Hi Bob —
I don't see it so: the subject was "Why is it specifically John's version of Jesus which is suspect?" and my answer is "Because it is self-serving for the institutional church."
But we have no evidence beyond supposition, have we?
The disappearance of social justice from the forefront of Christ's concern is a major distinction between John and the synoptics...
D'you think so? I don't. Luke is regarded as the gospel of solidarity, but all the gospels contain that message. You can't say it's absent from John. You can say other issues are more important. John was addressing a nascent schism in the community at Ephesus and we do know he was addressing certain aspects of the Christian teaching that stood at risk of being distorted by an Hellenic dualism.
... and one of my major reasons for thinking John a "worse" text, not just less likely to be faithful to the original Jesus.
I disagree. The Johannine Corpus presses social justice, in perhaps a very Christian way — love one another.
The "certainty" that Breech and Meier are aiming at is an "objective" one: that is, if we have a room containing conservative Christians, liberal Christians, skeptical agnostics, and militant atheists, but all willing to set aside emotions and presuppositions to focus on the question of what a rational person ought to agree on from the evidence, what could they agree was "authentic Jesus"?
Don't buy it. Concensus by committee — saints preserve us! That kind of consensus of the lowest common denominator, the critical minimum, would require that anything questionable be removed. You'd be left with nothing.
Although they might all agree, the Jesus they leave the room with will be pretty much the same as the one they walked in with.
Looking around at Meier, he seems to observe a distinction between the Jesus of history — that is the Jesus available for historical investigation — and the Jesus of Faith. He's not saying the former eradicates the latter, or undermines it ... he's saying, there is a critical minimum that can reasonably be agreed to, but that is not the foundation of faith, and nor is faith in any way absurd for not resting solely on the critical minimum.
-- but there are arguments to be made that such things could have been copied from other mythologies and folklores.
Yes there are, but they're not compelling, and they can be answered.
Nor is there evidence that they are copies. I would have thought to compose the New Testament, to invent the character of Jesus, from various mythological sources, is pushing the bounds of credibility ... it would be a magnum opus of scholarly synthesis, wouldn't it?
And it would require that even the few sources we can reply on — Paul, Luke, to be part of a huge deception.
Bultmann pressed the myth argument, and was soundly refuted:
A is a myth
B reads like A
Therefore B is a myth.
— when examined, that third statement is not a given, it's an assumption.
Now, sorting out what is the original material ... sifting out the genuine from the concocted on the basis of what does or doesn't make any sense in terms of one's experience in the world is really the only possible approach.
In which case, the whole premise of Scripture would have to be refuted, wouldn't it, as it records something other than everyday experience?
And who can say if a miracle happened? Or the transfiguration? Or the resurrection? You can't ... you can only say I don't believe they happened.
I don't agree that one's own experience is the benchmark, that's too subjective. Or put another way, what about approaching with an open mind? It seems to me that closed minds are the primary limits on our understanding anything.
Now I fully accept that there are those who insist every word of scripture was dictated by God to a scribe, and that is nonsense, but by the same token, I also regard the notion that it's all 'made up' is equally a nonsense, and furthermore that by taking away the 'supernatural' from the 'natural' will leave us with an authentic image of the historical Jesus is equally a nonsense.
The honest answer is: I have never seen a miracle, but I cannot rule them out.
I also take in the works of philosophers like Ricoeur and Lonergan on the nature of sacred texts ... if one assumes a sacred text is like any other text, then I suggest one has already missed the mark.
Because you have gone into deep scholarly examination of the basis for thinking they have some claim to authority?
I think eye-witness, or a proximity to events, is a more reliable claim to authority than the assumptions of someone 2,000 years removed.
In the field of Patristics, it's said, 'think the way the Fathers thought' — something of a challenge, as we don't know, we only assume, nor can we pretend to see the world as a 5th century monk or philosopher ... So likewise with modern scholarship, it assumes it knows better — Troy is a myth, Luke made up names and titles to suit himself ... until it's proved wrong.
... but the big picture is that rational people in the world are gradually settling on a view of how it was, a view that is not going to look anything like "Every word in the NT is true" nor "It was all made up out of nothing".
We settled to that view ages ago ... it's there in the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church in 1965.
I like his approach, of saying that we should start with what we are certain is original,
But we're not, are we?
which is similar to Meier's multi-volume A Marginal Jew series... but is discussing what should, to a rational unbeliever, still look supported by the evidence).
OK. But that's not the Christ of Faith, is it? That's the Jesus of history. Meier makes it quite clear the two are different, and the 'historical Jesus' is just one aspect of the Jesus of Faith. It doesn't prove or disprove anything.
Breech and Meier have similar criteria for deciding what is "certain" (scare-quotes are obviously necessary around a word like "certain"!) to be original:
But Meier even defends the Gospel of John!
we ask questions like "Is there another possible source?" and "Is there a motivation to make it up?"
But in your rebuttal of John, you seem to assume this of the church, that the church set out to create a self-serving doctrine ... but I see no evidence for it. And as i underdtand it, negative criticism is no criticism at all.
... but if you want to discuss with someone who doesn't share your presuppositions, the possibility of an alternate origin makes this a bad place to start) ...
OK. But are they willing to accept that their presuppositions might alse be flawed?
And why do you think parroting something that has been passed down from days of woeful ignorance is preferable to thinking anew?
That's no reason at all.
Because truth is timeless? Because the same truths are thought anew, but that does not alter them as truths, just explains them more.
Do we dispose of Native American wisdom because they didn't use the wheel? Do we toss away the Upanishads, or the Sutras, because they're ... old?
Catholics find themselves in a curious position. If we accept Scripture as is, without question, we're accued of blind faith, etc., if we contemplate and draw out of the text hitherto veiled secrets, then we're accused of inventing doctrines.
Um... well... all the texts do agree that Jesus was one of those kinds of beings with, you know, two legs and two arms and a head with a mouth in it, and so on.
That's the human nature, not the divine nature.
so talking about "God" as if similar to a human in some way is something that needs justification; "Jesus" is in the category of "human", so talking about him as if he is something else besides is likewise something that needs justification.
In the first instance, i believe God stands beyond all forms, human or otherwise, God is, in that sense, unimaginable, except in philosophical or metaphysical terms ... but God, it would seem, chooses to make Himself known, as does so in the most intimate manner, by revealing Himself as a person to persons, in so doing encompasses all that the person is, and more.
As regards Jesus, we Catholics obsrve the distinction of the two natures ... that one 'stands under' the other (Gk: hypostasis), and that is how we explain it.
Interestingly, when I discussed the hypostatic union elsewhere, the inevitable question was, where does the word 'hypostasis' occur in Scripture, and if not, Aha! You're making it up. I replied the term is used 21 times in the Septuagint, but never in the manner of theology ... but does not 'the words became flesh' say 'hypostasis'?
I think so.
God bless
Thomas
so why wouldnt you think it is also a spirit energy?
