Was Jesus Wrong?
The discussion on my previous post about evolution has been a lot of fun. One commentator called Michael argues:
"My biggest issue with Christians who jump into bed with evolution is Jesus. How does your enlightened evolutionary stance understand a Jesus who clearly took the creation narratives (and other OT 'myths') at face value and taught them as truth, even as authority, to his followers. (Mk 10:16 Mt 19:4). Maybe he was contextualising and using the myths he didn't really believe to make a more important point??? Nope. It's all true, or none of it is true."
James McGrath chimes in, opining:
"As for Michael's comment, I'll just point out that if you believe the Bible, you have to believe that Jesus could be mistaken. If you are going to pretend that Matthew 16:28 or Mark 13:30 are not there, you can easily pretend the passages about the last Adam aren't either. Personally, I decided quite some time ago to stop trying to get the Bible to conform to my demands and let it be what it is."
A line of reasoning often used is this: 'Evolution is bad because Jesus believed the creation stories literally, therefore you evolutionists say Jesus is wrong'.
I think some operate under a christological error in these discussions, one that borders on the heresy of Doceticism. Jesus' worldview was in so many ways that of other 1st century Palestinian Jews. Had you asked him if the earth was flat, he would have almost certainly said 'yes' (cf. here on James' blog). Had you asked him if there was a literal Adam or Eve and serpent, I think he would have been puzzled by the 'literal' tag, but I suspect that if you had pressed him he would have said that he believes in a literal Adam and Eve (though I cannot prove these statements. I am making historical judgments, and I see no reason why he would not have believe these things – modern science did not develop for centuries. Though as noted, the whole metaphorical / scientific categorisation would have probably puzzled him). This is why, had you time travelled and asked 1st century Jesus to tell us about Michael or Chris or James, he would not have turned around and said 'Oh yes, Michael/Chris/James will be born in almost 2,000 years from now', and then proceeded to tell the details of your life to Peter and the disciples. He wouldn't have had a clue about you or me as he was fully human. You may know the song about Jesus hanging on the cross, and that when he was there he 'thought of me, above all'. But I really don't think he did think of me on the cross. He wouldn't have had a clue who you or I am. He was fully a first century man. This is why Jesus didn't tell the world about a cure for cancer, or instruct people on basic sanctity in relation to bacteria and such like, or detail the way to make penicillin, projects that would have saved thousands upon thousands of lives, many more than hundreds of his miracles put together.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. I affirm the orthodox teaching of the incarnation, that Christ is fully God and fully man. Right now, Christ is exalted to God's right hand, and in his intra-trinitarian relationship with his Father and the Spirit, I believe he does now know me. And you. But as he grew as a man, Luke 2:52 tells us: 'Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour'. I can affirm what Luke says here, and at the same time affirm Hebrews 13:8, that Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever.
So was Jesus wrong about a flat earth, or about a literal Adam, Eve and serpent in the garden? Well, had we lived in the first century as Palestinian Jews, we would have all believed the same. So it is not really fair to judge Jesus on these matters in light of later pictures taken of the (spherical) earth from the moon, and so on. If one day someone proves that the world is not spherical but multi-layed across multi-dimensions, would I be wrong now to believe the world is spherical? Well, according to present day knowledge I would not be wrong, but at one level of factuality I would be wrong. But it would be unfair to judge me according to the later knowledge too strictly. So I would have to say, at one level of discourse, at the strictly factual, Jesus would have been wrong about a flat earth and about the serpent in the garden (though as I said, I cannot prove he believed these things literally, but I think he would have said he did – why shouldn't he – if we were to have pressed him with our modern categories that would have been largely alien to him). But Jesus was sinless, and whether he - as he very probably did - believed the earth was flat (cf. Matt. 4:8-9) does not change this. As my friend Josh McManaway pointed out, Origen and some of the other Fathers would say Jesus is 'ignorant' on certain matters, but they really mean that he was nescient (not knowing things you need not know.), which is to be distinguished from 'ignorance' as often understood (not knowing things you need to). He noted in IM chat: 'In talking about things like Matt. 24:36, certain Fathers (Basil, Irenaeus, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa) said that Jesus was ignorant (they meant nescient) about the day. This position is to be contrasted with the Scholastics who generally follow Chrysostom in saying that Jesus actually did know, but chose not to disclose it with his followers'.
So to go to the gospels and to say 'Jesus didn't believe in evolution, he assumed the creation stories', is a questionable manner to reject the theory of evolution for a number of reasons.
Labels: Personal heresy log book
posted by Chris Tilling @ 8:08 PM
47 comments
47 Comments:
Great post, Chris - as always. I wanted to also say that those Fathers I cited tended to stress Jesus' nescience in arguments against Arianism and Apollinarianism. I think theology born out of that kind of situation tends to lack precision.
Thanks for this and many other of your posts. I like what Rabbi Steven Greenberg wrote about how Rabbis read the text - every letter counts especially the object markers. These 'et's with their spelling of alef-taf (like a to z) say to us - "there's more here so don't think you have to know everything either". E.g. Honour(+) your father and your mother (here the 'et' can mean and your step father and mother and your adoptive father and mother etc) In my literal translations, I often put a + sign for the object marker to remind me not to think I know too much.
I think another angle is that Jesus was talking to people with a first century worldview and, if he wanted to be taken seriously, had to talk on their level, so to speak. He was getting enough grief from people for his religious rhetoric. Imagine if he started talking round-earth and evolution in addition to healing on the Sabbath? He'd not have had a chance!
I was looking at Mt 19.4 and Mk 10.6 (not 10.16) and I'm wondering if it's at all possible to try and postulate how Jesus might answer a scientific question based his reply to a legal question?
Might Jesus' answer change drastically if he was pressed with a scientific question? I think perhaps the better question, one that Chris highlights well here, is would Jesus even understand a "scientific" question?
It's hermeneutics all the way down.
It seems that we want to safeguard the possibility that Jesus could have proved the Earth was not flat had evidence been demanded of him, i.e., that he had knowledge of the world that he was not at liberty to disclose at that time.
I agree with you, Chris, that this, at a minimum, invites a christological error into our thinking. A less ambitious demand is whether or not it was rational for Jesus to have believed the Earth was flat. It can be rational to believe something that turns out to be false. Children who believe what their parents tell them about why rainbows appear in the sky are not acting irrationally though their parents may be mistaken about the explanation for rainbows. Similarly, it may well have been rational for Jesus to have believed that the Earth was flat although it turned out that it isn't. At the same time, it may have been irrational for Aristotle to have the same belief. Rationality is personal-relative (unlike truth). One and the same belief may be rationally held by one person but irrationally by another.
So, the assumption that I would encourage the person who is troubled by your posts on this and on evolution is this: why isn't it permissible that Jesus held beliefs that were false (but rational)? Is this related to an inerrancy stipulation?
For example, Michael couches his question to Chris this way: "How does your enlightened evolutionary stance understand a Jesus who clearly took the creation narratives (...) at face value and taught them as truth, even as authority, to his followers." If the hurdle is rationality, there's no problem at all. But what does it mean that Jesus "taught [the creation narratives] as truth?" There is an assumption there that needs argumentative support. How would Jesus being mistaken about the structure of the cosmos make him a liar, for it doesn't even make him irrational.
Chris, thanks for this. Ken, I agree with what you say and would like to add that Jesus was teaching what was important for the people of his time to know in order for them to come into a right relationship with God (to borrow some jargon). What people believed about the shape of the world and the particulars of how it came into being were not then (and one might argue are not now) preventing anyone from being in right relationship with God. How they were living their lives was, so that's what he focussed on.
I'm not sure, incidentally, where there is evidence that Jesus "taught the creation narratives as truth".
Excellent, excellent, excellent! You're quite right, Chris: a truly Chalcedonian Christology simply does not allow for this.
From Philo:
"May we not say that Moses here introduces under a figure an intimation of the revolutions of the whole heaven? For the spheres in heaven received a motion in opposite directions to one another, ... "
(From on the Cherubim - Part 1, VII (21))
Now the minimalists claim that Jesus was a fiction based on Philo, and Philo's views were essentially Greek - the earth is a sphere. Y'all really need to stop listening to the 19th century atheists.
Chris,
your reasoning reminds me of the bad old days when I went to catholic school run by nuns. Fortunately I have left that behind me. No matter how hard the church has tried to make a circle into a triangle it simply won´t work. When are you going to realize that logically you can´t be god and man at the same time? The church and christian apologists have always changed the rules of the game as reality has inevitably encroached on their dogmas. Once in a time Jesus new just about EVERYTHING, then he knew quite a lot (his godly nature) but not all (his human nature) and know we have reached the stage where the godman appears to be more or less as ignorant about the universe as the rest of us miserable humans.
The problem is that your new theology doesn´t square very well with the way the gospel writers saw it. Mark appears to have believed that Jesus in his earthly incarnation knew just about everything about how the universe worked, except for one thing - the date of the Day of The Lord (Mark 13:32). Matthew and Luke basically follows the lead of Mark. John (as always the extremist) doesn´t allow a single crack to appear in his carefully painted portrait of his the allknowing and allcontrolling godman.
The problem is also that you don´t solve any problems at all by adknowledging that Jesus may have believed in Adam and Eve without these figures ever having existed. Why not face up to reality: if Genisis is all fairytale Christianity is simply a delusion like most religions appear to be on a closer look. Christianity, like most religions, is based on a certain amount of premises and if those premises are wrong the whole edifice collapses. Take Buddhism as an example; if reincarnation doesn´t exist buddhism collapses. The same for christianity; if Adam and Eve didn´t exist the whole edifice collapses.
The problem with "it's all true or none of it is true" is that it takes the text of scripture as flat; a series of words amounting to code, which corresponds with universal and/or scientific truths. To rest one's "faith" on the Bible as a string of code seems an awkward and heavy load for scripture to bear.
One who takes this flat reading of scripture misses the landscape of the text. While Matthew's Jesus is about to reveal the hidden greatness of the kingdom of heaven (Mt 13.31-32), the flat reader gets caught up with Jesus' passing statement about the mustard seed: "it is the smallest of all the seeds." Well that's just not true. Can the reader fairly set down Matthew's Gospel with the claim that "none of it is true?" I can picture Matthew pulling his hair out because the reader, due to some externally imposed system of truth, never actually got to the point of the teaching.
During a lecture on Genesis, Goldingay put it this way: "If we go to scripture with the wrong questions, we get very funny-sounding answers." I have returned to this often. I understand the hermeneutical difficulty in discerning exactly what the "right" questions are, but I can't help but observe that drawing historical information about Creation or Evolution from a hypothetical conversation about divorce (Mt 19.4) sounds for all the world like the wrong question has been asked.
-kd
In response to Antonio:
Well...I guess I will have to disagree.
Christianity does NOT depend on the historicity of the Genesis narrative(s).
Although I am not going to present a complete bibliology, I can tell you this much: the Bible is not a "fact book," but, rather, is a collection of writings that are "inspired" not to establish some arbitrary "inerrancy," but to communicate a particular message to a particular people group in a particular time period. These writings are not to be read so as to accumulate "knowledge" of the proposition sort, but to give witness to the divine activity as He reveals Himself to His people.
God comes to us where we are. If that means using myths and the false cosmologies inherent with the people He is using, so be it.
Have a great day!
So was Jesus wrong about a flat earth, or about a literal Adam, Eve and serpent in the garden? Well, had we lived in the first century as Palestinian Jews, we would have all believed the same.
I don’t think that is historically accurate. If you study the history of mathematics, you see both the Greeks and the Egyptians having a good understanding about why ships that sailed off to sea disappeared over the horizon. From that they were able accurate determine not only the fact the earth was round, but were pretty accurate as to it’s diameter. If not for the destruction of the great libraries of Alexandria by the Arabs, this knowledge would have been more mainstream science. The church carried on the myth throughout the dark ages in Europe, to keep with a literal interpretation of the bible, but many figured out the truth, simply by observing the Earth.
Chris,
Your view leads to the following questions:
Did Jesus simply assume the existence of hell as was already being assumed by intertestamental Jewish writers of that period, or are the words and descriptions of "hell" in the N.T. doctrinally true?
Jesus being a 1st century Jew believed there was a place of "eternal punishment," and the worst thing to fear was God casting you there ("Fear not he who can kill the body, but He who can cast both body and soul into hell.")
But is it true? And how can you be sure it's true, or just a consequence of Jesus believing things that some 1st century Jews believed?
Note to elbogz :
Forget about Greece & Egypt. The evidence from 1st-CENTURY Palestine is that they believed in a flat earth. Read the book of Enoch, or the N.T. itself in the Gospel temptation story in Matthew in which Jesus is taken up to a "very high mountain" and there shown "all the kingdoms of the earth." Why does the mountain have to be "very" high? And why be taken up to the top of a mountain to be shown "all" the earth's kingdoms? Think about it.
Same goes for some other verses in the N.T. Compare the Book of Enoch as well.
See my online articles:
Interpretations of Biblical Cosmology
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/cosmology.html
by Edward T. Babinski
The Varieties of Scientific Creationism
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/scientific_creationism.html
by Edward T. Babinski
The latter delves into the way biblical interpretation simply goes round and round to accommodate as much (or as little) modern scientific knowledge and evdience as it likes (or does not like).
What about Revelation? Is the end of the Bible as mythical as the beginning?
What about Revelation? Is the end of the Bible as mythical as the beginning?
If we are to be given the option of judging Jesus by the standards of a first century palestinian Jew when it suits us, than how seriously should we take him? I don't care much about mustard seeds or details of metaphorical lessons. But what about his teachings on divorce?
Jesus completely flips the traditional Jewish teachings on the subject. Is he just speaking as a first century Jew, judging according to the social mores of the time? Are we obligated to accept his mores if they no longer cooincide with our current ones.
If we accept the Gospels for "what the are" then we must acknowledge that they are 1st century (roughly) documents written from a 1st century perspective to address 1st century concerns.
This doesn't have anything at all to do with it--except perhaps a way of reading the Bible as a book of divination--to give us answers about all kinds of things that were not a part of the original context and did not concern the original speakers/hearers, readers, writers, redactors et.
It reminds me of some American experts on Prophecy who have discerned from the absence of any mention of the US in biblical prophecy--that the Bible in fact prophecies the demise of that nation. (I call it the exegesis of a zero.)
It seems that all this mind food about evolution, hell, and what every church father/theologian in the past (or present)thinks about and how they've come to their conclusion...is just a way to ignore and get sidetracked to the one thing we need to do if we believe in Jesus...and that is to love our God with all our heart, love our neighbor, and make a difference in this world by our love. It's freakin' mind candy to think we can have any insight, wisdom, knowledge, by wondering this or that and concluding this or that. None of us were there in the beginning and through the ages, and we all know that we're just stupid humans who constantly find out just how wrong we are most of the time.
To base faith on maybe it happened this way or that way...should not be the point of our lives, but faith (in God) should drive us to make a difference in the lost, the sick, the hungry, those in prison, etc., yet, even I waste so much time eating this candy instead of doing what I know I should do.
Sorry...just needed to vent for a moment. Go about your business.
Anonymous:
While I agree with your assertion that we need to "love God with all our heart", you also need to complete the reference -- "love the Lord your God with all of your soul, strength, and-yes-MIND". What you think influences what you do -- so as one (rightly) concerned with the primacy of following after Christ with a distinctly Christian ethic, so too, must we be concerned that our thinking is fashioned by Him as well. They are not mutually exclusive, but in fact are wholly connected. Simple mind candy it is not (would that it were that easy!)
Edward T. Babinski wrote:
"What about Revelation? Is the end of the Bible as mythical as the beginning?"
Edward,
I think the answer is no. The author of Revelation appears to be quite a master of the staple apocalyptic imagery associated in second temple judaism with the book of Daniel and the Enochic circles. But although his language may at first sight seem largely metaphorical and mythical I think he actually expected many of the things he prophecied about to become literally true at the endtime (a time not faraway as he says in 1:3). Yes, he expected Jesus and his angels to sweep down from heaven to slaughter the ungodly, yes he expected the roman empire (Babylon) to be swept away soon, and yes he expected a new shining Jerusalem and a new creation.
Revelation is quite a precious book for us who study early christianity. Here we have a christian prophet (certainly not the only one at the time) in full swing believing with a sureness bordering on hysteria that he is receving revelations from his risen lord in heaven through an angel.
I also think that Revelation gives us a good insight into the way "prophecies" like the little Apocalypse in gospel of Mark (chapter) 13 found their way into the new testament. I actually don´t think a single word in the little apocalypse in Mark goes back to the historical Jesus. It´s all coming from christian prophets like the one writing Revelation sharing their powers of "seeing" the plan of God with their christian communities.
That said I have a question that is worth asking; if Jesus and his followers were as ignorant about the past (genesis)as they appear to have been why should we expect them to be any more knowing about the future?
Mark wrote:
"This doesn't have anything at all to do with it--except perhaps a way of reading the Bible as a book of divination--to give us answers about all kinds of things that were not a part of the original context and did not concern the original speakers/hearers, readers, writers, redactors et."
Mark,
although the original writers of many of the books in the OT may not have seen their writings as a form of divination, that is actually how many (probably a majority) of jews at the time of Jesus saw the OT. In the first century most jews appear to have seen the OT books as an equivalent to the prophecies of Nostradamus. In the pages of the books of the OT the jewish god had through his prophets hidden all the secrets about creation from the beginning to the endtime. For the ones who had "eyes" to see with all was there to find. Which leads us to Jesus and the first christians. To understand the formation of the early christian gospel and the NT this has always to be kept in mind. The idea about the OT as containing hidden secrets that only an elect few could discern explains as disparate phenomena as the messianic secret in GMark (only after his death and resurrection will God´s spirit reveal the hidden secrets about his dying and rising Messiah that had always been there in the servant verses in Isaiah et al to find)and the words put in Jesus mouth in a scene like Mark 22:41-46 (what we see here is actually an example of early christians like Paul´s use of biblical prooftexts to support in novel ways their gospel about a crucified and risen Messiah. The gospels are actually the first examples we have of dozens of such christian prooftexts WOVEN INTO A NARRATIVE).
This ability to finally "see" the hidden secrets in the OT is what Luke is getting at through his Pentecost scene and the author of GJohn through the arrival of the Paraclete.
From a comparative religions historians perspective there is absolutely no difference at all between the new agers today who read all and everything in the prophecies of Nostradamus or the early followers of Jesus who "saw" things in Isaiah that have never been there. Both groups claim to have special vision that nobody else has. Which actually leads me to a recommendation of another recent book that touches on the subject - Joseph Fitzmyer´s "The one who is to come". Great to see a christian scholar with enough intellectual honesty to acknowledge that none of the books in the OT appear to prophecize one single iota about a dying or rising Messiah called Jesus from Nazareth.
Ed, I’ve read much of your writings, and respect you opinion. My point being was, a round world was knowable. It’s not like the bacteria flagella that was unknowable at the time. One could simply observe that in the world and it would not be a great stretch to take someone to the side of the dead sea and let them watch the boats disappear and show them that the world was round. But also Greek and Palestine cultures were very much mixed at the time. Go no further than the city of Corinth in the book of Corinthians. The city was a composed of Jews, Greeks, and Romans. I conceded the point that the Shepard and fishermen and religious men that followed Jesus were probably so uneducated that they truly lived in a flat world. But many people knew the earth was round, and how big it was.
Christ is right again - I mean Chris T is right - you're nearly always right Chris except when you agree with Wright...
Brilliant, Antonio.
Fact is, Jesus was wrong. He predicted (or is said to have predicted) the end would come in his lifetime or the lifetime of his listeners. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The explanation that he was referring to the end times thousands of years later doesn't wash. What a cruel trick to play on the crowds who came to hear him and acted on his words.
People should face simple, obvious truths. Humans didn't spring up fully formed from the dirt. Moses didn't part any waters. Mary had sex with a man before conceiving Jesus. There is no such thing as fully god and fully human. The writers of the Bible were no more inspired than Oscar Wilde.
It would be a shame to miss out on what they were talking about though - don't you think?
Thank you all again for your stimulating comments.
Antonio: ‘if Adam and Eve didn´t exist the whole edifice collapses’.
By squashing together truth with what “actually happened”, you read a modern category into an ancient Jewish one that would entirely balk at your comment. Have a read Hans Frei. As someone once commented on my blog before, in relation to Frei: "The question as to whether anything happens is based on a category error. People didn't care if things really happened until the seventeenth century"
Glad to see you join the Biblical Studies list!
KD: ‘but I can't help but observe that drawing historical information about Creation or Evolution from a hypothetical conversation about divorce (Mt 19.4) sounds for all the world like the wrong question has been asked.’
Perhaps you are right, but perhaps wrong questions need to be asked in order to correct wrong readings?
Elbogz: I think it is historically accurate in Israel in the first century (cf. Edward’s response below)
Edward: Enjoyable comments as ever. Actually, Küng deals with this question a little in The Beginning of all Things. I think we must say that, yes, there are mythical elements to Jesus’ eschatological language – but that does not mean it isn’t true. For those of us who believe God speaks through these words, the pictures are telling us something vital and true.
Mark: If I understand you rightly, then I respond: I am in good company – almost all of church history has dealt with the text in the same way! And the questions I am putting to the text are bad only to the extent, in my view, that leads us away from the mission of God.
Anon: Your comment on Candy is half right, I think. Of course those of us who are Christian here want to be engaged in evangelism, worship, service etc., but thatdoes not exclude thinking, loving God with our limited minds. To turn off the brain would be to dehumanise.
Steph: Thanks! (Apart from the Wright bit, for which you get an evil look from Germany)
Antonio: ‘No question that Jesus appears to have been wrong about a lot of things’. Perhaps the title of my post was misleading. I think Jesus says truth, even when at one level it may not be factually true. Truth has always been a stranger and more versatile beast than that to which we moderns think we have domesticated it.
Chris wrote:
"By squashing together truth with what “actually happened”, you read a modern category into an ancient Jewish one that would entirely balk at your comment. Have a read Hans Frei. As someone once commented on my blog before, in relation to Frei: "The question as to whether anything happens is based on a category error. People didn't care if things really happened until the seventeenth century"
Chris,
with all due respect but I really think you have to come up with something better. Frei may well be right that a lot of people in antiquity didn´t care if things really happened (just like a lot of folks don´t today), but to claim that NO folks in antiquity cared about if a thing had really happened or not is pure nonsense. Which is exactly why one of Jesus earliest followers, Paul is so insistent in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 that Jesus had REALLY risen from the dead. I am quite sure that Paul would have known the game was up if somebody would have been able to show him the rotting body of Jesus. Paul knew that christianity is null and void if that hasn´t actually happened, just as he would have also have found it null and void if Adam and Eve, the Devil, angels and a lot of other essential ingredients in the soup that makes up christianity were just figments of the imagination. That many modern christians don´t want to realize that the game has been up for a very long time is quite natural. But please spare me simple sophistries like the one that all ancients were dimwits who couldn´t or weren´t interested at all in differentiating beetween fact and fiction.
Yes, and I can agree with you that Jesus can say moral truths without the stories he tells being actually true. That´s what some of the parables are all about. But in what sense do you see "truth" in things like when scenes like when Jesus pronounces woes over the galiléan cities in Matt 11:20?
And in what sense is Jesus talking "truth" when he wants to make us believe that illnesses come from demons and that faith alone can move mountains?
And in what sense is Jesus talking "truth" when he says that his followers can touch dangerous snakes and drink deadly poisin without risk?
And I am still interested in your view on "inpiration" in the bible. In what sense do you see things like the holy war parts in Deuteronomy as divinely inspired?
I also wish we could find time some day for some further discussion of yours on your favourite exegete (am I wrong?) exegete NT Wright. I am glad that Snoddgrass has finally made you wonder if Wright´s silly ideas (equating the return of Son of Man with the fall of Jerusalem) might not be a bit off the track after all. I had a long discussion with Ricki Watts on Xtalk some years ago on the subject and I think I managed to show quite convincingly that Wright is talking a lot of mumbojumbo. Hopefully you will see the light one day and not put Wrigh´s book "Jesus and the Victory of God" at the top of your favourite exegetical books. As for my self I have put it at the rock bottom of my list ;)
Chris said: As someone once commented on my blog before, in relation to Frei: "The question as to whether anything happens is based on a category error. People didn't care if things really happened until the seventeenth century"
Sorry Chris, but I think that whoever said that on your blog is misrepresenting Frei. I've done a fair bit of reading and I've never come across the statement that pre-critical age was not concerned in "happendness." In fact, he says that whenever the Bible spoke realistically then it was assumed that this was the way the world actually was. The distinction to pst-17th century is that the possibility that the world can be understood apart from the text became a reality, that one first had scientific access to the world and then interpreted the Bible in light of this independent reality. That's my take anyway. I've been posting on this recently, as it so happenes (here and here)
Hi Antonio,
‘but to claim that NO folks in antiquity cared about if a thing had really happened or not is pure nonsense’
Yes, OK. The citation was a supposedly amusing exaggeration of Frei in its original context, but you were not to know that. But the point remains, which was addressing the claim that Gen 1-3 has to be historical to be meaningful or true. THAT is nonsense!
As for Wright, I am not sure his reading of eschatology is finished by Adams and, to combat assertion with assertion, he is a far better Jesus scholar than any on the planet ;-p
Phil, thanks mate. See above.
Chris,
the problem is that I have never argued that parts of Genesis can not be "true" in some sense. What I was arguing was that folks like Jesus and Paul took them quite literally. From that follows my assertion that since they based their worldview and teachings on something that is obviously false on a literal level christianity falls. It doesn´t help that YOU may take genesis in the correct manner, i e as theological fairytale.
To give you another example. Take islam and the quran. Muhammed and his earliest followers believed that the quran was the ipsima verba of God himself. If things in the quran can be proven to be wrong on a factual level (which is pretty easy) islam as a religion falls to pieces. It doesn´t help that your counterpart "Chris the muslim" on the other side of the religious fence personally doesn´t take the quran as the ipsima verba of god.
And I think it is quite telling that you don´t want to go a bit deeper into what exactly you mean by "thruth". I smell the kind of sophistries that are all to common in apologetics.
And apropo Wright. Have you read Adam´s book? If so may you be a bit more specific about what you find wrong in his critique of Wright?
You are in your full wright ;) to think that NT Wright is the greatest Jesus scholar on this planet. But that certainly doesn´t make me believe that you have a particularly good grasp about what doing REAL history is all about. A "scholar" who don´t even want to rule out as historical the story about the christian zoombies roaming around Jerusalem after the resurrection of the lord Jesus (GMatthew) only makes a laughingstock of himself. At least if he dared enter a hall filled with real, modern historians. As I have said before - the standards among christian exegetes are often abysmally low.
Antonio,
You wrote: ‘The problem is that I have never argued that parts of Genesis can not be "true" in some sense. What I was arguing was that folks like Jesus and Paul took them quite literally.’
But as your slightly confused response goes on to state, that was not the only point you were making, and I was responding to the further point you made, and others you made earlier, e.g.:
‘Why not face up to reality: if Genisis is all fairytale Christianity is simply a delusion like most religions appear to be on a closer look’ and ‘I still contend that christianity depends on the historicity of Genesis’
Well, and to repeat, I disagree because the truth of Christianity is not dependent on whether Gen 1-3 things actually happened. And that Paul and Jesus probably believed these things literally is something of an ‘of course’! That was part of the point of this post! So your argument as here stated simply confirms one of the propositions of my post.
‘It doesn´t help that YOU may take genesis in the correct manner, i e as theological fairytale’
I actually affirmed that it was theological truth, not theological fairytale.
‘It doesn’t help that your counterpart "Chris the muslim" on the other side of the religious fence personally doesn´t take the quran as the ipsima verba of god’.
It seems you work with a simplistic understanding of Christian epistemology, the interplay of tradition and the implied reader etc. Perhaps you really should head to Frei (and Bockmuehl’s recent Seeing the Word, while you are at it – you may really find it interesting)
‘And I think it is quite telling that you don´t want to go a bit deeper into what exactly you mean by "thruth". I smell the kind of sophistries that are all to common in apologetics.’
No I cannot define truth in a sentence, and don’t regret stating that it is a complex beast.
And I smell something in your responses .... (to once again counter mere assertion with assertion), a kind of religious confidence in your own truth, much like some of the American apologists.
‘And apropo Wright. Have you read Adam´s book?’
I was offered a review copy by T&T Clark but didn’t pursue it as I didn’t have the time. I skimmed it and thought it will be an important contribution to the debate. Having communicated with a couple of (published) Jesus scholars about the book, it seems it may not be the end for Wright that some think it is (usually only those with fundamentalist mind sets think things are utterly destroyed without further conversation). And why did I not want to share my thoughts in more depth here? I simply couldn’t be bothered.
‘You are in your full wright ;) to think that NT Wright is the greatest Jesus scholar on this planet. But that certainly doesn´t make me believe that you have a particularly good grasp about what doing REAL history is all about ... the standards among christian exegetes are often abysmally low’
And you were concerned how my responses smelt?
Actually, in terms of Paul, the non-Christian scholarship I have encountered is often embarrassingly poor. I wonder if you know what you are talking about here? As for REAL modern historians, I think these issues are complex and fascinating (I’m thinking of Crossley’s response to Bauckham at the 2007 SBL) –but your black / white attitude to it all makes my nose twitch again...
Chris,
thanks for your quick answer to my latest post. I will skip a further discussion on the question of "thruth" in genesis. I think we will simply have to disagree on that matter.
But I will not let go of Wright.
I think it honours you to acknowledge that you haven´t really READ Adam´s book. But this makes me wonder how you can dismiss his arguments in such a light manner. I might remind you that the one who has in reality not put forward any evidence to back up his claim that NO JEW AT THE TIME OF JESUS would have taken the language in places like Mark 13:24-27 as anything but metaphorical is Tom Wright. As so often he just makes a cathegorical statement without anything to back it up. If you think that this is the way to make good history or exegesis then it is up to you.
And I believe it is disingenous in the extreme to suggest that I might be of a "fundamentalist mindset" and not prepared to discuss things further. I think I made it crystalclear in my earlier message that I am prepared to discuss Tom Wright IN DETAIL to the end of earth with either you or anybody else. But before we get into a proper discussion I suggest that you REALLY read Adam´s book. As for myself I have READ both Adam´s book and all of Tom Wright´s books on the historical Jesus and it is AFTER reading and digesting Wright´s books that I have concluded that the man is a charlatan who is definitely not in the same league as Dom Crossan (whom at least knows how to do proper history from time to time) or John P Meier. Blessed John P Meier is in contrast to Tom Wright not afraid to tackle the problems head on and he doesn´t try to hide problematic subjects under the carpet or to simply avoid asking any intelligent questions at all. Wright can hide as much as he wants behind philosophical mumbojumbo from the Collingwoods of this world (just as you seem to have a penchant for pulling Frei up your sleeve in all imaginable manners) but he is definitely not working like a historian (isn´t it strange that you left out my comment on Tom Wright and the zoombies in Matthew?).
As to the question about Paul I think I know as much (if not more?) on the subject as you. I am well versed on the litterature, and yes I may well agree that many secular scholars don´t know what they are talking about when they get into Paul, but the same can be said for many christian scholars. And yes we might well be in agreement that Tom Wright is one of the better scholars on the subject of Paul, but the same cannot be said for his treatment of the gospels and the historical Jesus. When it comes to the gospels and the historical Jesus it seems like the devil has flown into Tom Wright and with this flown out all critical thinking. It´s as simple as that.
As for Crossley I believe he was much to kind to Bauckham. I would certainly not have worn the silk gloves the way Crossley did ;)
Antonio,
Thanks for your comments.
While much in your previous response really needs to be challenged, and I am sorely tempted to, the dynamic of this discussion thus far persuades me it would be better to ‘close this thread’, which I hereby do.
Perhaps we can discuss some of these themes later if it is appropriate to the topic of the post.
Rather amusingly, Wright takes Mark 13 pretty metaphorically and Revelation 21 quite progammatically with its talk of new heavens and a new earth, (but not a new sea....)
Hebrews 1 is an example of a metaphor :-
In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
The heavens and earth will be rolled up and discarded, in the way that clothes are changed.
The old clothes that have perished are thrown away, and replaced with new clothes.
The old clothes are rolled up and thrown away.
Assuming Wright has changed clothes in his life, he must have some idea what the metaphor of clothes perishing, being rolled-up and thrown away means.
If that is not 'the end of the world', then what is?
Steven Carr wrote:
"Rather amusingly, Wright takes Mark 13 pretty metaphorically and Revelation 21 quite progammatically with its talk of new heavens and a new earth, (but not a new sea....)"
Good point Steven. The problem with Wright is that he takes things as metaphorical or literal whenever it suits him (no metaphorical resurrection for Wright, of course!). There are absolutely no checks and balances along the way and evidence is seldom presented for his sweeping claims. Which is why it is so refreshing to see a person like Edward Adams at work - a scholar who doesn´t present "arguments" in a way that are often an insult to the intelligence of his readers. Adams presents his thesis and then on page after page show us the available evidence from antiquity in a way that really lends credence to his claims.
I already mentioned Wright´s talk about the zoombies in GMatthew as the kind of things that i see as an insult to the intelligence his readers. A "historian" that can only come up with an answer that "strange things happen" has certainly ruled himself out from what I and an overwhelming majority of historians would deem to be a scholarly type of discourse. That these types of "arguments" can be applauded among the believers and in the theological seminars are if anything an indication of the dismally low standards that are often accepted in exegetical circles. Fortunately scholars like Fitzmyer or John P Meier would never sink that low.
I think first century readers took Eden to be a geographical place on Earth quite literally, what with the talk of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Just as they took the story of Jesus ascending into the sky quite literally.
Wright , of course, cannot entertain the possibility that first-century Christians thought Heaven was somehow, somewhere above the sky and that special people could travel there....
According to the traditional Chalcedonian christology, Jesus was "like us in all respects, apart from sin." It is no sin to have false conceptions about evolution or cosmology. Indeed, if we hold to the traditional creed, we are almost forced to conclude that Jesus shared the cosmological and scientific mistakes of his age.
As for the eschatology, the NT itself plainly says Jesus had no idea about the time of the end.
Hi Anon,
That is one reason why I mentioned the sin issue in the post, and why I avoided eschatology. Though note Küng who treats eschatology in the same way as creation myths - as myths but TRUE myths. Fascinating stuff.
Antonio,
Thanks for that link!
Anon wrote:
"As for the eschatology, the NT itself plainly says Jesus had no idea about the time of the end."
You must be thinking about Mark 13:32. Actually that verse only says that Jesus was ignorant about the exact DATE and HOUR of the eschaton. Throughout chapter 13 he has made it clear though that the eschaton will happen within the timeframe of a generation or so. If the historical Jesus had been as foggy about the arrival of the Kingdom as Anon wants to imply it is hard to see why the expectation about SOON, SOON, SOON pops up all the time through the NT.
I actually think Mark 13 is a saying made up by the early church on behalf of Jesus (expressions like "son" are usually indications of that). Mark or whomever made up that saying wanted to safeguard his bets. A good strategy which contrasts with William Millers in 1844 of betting on an exact date. But betting on the wrong date time after time has never been an impediment to christian groups like the Witnesses of Jehovah continuing to thrive and grow. The history of christianity has almost from day one been an excercise in damage controll. Embarrasment about the failures of expectations about the end time pops up at places all over the gospels. Parables like Matthew 24:45, 25:1 (made up by "Matthew" himself) or Luke 19:21, 18:1 (both lukan creations creation. But for me Acts 1:6- 7 takes the prize for eschatological damage control in the gospels. You can almost feel the exasperiation Luke must have had with many of his converts to christianity who time after time must have asked questions about when the Kingdom was FINALLY to come. Shut up! is basically Luke´s answer.
Anon wrote:
"Indeed, if we hold to the traditional creed, we are almost forced to conclude that Jesus shared the cosmological and scientific mistakes of his age."
That´s a nice way of putting the thing to rest. Maybe we could excuse the Lord of the Universe while walking here on earth for teaching us that sickness is linked to sin, that epileptics are posessed by demons or that his Father is fed up with the way he has put his own creation in motion and has to redesign everything from scratch. But I think it will be harder for us to excuse the Lord of the Universe for still having problems in separating fact from fiction when after his resurrection he has reached the seventh heaven and joined hands with the other couple in the Holy Trinity. I´m reminded of the Lord of the Universe´s meeting with some of his hardheaded disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:25. I quote what the Lord of the Universe has to say:
"O fools, with hearts so slow to believe everything the prophets have spoken! Did not Christ have to suffer all this and enter into his glory?
Then beginning at Moses and through all the prophets he explained to them all the scriptures that referred to him"
Sometimes I have this farcical dream where one of the deans among christian exegetes, Joseph Fitzmyer, finally reaches the seventh heaven to meet his Lord only to have to pluck his book "The one who is to come" out of his pocket and put his Lord on the schoolbench to convince him that those verses in the books of Moses, Isaiah and Daniel are not really about his resurrected Lord after all ;)
Hi Anon,
"Indeed, if we hold to the traditional creed, we are almost forced to conclude that Jesus shared the cosmological and scientific mistakes of his age. "
Thanks for your comment. I was pondering your statement while in Tübingen today, and you may have found a rather powerful way of formulating the matter. I suppose we could argue that to believe Jesus probably (wrongly) believed Gen 1-3 literally, as well as flat earth, is part of what it means to embrace an Orthodox view of the incarnation. I need to think on this.
I refer you also to Shane Clifton's comments on the creation 'out of nothing' post. Unless you are Shane ...
Antonio,
It's not as simple as that. Even if we bracket out Wright etc., we have two time references concerning the time of the kingdom. (A) Mark 9:1 which seems to be apocalyptic. Note, however, the comment in the 'Five Gospels' by the Jesus Seminar. JSem gives 9:1 a gray vote but does not totally exclude the possibility that the saying is basically non-apocalyptic. Sounds questionable but gives food for thought. (B) Mark 13:10; the end will come when the gospel is announced to all peoples. How big is the earth? How many peoples are there? Even the 1st century folks knew about India (at least). The saying and the idea behind it are not necessarily inauthentic. If we accept the idea that Jesus believed in the restoration of Israel (Allison et al.), it makes good sense for him to expect all Israelites hear the good news before the end comes. One does not have to be an evangelical to take this approach seriously.
It may also be worthwhile to consider the Lord's Prayer. Does it imply that the time of the kingdom at least partly depends on prayer and human repentance? "Let your kingdom come..." This would sound pretty Jewish, imho.
Chris,
No, I am not Shane.
I am inclined to think that a shock at the news the cosmological mistakes of Jesus is a shock of a monophysite. Luedemann et al. give us a good lesson in christology.
Gleb Iastrebov
Chris and others,
just wanted to alert you to the fact that the discussion on some of the topics we have had here has branched of to Loren Rosson´s blog "the busybody". Take a look at:
http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/
under the heading: A collapsing christianity - Antonio Jerez vs Chris Tilling
'THE STORY OF EDEN' AS METAPHOR? WHEN WAS OUR COSMOS EVEN CLOSE TO BEING 'EDEN-LIKE?' EVEN METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING?
Chris, I'm not a young-earth creationist but there are plenty of articles over at ANSWERS IN GENESIS that address your (and N.T. Wright's) perspective that Genesis should be taken metaphorically by Christians today, and that Genesis has metaphorical value. That group has even produced a book that explains why interpreting the creation story in Genesis as metaphorical rocks the whole Christian edifice since it makes Christianity begin with a metaphorical event yet end with a physical (non-metaphorical) crucifixion for the very real sin of a very real first man, Adam. The book is titled, REFUTING COMPROMISE.
I even read an amusing letter to that effect in a recent issue of CHRISTIAN CENTURY magazine. The letter writer, 'Terry W. Ward' stated in CHRISTIAN CENTURY, April 22, 2008:
It is a difficult task fitting evolutionary ideas into the Christian framework, beginning with Paul's exposition in Romans 5:12 that 'Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned'--not to mention Augustine's more complete formulation into church doctrine of the idea of original sin--which both collapse in the light of evolution.
And what about Paul's thoughts on the direct connection of sin with one man and redemption with another in Romans 5:18, which becomes ludicrous in the light of evolution: 'Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.'
Was the trespass that Paul mentions above perpetrated by some particularly evil Australopithecus or an especially cunning Homo habilis?
Without original sin and a Fall, what becomes of Christ?
The common modern explanation that Genesis 1-3 is to be interpreted metaphorically. If that is so, why does God require a bloody, horrific, non-metaphorical sacrifice of his Son?
This is the difficult task of reconciling evolutionary thought and Christianity. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin tried to finesse the conflict by arguing about an omega point toward which all creation was straining. But, after witnessing the depradations of the 20th century his ideas of progress seem tragically misplaced. One also has to wonder what it means to live in a 'fallen' world where no such fall has occurred [and where death--including six mass extinctions in the geological past--have never been a 'curse' but simply 'a fact of life' since long before any species vaguely resembling an 'Adam' has ever evolved].
So without an historical creation and an historical Adam and Eve and an historical fall, the problem of natural evil becomes one of even more stark contrast.
The answer to suffering parishoners that we 'live in a fallen world' makes less sense if every living thing was cursed with death--and over 90% of every ancient species was cursed with extinction--long before human beings even showed up in this less than Edenic cosmos.
[I edited some of Terry's letter--Edward T. Babinski]
Hi Chris, can't quite remember how I ended up on your blog recently. Anyway I have some thoughts about your post and blogger doesn't have trackback so will leave my link here.
My thoughts on "What did Jesus know" in 2 parts here and here
Hi Gleb Iastrebov,
Thanks so much for your comments.
Antonio, I saw the post on Loren's blog, yes. I LOVE his blog, one of my favourites, so it was nice to see my name mentioned!
Bethyada, thanks, I'll try to make time to read them soon. Many thanks for response.
Hi Edward, - to be brief, again (sorry)
"Without original sin and a Fall, what becomes of Christ?"
I wouldn't deny the sad truth of sin, and neither did the early christians who loved 1 Enoch, which explained the spread of sin in the world rather differently to Paul.
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