of his butt. Jews were no in monolithic agreement about these stories anymore than people today are.
October 24, 2009 at 2:18 pm |
And the Ebionites, a Jewish-Christian sect that observed the Sabbath and circumcision, believed that every place in the Old Testament where it says that God instituted the animal sacrifices was a corruption! And according to the Catholic heresiologist of the 3rd or 4th century, Epiphanius, they also made fun of David and Solomon. But they were really Jewish–they kept the Sabbath. Why then would they mock David and Solomon and say that God did not establish the animal sacrifices at all? Why didn’t they teach like modern Christians that God did establish the animal sacrifices, but later changed his mind? The ignorance of church history is astounding.
October 25, 2009 at 2:38 am |
I appreciate your analysis of my remark but I wasn’t being serious.
October 24, 2009 at 1:40 pm |
“Marcionism is a form of Gnosticism which is essentially the rejection of the God of the OT” (Paul M)
Marcionism is not a form of Gnosticism. Marcionism came before Gnosticism–Gnosticism is an offshoot of Marcionism. The difference is in how the relationship between the Good God and the Evil God works. In Marcionism neither one created the other even indirectly–they both just are. In Gnosticism, the Good God creates various sub-deities who then create various sub-deities who then create various sub-deities who then create various sub-deities who then create various sub-deities who then create various sub-deities, until finally the lowest sub-deity create the Evil God. Gnosticism is a Jewish system of buffering the Supreme God from the evil creator god via an endless genealogy of sub-deities. Marcionism came before this ridiculous system and doesn’t dabble in such things at all. There just simply are two Gods in Marcionism–and they both just simply are.
“Gnosticism insisted that Jesus provided secret knowledge to a select few” (Paul M)
Another point of difference. Marcionism is not about secret knowledge. It actually had a biblical canon of one gospel and ten epistles of “Paul” (who was probably understood to be Marcion himself) and its doctrines were in this canon. It was not just some amorphous system of secret ‘knowledge’ like Gnosticism which is essentially a Judaizing response to Gnosticism.
“What eventuated as the Catholic church was the result of the reaction against the Ebionites on one hand and Marcionism and Gnostic influence on the other.” (Paul M)
On this you are absolutely correct.
“Christianity has everything to do with truth – revealed truth. What you are saying is that you only accept truth when it comes to you in rational form.” (Paul M)
How can anything be true if it is non-sensical? And in that you admit Catholicism developed as a response to various pre-Catholic sects, you have admitted that the Catholic canon is not entirely true. Catholicism is not just a religion–its also the current biblical canon which they developed to uphold their sect’s views against those of the other sects. The biblical canon, the four gospels we now have and the current wording of Paul’s epistles, all of this was developed by the Catholics, by editing and addition, to uphold their views and attack those of the earlier sects they were displacing. It is not a revelation from God (not all of it anyway) but a development from the Catholic church.
“Christianity will never be rational – that is incompatible with its mission to gain believers.” (Paul M)
Because Christianity is a bastardization of a religion that did make sense, i.e. Chrestianity. The Roman Empire didn’t like Chrestianity and so they hired a bunch of clergy and made an official church to change everything and make it not make sense anymore.
The Greek word Katholikos from which the word Catholic comes can mean (1) universal (2) general treasurer (3) agent of Rome.
The Catholic church began calling themselves this before they were ‘universal’–they meant the word catholic in the sense of ‘agent of Rome.’ Their church was the official Roman Empire backed church that worked as Rome’s agent to destroy the rational faith it was displacing because that faith challenged Rome’s corruption whereas the new Roman agent church would uphold Rome’s corruption and fill its treasury with money!
October 24, 2009 at 1:54 pm |
Just think: Paul NOW says in Romans 13 that the governments is established by God and is perfect and good and would NEVER be a “terror to good works”–oh no! The government is a perfect minister of God to praise those who do well and punish only the evil.
Do you really think that Paul said this? Of course not. The Catholics added this later on because they were hired by Rome to make this religion play nice with the government and get it ready to become the official religion of the Empire!
The earlier Marcionite version of Paul’s epistle to the Romans certainly did not contain this.
October 25, 2009 at 8:34 am |
“Paul NOW says in Romans 13 that the governments is established by God and is perfect and good and would NEVER be a “terror to good works”–oh no! The government is a perfect minister of God to praise those who do well and punish only the evil.”
Paul was a Roman citizen and this saved him from prison and beatings on a number of occasions. Paul had no quarrel with the Roman Empire – it helped him in his mission. Paul could travel freely on its roads and he could visit various obscure parts of the empire and be relatively safe. Paul’s benevolent view of authority is genuine – no need for Catholics to make it up later.
Marcionism and the gnostics are so clearly of Greek origin and so very distinct from the Hebrew traditions of Jesus that there was no way those ideas could be incorporated into an orthodox Christian church. The whole context of the crucifixion is based on the Passover and exodus stories – how can you understand Jesus, his ministry and his sacrifice without understanding the OT? Marcionism woulda never worked.
Read the gospel of Mark, however, and you can see why the gnostics might have believed in secret meanings and messages from Jesus. I think Mark, writing in the first century, unknowingly contributed to Christianity’s problems in the second.
October 25, 2009 at 5:58 am |
Rey, if you ever debate with any of our home-grown “Bible scholars,” I hope you have it taped and posted on YouTube. I don’t really care much about the evolution of religions, I just want to see the dazed look in your opponents’ eyes.
Paul M, clearly, you need to publish your own edition of the Bible, explaining what the faithful should focus on, and what they should ignore. In the story of the flood, how do you explain God as the drowner of “evil” babies? Did Noah’s family totally repopulate the world after 2304 BC, as according to Answers in Genesis? “Christianity will never be rational – that is incompatible with its mission to gain believers.” So, the discussion really is about shoveling poop.
October 25, 2009 at 8:38 am |
“Paul M, clearly, you need to publish your own edition of the Bible, explaining what the faithful should focus on, and what they should ignore.”
No need for that. The Bible is literature and you have to put yourself in the mindset of the intended audience. This is going to be different for various books. Understanding the Bible is difficult and requires much study. You can’t read it like a textbook and expect to take everything literally and factually – we know where that goes..
October 26, 2009 at 12:06 pm |
Mr. Paul McPompous, apparently there IS a need for you to publish your own exegesis, since in post after post you insist that only your interpretation and “revelation” is correct, and that you know what any given tale is “supposed” to mean . You’ll get no argument here that the Bible is literature. Just literature. Go post your views on a Christian blog and see what happens.
“Understanding the Bible is difficult and requires much study.” Oh, pray, Professor Patronizing, list your degrees in ancient languages, history, and religions. I’m all a-twitter.
October 26, 2009 at 1:31 pm |
Understanding the Bible is difficult and requires much study
So it’s just a faith for the intellectual elite then.
But damn! Even they disagree on just about everything about the Bible.
Who… WHO… can get it right? OH! Thank YHWH for Paul M. HE can explain it every time.
October 26, 2009 at 10:32 pm |
Let’s be fair, nazani14.
Paul M has mentioned a few times that his idea of “revealed truth” strewn about among other stuff in the Bible is the view of the denomination to which he belongs. I suspect that other things he says are also part of their view. Do not misunderstand me: I am sure Paul M has done the study himself to concur in these beliefs. But my point is that he is not standing alone in left field spouting ideas that nobody else agrees with, although they seem to be foreign to most of the regulars here. All religious people recite the tenets of their doctrine as simple incontrovertible truth, no matter how bizarre it may sound to outsiders. There is no good reason to fault Paul M about this specially.
Paul M does keep saying that “the Bible is literature, just literature”. The prime reason is that theBEattitude and various commenters keep insisting that the Bible must be either 100% pure Speech-of-God or complete fabrication; and that the flaws and inconsistencies indicate that it is incontrovertibly the latter. This argument may be relevant to a fundamentalist who believes the 100% Word-of-God stuff. (Another important part of theBEattitude’s point here is that a god ought to be able to do a better and clearer job of expressing his message.) But, as Paul M keeps pointing out, it just sounds silly to the majority of Christians, who do not have the “perfect Bible” concept in their dogma. So every time theBEattitude brings up the topic, Paul M repeats his own view, as, it seems to me, is to be expected in discussions of this sort.
Paul M’s views contain plenty of astonishing ideas, worthy of continued comment. But ad hominem remarks just waste everyone’s time.
October 27, 2009 at 7:06 am
I am being fair. Paul M directly insulted my intellectual abilities, and those of others who disagree with him. Call me a bitch or a liar, but don’t talk down to me. Little Missy has both academic and real life creds, available to anyone who is curious.