It was fitting that on Christmas Eve, Peggy Noonan’s column should begin with what she judged to be “the great words of the year: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.'” An excerpt:
They are the last words of Steve Jobs, reported by his sister, the novelist Mona Simpson, who was at his bedside. In her eulogy, a version of which was published in The New York Times, she spoke of how he looked at his children “as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze.” He’d said goodbye to her, told her of his sorrow that they wouldn’t be able to be old together, “that he was going to a better place.” In his final hours his breathing was deep, uneven, as if he were climbing.
“Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were: ‘OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.'”
The caps are Simpson’s, and if she meant to impart a sense of wonder and mystery she succeeded. “Oh wow” is not a bad way to express the bigness, power and force of life, and death. And of love, by which he was literally surrounded.
I wondered too, after reading the eulogy, if I was right to infer that Jobs saw something, and if so, what did he see? What happened there that he looked away from his family and expressed what sounds like awe? I thought of a story told by a friend, whose grown son had died, at home, in a hospice. The family was ringed around his bed. As Robert breathed his last an infant in the room let out a great baby laugh as if he saw something joyous, wonderful, and gestured toward the area above Robert’s head. The infant’s mother, startled, moved to shush him but my friend, her mother, said no, maybe he’s just reacting to . . . something only babies see…
Wow.
‘NOTHING EVER DIES’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OUBWFdUHa8
I suppose it would spoil the awe-inspiration if I suggested the cause might be a severe malfunction of the brain resulting from cessation of cerebral blood circulation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
Kathryn, it doesn’t matter what mundane thing caused the awe.
God appreciates altered states, and knows better than we do how to bring them about. Remember Jesus’ first miracle. The party ran out of wine, and his Mom was like, do something, and he was like, “Get off my case!” And then, rather than make a beer run, he turned water into wine that everyone agreed was awesome.
And the party went on. Because Jesus was cool.
Had I lived in Cana, I’d have invited him to MY parties, for sure…
When a good friend of mine, perhaps the only ‘mentor’ I every had (though I wouldn’t normally call him that–more a spiritual ‘father’) passed on, his last words were, ‘I see Jesus!’ His last breath followed almost instantaneously.
I don’t want to spoil the mood of the holidays, but I’m in Kathryn’s corner on this. And Jesus didn’t turn water in to wine. That stuff is made up, as was Jesus being born in Bethlehem to agree with prophesy. I can’t believe….Anyway, Happy Winter Solstice you all!!!
And in despair I bowed my head, there is no peace on Earth I said for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on Earth, good will to men.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead nor doth he sleep, the wrong shall fail the right prevail with peace on Earth, good will to men.
I’m with Longfellow
Since I can’t believe it, the stuff is therefore made up.
Now there’s true scientific objectivity for you.
Of course if Jesus had come in the year 1970 or later, now that would be believable. For of course, we are the most important generation in history, and if God is out there, then it is His responsibility to come to us– enlightened, come of age, intelligent people that we are.
We are not like those ignorant people in the ancient world who made up the NT, no siree.
It would be fitting for us to decide that Steve Jobs was the One chosen for us to show us the Way to immortality, since he has been pretty much deified since his passing some weeks back.
“Oh wow” could just as easily be the first half of the phrase “Oh wow, this sucks!” Who knows? In the end, as with most belief, it comes down to what makes you feel better, since none of us has any inside track on real truth, which has no regard for our feelings or wishes but exists completely independently within a universe that is most definitely NOT anthropocentric.
As for feeling comforted, I’ve always somehow liked hearing Rudy Mancke constantly refer to “recycling,” how one animal is turned into another animal, and so on, the immortality if you will of matter. “You’re looking at an awful lot of crookneck squash” he likes to say in his lectures. And when we get recycled, we give it all back in one fell swoop more or less. And we become part of something else again. That’s good enough for me.
Re Herb’s comment:
“If you’d come today, you could reached the whole nation;
Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication.
Don’t you get me wrong…”
— Judas in “Jesus Christ Superstar”
The first thing I thought of when I read of Jobs’ last words was the exclamation from “2001: A Space Odyssey:”
“My God; it’s full of stars!…”
“It would be fitting for us to decide that Steve Jobs was the One chosen for us to show us the Way to immortality”
I don’t know, because most of those who ever crossed his path knew him to be a genuine a-hole.
Steve Jobs was a no-nonsense, practical, pragmatic, and highly intelligent individual. His mind was the “one in a million” we hear about. He was an astute business person and he did it his way. He insisted on providing the best on the market and the quality of his products speaks for his vision. He was not prone to flights of fantasy or an overactive imagination on frivolous things.
If his last words were, “OH WOW, OH WOW, OH WOW”, then I would have to believe he saw something beyond his family surrounding him. If it were pain, I think he would have made it clear, “OH WOW, THE PAIN”. What it was, I do not know. Then again, neither does anyone else who is speculating on it either.
For me, I tend to agree with Brad, Scout, and Herb. For others, it is your choice to believe or not.
Merry Christmas to everyone and May God Bless You in all aspects of your life.
Bart
So I read up on Mormons and wondered how anyone could believe the story of the golden plates. But we believe the Red Sea parting, a talking burning bush, virgin birth, Noah’s Ark and on and on.
A guy living half way up a mountain throws out shards of wood and charges Christians a fee to search the top of the mountain for the remains of the ark. But that guy is no more guilty of exploiting superstition than the leaders of the modern church.
This subject fascinates me, how we choose to believe what we want to believe (of course Herman Cain is innocent of all charges!!).
Referencing another Paul Simon song “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”. la la la la la.
I’ve looked at the string theory and how time is affected by gravity and all those other theories that explains this vast universe, but I think we have no more capacity to figure it out than a Dalmation understanding a Woody Allen movie.
So we cling to our superstitions. Born and raised a Catholic, I am as affected as anyone. A good whiff of incense takes me back to a place safe and secure. But i am a bit intellectually curious, which I guess is a bad thing. I should just believe because those guys at Nicaea 325 years after Jesus died said so.
Nice post, Phillip. I had been pondering my dad’s saying,”You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to your facts,” but as usual, you said it far more gracefully, and much more.
–and Rudy Mancke is a national treasure.
But instead, it just kept on raining
A veil of tears for the virgin birth..
I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave new year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
They said there’d be snow at Christmas
They said there’d be peace on earth
Hallelujah, Noel!
Be it heaven or hell,
The Christmas we get we deserve.
Hey Kathryn, I have that song in my Christmas mix along with I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day. I can see both sides. I don’t deny the possible contributions of physiological processes in near death experiences, but I don’t necessarily think that negates that something else could be going on as well. In Steve Jobs case, I wonder if the fact he retained the ability to still produce speech would suggest that cerebral blood flow was still intact at that moment. But it is neither here nor there. We all believe what we believe for reasons we probably can’t all articulate well and that is alright.
Recycling really wows me. Not.
‘We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:8)
That the above is not only significantly more comforting, but relevant to how I life now, seems to me to be pretty obvious.
It is also not based on some fanciful story about golden plates, a fictional story line invented by a 19-th century novelist, and an demonstrably false theory that the native Indian tribes of America are Semitic in origin. It rather has some rather significant historical evidence to its credit. Of course it goes beyond space-time in its claims, but then I would suspect that it would, given the subject matter.
But I’m not really trying to prove anything here, just suggest that one’s pre-suppositions and evidence need to be thoroughly examined. Doug T’s first comments were rather matter-of-fact, speaking of having your own facts: ‘all that stuff is made up.’ Oh really. Fact established, huh? Seems rather incongruous, seeing as how some of the brightest minds in history have thought that there was some good evidence to the claims of Christ.
And if one rejects biblical claims, then I would hope that would be done after some significant time spent examining those claims–seeing as they are about some significant things–not just reading what someone else says about them (as helpful as that can be at times, whether pro or con–Bertrand Russel was one of the best evangelists for the Gospel I’ve ever read).
Anyway, hope that everyone is having great holidays.
The thing is, Bart, it isn’t a *choice* to believe. You either do or you don’t. It’s like love or any other feeling–it either happens or it doesn’t.
One or two observations, from my point of view, about pre-suppositions thus far, in case there is still interest in the discussion:
1) Absolute truth does not exist, absolutely.
2) Biblical claims are wrong until proven otherwise. The proof: must be absolute, and must be scientifically observable, even about that which is, by definition, not scientifically observable (the supernatural). [Therefore proof is not possible. Whew!]
3) All religious claims are all equally non-valid. Thus Mormon claims based on history that has never been verified anywhere is just as valid as biblical history that has multiple and significant historical verification.
4) theories as to a natural cause negate all theoretical models based on spiritual causes. A phenomenon cannot have a spiritual cause with natural and physical consequences.
5) The religious person can make a confession of faith, but that confession is not valid, because it is a religious claim. The non-religious person can make a confession of non-faith, and that confession is valid, even though it is religious in nature. As in, ‘that stuff is made up.’ Because I said so.
Kathryn: “The thing is, Bart, it isn’t a ‘choice’ to believe. You either do or you don’t.”
That’s the maddening thing, isn’t it? That Free Will doesn’t exist. Or might as well not. Because if we can’t find our way to believe, and by an act of volition believe, if we’re just wired one way or the other and that’s that, then the ability to choose which detergent we want is pretty pointless.
How we relate to the Ultimate is the supreme issue of existence. And it’s out of our hands?
How could that be?
Of course believing is a matter of choice. Every one of us chooses to seek God or ignore Him.
Ok. For me, much of the Bible is written to reveal a spiritual truth, not an historical detail. Jesus uses this style in the parables. For example, the story of the “Good Samaritan” does not require that the story described be historically correct. 2) Natural Cause does not negate Spiritual Cause. God creates matter/energy/space/time. He creates the laws that govern it. He usually does not violate his own laws, because otherwise we would be forced to live in an utterly unpredictable, chaotic univerise (eg. is the gravity on or off today?) 3) When I say “I believe in God” I mean “I trust in God.” I don’t insist anyone believe the same set of tenets I do. I’ve been known to change those tenents in light of the reality I perceive. I think we’re all going to be in for a surprise on the “last day” because I don’t think the human mind has begun to understand the Mystery of God. However, I have met my Risen Lord, and I trust Him.
@Brad– Free Will is fine–that has to do with volitional things–“I walk to the store because a.) I chose to walk to the store or b.) because it was pre-ordained/God made me, etc.”
I can no more decide to believe something than decide to love someone. It happens or it doesn’t. I do not decide to be angry, decide to be hungry, decide to be straight, decide to be tall.
I am not “rejecting” God or belief. It just hasn’t happened for me. I have created fertile conditions–study, regular church attendance, prayerful requests, yet nada. It isn’t a choice.
I remain open to belief; yea, I welcome it. Sure would make life a lot easier.
I don’t know if it is as simple as being hard wired to either believe or not. I think choice does play a role in belief, though it is not a clear cut, hard and fast, cause and effect kind of thing. I think whether you are able to believe or not is probably an organic kind of thing influenced by lots of variables, some of which are affected by choices and attitudes. I think our choices can affect whether we are able to be open to experiences that might lead to belief.
If Mormonism is so absurd on its face, it sure is fooling lots and lots of people.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/04/10/20090410mormon-growth0410-ON.html
@Kathryn
I became a believer when I stopped trying to make God fit my requirements. This happened about 15 years ago after a couple decades of struggling with my beliefs.
But I am less inclined to support organized religion because choosing any one negates all the rest. And the forms that organized religion take often reflect the man-made bureaucracies you see in government and business, built on greed, power, bizarre rules, etc. God, for me, is a personal God… not part of a hierarchy.
Keep up the search. He’ll find you.
@ Brad–it can be out of our hands, because that relationship is safely in God’s.
Thanks, Doug. I hope you are right.
There was a documentary on last year that proved that the Bible was more fiction than fact. Many of the stories were written and rewritten to fit the religious beliefs of the current keeper of those particular books.
I mean, come on, is there anyone who can seriously accept the story of Noah’s Ark as anything more than an allegory? It defies all reasonable understanding of physics, biology, and climatology.
Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He died of the same pancreatic cancer that Jobs fell to.
Pausch knew that he was dying and decided to do a Last Lecture at CMU.
Pausch passed his knowledge onto others. Jobs created a generation or two of consumers.
http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/
I’ll buy Pausch’s Last Lecture of Job’s autobiography.
I do have to say that I was inspired by Pausch’s “Realize Your Dreams.” I had to check off a bucket list item and that was to see a Space Shuttle launch. I finally realized that goal on July 8th, 2011.
If the Flood story is about a localized event, then yes, there is every bit the possibility that it has root in an historical happening. A few years ago there was some findings in the Black Sea area that suggested that very possibility. I haven’t followed it up–OT archaeological studies are not my area of concentration, but I wouldn’t write off the historicity of the event just yet. Especially in view of the fact that cultures all over the world have retained a similar story in their folk lore going way back.
The Hebrew word for ‘land’ can mean the whole earth (from the writer’s point of view), or the land where he happens to be. It is usually used of the land of Israel, so any reference to ‘the land’ in Genesis can have a limited or a wider meaning, depending on context but it does not have to refer to the whole globe, especially when the ancients did not have that knowledge, anyway.
Of course God could have created all the water used in covering the whole globe and then ‘de-created’ it after the flood, but that posits a series of miracles that may be unnecessary, as well as uncharacteristic of His work.
Karen has already pointed out that the spiritual teaching is primary–Genesis especially is written to give the ‘why’, not the ‘how–but without any historical reference, God’s work becomes ethereal and irrelevant to life. Of course the ultimate miracle is the Resurrection. Everything stands or falls on that. And Jesus does reference the Flood in his teaching.
Stephen, I would love to see this documentary that has brought the historical basis of Christianity crashing to the ground.
And to Tim–I would suggest an investigation as to whether there really is a connection between the ancient Israelites and the native American population, a theory which is at the base of Mormon belief. In my conversation with Mormons, it is not the historical evidence that they point to anyway (there really isn’t any)–I’m just supposed to ask God to help me believe, and then He will. No basis for this belief, and no congruity with historical church experience and church teaching of justification before God by faith alone. (You have to keep Mormon practice and doctrine to be saved.)
I’m not saying Mormons aren’t good people; they obviously are. But the number of adherents alone doth not make right. Islam is far out in front of them, on that basis. For that matter, historical Christianity is further still.
Hi Herb. I suppose we could go on forever and not change the other’s mind. But, you quote Corinthians, written by a person who never met Jesus Christ. 63 % of the New Testament was written by people who never laid eyes on Jesus. The rest of the NT is contradictory (the 4 gospels) and written to fit Jesus into a prophesy fullfilling role.
The miracles assigned to Jesus (water into wine, walking on water) were assigned to other people before attached to Jesus, but those writings didn’t make the Nicaean cut.
Because I can’t prove things didn’t happen doesn’t mean they did happen. Noah’s Ark, Adam and Eve, Sermon on the Mount (explained by biblical scholars as a take off by Matthew on the Moses on Mt. Sinai tale)there are people who actually believe in these things, and the church wants us to believe and not question, not think for ourselves.
I’ll let this rest. It’s not appropriate this time of year. I feel creepy arguing the point.
I do think it’s a good thing to follow the teachings of Jesus. If we all took heed of the Beatitudes and the Woe unto you admonitions, the world would be a better place.
I wish you peace, brother.(ugh…that sounded Hulk Hoganish, but it was sincere).
Doug
Just one correction to my previous post: The NT was written 70 years after Jesus died, if I remember my NT101 correctly. 63% of the words written were attributed to people who never met Jesus, including a schizophrentic epileptic who happened to have a seizure on the way to Damascus.
Of course, there are many books and articles dissecting the NT, including those that examine and attempt to determine what Jesus really said.
So Doug you don’t believe Noah built an ark three times the size of a modern day aircraft carrier… by himself?
@ Doug T– and then there are the Gnostic Gospels
Hi Doug,
I wouldn’t feel creepy if I were you, unless, of course, you have some deep, dark, misgivings about your position in the first place. Faith issues are important–the most important thing in life, I’d postulate. Personally, I don’t have a sense that one time of the year is more ‘spiritual’ than another.
But maybe you are talking about the sensibilities of others, and I can understand that. No need to worry about me, in any case.
I appreciate your good spirit, and I hope my words were received in the same. I’ve always appreciated Brad’s blog for the space to be able to do that.
Of course you’re right, proof works both ways. I was just reacting against the statements from a few folks here to the effect that the Bible is untrustworthy. A lot of folks read that and think it’s true, just because it’s in print, and some modern scholar says so.
My point is that credulity is usually given to the position that the Bible is untrustworthy, e.g., the NT is the creation of the early church. The reason for the credulity might possibly be academic objectivity. In practice, however, I believe there is little of the same. For one thing, if the NT is a true representation of what Jesus did and taught, it has enormous consequences for the way we live and act, and there are a lot of folks who don’t want that, so the Bible has a stroke against it before we even start. It isn’t a level playing field.
NT scholar C.H. Dodd wrote to Bishop J.A.T. Robinson, ‘I should agree with you that much of the late dating [of the NT] is quite arbitrary, even wanton, the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic’s prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud.’
Robinson himself, no friend of evangelicals, came around to a full defense of an early date for all NT writings–between 40 and 70 A.D. It isn’t necessarily necessary to have them that early, but it does put the writing of the NT back in the time of the eyewitnesses, something I believe was the case.
Given the fact that oral cultures tend to memorize teaching of their masters word for word–and Jewish rabbis were masters at that (Jesus was a rabbi who taught his disciples a body of material, not some kind of a hippie, as often depicted, walking around the countryside calling out philosophical statements over his shoulder)–I’m inclined to trust the documents. It is not the early church that created the documents, but they other way around.
The more so since I’ve made Bible reading–usually an hour a day, at the least, a daily practice for most of my life. Only about 20 years ago did I find Bonhoeffer’s writings on the subject so refreshing–the Bible is not just meant to be objectively studied, but practically lived. It’s my story, too.
‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord? the spiritual asks. The answer is, yes, I was. I was there as the cowardly denier, like Peter, I was there as the distant observer, like John, and I’ve even sometimes tried to use Him, like Judas. It’s my story. Fortunately, it’s become my faith-story, too.
I’d recommend F. F. Bruce’s book on the NT documents, ‘The NT Documets: Are they Trustworthy’ Bruce was Rylands professor of Biblical Exegesis at the U. of Manchester, so no mean scholar. He wouldn’t subscribe to your skepticism or late dates, and would credit them to a lot of modern religious scholars’ unwarranted bias.
Not a Bible scholar myself, far from it. But is there anything in the Bible that has been proven fact? Are there relics of anything written about in the Bible?
Doug T, you say,
“the church wants us to believe and not question, not think for ourselves.”
That has not been my experience in my church. I’m sure it could be true for some, but I don’t think it should be a blanket statement. In my experience, questioning is very much part of the process that leads to growth and I’ve not felt any dissuasion to question from my church.
I think what Herb is referring to is the theory that the Black Sea used to be a much smaller land locked lake and the Mediterranean Sea rose and spilled over into it dramatically increasing the water level and obliterating the old shoreline. I heard a story that they had found some evidence of the old shoreline where even wooden structures were preserved because of the depth and coldness of the water with low oxygen content – but I’ve not heard anymore about it recently.
Thanks Herb, for the recommendations.
I remember a few years ago I was so entranced by Bill Moyers’ conversations with Joseph Campbell. As I said, this is such a fascinating and moving subject.
I am searching for the truth. Something is out there, I just don’t know what. If you’ve found it,that’s a good thing.
Will I pull a Voltaire or Lee Atwater if given the time to contemplate the afterlife? I really don’t know.
Stephen, I’m no NT scholar, either, though I’ve taught a range of NT subjects at the college level, though more often at the pastoral.
And I’ve got grandkids and family here, so no rest for writing, but I’ll do a few sentences.
If by ‘fact,’ you mean repeatable, observable in a test-tube ‘scientific’ fact, then of course there are no such facts. There can’t be with historical data.
But if you mean ‘fact’ in the sense of reliable probability, then the person of Jesus is pretty much proven fact. So is his crucifixion. His Resurrection, is of course, hotly contested, not only because it can’t be repeated, but obviously because it is beyond human experience. But interestingly, the authorities involved could never produce a body and put it down. His followers died for what they believed (they also eventually died for what they believed was inspired Scripture, helping set the Canon, or standard, for writings in the NT, but that’s another story)–but not in an extremist, terrorist fashion. They were convinced that He lived; they experienced the living Lord in everyday life.
References in the NT conform, if we allow for varying approaches and viewpoints of the writers, to what we know of the history of the period. Tiberius was Caesar, Gallio was proconsul in Asia when Paul arrived there (Acts 18), etc.
New Testament documents have far more historical reference (manuscripts, the earliest dating to 125 A.D., pointing back to earlier originals) than any other ancient manuscripts. Most ancient literature is attested to in manuscripts that are more than 1000 years old. (Yet very often those documents are acceptable, while NT documents are deemed ‘unreliable’–as C. H. Dodd admits, because of scholarly bias.
If I remember my history correctly, there are no extant manuscripts of the Qur’an that are earlier than 200 years after Muhammad. The NT is pretty unique in this regard. It has historical attestation like no other ancient literature.
For me, fulfillment of OT Scripture is also a pretty important ‘fact’ — my understanding of modern day Judaism (someone can correct me here, if needed) is that they pretty much just got rid of Isaiah 53 because it is so blatantly pointing to the death and resurrection of Jesus–700 years (OK, 400 years, if one accepts the radical school dating) before He came. Hush-hush. We don’t want people to think about that.
Ultimately, because we are dealing with claims to divine authority over us, the ultimate ‘proof’ is in the trust. It seems that God wants that; He could, of course, burst into the world in full fool-proof fashion, the only problem is, that wouldn’t begin the transformation process that we fools need. If our problem stems from pride and lack of trust, then providing us with anything less than a chance to learn trust by commitment won’t do the trick.
A bit random, I admit. Going into detail would involve more time and effort than I can give (and probably more text than Brad wants posted). Reading on all sides can help. On my ‘side’, anything by F.F. Bruce, C. S. Lewis, and particularly more recently, Ravi Zacharias can be helpful. Doug can help with the skeptical side.
In the previous post, ‘1000 years old’ should be corrected to read ‘copies written more than 1000 years after the original.’
Doug said a profound thing above: “I became a believer when I stopped trying to make God fit my requirements.”
Indeed. Before he said that, I was about to say that faith does require one act of volition — acceptance. Acceptance of a lot of things, including the fact that God’s not the sort who conforms to the box you want to put Him in. And believing in Him is not necessarily comforting; often quite the opposite.
As for all this stuff about whether this or that passage in the Bible — a set of books written in many styles in three languages over the course of almost 2,000 years — is literally true, in the modern simplistic sense of, if you had a time machine, you could go shoot it and put it on YouTube when you got back…
Well, all of that seems irrelevant to me. The Bible contains many kinds of literature meant to inspire us, including poetry, allegory and even myth. All of this seems fairly obvious from even a casual reading. Most of it started out as oral traditions, carefully passed down through generations.
So basically, I am often startled by two points of view: On the one hand, the biblical literalists who think the world is 6,000 years old, and on the other hand the skeptics who think that if it is NOT literal history in the YouTube sense, then it must all be a bunch of hokum.
Both views seem disturbingly simplistic to me. God gave us the ability to think, to perceive, to discern, and surely we can think more deeply than that.
And Scout, I’m with you — I don’t recognize the description of a church that wants us to “not think for ourselves.” My experience is quite different from that.
Oh, and Doug T. — it’s my understanding that the first parts of the New Testament (Paul’s epistles) were written about 20 years after the Crucifixion.
Then, in the next generation or so, as people realized the Messiah wasn’t coming back immediately, they started writing down the oral traditions of what Jesus did and said, and the Gospels were the result — first Mark, then Matthew and Luke, then John considerably later.
The last bits of what made it into the canon were probably written, as you say, close to 70 years later.
Just a few minutes ago I watched Rick Steves talk about a Spanish monk who had the nerve to translate the Bible in to the native language of that region. The monk was thrown in to prison. After 8 years of Catholic schooling,I suppose I picture the church as stiff, unyielding (of course, those nuns probably saved me from a life spent in prison).
I don’t think the Bible is hokum. And I’m certainly not as informed as several posters on this forum. It’s just bothersome that 99.9 % of Christians have no idea who wrote what when and how the Bible came to be. Of course, it may not matter. All that matters is they believe. St. Peter I suppose doesn’t pass out history tests as a screening tool.
So exactly how old was Jesus? I don’t think I’ve heard word one about how he was raised up through adulthood. How did he reach so many people when he was confined to a relatively small area in the world where news traveled like a glacier, in modern terms, for a period of 10-15 years of his adult life. Even as little as a hundred years ago, most people lived their whole lives within a 10 mile radius of where they were born. It’s not like this guy was a world traveler or explorer.
Haven’t they proven that Jesus would have been born in June or July according to astrological facts? When did this whole December thing come about?
We seem to be having some linguistic issues in our discussion. There is no “the church”–there are many churches with many positions on the literal truth of the Bible and on believers’ freedom to decide things for themselves. *Some* churches do indeed claim that the Bible is literal truth–hence the fear of teaching evolution. Other churches teach that *some* of the Bible is literal truth while other parts are Hebrew poetry, oral traditions, etc. *Some* churches do demand obedience to their teachings, eschewing the “cafeteria approach. Others do not.
Two points – How is it that Old Testament characters lived for many centuries and then somehow everything changed to typical human lifespans after that? Is there any evidence to suggest that humans ever lived for as long as Methuselah (969 years)?
And if the story about Noah’s Ark can be explained ad something more localized and limited, why is it not taught that way in Sunday school? All I ever have seen is the whole earth, all creatures version.
And believing in Him is not necessarily comforting; often quite the opposite.
-Brad
Then what is the point. Why believe in something that makes you miserable. That kind of contradictory thinking is what turns me off to religion.
@ Doug. It amazes me that most Christians have no problem with the Nativity scenes that depict the wise men at the manger with the shepherds.
Has the Babylonian Captivity and the various iterations of the temples been verified from other historical sources?? Not sure, but I was thinking so.
@bud
“Then what is the point. Why believe in something that makes you miserable.”
You don’t choose what you believe in, that’s why. I believe I will get more or less progressively more infirm until I die. Does this make me happy? Do I believe it to be true?
And believing in Him is not necessarily comforting; often quite the opposite.
-Brad
Then what is the point. Why believe in something that makes you miserable. That kind of contradictory thinking is what turns me off to religion.
-Bud
I guess that is the question – what is the point? I think that question pertains to an awful lot of the posts here. If literal truth is not the point then does it matter if the flood was local or global or if Jesus’ actual birthday was in July or if humans ever lived 900 years? I’ve not felt my church shy away from those questions or alternate factual explanations where they are suspected but they aren’t necessarily emphasized either if they don’t change the point or the religious questions of those stories.
Steven, what I’ve always heard is Jesus’ birth became associated with December sometime around the middle ages when the monks were trying to convert the tribes of Europe and there were pagan festivals already in place in December with similar themes that they could superimpose Christmas onto and have the tribes understand and accept it better.
I don’t have a problem with this. It doesn’t change the essential message or point.
Bud, just because it’s not always comforting doesn’t mean it always makes you miserable. The simplest way I can think to explain it for me is to say that what I feel to be the right way is not always the easy way.
Kathryn, you can’t change the biological fact that you age. That’s not something you “believe” on faith. Rather that’s something you observe to be true through your senses, discussions with others and other quantifiable evidence. A “belief” in a specific God is really more of a choice. Sort of like choosing which pair of shoes to wear in the morning. I would no more wear a pair of stelleto pumps to Walmart than I’d choose to believe in a God that makes me miserable. There are too many other more attractive choices to make.
No, Bud. Kathryn has it exactly right there. God IS, however you feel about it. It’s not a choice — not yours, not mine, not anyone else’s.
Ultimate reality is what it is; it is not what you choose it to be.
The various religions, if they are true and honest, are about trying to understand that ultimate reality, and how we ought live our lives in light of such understanding.
The God I believe is that ultimate reality (regardless of what I “choose”), the God of the three great monotheistic religions, said it very plainly to Moses when asked to identify himself: “I am.” There has never been a more profound moment of revelation, any greater presentation of bona fides, in human experience than that statement.
God is. And God is what God is. It doesn’t matter what we choose.
bud wrote, “I would no more wear a pair of stelleto pumps to Walmart than I’d choose to believe in a God that makes me miserable.”
Hmmm, either of these you?
http://media.peopleofwalmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/1600VA.jpg
http://media.peopleofwalmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/625.jpg
Carrying on from Brad’s point, the New Testament tells us what we need to know about Christ, not what we want to satisfy our curiosity. He is. His Person requires a response. We aren’t told anything more about his growing up, because we don’t need to know it. A veil is drawn over most of those years; what we have is one picture at the age of 12, and it shows a focused, and yet obedient young man.
On Genesis issues, I like Hugh Ross, a scientist who posits an that a supernova around 10,000 B.C. could have caused many of the phenomena recorded in Genesis. He also suggests that before the effects of more radiation (from this supernova) set in, mankind lived longer. But a lot of my evangelical friends don’t like Ross, and some believe in a young earth. (That is particularly an American evangelical camp that has grown in the last four decades.) I disagree, as do I think most European evangelicals. And historically, most evangelical Christians have accepted, or at least tolerated evolution and the scientific dating for the earth.
As to the spread of the early church, the book of Acts and related literature (NT letters and the Revelation of John) show how Christianity spread from an obscure province to the center of the Roman Empire.
But my faith doesn’t hinge on whether the Flood was universal or localized, though I would expect special revelation to have historical backing, so I’m not surprised when various aspects of biblical history are confirmed in archaeological findings, as Scout has pointed out.
As to why the Flood issue doesn’t come up in Sunday School, I don’t really know. I think most churches are composed of folks who tend to think all the same way, so a lot of things are taboo to talk about. Not that it’s good that way, but that’s the way it is. Church fellowships are usually far from perfect, but they are still a chance to practice my Christianity and learn from others. I appreciate mine for that reason, even if I would disagree probably with most members strongly on, for example, political issues (I don’t bring them up at church; well, not usually, unless in my personal opinion, I think it’s crucial). (Interesting, on politics, most of my Christian friends back in Germany would be at opposite poles from the political positions of my church friends here. I guess context and historical background make a lot of difference in what and how we think.)
There’s been volumes written on all of these individual questions, so no good trying to write answers to them in a couple of sentences. I’ve already recommended a couple of writers. Inter-Varsity Press has some volumes that consider individual issues from different angles. One writer gives his view, the others disagree and respond, and then each responds again. Not sure if the flood issue is one of them, but there are several of that nature.
So after that rambling, I’d say Christians don’t pretend to agree on every issue–I think that’s part of the fun, if we disagree in the right way. What unites us is Christ. Focusing on Him–that’s what the Eucharist says, ‘Remember Me.’
@ Brad– I didn’t say that. I most certainly did not say “God IS.” I said whether or not you believe in God, or anything else, is not a matter of choice. The comment was about the nature of belief, not about the existence or not of God.
@ bud–surely there are things you believe to be true despite having never observed them with your senses.I believe China exists, and that Middle Earth does not, although my only personal experience observing either is through films and television. I believe there are toucans, but not purple cows.
If other humans tell me God exists and he takes a certain form then I can decide if I believe what they tell me or I can reject what they tell me. If a different group of people tell me a different kind of god exists I can likewise choose to believe what they tell me. It’s all about my choosing to believe or not as I see fit for whatever reason I find compelling. That’s why they call it faith, not science.
Is one of these religious choices the absolute right choice? Maybe. But the only way I will ever know for sure is to die. In the meantime I can use my brain to decide the issue. And if I tell my brain it must believe what a certain group of people tell me, based on books written thousands of years ago by other humans then I can do so. If Brad is correct on this issue, and he may very well be, that’s up to him to decide, then ALL the other religions are blasphemy. In that case Brad is choosing to asscociate with blasphemous people. That would seem to be a huge sin if what his people and old books say is correct. Not sure if belief involves any more than just rationalization rather than revelation. But then again, maybe I don’t really exist after all. I could just be a figment of someone’s imgaination.
From my Steve Earle CD Christmas present.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c7-A17IYzQ
…and an earlier Iris Dement favorite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlaoR5m4L80
Herb,
Where did I say that the Mormons origin myth made sense? What I suggest is that many people have low to no thresholds for accepting or rejecting facts. It somehow makes them feel good for some reason. People believe in Astrology for much the same reason. Somehow, the Mormons’ silly origin story that lacks any basis in fact is sillier than a genesis story that lacks any basis in fact.
The historical flood story you are talking about is the theory known as the Black Sea Deluge. That then freshwater sea flooded sometime in the last 10,000 years, as the end of the last glacial period, in a collapse of the barrier between it and the Mediterranean, at the Bosphorus, adding to its size by perhaps 1/3rdf, over the course of perhaps 100 years. The Flood, then, may be considered a teleological myth springing from this event, meant to explain it to the late stone-age/early bronze age world view, but that makes it no closer to being an actual Biblical God-driven real event punishing a wicked world than the eruption at Thera made that island into Atlantis. That said, the Flood purports a rainstorm, not a monstrous waterfall, which, I imagine, would have made quite an impression. What is particularly problematic is if you can’t reliably translate (i.e. “Land” may mean Earth, or it may mean a few acres) what an anonymous author(s) writing 2700 years ago about an event set some 3000 years earlier, its not exactly a gold standard for proof that that story is more authentic than a Mormon belief.
After all, if God can Flood the world, get a 600 year old man to gather 2 or 7 of every kind of animal, get them on a giant wooden boat for 40 days of rain, 150 days of being forgotten by God, and another 2 weeks for them to search for an island before draining all the water, why is it a stretch at all to say he re-aligned the archaeological evidence about Indians in the New World wiping out the Lost Tribe of Israel, or that Eden was in Missouri, or that Muhammed flew to Jerusalem on a winged horse, or that Xenu threw the Thetans into a Cretaceous Volcano? But those other ideas are crazy, right?
So, what’s the harm then, in a Flood story? Lots. How many centuries of harm have come from the idea that the brown-skinned Ham was cursed by his father for the weird sin of seeing Noah drunk and naked? Why, they are hardly even human, so, really they should be happy being slaves. God said so.
As for “scientists” like Hugh Ross, that begs credulity. Taking a myth, and trying to re-arrange observations to fit it is the very opposite of science. Having a PhD in astrophysics doesn’t mean you can’t have innate biases. That’s why science isn’t one guy/gal. Its a collective understanding, which has to winnow out the crackpots that occasionally pop up, such as Velikovsky. That said, Mr. Ross can have his crack at it, and we will see how much traction his ideas will have in influencing new, more useful directions in physics and cosmology. Probably none. I think he will sell lots more books in Christian bookstores than will Stephen Hawking.
As for archaeological confirmation of biblical events, let’s face it,… most of those expeditions are funded by groups with an agenda to advance, or by fraudsters or so-called archaeologists creating interpretations to suit them. Amid that noise, its hard to separate the legitimate scientist from the charlatan, the one’s that come up with things like the “Ossuary of James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”, the owner of which was indicted on numerous counts of fraud and forgery by the Israeli government. A stone box, like most “relics”, is worthless unless there is some story attached to it that the (pseudo)History Channel can sensationalize.
As for believing in China, I don’t. I do have a pretty high confidence that it exists based on corroborating evidence. Likewise democracy, trilobites, and the composition of distant stars. That is not the same as belief in the spiritual sense.
Okay, Tim, so what would be a fair analogy for belief in a spiritual sense? I think the God believers attribute causes to God, just as astrology adherents ascribe things to Mercury’s retrograde, or Scientologists to engrams (of all these, I actually think the Scientologists have sort of a point–much of what we do and believe derives from our collected past experiences. I believe these experiences started for me about 52 years ago, but YMMV), or to wearing one’s lucky shirt. Do you really “choose” to believe these things like you choose to wear a blue shirt or eat chicken tonight, or is it just something that your mind accepts or rejects unconsciously?
Tim,
There are a number of questionable assumptions in what you write, just as you obviously assume to find the same in my sentences.
It obviously isn’t a level playing field for you; having taken Bible Skepticism 101, the Bible is fraudulent until proven otherwise. And nothing will be able to prove otherwise.
Just the sentence, ‘let’s face it . . .’ is one of those assumptions. Let’s face what? To dismiss legitimate archaeologists, Jewish scholars Aharoni and Avi-Jonah to begin with, as crackpots, points to a bias that even the angel Gabriel couldn’t overcome. True, neither of the aforementioned would subscribe to my full evangelical (high) view of Scripture, but that isn’t the point. There is reason to assume that biblical writers were not on drugs when they wrote, but very meticulous and exact in relating the stories of what happened, even down the genealogies. That was the culture in which they lived; these weren’t ignoranamuses, even if they lived centuries ago. They passed down what they knew, and their forefathers had lived.
Ditto for your straw men: if people have misused Scripture, then Scripture must be bad, ipso facto. Sounds like a good excuse to wiggle out from under authority to me. I can always find bad interpretations of the Bible; I can’t find any with Jesus, though. Luke 24 says that he interpreted all things in the (OT) Scriptures concerning Himself. That was the key for Him, it wasn’t about whether Methusela lived for 96something years, it was about God’s Word to man. But you’ll never read where He casts doubt upon the message of OT Scripture, or assumes it isn’t true.
Scripture isn’t just a metaphor, either. My faith is in a real Jesus, not a metaphor Jesus. A Jesus who believed in the veracity of Scripture, and who accepted it’s authority. He is my Lord; what He believed about the OT carries weight with me. If He gave credulity to the Flood story–and used it as a warning to live our lives focused–then that is meant to be an authoritative word to me. I don’t have the right to discount it. No, I don’t need a universal Flood story for my faith. From the perspective of the writer, I’m not surprised if the whole Black Sea region might appear to be the whole inhabited land. Might well have been, in his time. Unless, of course, I really can prove that it did not happen, but I don’t think that has been done. You do. OK, I’ll leave it there. But you also seem to be assuming from the beginning that it’s just a childish story, because all you’ve heard about it were childish things. If so, then the fault lies may lie with your assumptions, and not with the story itself.
I do look for some degree of support in history for what I believe. I want to believe that I’m objective. I don’t think every college professor necessarily is, though. Nor is every scientist. There are a lot of scientists who are believers, though, probably more than you think. But it sounds like that would automatically mean they can’t be legitimate scientists, in your eyes. The Bible is fraudulent until proven otherwise. End of case.
Of course, everyone is ‘free’ to choose as they want to–that’s been said many times here. Well–within certain limits, that is. So go ahead and mock. That’s your choice. It’s not mine. I’ve found Jesus to be a faithful Friend, and I won’t presume to qualify His authority over my life by picking and choosing what I think is valid in His teaching, and what isn’t. He is the Lord, not me, and I only desire that His Resurrection life be evident, to some extent, in my own. ‘For to me, living in Christ, and dying is gain.’ (Phil 2:21)
Kathryn,
I don’t know. I have spent more than my share of time in philosophy pondering that.