Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

Alexanian wrote:

"If you claim that there are all sorts of possibilities, then you are indicating that Scripture is untrue and so Jesus is not the Son of God. Where would you ever get the notion of Jesus being the Son of God if it is not from Scripture?"

Perhaps it would help to take a broader perspective here. Many if not all religions with ancient roots have scriptures with stories that sound far-fetched. Why is this? Presumably not all these stories are true; yet many people have accepted them as cornerstones of their faith.

Example: A Buddhist text (Lalitavistara) maintains that the Buddha planted himself in his mother's womb in the form of an elephant. Eventually he exited the womb through his mother's side, not down the birth canal. At his birth he was a human baby. Later on stone statues of Hindu gods bowed down to him. These tidbits and many more are depicted in stone bas-relief at the Buddhist monument of Borobudur in Java.

How does such stuff get written? How does it get accepted? The fact is that it does, and it's common. So in the writing of the gospels, could there have been something of this same sort of impetus at work? If not, why not? If we don't understand why this kind of thing appears commonly in religious literature of all sorts, can we assume it didn't happen with the New Testament?

We can't just assume it didn't happen, but I think we can make compelling arguments that it's unlikely to have introduced serious contamination. But our conclusions will not be obvious to everyone, and they never will be. There's a well-known human tendency to exaggerate. Can we say that the NT contains no exaggerations whatever? What if John, for example, stretched things just a bit?

If you take everything John wrote in his gospel (assuming he wrote it) as the "gospel truth," then you're right: the choice is between black and white. But because John (or whoever) was a human, we can at least imagine that he wrote his gospel in a human way; and a human way, when you're writing religion, is to include stuff that seems far-fetched, stuff that very likely never happened.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Alexanian, Moorad
  To: John W Burgeson ; wallyshoes@mindspring.com
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2003 6:06 PM
  Subject: RE: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

  Lewis’ argument is that same that any sane reader of Scripture would arrive at

  1. Jesus was a madman, or worse
  2. Jesus was the Son of God

  If you claim that there are all sorts of possibilities, then you are indicating that Scripture is untrue and so Jesus is not the Son of God. Where would you ever get the notion of Jesus being the Son of God if it is not from Scripture?

  Moorad

  -----Original Message-----
  From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of John W Burgeson
  Sent: Sat 12/20/2003 5:55 PM
  To: wallyshoes@mindspring.com
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

>> It is clear that
  Howard (and Burgy as well) disagree with Lewis. I happen to agree with
  Lewis and
  disagree with them. >>

  Burgy does NOT disagree with Lewis. He merely has pointed out that Lewis
  made several assumptions in posing the two possibilities that are not
  accepted by everyone.

  The issue is the argument. Lewis gives only two possibilities:

  1. Jesus was a madman, or worse
  2. Jesus was the Son of God

  But there are all sorts of other possibilities, at least one of which
  is:

  3. The scriptures are in error.
  4. etc
  5. etc

  Howard's point is simple. If you use Lewis's argument in discussions, you
  are very likely to be hooted down. At the very least recognize its
  assumptions. Lewis should have stated them; in not doing so he erred.
  IMHO.

  Burgy

  www.burgy.50megs.com/shadows.htm (Into the Shadows)

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Received on Sun Dec 21 04:21:31 2003