Why do people try to change Christianity?

[Ahanu]

Glorified body

But if you do, you run into all manner of difficulties, as is apparent.

If you don't like 'supernatural', how about 'events according to circumstances we as yet do not understand' ... but you won't explain them within the realms of science as it currently stands.

I run into difficulties when literalizing the scriptures.

Future heavenly residents can look forward to having glorified bodies . . . just like Jesus. The scriptures model body 2.0 in the resurrection narratives; Thomas Aquinas informs us on the details:

"we cannot call it resurrection unless the soul return to the same body, since resurrection is a second rising, and the same thing rises that falls: wherefore resurrection regards the body which after death falls rather than the soul which after death lives. And consequently if it be not the same body which the soul resumes, it will not be a resurrection, but rather the assuming of a new body."

SUMMA THEOLOGICA: The conditions of those who rise again, and first of their identity (Supplementum, Q. 79)

It's the same body Jesus had after rising from the tomb, but "of a different condition," to use Thomas' words. The risen body is no longer subject to corruption. The corruption (or process of death) I'm talking about is described in detail within the link below (if you have a subscription):

Dust to Dust: The Brief, Eventful Afterlife of a Human Corpse: Scientific American

Anyway, no more of that: it's not subject to death.

The glorified body can appear and disappear, for Thomas said:

Well it's evident from the text that something's happening. Jesus appears, and disappears, yet His body is as physically present to His witnesses...

The glorified body doesn't need food, but you can still eat and digest food (Luke 24). By the way, I prefer to read the eating of fish and honeycomb in this chapter as an expression of Proverbs 16:24 in action, because in the same chapter the "sad" disciples (an allusion to Ezekiel 37:12) need hope, but Catholics insist it has a literal meaning in order to express the properties of the glorified body.

The glorified body won't have any deformity or defect. Thomas Aquinas wrote:

"Man will rise again without any defect of human nature, because as God founded human nature without a defect, even so will He restore it without defect. Now human nature has a twofold defect. First, because it has not yet attained to its ultimate perfection. Secondly, because it has already gone back from its ultimate perfection. The first defect is found in children, the second in the aged: and consequently in each of these human nature will be brought by the resurrection to the state of its ultimate perfection which is in the youthful age, at which the movement of growth terminates, and from which the movement of decrease begins."

I have listed four characteristics of the glorified body so far:

(1) it is immortal, and so it doesn't age
(2) it isn't bound by space and time
(3) it doesn't need food
(4) it isn't handicapped

I'll just have to conclude with the words of Bishop Shelby Spong on this literal reading of the bible and the events discussed above:

"He [Jesus] had nothing to do with breaking natural laws, doing supernatural miracles, whether healing the sick and infirm or raising the dead. Miracles represented the only way first-century Jewish people could stretch human language sufficiently to allow them to communicate what they believed they had encountered in Jesus" (Spong 95).

Source:

Spong, Shelby. Jesus for the Non-Religious. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

I think the issue here is what to take literally and what not to take literally. There's the story in the Talmud of Titus mocking God on the sea. Afterwards, a gnat flies in his nose, then heads straight towards his brain. This gives flashbacks of Leviticus 11:20 and Deutoronomy 14:19, for something so unclean and powerless defeated the mighty Titus. Historical fact? I think this story allows the writer to " communicate what he believed he had encountered" in Titus as one might say.

Besides just relying on what the Church Fathers said, how do we know what to take literally and what not to take literally? Here's a strange example:

"Mark includes a narrative about Jesus laying a curse on a fig tree because it did not produce figs when he was hungry (Mark 11: 12-26). The narrative says that this curse caused the tree to shrivel and die. Something other than a miracle is surely going on here and I will look at what that 'something' is in more detail in a later chapter . . . Suffice it now to say that for Jesus to curse an undproductive fig tree, when as Mark says so clearly that 'it was not the season for figs' (Mark 11:13), is literally bizarre. If one takes this story as history, however, it does seem to fall into the category of a nature miracle, but it also makes no rational sense. Even today, biblical commentators regularly omit it from their lists of miracle stories. It does not creat energy even among fundamentalists, despite the fact that it portrays Jesus as having power over nature" (Spong 73).

Source:

Spong, Shelby. Jesus for the Non-Religious. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

Is this too intended to be literalized? This what makes reading the New Testament and discussing the bible so hard (to me).



Tradition

A few posts back, Thomas, you said:

Nope, He vivified it.

And yes it can err, and at times it has, but on the necessities, I don't believe it has. They are still in place, the same today as yesterday.

Well, I thought Jesus overthrew tradition. For example, Bishop Shelby Spong explains:

"Another mark of almost every religious system is that it seems to have definitions of what constitutes ritual purity and what it is that makes some people clean and others unclean. There are many references in the Torah to a prohibition against touching a woman during the priod of her menstrual flow (see Lev. 12: 1-8 and 15: 19-30). In many ancient religious systems, and the religion of the Jews was no exception, a woman was defined as unclean during her menstrual cycles. She was seen as possessing negative power, making it necessary for her to be ostracized as a potential danger to tribal well-being during that time. For those few days each month she was covered with a sense of culturally imposed shame. Religion does that to people on many levels.

Against this background we read the story in Mark's gospel of a woman whose menstrual flow was constant, not periodic. This would mean in the value system of that culture, that she was perpetually unclean . . . Mark adds to the drama by depicting Jesus as turning to inquire, "Who touched me?" . . . The laws of the Torah said that this touch made Jesus unclean and the purity laws required that he engaged in cleansing acts within a prescribed number of days. As this woman knelt before Jesus, knowing that she had contaminated him, her fear was that once more religious rules and purity laws would be used to reject her" (Spong 270-71).

Source:

Spong, Shelby. Jesus for the Non-Religious. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

This is why I said Jesus overthrew established tradition. How did Jesus vivify this law as explicity taught and kept by the religious opponents of Jesus, for example?

 

[Thomas]

People try to change Christianity mainly when they discover a particular teaching is obviously false.
1. Bible says Earth is flat and supported by four giant pillars.

Does it? Where?

... the Flat Earthers became laughing stock.

Actually, old chum, from the above, it seems evident to me your knowledge of the Bible derives from fantasy and imagination rather than any factual investigation of the text.

I'd review your sources ... they really are laughable.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

I run into difficulties when literalizing the scriptures.

Many people do. The assumption that Scripture is self-explanatory is false. Even the text itself says the Scriptures need to be explained.

In fact I would say that all the world's sacra doctrina should and can only be read in the light of traditional commentary. The assumption that one can read a sacred text, and everything will reveal itself to the reader, simply because he or she can read, is something of an easily-disposable assumption.

It's the same body Jesus had after rising from the tomb, but "of a different condition," to use Thomas' words...

But the link is meaningless in context, because the incorruptible body suggests a different order of being altogether.

It is in fact through the body that we are present in a world of bodies. However, this presence, of which we believe ourselves to be the masters since it is somehow identified with us, is in reality a passive and involuntary presence. It was Merleau-Ponty who showed, in The Phenomenology of Perception, that to see an object is 'to be able to make a tour of it'. And how is it possible to make a tour of it if not because the object imparts itself indefinitely and inexhaustibly to the surveying gaze, because it can do nothing but offer itself to our gaze, it can do nothing but be seen. To be seen, and to be corporeally present, is all one. My corporeal presence is my visibility, but my visibility is not my own; it belongs to every gaze, unbeknownst to me and without being able to do anything about it — an ignorance and impotence constituting the every essence of my visibility. Thus, no one is master of his corporeal presence, and, even more, to be corporeally present is not to be master of this presence.

What happens then, to the contrary, in the Resurrection of Christ? What happens is that the resurrected Body is as if a witness, a living proof, a saving irruption of the glorious nature of the created within the bosom of its dark and opaque modality: Christ's body is still the instrument of presence in the world of bodies, but, by a total change, it is no longer of the essence of this presence to be passive and involuntary. The soul which inhabits this instrument is entirely master of it and makes use of it at will. Christ can actualize the corporeal mode of His presence according to His own decision and as He judges good. The relationship that He entertains with the corporeal medium of His presence has been completely transformed. A presence active throughout the entire world because a presence really in act, all relationships which unite this corporeal medium with the rest of the bodies, that is to say with the entire world and with the conditions that define it, all these relationships have been changed. Christ is no longer seen, He causes Himself to be seen. This is exactly what the Gospels teach, and which so many modern exegetes are incapable of understanding. Christ glorious is not 'above' the world of the senses, except in a symbolic sense. Simply put, He is no longer subject to the conditions of this corporeal world. His bodily presentification becomes, then, a simple prolongation of its spiritual reality, entirely dependent upon this reality (whereas in the state of fallen nature, it is the person's spiritual reality which extrinsically dependent upon its bodily presence), a presentification which the spiritual person may or may not effectuate, as freely as human thought can, in its ordinary state, produce or not produce such or such a concept or sentiment. Whoever stops to consider this doctrine of the reversal in the relationship of the person to his corporeal medium and the consequences that this entails, will take into account the remarkable light that it casts on the significance of Christ's post-pascal appearances according to the Gospels. (Jean Borella Gnosis and anti-Christian Gnosis — emphasis mine)

I'll just have to conclude with the words of Bishop Shelby Spong on this literal reading of the bible and the events discussed above:
"He [Jesus] had nothing to do with breaking natural laws, doing supernatural miracles, whether healing the sick and infirm or raising the dead. Miracles represented the only way first-century Jewish people could stretch human language sufficiently to allow them to communicate what they believed they had encountered in Jesus"

Or, they could be a straight-forward communication of what happened — a miracle.

"Mark includes a narrative about Jesus laying a curse on a fig tree because it did not produce figs when he was hungry (Mark 11: 12-26). The narrative says that this curse caused the tree to shrivel and die. Something other than a miracle is surely going on here and I will look at what that 'something' is in more detail in a later chapter . . . Suffice it now to say that for Jesus to curse an undproductive fig tree, when as Mark says so clearly that 'it was not the season for figs' (Mark 11:13), is literally bizarre. If one takes this story as history, however, it does seem to fall into the category of a nature miracle, but it also makes no rational sense. Even today, biblical commentators regularly omit it from their lists of miracle stories. It does not create energy even among fundamentalists, despite the fact that it portrays Jesus as having power over nature" (Spong 73).

Curious ... on my course we discussed this text at length. I say curious, because although I don't know Spong, I have some respects for him because he is respected, yet he does seem remarkably dense in the citations you offer.

I would refer you to philosophers such as Paul Ricoeur, and the last thing they would assume of a sacred text is that it is 'bizarre' ...

And to base a critique of Christianity on one source is dangerous ... if he is proved wrong, or his argument invalidated (which it has been) your whole thesis collapses.

Well, I thought Jesus overthrew tradition. For example, Bishop Shelby Spong explains:

Well that's a reasonable technical explanation, but I would have thought anyone would get to that under their own steam ... it doesn't display a great insight or understanding of Scripture, and most of all it displays a profound lack of sensibility to 'The Four Senses of Scripture'. I would say from the texts you cite that Spong displays a blindspot when it comes to symbolism.

But more importantly, Jesus does not overthrow tradition. He never says that, the Gospels say quite the opposite, and I don't know how anyone could get to that conclusion — if Spong says that, then toss the book in the bin, cos he's plain flat wrong. Jesus illuminates the spiritual dimension of the tradition, "the spirit and the letter", which is a constant theme of St Paul.

. . . Mark adds to the drama by depicting Jesus as turning to inquire, "Who touched me?" . . . The laws of the Torah said that this touch made Jesus unclean and the purity laws required that he engaged in cleansing acts within a prescribed number of days. As this woman knelt before Jesus, knowing that she had contaminated him, her fear was that once more religious rules and purity laws would be used to reject her"

But He didn't, did He? And it's not about the overthrow of tradition, so I am suggesting that Spong has led you up a blind alley.

Thomas

 

[Amergin]

Does it? Where?

I'd review your sources ... they really are laughable.

God bless,

Thomas

"He (God) can command the sun not to rise." (Job 9:7) He did not command the earth to stop (moving/spinning). That God would direct such a command at the sun rather than the earth, implies an unmistakably geocentric perspective. Likewise, Martin Luther pointed out that "Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth," since the earth was presumed to be at rest at all times. (Josh. 10:12)

The Bible depicts the earth as firm, immovable, the "foundation" of creation:
1. "Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth." (Heb. 1:10)
2. The sun, moon, and stars were created after the firm "foundation of the earth" was laid. (Gen. 1:9-18)
3. "He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter, forever and ever." (Ps. 104:5)
4. "The world is firmly established, it will not be moved." (Ps. 93:1 & 1 Chron. 16:30)
5. "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he set the world on them." (I Sam. 2:8)
6. "It is I who have firmly set its pillars." (Ps. 75:3)
7. "Who stretched out the heavens...and established the world." (Jer. 10:12)
1 Chronicles 16:30: " Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
Psalm 93:1 "The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is established, that it cannot be moved.
Psalm 96:10: Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously...."
Psalm 104:5: " Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever."
Ecclesiastes 1, 5:"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose."
Psalm 19:4-6 Their line [the heavens] is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."
Joshua 10:12-13: "Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." (notice he did not stop the rotation of the Earth.)

The biblical authors simply had the geological knowledge of typical Upper Stone Age and early Bronze Age pre-civilised nomads. Only the Ancient Greeks from 500 BCE to 100 BCE actually discovered evidence suggesting the real geology. The Roman Empire's Alexandria Museum and its Professor Hypatia had knowledge of the spherical Earth, Heliocentric Solar System, and observed powerful evidence of animal-human evolution in the 4th Century.

After the triumph of Christianity, superstition replaced the Greek science, reason, scepticism, and common sense. After the Murder of Hypatia by Saint Cyril's monks and the sacking of the Great Library of Alexandria, the newly Christian Theocratic Empire of Theodosius II in about 400 CE officially began the infamous Dark Ages of persecution, opposition to science. Those Dark Ages (Age of Faith) was more than a millennium of intellectual oppression and promotion of ignorance.

This is why I fear America, already under attack by Christian Theocrats, may fall to the Bible based Dominionists, Theonomists, and Christian Reconstructionists. Do you want to turn back our calendars to the year 400 CE?

Please admit that the Old Testament is literally untrue and mythological. It must be valued for its view of harsh barbaric behaviour of the Upper Stone Age and beginning of the Bronze Age. Its history of wars and kings is interesting if biased.

Amergin

 

[Amergin]

Re: Can you name one original Christian teaching?

Sixteen other earlier slain saviours

Kersey Graves, one of the greatest Biblical Scholars and Religious Scholars, published in 1875, a classical work of Mythical Religious scholarship called THE WORLD'S SIXTEEN CRUCIFIED SAVIORS. There are several major points to his debunking of Christianity.

1. There were many cases of miraculous birth of Gods BEFORE Christ.

2. Many earlier cases of Gods being born of human virgin mothers.

3. Many earlier gods (later including Christ) were born on the 25th of December.

4. Many earlier god-men were supposedly foretold by "inspired prophets."

5. Guiding Stars were featured in the birth of many of the earlier god-men.

6. Many of the earlier saviours were associated with angels, shepherds, and Magi (wise men).

7. Many saviours beside Christ were claimed to be of Royal or Princely descent.

8. Earlier myths had infants all threatened by the ruler of the country. (Herod)

9. Some earlier saviours showed signs of divinity early (as did Jesus).

10. All earlier saviours retired from the world and fasted.

11. Almost all earlier saviours declared, "my kingdom is not of this world."

12. Earlier saviours preached a "spiritual religion" like later Jesus.

13. Many earlier saviours were crucified for the "sins of the world."

14. Many earlier saviours were anointed with oil, like Jesus.

15. All earlier saviours were killed, then entombed for three days, then "rose from the dead."

16. Most of the earlier saviours like Jesus who followed, ascended into heaven.

17. Similar earthquakes, storms, darkness, occurred in after the man-god's death.

18. Most earlier saviours were called "saviours," "sons of God," "Messiahs," "Redeemers," "Lords," or "Lamb of God."

19. Each earlier god-man was the second member of a Trinity of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

20. Each of the 15 earlier Sin-atonement religions included the doctrines of "Original Sin," "Fall of Man," "The Atonement," "THE WORD," "The Trinity," "forgiveness," "an Angry God," and "Future Endless Punishment."

What is amazing about what eventually became Christianity in the 4th Century, is not just it's similarity to its Pagan precursors. What is odd the failure to invent a single original myth in the whole story. It is all recycled myths.

When I ask for an ORIGINAL Christian Idea, I don't mean different names for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from Ahura Mazda, Mithra, and Spenta Maingu.

Allowing for Greco-Roman names and Pre-Christian themes, what is original in Christianity?

Amergin

 

[Amergin]

Re: Jesus was not in Gospels? Revelations is totally at odds.

Is God Always Superior to Jesus?

JESUS never claimed to be God. Everything he said about himself indicates that he did not consider himself equal to God in any way—not in power, not in knowledge, not in age.

In every period of his existence, whether in heaven or on earth, his speech and conduct reflect subordination to God. God is always the superior, Jesus the lesser one who was created by God.

Jesus Distinguished From God

TIME and again, Jesus showed that he was a creature separate from God and that he, Jesus, had a God above him, a God whom he worshiped, a God whom he called “Father.” In prayer to God, that is, the Father, Jesus said, “You, the only true God.” (John 17:3) At John 20:17 he said to Mary Magdalene: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (RS, Catholic edition) In 2 Corinthians 1:3 the apostle Paul confirms this relationship: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Since Jesus had a God, his Father, he could not at the same time be that God.

The apostle Paul had no reservations about speaking of Jesus and God as distinctly separate: “For us there is one God, the Father, . . . and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 8:6, JB) The apostle shows the distinction when he mentions “the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels.” (1 Timothy 5:21, RS Common Bible) Just as Paul speaks of Jesus and the angels as being distinct from one another in heaven, so too are Jesus and God.

Jesus’ words at John 8:17, 18 are also significant. He states: “In your own Law it is written, ‘The witness of two men is true.’ I am one that bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.” Here Jesus shows that he and the Father, that is, Almighty God, must be two distinct entities, for how else could there truly be two witnesses?

Jesus further showed that he was separate by denying being good? “No one is good but God alone.” (Mark 10:18, JB) So Jesus was distinguishing from God by saying: “Why do you call one is as good as God is, not even Jesus himself”. God is good in a way that separates him from Jesus.

God’s Submissive Servant

TIME and again, Jesus made statements such as: “The Son cannot do anything at his own pleasure, he can only do what he sees his Father doing.” (John 5:19, The Holy Bible, by Monsignor R. A. Knox) “I have come down from heaven to do, not my will, but the will of him that sent me.” (John 6:38) “What I teach is not mine, but belongs to him that sent me.” (John 7:16) Is not the sender superior to the one sent?

This relationship is evident in Jesus’ illustration of the vineyard. He likened God, his Father, to the owner of the vineyard, who travelled abroad and left it in the charge of cultivators, who represented the Jewish clergy. When the owner later sent a slave to get some of the fruit of the vineyard, the cultivators beat the slave and sent him away empty-handed. Then the owner sent a second slave, and later a third, both of whom got the same treatment. Finally, the owner said: “I will send my son [Jesus] the beloved. Likely they will respect this one.” But the corrupt cultivators said: “‘This is the heir; let us kill him, that the inheritance may become ours.’ With that they threw him outside the vineyard and killed him.” (Luke 20:9-16) Thus Jesus illustrated his own position as one being sent by God to do God’s will, just as a father sends a submissive son.

The followers of Jesus always viewed him as a submissive servant of God, not as God’s equal. They prayed to God about “thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, . . . and signs and wonders are performed through the name of thy holy servant Jesus.”—Acts 4:23, 27, 30, RS, Catholic edition.

God Superior at All Times

AT THE very outset of Jesus’ ministry, when he came up out of the baptismal water, God’s voice from heaven said: “This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.” (Matthew 3:16, 17) Was God saying that he was his own son, that he approved himself, that he sent himself? No, God the Creator was saying that he, as the superior, was approving a lesser one, his Son Jesus, for the work ahead.

Jesus indicated his Father’s superiority when he said: “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor.” (Luke 4:18) Anointing is the giving of authority or a commission by a superior to someone who does not already have authority. Here God is plainly the superior, for he anointed Jesus, giving him authority that he did not previously have.

Jesus made his Father’s superiority clear when the mother of two disciples asked that her sons sit one at the right and one at the left of Jesus when he came into his Kingdom. Jesus answered: “As for seats at my right hand and my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted by my Father,” that is, God. (Matthew 20:23, JB) Had Jesus been Almighty God, those positions would have been his to give. But Jesus could not give them, for they were God’s to give, and Jesus was not God.

Jesus’ own prayers are a powerful example of his inferior position. When Jesus was about to die, he showed who his superior was by praying: “Father, if you wish, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, let, not my will, but yours take place.” (Luke 22:42) To whom was he praying? To a part of himself? No, he was praying to someone entirely separate, his Father, God, whose will was superior and could be different from his own, the only One able to “remove this cup.”

Then, as he neared death, Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15:34, JB) To whom was Jesus crying out? To himself or to part of himself? Surely, that cry, “My God,” was not from someone who considered himself to be God. And if Jesus were God, then by whom was he deserted? Himself? That would not make sense. Jesus also said: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) If Jesus were God, for what reason should he entrust his spirit to the Father?

After Jesus died, he was in the tomb for parts of three days. If he were God, then Habakkuk 1:12 is wrong when it says: “O my God, my Holy One, you do not die.” But the Bible says that Jesus did die and was unconscious in the tomb. And who resurrected Jesus from the dead? If he was truly dead, he could not have resurrected himself. On the other hand, if he was not really dead, his pretended death would not have paid the ransom price for Adam’s sin. But he did pay that price in full by his genuine death. So it was “God [who] resurrected [Jesus] by loosing the pangs of death.” (Acts 2:24) The superior, God Almighty, raised the lesser, his servant Jesus, from the dead.

Does Jesus’ ability to perform miracles, such as resurrecting people, indicate that he was God? Well, the apostles and the prophets Elijah and Elisha had that power too, but that did not make them more than men. God gave the power to perform miracles to the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles to show that He was backing them. But it did not make any of them part of a plural Godhead.

Jesus Had Limited Knowledge

WHEN Jesus gave his prophecy about the end of this system of things, he stated: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32, RS, Catholic edition) Had Jesus been the equal Son part of a Godhead, he would have known what the Father knows. But Jesus did not know, for he was not equal to God.

Similarly, we read at Hebrews 5:8 that Jesus “learned obedience from the things he suffered.” Can we imagine that God had to learn anything? No, but Jesus did, for he did not know everything that God knew. And he had to learn something that God never needs to learn—obedience. God never has to obey anyone.

The difference between what God knows and what Christ knows also existed when Jesus was resurrected to heaven to be with God. Note the first words of the last book of the Bible: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him.” (Revelation 1:1, RS, Catholic edition) If Jesus himself were part of a Godhead, would he have to be given a revelation by another part of the Godhead—God? Surely he would have known all about it, for God knew. But Jesus did not know, for he was not God.

Jesus did not know that Leprosy was caused by a bacterium. He did not recommend sanitary measures to prevent its spread. He thought sin caused disease. He thought demons caused epilepsy and mental illness. He was not aware that the commonest cause of blindness in the subtropics was Trachoma Virus. Rubbing spit into ones eyes did not cure it. He did not recommend dietary measures to avoid at least some of the complications of mild-moderate Diabetes.. Lastly, Satan took Jesus to a high mountain to view all of the nations of the Earth. He and/or Jesus thought the Earth was flat. One cannot see nations on the opposite side of a spherical earth. Jesus and Satan could not see Japan, Hawaii, the Maori Kingdom of New Zealand, Champa, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Mexican, or the Andean Empires. If he supposedly created everything would not he know that the Earth was a sphere?

Jesus Continues Subordinate

IN HIS prehuman existence, and also when he was on earth, Jesus was subordinate to God. After his resurrection, he continues to be in a subordinate, secondary position.

Speaking of the resurrection of Jesus, Peter and those with him told the Jewish Sanhedrin: “God exalted this one [Jesus] . . . to his right hand.” (Acts 5:31) Paul said: “God exalted him to a superior position.” (Philippians 2:9) If Jesus had been God, how could Jesus have been exalted, that is, raised to a higher position than he had previously enjoyed? He would already have been an exalted part of the Trinity. If, before his exaltation, Jesus had been equal to God, exalting him any further would have made him superior to God.

Paul also said that Christ entered “heaven itself, so that he could appear in the actual presence of God on our behalf.” (Hebrews 9:24, JB) If you appear in someone else’s presence, how can you be that person? You cannot. You must be different and separate.

Similarly, just before being stoned to death, the martyr Stephen “gazed into heaven and caught sight of God’s glory and of Jesus standing at God’s right hand.” (Acts 7:55) Clearly, he saw two separate individuals—but no holy spirit, no Trinity Godhead.

In the account at Revelation 4:8 to 5:7, God is shown seated on his heavenly throne, but Jesus is not. He has to approach God to take a scroll from God’s right hand. This shows that in heaven Jesus is not God but is separate from him.

In agreement with the foregoing, the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England, states: “In his post-resurrection heavenly life, Jesus is portrayed as retaining a personal individuality every bit as distinct and separate from the person of God as was his in his life on earth as the terrestrial Jesus. Alongside God and compared with God, he appears, indeed, as yet another heavenly being in God’s heavenly court, just as the angels were—though as God’s Son, he stands in a different category, and ranks far above them.”—Compare Philippians 2:11.

The Bulletin also says: “What, however, is said of his life and functions as the celestial Christ neither means nor implies that in divine status he stands on a par with God himself and is fully God. On the contrary, in the New Testament picture of his heavenly person and ministry we behold a figure both separate from and subordinate to God.”

In the everlasting future in heaven, Jesus will continue to be a separate, subordinate servant of God. The Bible expresses it this way: “After that will come the end, when he [Jesus in heaven] will hand over the kingdom to God the Father . . . Then the Son himself will be subjected to the One who has subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.”—1 Corinthians 15:24, 28, NJB.

Jesus Never Claimed to Be God

THE Bible’s position is clear. Not only is Almighty God, Jehovah, a personality separate from Jesus but He is at all times his superior. Jesus is always presented as separate and lesser, a humble servant of God. That is why the Bible plainly says that “the head of the Christ is God” in the same way that “the head of every man is the Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:3) And this is why Jesus himself said: “The Father is greater than I.”—John 14:28, RS, Catholic edition.

The fact is that Jesus is not God and never claimed to be. This is being recognized by an increasing number of scholars. As the Rylands Bulletin states: “The fact has to be faced that New Testament research over, say, the last thirty or forty years has been leading an increasing number of reputable New Testament scholars to the conclusion that Jesus . . . certainly never believed himself to be God.”

The Bulletin also says of first-century Christians: “When, therefore, they assigned [Jesus] such honorific titles as Christ, Son of man, Son of God and Lord, these were ways of saying not that he was God, but that he did God’s work.”

Thus, even some religious scholars admit that the idea of Jesus’ being God opposes the entire testimony of the Bible. There, God is always the superior, and Jesus is the subordinate servant.

‘New Testament research has been leading an increasing number of scholars to the conclusion that Jesus certainly never believed himself to be God.’—Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

Jesus told the Jews: “I have come down from heaven to do, not my will, but the will of him that sent me.”—John 6:38

When Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” he surely did not believe that he himself was God

Amergin

 

[Ahanu]

Chalcedon and soul:body :: divinity: humanity

Never read Catholic or Orthodox theology, obviously, as this was the very subject of the Council of Chalcedon 451AD, and developments in theology since, especially Norris W Clarke and Transcendental Thomism.

The Chalcedonian Definition "placed special emphasis on the way in which the relation between God and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ was acknowledged (inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably)" (Shults 31). All participants in the Council of Chalcedon during this period assumed that the soul and body could be called substances (32). They shared the same question: "how can these substances be related in one and the same person?" (32)

Alexandrians "tended toward an Aristotelian understanding of human persons, with a strong emphasis on the unity of the soul and the body. For Aristotle, the matter and the form of an individual person were inseparably connected; in this hylo-morphic view, the soul is the 'form' of the material 'body'" (32).

Antiochenes, however, tended towards the Platonic view of the body and soul as "more strongly distinguished. Plato had described souls as immortal rational substances that were trapped in material bodies; having descended from the intelligible realm they could also escape their entrapment and return. Antiochene thelogians did not accept all aspects of this anthropology, but they did tend to view body and soul as separate substances that could be brought into relation and then separated again" (32).

These philosophical forces shaped their understanding of the divine nature and human nature of Jesus (32).

Briefly, the Alexandrians emphasized unity of the substances, whereas the Antiochenes emphasized the distinction of the substances (32).

Fusing the substances together leads us to the Eutychian heresy (33).

Just "linking the substances together by their co-operation" leads us to the Nestorian heresy (33).

Christian orthodoxy states one person, two natures.

"Alexandrian Limit: emphasizing the indwelling Logos uniting the natures in one person" (33).

"Antiochene Limit: emphasizing two distinct natures joined in an hypostatic union" (33).

Shults later goes on to ask: "Why not critically engage the relational and dynamic thought forms of contemporary anthropological discourse as we seek to articulate belief in the Word becomes flesh?" (34)

"It is easy to understand why the turn to relationality and attention to difference is worrisome to many conservative theologians. Much of the tradition has labored under the constraints of the categories of substance and sameness in an attempt to maintain the anthropological analogy" [soul:body :: divinity:humanity] (34).

The Reformers (such as Luther and Calvin) inherited this analogy (34). One leaned more to either Antiochene (Calvin) or Alexandrian (Luther) (34). Neither "challenged the underlying anthropological analogy for understanding the relation between the divinity and humanity of Christ, nor the stubstance metaphysical categories that saturated both sides of the analogy" (34)


"The key issue here is that these ancient and medieval conceptions of the relation between the soul and the body continued to structure the options for articulating" their doctrine (35).

Still, it continues to structure how you articulate the incarnation and other doctrines (like resurrection), Thomas. By the way, I highlighted the question that needs addressing in bold.

Source:

Shults, Leron. Christology and Science. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009

 

[Ahanu]

Literalism, the fig tree, and other contemplations

Curious ... on my course we discussed this text at length. I say curious, because although I don't know Spong, I have some respects for him because he is respected, yet he does seem remarkably dense in the citations you offer.

Thomas, you must consider the audience Spong is adressing; he is writing for the layman here. I don't think he's dense at all. He's just stating the obvious. Again, "Suffice it now to say that for Jesus to curse an unproductive fig tree, when as Mark says so clearly that 'it was not the season for figs' (Mark 11:13), is literally bizarre (Spong 73). How does that literally make sense as an historical event, Thomas? Did ya'll literalize the fig tree story in your course? You never mentioned that. I would like to know more about that, please.

I would refer you to philosophers such as Paul Ricoeur, and the last thing they would assume of a sacred text is that it is 'literally bizarre' ...

You somewhat twisted what Bishop Shelby Spong said, but I have inserted the key word. It wouldn't make sense to take everything in a sacred text literally. Back to the fig tree, please . . .

Spong's point wasn't just to show how people pick and choose what they take literally in the bible, but the fig tree story is also used to address if the Passover was "the original setting of the crucifixion" (153). As you know, the Passover served as backdrop for the crucifixion narratives. Spong questions this.

In Mark we find a crowd waving "leafy branches" (151). Spong says there is "little chance" "leafy branches" would have been in "that part of the Middle East so early in the spring" (151).

This hints that the crucifixion narrative was "originally set in a different season of the year" (151).

Matthew and Luke, copying and depending on Mark, edit some things. Matthew does away with "leafy"; thus "wave only 'branches'" (Matt. 21:8)(151). "Ordinarily, of course, one does not speak of 'spreading' or 'waving' sticks; those words are better suited to leaves" (151). Luke omits those things and only relates "the account of the people laying down their garments in the path of the procession (Luke 19:36). Even the garment story, however, suggests a warmer season of the year than late March. One does not normally lay down one's outer garment in the cold of that time of the year" (152).

"When John's gospel was written in the last years of the tenth decade, he could hardly have been unaware of these earlier gospels, though his purpose was so different that he did not lean on them for much. However, he solved the leafy branch problem by saying that the crowd waved 'branches of palm trees' -- that is, the leaves of an evergreen tree (John 12:13). Most people are not aware that the branches carried in this procession did not become palm leaves until the last canonical gospel to be written, since we now call the day Palm Sunday and we mark it with the carrying of palms in procession. These gospel variations about waving leaves do not constitute a determinative argument. They are more like an opening wedge that begins to shake the old consensus. I file them for your consideration and move on" (152).

The fig tree story further suggests a "forced identification of the crucifixion with the Passover" (152). How do Matthew and Luke deal with the fig tree story written in Mark? "Matthew collapses Mark's two-part story into a single episode, not separated by the cleansing of the temple narrative (Matt. 21:18-22) . . . Luke, on the other hand, simply omits it. It appears to show up in Luke in another place as a parable about a fig tree that produces no figs and thus risks being destroyed by the owner (Luke 13:6-9)" (153).

"Once again there is in this fig tree narrative a hint suggesting that perhaps the original context of both the triumphal procession into Jerusalem and the fig tree story were in a different time of the year, when branches have leaves and when fig trees produce fruit" (153).

"That possiblity is encouraged when we look at the Jewish eight-day fall celebration of the harvest, known as Sukkoth, also called the Festival of Tabernacles or Booths . . . In the observance of Sukkoth, worshippers processed through Jerusalem and in the temple, waving in their right hands something called a lulab, which was a bunch of leafy branches made of willow, myrtle and palm. As they waved these branches in that procession, the worshippers recited words from Psalm 118, the psalm normally used at Sukkoth. Among those words were 'Save us, we beseech you, O Lord.' 'Save us' in Hebrew is hosianna or hosanna. That phrasing was typically followed with the words 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord' (Ps. 118:25, 26, NRSV). One immediately recognizes that these Sukkoth traditions have been shifted from the fall to the season of the Passover and have been adapted to the Palm Sunday story, to meet the interpretive needs of the gospel. So the destabilization of the connection between the crucifixion story and the Passover begins to hit firm ground.

The final clue suggesting that the connection between Passover and crucifixion was more liturgical than historical is in the realization . . . that Mark's original story of the crucifixion reveals a liturgical format of eight three-hour segments. That story does not present itself as an eyewitness account at all, but rather as the fulfillment of the messianic images drawn from Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53" (154).

Source:

Spong, John. Jesus for the Non-Religious. New York: HarperCollins, 2008

And to base a critique of Christianity on one source is dangerous ... if he is proved wrong, or his argument invalidated (which it has been) your whole thesis collapses.

Don't worry. Plenty of more theories are out there. I'm not scared to be wrong. I'm enjoying your comments on my readings. It helps me in thinking about what I'm reading.

 

[Thomas]

Please admit that the Old Testament is literally untrue and mythological.

Even when there is archaeological evidence to affirm that aspects of the Old Testament are literally true?

You simply cannot make a sweeping statement like that. There are many genres of literature in the Old Testament, it is the testimony of a lived experience, not an historical textbook.

To understand how we read it, there is a document here

God bless, Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Re: Can you name one original Christian teaching?

Each earlier god-man was the second member of a Trinity of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

OK, show me one that corresponds to the Christian Godhead.
And show me their doctrine of circumincession.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Re: Jesus was not in Gospels? Revelations is totally at odds.

Is God Always Superior to Jesus?

Jesus is God, so the question is void.

JESUS never claimed to be God.

Actually He did, it's just that you don't understand the implication of the text, as is evident from the most of your post.

It's your opinion, Amergin, and you're welcome to it, but that's all it is.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Hi Ahanu —

The Aristotelian/Platonic difference works only so far — the Fathers were generally Platonists, certainly at the time of Chalcedon.

The discussions were wide-ranging and fractious — as well as arguments with the followers of Nestorius and Eutyches, there was monophysitism, monothelitism, monoenergism, a schism with the Coptic Orthodox Church ...

Briefly, the Alexandrians emphasized unity of the substances, whereas the Antiochenes emphasized the distinction of the substances

Christian orthodoxy states one person, two natures.

"Alexandrian Limit: emphasizing the indwelling Logos uniting the natures in one person"
"Antiochene Limit: emphasizing two distinct natures joined in an hypostatic union"

The Alexandrian/Antiochene difference in how the distinction is perceived in the person of Jesus Christ is quite nuanced. The Alexandrian can be accused of a monarchist inclination, the Antiochene can be accused of tritheism.

Shults later goes on to ask: "Why not critically engage the relational and dynamic thought forms of contemporary anthropological discourse as we seek to articulate belief in the Word becomes flesh?"

Catholic theology has been doing just that at an accelerating rate for the last 70 or so years. The list of authors doing just that is quite extensive, my shelves are creaking with them, not the least Benedict XVI.

My prior reference to Transcendental Thomism is just one strand of development.

Check out Paul Ricoeur, Bernard Lonergan ...

Thomas

 

[Ahanu]

Hi Ahanu —

Check out Paul Ricoeur, Bernard Lonergan ...

Thomas

That's possible. I see they are available at my college's library.

 

[Thomas]

Shults later goes on to ask: "Why not critically engage the relational and dynamic thought forms of contemporary anthropological discourse as we seek to articulate belief in the Word becomes flesh?"

Actually, I thought the long quote from Borella did just that.

The whole essay is available here.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

How does that literally make sense as an historical event, Thomas? Did ya'll literalize the fig tree story in your course? You never mentioned that. I would like to know more about that, please.

The previous chapter closes with the healing of Bartimeus, the blind man, who's sight is restored by faith.

The following chapter begins the entry to Jerusalem and the Passion, and a theme I read in it is judgement and forgiveness. The 'cursing' of the fig is a judgement upon it; it has the appearance of sustenance, but bears no fruit. Immediately follows the cleansing of the temple, which has been desecrated, He calls it "a den of thieves" (v17).

Leaving the temple, Peter sees the withered tree, the 'curse' a pronouncement of judgement, and now that judgement is effected, the tree is withered from the roots up, which mans it has been cut off from the source of life.

Christ's harsh words on the Jewish nation would appear to endorse a later Christian antisemitism. But he follows this with a two-part instruction: The first is an exhortation to faith, a faith that will move mountains (v23). The second is an exhortation to forgiveness, in essence "Judge not that you may not be judged" (a teaching of Matthew, Luke, James, Paul, so we might consider it an ancient oral tradition).

+++

Some exegetes debate whether this is a parable become an 'event', or an event that is informed by the teaching. I tend to the latter. Jesus is the Word and speaks the creation; the fig tree exists because He wills it, and the condemnation is that those who do not bring forth fruit — life — shall have the life taken from them.

But Jesus is the Sacrament of Forgiveness, and the one thing in the Gospels that angers Him is hypocrisy. The fig tree is made a figure of man's fallen condition ("I am the vine, you the branches" John 15:5), condemned for the hypocrisy of appearing to be in fruit, but bearing none, and the scourging of the temple is His response to the hypocrisy of those who labour within its walls. "For it was not the time for figs" (v13) and nor was it the time for ignoring the call to prayer and the service of God in the pursuit of Mammon.

Throughout, the temple authorities plot against Jesus, and are silenced when the confront Him. In the next chapter, we open with the parable of the Vineyard and the Husbandmen, in which they kill the servants of the owner of the vineyard, and eventually kill his son. Here Jesus makes more explicit his claim to divine paternity, and the audience does not miss the message, His enemies step up their campaign against Him.

So I guess I'm saying Spong is as creative in his dismissal of events as others are creative in affirming them. If you consider how much effort people put into trying to drive a rift between the Passover and the Crucifixion, without referencing Spong's thesis, shows it's just that ... a thesis.

As such they are valid. I have not read Spong, but other critiques ... and accounts from both sides, in which an attempt is made to rationalise an event to render it valid or invalid, miss the point.

As I compose my answer I am left with two contemplations.

The first is that the fig tree can also represent those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with cries of Hosanna, and then were baying for His crucifixion shortly after, when He failed to deliver according to their expectation. They make a great show of faith, but it's not there ...

The other is none of Jesus' miracles are gratuitous displays of power, as signs they are far more profound, dense with meaning ... whether there was an actual fig tree outside Jerusalem that was withered, I do not know in fact, but I do know in faith, because I accept the literal as real as the spiritual readings (tropological, analogical and the anagogical), and that as the Logos of God He can bring about the literal reality as a means of transmission of the spiritual reality.

I suppose I would say one can read Scripture philosophically or theologically; one views it and immerses oneself in it to ascertain its meaning, or one can read it forensically, and dissect it until nothing remains, until it has vanished from view, until nothing is left to carry any meaning at all.

+++

If I am tough on Spong, I would say I am tough on the isolated texts you have shown me. Yes, I could say 'bizarre' in my exegesis, but if that leaves the faith of the believer more uncertain than when he or she began, then I have done them and myself no good service.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Amergin]

Re: Jesus was not in Gospels? Revelations is totally at odds.

Jesus is God, so the question is void.

Actually Jesus did claim to have been sent by God. He spoke of God in the third person. Jesus said, "I am not good, only God is good." "I was sent to do God's work."
"I do not know, only God knows." To Mary Magdalene, "I will ascend to my father and my God, to your father and your God." Jesus and Mary worshipped the same one god. Paul said (exact quote escapes me) that the Lord Jesus sits on the right side of God. That implies Jesus to be important but the tradition of Middle Ages, a Lord is important but subordinate to a King/Emperor.

Actually He did, it's just that you don't understand the implication of the text, as is evident from the most of your post.

Sorry Thomas, I cannot find anything saying Jesus was God.

It's your opinion, Amergin, and you're welcome to it, but that's all it is.

God bless,

Thomas[/QUOTE]

Quite true, my friend, these comments of mine are opinions. They are not and cannot be based on empirical science. If your government tries to abolish your freedom of religion, I will come over and fight on your side.

Sìth Còmhla ri Firinn, (Peace with truth - Gaelic saying.)

Amergin

 

[Thomas]

Re: Jesus was not in Gospels? Revelations is totally at odds.

Hi Amergin —

I'd still like to know where the Bible says the earth is supported on four giant pillars ... and also a pagan triune doctrine that corresponds to Christian Trinitarian doctrine in its meaning.

Thomas

 

[Ahanu]

Actually, I thought the long quote from Borella did just that.

The whole essay is available here.

God bless,

Thomas

Thanks. Hopefully I'll be back when I finish reading it.

 

[Amergin]

Re: Jesus was not in Gospels? Revelations is totally at odds.

Hi Amergin —

I'd still like to know where the Bible says the earth is supported on four giant pillars ... and also a pagan triune doctrine that corresponds to Christian Trinitarian doctrine in its meaning.

Thomas

"He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter, forever and ever." (Ps. 104:5)

"The world is firmly established, it will not be moved." (Ps. 93:1 & 1 Chron. 16:30)

"For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he set the world on them." (I Sam. 2:8)

"It is I who have firmly set its pillars." (Ps. 75:3)

Thomas, I do not criticise an early Bronze Age nomadic people without telescopes, for not recognising the world as a sphere which revolves around the Sun. To desert nomads, the Earth appeared flat and unmoving. If they hypothesised that God placed the firmament on giant pillars makes it understandable (factually wrong but philosophically comforting.)

My own Bronze Age Celtic ancestors also had scientifically incorrect beliefs. Those believes gave us a world-view until Church oppression softened in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. I also do not fault pre-scientific peoples for personalising natural forces by calling them gods or spirits. For me, I might give quantum physics or the Big Bang the name "God" or "Dia."

Must we all assume that the creator of the universe is/was a conscious, cognitive being with personality. We can call the Wind, Mariah. Actually there is a hint that Pagan Celts did have a triunity. It consisted of Aed Alainn, Lugh Dunum, and Derg Corra equivalent to father, son, and god of wisdom (Holy spirit.) The Irish symbol of God is a spiral circle but it is ofen shone as three interconnecting spirals possibly suggesting a Trinity. Whether you call it a Triune god or a Trinity may simply be semantic. To me it shows Christianity's evolution from Indo-european Paganism.

I postulate that the similarity between Druidic Paganism and 6th Century Christianity is the reason we Irish so easily converted merely changing names of gods. A legend says that Padraigh (St. Patrick) eased the conversion by declaring Druids to be Catholic priests on the same day they converted.

Amergin

 

[Thomas]

Re: Jesus was not in Gospels? Revelations is totally at odds.

Thomas, I do not criticise an early Bronze Age nomadic people without telescopes, for not recognising the world as a sphere which revolves around the Sun. To desert nomads, the Earth appeared flat and unmoving. If they hypothesised that God placed the firmament on giant pillars makes it understandable (factually wrong but philosophically comforting.)

I would suggest if you think that's what the scribe meant, then you have underestimated the intelligence, intellect and insight of an ancient people.

We know beyond question that the Hebrew language was a highly sophisticated language capable of inferring many interlayered depths of meaning; a mythopoeic language able to convey the most complex complex metaphysical insights.

Read the love poetry from the Ancient World, Sappho for instance, and you will see that nothing is said today that has not been said long, long ago.

Read the Illiad or the Odyssey for an insight into the psychological journey that still stands today.

Must we all assume that the creator of the universe is/was a conscious, cognitive being with personality.

No, rather we must assume the Creator of the universe chooses to communicate with cognitive beings ...

Actually there is a hint that Pagan Celts did have a triunity.

That only goes to make my point: triunes are universal — they are vesigial intimations of the truth ... but innvariably their message is essentially agrarian and/or cosmological — they speak of the relation of the gods to the world.

The Christian Trinity is something unique in that sense, it tells us something about the nature of the Godhead in Itself, and from that informs us about the nature of the world.

As I have said elsewhere, it's not the triune, it's the doctrine behind the triune that counts.

I postulate that the similarity between Druidic Paganism and 6th Century Christianity is the reason we Irish so easily converted merely changing names of gods. A legend says that Padraigh (St. Patrick) eased the conversion by declaring Druids to be Catholic priests on the same day they converted.

Then if the Druids underwent conversion, there must have been something radically and spiritually new and inviting about the Christian message, otherwise they would have remained as they were, or resisted conversion.

Again, the Christian God is the fulness which nature religions point to but can only speculate.

Thomas