That’s an overstatement, Richard
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In my previous post I outlined the way in which individual pericopes about Jesus were selected and juxtaposed by the Gospel authors. Their primary intention was to craft the story of Jesus to address the situation of their day. In this endeavour, they were interpreting the story long before our attempts to do the same. Before this, Jesus himself probably used the same elements of his teaching to adapt to his context in different ways. So aspects of Jesus’ teaching were most likely being interpreted in different ways by Jesus himself.
There is a further aspect of interpretation involved in this transmission. When the people of Judah rebelled against their Babylonian overlords, they were defeated and thousands were taken away in exile. After a few generations, and the conquering of the Babylonians by the Persians, the Judahites were permitted to return to Judea and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem and the city walls.
However, a very significant change had occurred. Over many centuries, the common language of Mesopotamia had become Aramaic. Aramaic had humble beginnings as the language of the ancient kingdom of Aram and the Aramaic tribes. The Assyrians had conquered the Aramaeans militarily centuries before, but the Aramaeans conquered the Assyrians culturally and linguistically. Aramaic became the common language of Mesopotamia including the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. But how did this express itself in writing? Cuneiform expressed ideas in pictorial ways – with stick figures representing people and things. This was similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics, but not nearly as colorful as Egyptian hieroglyphics. However, Aramaic had an alphabetical writing script in which letters expressed the sounds of the spoken language. Scribes had the choice of having to learn more than 600 Cuneiform symbols, or a mere 22 letters of the Aramaic alphabet. It was a no-brainer!
When the Judahites returned from their exile in Babylon, they came back speaking Aramaic and writing Aramaic with the Aramaic alphabet. Hebrew, which was a Canaanite language, became the holy language of the synagogue and the Jerusalem temple. Fascinatingly, the returning Judahites wrote the Hebrew language in the square writing script of the Aramaic language, and they still do to this day.
I will try to include a graphic of the original script in which Hebrew was written.
(I think I got this right. I can’t actually read paleo-Hebrew and I’m not in a hurry to learn it.)
The point of this historical excursion is to explain why most scholars believe Jesus preached and taught in the Aramaic language. This means there was another level of interpretation involved. As far as we know, the original manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek, (although some have argued for an Aramaic original of the Gospel of Matthew). At points in the Greek Gospels, small amounts of Aramaic start to show through.
Summing up then, there is a degree of interpretation taking place right from the start. The translation from Aramaic to Greek, the selection or omission of pericopes by the Gospel authors, and the effect of different juxtapositions by those authors. Finally, we come to translation into modern languages, including English. The most famous of those translations into English is probably the King James version of the Bible, which translated the text into early modern English. There is a problem with the KJV. As manuscripts were copied, errors in copying naturally crept in, so later manuscripts have more errors. Current translations into English go back to earlier manuscripts with less errors than the KJV. They also have the benefit of better knowledge of the vocabulary and syntax of the ancient Biblical languages than translators had in 1611.
So, next time someone declares that Scripture is the sole and absolute authority, and waves a copy of the KJV in the air – well, there is a lot to think about.
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Those two are not strictly linked: if scripture is God’s words, then certainly it has authority, but it does not have to be dictated or prescribed to have authority.
Scripture is the ultimate authority we have because there is nothing else with the imprimatur of being inspired. That doesn’t undermine God’s authority because it is His authority.
Of course: if the scripture isn’t authoritative, then it isn’t worth discussing since then anyone can claim that God told them whatever they want someone to believe.
That makes it all subjective, and Charles Manson or Sun Myung Moon or Kim Il Sung are just as valid teachers as anyone else. The logical result of your position is that God’s character becomes a meaningless concept – it’s the equivalent of allowing scientists to just make up their own data and call it research.
No, you are – you are making God cruel by calling natural consequences “punishment”.
Humans were made for a relationship with God. Without God we are like a steam locomotive trying to travel through a marsh instead of on the rails of the track the locomotive was built for. What you call “punishment” is the results of trying to define where we should go by ourselves – i.e. declaring ourselves to be our own god.
That accounts for a large portion of all consequences. The alternative is to see humans as omniscient.
I’m not the one calling everything bad that happens “punishment”.
You think there is no doctrine of the Fall before Paul?
All Paul did was recognize and expound on what is found all through the prophets and in Jesus’ own teachings.
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Interesting stuff, @gregoreite . It also surprises me to learn that other than a few fragments here and there, the Old Testament manuscripts that are relatively intact are dated from 900-1000 AD (roughly), though the Dead Sea Scrolls have quite a few extensive fragments, and most of Isaiah. And that the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text uses the Aramaic alphabet, so is actually a sort of translation itself. Linguistics gets as messy as biology, it seems.
Go on then, show me. Not that a prophet claimed that all were sinful, but that that sin came from Adam.
Also that Jesus specified that sins came from Adam.
Show me.
RIchard
I’m not going to play to your prejudices and denial of scripture by playing your game here. It does not require Paul to have the doctrine of the Fall; it is a constant thread through scripture. Paul only summarized what is in Genesis and onward.
It is not about what I see in Scripture it is aboug you backing up your claim. If you cannot or will not, why should I believe you?
Judaism has no doctrine of Original Sin so if you are going to claim OT backing you are going to have toshow ir. Otherwise I might resort to your own mantra o
“Making things up”
Put up or shut up.
Richard
Now a third, largish post.
First of all, Natural Theology has its source in Nature, not the Bible. St Paul pointed us to Nature, as an additional source for the revelation of God’s power and God’s nature:
For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NIV)
Hugh of St Victor put it very clearly, if God is the Creator, then “Nature is a book written by the finger of God.”
Natural Theology turns to what was known as “Natural Philosophy”. We used to call science “Natural Philosophy”. Something of those origins is still found when someone earns a PhD in science. PhD is an abbreviation for “Doctor of Philosophy (of Nature)”.
What contribution does Natural Theology make to our salvation. Well, if you think that “salvation” is only about some abstract situation in another worldly realm , you probably don’t understand what salvation means. Salvation happens in the here and now, as well as in the world to come. Jesus’ ministry of preaching, teaching and healing, took place in the here and now, and people were healed as part of that ministry, in the here and now. In other words, whatever else it might be, salvation is pastoral.
Let me suggest a few places where Natural Theology might contribute to our understanding of, and experience of, salvation - the least controversial first.
From just before the time of Jesus and throughout the Christian era, the notion of the “End” is found. The study of notions of the “End” is known as “eschatology”, from the Greek word “eschaton” meaning “end”. In both the Biblical literature and modern English, the word “end” has a dual meaning. It can mean both the end in a chronological sequence and the goal to which something moves. “The football match came to an end, but to what end did we play in the football match.”
In terms of Biblical terminology, the end initially meant the moment when God called time; the resurrection of the dead and the last judgement. Then along came Jesus who created a complication. In Jesus’ resurrection he became the firstborn from the dead, but only the beginning of the end, as St Paul portrayed it in 1 Corinthians 15. The resurrection of others would follow later. Now then, what happens when a Christian dies? Does he or she immediately enter paradise, or sleep until the second coming? (Now all you 19th Century Fundamentalists who think you know the answer, just hold back for a moment.) I often found people arguing about Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross: “I say to you today you will be with me in paradise”. It all depended on where you put the comma. “I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise”. Or, “I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise”. By the way, there is no comma in the earliest Greek manuscripts.
What does science (Natural Philosophy) say about the end of time? If you lived at the end of the 19th Century, when the science of Sir Isaac Newton prevailed, you would understand that even if the universe dissolved into nothingness, time would still march on. But in fact, science marched on. First, the Rev John Michell proposed the existence of “dark stars” whose gravitational pull was so strong that even light could not leave it. “Dark stars” became known as “Black Holes”. Einstein proposed that time was a fourth dimension of the physical universe, he called it “space-time”. Under certain conditions, such as in a Black Hole, time would stop. Now right at the centre of our galaxy there is a super-massive Black Hole in which time stops. The Black Hole is physically located adjacent to locations where time does not stop, so the end of time can exist alongside the places where time has not ended. So what does that mean for the argument over where to place a comma in the sentence, “I say to you today you will be with me in paradise.” Think it through for yourselves!
Now let me go to something that will be a little more controversial among North American Fundamentalists – homosexuality. But before we discuss the issue theoretically, let us approach it pastorally. A common experience amongst Christian people who discover at puberty that they have a homosexual orientation is to regard themselves with horror, especially if they have grown up in a Fundamentalist family which regards such an orientation as an abomination. Such a person, caught in a contradiction between who they are and who they think they should be, often enter into programs that will supposedly “cure” them of their sexual orientation. Some of these programs can be horrific. After the program, the person might believe that they have been “cured” because they want to believe it. But the same sexual orientation remains. Unfortunately, some people in this predicament will conclude that they are so evil that nothing or no one can help them, and they commit suicide.
What if we turned to Natural Theology based on Natural Philosophy, otherwise known as science? There we would learn that sexual orientation is determined by a part of the brain known as the anterior hypothalamus, and it cannot be changed. That might stop us laying impossible expectations on people whose road through life is already very difficult. The question is, “Does God speak to us through Nature, as the Creator of Nature, and should we not listen to that as much as we listen to the Bible, if we are truly pastorally concerned?” I expect a deluge of different views.
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It has been interesting to read about your thinking. I expect that you will continue with additional texts. Before you continue, I like to give a comment on your rationale about Natural Theology.
I do believe that we can learn about God and His thinking by studying nature. However, there is a caveat. Nature includes a wide variety of life forms and behaviours. That we can observe a particular kind of behaviour in nature does not in any ways tell what is good and what is bad. Science does not either tell what is good and what is bad.
I could list many behaviours that may be even fairly common in nature but which may be considered ‘bad’ by at least some human societies.
For example, infanticide is fairly common in nature and can be considered rational behaviour. Sometimes the reason is too little food (it is ‘wise’ for the mother to eat her offspring if she cannot provide enough of food for the youngs to grow and survive). Sometimes the reason is intraspecific competition (it is prudent to increase the survival prospects of own offspring by getting rid of the offspring of others; killing and eating the competing offspring does also fill the stomach). Sometimes the reason is an attempt of a male to get more offspring; for example, a lactating female bear may not be receptive but if a new dominant male kills her offspring, she may mate with the male much sooner than otherwise. The counterstrategy of females is to copulate with all strong males around with the hope that the male will not kill her offspring if he thinks he may have sired the cubs.
Completely rational behaviour by animals in nature but ethically unacceptable in human societies, at least in those societies that have inherited the ethical code from Christian teaching.
Some societies may accept infanticide in special circumstances. For example, abortion may be accepted if the fetus was sired in a rape. Is that acceptable or not depends on the ethical code and values of the society. Watching nature does not reveal what is the ‘correct’ ethical code.
So, does that mean God is not reflected in Nature? Or does it mean that Christian (any) ethics can be deduced from Naure?
Is this anpthe case of All or nothing?
Are theology or ethics drived soley from one source? Perha[s the Christian view of ethics is not the Universal (uman) one> Does that make either or both valid?
Perhaps Romans 1 is a temper against Christian (Scriptural) dogmatism. That would agree with Ecclesisates whereby a single source or focus is viewed as folly or meaningless.
I am sure that those who consider Scripture as either paramount or sola would obviously disagree.
Richard
PS
Does Ecclesisastes teach against sola scrptura? it would be an enormous paradox if it does.