Please have patience with me as I try to have with myself. I’m thinking out loud here, trying to develop into words something I’ve seen. I’m trying to articulate something very delicate but I think important. I must admit to you that I am not a philosopher or theologian, but a boy in a man’s body, an artist with spiritual leanings, a sinner on a religious path, a simple shepherd with a tiny flock, a dullard with a blog.
I’ve searched for a construct that is fundamental in furnishing a global perception of reality. The z-theory, so far, has provided me that. All theories are provisional until they are proven wrong or inadequate. I will admit, coming from a Christological perspective, that it has been a most arduous intellectual journey for me, mainly because of the confining influence of the theological exclusivity of Christ that I’ve embraced for decades. However, along with that admission, I must admit as well that I’ve also embraced the possibility that the centrality and exclusivity of Christ did not necessarily mean the exclusion of others. Somehow, I’ve suspected that if Jesus is central and exclusive, he is also universal and inclusive. Even though I can say with a clear conscience that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, I no longer believe that this is necessarily confined to my obviously limited definition of what this means. If Jesus is the All-in-all things, reconciling all things to the Above-All, then there is no possible way my finite mind can comprehend what this means. Indeed, if my understanding of Jesus limits and confines him to a certain demographic, then it would seem to indicate that my understanding is implicitly erroneous because it is limited and limiting.
So, is it possible to investigate to such a fundamental level, a deep and wise plane, to discover that there is no disagreement? If quantum physics can suggest that there is a subtle unity between all things, can this not also be true spiritually or religiously?
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
faithlessinfatima –
I found it: Luke’s version is in Acts 15 (and thereabouts). Paul’s version is in Galatians 2. The two accounts contradict one another.
fishon –
We have verifiable documents of George Washington’s existence. But we don’t have verifiable proof of the stories handed down about him. We don’t have verifiable proof that Shakespeare wrote a single play or verifiable proof of the date of his birth. But we have verifiable proof that he was baptised. We have authenticated records of Pilate’s existence but no verifiable proof that he ever encountered Jesus. There are no birth records for Jesus and there are no records of his death. We have accounts and stories – not verifiable evidence.
I’m lost….Maybe it’s because I’m in a different time zone.
vasilia,
If you want to ignore most of the historians and believe a few conspiracy distractors, fine with me. But I will take at face value what these guys say:
Scholarly opinions on the Jesus Myth
by Christopher Price
I have often been asked why more academics do not take the time to respond to the Jesus Myth theory. After looking into this question, I discovered that most historians and New Testament scholars relevant to the topic have concluded that Jesus Mythers are beyond reason and therefore decide that they have better things to do with their time. Here are some examples.
Michael Grant
In his book Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels, Atheist historian Michael Grant completely rejected the idea that Jesus never existed.
This sceptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth…. But above all, if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.
Will Durant
Secular scholar Will Durant, who left the Catholic Church and embraced humanism, also dismisses the idea in Caesar and Christ (the third volume of his Story of Civilisation).
Rudolf Bultmann
Even the famously liberal Professor Bultmann, who argued against the historicity of much of the gospels, questions the reasonableness of Jesus Mythers themselves in Jesus and the Word.
Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the Palestinian community.
Robert Van Voorst
It is also obvious that the diverse and all but completely unanimous opinion of modern Jesus scholars and relevant historians remain completely unconvinced by the Jesus Myth arguments. Robert Van Voosrt writes in Jesus Outside the New Testament: The theory of Jesus’ nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question.
Graham Stanton
Professor Stanton occupies the chair in New Testament Studies at Cambridge University and led the attack on Carston Theide’s re-dating of the Jesus Papyrus. He considers the Jesus Myth crowd even more extreme as he writes in The Gospels and Jesus.
Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which as to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.
****You will notice, several of those historians are no friend of Jesus, but honest compels them to agree with the facts of history. You can believe your short-list of myther historians—I will believe the long list. As far as I am concerned:::::Debate over.
fishon
Fishon – you are prejudging what it is I believe.
My only point is that fact as “truth” is not the ultimate consideration even though both atheists and fundamentalists claim it is – albeit in different ways.
Again – need to qualify – some atheists and some fundamentalists assert that fact is “truth” – certainly not all do so.
Vasilia…I am familiar with the Jerusalem controversy, I thot you were referring to something more obscure between the theologies of Paul and John that I wasn’t aware of….glad to see that you can read these documents as ‘Human Artifacts’ and not , ‘Divine Artifice’. I think we miss a great deal when we disregard the ‘historicity’ inherentin the writings.
I believe Jesus existed because I don’t see why the early church would have come about if he didn’t. I believe he came to give us a new understanding of our Creator.
I wd agree Tiggy…as Fishon pointed out,there aren’t many notable scholars that take the ‘Jesus as myth’ seriously,but I think he may have misunderstood Vasilia’s position . She appears to be making the point that we don’t have third party ‘disinterested’ documents mentioning Jesus, outside of Josephus and,as you know, many scholars have problems with that passage. The better question is,with respect to what we do have, what did he actually say and do?
Or , in a similiar sense and as I like to put it…Is he Myth become Fact(C. S. Lewis ) or Fact become Myth?
It’s funny, I rarely have a problem understanding and believing things that C.S. Lewis said. He seems to have been a far better communicator of the gospel than people in churches or most contemporary Christian writers. He was my biggest Christian influence.
Huston Smith’s Why Religion Matters was absolutely life changing for me. I was brought up with a conservative Christianity which I started challenging in my teens as many of us do. I got involved in Process Theology at Claremont in my 30s which led me into Progressive Christianity and in depth historical explorations of early Christianity and the Bible which was extremely interesting. I still love studying Biblical History! But something kept nagging at me about the debate between conservative Christians and progressive Christians. It seemed like the flip side of the same coin (as does literalist Christianity and radical atheism).
Then I saw a debate between Huston Smith and Marcus Borg and read Borg’s Heart of Christianity and Smith’s Soul of Christianity, which was a rebuttal of Borg’s book, and it finally made sense to me!
I saw the debate years ago but it was on Fora.TV – I’ll see if I can find it.
Clearly, a remarkable individual existed at some point during that time period who caused a stir and deeply inspired others. But the question is – does arguing about what factually occurred really matter in terms of Christian faith? I don’t think it does.
It’s a great point! Did the myth create the man or did the man create the myth – or was it both? We post-moderns tend to lack the imagination of the traditional periods. We view journalistic fact as truth and downplay myth and stories. But stories and myth have the potential to hold far more truth than simple journalistic fact.
(Sorry this was so long.)
Here it is – conversation between Marcus Borg and Huston Smith – it’s long. 1 hour 35 minutes.
http://fora.tv/2006/11/10/Marcus_Borg_and_Huston_Smith
There HAS been an over-emphasis on fact in Christianity in the last couple of centuries. I think how one approaches belief though will always be a case of our personalities and the way in which we take in and process information. This isn’t a matter of whether something is factually true or not, but of what is important to us and therefore what communicates to us.
I’m a high Intuitive and low Sensor so facts aren’t a big issue with me when it comes to spiritual matters, but I have to acknowledge that for others facts are the core, for some reasoning and logic are and for others values are what their faith is about. I think we can also learn the importance of these different aspects from each other.
For me the statement that ‘God became incarnate’ isn’t at all the same kind of statement as ‘there is a pub on the corner of my road’. The first statement penetrates my soul much deeper as it’s symbolism overrides any historicity. For others this is different and I can’t say that their minds are any less valid than my own.
Tiggy,
I totally agree – it is different for everyone and we all process things differently.
I have had a whole lot of Christian baggage I’ve had to let go. One way of undoing that baggage is through trying to take a Biblical historical approach and attempt to fully understand it within it’s historical and social context. I definitely had to do that because that’s the way I process things. I tend to be very analytical and logical.
Smith doesn’t have a problem with this – he had strong praise of Borg and Crossan’s Last Week, for instance. What he has a problem with is Borg insisting that it is essential.
The exploration of Christian history was very important for me. But I agree with Smith. The only reason I had such a strong need to go back through the history is because I failed to catch the meaning in the first place, not because knowing the history is necessary for understanding.
The realizing a connection with the divine is beyond simply piecing the facts of a history puzzle together. But putting those pieces together may be a very necessary step for undoing what has us blocked from the connection. It definitely was for me!
Other people have different blocks that may not be historically based, so will have different things to undo.
Does that make sense?
Yes. One of the blocks for me is language, so I’m finding my own.
Sorry couldn’t listen to the debate as I have no sound on my computer at the moment. I hate audio files anyway – I find it much easier to take things in when they’re written down and I like to copy and highlight bits the same as I like to underline things in pencil when I’m reading a non-fiction book.
No worries, Tiggy. I watched it after I posted it and Huston Smith is quite old in the video. Still brilliant, but much slower than he used to be and very hard of hearing.
I imagine it would be difficult to follow his thought process if you hadn’t already encountered him elsewhere.