I make this observation while humbly keeping the great Socrates quote in mind: "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." I understand.
Yep ... but you have to balance that with Socrates would not say he knows nothing – literally! Or he was being coy. Plato reckoned he knew a great deal, and modern philosophy still references him as an authority. I rather see it as 'keeping an open mind' meaning there's always more to be learned.
IMHO however - If I can't see it, it is NOT there! If it can be seen yet no word exists for it, it still is NOT there! Okay I will grant you we can waste a lot of time on that one.
Oh, we sure could! I continue to make 'discoveries' ... and it's not so much about what's not there, but discerning what is.
The argument, for example, that Christ never proclaimed His divinity is now void. There's too much contemporary scholarship against that assertion to make it stick. It's clear as day in His words and deeds if you take
sitz im leben, His words in context of the Jewish beliefs. Whether He was, or was just someone who believed Himself to be somehow 'empowered' by the God of Israel, is of course an open point.
I like C.S. Lewis' comment that He was either, 'mad, bad, or God' as a reasonable rule. I suppose you could soften that with 'mad, bad, mistaken, or God', but if 'mistaken', that's covered by 'mad' or 'bad' in terms of His self-understanding.
Anyone of average intelligence should read and study their bible and determine what it says to them.
Indeed. But whether what it says to them is actually what it says ... there's the rub!
They can decide what relevance metaphor and analogy play. If they are serious the book will speak to them on some level. What the book says to someone else does not matter.
Well I wouldn't discount knowledge on the basis that it comes from someone else's insight. There is the story of the woman who washes Christ's feet with ointment. In Mark, there were 'some' who saw it as a waste, in Matthew, it's His own disciples who complain. In Luke, it's his host, a Pharisee. There are three different responses, and in Mark and Matthew this seems to have decided Judas on his course of action. In Luke, the story is in a different setting, and he goes on to excoriate the host for his bad manners. The man had no respect for Christ, and had probably invited Him to show Him up as a fool. I make this point because I had my eyes opened to the Lucan account by a scholar.
Matthew follows Mark. Luke goes his own way. Which version is right? That's not the point. In all three cases, the circumstance is just the vehicle for the lesson. They all have their value. All three are using an occasion to make a point.
Some will go on to argue that, based on the differences, the thing never actually happened ... that's going too far, I think.
Contradictions and errors are to be expected in a book based on oral history that was finally written by multiple authors and multiple scribes over multiple years.
Absolutely. The same with any
sacra doctrina. As for translations or versions of the text, while it's true the Bible rests largely on a couple of codexes (codices?), some of the Fathers made so many references it's possible to reconstruct the book from them!
I've read the book many times. Understood it but...
Same here.
As for Jesus - Strong morals/ethics story!
You said it.
One of my favourite 'Divine Names' is
El Shaddai that was used in Abraham's time. We can't be sure what that means, but scholarship tends to the 'God of the Mountain' interpretation, a local deity. I would suggest that Noah's and Abraham's notion of God was quite different from Moses, but they were heading in that direction. I don't think the Bible is monotheist from the get-go, but from later revision. I believe the early Jews were working towards that idea, had it in inchoate form, and the final form – pure monotheism – grew out of that.
