Thx
In What Way Was the Bible Corrupted?
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EdgyDolmen
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Depends on who you ask.
Was that recent striped dress that caused such a viral phenomenon black and white or gold and... Folks see what is in front of them much differently.
Corruption of the book and the mechanisms responsible for that corruption are without a doubt striped... Just not sure what color! ED
Was that recent striped dress that caused such a viral phenomenon black and white or gold and... Folks see what is in front of them much differently.
Corruption of the book and the mechanisms responsible for that corruption are without a doubt striped... Just not sure what color! ED
Not really – rather that the Philosophy of Relativism opens onto the slippery slope of 'where one draws the line'. This is the common practice of the liberal interpreter, and I think the only honest proponent of that philosophy of B. D. Erhman, who started off as a born-again Christian and ended up an atheist agnostic. He's written five NYT best-sellers along the way, so maybe he's crying all the way to the bank, as the saying goes.
None that I can lay hand to. There's a letter reputed to be from St Jerome about the 'Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew' which cites the argument quite well. Clement of Alexandria made the same comment on another infancy narrative, that the document was recent and without a reputable line of transmission. That sort of thing.
BigJoeNobody
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wouldn't you place this in a category of undocumented source, aka unreliable, rather than false? What evidence is there that it is false? I'm not sure if there is a way to prove these stories false unless the original writer came forward and admitted to writing them falsely... and even with that there would be a small chance the person is lying about having written it, or it is a lie. There is a logical explanation in why it may not have been included, namely the fact that it in no way adds to Jesus' (PBUH) claim to be a Prophet, as he had many other miracles documented in the Biblical texts that telling all would be redundant.
A Cup Of Tea
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Is there a practical difference in this circumstance? Either it is deemed reliable and is thus included, or it is not.
BigJoeNobody
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if it is unreliable, do not include it, but does that make it false?
The Fathers didn’t split hairs. If there was a question, it was out. I don't know of any document that's apocryphal that scholars believe should be canonical.
In the case of pseudo-Matthew, the argument is quite strong. Jerome makes the point, but leaves it up to others to decide. In the case of the other infancy narratives, the same rule applies.
No scholarship todays says they are genuine. Rather that the offer an insight into the times.
I think there is.
Ahanu
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A negative view here. In your previous reply you characterized your opponents' view as a mere zeitgeist. No doubt you see their view as something that will fade with time in the face of Catholic tradition. Your opponents view this change in christology as a paradigm shift, especially in our world filled with other world religions, or, to use Roger Haight's wording, "a new configuration" in christology is taking place before our eyes. I think your opponents make a distinction between revelation and tradition, believing Catholic tradition inadvertently or advertently interpreted the contents of Christ's revelation in a different way, whereas it seems you view tradition and revelation as saying one and the same thing. "Where one draws the line" is revelation, I think. That's the problem. Is the Catholic trinity revelation? Misinterpretation? Invention? I don't see the causal links in your slippery slope argument here. You know, that that leads to this, this, this, and this. I don't know whether or not Haight's ideas promote relativism.
By the way, your view is somewhat similar to Ghazali and his criticism of Ismaili thought.
Well, I'm in no position to judge this man's character. I have no clue what he does with the money he makes from his best-sellers. Last time I looked he was blogging for charity.
Roger Haight, though, seems to be held in high regards. Even by those that disagree with him.
Okay.
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Ahanu
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Not much I could find from an Ismaili perspective on this - only a summary of a talk given by Shin Nomoto from ismailignosis.com about Abu Hatim al-Razi's interpretation of buraq:
"Shin explained Abu Hatim al-Razi’s exegesis of the Qur’anic verses about Mi’raj and how this da’i interpreted the spiritual ascent of the Prophet Muhammad in light of Neoplatonic cosmology. In Razi’s interpretation, the mi’raj consists of the Prophet ascending to the Universal Intellect and Universal Soul by means of the Archangel Jadd (identified with Buraq). The peak of the mi’raj is when the Prophet Muhammad attained nearness to the Universal Intellect. In specific, the reference to the 'two bows or nearer' in 53:9 means that the Prophet experienced the Word of God of by means of the Two Roots (Universal Intellect and Universal Soul). The mi’raj of the Prophet also includes his spiritual initiation of Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib. Al-Razi also understands the Qur’anic terms 'the lotus of the limit' and the 'garden of the abode' as references to the rank (hadd) of Natiq-ship and the rank of the Qa’im al-Qiyamah, respectively."
I've read a few other views online. Buraq could refer to love. It could refer to nafs (translated as psyche, self, ego, or soul). Perhaps we can combine both. Rumi said:
"This is Love: to fly heavenward,
To rend, every instant, a hundred veils."
To rend, every instant, a hundred veils."
So metaphor, or representation of something other than a Pegasus... (Angel)... The sifi tradition sees more metaphor and metaphysics on the Quran yes? Mainline islamic more literal?
Ahanu
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Archangels have different meanings in Ismaili thought. Archangel Gabriel, for example, refers to the spiritual Adam. Henry Corbin wrote:
"All these variants merely define and amplify the original features of one and the same Figure: Angel, Holy Spirit, Gabriel, Christos, Sophia. In Ismailian Gnosis, to be sure, this Figure has its homologue in the tenth Angel of the pleroma, who is the celestial Adam, but here something more enters in: this tenth rank is not originally his. He must regain his original rank with the help of all mankind which issues from him, and he must draw all this mankind of his upward in his ascent. Here we have a dramaturgy of precosmic origin, made explicit by the phases of Adamology. It is this Adamology that one must have in mind in order to conceive the Cycle of Divine Epiphanies, which is also the Cycle of the soul's metamorphoses."
The archangel Jadd is Seraphiel. From what I understand this archangel occupies a higher rank than Gabriel (who was originally in the third rank). Also, things become more complicated when we consider the material world and the intermediary world in Ismaili thought since both reflect the spiritual world, which is where we find the archangels. In other words, these archangels correspond to realities in our world. I'll discuss all of this later, because I want to do more research before posting further thoughts.
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Well not 'mere', but yes. This is the point made by those who disagree with his thesis. He's interpreting ancients texts from a modern viewpoint, which is one thing, but to claim that the ancients actually meant the current contemporary reading is something else altogether, and this is what is largely refuted.
Quite. That's the point. And the reason why he thinks that applies to every Tradition.
Well it's not really new. In fact it's as old as the hills. I rather thank that's an Americanism ... or a modernism, which tends to be not quite au fait with the past.
Again, the same rule can be applied to every Tradition ...
Yes. Is there revelation, or is there not.
Is Moses the Lawgiver? Mohammed the Prophet, the Buddha enlightened?
Look at Haight as a Catholic arguing within catholicism. He's saying the Tradition misunderstood the message. One could easily argue the same case, as a Muslim within Islam, a Buddhist within Buddhism, etc. Not because of the content of Revelation, but can we trust in Revelation at all?
Well he's a Jesuit, so you gotta give him some credit. He's caught up in politics, which is unfortunate.
My disparaging remarks about him crying to the bank was unfair, but my critique of theological best-sellers stands. I think that's a given in the industry.
Quite. Is it the right paradigm, that's the question.
The trouble being that so often a theologian has offered 'a new configuration'! This one, like most, is not actually 'new', it's an old configuration popping up again.
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Devils' Advocate
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Is that not a technicality? If the situation is changing does it matter if it has been this way before or not? I do not know the answer, hence my question.
Ahanu
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Great!
In my opinion, the answer is yes to all three questions. Reevaluating tradition doesn't mean revelation is false. Try to answer the questions below according to religious tradition:
Buddhism
- Did the Buddha teach his followers it was okay to eat meat or did he teach them to be vegetarians?
- Is the self real or an illusion?
- What's the nature of the founder of Buddhism?
- Was Muhammad ascension to heaven in body or spirit?
- Did Muhammad appoint Ali as his successor?
- Did Muhammad accept the crucifixion of Christ?
The question should be this: "Can we trust tradition?" We'll just have to agree to disagree.
Nor is it one hundred percent untrustworthy ... there's the rub.
And maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.
Man seeks certainty – but if you had a 100%, absolutely bullet-proof proof of God, then you'd have no choice but to believe, and there, as humanity, would we be then? Our greatest freedom is the ability to not-believe, and our greatest dignity is the ability to do so ... if there were proof of God, there'd be no such thing as 'freedom'.
Ahanu
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It's not solely based on "my dogma says so." I'll try to give some reasonable examples in the other thread you started that's related to this topic.
thanx