Unbiased, Open minded, Liberal scholars?
The unbeliever wants to speak much about history, yet at the same time wants to automatically discount the New Testament as history. Why, can't we trust the New Testament as a reliable history, you ask? The unbeliever will tell you its unreliable because of the writers faith committement. There faith would make them biased witnesses...and therefore not to be trusted.
The unbeliever also chooses his scholars...because his scholars are "unbiased" because they do not have some "fundementalist" view warping their studies.
But it doesn't take much reading to find that the unbeliever's scholars are just as "faith" committed as the "so called" fundementalist's Christian's scholars.
Those who do not trust all of the Bible as God's Word still have presuppositions that they are committed to "by faith".
The unbeliever is not unbiased, neutral, and honestly seeking the truth...he has an ax to grind with God and tries his hardest to flee from God's truth.
If you want to read an excellent article on the "so called" unbiased scholarship of the "liberal" Jesus Seminar look at N.T Wrights Article...click below
N.T Wright and "The Five Gospels"
posted by Dale Callahan at 7:20 AM
9 Comments:
The Wright article is interesting. I frankly looked over the Five Gospels in a bookstore and decided it was not all that interesting, although a formidable piece of work as Wright concedes. I think the Jesus Seminar is doing some important work, and has a perspective worth examining, but I haven't read much of their output.
I'd like to take some time to read the article and make some observations here as I go along.
First, Wright objects to the use of the term "gospel" to refer to non-canonical books (Thomas, etc.) because they "do not narrate the story of Jesus, do not (for the most part) proclaim him as Messiah, do not tell of his death and resurrection...". In other words, because these works do not share the theological outlook that became orthodox, he wishes to dismiss or at least demote them. Let's take those points for discussion:
a. Many of the early gospels, including Thomas and "Q" do not present a narrated story of the life of Jesus. Why not? The most likely answers are either that they knew little or nothing about it or that there was nothing extraordinary about it. Certainly if the events described in the Gospel of Matthew or Luke were historical, they would have been the primary memories of Jesus preserved orally and in writing. The witness of these gospels is that Jesus' teaching was the extraordinary thing about him that the first communities were moved to preserve.
b. The proclamation of Jesus as the promised Messiah of the Jewish people probably did not happen within his lifetime, or was such a common acclamation during the period that it did not merit discussion.
c. The omission of the death and resurrection stories is again telling for much the same reasons. First, his death was an ignominious conclusion to his life and did not reflect positively on Jesus or his message to the early communities. They followed Jesus in spite of his death, not because of it. The resurrection on the other hand is such an extraordinary triumph that no community would have left it out of their book - had it happened.
It seems highly unlikely that a community devoted to Jesus and writing a book to preserve his memory would have left out such extraordinary events as the virgin birth and the resurrection. I think it is much more likely that the extraordinary events of Jesus' life told in Matthew, Luke and John were hagiographic paeans to a man being deified by his followers.
That is not to say they are deliberate lies - nothing of the sort. They show the devotion of the writers and their eagerness to elevate Jesus to and beyond the level of other Gods of their time.
I'll read on later.
Wright's discussion of positivism is also telling. He criticizes, perhaps rightly, the Jesus' Seminar (or at least their book flap writers) for claiming to provide definitive answers. As he says, all they can do is "...to report...what some scholars think Jesus may have said." I would agree - but that logic has to extend to more conservative, orthodox scholars as well - they too are giving their opinion about a matter that is not knowable (the tape recorder not having been invented). I would concur in his description of the better route of critical realism which proceeds "...by the serious process of hypothesis and verification, during which the perspective of the historian is itself taken into account."
Of course, it goes without saying that many of the Jesus Seminar fellows have spent decades studying Jesus using critical realism and have reached conclusions based on that study -- just as Wright has done. It also presupposes that there is a method of verification - when there obviously is not.
They interpret the text based on their conclusions just as he interprets based on his. He criticizes them for doing the same thing he does - apparently their error is more in drawing differing conclusions. For example, Wright does not provide details of his attempts at verification of his position that Jesus did predict his own death and refer to himself as Messiah.
I don't think it is possible to prove either side of the argument. Again a prediction of his death (particularly after it became true) and his status as Son of God would have been extremely important. Why would any early writer have failed to make either a central feature of his gospel? From a common sense point of view, it seems much more likely that a community developing a religion based on Jesus would have been unable to resist putting such claims in his mouth.
I find the entire subject of apocalyptic rather beside the point. Perhaps Jesus taught the "complex metaphor-system through which many Jews of the period expressed their aspirations, not for other-worldly bliss, nor for a “big bang” which would end the space-time world, but for social, political, and above all theological liberation.". Perhaps he did not. It is an interesting phenomenon of the time but one which should have, by now, been clearly discredited since no one then alive achieved either bliss, the end of time or any sort of liberation. I think it is clear from most of the passages in which Jesus discusses the Kingdom of God, that he was not referring thereby to some sort of apocalyptic vision but to a concept that he intended to be part of everyday life.
While much of Wright's argument I find tedious and combative, I like his conclusion. "From a historical point of view it might of course be true that there is no good news
to be had. Christianity as a whole might simply have been whistling in the dark for two thousand years. Subversive aphorisms may be the only comfort, the only hope, we have. But this question must be addressed precisely from a historical point of view."
I hope you agree.
Tell me DL have you had a chance to read over the "Q" scroll?
I hear it is a short read?
And yet you talk of it like it really exists...why is that?
Because everyone has a bias!
Some scholars would rather hold to gospels that don't even exist so that they can try to justify their unbelief.
I don't agree with N.T Wright on everything he says but he does see clearly that everyone does have presuppositions.
The writings of Luke and Matthew "are" historical, lol, you just don't like the message.
Jesus' teachings are only great because of who He is.
They only reason why Jesus' teachings are binding on anyones life is because He is God.
The gospels show us that Jesus was proclaimed to be Messiah...in His lifetime.
We have Christian cults today that deny the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. All this means is that there is falsehood alongside of the truth. Satan will continue to proclaim the lie, and those who are dead in their sins will continue to listen.
Professing themselves to be wise...they became fools.
The Christian who holds to God's sovereign control of history and Jesus promise to His followers to send the Holy Spirit who will teach them all things Jesus taught and bring to their memory all things Jesus said, has a reason why they can trust that what we have today is truly God's word.
I of course do not agree with Wrights conclusion.
I also do not agree with the evidentialist apologist who says it is very probable that God exists.
Probability depends on God.
History depends on God.
When I said that I don't agree with Wrights conclusion I do want you to know that I "mean" I don't agree with the conclusion that you are putting into his mouth.
Try reading his conclusion with this earlier writing from the article.
The
idea that by historical investigation one might arrive at a position of unbiased objective
certainty, of absolute unconditioned knowledge, about anything, has been shot to pieces
by critiques from a variety of points of view. All knowledge is conditioned by the context
and agenda of the knower; all reconstructions are somebody’s reconstructions, and each
“somebody” sees the world through their own eyes and not their neighbor’s. This is so
widely acknowledged that one would have thought it unnecessary to state, let alone to
stress. The positivistic bandwagon got stuck in the mud some time ago, and a succession
of critics, looking back to Marx, Nietzsche and Freud but now loosely gathered under the
umbrella of postmodernism, has cheerfully pulled its wheels off altogether. This, of
course, has not filtered through to the popular media, who still want to know whether
something “actually happened” or not.
Wright is saying that when we look into history we are always going to find evidence for faith and unbelief. This shouldn't shock us...unbelief was in the Garden of Eden and it has been a part of mankind ever since.
One will always be able to find historical evidence [writings] that are Biblical and unbiblical.
In the end this takes me back to my very first argument...the indirect argument.
Why don't we start 'justifying' our use of the world around us...and do so in a way that is consistent to our professed beliefs.
I am admitting that I am biased...and by the way...UR2
You have made a lot of points, I'll try to respond:
1. I don't necessarily believe in the "Q" document, but I think the theory provides a pretty compelling idea for understanding how Matthew and Luke came to be.
2. Jesus' teachings are quite insightful and compelling regardless of what you believe about him. Jesus' teachings are not binding on anyone's life. People are free to decide to try to live by his teachings or not.
3. One can follow Jesus' teaching regardless of what one believes about the resurrection. Unfortunately many who have made the resurrection their central belief about Jesus ignore his teaching and adopt ideas about God that are more in keeping with the Old Testament or Paul than with those taught by Jesus.
4. I admit to being biased. I do not feel one has to "justify the use of the world around us" - there are no real alternatives. The world exists as it is and we have no choice but to use it. What I am objecting to your attempts to justify ignoring the world around you and holding to supernatural explanations for physical realities.
5. Ultimately what I think is being said here is that faith is the requirement for "understanding" the biblical texts. That seems a specious argument to me. Certainly one who has faith comes to the bible with a certain perspective (like everyone does), but more than that, he comes looking for justifications for his faith. Admittedly some come looking for the opposite, but the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle - not on either extreme.
In a world of no absolute truth I don't need to listen to anyone.
What I mean by binding is that all men will give an account of their lives to God [Jesus].
If they choose rebellion then there will be consequences.
If a man has no authority over my life then his words are...just advice.
God doesn't advise or invite...He commands all men to repent.
Can you prove that God will hold everyone to account? No, that's a belief, a common one certainly, but it's not a fact it is an assertion.
Also, from what I recall of the Bible, God does not "command" all to repent, God "calls" all to repent.
Neither of these assertions have anything whatever to do with scholarship, liberal or otherwise. They are beliefs. You believe I will be called before the "judgment seat" of God to account for my sins and unbelief, and I believe you will be surprised to find that when you die, nothing whatever will happen - no judgment, no rapture, no boring eternity signing praises and walking around the streets of gold
Wake up DL...you speak like scholarship is something Divine itself..
These are men who study things out.
They all have bias...none are neutral.
Did I say I believe in the rapture?
Did I say that eternity was going to be walking around on streets of gold?
Don't put words in my mouth please.
Of course, no one is neutral. A person who examines facts with the best scholarship we have available and tries to let those facts speak for themselves is much more neutral than someone who has fixed presuppositions about everything and refuses to consider facts that may conflict with those presuppositions. The one is open to the possibility that his initial ideas were wrong and the other is not. I fall into the former group and you into the latter.
Wright's article is scholarly and tries to make points in an accepted scholarly manner. Your assertion that Jesus' teachings are only "binding" on a person because "all men will give an account of their lives to God [Jesus]." is simply untrue.
Regardless of what I believe about the afterlife, last judgment, etc., I can choose to live my life according to the teaching of Jesus or not. I believe that's called "free will" in your circles.
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