Did the Gospel Writers Lie?

How do we deal with the fact that the gospel writers made stuff up?

Well, for a good introduction there is a site that provides excellent scripture resources on the Gospel writers. http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/SFS/an0196.asp.

But let me at least say that Matthew, an educated Jew, was writing for an educated Jewish audience of Pharisees and other scripture scholars. So he structured his whole gospel with Judaic symbolism and bible commentary in mind. His colorful story of the magi is, like so much of his gospel, a midrash (commentary) on prophecies from the Jewish Scriuptures. If people take his gospel on face value only and are looking for an historical memory, they are completely missing his point.

I don't know, it is disturbing to people to suggest that the bible cannot be taken on face value.

Did it disturb you when you heard it in college?

Well, no, it actually excited me more than disturbed me. Because I saw the possibility that the problems I had with scripture were'nt problems with you or with God but with the human writers who were involved. So that made sense. And then the journey of studying the background and authors and historical context of each book made the bible so much richer. But Catholics are traditionally unmotivated when it comes to scripture study. The Protestants have always been better at that.

But, sadly, many non-Catholic Christians take a very "face value alone" approach and I am not sure that they don't sometimes miss the point entirely.

What point?

My point. What I was about. Take the "Prosperity Gospel" for example. I really don't know how anybody who has tried to understand me at all can decide that is what I was all about. It doesn't matter what a verse here or there says. We are dealing with human writers; they had their own agendas and sometimes their writing wasn't the best. But if you get stuck on the "take things literally as they say it" approach to the scriptures, you may, first of all, miss me entirely, and secondly, you may actually end up preaching and teaching and believing something I would find offensive and even appalling.

The Theological Agenda of the Gospel Writers

Ok, I admit, I have too many questions. Let’s take this slow. Tell me what you mean about the gospel writers and anachronism.

Perhaps the first thing I need to clarify is that I wasn’t ever anything but Jewish. And my followers, and my mother? They were never anything but Jewish. I’ll deal with Maryology another time. But suffice it to say that if my mother knew what people had done in her name and to her memory she would be appalled. My mother wanted nothing more than to raise me to be a good man and a good Jew. She believed in me, that the Father had chosen me. But she wouldn’t let me get away with anything. She knew me better than anyone; it was my mother who knew when I was ready to speak for the Father and not for myself. As a teenager she saw that my mind was ready but my heart had a lot to learn. And she let me know when she thought I was ready. John was right about that!

Now to the anachronism issue. As you know an anachronism occurs in a piece of writing when something is present that belongs to a different time. The truth is that when the gospels took their written form it was already in the era known as the “Early Church.” I was long gone and the Jewish roots of my followers and I were no longer as important as they had once been. Having become rejected by and separated from their own Jewish community, my followers were developing a different understanding of how to continue teaching my message. They were also developing a different routine of prayer and fellowship and outreach that included non-Jews. I am truly proud of what they accomplished; they took my words and ideas and opened themselves up to the Father and followed where the spirit of God led them. But people shouldn’t interpret what happened long after my death with what was happening during my lifetime and with what I spoke about.

Take Luke for example. I never met Luke. Luke became a follower of my followers, a second generation “Christian.” And Luke wanted to write about how the events in the Greek cities and Roman cities fifty years after my death was what had been intended all along by me. He wrote a beautiful 2-part work called Luke-Acts (The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles). Luke did not witness my life nor the events in Paul’s early life, but he crafted a beautiful work with a central theme showing the symmetry of events which moved my teachings and my followers from the center of the Jewish world to the center of the Roman world. His assumption was, “If this is happening it must be how God intended it to be.” So he wrote about things as if they had been foreshadowed or intended all along.

Can you give me a concrete example?

My birth. I was there but Luke certainly wasn’t and neither was Matthew. If my mother had told them or I had told them about those events surely they would have had the same story. But they don’t. And that’s fine as long as we understand that the stories they wrote about my birth were not historical narrative but theological reflection. For Luke it was important to show that God was directing things from the moment of my conception, and that my message was for everyone, the poor and lowly and even the non-Jews, like himself and so many Christians by the time he was writing.

So, it’s not that he was lying, and its not just beautiful creative writing, Luke actually had a theological agenda, a message about you that he was trying to teach.

Exactly! He didn’t see this as deceptive. He was writing the truth about me and my message as he understood it and with certain concerns or issues in mind, and his stories of my birth, for example, were the vehicles for that truth.

And Matthew?

Matthew had a similar intention and a similar method, but his personal, theological agenda was different from Luke’s.

But isn't the Catholic Church the One True Church?

The Truth that the Father has tried to communicate through the prophets and poets down the ages was not found inside the temple, is not found inside the church, any church.

Sacred scriptures are windows onto the Truth, but Moses had it right when he said that the truth is written on the heart. You don't need a temple or a priest to tell you what is written on your heart. You need to become open to the Father's word. I wasn't the first one to talk about the law of God being written on the heart, you can read the same idea in the Jewish scriptures ... Deuteronomy, Proverbs. So much of what I taught and preached was simply what I had learned from studying our Jewish scriptures and opening my own heart to the Father. That was, after all what I was trying to do ... open people to really hearing God's word. I didn't think it would all end up in a new religion.

We definitely need to have that conversation. Did you intend to establish a church? Was the Last Supper when you ordained the 12 Apostles? Was the Last Supper the first Mass?

First we need to clarify what an anacronysm is. Then there is the issue of what the writers of the gospels were trying to accomplish at the time they wrote about me.

The Abuse & Cover-up Crisis

What about the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church?

What about it? You realise there are sexual predators in every level of every organised religion.

That makes it ... something we just accept?

Of course you don't accept it. Ever. You fight it with the truth, and with courage. I am glad that the SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and Religious) organisation is creating support groups for other religious denominations, including my own.

Your own?

Judaism. There are evil men leading Jewish congregations too. But I do think that because of the size of the Catholic Church the size of the problem is greater there than in any other religion or church. And the size and complexity of the organisation has meant that the predators had an incomparable network of protection and re-assignment.

So, if you had one thing to say to the Catholic faithful?

Stop being faithful!

I'm sorry?!

How can anyone continue to be faithful to a religion that has become so off-center, so focused on power, property, prestige...

Penises!

Yes, those too. But I don't want to get into the gender issues here. And it is not appropriate to bring in your usual sarcasm.

Sorry.

It's OK. I know your humor here is self-preservation. You know only too well ... I am the one who should be expressing my sorrow -- to you. My mother weeps daily for you and for all the children who have been hurt by men and women claiming to be my "holy" followers. So, again, I say to them, Stop being faithful. It is time to stop enabling this organisation to abuse children.

Like the Sadducees in ancient Israel, there is a tendency for religious authorities to think that any compromise with evil is justified if it protects the "Temple," the religious establishment and traditions. What I say to today's Catholics is, It's time to turn over the tables of those who traffic in children. Stop giving money to feed this corrupt "temple" and instead support causes of justice by giving your time and commitment as well as money. Money is easy to give if you have it. But time, effort and personal commitment to the pursuit of justice is much more costly, and much more valuable.

God on Demand?

Sometimes people think that traveling with me meant that my followers lacked for nothing: food, shelter, courage. But that wasn’t how it was. The stories told about that time were always about single events and didn’t take into account the bigger picture.

I’m sorry, do you mean bigger picture in a philosophical sense?

No, I’m actually thinking about the geographical bigger picture. Let me explain. There were a lot of people in Palestine who were hungry, homeless, afraid, doubting, angry and abused; even just in Galilee itself there was a lot of suffering. And it didn’t go away while I lived there. There were also many storms on the Sea of Galilee; some while I preached on its shores. And sometimes they came and went very suddenly. Were they all miracles? Did the Father make us sea-sick one day and provide us with a magnificent catch the next?

The problem with the Gospels is the stories they don’t include.

Are you saying that you didn’t cure people or heal people?

I’m saying that even if I helped a few people there were many more I didn’t help, but their stories weren’t told. The Gospel writers wrote about the events that fit the beliefs they had formed about me. It might help today if readers of the Gospels consider the unwritten stories as well. Maybe then their expectations would be more realistic.

The Meaning of "Adam":Insights into the Hebrew Language

The Meaning of "Adam":Insights into the Hebrew Language

One in Being - One in Substance

"And God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ " Genesis 1:26

I’m not sure the “dominion” thing is working too well for us is it? Look at how busy we are destroying the resources we need to stay alive: food, water, air. Any thoughts?

I’ve always found that verse in Genesis intriguing, the plural “us” and “our image.” It seems to reflect a time when the Jews were caught between polytheism and monotheism, which was true for a long time, even after Moses tried to straighten things out.

But exegesis aside, what do I think? I think whoever wrote that was letting the uniqueness of the human race overwhelm their understanding of the more obvious shared nature of all living things. And, for clarity’s sake, it is better translated as humankind not man because it says “male and female” in the next verse. (Although I should point out that the Hebrew word for earth used here is adamah, which actually is the feminine form of the word. So if you are going to translate the word in the singular it should be feminine! )

Something that modern science has made very clear is that we all come from the same “stuff.” Talk about “one in being!” I like that phrase, but we shouldn’t limit it to talking about the nature of God; it describes the nature of all “nature.” Something the Council of Nicea couldn’t possibly have known, because it is about the foundational elements of life, the atoms and molecules that we share. And being or substance? Pointless semantics. Who is better the Greek speakers or the Latin speakers? Come on, it’s a bit more important than that. It all boils down to “stuff.” “One in stuffness.” Doesn’t have quite the academic ring to it but it gets the point across.

If you think about it just a little you realize that the stuff you pollute eventually becomes the stuff we are made of, not us individually but us as humans. And of course vice versa. What goes around comes around in a very tangible way on this planet. But it is easy to get short-sighted.
So what if there are other planets with life on, I don’t know, but it shouldn’t affect how we treat this one. You shouldn’t give in to the creators of science fiction and imagine making planets the dumping grounds of your effluent and excess.
We don’t even think about the next generation, let alone the distant future. And it’s time we did.

What you’re saying sounds very Circle of Life/ Hakuna Matata to me. Have you been watching my videos again?

The truth is the truth, whether it is found in a cartoon movie or in a CNN special about the oil spill polluting the gulf of Mexico.
Point taken!

Not for profit -- prophet!

So, how long did it take?

Be fair, I was just investigating.

Really? It seemed a little more intentional than that. Looking at when payments are made?

Google makes it easy to get ads on a blog, and then if people respond, you get paid. Wow!

I know, I was there, too. But don't you see how it would look if I had ads on my site, and what ads would google deem appropriate based on our conversations, I wonder?

Your site? Now wait...

How about our site. But let's face it, if people ever read this it will be because they are interested in my thoughts not yours.

Yes, but...

Yes, I know...you are me, "in your mind!" But if we get associated with making money from this conversation, what moral weight will my words have against Christian preachers who use me to line their pockets and put gas in their cadillacs.

Point! So when are you going to let that post rip?

I'm working on it!

Meet My Muse

Well, here goes. This is a Blog. I know, it’s an unpleasant sounding word. Let’s just call it a conversation.
And you are?
The author of this Blog.
And I am?
You are my muse.
Well, I’ve been called worse. What is this conversation going to be about?
Important things: Religion, faith, God, meaning.
That’s important stuff. What if I get it wrong?
You can’t. It’s not really you, remember. It’s all “in my mind” to quote Eddie Izzard, appropriately.
Why “appropriately”?
I’m British.
I see.
Do you? You sound rather hesitant.
OK. I'm not sure I do see, and I do have a reputation to protect. And some people might come across this Blog and think you are “channeling” me, or some such newageism.
Would you feel better if you got to create some guidelines up front.
Yes, actually, I would. I think my mother would appreciate it too.
Your mother?--- Never mind! I’ll shelve that one for later.

My first suggestion is to avoid the humor. If you want others to take you seriously in this conversation you need to take it seriously, first.
That’s a fair point.
And you need to go back to the sources.
The sources?
Yes. You have a degree in theology and you taught for 27 years. You need to put that experience to work here. Don’t ever be embarrassed by your knowledge.
Embarrassed? I…
I think your humor covers up an innate insecurity about your expertise.
Ok. Now you are therapising me. I get enough of that from my therapist.
How’s that working out for you?
Now who’s being “humorous?”

Second. The prophets always had important things to say at important times in Jewish history. And I believe there is a universality in their themes that allows them to speak again to us today.

Third. A number of people wrote about me. Some of them were published. The ones that were published got a lot of things right. But, like many religious leaders through time, they often used me as a mouthpiece for their own agendas. Paul was great, but we didn’t ever meet and get to discuss things. I suppose you could say he was having an internal conversation with me, too. So that is setting the bar pretty high for you!
So when using the written sources, make sure you utilize your “critical thinking skills, your degrees and your intuition, and check with me if you’re not sure.

You do know that you are me, right?
Whatever you say.