One of the paragraphs in Howard Van Till's reply to me made me go do some
research I had wanted to do for a long time. The outcome of this research
will not be very pleasing to anyone--including me.
Howard advocated:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Howard J. Van Till
>Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 2:43 PM
>While the human trauma of actual flood experiences in the greater
>Mesopotamian region may help us to understand why flood narratives
>functioned as they did in Ancient Near Eastern cultures (as dramatic
>vehicles for reflecting on divine judgment and divine/human relationships
>generally) I see no basis for the expectation that the details Genesis 6-9
>should correspond to any one particular flooding event.
>
As I said in a recent reply to Tom Pearson, we must be consistent in our
applications of our epistemology to both science and to our religion. And
with Howard's response, I don't see consistency. He claims that the flood
narrative is merely a normal type of vehicle for 'reflecting on divine
judgement and divine/human relationships.'
One can make the very same claim concerning resurrrection stories, yet I
know few Christians, including Howard, who would dare take the same approach
with the resurrection. It is not well known among Christian circles that
there is an entire literature among those more atheistically inclined, which
says that the Christian resurrection story is nothing more than another in a
long series of salvation stories and plans which involve resurrection.
Thus, I guess, they would advocate that we should "understand why
resurrection narratives functioned as they did in Ancient Near Eastern
cultures (as dramatic
vehicles for reflecting on divine judgment and divine/human relationships
generally) I see no basis for the expectation that the details Luke 24
should correspond to any one particular resurrection event."
This is the problem with much of the approach of modern Christianity to its
foundation. A methodology we use for one part of the Bible would never be
applied to other parts without disastrous consequences. So we pick and
choose what method we use in order to dance around the difficulties.
Here are some of the other resurrection accounts. The first is related by
Farrel Till, a man with whom I debated for a while on the internet. He is a
former preacher who is now an evangelistic atheist. He is not an easy
opponent and he has a formidable intellect. The only thing that makes him
ineffective is he is a bit on the nasty side tempermentally.:
"Osiris. Have you ever heard the name? The myth of the resurrected god can
be traced back to this Egyptian god who allegedly lived three thousand years
before Jesus did. He was killed by his enemy. That's a familiar thing, isn't
it? And to keep him from being resurrected from the dead, his body was cut
into fourteen different pieces and scattered throughout the land of Egypt,
so, you see, that his body could not be put together and resurrected from
the dead. His consort, the goddess Isis, scoured the land of Egypt until she
found all fourteen pieces... well I won't tell you one of the pieces she
didn't find because it might not be suitable for a mixed audience like this,
but, suffice it to say that she found enough of him to put his body back
together. Then she hovered over him and fanned her wings and fanned into his
nostrils the breath of life. Now that's a familiar expression, isn't it? And
he was resurrected from the dead. He didn't ascend into heaven; he went into
the netherworld, the land of the dead, and there he reigned supreme.
If you'll check those facts, I think you will see that three thousand years
before Jesus of Nazareth allegedly rose from the dead, that this was
believed about the god, Osiris. And there were others: Attis, Adonis, --
widely believed that these gods rose from the dead.
"http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/horner-till/till1.html
Here is more on Osiris:
"But Egyptian documents give a finish to the legend which is lacking in
Plutarch. Isis and Horus put together the fragments of the dead god, and as
the sacred wings of Isis fluttered over the corpse, the great god Ra
restored him to life. He "descended into hell" or was appointed the Lord of
the Underworld. And it was a common practice after death for an Egyptian
priest to mimic this restoration of Osiris over the corpse as a pledge of a
glorious resurrection in the kingdom of Osiris."
http://www.primenet.com/~heuvelc/bible/library/myth.htm
Does this sound familiar? Compare Eph. 4:9
(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the
lower parts of the earth? 10He that descended is the same also that ascended
up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
"But I explain in the book on Religion and Morals in Ancient Egypt (Little
Blue Book No.1077) that Osiris, the Judge of the Dead, was as stern a moral
judge as Jesus himself; and, to every Egyptian, personal immortality,
prefigured by the resurrection of Osiris, was the firmest of beliefs. The
main point is, however, that, when we strip away late embroideries, we have
here a doctrine of a beneficent god slain by the powers of darkness and
rising again from the dead. The Pyramid Texts- inscriptions on the inner
walls of the oldest pyramid tombs-show that this was common Egyptian
doctrine three thousand years before Christ, and it must go back before the
dawn of civilization."
http://www.primenet.com/~heuvelc/bible/library/myth.htm
And what of communion?
"Of all the resurrected savior gods that were worshipped before and at the
beginning of the Christian myth, none contributed so much to the mythology
developing around Jesus as the Egyptian Osiris. Osiris was called "Lord of
Lords," "King of Kings" and "the good Shepherd." He was called "the
resurrection and the life," the god who made "men and women to be born
again." He was the "god man" who suffered, died, rose again and lived
eternally in heaven. They thought that by believing in Osiris they would
share eternal life with him. Egyptian scripture reads: "As truly as Osiris
lives, so truly shall his followers live also."
The coming of Osiris was announced by Three Wise Men. His flesh was eaten in
the form of communion cakes of wheat. Only through Osiris could one obtain
eternal life, they believed. The much loved 23rd Psalm of the Bible is a
modified version of an Egyptian text appealing to Osiris, "the good
shepherd," to lead the dead "to green pastures and still waters," "to
restore the soul" to the body and to give protection in "the valley of the
shadow of death." http://www.primenet.com/~heuvelc/bible/library/myth.htm
So why, Howard, are we not supposed to take the same approach with the
resurection that you take with the Flood? Farrell Till, above, mentioned
Attis. Here is what that is about:
"This was in March, 385 A.D., the beginning of spring in Rome, and when the
priests of Cybele, "the mother of the gods," celebrated their "holy week."
It had begun with a procession, on March 17 when priests and devotees
carried reeds: as they carry palms in a Catholic church on the first day of
Holy Week in our time. Five days later- Sunday to Friday is five days-there
was a second solemn procession. The priests bore a sacred emblem through the
streets to the temple on the Palatine Hill; and the emblem was the figure of
a beautiful young god, pale in death, bound to a small pine tree, which was
crowned with violets. Attis was dead, and the procession went its way with
ceremonial sadness.
The next day was the "Day of Blood." Attis had bled, and his priests and
worshipers must bleed. In the full ritual of the cult of Attis and Cybele,
in the east, the priests tore from their bodies the organs of manhood and
held aloft their great sacrifice to the mother and divine lover. Rome did
not permit this; but priests and worshipers gashed themselves arid made the
blood flow; and drums thundered, and howls of lamentation rose, and the
eunuch priests rent their flowing robes. Attis was dead: the beautiful
Attis.
And on the next day he rose from the dead. It was the Hilaria ("Day of
Hilarity"), a very popular Roman festival, when all things were lawful,
because your heart rejoiced to know that Attis had come to life again. Two
days later was the part of the festival at which Augustine assisted. The
priests took the black stone (phallic stone) with a silver head, which
represented Cybele, for a ceremonious bath in the Almo; and they return
through Rome, with horns blowing and drums throbbing, frantic with
rejoicing, while the two great hedges of Roman spectators supported them
with an orgy of sexual songs and jokes and embraces. The spirit of love was
born again." http://www.primenet.com/~heuvelc/bible/library/myth.htm
I could go on with other examples of resurrected Gods, but this is enough to
make the point.
Now, If we take the approach you want us to take with regard to the flood, I
would argue that what is good for the goose is good for the gander and we
must take that approach with the resurrection story itself. But if we do,
then Christianity crumbles. The only way to avoid this as I see it, is to
treat Scripture in a more historical approach and give it reality, or to use
an entirely inapproriate double-standard in which we apply the 'vehicle'
approach to that which we can and don't apply it to that which would be
devastating to our faith.
So, for those who don't like my concordist approach and think I am entirely
misrepresenting their approach or think I am hopelessly (or pathologically)
desirous of historicity, I would ask the following of you. Can you please
show some consistency in the way you treat the other parts of Scripture?
Why not treat the resurrection in the same fashion and apply the same
hermeneutical approach, and place it within the intellectual confines of the
1st Century AD as y'all want to do with the Flood narrative? Indeed, with
the flood narrative, y'all claim that this is the only correct way to
interpret the scripture. If this is true, then do it for all parts of the
scripture. If you would apply this approach to the resurrection, it would
avoid the appearance you give of having a double standard.
To paraphrase Howard again: The human trauma of actual life/death
experiences in the world may help us to understand why resurrection
narratives functioned as they did in Ancient Near Eastern and Roman
cultures.
Lets be consistent in all that we do.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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