Second hand revelation

Continuing the current stream of doubting...

I go to a church where people regularly have 'words of knowledge' or 'pictures' or other apparent direct revelations from God. Some have apparently had dreams conveying meaning from God. And while they don't generally do this in the main church service, I know that many of them speak in tongues.

I have never had any of these experiences.

The only time I ever came close was when I was on a SU camp many years ago and was talking with someone who was going through a hard time. We were out in the hills and I remember looking across the valley and seeing a tree on the far side of the valley. It was a tree, standing on its own, on an otherwise featureless hillside. It was a windy and cloudy day, with the sun breaking though only occasionally and transiently, and the patches of sunlight moved and changed rapidly. Except, as I looked, the sun broke through the clouds and the lone tree was bathed in a patch of sunlight which seemed to remain on the tree and not change or shift for a couple of minutes (may have been less than that, but it seemed a relatively long time). Seeing that 'vision' (of something that was actually there) gave me an idea for the right encouraging word to say to my companion. I've always kind of interpreted that experience as a kind of 'vision', but maybe it was just part of an active imagination, while seeking to find the right words to say to a friend going through a rough patch.

But that's the extent of my experience. And yet I know people who apparently get 'pictures' or 'words of knowledge' on a weekly basis. Sometimes these seem to be specific and aimed at a particular person or situation, sometimes they are more general. But rarely (if ever) is there a way of testing these 'revelations' to see if they have a divine source. If someone says something like:

"I've got a picture of a tap, and its turned off, I think there's someone here who is feeling spiritually dry and needs to turn the tap on again..."

then it might be genuine revelation, or it might be a random thought that just occurred to them, but if its stated in a large enough Christian gathering, there's a fair chance that somebody there will be feeling spiritually dry on that day, and so will take this to be a message for them.

This is the problem I see, if a 'picture' is described, and there is somebody there who relates to it, then its taken as a message from God and boosts the faith of both the picture receiver and the one to whom it relates. But if there isn't someone who connects with the message, it is rarely taken to mean that the picture was wrong, misinterpreted or just imagination. There is no negative feedback loop - only a positive one or a no-effect one. So, basically, whether or not these pictures come from God, so long as somebody does this often enough, the net effect will be to boost their faith, not only in God (who may have had nothing to do with the process), but also in the 'picture' ability.

In addition to that, the interpretation of such pictures is always (in services that I've been at, at least) positive and encouraging. Even if the picture is of a raging torrent of water, the interpretation is never that someone is going to be swept away and smashed on the rocks, the interpretation will be something about the power of God to break into some situation or other. So, even if the pictures do come from a divine source, perhaps the interpretation is derived from church culture rather than from above? In the Old Testament, some of the prophets had no problem issuing dire warnings based on their interpretations of the revelations they apparently received, but maybe that was just part of the cultural filter of the day? I fully expect that in some Christian sub-cultures, in some parts of the world, revelations from God are still interpreted in such a manner. But not in our culture. As far as I can tell, the culture shapes the message. If that is the case, is there any need for a divine origin for the message?

My point is this. How can you know if any claimed revelation is genuine?

Someone receives a picture and interprets it that they need to open your arms and embrace their neighbours. Is that from God? Well, at least it is consistent with some bits of the bible. So maybe it is? Revelation which is consistent with culture is endorsed.

Someone else receives a picture and interprets it that they need to kill their neighbours. Is that from God? Well, that too is consistent with some parts of the bible. But I doubt that most churches would endorse this. Culture trumps revelation.

Both pictures there could be the product of an active imagination. Or both could be from God. But both are filtered through at least two interpretation layers - that of the person seeing the picture and that of the culture. So if someone shares a picture with you, how on earth can you know what to do with it?

What has to be taken on faith?

What has to be taken on faith?

And what can we reasonably expect there to be evidence or experience for?

Does faith refer to the future, the present or the past?

Take the 'heroes of faith' chapter in Hebrews 11 as an example, here's the whole text, with interjections by me:

1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Here it would seem that faith refers to God's actions in the past - we have no evidence that God formed the universe, so we have to take it on faith.

4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

Here I think it is safe to say that Abel did not need faith to know that there was a God, or that God wanted offerings. Rather, his faith related to the way he approached God.

5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The Enoch verse is odd, as it doesn't tell us anything about how Enoch's faith was manifested, but verse 6 is interesting, in that it implies that even the existence of God is something we have to take on faith. Does that mean there is no evidence for God? I'll come back to this below...

7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

Here Noah receiving the warning was not an act of faith, his faith was demonstrated through the way he responded. He believed the warning was true and put that into action.

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

Here again, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sarah show their faith through believing the promises that they were given. Receiving the promise was not an act of faith, and it doesn't seem like their belief in the promise giver was an act of faith, only the way they trusted the promise and acted accordingly.

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

This is a bit odd, as some of those listed above did receive the things promised before they died. Anyway...

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Once again, faith is demonstrated in trust. Not trust that God exists, but trust that the things God says are true.

20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.

I'm not sure what these three examples teach us about faith, but hey.

23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

God spoke to Moses audibly out of a weird burning bush. Hearing that voice was not an act of faith, acting upon what the voice said was.

30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

And again, faith is demonstrated by believing that that the instructions of God are trustworthy and acting on them.

32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

So in almost all cases, except verses 3 & 6, faith is seen to be trusting the promises of God, and acting accordingly. Belief by itself is not enough, faith seems to be belief in action.

In almost all instances there, the pattern is this:

1. God speaks (audibly, visibly, clearly) to someone.
2. Person acts on the basis of the message, even if they can't necessarily see the end result.
3. Faith is demonstrated by believing the message and acting on it.

However, for us, there are a lot more links in the chain. Do we have to take all of these on faith?

For the vast majority of us, the 'message' comes to us from words written down some 1900 to 2500 years ago. It is filtered through our own personal interpretation of the words, and through the imposed interpretation of the (church) culture we are part of or were raised in. Beyond that, for most of us, there is the filter of the translation, and possibly also the filter of transmission. Next we have to contend with the filter of canonical selection (Were all the 'words of God' included in the canon? Was anything else let in by mistake? Were any genuine 'words of God' omitted?) and (so some claim) the filter of the 'ecclesiastical redactor' who may have edited some of the NT writings before they became 'canon'. Beyond that, we don't know with any certainty who wrote most of the NT writings, and we have no idea at all who wrote the majority, if not all, of the OT.

Were the gospels written by eyewitnesses? If they weren't (as seems probable), then where did the information come from? How many jumps are there between the eyewitnesses and the written documents? Did any spurious stories make their way into the gospels? If so, how can we distinguish the facts from the fiction?

There's too many question marks there. Either you accept (on faith) that our contemporary interpretation of the books of the bible is 'The Word of God' or you doubt one bit and the whole edifice begins slowly to crumble. Without faith in the end product, there's almost not compelling evidence for believing any of it.

What evidence is there that the Bible is the Word of God?

Indeed, what evidence is there that there is a God to have a Word?

I think many Christians would use the existence of God as evidence for the Bible, and would use the Bible as evidence for the existence of God. But that's circular reasoning and gets you nowhere.

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not doubting the existence of the Deity in general, but I am beginning to doubt the existence of the God-in-three-persons as interpreted from the Bible. If you use the Bible as the filter through which to view God, you get a definite and fairly well defined picture of God. And that is what I am currently questioning.

I believe in 'religious experience' and I believe it is evidence for the existence of the divine. But the more I reflect on this, the greater a gulf I see between experience and the Christian picture of God. As I said in a previous post, I believe in the Holy Spirit, its just the Divine Father and the Divine Son that I'm wrestling with. Or rather, I'm wondering if the 'Holy Spirit' of Christianity today, and the 'Father' who Jesus prayed to, and the God of the Old Testament are simply the same God. Not different aspects of God, not different persons in a Trinity, just one God, the same one. I wonder if we've been misunderstanding God for the best part of two thousand years, perhaps much, much longer.

Almost all of what Christians believe is taken on faith from the Bible. What if the bible is in error? I don't see that we have any way of testing the authenticity of the bible. Indeed, historical criticism of the Bible has shown, in many different ways, that it is a human document, which has been compiled, edited, changed, rearranged and contains errors. Unless you take it unquestioningly at face value, there is no compelling evidence to believe in the God it presents, over any other God presented in any other holy book.

I'm not sure I have enough faith to believe in that God anymore. Largely because the reasons I had for my faith have been shown to be resting on very scant evidence.

Son of God?

This may seem like an odd question to most Christians, but what do we mean when we say 'Son of God'?

In what way is/was Jesus God's son?

I had a look at the dictionary at what 'son' means, and it says this:

1. a male child or person in relation to his parents.
2. a male child or person adopted as a son; a person in the legal position of a son.
3. any male descendant.

Which doesn't help much. If sonship requires parents (plural) then option 1 is discounted. If sonship requires adoption then option 2 is discounted. If sonship requires a line of descent, then option 3 is discounted. So in what way is Jesus the 'son' of God?

Contemporary theology (and this goes back at least 1800 years) views Jesus as co-eternal with God the Father. So in what sense is Jesus the 'Son' of the 'Father'? If there was no 'time' in which God was and Jesus was not, then the Son is not and cannot be the descendent of the Father.

Sometimes sonship refers to inheritance - perhaps Jesus is the heir to the Father in some way? But this only works if the Father is going to die or otherwise pass on the inheritance, and I don't see that in Christian theology.

Or maybe it refers to authority, somehow? Perhaps the Father has authority over the Son? But I thought the Son was given the name above all names? Surely that means he has the ultimate authority?

Basically where I'm at is that I can't see how Jesus can be both part of the Trinity and the Son (in any meaningful way) of God. If he's part of the Trinity, then surely 'brother' would be a better human analogy. If he's the 'Son' in some rational way, then he cannot be part of the Trinity.

It would appear that in the OT times, 'Son of God' was a phrase taken to represent God's human representative on earth - generally the king, although I think it may also have been used of Moses, Elijah and a few others.

Why don't/can't we see Jesus in the same way?

Did the early church turn the human Jesus into a God? (But keep the 'Son of God' terminology and just ignore the contradictions it brought with it?)

Rob Love Bell Wins... or something

Sitting on my bedside, ready to be read is a copy of Rob Bell's 'controversial' new book 'Love Wins'. I am not going to pre-judge it, so I can't really pass comment on it yet.

However, I have just listened to Rob Bell 'defending' his book/viewpoint on the Unbelievable podcast, with Justin Brierley and 'Christian blogger' Adrian Warnock.

Some observations:

1. Rob Bell does the classic apologist thing of answering a question with another question. Which gets a bit annoying after a while as there is never any resolution to any line of questioning. At the end of the podcast Rob Bell had never actually stated what it is that he believes, he had merely questioned the issues around 'conventional' belief.
2. He had a very good point to make about the Greek and Hebrew words translated as 'eternal' in English. And this point was entirely lost on the others in the studio with him.
3. Fundamentally, I think, the issue boils down to this: does the Bible paint a single, coherent picture of God, or does it actually paint a multi-faceted picture of him, which contains discrepancies and even contradictions? Both Rob and Adrian seem to hold to the former option, but both are viewing different facets of the picture as their starting point. I would argue that the former opinion is a belief that is forced onto the text, not a conclusion from reading the text at face value.

Anyway. I'll read the book soon and let you know my opinion on it after that, for what its worth.

The way and the truth and the life.

John 14v6 is one of those verses I have known all my life:

"Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

This is one of those 'but what does that actually mean?' verses. What does it actually mean for me, here, now? In what way is Jesus 'the way'? In what way is he 'the truth' or 'the life'?

I've been reading (and listening on podcasts) a lot recently about the 'evolution' of the Christian message and how you can track developments in belief from the early writings (letters of Paul), through the early gospel accounts (Mark and 'Q'), how they change in the later synoptics (Matthew and Luke) and how there is another change in belief before the final canonical gospel is written (John), perhaps four or five decades after Paul. Basically, this is all part of the 'synoptic problem'.

Scholarly consensus seems to be that Jesus never spoke many of the words attributed to him in the 4th Gospel. The evidence seems pretty compelling. I am convinced.

So, Jesus never spoke those words. They were put - fictively - into the mouth of Jesus by the writer (or editor) of the 4th gospel, and relate to his interpretation of the message of Jesus, not necessarily going back to anything Jesus himself actually said or did.

So what of 'the truth'? If this statement is fiction, who is the Jesus who is the truth? Certainly not the one described in the 4th gospel.

What about the Jesuses described in the synoptic gospels, are any of them 'the truth'?

Here's the problem, if one of the accounts is blatantly non-historical, is there any reason to believe any of the others are historical? It seems not. The gospels contain the beliefs of their authors (who may represent specific communities) about Jesus, but not necessarily the history of Jesus. The 4th gospel writer put words into the mouth of Jesus to suit his purposes, is it not also likely that the other three did too?

So if there is/was a Jesus who was 'the truth', then he is forever lost to history. Thus the statement that he is the truth is fairly useless to us here and now.

And where does this leave the way and the life?

Pretty much in the same boat.

Where I find myself now is confused (as usual) and coming to the realisation that many of the good things associated with 'the way' (i.e. the Christian life) are not unique to Christianity. Indeed, some aspects of Christian belief might actually be hindering some people having 'life in all its fulness' (John 10v10) rather than promoting it (thinking here - for example - about the ongoing homosexuality debate, which I am not about to go into now).

The more I think about these things, the more baggage I see that can be stripped away from the Christian life to get to the essence of what 'the way' is about. Unfortunately (and I really, really, didn't want to get to the conclusion at the outset, but I can't - in all honesty - escape from it), this leaves me questioning the divinity of Jesus. There is good evidence that there was a man, revered by many, in 1st century Palestine, who preached a message of peace, repentance and simplicity, and who did not believe himself to be God. He was crucified in Jerusalem about 1981 years ago. After his death, his followers began to consider him as messiah, sometime after that they believed he was in some way divine, and eventually they elevated him to full godhood. But believing that was not part of the original 'way'.

The original 'way' was about this:

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6v8. Prayer, worship, being a blessing to others, putting others as more important than yourself, investing time in relationships, standing up for the needs of the oppressed, etc., etc. This is 'the way'.

But where, these days, can you practice all that when you're unsure if Jesus is God?

The Bible's Buried Secrets

Did you see the recent documentary series on BBC2? Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou presented a three part series attempting to 'prove' some controversial theories with the aid of archaeology. Conservative Christians up and down the UK tweeted and blogged their outrage.

For what its worth, here's my take on what she had to say. I suppose all this contains spoilers, if you haven't seen the shows.

Episode 1. Was there a King David?
Yes. Next.
Well, the most I think you can say from the evidence presented in the programme was that there probably was a historical King David, but that some of the claims made about him in the bible may be a bit exaggerated. But when you find inscriptions relating to a king 'of the line of David' from a time, supposedly only 100 or so years after the alleged time of David, then I'm happy to believe that, yes, there was at some point a bloke called David. His descendent was a king, so its not unreasonable to think that he might have been a king too.

Episode 2. Did God have a wife?
Now this is the one that got people in a flap. But the bible makes it clear, Ashera was worshiped in the same temple as God, in Jerusalem, for at least 65% of the time that the (first) temple was there. Given the evidence, its not unreasonable to deduce that the people (well, the 'bad' kings and some priests at least, but presumably a significant subset of the people too) considered the goddess Ashera to be worthy of worship alongside God. Its not too far a jump from there to making them a couple. So if the question is 'Was God believed to have a wife by some people?' then the answer is certainly yes. The programme could not possibly address the question 'Did (the real) God have a wife?' as the assumption underlying the whole thing is that there was and is no real God.

Episode 3. Where was the garden of Eden?
This topic didn't actually sound that exciting to me, but I found this theory the most interesting and convincing of the three. The first temple was decorated as a garden? Totally plausible. The Adam character is the priest/king with the divinely appointed task of tending the 'garden'? Yes, I can see that. I'm surprised Melchizedek wasn't invoked at some point, given that he was priest and king in (Jeru)Salem. The Ezekiel stuff makes more sense in this context rather than talking about the fall of Lucifer. So, yes, I'm with the reasoning the whole way. Even the snake stuff. But at the end we never find out which king! Why not? Why not even speculate? Which King was Adam?

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham

In recent months I've read more than my fair share of critical / liberal / unsound (delete as applicable) books on Biblical topics, so I figured it was time to read something reasonably sound for a change. Having heard Richard Bauckham defend the central thesis of this book on an episode of Unbelievable (on Premier Christian Radio) last year, I thought this might be interesting, thought provoking and possibly challenging.

The essential thesis of this book is that the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as they are commonly known) contain eyewitness testimony, and that this can be demonstrated from the texts themselves. Furthermore, the book claims that the 4th gospel was actually written by an eyewitness to the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Of course, mainstream Christian belief has always believed that the four gospels were written by the four characters whose names they bear: Matthew - one of the Twelve, Mark - a minor character in the Bible and an associate of Peter's, Luke - a minor character in the Bible and an associate of Paul's, and John - brother of James, one of the Twelve.

This book breaks away from that conventional belief by positing that the 'beloved disciple' who wrote the 4th gospel was called John, but was not John the son of Zebedee, brother of James. But we'll get there in a moment.

I found some bits of the book quite interesting, some thought provoking, tiny little bits challenging, and significant chunks of it really quite dull. The dullness reaches a peak in the final chapter of the book, when the author, having provided sufficient evidence to prove to himself that the four texts are eyewitness testimony, attempts to show why eyewitness testimony is so essential to the gospel. It is the longest and most completely unnecessary chapter in the book. And the final chapter makes the classic mistake of invoking an example from Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. As soon as someone invokes the Nazis in a debate, you know that they know that their case is weak. But anyway, back to the interesting bits.

Papias

The first part of Bauckham's thesis rests squarely on the writings of Papias, a Christian bishop who wrote in the early 2nd century, and who appears to have collected as many gospel stories as he could (earlier in his life, when eyewitnesses may have still been living) and compiled them into a written work which no longer exists. What we know of Papias, we know from later writers who quote him.

From what we know of Papias's writings, a few things are evident:

1. He knew of written gospels attributed to Mark, Matthew and possibly John.
2. He preferred oral testimony of eyewitnesses to written testimony.
3. He never met any eyewitnesses, but knew of two still living as he was compiling his work: 'John the Elder' and 'Aristion'. Neither of these were among the Twelve. Neither is named in any of the gospels.
   

From what Papias apparently wrote (I say 'apparently' as some scholars have serious doubts that what is attributed to Papias actually originated with him), it can be inferred that Mark's gospel contains the eyewitness testimony of Peter, recorded in Greek, but this account is not presented in chronological order. We can also glean that the gospel attributed to Matthew contained a translation (by persons unknown) of Matthew's recordings of his eyewitness testimony, originally recorded in Hebrew. Again, the order of events was understood to be incorrect. Finally, the gospel attributed to John the Elder was held to be both eyewitness testimony and presented in the correct order.

There is a problem here. The gospel we know as Matthew is clearly reliant on the gospel we know as Mark's. Several passages are word-for-word the same in Greek. This could not have happened if Matthew's gospel was a translation from a Hebrew original. This leaves us with two basic possibilities: either the gospel that Papias attributed to Matthew is not the same as the one we have that goes by that name, or Papias was simply wrong. Either way, this doesn't help to prove that our version of Matthew's gospel is reliable. Also, there is a further possibility that the gospel Papias knew as Mark wasn't actually the same as our Mark - there are some early, non-canonical writings which fit his description of Mark's gospel better than our Mark does.

Having said that, I found much of the stuff about Papias fascinating, and intend to read up on him at some point in the future.

The thing that Bauckham doesn't really go into detail about, and which really causes problems for his central thesis, is the incompatibility between points 1 and 2 about Papias above. Papias apparently believed the gospels he had were eyewitness testimony, and yet deferred to 2nd or 3rd hand stories transmitted orally out of preference. This makes no sense to me? Maybe its because I'm not a 2nd century person, but maybe its just because it doesn't add up. All we know about Papias's writings are a few snippets chosen, presumably selectively, by later writers. The majority of these snippets relate to Papias's opinions on the written gospels, not to the other stories he collected. Which he preferred. In other words, the material which Papias preferred is the stuff that has been lost, and our Bible only contains the less trustworthy material (as far as Papias was concerned).

Bauckham's central thesis appears to rely on giving Papias the benefit of the doubt, which certainly doesn't fill me with confidence in his conclusions.

But anyway, moving on...

Inclusio

The next pillar of Bauckham's thesis is that the gospels all contain hallmarks of witness testimony. In other words, they were all written in the style of testimony. Bauckham gets really quite bogged down into demonstrating that there is an 'inclusio' in the gospels: basically, that the text is arranged in such away as to demonstrate that the eyewitness upon whose testimony the gospel is based was present at the start of Jesus's ministry, and was still there at the end. Thus in Mark, Peter is the first named disciple, and the last mentioned disciple at the end of the story. This apparently demonstrates that the story is written from his point of view. In Luke, some unnamed women are mentioned early on and again at the end (hardly compelling that) and (least compelling of all) in John there is an unnamed disciple with Andrew right at the start (before Peter is named) and 'the beloved disciple' is the last referred to character (just after Peter's final mention). Of course, these must be the same person, right? Sorry, I'm not convinced.

Bauckham demonstrates the inclusio was used on other contemporary historical works, but - in my opinion - doesn't really gain anything by this. It almost seems like he's trying too hard to prove a flimsy case at this point. And in any case, just because a book is written in the style of a testimony, doesn't mean that the testimony is true. All this demonstrates is that the authors of these works wanted them to conform to a particular genre. (Incidentally, Luke's gospel apparently really mixes the genre styles and doesn't come across as a historical testimony, so say those in the know).

Form criticism

The next pillar of Bauckham's thesis is an attack on 'form criticism'. Bauckham paints a not very flattering caricature of the form critics and suggests that all their theories are all built on the assumption that the gospel stories existed more or less as 'folk tales' before being written down. Bauckham demonstrates that the transmission of the Gospel traditions was not of the form of folk tales, but was rather transmitted formally from named eyewitness to named 'tradent' and that the living eyewitnesses and first generation tradents functioned as a 'check' on the transmission of the stories during their circulation up to and including the time when they were written in gospel form. In other words, enough people knew the 'real' stories well enough to stamp out the transmission of false stories before they became established.

All well and good, but Bauckham's theory rests on a number of major assumptions, and the evidence of the gospels themselves tends to cast doubts on the theory. If there were a 'canonical' set of real stories ('pericopes' as the theologians say) which were handed down from tradent to tradent and kept rigorously in check by the eyewitnesses, then how can it be that the 4th gospel is so different from the others? There was clearly nobody keeping a check on this one. And this is the one that is claimed to be a genuine eyewitness testimony. Beyond that, the gospels which rely on Mark (i.e. Matthew and Luke) change details of the stories in the retelling. This implies that either they think Mark's version was wrong (that is, Mark's gospel wasn't kept in check by the tradents) or they had no qualms about modifying the stories to fit their own agendas (that is, their gospels weren't kept in check by the tradents). Furthermore, all of this relies on the assumption that the stories being transmitted were real in the first place. An eyewitness can correct a mistelling of the story of an event he witnessed, but he would be completely unable to 'correct' or refute a spurious story of a fictional event. Thus, the fictions would get wider transmission than the real events.

In summary of this, Bauckham's discussion attacks a methodology, but provides no compelling evidence that his alternative theory is able to take us back to anything real.

John

The final pillar of Bauckham's thesis is that John the Elder wrote the 4th gospel. I have to say that by the time I got here I was fairly bored with the book, and even though I stuck it out to the end, I'd lost interest. Yes, the 4th gospel appears to be written from the point of view of an eyewitness to some of the events, but I have to say that I find the case for this being Lazarus at least as compelling as the case for this being John the Elder, a character otherwise unknown in Christian literature. The evidence presented appears fairly flimsy. Yes, it does make a plausible case, but the reasoning is far from compelling and the conclusions are far from probable.

Also, the fact that the 4th gospel story flatly contradicts the synoptics is never dealt with here. In the other three gospels Peter goes to the empty tomb. In the 4th gospel the other disciple is present. Surely if there were two witnesses to the empty tomb the other gospels might have mentioned it?

Eyewitnesses?

In conclusion, I don't think Bauckham's book succeeds. It's central thesis doesn't convince me. And I'm a Christian who actually wants the thesis to be true, but sadly the evidence points the other way. I'm actually happy to believe that Mark's gospel contains some reminiscences from some of the original disciples, possibly Peter. But Matthew's and Luke's gospels are not. They're basically padded out versions of Mark and, for that reason alone, cannot be written by eyewitnesses. They were written by non-eyewitnesses who had heard some stories that weren't in Mark, and other stories that actually contradicted Mark, and they both sought to improve on the original gospel. As for the 4th gospel, while it is written from the point of view of an alleged eyewitness, I'm fairly convinced that this aspect of the narrative is fictional and the writer was someone who hadn't even spoken to any eyewitnesses, let alone been one.

I'm afraid I can't recommend this book to anyone as it is not compelling, is quite dull in large chunks, and is - essentially - wrong.

12 baskets?

Don't know where this (minor) doubt came from, but I was listening to someone talking about the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 yesterday and it occurred to me just how fictional the story sounds.

Leaving aside the central miracle, the other details just don't ring true.

Matthew 14:

15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

The disciples and crowds didn't have any food with them but they did have 12 baskets? That sounds a bit funny. Beyond that, in a remote place, having distributed food to 5000 people, the disciples felt the need to collect the rubbish from the ground? It was just bread and bits of fish - the birds would have dealt with all that soon enough, and its not as if they needed it, they've just seen Jesus multiply food.

So even allowing the miracle as a possibility, it still seems pretty unlikely. More like a 'just so' story than a recollection of a real event.

Weaker Brother

I came across this the other day. I might get one and wear it to church for a laugh...

I believe in the Holy Spirit

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

"Good" I hear some of you cry. "Finally, after all that doubting, a sound post with a positive declaration of faith..."

Erm, well, sorry to disappoint you, but this isn't that post.

I'm wrestling with the whole area of faith vs experience at the moment. I'm working on a longer blog post on faith, which I'll post eventually, but I just realised this morning what it all boils down to. And that is this:

All my Christian experience leads me to believe, or rather to know that the Holy Spirit is an ever-present reality. (Hallelujah!)

I've seen the presence of the Spirit in my life and in the lives of others, I've experienced the promptings of the Spirit in my experience and I've even seen (minor) miracles and healings done in his name. Of course, I have heard tale of greater things than those, but I'm a skeptical sort, so I'll stick with "That which ... we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched" (1 John 1v1) rather than second or third hand reports.

The problem, or the doubt, is this:

While I know the existence of the Spirit, I don't (and can't) have equivalent experience of God the Father or of God the Son. Both of them are purely taken on faith. And that faith is built on things that were written thousands of years ago, by people possibly unknown to us. It takes a lot of faith to believe the words of that book. And when you doubt some of it (as I do, and have) you soon find that quite a lot of it unravels and falls apart.

Faith in the bible is (almost) an all or nothing stance. You can't have your cake and eat it. Life would be so easy if I could believe that the Bible was completely inspired and therefore infallible. But I've scratched at too many flaky bits to believe that anymore. But if bits of it are not infallible, or if bits of it are not inspired, then how can you decide which is which? And beyond that, how can you know if any of it is inspired, or indeed, if there was an inspirer?

The thing is, if you start with that which you can see and experience and go from there, I don't think you can ever get to the edifice of faith that is biblical Christian belief. Christian belief is a mixture of the experiential and the unverifiable written stuff. Most of which is just unquestioningly taken on board.

But if you start from the experiential and don't take on board the unverifiable, you end up in a radically different place to most Christians. Indeed, you end up closer to Pagans than Christians.

Confused? Yes I am! But still looking for the light.