July 16, 2007
Misquoting Jesus
I just came across a review of a book I’ve been reading off and on for the last month or so - Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why - on a couple of different sites. The review itself (at Powell’s Books) gives a nice summary of Bart Ehrman’s arguments regarding the impossible task of obtaining and understanding the “original texts” of the bible.
Many people have a vague notion that all the original biblical texts are preserved in vaults somewhere, and translators work from those original texts. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. The earliest surviving versions of the gospels are handwritten copies dating from centuries after the original texts were written. Also, we don’t just have a single version of each gospel; we have many versions, and even more fragments. The trouble is, none of the versions agree with each other.1
If you haven’t read the book, I’d highly recommend it. Dawkins even mentions it in his recent “God Delusion” (so, it’s gotta be good, right?). Ehrman details many specific examples of differences between versions of the biblical texts, and also examines how the specific books were chosen and compiled.
Also, if there’s any Christians reading this - please, tell me - how DO you reconcile the problems Ehrman mentions? Were all of the copies of the bible divinely inspired? Was there one particular version that was divinely inspired? Please… I’m dying to know!
- Brown, Doug (2007) Review of Misquoting Jesus, Powell’s Books [↩]
Posts
Andrew said,
July 16, 2007 at 9:07 pm
It looks like either:
A) Christians aren’t reading this blog, or;
B) Can’t reconcile the disparate narratives.
Thanks for the pointer to the book. I’ll keep an eye out for it in my local bookstore.
Richard said,
July 16, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Give them SOME credit. This post has only been up an hour!
Andrew said,
July 16, 2007 at 10:46 pm
hehe. But they have already had over a millenia!
Fair call though…
Richard said,
July 17, 2007 at 12:27 am
More like two millennia!
Still, I figure an extra hour or two can’t hurt…
Devin said,
July 17, 2007 at 2:33 am
Hey! Thanks for your comment.
The book you mention looks interesting, however I have pretty much given up research on the bible. I attended church for the first 15 years of my life, so I have read my fair share. Unfortunately, in my experience, it is utterly impossible to convince any Christian that the bible is less than the divine word of god. Contradictions, inaccuracies, historical evidence, it does not matter. Maybe that’s because my family and others I know are Southern Baptists… quite fundamentalist.
That said, I seem to remember the mention in Dawkins’ book, and may pick up a copy.
I enjoy your posts, and will be back!
Devin
Scavella said,
July 17, 2007 at 10:16 am
???
It’s only a narrow, though noisy, segment of Christianity that claims that “divine inspiration” means that every full stop and quotation mark of the “original texts” was dictated to some author by the Lord God Himself (or Herself, considering that inspiration makes reference to the Spirit, which in the original Hebrew is a feminine noun … but let’s not complicate the issue).
For most of the rest of us it’s not a big deal. For most of the rest of us the idea that the original texts are literally true — as opposed to being figuratively true (there’s a difference) — is fringe stuff. Speaking as one who adheres to a mainstream, long-established, traditionalist, non-Catholic church, my idea of the Bible as the literal, revealed Word of God leads to something that can only imperfectly be represented here on earth, and even more imperfectly understood. I don’t regard “truth” as being tied to the written word; I understand that many errors can occur between the impulse and the writing of the word.
Being a writer and a poet myself, and understanding the struggle between the purity of the inspiration and the paucity of the result, I regard the business of interpretation of the “Word of God” as a wrestle with words and meanings. Disparate narratives are to be expected. They are, as all literature is, fragments of a greater and broader truth, and open (as are all facts) to interpretation.
I don’t see a problem. I see endless richness of opportunity.
Cheers.
Richard said,
July 17, 2007 at 12:31 pm
@Devin - I understand that many Atheists see little point in studying the bible, but to me it’s still interesting. Thanks for dropping by!
@Scavella - I realise that literal interpretations of the bible are limited to a small vocal minority, but that doesn’t change the fact that you rely on the bible (I imagine) being true to some degree. Could you call yourself a Christian without believing in the virgin birth, forgiveness of sins, the resurrection, the holy trinity, etc.? Where can you possibly gain knowledge of these things except through the bible? And therefore, if the bible is fallible (which you seem to agree on), why should you trust this one fallible source?
I am genuinely interested in this - it seems easy (although pointless) to debate with fundamentalists, but many of the people we meet on a day to day basis don’t hold such radical views. I’d love to know how the more rational among us deal with these issues.
Scavella said,
July 17, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Could you call yourself a Christian without believing in the virgin birth, forgiveness of sins, the resurrection, the holy trinity, etc.? Where can you possibly gain knowledge of these things except through the bible?
Answer to question one: yes, absolutely. Some years ago (in 1984), the Rev. David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham (fourth highest Church in the Anglican Communion) created a stir by announcing that the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection were all fables. As far as I know, he has never called himself anything else but a Christian, though he has been called all sorts of things by other people.
More on that here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/393479.stm
Answer to question two: surely you can gain knowledge of all sorts of things the same way several the writers of the Bible claimed to — by divine inspiration itself, through mystical practices, through your own experience, and even through logical reasoning. The main challenge in logical discussions would be the statement and mutual acceptances of starting premise. Logic itself is a process of thinking, nothing more and nothing else. Some people are skeptical of all forms of knowledge beyond the empirical; I happen to accept the possibility that experiential, emotional, and revelatory knowledge can be as valid as empirical knowledge. The fact that empirical knowledge is the easiest to test and reproduce is a convenience that makes it simple for skeptics to trust, but to my mind it doesn’t eliminate other kinds of knowledge.
I regard the Bible in much the same way. I believe in its divine revelation. I don’t have to believe in the literality of its revelation; I know it is great literature, and great literature tells great truth without being literally true. I am not claiming that I disbelieve in the story of Christ as told. In fact, I choose to believe in the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Christ; these are the central acts of my faith. But I recognize that faith is a conscious exercise, not the bolthole to which one runs when all other information has been proven false (which appears to be the way many evangelists present it). Paradoxically, faith, to quote the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. If my faith depended on the literal truth of every word of the Bible, that faith would not be faith, but enslavement.
Richard said,
July 18, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I accept that it’s possible some “truths” can be learned/known without empirical proof - love, for example. While one day we might be able to scientifically “prove” love (or, maybe not), I certainly don’t “not believe” in love simply because I can’t explain it logically or scientifically.
That said, love is vague. The suggestion that “Jesus was born to a virgin” is a very specific statement. If, as you admit, the bible is fallible (and one of the specific issues Ehrman discusses is the possible mistranslation of the word “virgin”) - then how can you possibly “know” this? Perhaps you could “know” that a higher power exists, because you’ve “felt his presence” (for the sake of argument, I’ll accept this for now), but did God specifically tell you that his mother was a virgin when she gave birth to him?
The bible is fallible, and therefore its specific words cannot be trusted. Yes, there is probably some truth in it (I’d certainly agree with that statement), but I can’t see how you can claim to trust in things which can have no possible “evidence” (including “spiritual evidence”, if I can call it that) except the fallible biblical texts.
Scavella said,
July 19, 2007 at 9:43 am
I can’t see how you can claim to trust in things which can have no possible “evidence” (including “spiritual evidence”, if I can call it that) except the fallible biblical texts.
This is where choice comes in, and it applies not only to things like the virgin birth but to the Trinity as well, which appears to be almost certainly to be a myth of the early church, as it’s not even clearly stated in the Bible.
My faith centres around the resurrection of Christ, which is startling enough in its audacity for me to be biased in favour of believing it (paradoxical, I know, but so) — largely because of the very absurdity of the story and the fact that early Christians were willing to die rather than repudiate it. Not the best of evidence, perhaps, but striking enough as it stands. I have added the ideas of the virgin birth and the Trinity by choice and tradition, but neither really affects my Christianity, IMO, other than determining which stream of it I’m affiliated with. The rest is experiential and rather too personal to be discussed publicly — rather like love.
Cheers.
Richard said,
July 19, 2007 at 10:21 am
The trinity is another thing that Ehrman discusses!
There’s still one thing I’m a little confused about - you get the “idea” about the trinity or virgin birth from the bible (even if the evidence there is sketchy), but you still “choose” to believe (I can’t argue with “faith”). But, if it could be categorically proven that these ideas were NOT what the original writers of the bible intended, would you still believe them?
Scavella said,
July 19, 2007 at 12:31 pm
No. Yes. Perhaps.
Not being caught up in the idea that the Bible is a textbook of science or history as opposed to a book of literature or poetry, it doesn’t matter to me much one way or another. Take Shakespeare’s Richard III, for instance. It has been fairly conclusively demonstrated that the historical Richard was nothing like the monster in Shakespeare’s play, and that that character was the invention of the Tudors, who had wrested the crown from the Plantagenets (of which royal family Richard was the last) by murder and treason. The tale’s in the telling, isn’t it?
The point is, though, that while Shakespeare’s Richard may have been an invention, what Shakespeare had to say about tyranny and politics and evil rulers, both in Richard III, in Hamlet, and in Macbeth, was fundamentally true. True to human nature, true to political action, true to psychology (three hundred years before Freud and Jung), true to the deepest motivations in humanity. In some ways, the details float on the surface; the truth lies deep below.
I have shared what I believe, and have indicated that it’s my choice. I am also rather sceptical that any conclusions about the validity of any theory, religious or scientific, can be drawn across millennia; as an anthropologist I know how much the study of origins is like a detective story, and how fragments of history can be arranged and rearranged according to one’s starting hypothesis. The solidity of any of our knowledge is, ultimately, an illusion. A collection of bones can be arranged and rearranged until the shape that’s made pleases us. A pot can be reassembled, but its use is largely conjecture. The fossil record tells a story, but we may not have the language to read it. The Bible tells the same story several different ways, and so do many other religious texts; I suspect the whole, literal truth is in none of them. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a truth somewhere to be had. So I trust in that truth, knowing I’m dealing with fragments, and knowing (to quote Paul, in one of the contemplations with which I don’t have too many problems) that we humans see truth as through a glass darkly.
Richard said,
July 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I suppose we agree on one thing, there is most likely SOME “truth” in the bible. We certainly disagree on what that truth is, however.
Thanks for sharing your views - nice to have some friendly (I hope it was?) debate!
Hope you drop by again soon.
Scavella said,
July 19, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Friendly? Certainly. It was a pleasure!
Cheers.
Andrew said,
July 19, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Scavella - I thank you for your thoughtful and polite comments. However, in all of these discussions about theology (and I recognise the beauty of some of the arguments) have you ever stopped to think what you are actually discussing? It is not something that you can touch and hold in your hand. It is not love or hate (something that we all feel regardless of religion or lack thereof). It is not anger or dispair (something that all life experiences to one degree or another). It is what?
This is the fundamental difference between a thoughtful athiest and a thoughtful religious person. I ask for evidence that we are talking about something that even matters. Something that makes some tangible difference to the world. Something that my inaction or action will affect. I just don’t see these things argued and supported aside from appeals to a claimed authority.
So can you come up with a self evident and strong “proof” of your theology?
Scavella said,
July 19, 2007 at 11:47 pm
have you ever stopped to think what you are actually discussing?
Yes, deeply. And that is why I know I can only argue part of my case, and why I have made it clear throughout my discussion that part of my choice to believe is personal and can’t/won’t be shared by me. You say,
… It is not love or hate (something that we all feel regardless of religion or lack thereof). It is not anger or dispair (something that all life experiences to one degree or another) …
but I say it is love and hate, anger and despair. These emotions are part of the “knowledge” that I talk about when I talk about what goes beyond the rational, when I speak of the bits of life and human experience that atheist thought is (IMO) poorly equipped to deal with. We “know” things with these emotions; the difficulty is that what we “know” is difficult for us to codify or to understand. But it is most often these emotions, and not our intellects, that shape our day-to-day existences, and so for me they must collectively provide a valid means of examining the world around us.
Now. Emotions are difficult “data” to use. We all have them, and they certainly exist (I didn’t bring them up, after all, you did), but they are difficult to categorize and to measure, and they are unpredictable in their results. We don’t even know for sure that other people feel them the way we do; we can only observe other people’s behaviour, and from it assume that “love” is the same for somebody else as it is for us. We trust this, and we have faith in it, but we could be horribly wrong.
The only way that I have seen emotions addressed scientifically (would it be an assumption to say in an atheistic paradigm?) is to regard them as chemical residue of some kind of evolutionary impulse — as instinct-evolved, in other words. Now they very well may be; and they very well may have a function that scientists have not yet fully articulated (in fact, I’m sure that they do). But I have yet to see a purely humanist, naturalist, materialist view of the world begin even adequately to address these systems of knowledge that we all feel, but that are almost entirely subjective.
And there’s a small complication. You see, it’s in those systems of knowledge that divine revelation occurs. Most people’s experience of the divine occurs emotionally, through the very things that we “all” feel. The feelings are real, and they are universal; the shapes they take are culturally constructed (which is why I say I have chosen my Christianity; it is the cultural construction that makes sense to me, both externally and internally). The only proof I can offer is anecdotal here; but as an anthropologist, I can tell you that there is enough anecdotal data to lead to the conclusion that the feeling of transcendence is a universal human experience. There are enough piles of data collected from enough religious people around the world and through the ages to prove conclusively that transcendence occurs, that it is an event experienced through the emotions, and that it is an event that cannot be described adequately in words. What’s universal also is the language that’s used to describe that transcendent; it’s almost always metaphorical, oblique, and difficult to take at face value. The experience is such cannot be described in plain, bland words. And the result of that experience is worship, ritual, action that provides a fairly sure channel back to that transcendence, and a series of beliefs — the articulation of the explanation — that justify the ritual (or the other way round).
The problem comes when we wish to test their claims. Because of the nature of the language that’s used to describe the experience, we can’t judge it by scientific terms. The language is not realistic. The language is not describing something material and external, like a rock. But it is equally not the language of the imagination, of something “made up”; it relates an experience that is startlingly similar across cultures and through time.
And it’s an experience that atheists usually ignore or denigrate or attempt to explain away in terms of “superstition” or “mass hysteria” or “evolutionary impulse” — ideas that are insulting to those who have experienced the feeling and understand it as having been in contact with the divine, whatever that is. It is this willful discarding of a universal human experience that assures me that atheism at times is a thought system like all religions, something that starts from a certain perspective and discards those things that don’t fit into that perspective.
I would take my “proof” one step further, though. It is in love itself — and not the feelings of love we all have, not the chemical emotions that are fleeting and change with hormones, but the counterintuitive actions that people (and not just mothers either, let’s get rid of that old evolutionary chestnut, the mothering instinct) take in the name of love: say, the sacrificing of one life for the other, the giving up of fundamental needs to preserve the well-being of someone else — that I recognize the divine. So my answer would be that this is my evidence that what we are talking about makes some tangible difference. Whether that divine has the face of Jesus or of the Buddha, of Dambhalla or of Allah or even of Zeus or Odin or the Goddess, I can recognize it when I see people take the kinds of actions I would describe as personifying love.
And to think I was going to keep it short! My apologies for woffling on. I may have taken exception at the idea that I can’t possibly have thought about what I am “actually discussing”, when it’s one of the few things that I have thought about constantly, for almost all of my life, and the above is the result.
20 gram Soul : Conversations with God said,
July 22, 2007 at 5:50 pm
[...] discussing Misquoting Jesus recently, I thought it was about time I talked about another book that’s had a profound [...]
Andrew said,
July 22, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Scavella - again I thank you for your comments. Although I did infer it I don’t think you have not pondered your position carefully. However, that same position is to me indefensible in the harsh light of science - or more to the point, the reality based method of “show me - let me try to do it too!” that we all learnt as kids.
I’ll be blunt. From divine revelation comes nothing but an imaginary world. We can talk for ever about this yet never come to a conclusion that does us any good at all. You as an anthropoligist should get the idea that religions are endemic, yet each does precisely as much good (or bad) as another. They tell us nothing useful beyond what we already know as functional intelligent creatures. Philosophy is a great pastime for we who sip tea in the comfort of our 21st century homes, but it does nothing to stop us from being eaten by lions at night…
Jim Vijay said,
July 23, 2007 at 5:22 am
Bart Ehrman, may his tribe increase, does not go to the logical conclusion demanded by his studies:
1. There is no unique definition of “The Bible”. The first definition, the Roman Catholic bible, was done about three centuries after the death of Jesus — primarily to solidify the preminence of the defining sect. The first “protestant” bible was defined by Martin Luther 15 centuries after Jesus. And Luther wasn’t sure if “Revelations” belonged in the bible. Not surprisingly, the bible doesn’t define itself. This “loophole” allowed Joseph Smith to add books to the bible.
2. The principal founders of christianity, Jesus & Paul, did not express any intention of creating such an entity. Certainly Jesus never hinted that his gospel message would be written and become the “inerrant word of god”. And Paul, as he diligently wrote epistle after epistle to different churches, never realised he could write one epistle explaining the new doctrine and send it to all churches.
3. There was very little, if any, attention given to preserve “master” versions of any of the books in any bible. We really do not know who wrote the books, or how corrupted they became - both intentionally and unintentionally - over time by copyists and translators. (see Bart Ehrman’s ‘Misquoting Jesus’).
All in all, a very suspicious & inauspicious foundation for a supposedly inerrant & divinely inspired tome.
20 gram Soul : Am I too argumentative? said,
July 25, 2007 at 9:43 pm
[...] and see if anyone else can get their comments published. One in the comments of my post “Misquoting Jesus“, one on Facebook, and the other one I’m discussing here. [↩]which should follow [...]
kumarei said,
July 27, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Hey Scavella,
I don’t really want to address the subject at hand, since it seems as if you have a firm hold on what you believe and why you believe that. You don’t seem like the type of person who decides things by blind faith (faith, but not blind faith), so I don’t really have any problem with your views on Christianity.
What I would like to talk about, though, is the idea that seems to crop up in your last post: the idea of cold science. Science is often reductionist in its methodology, it’s true. But what comes across when you read the works of science (not the articles, where one must by necessity be brief, but the books), it becomes clear that Science is, as much as religion, a labor of love.
Now, I don’t like comparisons of religion to science, because they are often without knowledge of the standards which science holds itself in order to be as rigorous as possible. But, in terms of the emotions behind it, I think that science can be compared.
What motivates scientists is the way a drop of water rolls off the delicate spindles of a spring green leaf, the sweet succor of an apple against an abrasive tongue, the way that a human being, who is incapable of working some of the most basic computable formulas in their head, can come up with a brilliant plan full of awareness and understanding without even stopping to think about it. It is these things that touch a scientists heart, and she thinks to herself, “Why are these things like that?” Then, she sets off to find out. And with each ring of the tree, each fossil uncovered, each new star planted in the heavens with four different names or more, when the discoverer feels poetic, with each new discovery the world only becomes that much more beautiful.
And it isn’t all about taking things apart. There’s also the putting things together. Clockwork mechanisms, brilliant wires and transistors, strings of ribosomes that assemble themselves to create things that have never existed, quantum pieces that draw on the addition and subtraction of another timeline, and even tiny worms that swim in a binary soup, searching, like everyone, for food, nourishment, and a little bit of sun that they can call their own.
Science is not cold and dead; it is warm and living, and full of never ending frontiers the likes of which have not been seen since the human race stumbled forward to cover the earth.
All of this is a part of why I’m an atheist. Because the world is beautiful enough, diverse enough, to satisfy even the most hard hearted bastard, if they looked outside their window. Sure, there’s pain and suffering, and I want to do as much I can to alleviate that, but with such a boundless universe, I can’t imagine a single place, with a single entity, that could ever be perfect. It all seems too boring.
I’m sorry to have turned this to religion at the end, since I don’t think it’s really useful or aesthetic, but it’s part of who I am, I suppose. Needless to say, there are many scientists who are religious: real scientists, not the fundamentalist think tanks that power the ID movement. Many of them feel similarly about the world, but see it as a sign of an amazing divinity. For them, and for many others, science is anything but cold.
Scavella said,
July 29, 2007 at 11:08 pm
kumarei,
Thanks for that beautiful answer. Your last two paragraphs, in particular, are where you and I meet. We see exactly the same world, but we draw from it different conclusions. I know that there are real scientists who are religious and I know why they are religious and I know that their reasons are similar to your assertion of faith in the wonder of the world. I call it faith, because although it’s there, many people can’t or don’t see it. It is here that I can call up the “evidence” for a divine hand, just as theist scientists do; it’s here that most human societies have also found their evidence.
This is why, too, I have never been able to shake off my faith in God. I tried — not as an anthropologist, which came later, but as a young academic who had met people from all over the world whose lives and beliefs and humanity challenged what I had been taught to believe about “God” and “Christianity”. Later, too, when faced with the symbology of my African ancestors, a symbology which draws upon deities like snake-gods, I found myself faced with the choice of having to conclude that the Europeans were right, and I was descended in part from demon-worshippers who deserved their physical enslavement, or that the missionaries had been wrong. I figured the missionaries had been wrong. And later, when my father died, too early, and in spite of all our prayers, I tried not to believe. One’s initial reaction is to throw away all that stuff out of anger and perplexity.
I couldn’t. My head was overruled by my heart, or by whatever part of me understands things intuitively, without processing the “facts”. It’s the part of me that knows before the facts are found, but it’s the part that is almost always right once the facts have been put in place. I realized that the missionaries and the evangelists and the religious dogmatists of all backgrounds could be wrong about what they thought and taught about God; but that didn’t mean that the divine doesn’t exist.
And so I still believe. Others wouldn’t. There’s nothing to convince us either way, I’m afraid. And there it stands.
Cheers.
rivalarrival said,
July 30, 2007 at 2:38 pm
My $0.02:
If the Atheist allows the Bible into the argument, he has lost.
The problem with the Bible isn’t the possibility of mistranslation or fraud. The problem with the Bible is that it is the SOLE evidence of God’s existence.
All the translations and changes could be attributed to God’s Will. God Himself passed along the accurate verses as he saw fit. If the translations were “divinely inspired”, and not just the original recordings, then the translations are MORE accurate than the long lost originals. (Of course, why the originals weren’t accurate to begin with is another problem… When in doubt, though, fall back on “Mysterious Ways”)
Of course, it’s all a moot point when we realize that the Bible is a work of fiction, and incorporates dozens of earlier fairytales. The entire story of Jesus was based on Mithra.
But I digress: At issue is God, not Christianity. When God has been demonstrated to exist, we can move on to the individual styles of worship.
Historically, though, God’s existence has only been demonstrated through the “holy” books. A circular argument is set up, where the book says it is the word of God, and we can trust that this is so because the book says that God says it is so.
Wait, What?
Moving on:
Kumarei mentioned that a difference existed between “Faith” and “Blind Faith” - By definition, all faith is “blind”. That is to say, Faith is Belief despite the absence of Proof or Evidence. Introduce some “Sight” into this process, and you no longer have Faith, you have Knowledge.
Scavella said something interesting: “There’s nothing to convince us either way, I’m afraid.”
This is completely untrue. SOMETHING convinced each and every theist that they were following the correct path: A newborn baby has no knowledge of God, no belief regarding God. He is an Implicit Atheist (Thank you, Richard) and an implicit Agnostic. (Atheism=lacking belief, agnostic=lacking knowledge) For this baby to become a Christian, someone had to teach him. For that baby to become a Muslim, someone had to teach him.
There might not be anything to convince you to abandon your God concepts, but there was something that convinced you that those concepts were correct.
It would be interesting to try to discover this “Something” in each theist… Explicit Atheists can usually pinpoint it fairly clearly, usually through a process of Logic.
One other point: “And later, when my father died, too early, and in spite of all our prayers, I tried not to believe. One’s initial reaction is to throw away all that stuff out of anger and perplexity.”
This point of view is not one typically found in Atheists. The “I’m angry because God did this, so I refuse to believe in Him” is a typical statement from a Maltheist, one that maintains that God performs bad acts. Maltheists are Theists, not Atheists. An “Anti-Theist” is an Atheist who maintains that Religion performs bad acts.
Richard said,
July 30, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I tend to agree with you when you say “if the Atheist allows the Bible into the argument, he has lost.”, although I can’t help but think - if we can clearly demonstrate that the bible can’t possibly be the inerrant word of god (as I believe Erhman does), then, while we might not convince someone that god doesn’t exist, we’ll at least have got rid of their reasons for: hating homosexuals, killing infidels, and other slightly less harmful acts.
I do like the word “maltheist”… I’ll have to be sure to use that in some future post…
kumarei said,
July 30, 2007 at 11:12 pm
rivalarrival,
I was using my own definition of faith and blind faith in my comment, which has to do with meta-awareness. I categorized blind faith as having faith, but not being able to think about that faith, and being perfectly fine with basing real life decisions which effect others on said faith.
Although I don’t believe that faith is correct, nor a virtue, I think that having these categories is useful because it allows us to separate those who have a personal belief (which is fine, despite the fact that I disagree with them) from those whose beliefs damage society (e.g. Fred Phelps, G. W. Bush, etc.). The distinction is practical in nature.
rivalarrival said,
July 31, 2007 at 11:53 am
Kumarei,
I understand. I just feel that your definition is subjective, and I prefer objective definitions.
That’s also the problem I have with categories of faith. Where is the cutoff point between acceptable and unacceptable irrational beliefs? It’s OK to believe in Jesus, it’s not OK to kill blasphemers. It’s OK to mutilate an infant’s genitalia, but it’s not OK to stone them for disobeying their parents (despite what the “Good Book” says on the subject)
When does it become morally acceptable for Faith to trump Fact?
rivalarrival said,
July 31, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Richard,
To a “radical” Christian, one can NEVER demonstrate a Biblical error. Omnipotence, “Mysterious Ways” and non-literal translation can be combined to varying degrees to demonstrate any statement can mean anything.
Everything is simultaneously considered Literal Fact and Parable; no argument from within the Bible can hold any weight to the radically faithful.
Of course, I’m not going to ride a line of reasoning off a cliff. Less-than-radical believers might be swayed by such an argument.
Blah, back to work for me…
kumarei said,
July 31, 2007 at 2:22 pm
“I understand. I just feel that your definition is subjective, and I prefer objective definitions.”
Tough. Life is full of subjectives.
“It’s OK to believe in Jesus, it’s not OK to kill blasphemers. It’s OK to mutilate an infant’s genitalia, but it’s not OK to stone them for disobeying their parents”
I would disagree with the part about mutilating an infants genitalia. I think that inflicting circumcision on a child who cannot make such a choice on their own is a monstrosity that must be ended. I would draw the line at doing harm, or interfering in private matters (those that do not harm the person physically, and do not have a direct and immediate negative effect on the person’s physical well-being).
rivalarrival said,
July 31, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Kumarei:
“Tough. Life is full of subjectives.”
LOL
You are right, of course. As long as you and your audience has the same set of subjective opinions, you can refer to them without confusion. Obviously, you and I do not share the same concept when we refer to “Faith”, making it impossible for us to communicate that concept.
Perhaps you can define your idea of Faith in terms I can understand. If you look back, you SHOULD see that this is what I was trying to do.
Moving on…
The point I was alluding to was that (IMO) there is NEVER a situation where Faith should trump Fact. None of the examples I gave were acceptable in my opinion. (even the ones I mentioned as acceptable)
Your final statement: “I would draw the line at doing harm, or interfering in private matters (those that do not harm the person physically, and do not have a direct and immediate negative effect on the person’s physical well-being).” is reminiscent of this viewpoint of liberty. (it’s a long shockwave flash site, and the music gets kind of annoying, but it does summarize personal liberty very well)
Judah Ivy said,
August 7, 2007 at 3:47 am
Okay, this in response to the original post, but first I’ll respond to some of the material that followed:
“Could you call yourself a Christian without believing in the virgin birth, forgiveness of sins, the resurrection, the holy trinity, etc.? Where can you possibly gain knowledge of these things except through the bible?”
My answer: Of course, just as I can CALL myself an atheist and yet believe that Jesus Christ is the virgin born son of god who died for my sins and rose on the third day. However, if you mean “can I call myself one thing and ascribe to the opposite while still maintaining a safe distance from nonsense?” NO. And yes, the bible is our primary source document for such historical & supernatural claims
In response to the original question…
In all fairness, I haven’t read Bart’s book. However I’ve done some independent research which has led me to the conclusion that what we do have (in our current bible text) is a very tolerable reconstruction of the “autographs”. If you know the “fundamentalist” definition of inspiration, you know that it’s only applied to the autographs, the original manuscripts as written by luke, john, paul, etc…, which no one claims to have. No christian I know claims that the different early manuscript copies (”versions” as Bart calls them) in our possession, such as codex vaticanus/codex siniaticus/chester beatty papyri, are “inspired”. But as I said, we can reasonably assume that what we currently have is very close to the inspired autographs. For an explanation of the process, check out this article: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6068
And if you want a balanced view, I’d suggest reading Bruce Metzger’s “The New Testament, its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration” (which I’m currently reading. In fact, the newest edition of it is co-revised by Bart Ehrman himself) or works by Harry Sturz’ or Maurice Robinson (which I have not read, but have been told are sound scholarship)
Hope this helps.
Peace
Judah Ivy
Richard said,
August 7, 2007 at 11:32 am
Judah,
Thanks for your comment - I’ll definitely check out those other books you mentioned (they’ll be added to my list, at least - there’s so much I want to read!!).
Ehrman doesn’t suggest that the texts today are radically different from the early ones, and I get the impression, even from his book, that a large proportion of the texts have been handed down in tact.
The problems, however, are when there are good reasons for believing that certain words (such as “virgin”, to give one example) have been translated incorrectly. Clearly when these individual words form such an important part of the Christian mythology (by which I mean a collection of stories), you have some serious problems!
The Gregory Koukl article you pointed me towards suggests that anyone suggesting we can’t accurately know the original biblical texts makes two assumptions:
Now clearly neither of these are true, but Erhman specifically talks about examples of where handing down through written forms still had its problems. Errors still DID creep in, and in some cases, it seems some scribes intentionally changed the texts as they transcribed them, due to preconceived ideas about what the texts should have been (e.g. - “but clearly Jesus was God, wasn’t he? This version I’ve just received can’t be correct, I’ll just fix it…”). Usually, these adjustments were just subtle “spelling errors”, but they can make a huge difference to the meaning.
Sure, if we have enough independently transcribed copies, we could reconstruct it, but as I understand it, this isn’t the case either. We certainly have some independently transcribed copies, but not enough to make reliable assumptions with certain parts.
I believe that the biblical texts as we have them now are certainly quite accurate, but given the Christian faith puts so much emphasis on individual words (Mary was a virgin, Jesus was God, etc.) - if ONLY these words were in doubt, you still have some huge questions to answer.
Richard.
Oh, and as a side note - Erhman also talks about why some books were selected and not others. It seems Judas (couldn’t help but notice your name!) got unfairly screwed over…
Judah Ivy said,
August 8, 2007 at 3:20 am
I sympathise with the list syndrome! as Solomon said : “There is no end to books, and too much study will wear you out.”. But that doesn’t prevent me from keeping my own must read list…
Well, as far as the deity of Jesus, I don’t think that really rests on any one, or even five quotations. I, personally believe it because it seems to be assumed somehow throughout the entire NT, with no real attempts to codify it per se. It seems to me that if the redactors wanted to make Jesus’ deity undeniable they did a pretty halfhearted job. Nowhere in the NT have I found the part that says, “then, we understood that Jesus is God, no, really”. It’s all “I am One with the Father, the Father is in me, I am from above, I am not of this world, I forgive sins commited against God, before Abraham was, I am, If you have seen me, you have seen the Father, I am the Alpha and the Omega…” And in the epistles, stuff like “Through him all things were created, He is before all things, He is the express image of God, the brightness of His glory” It runs all through the NT like veins in a body, and it always seems to be presented, not as
Jesus=God
but rather something more like
Jesus=X, God=X.
So, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that really rests on just one word. But it’s there, and its obvious that it’s part of the account from the beginning. It kind of leaves the obvious conclusion up to the reader-which one can see in the early church writings, and in organizatins like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who accept the bible (albeit their own questionable translation) but who also deny that Jesus is God. I’ve tried to question it myself, but if Jesus isn’t God, I can’t think of any other way to describe him (other than, of course, the ways the NT does).
As far as the Virgin birth goes, once you believe in the creation of the universe, the bodily resurrection, and Jesus’ deity, the virgin birth doesn’t seem very incredible.
Scavella said,
August 9, 2007 at 8:15 am
rivalarrival said:
“A newborn baby has no knowledge of God, no belief regarding God. He is an Implicit Atheist (Thank you, Richard) and an implicit Agnostic.”
I’m curious.
How do we know what a newborn baby knows? By what criteria do we measure that knowledge, and in what ways do we extract that knowledge? I could conceivably argue that the newborn is an implicit theist, who knows that god exists, and progressively forgets — what evidence do we have that either of us is correct?
I don’t see evidence supporting either point of view, I’m afraid. And so what one believes is, at some point, an intellectual choice, even if one doesn’t have a whole lot of choice about it. Presumably we could all be wrong.
(Presumably we could all be right, too, but that would involve a heavy dose of paradox and mystery and so is probably well beyond the scope of this argument.)
Richard said,
August 9, 2007 at 10:36 am
I suppose it’s possible you’re correct (I honestly don’t know of any studies which would show otherwise). From a scientific viewpoint, however, and given the (admitidly little) we know about how the brain works, it seems unlikely.
We can demonstrate that babies have some concept of number, and can differentiate between 2-3 objects (If I remember 1st year psychology correctly) - so it’s not impossible to find out what an infant “knows”. You just need to come up with the right experiment.
While you, it seems, have a very “advanced” (if that’s the right word) understanding of God , in my experience, children (not infants) seem incapable of really understanding this concept. Given that children struggle with “knowing” God, I think you’d have a very hard time demonstrating that infants are even capable of “knowing” such concepts.
rivalarrival said,
August 9, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Scavella,
By definition, “implicit theist” is an oxymoron - even if we were to consider your hypothesis as true.
Philosophically, what conclusions can we draw about our “Creator” if his “Creation” intentionally forgets the “Creator’s” existence?
Regardless, IF your hypothesis is true, there is still a period of time where the child possesses no knowledge of even the concept of God. He is an implicit atheist and agnostic.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Feel free to write up your hypothesis as a work of your own mind, but if you wish to pass it off as reality, you’ll either need some real proof, or enough charisma to start your own cult.
Richard said,
August 9, 2007 at 4:51 pm
That’s another way of putting it, I suppose…
Judah Ivy said,
August 10, 2007 at 12:56 am
Rivalarrival, could you explain how & why “implicit theist” is an oxymoron as opposed to “implicit agnostic/atheist”?
Also,
Regarding:
“Philosophically, what conclusions can we draw about our “Creator” if his “Creation” intentionally forgets the “Creator’s” existence?”
The bible answers this in that God created Man in the image of God (i.e. with a will) and Man willed to depart from union with God and bring the rest of the universe with him on the present misadventure which Jesus came and is coming again to remedy.
So, ultimately, it tells us that the Creator is interested in having beings capable of intentional trust and love, and it tells us the creation is in a bad way. Which explains a lot more to me about the universe than any other theory, it explains that evil and suffering are a foreign introduction to the universe, and that they won’t continue forever.
In my experience, young children (including my own) have no difficulty in forming a conception of an invisible God, although I personally think this doesn’t prove much. I could probably convince them that the moon is a big white cracker in the sky. Plus, the bible says that children left on their own will tend towards chaos, they are meant to be taught truth by their parents, just as they are taught to speak.
I think the overwhelming adult human desire for some sort of God/creator/higher power, as recognized by attempts to explain it away via alternate theories (e.g., the psychological need for god theories of Freud, or the hypotheses of “god genes” http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7147)
and the persistance of this desire/idea throughout human history is about as close as we’re gonna come to proof for implicit theism for humanity
I would also like an explanation of what you mean by “extraordinary claims”, and how & why they differ from “ordinary claims” by what definition of “ordinary”, and from assumptions derive that definition. Also, an explanation of what you mean by “extraordinary evidence” would be helpful. It sounds a lot like “any evidence other than the evidence we have” which sounds suspiciously like “I’m not gonna believe it no matter what you show me”
And all of this ends up sounding a lot more hostile than I actually feel.
Judah Ivy said,
August 10, 2007 at 12:58 am
(I meant to type: “from what assumptions you derive that definition”)
rivalarrival said,
August 10, 2007 at 3:50 am
Judah,
Simply put, the definition of Theist is one who claims a belief in God. The definition of Atheist is one who lacks Theism. Theism requires a positive claim, a positive statement “I believe in God”. Lacking that positive claim, that belief, a person would be an Atheist. Think of Native Americans before Europeans arrived - They were Atheists with regard to the god of Abraham.
Regarding your philosophical conclusions - Yours are entirely conditional on your brand of Theism. If we were to ask other Christians, we’d just as likely get a challenge to your hypothesis as we would your conclusion. For that matter, (taking the giant leap that your hypothesis has even a tiny shred of the truth within it) we couldn’t make any conclusions as to God’s will. All we have in front of us is that we alledgedly knew and now we don’t know. We can form any range of hypotheses: God doesn’t want us to know about his existence. We’re cosmological lab rats in a maze. We’re like toy guns fashioned by a child. We’re in a zoo. We’re Sims, and the game player thought it would be cute to wipe our minds at birth. The very idea that we’re looking for God’s existence could be displeasing. We might be an experiment, corrupted because we have become cognizant of the test. Since all the stories of God were written by people who had forgotten about God, we’re really just worshiping a concept of our own minds.
That you have made the conclusion you did is called Confirmational Bias. Your mind is closed to any of these possible alternatives. You only see what you want to see. Confirmational Bias is a condition of Religion, and an easily recognized fallacy.
“I could probably convince them that the moon is a big white cracker in the sky. ”
My point exactly. Kids are gullible and can be convinced of anything if they hear it from someone they trust and the explanations are never challenged. Surround a kid with a family that thinks “God Hates Fags” and you have the Westboro Baptist Church. Surround him with Muslims and you’ll have a kid who believes in Allah.
“Plus, the bible says that children left on their own will tend towards chaos, they are meant to be taught truth by their parents, just as they are taught to speak.”
Have you ever watched children play? Chaos isn’t the word - they build elaborate mental constructs to their games. Their imaginations gloss over the physical rules, sure. But within their own systems, there is a lot of order. Even a “chaotic” system like Calvin Ball shows a propensity for order and discipline: Make up a rule and follow it. The older they get, the more elaborate the constructs, leading to team sports, organized or “sandlot”.
The “overwhelming” adult human desire for God’s existence is a sham, as evidenced by the significant minority of Atheism in America, and the ~40% of the European population that claims to be atheist.
An alternative theory to the “god gene” is the concept of the meme, a packet of information that replicates itself when introduced to a new host. Religion is among the oldest of these.
The phrase “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” should be taken as “For a claim to be considered plausible, the evidence must be sufficient to demonstrate that claim” - One would not believe the extraordinary claim “There is a teapot in orbit around pluto” based on the ordinary ‘evidence’ “It says so in this book”.
I fail to see how a the Bible (containing numerous deficiencies) is sufficient to support the claim “God Exists” let alone the elaborate farce of “Christianity” that has been woven from that basic claim.
As an example of those deficiencies, there is no evidence for the Exodus: Anthropologists have located nomadic campsites where 20 people stayed for a few weeks. Yet 3 million people (equivalent to the entire population of Rome at that time) allegedly wandered the desert for 40 years and we can’t find real-world evidence to support this. Don’t even get me started on Genesis.
What evidence would I accept? Anything that could be demonstrated to be valid. The bible is insufficient to meet those claims, and as far as I know, there are NO sources for Christian beliefs that do not rest primarily on the Bible.
Popularity is insufficient. Yes, the ENTIRE population of the planet CAN BE WRONG - it’s happened numerous times before.
A scientifically verified “miracle” might be sufficient.
There are plenty of things I would accept, but I will not accept the Bible as valid. It is too demanding of interpretation. There are hundreds of sects of Christianity, the only thing they agree on is a very tiny portion of the Bible centered on Jesus. Three major religions and tens of thousands of sects base their beliefs on the old testament, yet these groups are historically intolerant of eachother.
kumarei said,
August 10, 2007 at 4:28 am
I would add that at this point it would be virtually impossible to prove the bible to be true. Even if some of the less supernatural claims are shown to be true (geographic and social occurrences), that would not prove the entirety to be true. The fact is that the more unbelievable claims of the bible happen to be the ones that are fundamentally untestable. Even so, the evidence seems to be that the bible, both old and new, are only so-so in terms of accuracy on non-supernatural claims, not a good start for a text inspired by god.
Rather, the focus should be in testing the hypothesis that a god is active in the modern world. As Dawkins says, a world in which there is a supernatural being intervening at will is going to look a lot different than one where everything happens through natural process. If nature is being changed in some way, that change is observable, and thus scientifically testable.
Now, the evidence so far is that there is no sign of an interfering creator. Prayer does not work. There are no dragons (other than the Komodo).
Even if it was proven that there was a higher power interfering, there would be a long way to go to show that it was the Christian God. I would honestly be more inclined to guess aliens if it were the case that creation was being altered. Either that, or we’re in a computer program.
rivalarrival said,
August 10, 2007 at 5:02 am
Computer program or as-yet undetermined natural process. There are any number of unanswered questions. That said, there is no reason to assume divinity in our ignorance. The problem with a God of the Gaps is that the Gaps are routinely and regularly filled
judah ivy said,
August 10, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I had asked for an explanation of why “Implicit Theist” would be an oxymoron as opposed to “implicit Atheist” not being one. I did not ask for a definition of Atheism or theism, which is what you gave in response.
Regarding my philosophical conclusions “…yours are entirely conditional on your brand of Theism.” I took that we were talking Christianity for granted, since that seems to be the primary form of theism ridiculed on this blog. My conclusion was a response to your insinuation that the only conclusions we could come to about the Creator in the case you outlined would be unfavorable. I was offering a hypothesis where this would not be the case.
Also, you had said: Philosophically, what conclusions can we draw about our “Creator” if his “Creation” intentionally forgets the “Creator’s” existence?”
Your “if” implied we were addressing a situation where this Creator/Creation relationship was the case. Therefore your accusation of Confirmational Bias was unnecessary, I’m well aware you and the majority of the popuation don’t share my belief. I was responding to your statement within the framework allowed by your “if”
This form of accusation is called “Overeagerness to label people you don’t agree with with buzzwords” and is a condition of pretty much anybody who reads Richard Dawkins, and an easily recognized breach of etiquette. Or, we could just be nicer to each other and leave off the buzzwords particular to our respective polemics.
I have considered some of those “alternatives” and a few less outlandish ones, such as atheism before coming to the conclusion I currently hold.
Regarding the gullibility of children, I’m glad we found something to agree on!
I shouldn’t have used the word chaos, “destruction” is the word the bible uses.
You said that the “overwhelming” adult human desire for God’s existence is a sham-well, considering your following statement Popularity is insufficient.- it shouldn’t really make any difference then either way, should it? In which case it’s unnecessary to point out the “significant minority” of atheists in america, or the aftermath of the enlightenment in europe.
Regarding the “meme” - I personally find it puzzling how Dawkins can coin a synonym for “tradition” and be hailed as a genius for it. Plus, his definition is very unmaterialist for a materialist, and his use of the word smacks of propaganda to me. I could just as easily say “Your use of the meme and pretty much all of your other attacks on theism are memes particular to your brand of atheism delusion.”
You said: I fail to see how the Bible (containing numerous deficiencies) is sufficient to support the claim “God Exists”. in case that was a reply to something I said, I don’t really recall saying that the bible is sufficient for that claim, but perhaps you were just making a statement.
It sounds like your definition of “Extraordinary Evidence” includes anything but the bible. That’s very generous of you! I suppose I could quote authorities and studies that agree with my position and offer explanations for the seeming lack of archaeological evidence for the Exodus and the rest, but I’m sure you could just as easily look them up in your library if you were interested. I have to say though that a scientifically verified miracle seems an awkward thing, since at least with my understanding of miracles (being hardly repeatable, and harder to repeat in any sort of environment which would lend itself to a good experiment) I think historical/legal evidential support would be a better tool for examination. I could point you to the Resurrection in that case, but I’m sure a widely read guy like you has read Gary Habermas etc. already and remained unconvinced.
There are hundreds of sects of Christianity, the only thing they agree on is a very tiny portion of the Bible centered on Jesus. Three major religions and tens of thousands of sects base their beliefs on the old testament, yet these groups are historically intolerant of each other. I’m not sure what this proves…. I could make the same sort of statements about atheists/agnostics and their core doctrines/disagreements.
Okay, and with that, I am done. I’ll read your response, but I don’t think I’ll write anymore, this is taking too much time I could be spending my wife. Even though it’s been fun.
Thanks.
Richard said,
August 10, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Wow! This blog just runs itself! Thanks for all your comments, guys.
Judah, you said “if the redactors wanted to make Jesus’ deity undeniable” (a while ago, I know) - but that wasn’t what I meant. I don’t believe Erhman (or anyone else?) would claim that those who transcribed and translated the bible INTENDED to alter the text, but rather to “correct errors” of earlier transcriptions (which, may or may not have actually been errors).
As for the implicit theist oxymoron - I’m struggling to put this into coherant words (without simply saying “it just is”), but I’ll give it a shot - perhaps someone might explain it better?.
Knowledge or belief requires some action (i.e. thought), whether it be conscious or otherwise - therefore, this knowledge or belief is explicit (by definition). If, say, you were to argue/suggest that babies are born with knowledge of God, then I presume you would have to claim that God placed this knowledge there? (perhaps there’s another option, but I’m not sure what it would be). This, too, would necessarily be an explicit process. Another suggestion, perhaps, might be that a child has a tendency to see knowledge of God - but a tendency to seek knowledge of God is not theism, however.
Implicit theism would require belief, without being aware of the concept of which one believes (I hope that’s clear!)
Regarding “extrordinary evidence”, perhaps an example from your own belief structure may help. Assume, for a moment, that the biblical accounts of Jesus are accurate. Pretend you live in the time of Jesus, and you hear him say “I am God” (or, “I am X, and God is X”). Would you believe him? Perhaps, like the others who knew him, after seeing him perform miracles, you would. In this case, these “miracles” were things that could have only been performed by God, and were “extraordinary”. If, perhaps, you saw him “change water into wine”, but then later discovered it was a trick, clearly you’d have doubts. This is an example (although I would argue a fictional one) of an extraordinary claim being justified by extraordinary evidence.
Now take another (fictional) example. Let’s say, you hear a story from a guy at the bar about how his wife’s best friend’s dentist once saw not only a UFO, but helped fix the teeth of the tall green man inside. What evidence would you ask for to justify this claim? A book written by the dentist? By the Wife’s best friend? By someone who claims to have seen the dentist working on the alien? I doubt it. I imagine, like me, you’d at least want: 1. the tooth (or, more importantly, a reproducible analysis which showed it to be unlike any other tooth we’d ever seen), and/or 2. video or photographic evidence (and, of course, evidence backing up their authenticity), and/or 3. a multitude of independent witnesses. Without this (extraordinary) evidence, you would dismiss this (extraordinary) claim.
Anyone can write a book. I’m not saying the bible is not a highly significant historical text, but it cannot be the sole justification for some of the extraordinary claims that it makes. Most of it’s just hearsay (where’s the Gospel of Jesus?).
I appreciate the time you’ve taken to comment on my blog - it’s good to have some people around to help me justify what I write. I realise you might not reply to this, but I hope you stick around and offer your 2c every now and then.
Richard.