Ratio fidei. On primordial Christianity (tekst z 20 lutego 2017)

The title of this article can be viewed as inconsistent since faith is usually taken to be different from reason/knowledge. Indeed, there are even conceptions according to which both of them are mutually exclusive. However, the Bible and the Quran don’t contrast faith with reason/knowledge. It is at the beginning of the Bible, in the 15^th chapter of Genesis, that we read that Abra(ha)m asks God: “How can I know that I will inherit this land?” (since God promised Abra(ha)m to give him this land – Gen 15:7-8). In response God creates the scenery of making the covenant, familiar to the people living at those times (Gen 15: 9-21). This scheme (asking for a reason –> providing the evidence) repeats itself throughout the Bible[1]. Another thing which I would like to stress is the importance of “preserving” or simply “remembering” of the discovered truth – especially when it concerns such fundamental things as the question of God or of the meaning of life (compare Rom 1:28). “Contemporary” mentality (the reason for “ ” is that this position can be in a way traced back to Greek antiquity!) focuses rather on “searching for” or “discovering of truth”. But which truth should be preserved? The title makes it clear that Christianity is at issue here. It was quite natural that people demanded “signs” from Christians from its very beginning (1 Cor 1:22 – both the authorship of this letter and the time of its composing are not questioned [early fifties]). That is why it has become important to highlight the role of “the eyewitnesses of His [= Christ] greatness” in opposition to even the most “pious” legends, myths or “invented fairy tales” (2 Pet 1:16). The primordial Christianity is therefore hidden in the history and it is from there one can bring it to the light of presence.

Recall the history, then: a man called Jesus of Nazareth was born in 6 or 7 BC, during the reign of caesar Octavianus Augustus and king Herod the Great. Around 30 he died on a cross, during the reign of caesar Tiberius and king Herod Antipas (who was the son of Herod the Great). The next emperor of Rome was Caligula (37-41) and then Claudius (41-54). Several people claim[2] that synoptic gospels could be written even in the forties, but the majority think that the oldest New Testament text is 1 Thess (composed by Paul between 48-50). Around 120 the pagan Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus wrote in his “The life of the caesars” that in 49 caesar Claudius had expelled Jews from Rome since they “constantly make disturbances at the instigation of Chresto” (5 years later they were allowed to come back). The author in all probability refers to Christ, the title of Jesus. Hence, as early as the forties there existed Christian community in Rome that was not differentiated from the Jewish one in the eyes of pagans. Religious polemics between Jews and Christians caused disturbances in the capital of the Empire, which was temporarily quelled by Claudius. And it was only 20 years after the death of the Nazarene[3].

In 54 the reign of caesar Nero began. Almost simultaneously with the abovementioned Suetonius, another pagan historian, Tacitus, wrote his “The annals”, where he described the Great Fire of Rome in 64 and subsequent cruel persecutions of Christians:

Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car[4].

It was then when i.a. Paul and Peter died. In 66 the Jewish uprising began in Palestine. In 68 Nero died and next short reigns of Galba, Otho and Vitellius came. In 69 Vespasian became the emperor. The year of 70 is taken to be a critical one: Titus destroyed then Jerusalem along with its Temple (the failure of the uprising was sealed with the fall of the last place of resistance – fortress Masada [73, others date it to 74]). The majority of historians think that after 70 the gospel of Luke was written and later (eighties-nineties) – the gospel of Matthew (which was probably originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic – unlike other gospels). From 79 Rome is ruled by Titus, and from 81 – by Domitian, who organized the next persecution of Christians. From 96 the throne of Rome is taken by Nerva and from 98 – by Trajan. Next comes the death of John, allegedly both the youngest of the Apostles and the only one among the Twelve who didn’t die as a martyr. Around 112, the pagan governor of Bithynia (nowadays in Turkey), Pliny the Younger, wrote to Trajan that tortured Christians reported that they “sing a prayer to Christ as to a god” (carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere) and that “it is said” that “those who are really Christians” can be forced neither to praise pagan gods nor to curse Christ[5].

From the first acknowledged letters of Paul it is obvious that Jesus has been regarded by Christians as God equal with the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God of Israel (see Rom 10:9.12-13; 1 Cor 2:8; 10:9; Phil 2:6.9-10)[6]. But what reasons motivated first Christians to think so?

The answer lies in the gospels, which express the same conviction.

For the sake of brevity (and widespread belief that this is the earliest gospel) let us check the gospel of Mark[7]. First, in 1:2, the verse of Mal 3:1 (and Isa 40:3) is invoked, where we are tld about “the messenger of God” who will be sent “before the face of God” (pro prosopou sou, where sou refers to God). It is clear that this messenger is John the Baptist mentioned in 1:4-9. John says according to 1:8 that the one who will come next “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”. No prophets in the Old Testament had this feature: on the contrary, it was God himself who sent His Spirit (Num 11:29, Isa 42:1, 44:3, 48:16, 63:11; Ezek 36:27, 37:5-6.14; 39:29; Dan 13:45; Joel 3:1-2; Mal 2:15). And in the next verse Jesus appears. Second, Jesus has the power to forgive sins (2:5.10) which was also restricted to God only in the Old Testament (see e.g. 2 Sam 12:13). The same goes for knowing one’s thoughts (2:6-9, compare 1 Kgs 8:39, 1 Chr 28:9, Ps 139:2, Isa 66,18; it should be noted here that making prophecies as described in the Old Testament needn’t be explained by the ability of knowing one’s thoughts), being the Lord of the Sabbath (2:28, compare Exod 31:13, Lev 19:3.30, Isa 56:4), making wind and lake still (4:39, compare Ps 107:29), walking on water (6:48, compare Job 9:8) and saying words “the heaven and the earth will pass away; however, the words of me in no way will pass away” (13:31, compare Isa 40:8)[8].

The next step is to answer various objections posed against the teaching of Jesus. Because of space constraints I will focus on three of them which are in my opinion the most vexing ones: Jesus and the law of the Old Testament, the second coming of Christ (parousia) and the so-called Holy Trinity[9].

As for the first objection, Jesus in Matt 5:18-19 and 23:3.23 (the variant of this last verse is Luke 11,42)[10] seems to proclaim the everlasting validity not only of the Mosaic law, but also of rabbinical addenda. However, in 19:16-19 Jesus told the young rich man that eternal life is for those who keep the following commandments: according to nowadays popular numbering, commandment 5, 6, 7, 8, 4 and the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself (9 and 10 weren’t mentioned there since they are included in 7, whereas 1, 2 and 3 are related to “the greatest and the most important commandment” – to love God, as we read at 22:38). In the parable of the Last Judgment in 25:31-46 it is explicitly said that eternal life is for those who help the human in need (the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned). All the other gospels confirm this.

Clearly, one can argue that this is no solution but only stating the problem, since we have prima facie contradictory texts. We would of course use the standard recourse to pre-paschal Jesus in the following sense: the “pro-Torah verses” addressed duties before the redemptive death of Christ. The problem is that if the law in the Quran is problematic for many contemporary (almost exclusively Western) readers, the law of Torah is for every unprejudiced reader more than horrific[11]: for example, the commandment in Deut 13:13-17 says to destroy completely any city along with its inhabitants if it turned out that they had put some people up to worship other gods than Yahweh. The history of Israel shows that Torah was, more or less strictly, obeyed. Even at times of Jesus e.g stoning for adultery (commandment in Lev 20:10 [ordered by God through Moses as stated in 20:1] and Deut 22:21-24) was practiced (John 8 – the reaction of Jesus to stoning is also symptomatic).

The more promising approach would be, in my opinion, to question the reliability of at least several parts of the Old Testament, especially of Torah. For example, in Deuteronomy, after eleven chapters after the “terrorist” verses 13:13-17, we have the clear rejection of the principle of collective responsibility (24:16). Moreover, in 5:22, after careful exposition of the Ten Commandments, we read that “nothing more was added”. This strongly suggests that God, if any, is “responsible” only for deka logoi.

Second, in Matt 10:23[12] we have the first announcement of the second coming of Christ: “So when they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, because I tell all of you with certainty that you will not have gone through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes”. Since Celsus and Porphyry’s times, the purported unfulfillment of those prophecies of Jesus has been one of the main reasons for disbelief of His divinity or at least in His divine mission. But the cited words could be understood as Abra(ha)m’s famous statement: “Sara(i) is my sister” (Gen 12:13, 20:2) – the patriarch explained later that “she really is my sister – she’s my father’s daughter, but not my mother’s daughter – so she could become my wife” (20:12). Jesus knows that his disciples just cannot grasp that his return will be in, say, one thousand or in one billion years; Matt 24:3 suggests that they thought it would be before their generation passed away (“tell us, when will these things take place, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”). That is why Jesus says this prophecy elliptically, just as Abra(ha)m did. In this way we can explain why in 24:33-34 Jesus says that “when you see all these things [that is, signs announcing parousia], you’ll know that the Son of Man is near, right at the door. I tell all of you with certainty, this generation won’t disappear until these things happen.” And, what is more, sealed with the words by which prophet Isaiah referred to God: “Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear” (Matt 24:35, see Isa 40:8). Since “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt 22:32), this generation indeed shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled, for it denotes here all the humankind.

A careful reader of the gospel of Matthew would respond that in 16:28 Jesus says that “some people standing here will not experience death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom”. But the solution is simple: there is no reason to think that this prophecy was not fulfilled. Recall that Jesus entered Jerusalem sitting upon an ass (21:6-10) exactly as Salomon sitting upon a mule entered Gihon to be anointed for the king, the successor of his father David (1 Kgs 1:32-48). Moreover, the next verse opens the story of transfiguration – Jesus showed himself to his disciples in glory, as the Son of God, higher than Moses and Elijah (Matt 17:1-9). Finally, he revealed himself as the King of kings to John the Apostle on the isle Patmos.

Third. The name ‘Trinity’ is due to the fact that we have 15 passages from the gospels holding that the so-called Holy Spirit is also God equal with the God of Israel[13], yet those three (God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit) are different from one another. Christian theology has always stressed the “mysterious” character of this truth, but I don’t think it is because of its alleged paradoxical character (some opponents would even sneer that the dogma of Trinity is built upon parainconsistent logic[14], since according to it 3 = 1), but due to the trivial fact that if it weren’t for Jesus we wouldn’t know that there are three divine persons. Sure, the Old Testament (and the same goes for the New one!) is full of propositions stating that God is unique, but it needn’t presuppose the uniqueness defined by identity entailing indiscernibility. That is, ‘there exists the only one x’ needn’t be equivalent to ‘there exists at least one x and every y is identical with it’ where we construe the relation of identity in such a way that if x is identical with y, then x is indiscernible from y. For it is easy to tell the difference between Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, it follows that the uniqueness of God should be seen as a weaker one. After all, it would be naïve to demand such a modern and strong notion of uniqueness from the authors of the Bible.

The last and the most important thing is the reliability of the gospels. This issue is the key one – the epistemic status of the Old Testament will always be open to doubts, whereas the other New Testament texts such as letters are obviously dependent on the value of the gospels[15].

First, a number of eyewitnesses of Jesus were martyrs, that is, they were killed for their belief in Jesus. Christianity from its beginning to the largest persecution in antiquity (the beginning of 4^th century, during caesar Diocletian) had many enemies – both among the folk and great intellectuals and, of course, among those who were in power. Those diehard enemies would have revealed the alleged discrepancy between the reports of those martyrs-witnesses and the reports of the gospels. Since we haven’t received any such information, in all probability there has simply not been any. Of course, it doesn’t mean that martyrdom in and of itself is the proof for the truth of one’s beliefs (almost every religion has its martyrs). But the case of Christianity is different. It can be further explained[16] assuming that historical existence of a Jewish rabbi Yeshua (Jesus) is beyond reasonable doubt. First, the opponent could say that immediate witnesses of Jesus were killed neither confirming nor denying the essential content of those gospels. This can be rejected by noticing that it would be impossible, for they were killed precisely because of what they had taught – and their teaching could either affirm or deny the gospels as written documents. Second, the opponent could doubt whether they were killed at all – she could say for example, that all the sources relevant for this issue were Christian ones. Perhaps all the apostles died of natural causes. In response one could point out that inquisitive skeptics at those times of Roman Empire could then get to the purported killers[17] of those martyrs (if it had turned out that there hadn’t been any, they would have published this discovery as an argument for the falsity of Christian stories about martyrs who knew Jesus in person). The last possible objection would be the conspiracy theory – that is, early Church simply destroyed all the evidence to the contrary – for example, that the apostles-martyrs before death said things that contradicted the content of the biblical gospels and so on. But this conspiracy theory, as conspiracy theories in general, suffers from the lack of sufficient support.

However, the opponent would respond: “OK, so martyrdom in and of itself – no, but martyrdom plus the document which describes <<historical>> and not only <<trans-historical>> (so to say) theses (i.e. not only such theses as ‘there is God, the afterlife, the Last Judgment’ etc) – yes. Now, consider Quran. It doesn’t say anything about miracles performed by Muhammad, but several hadith describe them[18]. Assuming that at least several companions of Muhammad were martyrs, does it mean that we are justified in believing in those hadith?” My answer is simply ‘why not’, since the sole fact of performing (genuine) miracles by non-Christian in no way excludes Christianity[19].

Unfortunately, those “counterfactual” arguments are versions of an argumentum ex silentio and as such are rather weak. The reason is obvious: we cannot exclude that there were factors which – added to the antecedents – blocked the consequents and thus made the relevant counterfactuals false. Recall e.g. the usual critic of the so-called semantic behaviorism, the stance according to which mental content can be reduced to physical behavior in such a way that e.g. the p’s desire for water is claimed to be equivalent to the following counterfactual: if p encountered water in her vicinity, she would drink the water. The reply is that this could be false when she e.g. was convinced that it was poison or when she swore an oath to fast etc. However, slightly better, although also “counterfactual”, is the argument proposed by Nicholas Thomas Wright: he adopts “the proof from embarrassing texts” (i.e. impossible to be expected in the cultural context of those times, were the stories from the gospels be invented to persuade the people to accept Christianity), e.g. verses stating that women were the first witnesses of resurrected Jesus[20].

The most promising, in my opinion, argument, will be then a kind of “the inference to the best explanation”. Pawel Lisicki in his Czy Jezus jest Bogiem? (Krakow: m 2014) uses it by taking into account the rapid grow of divine devotion to Jesus among Jews (not pagans!) immediately after his death, persecution (first by Jews rejecting Christianity, then by Romans) notwithstanding[21].

Many intellectuals would now say: ‘all of this is all right, but we know that science and/or philosophy just deem these things impossible to happen as there were described. So there must be another explanation’. But the answer is straightforward: give me the philosophical system you support and I will give you mine – I don’t need to mention that I take it to be better warranted than yours, and the arguments I can offer are independent of the gospels. But here I must only refer the reader to my another article[22].

One could summarize the views expressed above as the total rationalization of faith, i.e. the stance according to which ultimately there is no place for faith. But it is not the case. Arguments are and must be inconclusive. As David Lewis famously wrote, they “are never refuted conclusively. (Or hardly ever. Goedel and Gettier may have done it.) The theory survives its refutation – at a price”[23].

Bibliography:

Aslan Reza, There is no god but God, New York: Random House 2005

Casey Maurice, Jesus of Nazareth. An independent historian’s account of his life and teaching, T&T Clarck, Kindle Edition 2010

Lewis David, Introduction, in: D. Lewis, Philosophical Papers, Vol. I, New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press 1983

Lisicki Pawel, Czy Jezus jest Bogiem?, Krakow: m 2014

Perzanowski Jerzy, Parainconsistency, or inconsistency tamed, investigated and exploited, “Logic and Logical Philosophy”, 9, 2002, pp. 5-24.

Wahhab Muhammad bin Abdul, Kitab Al-Tauhid, Riyadh: Ministry of Islamic Affairs 2001

Wright Nicholas Thomas, “Appendix B” in: Antony Flew, There is a God: how the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind, HarperOne, 2008

Internet sources:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/ref-epis/ (access: 12.09.2016).

www.livescience.com/49489-oldest-known-gospel-mummy-mask.html (access: 12.09.2016)

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_15#44 (access: 12.09.2016).

epistol.glossa.dk/plinius.html#ep10_96 (access: 12.09.1016).

http://tomaszkakol.blog.onet.pl/2014/12/03/panowie-wlasnie-rozmawialismy-z-absolutem-czyli-ewangelie-w-reku-filozofa-w-xxi-wieku/ (access: 12.09.2016)

http://tomaszkakol.blog.onet.pl/2016/01/16/koran-a-terror-cz-i/ (and three further posts; access: 12.09.2016).

[1] As a result, I dare to maintain, by the way, that the idea of the so-called reformed epistemology (or anti-evidence based epistemology) is – perhaps contrary to the intentions of its authors (Christian believers, after all!) – non-biblical. See e. g. http://www.iep.utm.edu/ref-epis/ (access: 12.09.2016).

[2] For example, a non-religious historian Maurice Casey (Jesus of Nazareth. An independent historian’s account of his life and teaching, T&T Clarck, Kindle Edition 2010).

[3] Here it is worthwhile to mention the following fact. The majority of historians hold that 1) the authentic Paul’s letters are: Rom, Cor 1 & 2, Gal, Phil, Thess 1 & 2; 2) those are the oldest Christian documents (composed from 48 to 60). However, in 2012 a purported discovery was made: inside a mummy there was a piece of manuscript of the gospel of Mark, which was then allegedly dated at most to eighties. If this information is confirmed it can mean that the original text was composed even in sixties so as to have time for spreading. See e.g. www.livescience.com/49489-oldest-known-gospel-mummy-mask.html (access: 12.09.2016). This (once again, purported!) discovery is by no means parochial since the majority of historians claim that the gospel of Mark was written after 70, whereas the oldest manuscript according to them is the so-called P52 (with a fragment of the gospel of John), also discovered in Egypt and usually dated to the first part of 2^nd century (for instance, in 120 – in this case the original was created around 100). Anyway, it is certain that the fourth gospel was written after 64.

[4] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_15#44 (access: 12.09.2016).

[5] epistol.glossa.dk/plinius.html#ep10_96 (access: 12.09.1016).

[6] Kyrios panton (“The Lord of All”) from the verse Rom 10:12, in whose name is salvation (10:13), is Jesus, as testified by verse 10:9 (the shortest ancient Christian credo: “Jesus is the Lord”). In the Old Testament only Yahweh could be kyrios panton and have salvation-giving name. In 1 Cor 2:8 Jesus also has a distinctively Yahwic name (kyrion tes doxes – “The Lord of the Glory”), whereas in Phil 2:6 we read that Jesus is isa Theo (“equal with God”) and that he has “the name above every name” (2:9) and that at this name “every knee should bow” (2:10 – compare Isa 45:23).

[7] For the rest, see my http://tomaszkakol.blog.onet.pl/2014/12/03/panowie-wlasnie-rozmawialismy-z-absolutem-czyli-ewangelie-w-reku-filozofa-w-xxi-wieku/ (access: 12.09.2016) where I collected all relevant texts. Today I would also add the following two: 1) Matt 1:21 – the angel said to Mary that Jesus would save “the people of him” (ton laon autou) which is the standard expression referring to God in the Old Testament; 2) Matt 19:28 – Jesus made his twelve apostles judges of Israel that was also the privilege of God (it is noteworthy that the power of imposing duties, given to Peter in 16:19, is extended in 18:18 to other apostles).

[8] One can also consider here 9:2, where we read that the famous transfiguration of Jesus was “after six days” (Israeli people also waited six days for the revelation of God on Mount Sinai – Exod 24:16).

[9] For the others, see the text mentioned in footnote 7.

[10] „…because I tell all of you with certainty that until heaven and earth disappear, not one letter or one stroke of a letter will disappear from the Law until everything has been accomplished. So whoever sets aside one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom from heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom from heaven. (…) So do whatever they [ = The scribes and the Pharisees] tell you and follow it, but stop doing what they do, because they don’t do what they say. (…) How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your mint, dill, and cummin, but have neglected the more important matters of the Law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These are the things you should have practiced, without neglecting the others [my italics]”.

[11] For a comparison between them, see my http://tomaszkakol.blog.onet.pl/2016/01/16/koran-a-terror-cz-i/ (and three further posts; access: 12.09.2016).

[12] Parallel versions don’t differ from Matt‘s in their problematic parts.

[13] Matt 4:1; 10:20; 12:31-32; Mark 1:12; 3:29; 13:11; Luke 2:26-27; 4:1; 12:10.12; John 14:16-17.26; 15:26; 16:7-8.13-15.

[14] On parainconsistent logics see e.g. Jerzy Perzanowski, Parainconsistency, or inconsistency tamed, investigated and exploited, “Logic and Logical Philosophy”, 9, 2002, pp. 5-24.

[15] Regardless of whether some of those letters predate the redaction of the gospels, as many believe (see above).

[16] I feel I must mention that I was writing it after I saw the video of execution of Egyptian Christians on the beach of Tripoli by Islamic (‘Islamic’ at least according to them) terrorists.

[17] Or at least to those who knew them (or who knew those who knew), taking into account that e.g. Celsus lived in 2^nd century.

[18] See e.g. Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab, Kitab Al-Tauhid, Riyadh: Ministry of Islamic Affairs 2001, pp. 25f. (compare Mark 8:23 and John 9:6). As for e.g. Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, who purportedly claimed to be God (Allah) and performed miracles, as a result of which he was tortured and executed similarly as Jesus (See e.g. Reza Aslan, There is no god but God, NY: Random House 2005, pp. 204-206), my reply is that no reports have been delivered about his resurrection and his followers similar to first Christians, whereas we have information that “his corpse was decapitated, his body dismembered, his remains burned, and the ashes scattered in the Tigris River” (idem, p. 205).

[19] I even suspect that this afflicts virtually every religion.

[20] See “Appendix B” in: Antony Flew, There is a God: how the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind, HarperOne, 2008, p. 206f.

[21] Compare Celsus’ famous remark: “Is it not the height of absurdity to maintain, that if, while he himself was alive, he won over not a single person to his views, after his death any who wish are able to gain over such a multitude of individuals?” (in: Origen, Contra Celsus, 2, 46).

[22] Towards a (risky) synthesis, to be appeared in Polish ontology today edited by Miroslaw Szatkowski. In Polish it was presented during the conference “Polish ontology today” (Warsaw, 9-11.05.2016).

[23] David Lewis, Introduction, in: D. Lewis, Philosophical Papers, Vol. I, New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press 1983, p. x.

Komentarze

~Stanislaw
18 sierpnia 2017 o 11:17

This is interesting, but there are some problems with this text. I’m not a historian but I think you are neither, so I’m happy to comment

1. „From the first acknowledged letters of Paul it is obvious that Jesus has been regarded by Christians as God equal with the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God of Israel”

This is oversimplification. It seems to me that Jesus was thought to be divine in some way, but in what way exactly – here the debate rages. See discussion at The Jesus Blog about Markan Christology (I link James Crossley’s post http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/dear-james-alan-from-norwich-writes.html and the summary of the conference devoted to this issue: https://celsus.blog/2015/12/13/sbl-2015-markan-christology/). See also Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God.

2. You are making various assumptions about miracles that Jesus did and powers he had, and point to them as motivations for Christians to believe that he was God. You could easily imagine them to invent those powers afterwards, to flesh out the idea that he was God and to prove various theological points: that he was like (and better than) Eliah, Moses, Odysseus etc.

3. „The last and the most important thing is the reliability of the gospels. This issue is the key one – the epistemic status of the Old Testament will always be open to doubts, whereas the other New Testament texts such as letters are obviously dependent on the value of the gospels”

It depends on what you mean when you say that Gospels are reliable. I think there are examples of Gospel authors making up stuff, changing the stories from earlier gospel(s) to suit better their agenda etc. It by „reliable” you mean „never making stuff up”, than it’s hard to say that Gospels are reliable. See nativitiy stories, absent from Mark, but presented in to mutually exclusive ways in Matthew and Luke. See the minor detail: the way in which Matthew changed the number of donkeys on which Jesus entered Jerusalem, so it would suit better his reading of the prophecy. See the curious similarity between the miracle of Eliah (1 Kings 17: 7-24) and the miracle of Jesus in Luke (7: 11-17). Etc.

4. „The more promising approach would be, in my opinion, to question the reliability of at least several parts of the Old Testament, especially of Torah.”

Would you question a morally distressing story from Exodus, where God sends his angel to kill all firstborn sons of Egypt? If yes, how would you explain the use that Jesus makes in this story at the Last Supper? He seems to endorse it (he celebrated the paschal supper every year, as a faithful Jew, and now gives to it a new meaning, connected with his own death).

5. Your write: „First, a number of eyewitnesses of Jesus were martyrs, that is, they were killed for their belief in Jesus.”

How do you know that? It seems to me we don’t know much about what happened to the apostles apart from later, extra-canonical stories.

6. „one could point out that inquisitive skeptics at those times of Roman Empire could then get to the purported killers[17] of those martyrs ”

You assume here that anyone would care so much about Christian beliefs at the early stage of the existence of Christianity so as to go and check.

7. „Since we haven’t received any such information, in all probability there has simply not been any.”

This is an argument from silence. Onu could equally well say that from the fact that there is no mention of the empty tomb in our earliest sources (Paul) and women witnessess (he does not mention women among those who saw Jesus after resurrection), this story is a Markan invention.

8. „The most promising, in my opinion, argument, will be then a kind of “the inference to the best explanation”. Pawel Lisicki in his Czy Jezus jest Bogiem? (Krakow: m 2014) uses it by taking into account the rapid grow of divine devotion to Jesus among Jews (not pagans!) immediately after his death, persecution (first by Jews rejecting Christianity, then by Romans) notwithstanding”

Paweł Lisicki is not a historian and there are historians who gave strictly secular accounts of what have happened between the life of Jesus and this early faith (such as J. Crossley, B. Ehrman, G. Theissen). „Immediately” here is extremely misleading, as well. We don’t know when the resurrection was proclaimed (a week after Jesus’ death? a month? A year?).

Odpowiedz

~Stanislaw
18 sierpnia 2017 o 11:47

There is one more thing I wanted to add.

„A careful reader of the gospel of Matthew would respond that in 16:28 Jesus says that “some people standing here will not experience death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom”. But the solution is simple: there is no reason to think that this prophecy was not fulfilled. Recall that Jesus entered Jerusalem sitting upon an ass (21:6-10) exactly as Salomon sitting upon a mule entered Gihon to be anointed for the king, the successor of his father David (1 Kgs 1:32-48). Moreover, the next verse opens the story of transfiguration – Jesus showed himself to his disciples in glory, as the Son of God, higher than Moses and Elijah (Matt 17:1-9). Finally, he revealed himself as the King of kings to John the Apostle on the isle Patmos.”

There are three things wrong with this passage. The first and minor is that you seem to presuppose that apostle John wrote the book of Apocalypse (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation#Title.2C_authorship.2C_and_date).

The second is that all those events (entry to Jerusalem, Transfiguration) cannot mean what you want them to mean: they cannot refer to the second coming of Jesus as predicted in 16:28. It’s because Jesus explicitly mentions the „signs” that would happen *before* he comes again and there is no way to show that those signs took place either before the entry to Jerusalem or Transfiguration. See the whole chapter 24 in Matthew. I quote it in length below.

4 Na to Jezus im odpowiedział: «Strzeżcie się, żeby was kto nie zwiódł.

5 Wielu bowiem przyjdzie pod moim imieniem i będą mówić: Ja jestem Mesjaszem. I wielu w błąd wprowadzą.

6 Będziecie słyszeć o wojnach i o pogłoskach wojennych; uważajcie, nie trwóżcie się tym. To musi się stać, ale to jeszcze nie koniec!

7 Powstanie bowiem naród przeciw narodowi i królestwo przeciw królestwu. Będzie głód i zaraza, a miejscami trzęsienia ziemi.

8 Lecz to wszystko jest dopiero początkiem boleści.

Prześladowanie uczniów [Vt-6,15]

9 Wtedy wydadzą was na udrękę i będą was zabijać, i będziecie w nienawiści u wszystkich narodów, z powodu mego imienia.

10 Wówczas wielu zachwieje się w wierze; będą się wzajemnie wydawać i jedni drugich nienawidzić.

11 Powstanie wielu fałszywych proroków i wielu w błąd wprowadzą;

12 a ponieważ wzmoże się nieprawość, oziębnie miłość wielu.

13 Lecz kto wytrwa do końca, ten będzie zbawiony.

14 A ta Ewangelia o królestwie będzie głoszona po całej ziemi, na świadectwo wszystkim narodom. I wtedy nadejdzie koniec.

Also (thirdly), please note the strange implications of the view that Transfiguration gappened before resurrection. I seriously doubt it that Jesus would fear his own death and weep if he experienced such an event (his body transformed and he talked with long-dead prophets). He would know he is not merely human, so he would not need to fear human death.

Cheers,
Stanisław

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Tomasz Kąkol
3 września 2017 o 18:23

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficent.

Thank you for your comments.

Ad 1. The quotes I pointed out are sufficient, in my opinion, to settle the issue. Of course, the standard strategy of the so-called liberal school is to reason in this way: “Since we know that Jesus has been falsely considered to be God, all the verses to the contrary must have been later interpolations”. But this is to draw the target after shooting. The Bible has no conception of somebody “in the middle” (“divine, but no being equal with the only one God”) – this misleading phrase can refer either to angels of God or to false gods of the pagans. But the latter of course cannot apply to Jesus whereas the former construes Jesus as a kind of angel (Malaki, “Messenger [of God]”) who was purportedly confused with God Himself, as was sometimes done in several stories in the Old Testament – the reason is that Israeli people were not monotheistic until quite late and that in those old days e.g. an offence done to messenger was considered as the same as an offence done to the one who sent him. But the context of the New Testament is entirely different. See also many phrases in which Jesus is strictly differentiated from angels (such as “…Amen, amen, you will see the Son of Man [= Jesus] AND the angels of God with Him…” etc).
And when you propose such authorities as Bart Ehrman’s piece, I wonder what other than non-believing motivates him to claim e.g. that “Christians in their theology exalted Jesus into divine sphere but he was and always has remained human” (btw., Christians – apart from e.g. doketists – never questioned the humanity of Jesus and Ehrman perfectly knew it!)

Ad 2. Precisely what assumptions I made when I referred to purported miracles of Jesus? The authenticity of miracles described in gospels does explain the faith of Paul and others in Jesus as God. Have You got better explanation? Please note that this fact alone (in and of itself, so to say) doesn’t imply that Jesus was/is God (in the Old Testament we have many miracle workers).

Ad 3. If you mean by it “never making intentional insertions into Jesus’ words” – the answer is No. But it should be carefully examined precisely when that fact took place. For example, Alex Pruss gave the robust, in my opinion, argument, that the famous “porneia clause” was inserted by the copyist into Matthew (when Jesus says against divorce). There is also the strong argument (purely from the Acts) that Jesus’ trinitarian baptist formula in Matthew was inserted (see e.g. J. Kudasiewicz, Jezus historii i Chrystus wiary). The differences between the relations of gospels are well known but this is the starting point for exegesis, not the final proclamation of their unreliability – when I say about the reliability of the gospels, I don’t mean that e.g. both prima facie opposing versions of the particular story (e.g. the form of the death of Judas) should be assumed as true (nevertheless, the charitable interpretation is desirable: for example, I have been always interested in whether the “fell himself down” with regard to Judas is the wrong Greek translation of the Aramaic idiom meaning simply suicide, not, as people usual mean, e.g. “jumping from the rock”? And maybe those two versions -hanging in Matthew and maybe something else in Acts – can be reconciled by hypothesis that e.g. Judas hanged himself on the tree growing near the rock hole, and some time later the branch with a rope crashed and…you know.

Ad 4. I’m open to question it (and not only it) since it’s common in the Hebrew Bible (and in the Quran, too) to assume something I called “archaic occasionalism” (see e.g. “I’m Jahweh, I kill and I heal, it’s Me who does everything…”). There was no problem for Jesus to celebrate Passover since it by no means implies that He endorsed (as You suggest) the purported fact that God literally killed first born sons of Egyptians. (There are more problematic texts than Passover but I let You discover them as an exercise:) ).

Ad 5. Apart from – yes! Good point!

Ad 6. Sure, but see below in my text You examined – You repeated me

Ad 7. See above. With regard to the hypothesis You mentioned – on the contrary! See N. T. Wright’s argument in my text (again, this is also a kind of “counterfactual argument” and as such is no decisive, as I pointed out)

Ad 8. You are not, either (as You told us at the beginning :)). As for the “strictly secular”, I’ve been always curious about what it exactly means. Now I propose the following translation: “excluding a priori every supernatural explanation”. See, for example, Theissen’s story (You mentioned them among others): with A. Merz in Der historische Jesus is that “Jesus didn’t expect to be praised. Even “good rabbi” was rejected by Him, since “only God is good”” – oh, really? He ignored many texts to the contrary, relegating them to “invention of Christians”. (Btw., if Christians were so smart as to modify Jesus’ words in such way, why they didn’t delete those purported “relic ipsissima verba Iesu” from which “free-thinking” exegetists reconstruct the phantom of “primordial Christianity”? – But, once again, caution, for this is another “counterfactual argument”!) And those authors contradicted themselves when they say that Jesus’ “AMEN, AMEN” means that “here the prophet speaks – or somebody more than a prophet”. Well, a lot more, one could say! A believing Jew once commented this phrase in such a way: “What? What did you say [, Jesus]?? You regard yourself to be God??”
As for when exactly the resurrection was proclaimed we have it clearly stated in the first chapter of Acts – unless, as usual, one questions its reliability in this regard (or better: for THIS reason…).

Regarding Your second post – first, You are right, I must have explained that I didn’t mean to settle the question of the authorship of the Revelation. Second, You are wrong – please note that You cite chapter 24 (I explained why I don’t endorse “the fallacy of Jesus’ prophecy hypothesis” with regard to this chapter) whereas when I said about 1 Kgs, Transfiguration and Revelation, I referred to ch. 16. Third, You can of course doubt but it is easy to grasp that this is not the fact of death alone that Jesus feared, but agony: and He was right! He was tortured from the Thursday night to His death (on Friday, around 3:00 PM) – first beaten, then flagelled (this torture very often resulted in death of a victim), and finally crucified. Note also that crucifixion after flagellation is, from the medical point of view, one of the most tremendous torture. Anyway, imagine that You are captured by the Evil Scientist (who went mad by reading too many books by analytical philosophers) and told You that You will be treated in an extremely painful experiment for, say, 18 hours, and then You will be released and have no memories of those painful hours. Assume (per impossibile) that You have very strong confidence in his words. How could You feel? (I borrowed this argument of course from B. Williams “The self and the future”). And God knows the best.

All the best,
Tomasz

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~Stanislaw
9 września 2017 o 16:33

Hello, thank You for Your time and answers! I would add a few remarks here.

i) „The quotes I pointed out are sufficient, in my opinion, to settle the issue. Of course, the standard strategy of the so-called liberal school is to reason in this way: “Since we know that Jesus has been falsely considered to be God, all the verses to the contrary must have been later interpolations”. But this is to draw the target after shooting.”

First: who are You referring to when You write about „so-called liberal school”? Why add this prefix? Should I add „so-called” before „orthodox school” or „conserative school”? To my knowledge, most of the prominent NT scholars are believers – I can name only few who are not (Ehrman, Ludemann, Crossley, Crook). Most of the work in the field is done by Christians, either conservative or liberal.
Second, it seems to me that a Christian scholar can believe that Jesus was God, while at the same time have doubts about whether earliest Christians believed that Jesus was God.

I am not trained in biblical studies and ancient history, so I can’t independently judge the accuracy of what You said here about the angels. But it seems to me that the nature of Jewish monotheism is a subject of scholarly debate. Again, I can refer to Ehrman’s „How Jesus became God”.
The same, I think, applies to the claim that Son of Man was Jesus. As far as I know, that’s not at all clear who the Son of Man was meant to be, according to many historians.
As far as the concept of „in the middle” is concerned, check out this paper by Michael Kok. I quote from the summary: „Mark’s theological conceptualization of Jesus is more fittingly described as a “divine agency” rather than a “divine identity” Christology. Bauckham’s rubric for a “divine identity Christology” is arguably more applicable to the Pauline or Johannine corpuses, but Mark’s Gospel should not be squeezed into the same mold.” (www.jjmjs.org/uploads/1/1/9/0/11908749/jjmjs-3_kok.pdf )
Now, is this quote factually correct? I have no idea, because I’m not a biblical scholar. My point is that it’s all about very subtle differences and one should think four times before – as you did in your original post – claiming that „From the first acknowledged letters of Paul it is * obvious * [emphasis mine] that Jesus has been regarded by Christians as God equal with the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God of Israel”.
I also want to stress that the fact that beliefs and conceptions change, so the fact that a concept was used in a certain way does not preclude the possibility that it would be used differently by later generations. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts. (This also applies to an oft-repetead claim that Jews „could not” have invented a crucified Messiah or a resurrection happening before the end of times. They could. People change the way they think about stuff).

Iii) „And when You propose such authorities as Bart Ehrman’s piece, I wonder what other than non-believing motivates him to claim e.g. that “Christians in their theology exalted Jesus into divine sphere but he was and always has remained human” (btw., Christians – apart from e.g. doketists – never questioned the humanity of Jesus and Ehrman perfectly knew it!)”

Why do You accuse Ehrman of „un-believing motives?” Would You accuse N. T. Wright (Anglican bishop) of „pro-believing motives”?

Of course – * if * the stories were true, then it would be an explanation for the faith of the disciples and Paul. However, the same thing could be said about the story of Joseph Smith Jr., or any other extraordinary story.
People are prone to inventing stuff, exaggerating, misinterpreting data, positing non-existent agents, their memories are flawed (and when they do memorize, it’s often not because they want to preserve the truth, but to use it to suit their own agenda, so they change it). I guess an explanation of the belief in miracles would include some of those elements. It would also take into account the way people of that time and culture thought about the world, what their notion of reality consisted of and in what ways it was different from ours.
I am also happy to note that Jesus himself supposedly said (Luke 16: 31) that no miracle would be enough to make someone believe.

v) „Ad 3. If You mean by it “never making intentional insertions into Jesus’ words” – the answer is No. But it should be carefully examined precisely when that fact took place.”

I meant making stuff up to show that Jesus was unique and powerful. Picturing him as someone better than Eliah, Moses, Romulus or Odysseus. I guess Your examples would be just a specific example of the wider phenomenon here.

If You treat this part of the story as „archaic occasionalism”, the whole story stops to make any sense. The message of the story was that God saved his own people from death inflicted by his own angel. If there was no angel of death killing firstborn sons in Egypt, what was God saving the Jews from? What event were they commemorating (and what event do Christians commemorate every Easter morning?).

Vii) „(There are more problematic texts than Passover but I let You discover them as an exercise:)).”

I mentioned the Passover story, because Jesus creatively refers to it. At the same time, he does not deny that God send his angel to kill the firstborn sons of Egypt, he does not criticize Jews for believing in this story, or he does not point out that it assumes very dubious things about the moral nature of God.

Nope, that’s not what I meant. It simply means: „not referring to God as an explanatory principle”. This is simple. You can explain a story of Joseph Smith founding the Mormonism in theological terms (God’s angel revealed to Joseph the location of the hidden golden plates) or in secular terms (Joseph *claimed * that this is what happened, but we can’t be sure – here are some other explanations, which do not invoke God, but invoke our knowledge of how people invent stories like these and create myths and legends, what is the psychology of religious belief etc.). I mentioned those authors because they were describing the origins of Christianity in secular terms (note, by the way, that Theissen is also a theologian, so he’s a believer).

The reliability of Acts is not something given, it should be shown. Just like the reliability of Book of Mormon or any other book containing miraculous stories is something to be shown, not a given. We have a case for the author of Luke (and Acts as well) using the story of Eliah and Elisha as a model for the life and miracles of Jesus (the case was made by Thomas Brodie). This points to the fact that this author may have been making things up in order to achieve his agenda. Also, it seems to me that we have a reason to suspect that numbers given by people who wrote the Bible to measure time were chosen for their symbolical importance, not because of their factual accuracy. Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days, exactly like the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. The tomb was found empty after three days, just like Jonah leaved the giant fish after three days. There were twelve apostles, just as there were twelve tribes of Israel. Etc.

It seems to me that in order to be correct, You have to assume that the events prophesied in chapter 10 and 16 („the Son of Man coming in his kingdom”) are different than those prophesied in chapter 24 („the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory”). So there are two prophesies, one in Matt 10:23 and 16 and one in Matt 24. This is very far-fetched for me. It presupposes that the coming of the Son of Man would come * three * times, not two (presuming that Jesus thought he was a Son of Man, which is disputed).

This is surely a cruel ordeal, however, if Jesus experienced a transfiguration as described in the Gospels, I seriously doubt that it would be a * human * ordeal. Rather: it would be an ordeal of a super-man who knew he was special, because he talked with long-dead prophets and experienced plenty of other „strange” deeds – performed miracles etc., and who knew very well (not in a way that we can know, however sure we might be about the afterlife) that there is a God waiting for him and that he would eventually achieve victory over death. He would not fear the suffering and death as * we * do.

The analogy would work if we were talking about „ordinary”, merely-human martyrs, who have a strong confidence in life-after-death and their own salvation. However, it does not work for someone like Jesus according to Gospels, who experienced the transfiguration and performed miracles.

I think these are all my thoughts for the moment. I am not a biblical scholar, so my main intention in the original two posts was to suggest that you change the way you express your ideas by pointing to the existence of alternative explanations and interpretations of the data.

Best wishes,
Stanislaw

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~Stanislaw
9 września 2017 o 19:11

PS. My remarks about the dispute on who the Son of Man was miss the mark. I re-checked and the debate seems to concern the precise meaning of the term as used in Daniel and what did it mean in reference to Jesus (and whether Son of Man was a corporate or singular entity). Sorry for that mistake.

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Tomasz Kąkol
19 września 2017 o 14:01

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficient.

Hello, thank You for Your time and answers! I would add a few remarks here.
i) „The quotes I pointed out are sufficient, in my opinion, to settle the issue. Of course, the standard strategy of the so-called liberal school is to reason in this way: “Since we know that Jesus has been falsely considered to be God, all the verses to the contrary must have been later interpolations”. But this is to draw the target after shooting.”
First: who are You referring to when You write about „so-called liberal school”? Why add this prefix? Should I add „so-called” before „orthodox school” or „conserative school”?

ANSWER: Of course You could if You think You should!

To my knowledge, most of the prominent NT scholars are believers – I can name only few who are not (Ehrman, Ludemann, Crossley, Crook). Most of the work in the field is done by Christians, either conservative or liberal.

ANSWER: Of course, numbers needn’t come with truth. By ‘Christian’ I understand a human who believes in what is essential to canonical Gospels (sure, don’t ask me to define precisely where is the border between essence and accident with regard to it – it will be the same as providing the complete list of what belongs to the essence of a ship of Theseus and what doesn’t) – and what is entailed by it – in particular, as I argue, that Jesus is God equal to the “tri-omni” (omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent) God of Israel. (Btw., that by this usage many “liberal Christians” are not Christians at all, is only a sheer consequence. Certainly, we could repair it by noting that we can say about “almost-Christians” or “near-Christians”, but, as usual, the grey area is probably inevitable – what about, say, Origen? It would be nonsense to question his Christianity but on the other hand he was a kind of “subordinationist”, which was caused mostly by the influence of the Neoplatonic scheme – first God the father, then Son, and the last comes the Holy Spirit – not in the temporal order, but also not only in the order of “procession” – hence the apt idiom of “subordination”, although whether this means that Son is not “tri-omni”, is unclear (scholars charitable to Origen point out that he only sometimes considered some “theological hypotheses”, but the monks hostile to him cited them as “statements” since they were no definitely rejected).

Second, it seems to me that a Christian scholar can believe that Jesus was God, while at the same time have doubts about whether earliest Christians believed that Jesus was God.

ANSWER: See above for the answer. Moreover, I wonder what this hypothetical scholar’s reasons could be for believing that Jesus was/is God other than accepting the testimony of His witnesses? Of course, during the life of Jesus even His apostles had doubts and it is entirely understandable, especially from our “enlightened and skeptical” point of view (when they met Him for the first time, say, then, although they could see the miracles, they could think – as most of His compatriots at that time – that He was only a powerful prophet, let alone during His Passion! – maybe no one believed that He was/is God when s/he saw Him dying) – but, again, we don’t know it but from the written testimonies.

ii) „The Bible has no conception of somebody “in the middle” (“divine, but no being equal with the only one God”) – this misleading phrase can refer either to angels of God or to false gods of the pagans. But the latter of course cannot apply to Jesus whereas the former construes Jesus as a kind of angel (Malaki, “Messenger [of God]”) who was purportedly confused with God Himself, as was sometimes done in several stories in the Old Testament – the reason is that Israeli people were not monotheistic until quite late and that in those old days e.g. an offence done to messenger was considered as the same as an offence done to the one who sent him. But the context of the New Testament is entirely different. See also many phrases in which Jesus is strictly differentiated from angels (such as “…Amen, amen, You will see the Son of Man [= Jesus] AND the angels of God with Him…” etc).”
I am not trained in biblical studies and ancient history, so I can’t independently judge the accuracy of what You said here about the angels. But it seems to me that the nature of Jewish monotheism is a subject of scholarly debate. Again, I can refer to Ehrman’s „How Jesus became God”.
The same, I think, applies to the claim that Son of Man was Jesus. As far as I know, that’s not at all clear who the Son of Man was meant to be, according to many historians.

ANSWER: In the Book od Daniel it probably refers to idealized/messianic Israel, but not in the Jesus’ mouth. The context is clear.

As far as the concept of „in the middle” is concerned, check out this paper by Michael Kok. I quote from the summary: „Mark’s theological conceptualization of Jesus is more fittingly described as a “divine agency” rather than a “divine identity” Christology. Bauckham’s rubric for a “divine identity Christology” is arguably more applicable to the Pauline or Johannine corpuses, but Mark’s Gospel should not be squeezed into the same mold.” (www.jjmjs.org/uploads/1/1/9/0/11908749/jjmjs-3_kok.pdf )
Now, is this quote factually correct? I have no idea, because I’m not a biblical scholar. My point is that it’s all about very subtle differences and one should think four times before – as you did in your original post – claiming that „From the first acknowledged letters of Paul it is * obvious * [emphasis mine] that Jesus has been regarded by Christians as God equal with the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God of Israel”.

ANSWER: I dig in my heels, though politically incorrect it could be seen J – yes, from the quotes from Paul I mentioned it is indeed obvious etc. (notice that even Kok wrote – although, as usual in those discussions, with huge “reservation modalities” [“arguably more applicable…”] – that Paul states the matter clearly). But that Mark’s verses (please check again in the “Ratio fidei” text) are not saying anything about Christ’ identity but only about divine agency – is nonsense. They were things as the Old Testament teaches attributable only to Jahweh: no prophet could e.g. forgive sins (s/he could only inform that someone’s sins were just forgiven by God). And as philosophers (not to mention the common sense) let the subject P acts in a way that is proper to God only. It automatically entails that P is God. QED.

I also want to stress that the fact that beliefs and conceptions change, so the fact that a concept was used in a certain way does not preclude the possibility that it would be used differently by later generations. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts. (This also applies to an oft-repetead claim that Jews „could not” have invented a crucified Messiah or a resurrection happening before the end of times. They could. People change the way they think about stuff).

ANSWER: Right, but this doesn’t contradict what I argue for.

ANSWER: Was it not You who knows that Ehrman doesn’t believe that Jesus is God? I don’t “accuse” him but I propose this as an explanation for why he persistently claims what he claims (that we KNOW that Jesus was only human but fool Christians considered Him to be God etc). As for being bishop (Anglican or whatever), I can judge only by what I read (or hear), so someone’s being among the clergy is nothing here nor there – and, yes, as far as I know Wright, he believes that Jesus is God. And this explains of course his vigor in e.g. finding and espousing arguments for this thesis but, as I wrote, I found his argument as persuasive yet, as a “counterfactual” one, open to doubt.

iv) „Ad 2. Precisely what assumptions I made when I referred to purported miracles of Jesus? The authenticity of miracles described in gospels does explain the faith of Paul and others in Jesus as God. Have You got better explanation? Please note that this fact alone (in and of itself, so to say) doesn’t imply that Jesus was/is God (in the Old Testament we have many miracle workers).”
Of course – * if * the stories were true, then it would be an explanation for the faith of the disciples and Paul. However, the same thing could be said about the story of Joseph Smith Jr., or any other extraordinary story.

ANSWER: No, in no way “the same thing”! You are joking when You say that history of Mormons or the like can imitate the history of early Christians. It is not as if I say that the best explanation of the spreading of the faith F is always the fact that F describes facts not fictions – that would be sheer nonsense (in this way You could e.g. prove contradiction – i.e. the truth of both Mormonism, Islam, Christianity and so on). The explanandum is but the complex phenomenon of rapid growth of faith first among Jews then by pagans after Jesus’ death, cruel persecutions (first by Jews, then by Romans) notwithstanding.

People are prone to inventing stuff, exaggerating, misinterpreting data, positing non-existent agents, their memories are flawed (and when they do memorize, it’s often not because they want to preserve the truth, but to use it to suit their own agenda, so they change it). I guess an explanation of the belief in miracles would include some of those elements.

ANSWER: As a short-cut reply: Joseph was afraid about Mary’s pregnancy not because he didn’t know where babies come from but because he knew it perfectly J The general point is that phenomena You mentioned are mostly among people in persistent physical and mental deprivation (recall for example collective suicide of the members of the sect “Temple of the People” or members of the sect believing that they would be raised alive by aliens when Halle-Bopp comet was approaching the Earth [I remember it as I studied then philosophy in Torun] – those poor people were isolated much time on a desert island, completely subordinated to guru and his catastrophic vision, or – in the case of the latter – they were closed for many days, watching on video only StarTrek and Archive-X [SIC!!]). As far as we know nothing comparable was done in case of Jesus’ disciples. As for memory, it will be instructive and thought-provoking to learn Joachim Jeremias’ and his pupils work on rabbinical technics of transmitting the oral tradition – recall that it is due to our, contemporaries, poor brains (who are, as pointed out by the theory of the so-called extended mind, strictly speaking, outside of our sculls – in notebooks, internet and so on), that we cannot even imagine that some event can be accurately remembered even when it took place 500 or 1000 years ago, transmitted from generations (as a contemporary illustration of an incredible memory of illiterate people from “traditional” cultures, please see the famous “The Nine Lives” about Hindu singers of their sacred poems such as Bhagavadgitha or Ramayama).

It would also take into account the way people of that time and culture thought about the world, what their notion of reality consisted of and in what ways it was different from ours.

ANSWER: Good luck, especially when You think that we, contemporaries, are more skeptical, more enlightened, more wise and generally epistemically far better than ancients J

I am also happy to note that Jesus himself supposedly said (Luke 16: 31) that no miracle would be enough to make someone believe.

ANSWER: But see also what Jesus said to non-believers (I extract what is in my opinion important from Gospels in my another entry here “Panowie, właśnie rozmawialiśmy z Absolutem”)

v) „Ad 3. If You mean by it “never making intentional insertions into Jesus’ words” – the answer is No. But it should be carefully examined precisely when that fact took place.”
I meant making stuff up to show that Jesus was unique and powerful. Picturing him as someone better than Eliah, Moses, Romulus or Odysseus. I guess Your examples would be just a specific example of the wider phenomenon here.

ANSWER: Yeah, but on the other hand….

vi) „Ad 4. I’m open to question it (and not only it) since it’s common in the Hebrew Bible (and in the Quran, too) to assume something I called “archaic occasionalism” (see e.g. “I’m Jahweh, I kill and I heal, it’s Me who does everything…”). There was no problem for Jesus to celebrate Passover since it by no means implies that He endorsed (as You suggest) the purported fact that God literally killed first born sons of Egyptians.”
If You treat this part of the story as „archaic occasionalism”, the whole story stops to make any sense. The message of the story was that God saved his own people from death inflicted by his own angel. If there was no angel of death killing firstborn sons in Egypt, what was God saving the Jews from? What event were they commemorating (and what event do Christians commemorate every Easter morning?).

ANSWER: No way. The sense would be remained when it turned out that it was not an angel of God who killed the first-born Egyptians, but, say, some epidemic disease (and when it would killed not only first-born Egyptians – and also when not all first-born E. in fact was killed etc). I can also accept that it was, say, Satan who killed them. In both cases it needn’t be God Himself who ordered to kill but He only allowed to kill them (just because, as Leibniz rightly observed, this killing is included in the content of the Best Possible World. The apology of this controversial theodicy is in my polemic with prof. Zieminski’s notorious text – in “Filo-Sofija”). In this way Your remaining questions can be easily answered.

Vii) „(There are more problematic texts than Passover but I let You discover them as an exercise:)).”
I mentioned the Passover story, because Jesus creatively refers to it. At the same time, he does not deny that God send his angel to kill the firstborn sons of Egypt, he does not criticize Jews for believing in this story, or he does not point out that it assumes very dubious things about the moral nature of God.

ANSWER: See above. By the way, in this way You could assume that Jesus was for killing active homosexuals (as is ordered in Torah!) solely because “He doesn’t criticize Jews for believing in those passages in Torah, especially when He refers to Torah, e.g. when mentioning marrying (He quotes Torah then!) and so on” (and that it’s morally dubious etc).

Viii) „Ad 8. You are not, either (as You told us at the beginning :)). As for the “strictly secular”, I’ve been always curious about what it exactly means. Now I propose the following translation: “excluding a priori every supernatural explanation”.”
Nope, that’s not what I meant. It simply means: „not referring to God as an explanatory principle”. This is simple. You can explain a story of Joseph Smith founding the Mormonism in theological terms (God’s angel revealed to Joseph the location of the hidden golden plates) or in secular terms (Joseph *claimed * that this is what happened, but we can’t be sure – here are some other explanations, which do not invoke God, but invoke our knowledge of how people invent stories like these and create myths and legends, what is the psychology of religious belief etc.). I mentioned those authors because they were describing the origins of Christianity in secular terms (note, by the way, that Theissen is also a theologian, so he’s a believer).

ANSWER: I referred to Mormonism just above. A minor thing is that ‘supernatural’ doesn’t entail necessary ‘God’ (an angel, jinn, devil or the like, sometimes would suffice – but, yes, wider context sometimes forces to consider God). And I’m sure You know that the general proposition “If S is a theologian, then S is a believer” is false (I know theologians who are not believers – Tomasz Polak (vel Węcławski), Ludwik Kostro, Geza Vermes, Reza Aslan….)

ix) „As for when exactly the resurrection was proclaimed we have it clearly stated in the first chapter of Acts – unless, as usual, one questions its reliability in this regard (or better: for THIS reason…).”
The reliability of Acts is not something given, it should be shown. Just like the reliability of Book of Mormon or any other book containing miraculous stories is something to be shown, not a given.

ANSWER: Oh no, once again Mormons J

We have a case for the author of Luke (and Acts as well) using the story of Eliah and Elisha as a model for the life and miracles of Jesus (the case was made by Thomas Brodie). This points to the fact that this author may have been making things up in order to achieve his agenda. Also, it seems to me that we have a reason to suspect that numbers given by people who wrote the Bible to measure time were chosen for their symbolical importance, not because of their factual accuracy. Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days, exactly like the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. The tomb was found empty after three days, just like Jonah leaved the giant fish after three days. There were twelve apostles, just as there were twelve tribes of Israel. Etc.

ANSWER: I think it was not necessary to call here authorities such as Brodie since an average reader of the Bible could notice that elements of Jesus’ life was anticipated many times in the Old Testament. But now when believers say that they were prophecies concerning Jesus, unbelievers say that it was the Jesus’ life that was invented as to imitate prophets/prophecies. Who is right? I have an impression that we disputed about it.

x) „Second, You are wrong – please note that You cite chapter 24 (I explained why I don’t endorse “the fallacy of Jesus’ prophecy hypothesis” with regard to this chapter) whereas when I said about 1 Kgs, Transfiguration and Revelation, I referred to ch. 16.”
It seems to me that in order to be correct, You have to assume that the events prophesied in chapter 10 and 16 („the Son of Man coming in his kingdom”) are different than those prophesied in chapter 24 („the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory”). So there are two prophesies, one in Matt 10:23 and 16 and one in Matt 24.

ANSWER: Sure.

This is very far-fetched for me. It presupposes that the coming of the Son of Man would come * three * times, not two

ANSWER: Why not?

(presuming that Jesus thought he was a Son of Man, which is disputed).

ANSWER: I think that discussion concerning that particular point can be assumed to be over.

xi) „Third, You can of course doubt but it is easy to grasp that this is not the fact of death alone that Jesus feared, but agony: and He was right! He was tortured from the Thursday night to His death (on Friday, around 3:00 PM) – first beaten, then flagelled (this torture very often resulted in death of a victim), and finally crucified. Note also that crucifixion after flagellation is, from the medical point of view, one of the most tremendous torture.”
This is surely a cruel ordeal, however, if Jesus experienced a transfiguration as described in the Gospels, I seriously doubt that it would be a * human * ordeal. Rather: it would be an ordeal of a super-man who knew he was special, because he talked with long-dead prophets and experienced plenty of other „strange” deeds – performed miracles etc., and who knew very well (not in a way that we can know, however sure we might be about the afterlife) that there is a God waiting for him and that he would eventually achieve victory over death. He would not fear the suffering and death as * we * do.

ANSWER: Well, if You really “seriously doubt it”, I am unable to make You imagine what it is like to be Jesus (even in this one aspect, provided that “only one aspect” makes sense here at all).

Xii) „Anyway, imagine that You are captured by the Evil Scientist (who went mad by reading too many books by analytical philosophers) and told You that You will be treated in an extremely painful experiment for, say, 18 hours, and then You will be released and have no memories of those painful hours. Assume (per impossibile) that You have very strong confidence in his words. How could You feel? (I borrowed this argument of course from B. Williams “The self and the future”). And God knows the best.”
The analogy would work if we were talking about „ordinary”, merely-human martyrs, who have a strong confidence in life-after-death and their own salvation. However, it does not work for someone like Jesus according to Gospels, who experienced the transfiguration and performed miracles.

ANSWER: See above. Live in peace and God knows the best.

~Stanislaw
24 września 2017 o 13:15

Hello again, pleasure to discuss these issues with you.

„ANSWER: I dig in my heels, though politically incorrect it could be seen J – yes, from the quotes from Paul I mentioned it is indeed obvious etc. (notice that even Kok wrote – although, as usual in those discussions, with huge “reservation modalities” [“arguably more applicable…”] – that Paul states the matter clearly).”

In your first post, you did not say „Paul”, you said „first Christians”.

„But that Mark’s verses (please check again in the “Ratio fidei” text) are not saying anything about Christ’ identity but only about divine agency – is nonsense. They were things as the Old Testament teaches attributable only to Jahweh: no prophet could e.g. forgive sins (s/he could only inform that someone’s sins were just forgiven by God). And as philosophers (not to mention the common sense) let the subject P acts in a way that is proper to God only. It automatically entails that P is God. QED.”

Well, this is what scholars debate about (as I showed by pointing to various sources), so it’s not a settled issue.

He does not claim that, as far as I know (and certainly he does not use the language of „fool Christians” that you suggest he does). He does not make theological (atheological) assertions in his works and he is very cautious about that (for example, in „How Jesus became God” he is in pains to stress that historians can’t say whether resurrection happened or not). Please provide sources for this accusation!

„ANSWER: No, in no way “the same thing”! You are joking when You say that history of Mormons or the like can imitate the history of early Christians.”

I am sure there are differences. But hey, we have a list of eight named eyewitnesses to Joseph Smith’s golden tablets. And three eyewitnesses to the event when an angel handed him the tablets. We also have a quickly spreading new religion, whose members were persecuted and forced to exile. That we know some unpleasant facts about Smith and those eyewitnesses could very well skahe our confidence in their testimony, but this is because *we have very good independent historical sources about 19th century US*. The sources we don’t and probably won’t have about the beginnings of Jesus movement (apart from those written and transmitted by the members of the movement itself).

„ANSWER: As a short-cut reply: Joseph was afraid about Mary’s pregnancy not because he didn’t know where babies come from but because he knew it perfectly J”

You again assume that he in fact WAS afraid about Mary’s pregnancy. But this is part of the documents whose reliability we are discussing.

The first sighting of the empty tomb happened at dawn/before dawn, which is a common time for mystical experiences. Disciples were certainly mentally and physically affected by the death of their master and by their own unfaithfulness. I would also refer to the work of P. Craffert (especially, the paper „I witnessed the resurrection of the dead” (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287831872_I_%27witnessed%27_the_raising_of_the_dead_Resurrection_accounts_in_a_neuroanthropological_perspective). He points to the ambiguity of othe concept of reality for non-Western cultures and shows how the discussions about the historicity of resurrection are enslaved to post-Enlightment division between „facts” and „visions/hallucisnations” [understood as something illusory, not really there].

Thank for the reference. It will be instructive and thought-provoking to read Theodore Weeden’s paper “Kenneth Bailey’s Theory of Oral Tradition: A Theory Contested by its Evidence”. The paper shows, to use the words of one reviewer, that „[C]ommunities keep their stories alive not to preserve facts but to validate their values and social identities which are always in flux. It’s true that such stories show patterns of oral tradition, but that tradition has vast amounts of flexibility, variation, and mutation. ”

I don’t generally think that (apart from obvious issues connected with the development of science – Paul believed that Jesus’ resurrected body was made from the same stuff that the stars are, for example – see D. Martin’s „The Corinthian Body”).

Surely, you could retreat to this possibility (how convenient!). But the story would remain gruesome either way. It would show that God makes the decision of sparing the life of innocent children dependent upon the fact whether their parents covered their door with the blood of a lamb. I don’t agree with Leibniz’s theodicy (or with any theodicy, for that matter), because it has morally dubious implications. It portrays God as someone who treats human suffering as a mean to an end (here: a perfect world).

I am glad you pointed out this example – this order is clearly immoral (just as the one that says we should kill witches). I would expect God’s son to say that such parts of the law which were mistakenly ascribed to his Father were not really coming from this source.

When someone approaches me with a book full of miraculous stories and – when asked what validates its reliability – points to the fact that heroes from this stories „fulfill” the prophecies made hundreds of years earlier, my first reaction is not to believe this guy, but to ask him to ponder the possibility that these stories were made up so as to fill the prophecies. It’s not about „who is right” (it’s certainly a possibility that you are); it’s about a correct approach to such stories. In the case I mentioned we have Luke writing stories about Jesus using almost exactly the same phrases (!) that the author of Kings used (1 Kings 17 and the story of reviving the widow’s son versus Luke 7 and the story of reviving widow’s son; in both accounts we have the hero – Eliah/Jesus – meeting the woman „at the gates” of the city and afterward „giving him [the child] to his mother”). Brodie documented many more of such examples and McDonald pointed to similarities between Luke’s narratives and Homer’s epic.

„This is very far-fetched for me. It presupposes that the coming of the Son of Man would come * three * times, not two
ANSWER: Why not?”

Because that’s an unnatural reading. There is nothing in those texts that supports such a dual reading. I think You are treating it as a possibility only because you are not keen to admit that Jesus might have been wrong about something.

See 1 Thess 4
„14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

Also, 1 Cor 15:20–28 seems to imply that Jesus’s kingdom would come *after* his second return. Which makes your distinction between „the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” and „the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory” dubious (as far as Paul’s interpretation is correct).

Dale Allison mounts other arguments in his Jesus of Nazareth, Millenarian Prophet (1998), pp. 152 – 169.

It depends whether you want to believe in a mythological, quasi-Hercules or quasi-Achilles type of saviour, or in Jesus who „has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin”. You can’t have both a truly human Jesus and a super-hero at the same time.

Cheers,
Stanislaw

Tomasz Kąkol
25 września 2017 o 12:33

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficient.

Hello again, pleasure to discuss these issues with you.

REPLY: Me too. Watch, o Brethren of the East and learn!

REPLY: I wrote: “From the first acknowledged letters of Paul it is obvious that Jesus has been regarded by Christians as God equal with the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God of Israel (see Rom 10:9.12-13; 1 Cor 2:8; 10:9; Phil 2:6.9-10)[6]. But what reasons motivated first Christians to think so?” – Would You deem Paul as not one of the prominent first Christians?

REPLY: In this way nothing is settled, since for each thing X You can almost always find some controversy.

„ANSWER: Was it not You who knows that Ehrman doesn’t believe that Jesus is God? I don’t “accuse” him but I propose this as an explanation for why he persistently claims what he claims (that we KNOW that Jesus was only human but fool Christians considered Him to be God etc).”
He does not claim that, as far as I know (and certainly he does not use the language of „fool Christians” that you suggest he does).

REPLY: Of course he doesn’t, it wasn’t a quote but this is a sad yet consequence of his statements.

He does not make theological (atheological) assertions in his works and he is very cautious about that (for example, in „How Jesus became God” he is in pains to stress that historians can’t say whether resurrection happened or not). Please provide sources for this accusation!

REPLY: See above. (by the way, the sole title is clear: “How Jesus became God” – “That is, Jesus was not God, but some people mistakenly think He was, and I will explain You why”.) That there is a ban on historians on these matters – well, he could think so, but why? Why historians cannot do this? What ontological and epistemological barriers should be put on establishing truth concerning that what happened in the past? And why?

„ANSWER: No, in no way “the same thing”! You are joking when You say that history of Mormons or the like can imitate the history of early Christians.”
I am sure there are differences. But hey, we have a list of eight named eyewitnesses to Joseph Smith’s golden tablets. And three eyewitnesses to the event when an angel handed him the tablets. We also have a quickly spreading new religion, whose members were persecuted and forced to exile. That we know some unpleasant facts about Smith and those eyewitnesses could very well skahe our confidence in their testimony, but this is because *we have very good independent historical sources about 19th century US*. The sources we don’t and probably won’t have about the beginnings of Jesus movement (apart from those written and transmitted by the members of the movement itself).

REPLY: So what? I am ready to accept not only those facts (angels, tablets and so on), but also several recitations by Muhammad (as revealed by angels of God, say) along with many miracles by Husayn al-Hallaj and other Sufis, rabbis, Hindu masters, also levitation by several Buddhists, witches (by brooms!), appearances of Ghosts, dragons (sic, I am mortally serious here!) etc. But with and obvious caveat: the revelation funding the Mormon movement was not from God since it contradicts texts and facts for the truth of which I think I have better arguments. The same goes for, e.g., witches, dragons and similar stuff: those are what is nicely described in traditional theology as “devils’ miracles” (or better – following Qu’ran – “false miracles”, i.e. not literally false (in this case they shouldn’t be called ‘miracles’ at all), but miracles “far below” God’s ones, although transcending the powers of physical-cum-chemical-cum-biological-cum-psychical world)

„ANSWER: As a short-cut reply: Joseph was afraid about Mary’s pregnancy not because he didn’t know where babies come from but because he knew it perfectly J”
You again assume that he in fact WAS afraid about Mary’s pregnancy. But this is part of the documents whose reliability we are discussing.

REPLY: No, I implicitly quote a proverb by Lewis (very well-known Christian apologist) – the gist is that judging the mentality of our ancestors we too often falsely attribute to them naivety and funny simplicity, especially when they contradict our beliefs. This is understandable in teenagers, but horrible in adults.

„The general point is that phenomena You mentioned are mostly among people in persistent physical and mental deprivation (recall for example collective suicide of the members of the sect “Temple of the People” or members of the sect believing that they would be raised alive by aliens when Halle-Bopp comet was approaching the Earth [I remember it as I studied then philosophy in Torun] – those poor people were isolated much time on a desert island, completely subordinated to guru and his catastrophic vision, or – in the case of the latter – they were closed for many days, watching on video only StarTrek and Archive-X [SIC!!]).”
The first sighting of the empty tomb happened at dawn/before dawn, which is a common time for mystical experiences. Disciples were certainly mentally and physically affected by the death of their master and by their own unfaithfulness. I would also refer to the work of P. Craffert (especially, the paper „I witnessed the resurrection of the dead” (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287831872_I_%27witnessed%27_the_raising_of_the_dead_Resurrection_accounts_in_a_neuroanthropological_perspective). He points to the ambiguity of othe concept of reality for non-Western cultures and shows how the discussions about the historicity of resurrection are enslaved to post-Enlightment division between „facts” and „visions/hallucisnations” [understood as something illusory, not really there].

REPLY: Interesting, my mystical experiences are never at those times, unless You classify my dreams (sometimes really breath taking!) then as such. But this is a minor point. So show me please more examples of purported resurrections through the world – both temporarily and spatially, since pain caused by the sudden death of someone’s lover is, sadly, a very common phenomenon.

„As far as we know nothing comparable was done in case of Jesus’ disciples. As for memory, it will be instructive and thought-provoking to learn Joachim Jeremias’ and his pupils work on rabbinical technics of transmitting the oral tradition – recall that it is due to our, contemporaries, poor brains (who are, as pointed out by the theory of the so-called extended mind, strictly speaking, outside of our sculls – in notebooks, internet and so on), that we cannot even imagine that some event can be accurately remembered even when it took place 500 or 1000 years ago, transmitted from generations (as a contemporary illustration of an incredible memory of illiterate people from “traditional” cultures, please see the famous “The Nine Lives” about Hindu singers of their sacred poems such as Bhagavadgitha or Ramayama).”
Thank for the reference. It will be instructive and thought-provoking to read Theodore Weeden’s paper “Kenneth Bailey’s Theory of Oral Tradition: A Theory Contested by its Evidence”. The paper shows, to use the words of one reviewer, that „[C]ommunities keep their stories alive not to preserve facts but to validate their values and social identities which are always in flux. It’s true that such stories show patterns of oral tradition, but that tradition has vast amounts of flexibility, variation, and mutation. ”

REPLY: Hmm, thanks, that looks interesting.

„It would also take into account the way people of that time and culture thought about the world, what their notion of reality consisted of and in what ways it was different from ours.
ANSWER: Good luck, especially when You think that we, contemporaries, are more skeptical, more enlightened, more wise and generally epistemically far better than ancients J”
I don’t generally think that (apart from obvious issues connected with the development of science – Paul believed that Jesus’ resurrected body was made from the same stuff that the stars are, for example – see D. Martin’s „The Corinthian Body”).

REPLY: Ahaha, no, no!

It was Origen who allegedly thought of it this way (but, again, maybe it was maliciously attributable to him by some monks), but Paul only writes that this was not a psychikon body, but a pneumatikon one, in no way epouranon or asteron one! Recall also that ouranos after Galileo means 1. sky or 2. Heaven, so don’t be misled by e.g. that the second Adam (=Christ) is called in 1 Cor 15:48 “ho epouranios”.

„ANSWER: No way. The sense would be remained when it turned out that it was not an angel of God who killed the first-born Egyptians, but, say, some epidemic disease (and when it would killed not only first-born Egyptians – and also when not all first-born E. in fact was killed etc). I can also accept that it was, say, Satan who killed them. In both cases it needn’t be God Himself who ordered to kill but He only allowed to kill them (just because, as Leibniz rightly observed, this killing is included in the content of the Best Possible World. The apology of this controversial theodicy is in my polemic with prof. Zieminski’s notorious text – in “Filo-Sofija”). In this way Your remaining questions can be easily answered.”
Surely, you could retreat to this possibility (how convenient!). But the story would remain gruesome either way. It would show that God makes the decision of sparing the life of innocent children dependent upon the fact whether their parents covered their door with the blood of a lamb. I don’t agree with Leibniz’s theodicy (or with any theodicy, for that matter), because it has morally dubious implications. It portrays God as someone who treats human suffering as a mean to an end (here: a perfect world).

REPLY: You are not right and too swift. Please read the rejection of popular myths concerning theodicy in http://www.filo-sofija.pl/index.php/czasopismo/article/view/1044 (Accusation No. 23)

„ANSWER: See above. By the way, in this way You could assume that Jesus was for killing active homosexuals (as is ordered in Torah!) solely because “He doesn’t criticize Jews for believing in those passages in Torah, especially when He refers to Torah, e.g. when mentioning marrying (He quotes Torah then!) and so on” (and that it’s morally dubious etc).”
I am glad you pointed out this example – this order is clearly immoral (just as the one that says we should kill witches). I would expect God’s son to say that such parts of the law which were mistakenly ascribed to his Father were not really coming from this source.

REPLY: LOL, really cute

But what about stoning for adultery in John 8?

„ANSWER: I think it was not necessary to call here authorities such as Brodie since an average reader of the Bible could notice that elements of Jesus’ life was anticipated many times in the Old Testament. But now when believers say that they were prophecies concerning Jesus, unbelievers say that it was the Jesus’ life that was invented as to imitate prophets/prophecies. Who is right? I have an impression that we disputed about it.”
When someone approaches me with a book full of miraculous stories and – when asked what validates its reliability – points to the fact that heroes from this stories „fulfill” the prophecies made hundreds of years earlier, my first reaction is not to believe this guy, but to ask him to ponder the possibility that these stories were made up so as to fill the prophecies. It’s not about „who is right” (it’s certainly a possibility that you are); it’s about a correct approach to such stories. In the case I mentioned we have Luke writing stories about Jesus using almost exactly the same phrases (!)

REPLY: So what? That Bible was sometimes learned by heart (just as nowadays at many places Qu’ran is) is a common knowledge and that authors many times use quotes (the best example is of course the Book of Revelation) also is (I don’t say “implicit quotes” since there were no quotations marks or similar ways at those times).

that the author of Kings used (1 Kings 17 and the story of reviving the widow’s son versus Luke 7 and the story of reviving widow’s son; in both accounts we have the hero – Eliah/Jesus – meeting the woman „at the gates” of the city and afterward „giving him [the child] to his mother”). Brodie documented many more of such examples and McDonald pointed to similarities between Luke’s narratives and Homer’s epic.

REPLY: Plausible, since Luke was a Greek.

„This is very far-fetched for me. It presupposes that the coming of the Son of Man would come * three * times, not two
ANSWER: Why not?”
Because that’s an unnatural reading. There is nothing in those texts that supports such a dual reading. I think You are treating it as a possibility only because you are not keen to admit that Jesus might have been wrong about something.

REPLY: Many things supports this, especially the fact that that gospels (this is also known from the beginning of the contemporary critical exegesis) are stories which emerged from pieces of Jesus’ logia and short narratives glued together. Anyway: if someone really takes seriously the possibility of Jesus’ fallacy how to account of the rest (i.e. what I called the explanandum recently).

Also: Paul believed that Jesus’ prophecy would be fulfilled in his own time. This makes sense only if he believed that Jesus’ second coming would occur soon. But that’s against your point, which depends on distinguishing the prophecy of an imminent event (transfiguration, entry to Jerusalem) and some „end of the world” type of event. See 1 Thess 4.
See 1 Thess 4
„14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

REPLY: The translation of verse 15 interpretation: in original we read hoi perileipomenoi that is “remaining”, not “left” (until parousia). Anyway, the primacy of Jesus to Paul would be enough to rather call alleged Paul’s conviction of the near parousia a fallacy.

REPLY: See above.

„ANSWER: Well, if You really “seriously doubt it”, I am unable to make You imagine what it is like to be Jesus (even in this one aspect, provided that “only one aspect” makes sense here at all).”
It depends whether you want to believe in a mythological, quasi-Hercules or quasi-Achilles type of saviour, or in Jesus who „has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin”. You can’t have both a truly human Jesus and a super-hero at the same time.

REPLY: I know (at least from the history of first Christological heresies) it is hard to understand that and how Jesus, being God, was made truly human, as You rightly quote Letter to Hebrews, but try again imagine Someone who, yes, has “supernatural powers” (I don’t like this phrase but maybe it would be useful in the contexts of Greek mythology and its modern counterparts – Spiderman and-all-that-stuff stories), but also has a free will and power not to use them when He believes it wouldn’t be good to do so – for example, when He is tempted by the Evil to manifest this power at the desert or on the cross. Let the Eternal Light of This Cross Enlighten You +

Tomasz Kąkol

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