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lunadelcorvoI got into a (very civil, actually) discussion on FB about this. The other person began with a CS Lewis quote about how "I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God" is a fundamentally ludicrous idea. I replied that, given what we know of both history and text, the notion of accepting the ethical 'love your neighbor, care for the sick and the poor' message of the historical teacher, while remaining skeptical of claims to divinity is quite reasonable.
She reasserted that it was not really logically possible to accept even an ethical dimension to Jesus without accepting the divine, because Bible. And also CS Lewis. *eyeroll* Essentially, the argument is this: 1) Jesus was a great moral teacher (bible says so). 2) Jesus said he was divine (bible says so). 3) If he said he was divine and was not, he lied. 4) Great moral teachers do not lie (I say so). 5) Therefore, either Jesus was not a moral teacher, or he is divine.
Oh, the fallacies just abound in that little bit of reasoning! So here is my response: For me, personally, and academically (which I can't really separate) it is the evidence of history (and lack of evidence in some cases) that makes it plausible that there was a Jewish man named 'Yeshua' (a name as common as John or Bob in our time) who preached about loving God and loving your neighbor. That is, after all the core of the Jewish decalog. And there were literally hundreds of these messianic preachers in Judea in this time period. That he may have been crucified by Rome at the request of the Jewish establishment tells us nothing. The Jews didn't like trouble makers (what occupied people want to make their occupiers really mad?) And Rome didn't look kindly on dissidents, either, executing scores of them in this time period, many by crucifixion, a favorite punishment for traitors and rebels.
However, the assertion of actual divinity, in addition to being almost inconceivable from a Jewish messianic preacher, even the splintered and fringe sects among 1st C. Palestinian Jews, also postdates the supposed timeframe of this man's life (the historical details we are given in the synoptics contradict each other, so we can't be sure of the exact dates for anything).
Paul, trained in the mystery cults of the Hellenic world, with their dying and rising gods, is the earliest author of the NT, and admits outright that he neither knows or cares about 'Jesus the man' in his lifetime. His vision of the Christ is highly rhetorical (not surprising given what we know of his training; his roots in classical rhetoric are evident in his text), and wholly spiritual. He says little to nothing about the mortal person of Jesus or the claims he may or may not have made.
The synoptics come next, but the earliest of them is written roughly 30 years after when we think Jesus' execution would have occurred, by followers of followers; third- and fourth-hand accounts, told by people with their own interpretations of things, and their own reasons for writing. You will notice, if you read them carefully, that there is little mention of a divine Jesus in the synoptics. Each of them reflects their writer's ideas, background and perspective. And we know that these are not simply a person sitting down and writing what he recalled. For one, they come a generation or more after Jesus' death. For another, we can see large sections that were copied directly from each other, and in some cases, what appears to be another source text which we no longer have. (This is part of what I mean by textual evidence; meticulous analysis of the text in terms of structure, syntax, grammar, etc. Much the same way we can tell the difference between the writing of say, Jane Austen and a novelist writing now. It's the same language, but it reads differently, reflecting the time period. It would be fairly easy to spot a passage in Austen that was added in modern times, for example.)
John, the 'odd man out' among the gospels, was written fully 60-70 years after Jesus death, when the followers of this new form of Judaism (for that is what it was, at first - they weren't speaking of a different god, after all) had begun to come into serious conflict with the Jewish establishment. This is evident in the text; almost every account we have of tension or violence between the followers of Jesus and the Jews comes from John. John is also the source of the vast majority of writing on the idea of Jesus as divine, which was the hotly debated and deeply divisive point of contention with the Jews. John is trying to establish this faith in Jesus as something different from Judaism; he is trying to defend and establish the idea of Jesus AS divine. However, the divinity of Jesus is not hotly debated right away, only once the new faith has come into contact with the Gentile, Hellenistic world, in the time when John was written. Why not? If it's such a big point of contention, one would think it would have been the issue right away, but it isn't.
The best explanation for this is that there was not an assertion of divinity by the historical person we now know as Jesus, but that this was a development or adaptation of his core message which occurred when that message came into contact with other, similar narratives. We see this happen all the time, in this period and region, and throughout history. After all, we get Jesus' winter solstice birth from that of Sol Invictus; historically, it appears he was born in the summer months. We get many of our saints from local pagan gods (Nicolas in Scandinavia, Brigid in Ireland), and many of the Christian customs from those of the local people to whom the new faith spread. Is it so difficult to imagine that the unrecorded words of a lone preacher might get adapted and added to over time, in a period when few knew how to read of write, and most of the transmission of the message came by oral tradition?
This is also is borne out by the rest of the historical evidence we have from the time (which is actually quite extensive; the Romans were obsessive record keepers, though they neglect any mention of Jesus in his lifetime, only making note of the unrest and conflict in Palestine that comes decades later.) It's much like the legends of Paul Bunyon - a local man becomes locally famous, a sort of icon, and with retelling the tale grows into a legend. That doesn't mean the actual meaning or value of the original message is void, only that it makes more sense once you clear away the legend. There is no reason to need the divine to make the ethical message valuable, any more than Gandhi or MLKJr need to be divine to have real, genuine value as figures worthy of respect, admiration, being held as ethical role models.
Again, that's an academic perspective. I deal in history, evidence, and parsimony. I have found, and not only with myself, but with virtually every other academic I've spoken to in the fields of history, cultural studies, religious studies, etc., that the deeper one studies any mythology, the more clearly one is able to see it as the product of its time and culture. This is especially true when you have studied multiple mythologies, and found that really, the stories are all basically the same, and the answers the stories give are all basically the same, reflecting the same core human experience. From there, it becomes simply impossible to imagine that any one is somehow exceptional, or is somehow literally true when the rest are merely allegory. And since certainly they can't all be true, there is no reason at all to privilege any one over any other, as none make any more or less sense. As the quote goes, we are all atheists with regard to thousands of gods. You are an atheist with regard to all but one, I am an atheist with regard to all.
That doesn't mean I disdain any of those mythologies—quite the contrary—I have a tremendous appreciation for the simplicity and tenacity of the Christ mythology, just as I have appreciation for the complexity of Hindu mythology. I have tremendous affection for both of the mythologies above. I am especially fond of medieval Christianity. It's a core part of my academic work, after all; and you can't devote a career to studying something if you don't have some affection for it. And if my saying that in those terms bothers you, remember that millions of other people would be equally offended, not by my calling Christianity 'mythology,' but because I called the Hindu stories mythology.
I've probably come across as a bit more 'appreciative of the mythology' than I am, but one must pick one's battles. In all honesty, I find a few of the supposed teachings of Christ to be quite fine, if stunningly basic and unoriginal, and others to be every bit as archaic and (in contemporary terms) backwards as one would expect from a male member of a first century patriarchal sacrificial cult. I do appreciate the tenacity and creativity of Christianity as a movement in the first few centuries; as socio-political or cultural trends go, it is certainly a unique success story in terms of adaptation, integration into society and having a knack for surviving....
She reasserted that it was not really logically possible to accept even an ethical dimension to Jesus without accepting the divine, because Bible. And also CS Lewis. *eyeroll* Essentially, the argument is this: 1) Jesus was a great moral teacher (bible says so). 2) Jesus said he was divine (bible says so). 3) If he said he was divine and was not, he lied. 4) Great moral teachers do not lie (I say so). 5) Therefore, either Jesus was not a moral teacher, or he is divine.
Oh, the fallacies just abound in that little bit of reasoning! So here is my response: For me, personally, and academically (which I can't really separate) it is the evidence of history (and lack of evidence in some cases) that makes it plausible that there was a Jewish man named 'Yeshua' (a name as common as John or Bob in our time) who preached about loving God and loving your neighbor. That is, after all the core of the Jewish decalog. And there were literally hundreds of these messianic preachers in Judea in this time period. That he may have been crucified by Rome at the request of the Jewish establishment tells us nothing. The Jews didn't like trouble makers (what occupied people want to make their occupiers really mad?) And Rome didn't look kindly on dissidents, either, executing scores of them in this time period, many by crucifixion, a favorite punishment for traitors and rebels.
However, the assertion of actual divinity, in addition to being almost inconceivable from a Jewish messianic preacher, even the splintered and fringe sects among 1st C. Palestinian Jews, also postdates the supposed timeframe of this man's life (the historical details we are given in the synoptics contradict each other, so we can't be sure of the exact dates for anything).
Paul, trained in the mystery cults of the Hellenic world, with their dying and rising gods, is the earliest author of the NT, and admits outright that he neither knows or cares about 'Jesus the man' in his lifetime. His vision of the Christ is highly rhetorical (not surprising given what we know of his training; his roots in classical rhetoric are evident in his text), and wholly spiritual. He says little to nothing about the mortal person of Jesus or the claims he may or may not have made.
The synoptics come next, but the earliest of them is written roughly 30 years after when we think Jesus' execution would have occurred, by followers of followers; third- and fourth-hand accounts, told by people with their own interpretations of things, and their own reasons for writing. You will notice, if you read them carefully, that there is little mention of a divine Jesus in the synoptics. Each of them reflects their writer's ideas, background and perspective. And we know that these are not simply a person sitting down and writing what he recalled. For one, they come a generation or more after Jesus' death. For another, we can see large sections that were copied directly from each other, and in some cases, what appears to be another source text which we no longer have. (This is part of what I mean by textual evidence; meticulous analysis of the text in terms of structure, syntax, grammar, etc. Much the same way we can tell the difference between the writing of say, Jane Austen and a novelist writing now. It's the same language, but it reads differently, reflecting the time period. It would be fairly easy to spot a passage in Austen that was added in modern times, for example.)
John, the 'odd man out' among the gospels, was written fully 60-70 years after Jesus death, when the followers of this new form of Judaism (for that is what it was, at first - they weren't speaking of a different god, after all) had begun to come into serious conflict with the Jewish establishment. This is evident in the text; almost every account we have of tension or violence between the followers of Jesus and the Jews comes from John. John is also the source of the vast majority of writing on the idea of Jesus as divine, which was the hotly debated and deeply divisive point of contention with the Jews. John is trying to establish this faith in Jesus as something different from Judaism; he is trying to defend and establish the idea of Jesus AS divine. However, the divinity of Jesus is not hotly debated right away, only once the new faith has come into contact with the Gentile, Hellenistic world, in the time when John was written. Why not? If it's such a big point of contention, one would think it would have been the issue right away, but it isn't.
The best explanation for this is that there was not an assertion of divinity by the historical person we now know as Jesus, but that this was a development or adaptation of his core message which occurred when that message came into contact with other, similar narratives. We see this happen all the time, in this period and region, and throughout history. After all, we get Jesus' winter solstice birth from that of Sol Invictus; historically, it appears he was born in the summer months. We get many of our saints from local pagan gods (Nicolas in Scandinavia, Brigid in Ireland), and many of the Christian customs from those of the local people to whom the new faith spread. Is it so difficult to imagine that the unrecorded words of a lone preacher might get adapted and added to over time, in a period when few knew how to read of write, and most of the transmission of the message came by oral tradition?
This is also is borne out by the rest of the historical evidence we have from the time (which is actually quite extensive; the Romans were obsessive record keepers, though they neglect any mention of Jesus in his lifetime, only making note of the unrest and conflict in Palestine that comes decades later.) It's much like the legends of Paul Bunyon - a local man becomes locally famous, a sort of icon, and with retelling the tale grows into a legend. That doesn't mean the actual meaning or value of the original message is void, only that it makes more sense once you clear away the legend. There is no reason to need the divine to make the ethical message valuable, any more than Gandhi or MLKJr need to be divine to have real, genuine value as figures worthy of respect, admiration, being held as ethical role models.
Again, that's an academic perspective. I deal in history, evidence, and parsimony. I have found, and not only with myself, but with virtually every other academic I've spoken to in the fields of history, cultural studies, religious studies, etc., that the deeper one studies any mythology, the more clearly one is able to see it as the product of its time and culture. This is especially true when you have studied multiple mythologies, and found that really, the stories are all basically the same, and the answers the stories give are all basically the same, reflecting the same core human experience. From there, it becomes simply impossible to imagine that any one is somehow exceptional, or is somehow literally true when the rest are merely allegory. And since certainly they can't all be true, there is no reason at all to privilege any one over any other, as none make any more or less sense. As the quote goes, we are all atheists with regard to thousands of gods. You are an atheist with regard to all but one, I am an atheist with regard to all.
That doesn't mean I disdain any of those mythologies—quite the contrary—I have a tremendous appreciation for the simplicity and tenacity of the Christ mythology, just as I have appreciation for the complexity of Hindu mythology. I have tremendous affection for both of the mythologies above. I am especially fond of medieval Christianity. It's a core part of my academic work, after all; and you can't devote a career to studying something if you don't have some affection for it. And if my saying that in those terms bothers you, remember that millions of other people would be equally offended, not by my calling Christianity 'mythology,' but because I called the Hindu stories mythology.
I've probably come across as a bit more 'appreciative of the mythology' than I am, but one must pick one's battles. In all honesty, I find a few of the supposed teachings of Christ to be quite fine, if stunningly basic and unoriginal, and others to be every bit as archaic and (in contemporary terms) backwards as one would expect from a male member of a first century patriarchal sacrificial cult. I do appreciate the tenacity and creativity of Christianity as a movement in the first few centuries; as socio-political or cultural trends go, it is certainly a unique success story in terms of adaptation, integration into society and having a knack for surviving....
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Date: January 24th, 2013 02:22 pm (UTC)As you know, I am a Quaker of Jewish ancestry and Yeshu bar Joseph is my prophet, not, be you sure, the son of G*d or the product of a virgin birth.
I don't do 'dad, the lad and the spook' and it's a comment on something that Jews and Muslims find my beliefs easier to handle than a goodly number of more 'mainstream' Christians!
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Date: January 24th, 2013 04:57 pm (UTC)Well, after all, that whole "divine god-son, born of a virgin in the depths of winter, given as a teacher, sacrificed for the salvation of the people, fighting death in the underworld and then rising again in the springtime" thing is so passé anyway…. I mean just because the entire ancient world did it….
As far as who finds your beliefs easier to handle, count at least one atheist in the number, as well!
no subject
Date: January 24th, 2013 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: January 24th, 2013 05:04 pm (UTC)As far as religion itself, I suppose that I see it do so much active harm in the world. Not from those small and wonderful handful of people who can be spiritual, even faithful, without feeling the compulsion to get everyone else in line, but from the slavering hordes who cannot simply live and let live. There will always be such folks, I suppose, but it's awfully hard to be a slavering horde when you're operating from evidence. As someone or another once said, "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion."
I'd so much rather take my chances in a secular society, than one saddled with the voluntary lack of reason required by religion. So I try to be an advocate, not attacking (usually; sometimes it seems warranted), but calmly offering a view of religion as a cultural artifact, to be appreciated without being obeyed. Results vary.... :)
no subject
Date: January 24th, 2013 05:28 pm (UTC)Jewish is an ethnicity as well as a religion, since we don't convert and the religion itself is by bloodlines (birth) So you inherit the religion.
With ya on that.
Date: January 26th, 2013 04:50 am (UTC)My father rejected organized religion utterly, and could be considered an "orthodox agnostic". And I do take some offense at the incessant fundamentalist attacks on a civil secular society that values self-determination. They tend to abuse the 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion, but only for their own, but unwilling to extend that same courtesy to other faiths, or lack of adherence to any particular church.
I'll cling to my
Date: January 26th, 2013 04:46 am (UTC)From the Lakota viewpoint, if you IS, you is wakan, sacred. And that's of course everyhing, us, birds, rocks, wind, water, mice, bugs, trees, buffalo... (maybe not mosquitoes.)
So sacred dude, total Bro'? Sure. THE Dude? No more than the rest of us, but still cool, and I've a soft spot for dissidents and radicals.