- Jun 17, 2018
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Hello, I’m a student at a very liberal seminary and would like to see how my perspective holds up here. What I wanna do is lay out some of what I’ve been taught, why i find it convincing, and see if any fundamentalist or evangelical can change my mind, or at least enrich my understanding. Let me emphasize that I believe in the Historical Christ (Yeshua HaMesiak, the messiah), that he was a perfect being, and that genuine prayer to him is entirely effective. Thus do I worship him and therefore claim to be a faithful Christian.
However:
I do not believe in biblical inerrancy.
1. First because of the problem of manuscripts
a) we don’t have the original copies (which suggests the people who wrote them didnt think they were that important)
b) the oldest versions we have were written in Greek when Yeshua and his followers likely spoke Aramaic, which means information has been lost in translation.
c) the earliest copies we do have do not feature chapter and verse breaks, or much punctuation at all. This seems to imply they were not intended for analytical study, and likely were used as support for oral traditions (the dominate form of information dissemination at the time). This suggests the stories of Christ were flexible and extra-biblical.
2) There are many irreconcilable contradictions of plot.
a) In John, Yeshua storms the temple at the beginning of his ministry (John 2:13-16). Yet in the Synoptics this happens at the end of His ministry and is the cause of his arrest (Matthew 21:12–17, Mark 11:15–19, and Luke 19:45–48). This is clearly a description of the same event, yet it happens at different points in different narratives. Meaning somebody must be wrong.
b) He hides his messianism in Mark, and once Peter figures it out He tells the disciples to keep it a secret (Mark 8:29-30). Yet in Luke The Savior openly reveals His messianic nature at the beginning of His ministry (Luke 4:17-21). One of them must be wrong, or at least have gotten the wrong idea.
c) There are more. John claims He is crucified the day before Passover, he Synoptics claim it happens on the holiday itself. They differ on the question of to whom He first appeared (Mark and John says Mary, the others imply Peter or the 12). The list goes on but I think these are these most major ones.
3. Paul almost definitely did not write the pastoral epistles.
a) Titus, 1 & 2 Timothy contain a different writing style (they feature long and convoluted sentences, unlike the letters all scholars believe to be written by Paul) [Note: this is only observable in the Greek. Translators have smoothed it out in the English translation]
b) They contain a different argument style. Paul always does a very good job explaining how Christians should respond to unbelievers (I actually love Paul’s real writing very much if you can’t tell), but these texts simply resort to name calling.
c) They contradict other writings of Paul. Specifically the line about women not speaking in church (I’ll not do it the honor of citing the specific verse), whereas elsewhere he recognizes the authority of female prophets (Philippians 4:2).
This is not even to mention that the cannon was constructed by the same authoritarian structure which became corrupted and which the Protestants rightly broke away from. There are apocryphal texts, some of which are dated in the same range as the canonical gospels (see the gospel of a Thomas in particular), which describe a form of Christianity a lot more like Indian religion and Greek philosophy (that the One is within us, and to know ourselves is to know the One. Thus ‘salvation’ is synonymous with enlightenment). Couldn’t it be possible that the canonical texts are the heresies? If we take a naturalistic approach to mystical experience, we can hypothesize that it’s the same in all world cultures, which is what recent work in neuro-theology suggests.
Fundamentalists have given me the idea that even asking these questions makes me demonic or anti-Christian. Yet I find that liberating my faith to extrabiblical sources has brought me closer to the word of God, which I see as a function of my relationship with God. I feel that when I’m really tuned into God’s omnipresence, I can find the word of God in everything that’s said, in any book, I can really tell that he’s always trying to reach me. It seems to me this is a perfectly valid interpretation of th faith. Why am I wrong? What am I missing? I realize I don’t know everything, and that i might be wrong, but the fact that I can face this and move forward lovingly gives me even more faith.
These are genuine questions that I want to understand:
I.
a)What convinces you that your copy of the Bible is so accurate?
b) What convinces you that the straightforward way you read it is the way it’s supposed to be read?
II.
How do you resolve the fact that the gospels have so blatant factual contradictions?
III.
a) Why is it impossible for a forgery to have made its way into the cannon? (Especially if the Catholic Church became so corrupt).
b) What convinces you that those who set the Cannon were inspired by God but the Pope isn’t?
c) Isn’t that the same organization?
IV. (This is the one I’m most interested in)
a)If it turns out that the truth of Christ is extra-biblical, wouldn’t you want to know?
b)Is it possible that we’ve been wrong about some of the fundamental questions, but that the signs we’ve seen have been Christ loving us anyway?
c) Wouldn’t it be better if all of the world religions (or at least, most of them) were right all along?
(Also, this just cause I'm curious and I’ve never heard a good defense, but why does scripture have to have a limit? Can’t God just keep inspiring us to write new gospels? The argument I always hear is that Revelations ends with the quote about not adding or subtracting from ‘this work’, but of course the writer of Rev would have been talking about his own pamphlet, not the whole Bible -which didn’t exist yet-)
Anyway thanks to anyone whose looked through this much of what I’m saying. I’m Genuinely trying to work towards for a mutual understanding here. God Bless
However:
I do not believe in biblical inerrancy.
1. First because of the problem of manuscripts
a) we don’t have the original copies (which suggests the people who wrote them didnt think they were that important)
b) the oldest versions we have were written in Greek when Yeshua and his followers likely spoke Aramaic, which means information has been lost in translation.
c) the earliest copies we do have do not feature chapter and verse breaks, or much punctuation at all. This seems to imply they were not intended for analytical study, and likely were used as support for oral traditions (the dominate form of information dissemination at the time). This suggests the stories of Christ were flexible and extra-biblical.
2) There are many irreconcilable contradictions of plot.
a) In John, Yeshua storms the temple at the beginning of his ministry (John 2:13-16). Yet in the Synoptics this happens at the end of His ministry and is the cause of his arrest (Matthew 21:12–17, Mark 11:15–19, and Luke 19:45–48). This is clearly a description of the same event, yet it happens at different points in different narratives. Meaning somebody must be wrong.
b) He hides his messianism in Mark, and once Peter figures it out He tells the disciples to keep it a secret (Mark 8:29-30). Yet in Luke The Savior openly reveals His messianic nature at the beginning of His ministry (Luke 4:17-21). One of them must be wrong, or at least have gotten the wrong idea.
c) There are more. John claims He is crucified the day before Passover, he Synoptics claim it happens on the holiday itself. They differ on the question of to whom He first appeared (Mark and John says Mary, the others imply Peter or the 12). The list goes on but I think these are these most major ones.
3. Paul almost definitely did not write the pastoral epistles.
a) Titus, 1 & 2 Timothy contain a different writing style (they feature long and convoluted sentences, unlike the letters all scholars believe to be written by Paul) [Note: this is only observable in the Greek. Translators have smoothed it out in the English translation]
b) They contain a different argument style. Paul always does a very good job explaining how Christians should respond to unbelievers (I actually love Paul’s real writing very much if you can’t tell), but these texts simply resort to name calling.
c) They contradict other writings of Paul. Specifically the line about women not speaking in church (I’ll not do it the honor of citing the specific verse), whereas elsewhere he recognizes the authority of female prophets (Philippians 4:2).
This is not even to mention that the cannon was constructed by the same authoritarian structure which became corrupted and which the Protestants rightly broke away from. There are apocryphal texts, some of which are dated in the same range as the canonical gospels (see the gospel of a Thomas in particular), which describe a form of Christianity a lot more like Indian religion and Greek philosophy (that the One is within us, and to know ourselves is to know the One. Thus ‘salvation’ is synonymous with enlightenment). Couldn’t it be possible that the canonical texts are the heresies? If we take a naturalistic approach to mystical experience, we can hypothesize that it’s the same in all world cultures, which is what recent work in neuro-theology suggests.
Fundamentalists have given me the idea that even asking these questions makes me demonic or anti-Christian. Yet I find that liberating my faith to extrabiblical sources has brought me closer to the word of God, which I see as a function of my relationship with God. I feel that when I’m really tuned into God’s omnipresence, I can find the word of God in everything that’s said, in any book, I can really tell that he’s always trying to reach me. It seems to me this is a perfectly valid interpretation of th faith. Why am I wrong? What am I missing? I realize I don’t know everything, and that i might be wrong, but the fact that I can face this and move forward lovingly gives me even more faith.
These are genuine questions that I want to understand:
I.
a)What convinces you that your copy of the Bible is so accurate?
b) What convinces you that the straightforward way you read it is the way it’s supposed to be read?
II.
How do you resolve the fact that the gospels have so blatant factual contradictions?
III.
a) Why is it impossible for a forgery to have made its way into the cannon? (Especially if the Catholic Church became so corrupt).
b) What convinces you that those who set the Cannon were inspired by God but the Pope isn’t?
c) Isn’t that the same organization?
IV. (This is the one I’m most interested in)
a)If it turns out that the truth of Christ is extra-biblical, wouldn’t you want to know?
b)Is it possible that we’ve been wrong about some of the fundamental questions, but that the signs we’ve seen have been Christ loving us anyway?
c) Wouldn’t it be better if all of the world religions (or at least, most of them) were right all along?
(Also, this just cause I'm curious and I’ve never heard a good defense, but why does scripture have to have a limit? Can’t God just keep inspiring us to write new gospels? The argument I always hear is that Revelations ends with the quote about not adding or subtracting from ‘this work’, but of course the writer of Rev would have been talking about his own pamphlet, not the whole Bible -which didn’t exist yet-)
Anyway thanks to anyone whose looked through this much of what I’m saying. I’m Genuinely trying to work towards for a mutual understanding here. God Bless