Msg#: 1624 Date: 04-07-95 14:44 From: Marilyn Burge Read: Yes Replied: No To: Lee Woofenden Mark: Subj: extraordinary On (01 Apr 95) Lee Woofenden wrote to Marilyn Burge... LW> BTW, though it is probably impossible to verify authorship, LW> both Matthew and John _were_ disciples of Jesus and therefore LW> would have seen many of the events they were describing if LW> they actually were the authors of those Gospels. Matthew and John definitely weren't the authors of the books that bear their names. If you look at when the books were written, that alone will tell you that M and J were long gone by the time those two books were written. Also, John was apparently such a common name, that trying to pin down the authorship of that one book to any one particular John would be impossible. Modern scholarship tells us that John has been added onto years after it was written, and that Matthew is so anal retentively making up stories that will fulfill alleged prophesies from the OT that it is a bit silly to think that any of the incidents reported in Matthew really happened as described, and that many of the incidents described in John were added by apologists determined to further their pet theological viewpoint. LW> It is well-recognized that each Gospel has its own LW> theological slant. This is nothing new. Rather than being a LW> stumbling block to Christians, it simply adds to the richness LW> of the scriptural tradition. I would be very suspicious of a LW> religious movement every member of which believed exactly the LW> same thing and described the religion exactly the same way as LW> every other member. That looks to me like brainwashing. The LW> divergences among the Gospels show that from a very early LW> date, there was variety of belief among Christians, LW> indicating a healthy religious freedom. The differences are of a different order of magnitude. They suggest conscious attempts to "make" Jesus' life fit real and perceived prophesies, whether his actual life events really do or not. MB> The other problem is that the accounts have been tampered MB> with repeatedly by copyists, monks, less-than-honest MB> translators, and the like ever since. Words have been added MB> that completely reverse the meaning of passages; passages MB> have been added to further a theological point of view (i.e., MB> trinitarian justifications where none existed), and writings MB> that did not support the conventional wisdom of the moment MB> have been destroyed altogether. LW> What surprises me more than any of this is what does survive LW> of the account despite good reasons to get rid of it. If some LW> group wanted to invent a popular religion, they could have LW> done a much better job than the Gospels. There are too many LW> bothersome things in it. The parable of the unjust steward. LW> The cursing of the fig tree. Jesus' rather racist remarks to LW> the Samaritan woman at the well. The things are are bothersome to me are of a much different sort. For example, Moses was threatened with death at birth. Perseus was threatened with death at birth. Kyros was threatened with death at birth. Oedipus was threatened with death at birth. Paris was threatened with death at birth. Abraham was threatened with death at birth. Krishna was threatened with death at birth. John the Baptist was threatened with death at birth. Jesus was threatened with death at birth. Sargon I was threatened with death at birth. King Arthur was threatened with death at birth. Now, can you truthfully see any rational reason why I should selectively believe that same incident happened only to the biblical characters in the above list and that it didn't really happen to the others? Can you rationally see any reason why I should selectively believe that all the characters in the above list whose stories were selected by the Council of Nicea are "real" and only the remainder are mythical? Can you rationally see any reason why I should not conclude that mankind almost losing the "genius" of these characters was nothing more than a literary ploy to tell the reader or listener that the world would be a totally different place had the plot to kill been successful, thereby instilling a feeling of relief and empathy? Or are you really naive enough to think that the stories surrounding the biblical characters are true, and it is only the stories surrounding the other characters that involve a literary ploy? You might say that the issue with me is credibility, and that the Bible lacks credibility. LW> If there had been major efforts to sanitize the New LW> Testament, those doing it would have done a much better job. Not necessarily. Critical thinking is a fairly new mindset, and it is one that not that many people possess even today. That's why we have so many biblical inerrantists and biblical literalists. If critical thinking were really all that easy, Christianity wouldn't have survived anywhere near this long. LW> Just the fact that there are large inconsistencies among the LW> various Gospels tends to negate the idea that the church went LW> through and altered them to bring them into harmony with its LW> own current doctrinal views. By comparing one extant copy of certain books with other extant copies of the same book, we know positively that things were added. We also know that things were mistranslated -- either deliberately or inadvertently -- in order to make it appear that certain purported events would fulfill those mistranslated prophesies. The virgin birth is an excellent example of that phenomenon. Also, the virgin birth is suspect just because it is another literary ploy used again and again, both in the bible, and in other literature that both predates and antedates the bible that involves mythological characters. I am very suspicious of something happening that we know is impossible in one case, when we are so willing to say "but that's impossible!" in another case, just because the latter case involves something we want to believe. That's called intellectual dishonesty when people so willingly play that game. Either accept the fact that Michaelangelo was the product of a virgin birth, or accept the fact that the virgin birth of Jesus was a literary ploy concocted by somebody who didn't really understand that the "prophesy" on which the virgin birth was based was the work of somebody who didn't understand Hebrew well enough to accurately translate it into Greek when (s)he worked on the Septuagint. Their mistranslation was later taken as accurate, causing the literary ploy of the virgin birth to become "necessary." You can't have it both ways. Selectively believing the impossible to be true is a bit silly. LW> As for the Trinitarian justifications, the surprising thing LW> is the _lack_ of them. The word "trinity" never appears in LW> the NT, nor the three ever referred to as "persons" of LW> God--even though that was common language in church creeds as LW> far back as the Nicene Council in 325 AD. Which is why the story of Jesus' baptism including the words "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" in one account, and not containing that same wording in the other account is high suspicious and looks so much like a later redaction. The whole story if Jesus' baptism is suspect, for that matter. Baptism has traditionally been used as a means to wash away sin. If Jesus was truly sinless, as the gospels purport, there was absolutely no reason for him to partake of that particular ritual. There is something else that is very troublesome about the baptism incident. One account reports that the voice of God was heard at that event saying, "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Was he not the Son of God prior to his baptism? Why did God pick this particular occasion to declare what would have been obvious, if the accounts of stars in the east and such were really true? Or is it that the redactors chose this occasion to state the obvious, because they were unaware of Matthew's nativity story and needed a photo-op to "make" him the Son of God? If one critically looks at the various gospel accounts of certain events through the eyes of somebody who does not know of the other gospel accounts, they take on a whole different cast, and the baptism stories certainly show that clearly. If Jesus was sinless and born of a virgin who did not possess Original Sin (as the Catholics allege), there was absolutely no reason for him to be baptized. It was the act of baptism itself that washed away sin, according to tradition. That would make John a superior to Jesus before the act of baptism took place, and during the act of baptism when it was John who was washing away those sins that supposedly didn't exist. Some modern-day churches believe, baptism does not wash away sins, but merely is a symbol of the fact that the person's sins have already been washed away, and is further a symbolic act in which the baptizee is publicly declaring his or her sins have been washed away and he or she is now a member of the congregation of the righteous. If you take this view of baptism, then Jesus still had no reason to be baptized, as he was apparently righteous from birth, if the Nativity story is to be believed. LW> What we mostly find when comparing early NT MSS is not wholly LW> different versions of the same story, but whole chunks either LW> included or not included, as in the last ten verses of Mark LW> and John 7:53-8:11 (the story of the woman caught in LW> adultery). Neither one of these is all that critical. And often those chunks that are included in later MSS are there to support a doctrine. Sometimes adding just one of two words makes a world of difference, as does subtracting one or two words. There is reason, for example, to think that the original accounts of the baptism had God saying THIS DAY you are my son. . . . When you think about it, those two words make the difference between Jesus becoming the Son of God on the day of his baptism (the adoptionist school of thought), and him having been the SoG from day-one, and it just being confirmed at that point. It was at the Council of Nicea that the adoptionists were completely squelched and those words were deleted from the text. Another thing that the CofN did that modern-day Christians have completely forgotten is they had all the MSS destroyed that did not contain the alterations they deemed "necessary to the faith." In many cases, had it not been for our finds in 1947 at Nag Hammadi, and the later findings at Qumran, we would have never known what the original MSS might've said. ============================================================== Msg#: 1555 Date: 04-10-95 08:38 From: Marilyn Burge Read: Yes Replied: No To: Al Schroeder Mark: Subj: EXTRAORDINARY On (08 Apr 95) AL SCHROEDER wrote to MARILYN BURGE... MB> The things are are bothersome to me are of a much different sort. MB> For example, Moses was threatened with death at birth. MB> Perseus was threatened with death at birth. MB> Kyros was threatened with death at birth. MB> Oedipus was threatened with death at birth. MB> Paris was threatened with death at birth. MB> Abraham was threatened with death at birth. Krishna was threatened MB> with death at birth. MB> John the Baptist was threatened with death at birth. MB> Jesus was threatened with death at birth. MB> Sargon I was threatened with death at birth. MB> King Arthur was threatened with death at birth. MB> Now, can you truthfully see any rational reason why I should MB> selectively believe that same incident happened only to the MB> biblical characters in the above list and that it didn't really MB> happen to the others? Can you rationally see any reason why I AS> I can, Marilyn. John the Baptist was NOT threatened with death at birth. Not according to me sources. " John the Immerser was threatened with death at birth. He escaped Herod's massacre of the children of Bethlehem, and grew up to reveal his identity as Messiah, Yahweh's anointed king of the Jews." You must remember that Jesus originally followed John, that's why he was baptized by John. And, as a disciple of John, he regarded John the Immerser as the Messiah. Two of Jesus' disciples were reported to have been John's disciples (John 1:37), and this is not unlikely. Jesus did not begin his own career until John had been imprisoned by Herod Antipas (Mark 1:14). Men accustomed to following an itinerant preacher would have been in the market for a new master once John was imprisoned, and Jesus fit the bill. AS> Unless you count that his parents were unusually old. Nor was Abraham AS> threatened with death at birth. Moses and Jesus, yes, indeed. Abraham was threatened with death at birth to prevent him from fulfilling a prophesy. He escaped Nimrod's massacre of infants, and lived to become the founding ancestor of the Chosen People. AS> Just because Joseph Campbell pointed out the similarities between a AS> great many myths, doesn't mean you can paint the same AS> "Hero of a Thousand AS> Faces" on all those you would like to be myth and AS> have us agree with you. AS> Sloppy scholarship. I'm not using Campbell as my source, although I have read some of his work. And YOU are just as guilty of sloppy scholarship as I am, since Abraham and John the Immerser WERE threatened with death at birth. MB> list whose stories were selected by the Council of Nicea are MB> "real" and only the remainder are mythical? Can you rationally see AS> People were DYING for those myths by 64 AD, easily AS> within the lifetime of AS> those who witnessed the events, including Peter, crucified upside-down. AS> People rarely die for things they know are frauds. I doubt that they saw what they believeed in as a fraud. Mythologizing was the way stories were told and heroes were made in that culture. It was the accepted way of conveying the idea that somebody was bigger than life. As for Peter being crucified upside-down, so what? He didn't write any of the gospels, and would have had no idea what they said, since they were written long after his death! > any reason why I should not conclude that mankind almost losing MB> the "genius" of these characters was nothing more than a literary MB> ploy to tell the reader or listener that the world would be a MB> totally different place had the plot to kill been successful, MB> thereby instilling a feeling of relief and empathy? Or are you MB> really naive enough to think that the stories surrounding the MB> biblical characters are true, and it is only the stories MB> surrounding the other characters that involve a literary ploy? AS> Yes indeed. Most of the others you mentioned happened AS> in a mythical "once AS> upon a time". Until Troy was dug up, no one could lay any sort of As were all of them that I mentioned. There is no more reliable evidence for the existence of Moses, Abraham, or Jesus than there is of Arthur or Oedipus. And, showing somebody existed hardly verifies all the outlandish, totally defiant of natural law details that are claimed about those three characters. Incidedntally: how does one go about verifying that Mary actually WAS a virgin? I see no record of anybody using a speculum to verify it, nor do I see any record that anybody except she was present at the alleged visitation of that angel that got her off the hook! AS> reasonable to when Paris existed, and even so, we're AS> not sure which of the AS> seven cities excavated in that site was the Troy Homer sang about. Even AS> Moses you could put in that category, since the Phaoroah was never AS> explicitedly named, and which one is a matter for conjecture and AS> scholarship. Certainly Heracles, (one you missed, and also threatened at AS> birth), Perseus and Oedipus occur in no known AS> historical epoch. And Arthur AS> was long regarded as a myth, until research in the last century AS> established that at the kernel of the Arthurian myth was a real warlord AS> named Arthur. A "kernel" of truth hardly makes everything said about the character in question truthful. Paul Bunyan probably really existed, too, but I don't for a moment believe he really had a blue ox, or that he was taller than the tallest tree. Do you? There's plenty of written verification that those two things are true about him; if you don't believe them, why not? They are at least as empirically verifiable as the virgin birth and the resurrection(s). AS> But Jesus occured in known historical times; His birth would have been AS> between 10 to 1 BC. His death was circa 33 BC. And people were DYING for AS> their belief in Him by 64 AD, in seperate historical AS> documents concerniing AS> the Roman Empire. So? Koresh's people died for their belief in him, too. Do you believe Koresh was the Messiah? People die for a lot of things that are purely nonsense. That's the way fanatacism works, in case you didn't know. AS> ... Are REASON and LOGIC allowed on this echo? Sure are. Why don't you try them sometime?