But to my point, these transformations and emotional restorations happen all the time outside the confines of religion, even though it is agreed that religion does "prick" the consciousness. Remember Paul witnessed the stoning of Steven. Depending on Paul's sensitivity to such things there was potentially lot's of emotional guilt there looking for some relief.
what if...
- Thread starter radvermin
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Gnosticism did not exist during the time of the writings of 1 Samuel 28, which is the account of the witch of Endor, even if you take a second temple dating.
Moreover, 1 Samuel states that it was against the law to consult a medium, harkening back to an older date. This law is found in both Lev 20:27 and Deut 18:11, so even if one does not take a Conservative view of Scripture and subscribes to the JEDP theory, you're looking at something older than 1 Samuel.
Lastly, there is a verse in Proverbs 9:15 which give an imagery of the dead being gathered together and yet conscious.
Rather, the idea of an "afterlife" is due to the creation narrative that God creates life, even from dust, and that man and woman were meant to live forever. That God is not the god of the dead, but of the living.
As has already been posted above, Mark 12:26-27 "Now about the dead rising-- have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"
They do happen but does it result in conformity to Christianity, though.
I understand the question of, "How do you know your 'spiritual' experience was with the true God", because I get people who call me and say they had an experience from time to time. Some have turned out to be things I can't argue with. HOWEVER one I was a woman who went off the rails and started telling me Jesus had already returned.
How I know that the woman did not have an experience with the Biblical God was that she not only said things that were contrary to it but also would not even look at the Bible.
As I imagine (so I could be wrong) your position is more about plausibilities. What is more plausible: that Paul had an encounter with Jesus or that he was guilt ridden. Or simply, Supernatural vs Natural.
The thing is, would Paul be the type of person to be guilt ridden? It's more than just a question of "supernatural vs natural" but other evidences need to be considered. What was the culture like with regards to capitol punishment? How zealous for Judaism was Paul? When you read his accounts do you get the sense that he was, prior to coming to Christ, remorseful - like "God was working in my heart"? And you can get a sense for the person behind the words when you read about Paul and read his words. The more the evidence is factored in the more difficult it is to say that a naturalistic explanation is better than a supernatural one.
There was a Sheol that pre-dated the gnostic kingdom, but you are correct in that is was vague land of the dead's shadows, a place of rest for the soul, nothing like the Christian descriptions of the afterlife. Also the conjuring of a soul from rest is also a far cry from the Christian described afterlife where consciousness is constant for either the purposes of the pleasurable reward of righteousness or the eternal punishment of teeth gnashing.
One thing I'm discovering is that, there is a time of fighting with words, but then as people get tired they either settled down for a conversation or they get to the end of their strength and stop.
I think that before answering a question, I need to ask, how far am I willing to go on this... how much knowledge do I have, and how much time do I have .... it's interesting.
I think that before answering a question, I need to ask, how far am I willing to go on this... how much knowledge do I have, and how much time do I have .... it's interesting.
My point, though, is that the Jewish view of the afterlife (and it's development) came from within, not from without, it's own theology.
There's a tendency in modern scholarship to try to find external reasons for the views that currently exist within Judaism and Christianity at the expense of the evidence from within. The result is limited scholarship which doesn't factor in all the evidence, and even worse is to explain away/ignore evidence rather than account for it.
Occam's Razor states that we should not multiply probabilities beyond what is necessary. It seems reasonable to me that if one finds an explanation within it's own religion, that is a more a probable (and preferred) explanation than looking for an external explanation.
All the time. One resorts to the comfort of culture when the emotions become frayed... and therein we find religion awaits you.
Yes.
I believe it does take a certain emotional sensitivity, found on a differing scale within all of us, to be guilt influenced. I believe we see the effects of that in those who are Christian by experience as opposed to culture. It is exactly the life of Paul that leads me to believe he was one of those which such a sensitive emotional scale. I think he drew this vision to himself for himself, and like the woman you refer to felt no need to keep his experience or his teaching scriptural any more. There are quite a few references where Paul claims his teachings to be his personal gospel.
Maybe. I did qualify my Hellenistic origin comment with "probably". Have you read the story of Heracles? Many overlaps to Jesus's descent to hades (a greek/roman sheol like place - not an afterlife kingdom) and 12 tasks (stations of the cross?). The Levant was quite Hellenized by the time these late B.C. traditions arose.... so much so that the new testament is written in Greek, not Aramaic.
Also, you can see much of the Torah taken from neighboring cultures as a Hebrew "identity" was being formed around the court of Josiah in response to foreign threat and then stories brought together from distant lands after the exile to re-invigorate the once budding nationalism. Stories of floods from the Babylonian delta, and of a savior named Moses from Egypt, and a patriarch named Abraham from Ur... not the levant.
Yes, the conversations are better. But if someone comes at me with the certitude of my damnation they get what they give.
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But it's not fair to judge a person in a completely different culture and time with today's North American culture.
So, one should ask whether a Jew living under Roman occupation in the 1st C would feel guilty for following the Torah and the traditions of their fathers? The Biblical evidence says no, and the fact that there were riots, people were willing to be vigilantes to kill someone, is evidence that Paul would not have felt guilty enough to hallucinate. If it doesn't come from looking at the 1 Century context, then where?
As for Paul's teachings diverging from OT Scripture, that's a discussion that starts off with whether there is a correct way to interpret the Old Testament, and I don't know if you would even agree with that.
Of course you did. You're an atheist... or a Jedi
You even responded with "maybe".I have not. I haven't even finished reading the Iliad and it's been on my bedside for several months now.
But I've received many comparisons, that I'm sure you're aware of, between Jesus and this or that story. Buddha, Horus, Thot, some grape eating god, etc etc. And rather than dismantling them all a deeper question needs to be asked of what is the standard by which comparisons makes it certain that one borrowed from another story. For example, the Egyptian comparisons just basically have three gods and that's about it, but that's put forward as Christians borrowing from another religion.
The same question needs to be asked about whether the differences make enough of a difference.
My brother-in-law recently published a book... novel. I read the first chapter and thought of the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini, which I know he's read. However, there are many many differences, the first one being I wasn't as confused (there were other differences). I talked to him about it and he said I wasn't the first one to tell him that. However, he didn't even think of the book when he wrote the first chapter, rather he was setting everything up for what comes later, and that also came through in the opening chapter. Now a person could say, "but subconsciously he was borrowing from the Eragon series" except that he had in his mind something else, his own story which is radically different and separate from the Eragon Series in every way. So even though I saw similarities, it's because I'm the one making the connections, not the author.
Okay, let's take one. Who wrote the Torah, what story did they borrow to write the story of Moses, and how do you know they lived in a region where they would have heard these stories?
Obviously the answers you give aren't going to be specific but I like to move past these kinds of questions to ask "why". Why do you believe that the Torah was written after the exile?
I did a study on the different dates for the book of Daniel and basically the main reason why people say that it's post exilic was due to the prophecy of the Greek and Roman empire being accurate. But that can't be the basis for a late date because 1, who says God cannot exist, 2. who says prophecies cannot happen. 3, the prophecies still predict the arrival of Jesus which undermines the reason for the late date.
Points 1 one and 2 were based on a bias.
I also did a study on the date for 1 Samuel, and came to the conclusion that it was pre-exilic also (I don't have my notes with me and the arguments were more technical than memory will allow).
My point is, it's very difficult to separate evidence from confirmation bias (something we all do). The best method is to start with taking a text at face value and working out from there. If the text gives ample evidence that it could not have been written when it was, then suppose a later date. Often times when I read the arguments for a later date, there are scholars who disagree with very good reason.
Note: when I refer to a scholar I am talking about people who live history, not arm-chair historians that we find on the internet. I've read textbooks, listen to lecture series on history, gone to original sources to learn and I can confidently say that I'm not a historian nor an expert in history. Those who are historian scholars are geniuses. I disagree with Bart Ehrman on his conclusion on matters but I put him as a historian scholar because he deserves that title, as do Nick Needham, Darryl Bock, Michael Haykin, etc.
When you have two narratives which share elements, the question of whether one borrowed from the other, both borrowed from a common source, or each arose independently, can be a hard one to settle. It's a kind of cladistics project, but without the kind of genome analysis which you can use in biology. I guess the closest thing would be a comparison of motifs, but what counts as a motif match is a lot more subjective than what counts as a nucleotide match, obviously. "Descent into the underworld," for example, is so ubiquitous across so many cultures which are separated by vast distances that it seems more likely to me that the idea is a human universal which appeared spontaneously in many places, rather than that there was one ultimate source which got passed from one point to everywhere else.
One story which can serve as a reminder that false positives sometimes lurk in this kind of analysis is the publication of Rasselas by Samuel Johnson and Candide by Voltaire. In each novella, the young protagonist goes through a series of adventures which dent his innocent certainty that the world is his oyster, that "this is the best of all possible worlds" (the phrase from Leibniz appears explicitly in Voltaire, just implicitly in Johnson). But despite appearances, this was not a case of a borrowed plot, but a rather remarkable coincidence (or a case of "ideas in the air"); we know this because the two books were published so close together there wouldn't have been time for one author to read the other and then compose his own work. Johnson later noted that if that hadn't been true, it would have been utterly futile for the later writer to deny that he had copied from the earlier one; everybody would have taken that as too obvious to need further proof.
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I think one thing I overlooked in my conversation with 5wize was that there are resurrection stories within the Old Testament, with Ezekiel and the dry bones, Elisha and the man coming back to life in the grave, Elijah and the dead son, as well as the Psalms. The afterlife as seen in the New Testament doesn't require an outside source.
Assuming that there was a time when Israelites generally didn't believe in an afterlife, and later there was a time when (with some holdouts) they did, I wonder why foreign influence would be the leading candidate for the cause of that change. It could hardly be the case that the possibility of an afterlife just never occurred to them until the Persian conquest, at which point they read the Persian accounts of an afterlife and thought, "wow, that sounds neat, maybe we should get one of those." Religions without an afterlife are historically rare, SFAIK, so maybe the question to start with is why the early Jewish religion didn't join the parade, rather than why they ended up doing so?
But I'm sure there are books about this by people who actually know something on the topic.
I was implying that Paul's guilty conscious came from witnessing the stoning of Stephen, not following the Torah. The Damascus vision was probably an exaggerated narrative of a guilty conscious. Human sensitivity to others exists in any cultural environment. I could see Paul, being a practicing Jew, being very angry with this new Christian cult and seeking to go out to destroy it just like we go at it in the political blogs. But the evidence leads us to Paul's sensitivity to consciousness, not his capacity to continually persecute, once he became stained with blood..
I would agree that the same types of narratives can grow organically and even simultaneously in separate cultures because human themes are perennial. The need for restoration, the need for a cultural savior, a coming of age or the quickening of the soul, the spirit quest, etc.... They don't necessarily need to be plagiarized to lead someone to believe that the themes are not really anything unique or supernatural, but an expression of common human character.Of course you did. You're an atheist... or a Jedi
I have not. I haven't even finished reading the Iliad and it's been on my bedside for several months now.
But I've received many comparisons, that I'm sure you're aware of, between Jesus and this or that story. Buddha, Horus, Thot, some grape eating god, etc etc. And rather than dismantling them all a deeper question needs to be asked of what is the standard by which comparisons makes it certain that one borrowed from another story. For example, the Egyptian comparisons just basically have three gods and that's about it, but that's put forward as Christians borrowing from another religion.
The same question needs to be asked about whether the differences make enough of a difference.
My brother-in-law recently published a book... novel. I read the first chapter and thought of the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini, which I know he's read. However, there are many many differences, the first one being I wasn't as confused (there were other differences). I talked to him about it and he said I wasn't the first one to tell him that. However, he didn't even think of the book when he wrote the first chapter, rather he was setting everything up for what comes later, and that also came through in the opening chapter. Now a person could say, "but subconsciously he was borrowing from the Eragon series" except that he had in his mind something else, his own story which is radically different and separate from the Eragon Series in every way. So even though I saw similarities, it's because I'm the one making the connections, not the author.
Plagiarism comes into play when you condense narratives into a local hot-spot, like the Hellenized Mediterranean. You need to appeal to many cultures sensibilities and histories to gain attention. You see Paul doing this from enclave to enclave - “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some". Do a quick lookup of the character of Mithras - the direct competitor to Christianity after the first century. I'm not saying who stole what from who, but just that it becomes obvious what you need to do to fill the pews.
Before and after... starting in the court of Josiah. Why? Because there was no real Hebrew identity before then. Historically the inhabitants of the land were referred to a the Habiru - the wandering gypsy - people of the book only (Leviticus), not of a nation.. They were a hodge-podge of wandering tribes with little national identity. Think of early American Indians and their loose culture prior to the Iroquois nation. It took awhile before enough gathered around Canaan to snatch that land in a pretty horrific attempt at genocide. Then in order to keep it against the incursions of Syria, Babylon and Persia that were occurring in Israel in the north of Judea, Josiah knew that he had to do to forge their resolve to do so. This is when the "promise" of god was introduced along with the cultural myths to give it historical weight. Cultures do that to this day... claim the resolve of God for their purpose.
OT Prophesies were not visions of the future. They were contemporary political treatises. I like Ehrman, but I disagree with some of his stances. As far as who I trust with Christian historicity, I like Diarmaid MacCulloch and Richard Friedman
Totally agree. This was in essence my response back to radvermin. Human themes are common and perennial which leads us even farther away from supernatural origins.
I'll have to check out MacCulloch and Richard Elliot Friedman (actually, already started to, so thank you).
Why plagiarize an other's culture when everything you need is already in one's own culture?
The idea of death and resurrection is already present in the Old Testament, but what are some things that you see are in Paul's theology that cannot be found in, or extrapolated from, the Old Testament?
1 Cor 9:22, "...I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some" is not about him changing narratives/theology but behavior. His theology is consistent throughout the Scriptures. Take 3 three passages as evidence,
a) Acts 22:1-2 "Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense." When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Then Paul said:"
Why did they suddenly listen to him? Because he changed his language, not his message.
b) 1 Cor 10:25 deals with how we are free to eat whatever we want because of the gospel. But if it offends someone and causes them to stumble then for their sake don't eat. This is both in line with the gospel as well as what was decided in Acts 15 in how Christians should minister to Jews (Acts 15:21).
c) You don't see him changing his theology or his narratives depending on the cultures around just to fill the pews, however the reverse is true.
2 Timothy 1:15 says, "You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes." And what does he instruct Timothy to do? Hold firm to previously proclaimed doctrine, not alter it (2 Tim 2:2, "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.").
You cannot read Paul and come to the conclusion that he was willing to die rather than lose followers, rather you see he's willing to die rather than lose the gospel.
This whole conversation is interesting to me because when I read the account of Muhammad cutting the moon in half I dismiss it as fable. Or when I read the accounts of the Jews traveling to the Americas in the book of Mormon I dismiss it as fanciful. So I find it interesting that rather than dismissing certain events in the scripture, you give an account for them.
So, when I sit back and read what you're saying, you're trying to give an account for what's going on in the Bible which says that there are some points that you treat as history (eg. Paul was at least on a road to Damascus). But there are other parts that you treat as I do with Muhammad and the moon. Why? Because of probability is my guess 1 ... supernatural events like Paul's are less likely to happen than Jesus showing up.
But I ask myself, why? So I ask you: when you look at a Christian's belief, do you think that an act of God is where a ball of fire comes from heaven, but not the meeting of two minds such as you and I? If events of our meeting are also considered an act of God, would that change your view of probability?
Just another question that came to mind. If I'm not mistaken, you say that Paul got his idea of the resurrection from the Hellenized culture. But you also believe that Paul saw a vision of the resurrected Jesus (caused by emotional distress or maybe like Scrooge he had undigested food "There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!") So my question is, in your view which is the source of Paul's belief in the resurrected Christ: The vision or Hellenized culture? If it's Hellenized Culture which Paul incorporated after he became a Christian, how does that explain the vision?
I'm not going to comment on Josiah's court because I need to do more reading on this. From what I gather so far is there is a prior commitment to the JEDP theory, but I need to do my share of work in this area to have a conversation with you about it, apparently.
Thanks for the chat
1. mine would be a commitment to the Bible
Agreed. Human themes are perennial - even the supernaturally labeled ones.
I'm pretty sure Judaism is a salvation by righteousness philosophy, not a salvation by grace philosophy.
I don't think Paul knew what he was dealing with. With the backdrop of Paul being a high profile temple Jew prior to Damascus and being a Roman citizen giving himself the open run of the Mediterranean, his bravado might have gotten the best of Him. He was raising good money for a floundering church in Jerusalem as well as raising the same eyebrows as Jesus is said to have - but only in Jerusalem. He seemed to overestimate his clout to introduce his egalitarian doctrine to the temple.
I do not prescribe to the theory that if God exists He owes us signs. What I do look for is a consistent character of creation. It is said that God's immutable nature is found woven into our reality and can be found in phenomenon such as the laws of nature. But we also have other characteristics of God that are immutable, such as love, grace, mercy, justice, etc....
I would look to these characteristics to be woven into the fabric of reality as tightly as the laws of logic. This is not to override our free will, but to offer a consistent landscape of consequences for spiritual matters as outlined in the bible. There is absolutely no reason I can see as to why this seems to be something easily conceived in an afterlife, but not here. That is what is very odd to me.... the ol' baby out with the bath water thing.
No, I don't believe that. Let me clear that up if I confused. The concept of resurrection is one of the perennial cultural themes. I mentioned the Hellenized world for 2 reasons... to show that 1) These themes already pre-exist... 2) They were at the very least influencing each other, no different that differing ideas get traction today in the basement church and spiritual groups everywhere.
There is no way to claim plagiarism, just a pretty profound lack of uniqueness pointing to these themes being a human phenomenon.
I think Paul was an ancient Joseph Smith type character. Paul was seeded in the same way Smith was. Scripture and circumstance. Smith didn't do too bad for himself, but I think you'll agree that has no bearing on his veracity.
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This is a very key statement!
Judaism has always been a salvation by God, religion. The works that people have done is in response to their faith that God will save. God clothing Adam and Eve, Noah building an ark because God chose him and told him to, and how to, and closing them in the ark, God making a covenant with Abraham, Moses and the 12 plagues, etc, has always been about God rescuing his people and our response to it (as opposed to our actions and then God responds to those actions). Since God is the initiator of salvation then the sacrificial system is a response to salvation, not the means for it. In fact there are times when God completely rejects a sacrifice because of wickedness.
Isaiah 1:14 "Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them."
Proverbs 21:27 "The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable-"
Rather Hebrews 11 is a whole list of OT individuals who had faith in God.
Here's where I'm getting excited, though.
Judaism has been a salvation by righteousness and grace religion. I want to be careful because I understand where where you're coming from (I think) because because you're pointing to the difference between works vs faith salvation. However to put the terms of righteousness and grace at odds with each other seems to lead people astray.
What I mean is, a person's righteous acts started with grace. God reached down first to Noah, God went and found Adam and Eve, God sent Samuel to anoint David. Why did God give the promised land to Israel? It wasn't because they were righteous.
Deut 9:5-6 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
So why? Not only because of the wickedness of the Canaanites, but also because of God's covenant/promise to Abraham. Exo 2:23-24
During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
Why am I saved? Not because of my works but because of the New Covenant found in Jesus (prophecied about in Jeremiah 31:31).
Also, I want to be clear that righteousness and grace are not separated completely for Christians. A Christian is called to repent, and one who doesn't is showing that they may not be a Christian (James 2:14-26). I don't think that Trump is a Christian but a Charlatan (in faith at least).
I'm not saved by my righteous acts, but my repentance from addictions is an indicator the the Holy Spirit is in me (and thus have living/saving faith).
PS: My apologies for the length! There's more I could say with regards to Jesus+righteousness+salvation by faith, which is at the heart of the Christian message, but I must refrain for now (though I ache to be silent on it for your sake!). Thank you for clearing up my confusion, and as for other things you said, they relate to this post and I would actually end up wanting to talk about what I wrote in this reply anyway.
Blessings in abundance!
Agreed.
Not sure I can agree with you totally on this count. While over time, man gained experiences with God to be retroactively thankful for, rarely would they sacrifice retroactively in that thanksgiving. The very first sacrifices we are made aware of in Genesis are not representative of a debt or a gratitude to any specific action of God, but as a natural obligation as a parent would take care of a child for the welfare of all. The history of human ritual sacrifices do not reflect that first fruits were given for thanks, but a desire to please a god for future benefit, such as an appeasement to an angry god for a disaster that had befallen or a chance for a good growing season or disease free cattle in the year to come.
Agreed. One must be righteous as well as repentant and present themselves to a priest (for animal sacrifice) or a prophet (for a baptism) for God's remission of sins.Here's where I'm getting excited, though.
Judaism has been a salvation by righteousness and grace religion.
I totally agree with you that the Hebrews were no better than the Canaanites. Why else would God need to reprimand them for idolatry, theft, covetousness, adultery and murder with the 10 commandments. This is why I believe, from my reading of the historicity of the OT canon that there was Jewish nationalism in play here and not the desires of a god. I simply do not adhere to the continuity of the OT "promise" narrative that you outline above as is traditionally taught by Christianity. I believe it was contrived for the sake of Jewish identity in a much needed time. It would make sense that those priests in Josiah's court forging the new Deuteronomic code would throw it back to Moses for authority and include the wickedness of the contemporary Judean as a much needed control measure. Burning the candle at both ends trying to 1) stiffen their resolve to the upcoming struggle by identifying the right to protect their land as a promise of God Himself, and 2) Get the population right with God, to appeal to His grace, by exposing how their wickedness could be the ruin of them all.
This theme of tragedy befalling them being their own fault, despite being the chosen of God, is kept right up through the era of the prophets. Maybe, just maybe, they weren't chosen by God at all and what befell them was the normal course of our barbaric history.
But I see no need for a new covenant. The old one worked fine. The deal was Jesus was supposed to be the Jewish messiah. That having failed, they seemed to have pinned a new meaning to him. A meaning that was unnecessary it would seem. You could either become a Christian for the remission of sin or become a Jew for the same thing (Esther 8:17).
But alas... faith without works... I agree it is a muddle, and I am not inclined to trust Paul. I don't trust his vision, his claim to Jesus, or his gospel.
Understood the above is an internal critique of the faith by an atheist. If I were to become Christian, I would not be a Pauline Christian. I believe him to be a Joseph Smith like character. As a result I'm not sure the majority of Christians would allow me to claim Christianity without protest.
I'll take length over vitriol.
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