Given the season, it would almost seem blasphemous to be questioning Christ's divinity. However, bear with me, because there is nothing holy in perpetuating lies, however well intentioned.
In the account of Jesus' baptism, the usual account goes that God says something like:
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
on the occasion of Jesus rising from the water. However, very many ancient authors including the authors of Acts and Hebrews say that God said something else:
You are my Son; today I have become your Father.
In other words, Jesus became the Son on his baptism. Which is in fact relates very well to the whole point of baptism: to become born again, or a sign that you are born again. Born again of whom? God.
Which points towards one inevitable conclusion: Christ is not God. Christ is Christ, critical in the salvation process, our savior, the Son of God, but is not equal to God. We all know what the word Christ means in keeping with Israel's (selfish, violent) messianic desires - annointed one or king - but what does his other signifier, Immanuel, mean? God with us. Not as God who somehow steps down from heaven and becomes man, but as a God who enters our hearts. And whose heart did he enter first? A carpenter from Galilee.
No ordinary man, granted. He was planned, molded, intended for one purpose: to be a message from God. Not just a messenger who delivers text, but a message who incarnates God's will and demonstrates the kind of life God wishes for us. The absolute core of Jesus' message is precisely GOD IN US. Not that we are God any more than Christ was, but that we become united to God.
Now people say "How can you say Christ is not God when he says things that no human has the right to say? Things like I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" Well in fact we do not have the right to say that, because we are not Christ. We can be messengers, but the message came through Christ.
Christ is the Way (he is showing us a clear way to God not based on human understanding)
Christ is the Truth (he himself is made to be the message from God)
Christ is the Life (because if we do not follow him in living in God and God in us, we have no true life).
However we have been confused, and we have let other people in the past confuse us, as to Christ's nature. When people say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, I would have to ask "which bible?" A bible like the NIV is composed by people sorting through the many ancient texts and authors trying to figure out what is the most "accurate" version. People, people who called themselves Christian, accidentally and on purpose distorted the original message and made Christ, God. There are innumerable passages that directly or indirectly refute this idea.
"So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father."
-Hebrews 5:5
We (Jews) worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
-John 4:22, Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman, indicating that he is a Jew and that he worships God as one. I can't see God worshipping Himself.
Jesus:
However we have been confused, and we have let other people in the past confuse us, as to Christ's nature. When people say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, I would have to ask "which bible?" A bible like the NIV is composed by people sorting through the many ancient texts and authors trying to figure out what is the most "accurate" version. People, people who called themselves Christian, accidentally and on purpose distorted the original message and made Christ, God. There are innumerable passages that directly or indirectly refute this idea.
"So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father."
-Hebrews 5:5
We (Jews) worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
-John 4:22, Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman, indicating that he is a Jew and that he worships God as one. I can't see God worshipping Himself.
Jesus:
Asked questions he didn't know the answers to.
Is not omnipotent (Mark 10:40)
Indicated limited information (Mark 13:32)
Asked God whether it was possible for Him to reverse His decision on whether Jesus was to be crucified. (Matt. 26:39)
Felt abandoned by God on the cross (Mark 15:34)
He is the only Christ, of which there is only one in all creation, the Son of God, our savior. Whether he was a pre-existent angelic being or just a human is not something anyone can answer. But he is not equal to God. There is no Trinity.
The message has been skewed and propagandized by people in the past and the present who have an agenda that has nothing to do with God. It is time to reclaim the message from the things that have become attached to it.
Jesus was not calling us to worship him. He was calling us to follow him. He is our shepherd, our master, our teacher, but not equal to God. It is much easier to adore than follow, so it is no wonder that this message has been toned down by those who came after.
"Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
He is the only Christ, of which there is only one in all creation, the Son of God, our savior. Whether he was a pre-existent angelic being or just a human is not something anyone can answer. But he is not equal to God. There is no Trinity.
The message has been skewed and propagandized by people in the past and the present who have an agenda that has nothing to do with God. It is time to reclaim the message from the things that have become attached to it.
Jesus was not calling us to worship him. He was calling us to follow him. He is our shepherd, our master, our teacher, but not equal to God. It is much easier to adore than follow, so it is no wonder that this message has been toned down by those who came after.
"Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
Hey, hope things are going well. I wanted to respond a bit to a few points in this:
ReplyDeleteConcerning the issue of Jesus’ baptism. Which ancient sources are you referencing for the Gospels? I have checked the NA27 and I do not see any textual variants for Matt 3:17, Mark 1:11 or Luke 3:22. They all have, from the Greek, “this is my Son in whom I am pleased, my beloved”. I’m assuming by the author of the book of Acts you mean Luke? I’m not aware of, nor can I find an account Jesus’ Baptism in Acts.
The text in Mark 1:11 parallels the prophecy of Isaiah 42:1 which is a messianic prophecy of God judging his enemies for idolatry, he quote in Hebrews is a different quote from Psalm 2:7. It would be odd, I think, to make this quotation of Psalm 2:7 hold so much weight on “today”. Particularly considering the rest of the passage in Hebrews where Christ is highly exalted. He is though whom God made all creation, (1:2) he’s the exact imprint of God’s being who sustains all things by his (reference is Christ) powerful word. (1:3) He’s more excellent then angels, (1:4) and in fact worshipped by them! (1:6) It is this context of angels that is important for understanding the quote of Psalm 2:7, which is prefaced with “when he brings the firstborn into the world”. Christ is already declared to be the creator of the world in 1:2, so he must have existed before he was brought into it. Sonship in this passage is not in the theological sense, but in the messianic sense contrary to angels. He is the “son” in this passage because to his creation he reflects the Father perfectly in nature. (1:3)
The Gospel of John, when read in light of the OT background that is parallels presents Christ as God, yet not as the Father. John 1:1 is almost exactly Genesis 1:1. Instead of God creating the Heavens and the Earth, John's focus is on saying creation was done by the Word. God is not outside of the picture however, and John makes another assertion, that this Word was "with God". (1:1b) The prologue has now just made both an equative and disjunctive stance of the relationship between the Word and God, though parallel to Genesis.
Also, in the prologue of St. John’s Gospel is verse 1:14 and 1:18. Verse 14 declares that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the Old Testament the theme of dwelling is definitely a divine one. The intent of the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:8) was so that the LORD could "dwell among" the Israelites, and theme carried through into chapter 29 as well. Zechariah gives a prophecy (2:10-11) where the LORD will eventually dwell in the peoples midst, and that when he comes to dwell all will know the LORD sent him, making a contrast between the LORD and the LORD, so that there is a distinction in the prophecy over who will dwell and who will do the sending, yet they are both called LORD. John 1:14 pulls on this Old Testament background of the LORD dwelling in the midst of his people, John's point is that Jesus is the Shekinh glory of the LORD which has come to dwell among his people, this glory is not a subordinate creature, but has always existed with God.
And if the NT has been edited as much as you say, why trust any of it anyway? What if it was a purely divine Jesus what you quoted was inserted to add humanity to him? See, if we’re going to go that route the biblical data becomes meaningless regardless of interpretation.
And as one who has studied Greek and textual criticism I can say that what we have in the NIV is incredibly reliable as reflecting the original source. Some, (like Eherman) make mountains out of molehills and overexagerate the data. Even the manuscripts from Arians [who denied Jesus divinity] are pretty much the same as the Orthodox. This is important: the opponents of the Orthodox where using different book [ie Gospel of Thomas], not different texts except for Marcion who admitted that he edited the scriptures as he saw fit.
To quote, yes, Ehrman:
ReplyDelete"The vast majority of Greek manuscripts have the first reading ("You are my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased")... The problem in this case is that the verse was quoted a lot by early church fathers in the period before most of our manuscripts were produced. It is quoted in the second and third centuries everywhere from Rome, to Alexandria, to North Africa, to Palestine, to Gaul, to Spain. And in almost every instance, it is the other form of the text that is quoted ("Today I have begotten you")."
Of course the NIV or other bibles are not going to quote it like that for the obvious reason.
The very beginnings and ends of John are not necessarily by the same author as the original John, in fact the end of John drops out of the narration to talk about John in the third person, and people very often added preambles to gospels and epistles as in the case of the anti-marcionite prologues. These prologues were taken as part of the New Testament by many for a long time.
The end of Mark was added, as a good study bible will say, as well as the story of the adulterous woman in John. This is not to say that it didn't happen, but that it isn't in the oldest copies of John that exist. So it came from elsewhere.
This monolithic New Testament that so many believe in, does not exist. In fact the famous heretic Marcion created the first New Testament, prior to which there was no one "authoritative" gathering of Christian canon. A canon he admittedly edited, but he wasn't alone.
As far as who was using what material, it was all over the place. I am not talking about other gospels, I am talking about the ancestors of the ones we have. As to whether it is "true to the original source", how can you know that if you don't have possession of the original source? That is assuming you have something that nobody has, the originals.
What we have are copies of copies of copies, written in an era when at most 1 in 10 had some level of literacy, and most of that on a 3rd grade level. Some made accidents, some made outright edits. In Mark it states:
17As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
18"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone."
Mark 10:17-18
Now Mark is generally acknowledged to be the earliest gospel. In Matthew someone found this statement to be uncomfortable and they edited it to read: "why do you ASK me about what is good". That is a clear out and out edit because someone was uncomfortable with what Jesus was saying.
As to your question of why to bother with it anyway, it is because the distortion of the information does not diminish its importance, and I am sure you would agree that we should get as close to Jesus' actual words as we can, because it is those we are interested in, not the dogfights over meaning afterwards.
And there were dogfights straight away. The epistle of James is very obviously aimed at Paul or his followers. If you think about it, Paul comes along and without getting authority from the apostles goes preaching along, gaining converts, doubling and tripling the size of Christianity, and a year later he hops along to Jerusalem to make peace. Surely the apostles were put out by this. James is a remaining expression of that resentment, as is some of Paul's epistles like Galatians, whereas later the conflict tended to be glossed over. The people Paul was talking about were people like Peter and James.
The minute Jesus died, the message became a human document, it fell into the hands of ordinary people who do what ordinary people do: disagree. :) Our job is to extract as much of what Jesus said as possible from this flawed cloth. We do that by examining the New Testament analytically.
I want to add, there are many Christians who understandably want to avoid heresy. When that interferes with clear understanding, that is not avoiding heresy but avoiding responsibility.
ReplyDeleteIn the OT, God supposedly tells Moses and Joshua to commit what any sensible person would call henious war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity. Do you Wesley honestly believe that God told them to do that? Is this the God you love? A murderer of unarmed prisoners and children?
Christianity is suffering a disease today, and if we are Christians we must diligently seek the cause of the disease in ourselves. The Church must do a mea culpa and be busily about discovering God's will. We cannot do that while clutching onto utterances of the past which clearly aren't true. That was their sin, the Israelites, that God approved their genocide. We don't need to repeat it in our churches as if it was true. Moses and Joshua were war criminals, not prophets.
I believe absolutely sincerely in God, and I believe sincerely that God was with and in Jesus. I would not be serving that God if I did not challenge such things said about Him, that he not only approved but commanded Moses to slaughter bound captive women and many other such things as Moses and Joshua did.
Ehrman says a lot of things, but to point out an example of overexaggeration, his quote you copied, finally found the variants he refers to in the UBS apparatus.
ReplyDelete1- It is not a variant for the Gospels (as he seems to make it sound) but only for Luke 3:22, ie occurs when they are referencing Luke 3:22
2- The statement “lot by early church fathers in the period before most of our manuscripts were produced” is like most things he says, misleading. It sounds as if we have these really early Fathers who all have “today” and a bunch of latter manuscripts what omit it. Actually the variation as it appears in the NRSV/NIV/ect is testified by p4 which sates to the 3rd century and Sinaiticus which is 4th century, and yet the phrase with “today” appears in Augustine who is later. There are a few (even if important) Fathers mostly in the West (which tends to paraphrase scripture) that quote Ps 2:7.
3- There is a rule in textual criticism, the right reading is the one that is the “hardest” and can account for the other variants. It is a known fact that the church loved the quote the Psalms and used them frequently in worship. Plus, Hebrews does quote Ps 2:7, which gives an impetus to actually go the other direction and harmonize the passages. The “harder” reading is one that is different in both Luke and Hebrews, as the Fathers in quoting the source from memory are more likely to remember Ps 2:7 and harmonize with Hebrews. But note: there are no manuscripts that have this reading, and some go back before some of the Father’s quotations. This is a conspiracy argument from silence on Ehrmna’s part.
4- Remember also these are Orthodox Fathers…what did they have to gain by preserving a claimed older textual reading that would weaken their point? It is positions like this that makes Ehrman’s thesis ridiculous. It is saying that the orthodox corrupted this passage to impose a divine Christ on the scriptures, and then after this corruption continued to quote the older source!
5- The other problem is that there are thousands of manuscripts, many of which were copied very quickly over the entire empire. The idea that some group could secretly gather all these together, rewrite a lot of the passages and then destroy all the evidence is a bit extreme on Ehrman’s part.
There was plenty of illiteracy, but not among those doing the copying and not among the educated classes. There were plenty of books being produced and read. There were governments documents everywhere, there were works of Josephus and Philo being read across the empire. Philosophers were being debated in Athens and Rome and Jerusalem. There were even massive libraries. Having read many works from the time period I’d say they were very literarily sophisticated. Most philosophy even now is debating their ideas. Coping can produce errors yes, but this is only a problem if we have very few copies to go off of. We know they were pretty good at reproducing their works in the ancient world because we have plenty of extra-biblical sources from the time and it all lines up with everything else we have. We don’t find massive discrepancies. And when it comes to the Bible, we have so many manuscripts from all over the empire that to propose the NT is somehow radically different then any variants we have is stretching it. And we do have plenty of variants, and they really change very little.
My question why bother come from comments such as your last. I’m fine with doing analytical textual criticism. If the scriptures re really so corrupted that we can’t rely on them to form an accurate picture of God, then we have no way of actually knowing what God is like from anywhere else. If we can’t trust the NT, then we can’t trust anything else.
I do also think if the issue is with the OT no amount of textual criticism would ever help. Marcion had to throw things out and do massive editing because the NT as it stands with all the variants and any amount of textual corruption some one wants to theorize is irredeemably saturated with OT imagery and theology. The NT is thoroughly Jewish in many ways. Jesus never indicates Yahweh in the OT is not God. The groups that had difficulty usually just adopted other gospels because they realized the Christian NT was just too Jewish.
ReplyDeleteI’m thinking that is the real issue? Not so much the transmission of the NT text as it is theology of the OT?
I'll let these be my last comments, b/c I don't want to fill up your blog with a discussion board :)
I'd like to continue this though. through email?