4 ms·

I mostly agree with everything you say, just pointing out that it is a religious viewpoint to take some claims of the supernatural at face value and reject othe

by olavk 10y ago

I mostly agree with everything you say, just pointing out that it is a religious viewpoint to take some claims of the supernatural at face value and reject others. History shows us many accounts of the supernatural, but we cannot believe them all, since they are contradictory. E.g. Paul claiming he saw Jesus in a vision, Mohammad claiming God told him that Jesus was not killed, legends that Alexander was the son of Zeus and so on. At least some of these accounts of the supernatural must be unreliable. It is purely an act of faith to decide to believe some and not others, since there is no scientific way to validate the claims.

jorangreef 10y ago
"At least some of these accounts of the supernatural must be unreliable." Sure, as with all knowledge, it's up to you to use your discernment, objectively. "It is purely an act of faith to decide to believe some and not others, since there is no scientific way to validate the claims." The New Testament documents, at least, contain the plain and often awkward testimony of people who walked with Jesus. The validity of their claims can be investigated according to the historical method, and the textual reliability of the documents themselves can be investigated according to textual criticism, as you know. Above all, this testimony centers chiefly on public, verifiable events (the intersection of Jesus' life with public figures such as John the Baptist and Herod, the trial of Jesus by Pilate, the death of Jesus, the burial of Jesus in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, the resurrection of Jesus according to eye witnesses, the immediate explosion of the persecuted 1st century church from this point onwards). That is different from "he said/she said". Further, the faith referred to in these documents is never a blind faith, as people often impute. Rather, it is a faith in a God who is unseen (obviously), founded on a bedrock surety of things heard and seen (eye-witness testimony). The word faith simply means "trust". The question is, are the witnesses reliable? Is their testimony "trustworthy"? Do you trust Paul of Tarsus, a student of Gamaliel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel) and later a converted persecutor? Do you trust his farewell to the Ephesians in Acts 20:13-38? Do you trust Peter, a middle-class fisherman with hired hands? Do you trust John, brother of James, son of Zebedee? Do you trust James, Jesus' half-brother, leader of the early 1st century Jerusalem church? More than this, the striking thing with the person of Jesus is that he has contemporary witnesses pointing back to him, but he also has the whole weight of the Old Testament documents pointing forward to him centuries in advance, the very purpose for which they exist. And then you have Jesus' own polarizing words, the genius of his parables, his transcendent teaching ("But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you", "So give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's"), his own testimony to his Father, and his own testimony to his death and resurrection. Do you trust Jesus or was he a fraud? Do you trust Jesus or was he mad? As an honest observer, his life and his own words allow for not much more choice. We exercise faith/trust in the laws of physics on a day to day basis, and faith in the knowledge of the past or present, in terms of people we know existed or exist. We never meet them but we can know them through people who did. In the New Testament documents, it's the same principle as you come face to face with Jesus "the Christ".
- olavk 10y ago
  There is an option beyond Lewis trilemma God/Madman/Fraud which is that Jesus, Paul etc. were sane and genuinely believed the things they say, but they believed it based on worldview build on religion and therefore not connected to reality. (Like Newton researching alchemy - he was sane and honest, he just worked from faulty premises.) Add to this that the Gospels are not genuine first-hand accounts but rather express the gradual building of a myth among the early Christians based on second-hand accounts (written down a generation after the events) and a growing body of legends. Clearly the Gospels are not 100% trustworthy (since they contain contradictions), so unless you want to reject everything, you have to make some kind of effort to discern the believable parts from the legends. For example in the Mark, the oldest version, Jesus does not talk a lot about himself, and there is no reason to consider him anymore than a human preacher. In John the myth have grow to the level that he more of less proclaims himself a God. This clearly illustrates how the story Jesus the preacher over a few decades turns into Jesus Christ the Son of God (or even God himself).
  - jorangreef 10y ago
    Clearly, that is mere form criticism, which is not an academic discipline (though perhaps it still survives in some universities). It speaks more of the presuppositions of those who practice it than the text they claim to study.

by olavk 10y ago

jorangreef 10y ago

"At least some of these accounts of the supernatural must be unreliable." Sure, as with all knowledge, it's up to you to use your discernment, objectively. "It is purely an act of faith to decide to believe some and not others, since there is no scientific way to validate the claims." The New Testament documents, at least, contain the plain and often awkward testimony of people who walked with Jesus. The validity of their claims can be investigated according to the historical method, and the textual reliability of the documents themselves can be investigated according to textual criticism, as you know. Above all, this testimony centers chiefly on public, verifiable events (the intersection of Jesus' life with public figures such as John the Baptist and Herod, the trial of Jesus by Pilate, the death of Jesus, the burial of Jesus in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, the resurrection of Jesus according to eye witnesses, the immediate explosion of the persecuted 1st century church from this point onwards). That is different from "he said/she said". Further, the faith referred to in these documents is never a blind faith, as people often impute. Rather, it is a faith in a God who is unseen (obviously), founded on a bedrock surety of things heard and seen (eye-witness testimony). The word faith simply means "trust". The question is, are the witnesses reliable? Is their testimony "trustworthy"? Do you trust Paul of Tarsus, a student of Gamaliel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel) and later a converted persecutor? Do you trust his farewell to the Ephesians in Acts 20:13-38? Do you trust Peter, a middle-class fisherman with hired hands? Do you trust John, brother of James, son of Zebedee? Do you trust James, Jesus' half-brother, leader of the early 1st century Jerusalem church? More than this, the striking thing with the person of Jesus is that he has contemporary witnesses pointing back to him, but he also has the whole weight of the Old Testament documents pointing forward to him centuries in advance, the very purpose for which they exist. And then you have Jesus' own polarizing words, the genius of his parables, his transcendent teaching ("But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you", "So give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's"), his own testimony to his Father, and his own testimony to his death and resurrection. Do you trust Jesus or was he a fraud? Do you trust Jesus or was he mad? As an honest observer, his life and his own words allow for not much more choice. We exercise faith/trust in the laws of physics on a day to day basis, and faith in the knowledge of the past or present, in terms of people we know existed or exist. We never meet them but we can know them through people who did. In the New Testament documents, it's the same principle as you come face to face with Jesus "the Christ".

olavk 10y ago
There is an option beyond Lewis trilemma God/Madman/Fraud which is that Jesus, Paul etc. were sane and genuinely believed the things they say, but they believed it based on worldview build on religion and therefore not connected to reality. (Like Newton researching alchemy - he was sane and honest, he just worked from faulty premises.) Add to this that the Gospels are not genuine first-hand accounts but rather express the gradual building of a myth among the early Christians based on second-hand accounts (written down a generation after the events) and a growing body of legends. Clearly the Gospels are not 100% trustworthy (since they contain contradictions), so unless you want to reject everything, you have to make some kind of effort to discern the believable parts from the legends. For example in the Mark, the oldest version, Jesus does not talk a lot about himself, and there is no reason to consider him anymore than a human preacher. In John the myth have grow to the level that he more of less proclaims himself a God. This clearly illustrates how the story Jesus the preacher over a few decades turns into Jesus Christ the Son of God (or even God himself).
- jorangreef 10y ago
  Clearly, that is mere form criticism, which is not an academic discipline (though perhaps it still survives in some universities). It speaks more of the presuppositions of those who practice it than the text they claim to study.