Someone calling themself "Slow Like Honey" once wrote on a friend's blog the question below. I responded (see my comments/questions below the intial statement) but never got a responce. In the process of cleaning out some files I came across this, n' figured I'd post it here.
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“Why do so many place the state of their eternal existence in the hands of uneducated folklorists who condone slavery, polygamy, the inferiority of women, public stoning and other antiquated traditions (which began as oral tradition and were only later etched on paper by Medieval Monks translating from Greek which had been translated from Latin and other ancient languages... imagine the incongruous nature of what has now become the accepted word of God in the form of the "Holy Bible")
A question that I feel every Christian, or person of any belief should be asking themselves.”
Here’s a few of my thoughts on the matter.
Also, not to be antagonistic… but rather rejoicing that people are willing to have a discussion about such things. Both statements and listening. . . .
I would start saying that it’s a rather interesting progression you’ve listed with regard to how the Bible came to it’s current form (that is what you’re speaking of ?)
For one thing the Old Testament was in Hebrew not Greek
For a second thing the New Testament, although it’s true that it has been written in Latin, the reliable version of the New Testament we have now go back to the original Greek (the language most of it was written in) to get what I read today as a ‘English’ translation.
“Etched on paper by Medieval Monks” ? ? ? although not a reason to prove or disprove the Bible, you say this like it’s a bad think. …. Although I’m not sure if the ‘bad’ part is that they were alive during medieval times? If that were the ‘bad’ part, I would think it’s because of a prejudice against anyone that happened to be alive during that time. Or perhaps the ‘bad’ part is that they were monks? From the perspective of who was and wasn’t educated during that time, the monks were some of the few educated peoples of that time. If the ‘bad’ part was from them being of a religious order (i.e. monks) then it shows a prejudice against people that are religious. Now, if religious people can’t be trusted to know about their own religion, who would we trust with this knowledge? By this I don’t mean to say that non-religious people don’t know religious things, I’m only saying that just because one wants to follow the teachings of Jesus, does not make them incapable to knowing what the teachings of Jesus are. I suspect that the ‘bad’ part is not that it was written (etched) on paper… if that were the case it would show a prejudice against paper, which I’m sure no sane person would claim that we can not trust anything written on paper.
Perhaps I’ve misread that part of your statement. Perhaps you didn’t mean the part about being “Etched on paper by Medieval Monks” as bad, but only part of the narrative of the overall distrust of the Bible.
In my own search, I find my belief system centered around the person of Jesus Christ. Is he who he claimed to be? Although we have many different ways to research this, the possible answers still come down to just a few possibilities. Either Jesus is who he claimed to be or not. If he is who he claimed to be, then what we do with him is important. If Jesus was not who he claimed to be, we’re left with only a few choices; One would be that he was a lunatic on the same level as someone who claimed to be a poached egg. A second possibility (if Jesus was not who he claimed to be) would be he was a terrible liar.
Jesus didn’t leave the possibility of just being a ‘good teacher’ etc… available, for what ‘good teacher’ could be called ‘good’ if they made the sort of unique claims about themselves that Jesus makes about himself (if said teacher knew them to be false). For instance, Jesus claimed equality with God; he claimed to be able to forgive sins. He claimed that it is only through him (Jesus) that one can one reach God. If Jesus were not who he claims to be, then a ‘good’ teacher would not teach such things. Again he would either be deluded or a terrible liar.
Lord, liar, or lunatic those are the three choices we have with regard to the person of Jesus. If he were either a lunatic or a liar, when Jesus died that would have been the end of that. However, history shows that he didn’t stay dead, that he came back to life and was seen by more than 500 people.
(Loar, Liar, Lunitic idea from C.S. Lewis)
