Re: Theos-World Jerry- Fundamentalist misrepresentations of the Bible
Mar 23, 2006 04:45 PM
by Jerry Hejka-Ekins
Well, it looks like you also grew up in a divided household. I think it
is pretty natural for people in our situations to become more weary
about what we are told. It is sort of a survival mechanism. How else
does one live among family members with conflicting world views, except
to either before loyal to one or to step away and work it our for one's
self?
Nonetheless, my questions caused me to be
labeled as a thinker.
Love those euphemisms. I wasn't two years in the Theosophical Society
when people began to call me "outspoken." What they really meant was
one who was disturbing to their tranquility.
Years later I began
having metaphysical experiences
Yes, I left that part out. I was about 16 when that started.
I only discovered the
existence of unitarian churches this last year, but they are all a
half hour away from me.
The nearest Unitarian Church is about a 1/2 hour away from us too. But
we found that to be the best place to find kindred souls.
I believe that shortcomings in present-day cultural norms distort
biblical interpretation quite a bit.
I agree. But I would add that centuries of cultural norms that have
translated into theological traditions have been distorting biblical
interpretation since almost the beginning.
1. The Gospels were not written to be historical accounts of
Jesus' life. Rather, they are evangelical tracts written for the
purpose of gaining converts and to answer the objections of critics
of the early Christians."
Okay, I never heard that one before.
You wouldn't likely hear it in an Evangelical setting, but it is a
prevailing view in biblical scholarship.
"2. One must therefore, make a distinction between the historical
Jesus, the Jesus represented in the Gospels, and the theological
Jesus."
I just tend to differentiate between the Jesus of the Bible and the
Jesus of Christian fundamentalists. They don't seem quite the same.
Yes, the biblical and theological Jesus. But, as one looks more closely
to find the historical Jesus in the scriptures, the picture get more and
more blurry.
Okay, I follow. Government definitely got heavily involved. Very
political.
Indeed.
I got labeled as a gnostic too by the fundamentalist church through
formal excommunication. The funny thing though was that I was
actually agnostic when the church declared me to be gnostic. Go
figure.
They might not be clear on their meaning. I remember once a couple of
Jehovah Witnesses came to the door and said something about their belief
that sounded like a Gnostic doctrine. I said, "you sound like you are
Gnostics." One of the ladies said, "Oh no, were not agnostics."
"5. The members of these other Christian communities considered
themselves to be just as Christian as those belonging to the sect
adopted by the Emperors."
I'm sure they did. Jesus probably fell in the same boat.
It looks to me that Paul has much more to do with defining Christianity
than Jesus.
"7. Because of 4 and 6, our knowledge of the earliest history of
the Christian movement is fragmentary, biased in favor of the early
Roman church, and much is left to conjecture and theological
manipulation."
Perhaps some form of metaphysical revelation will have to suffice
then. I interpret the Bible metaphysically for the most part,
although simultaneously aware of what the literal text says.
Then the Bible becomes a launching point for the development of a
personal mysticism. There are a lot of mystics in Church history who
have done just that. Presently I'm more interested in engaging the
scriptures from an historical/cultural perspective. For instance, how
the first century Greeks and Romans understood the Gospel of Mark; where
Clement of Alexandria got his ideas etc.
I would be very careful about the literal interpretation of the text.
Aside from the normal problems of translating from an ancient language
like Greek into a modern language like English, the scriptures are full
of cultural allusions which are completely missed by the modern reader.
Best
Jerry
Vincent wrote:
Jerry-
You wrote:
"Dear Vince,
Yes, I agree that we are in a similar boat, but got there in very
different ways. The three topics that my parents never discussed in
front of the children were religion, politics and race. So, I never
really discovered these things until I was about twelve--and then,
on my own. They then became subjects of primary interest. Since I
had no religious instruction from home, lived in a Jewish
neighborhood, and attended a public school where everyone was
Jewish, I just half assumed that I was a Jew, like everyone else."
Hhmm, okay. Interesting. My mother has characteristically been
privately religious (believes in God, but doesn't read the Bible or
attend church), whereas my father has been more anti-religious
(can't stand Christians or the Bible). But then the religious
institutions were quick to educate me in their religious agenda,
just so long as I'd be sincere, believing with the heart prior to
thinking with the mind. Nonetheless, my questions caused me to be
labeled as a thinker.
"As I entered my teens, I discovered the beatniks at Venice beach,
and used to hang around them. My mother became alarmed and decided
that I must be becoming a "juvenile delinquent" and began to take me
to a very conservative Lutheran Church. That was my first formal
contact with Christianity. I found the services and sermons
curious. Lots of mysticism about an invisible god, a ressurected
man, and promise of an afterlife if I believed the right things."
That's actually a little bit ironic. My mom took my brother and I
to a Lutheran Church when my brother was becoming a 'delinquent'.
(I was too young at the time for delinquency.) Years later I began
having metaphysical experiences (without drug usage), so I started
attending church on my own to learn about the supernatural. Of
course, they eventually told me that my metaphysical experiences
were bad, and that I needed to repent of them.
"The problem was that I didn't feel like I was damned. I
understood about right and wrong actions, but this idea of "sin" was
strange. Why should Eve's eating of an apple have anything to do
with me? After all, it was she who screwed up, not me. Soon we
began going to classes to learn about the religion. The notion of
original sin remain illogical. I couldn't buy it."
Now me, I felt damned. I noticed alot of crime transpiring in the
world around me, although I was one to keep my nose clean. But alot
of people in my youth were outright criminally violent. So I got
the sin part down pretty well. Nowadays though, I feel quite a bit
different about sin concepts and where they originate from, but I
was just a preteen then.
"The Pastor spent most of his time talking about why Catholicism
is in error and how awful the Jew were. One night the Pastor told
us that God is only now beginning to forgive the Jews for killing
Jesus. That was the first time I ever heard such a thing and the
remark deeply disturbed me. All of my friends were Jews and I didn't
find them awful at all. The implication I got in the Pastor's
remark, was that God must have been pleased with Hitler's attempted
extermination of the Jews."
That sounds a little bit like one of the comments that a former
pastor of mine made about desiring to nuke the middle-east, to
exterminate the races that Moses and Joshua missed during their Old
Testament genocide campaigns. Except he wanted the United States to
carry it out, so Israel could get back the majority of the middle-
east territory like God had promised them in the Old Testament.
More pro-Jew than anti-Jew, but into USA-originated nuclear genocide
just the same.
"So, other than the unfortunate encounter with the Lutheran
Pastor, I entered a study of Christianity with pretty much of a
clean slate, and began by reading, on my own, the New English Bible
of the NT, which had just been published for the first time. There
I was delighted to discover that the three wise men were
called "astrologers." That delighted me because I had recently
discovered that my aunt practiced astrology professionally, but out
of respect for my mother's wishes, never mentioned it to me. So,
from the beginning, my investigation into Christianity had no
theological guidance, which left me to my own resources to make of
it what I could."
I noticed the part about the three 'magi' (mages, magicians) too.
The Bible is actually very metaphysical.
"When the Nag Hammadi codices were published in translation around
1970, I raced to the Bodhi Tree Bookstore and bought a copy. I then
began reading more scholarly commentaries on Christianity, Christian
and Gnostic texts, beginning with Elaine Pagel's writings. While
all of this was happening, I attended churches and talked casually
to ministers of various denominations. When we moved to Northern
California, my wife and I began attending the Unitarian Universalist
Church where a member with mainline Christian beliefs is not to be
found."
When I accumulated volumes containing a total of about 300 different
pseudopigraphal texts, I was strictly told that I was straying into
heretical texts by fundamentalist Christians. I only discovered the
existence of unitarian churches this last year, but they are all a
half hour away from me. I'm surrounded by Christian fundamentalist
megachurches where the pastoral salaries often exceed $100 grand. A
congregation of 5000 people is just too small nowadays in my area.
"So, like you I discovered that the Bible is misrepresented by a
strange theological structure, but took a very different route to
end up in the same place. When we started the Origins of
Christianity class two years ago, I discovered that there were a lot
of barriers to communication. Theological conditioning from years of
church going was to blame. One of them is as you mentioned: The
Gospels read very differently from the theological interpretations.
One member or out group who was raised in a conservative Christian
home discovered this when we began studying Judaism and
investigating the Hebrew scriptures."
I believe that shortcomings in present-day cultural norms distort
biblical interpretation quite a bit.
"Some other barriers that met with considerable resistance were:
1. The Gospels were not written to be historical accounts of
Jesus' life. Rather, they are evangelical tracts written for the
purpose of gaining converts and to answer the objections of critics
of the early Christians."
Okay, I never heard that one before.
"2. One must therefore, make a distinction between the historical
Jesus, the Jesus represented in the Gospels, and the theological
Jesus."
I just tend to differentiate between the Jesus of the Bible and the
Jesus of Christian fundamentalists. They don't seem quite the same.
"3. There were, in the beginning dozens of Christian communities
with very divergent beliefs. Many of them had Gospels and religious
writings of their own. Most of these writings were destroyed after
Christianity was declared the only legal religion of the empire.
That is, the variety of Christianity adopted by the Emperor of Rome."
Okay, I follow. Government definitely got heavily involved. Very
political.
"4. Since these other Christian communities, later
called "gnostics," were outlawed and their writings destroyed, we
know little about them except through a few meager texts that
survived, and through the criticisms of the canonical church
fathers."
I got labeled as a gnostic too by the fundamentalist church through
formal excommunication. The funny thing though was that I was
actually agnostic when the church declared me to be gnostic. Go
figure.
"5. The members of these other Christian communities considered
themselves to be just as Christian as those belonging to the sect
adopted by the Emperors."
I'm sure they did. Jesus probably fell in the same boat.
"6. Critical works of Christianity written by philosophers and
other learned people were systematically destroyed. All that
survives are the reconstructed writings of Porphyry, Celsus, and the
preserved orations of the apostate Emperor Julian."
I'm not famiiar with those.
"7. Because of 4 and 6, our knowledge of the earliest history of
the Christian movement is fragmentary, biased in favor of the early
Roman church, and much is left to conjecture and theological
manipulation."
Perhaps some form of metaphysical revelation will have to suffice
then. I interpret the Bible metaphysically for the most part,
although simultaneously aware of what the literal text says.
Vince
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Jerry Hejka-Ekins <jjhe@...>
wrote:
Dear Vince,
Yes, I agree that we are in a similar boat, but got there in very
different ways. The three topics that my parents never discussed
in
front of the children were religion, politics and race. So, I
never
really discovered these things until I was about twelve--and then,
on my
own. They then became subjects of primary interest. Since I had
no
religious instruction from home, lived in a Jewish neighborhood,
and
attended a public school where everyone was Jewish, I just half
assumed
that I was a Jew, like everyone else.
As I entered my teens, I discovered the beatniks at Venice beach,
and
used to hang around them. My mother became alarmed and decided
that I
must be becoming a "juvenile delinquent" and began to take me to a
very
conservative Lutheran Church. That was my first formal contact
with
Christianity. I found the services and sermons curious. Lots of
mysticism about an invisible god, a ressurected man, and promise
of an
afterlife if I believed the right things. The problem was that I
didn't
feel like I was damned. I understood about right and wrong
actions, but
this idea of "sin" was strange. Why should Eve's eating of an
apple have
anything to do with me? After all, it was she who screwed up, not
me.
Soon we began going to classes to learn about the religion. The
notion
of original sin remain illogical. I couldn't buy it.
The Pastor spent most of his time talking about why Catholicism is
in
error and how awful the Jew were. One night the Pastor told us
that God
is only now beginning to forgive the Jews for killing Jesus. That
was
the first time I ever heard such a thing and the remark deeply
disturbed
me. All of my friends were Jews and I didn't find them awful at
all. The
implication I got in the Pastor's remark, was that God must have
been
pleased with Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jews.
So, other than the unfortunate encounter with the Lutheran Pastor,
I
entered a study of Christianity with pretty much of a clean slate,
and
began by reading, on my own, the New English Bible of the NT,
which had
just been published for the first time. There I was delighted to
discover that the three wise men were called "astrologers." That
delighted me because I had recently discovered that my aunt
practiced
astrology professionally, but out of respect for my mother's
wishes,
never mentioned it to me. So, from the beginning, my
investigation into
Christianity had no theological guidance, which left me to my own
resources to make of it what I could.
When the Nag Hammadi codices were published in translation around
1970,
I raced to the Bodhi Tree Bookstore and bought a copy. I then
began
reading more scholarly commentaries on Christianity, Christian and
Gnostic texts, beginning with Elaine Pagel's writings. While all
of
this was happening, I attended churches and talked casually to
ministers
of various denominations. When we moved to Northern California, my
wife
and I began attending the Unitarian Universalist Church where a
member
with mainline Christian beliefs is not to be found.
So, like you I discovered that the Bible is misrepresented by a
strange
theological structure, but took a very different route to end up
in the
same place. When we started the Origins of Christianity class two
years
ago, I discovered that there were a lot of barriers to
communication.
Theological conditioning from years of church going was to blame.
One
of them is as you mentioned: The Gospels read very differently
from the
theological interpretations. One member or out group who was
raised in a
conservative Christian home discovered this when we began studying
Judaism and investigating the Hebrew scriptures.
Some other barriers that met with considerable resistance were:
1. The Gospels were not written to be historical accounts of
Jesus'
life. Rather, they are evangelical tracts written for the purpose
of
gaining converts and to answer the objections of critics of the
early
Christians.
2. One must therefore, make a distinction between the historical
Jesus,
the Jesus represented in the Gospels, and the theological Jesus.
3. There were, in the beginning dozens of Christian communities
with
very divergent beliefs. Many of them had Gospels and religious
writings
of their own. Most of these writings were destroyed after
Christianity
was declared the only legal religion of the empire. That is, the
variety of Christianity adopted by the Emperor of Rome.
4. Since these other Christian communities, later
called "gnostics,"
were outlawed and their writings destroyed, we know little about
them
except through a few meager texts that survived, and through the
criticisms of the canonical church fathers.
5. The members of these other Christian communities considered
themselves to be just as Christian as those belonging to the sect
adopted by the Emperors.
6. Critical works of Christianity written by philosophers and
other
learned people were systematically destroyed. All that survives
are the
reconstructed writings of Porphyry, Celsus, and the preserved
orations
of the apostate Emperor Julian.
7. Because of 4 and 6, our knowledge of the earliest history of
the
Christian movement is fragmentary, biased in favor of the early
Roman
church, and much is left to conjecture and theological
manipulation.
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