Weird

by von

SO ANYWAY, I'm wasting a moment and clicking through a couple links and I come upon a piece by Rabbi Marc Gellman on so-called The Jesus Tomb.  Now, I really don't have a dog in this hunt -- my faith, such as it is, really doesn't depend much on Biblical inerrancy on even a matter like the Resurrection.  And Rabbi Gellman's general thesis about how it's bad ecumenism for Orthodox Jews to try to disprove the divinity of Christ seems fairly sound, although perhaps a little beside the point.  But then I came to this inexplicable passage:

I know many Christian clergy who have told me that the main truth of Christianity for them is to love as Jesus loved and that no archeological discovery can change that spiritual lesson. I love these folks but, as an outsider, I just don't agree that decisive refutation of Jesus' resurrection would have no effect on Christian faith. Unlike Judaism and Islam and Hinduism and even Buddhism, which are built on God's teachings, Christianity is built both on God's teachings as well as on an historical event proving a transcendental miracle. If the Red Sea never really split, there would still be the Ten Commandments and the Torah for me. What is left of Christianity if Jesus died and then just remained dead?

Huh.  And what if it was established that the Ten Commandments didn't come from God but were a joke that have been taken way too seriously?   (Honor thy father and mother?  Puh-lease.)  Or that the Torah was a work of fiction?  (That Homer dude gets the ladies, man.  I can definitely get into that.  Let's see ....  "In the beginning filled God the heavens and the earth."  That's good!  Now, we need some firmament.)  Or what if archaeologists uncover bona fide evidence that the Buddha was one seriously evil dude?  (The Bodhi tree is for impalin' virgins, suckers!) 

It seems to me categorical statements like "religion X stands outside history" are balderdash, given that every religion developed within history.  (Except for Scientology, which was developed on a yacht cruising in international waters.)  Most religions can surely survive a certain degree of historical deviation, but it seems that every religion can be undercut by too much historical deviation.  I don't really see how Judaism (or Buddhism, or Hinduism) is any different.

Anyway, I tend to avoid intra- and inter-religious squabbles because they tend to devolve into name calling and my-religion-is-better-than-yours, Hellspawn.  But am I wrong that Rabbi Gellman's a little ham-handed here? 

UPDATE:  Pun not intended (I just caught it myself). 

UPDATE 2:  I would like to note that I may be the first person ever to write the words "The Bodhi tree is for impalin' virgins, suckers!"  Marvel at my way with the language. 

Also, a fascinating discussion is emerging in comments which is, thus far, too dominated by the less faithful folks.  A better discussion would include the more faithful (from any religion).  And, though this really goes without saying, everyone needs to keep on bein' respectful to one another -- and taking me with the necessary grain(s) of salt.

Comments

[Katherine]

I don't think a literal belief in the Red Sea splitting or Moses walking down from Mount Sinai with the tablets or any given miracle you can think of is nearly as crucial to Judaism as literal belief in the resurrection of Jesus (who is the son of God) is to most forms of Christianity.

[von]

I don't think a literal belief in the Red Sea splitting or Moses walking down from Mount Sinai with the tablets or any given miracle you can think of is nearly as crucial to Judaism as literal belief in the resurrection of Jesus (who is the son of God) is to most forms of Christianity.

Really? If it was established tomorrow that the Ten Commandments were not the word of God, it would not be particularly earth-shaking to Conservative and Orthodox Jews?

(I understand that the Reform tradition would not necessarily be much affected, but Reform, at its core, is essentially Jewish Deism. And belief in God is becoming increasingly optional.)

[Josh]

What Katherine said. Literal belief in the events of the Torah just isn't that central to Judaism, with the exception of Passover.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

The chance that there is archeological proof sufficient to show that a particular tomb with bones in it contains the bones of the same Jesus as is talked about in the Bible seems rather remote in any case.

[von]

What Katherine said. Literal belief in the events of the Torah just isn't that central to Judaism, with the exception of Passover.

But doesn't that concede the point, Josh? Or, put a little differently, would you accept the following (which is a small revision of what I wrote above):

"Most religions can surely survive a certain degree of historical deviation--perhaps some more than others--but it seems that every religion can be undercut by too much historical deviation."

[Jesurgislac]

When a writer in the 4th century wrote that "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father" they were thinking quite literally of the physical body of a resurrected Jesus going up into the air until he reached a place above the sky that was Heaven.

And that when this writer set down that "He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead" they were thinking quite literally that at some point this physically resurrected Jesus would return, in the body, to Earth.

I do not believe that there are many people who today recite the Nicene Creed who do believe, as that 1600-years dead writer believed, in a literal Heavenly City with a literal throne, or imagine Jesus's physical body flying off Earth to that city.

When a priest says hoc est enim corpus meum, how many of the Catholics who take communion believe that the piece of bread in their mouth is, for all that it feels and tastes like bread, really a piece of Jesus's body - human flesh in their mouth?

If Christianity can survive the enormous changes in what Christians believe about their God and their ritual that have been consistently happening for as long as we have a written record of what Christians believe - then it can also survive the discovery that the body born out of Mary's womb did in fact physically die on the cross, and the person whom the gospels report walking around and talking and cooking fish for his disciples, was not in the same body which was crucified and buried.

It's not really as major a change as the jump away from transubstantiation.

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian: The chance that there is archeological proof sufficient to show that a particular tomb with bones in it contains the bones of the same Jesus as is talked about in the Bible seems rather remote in any case.

True, but that kind of spoils the fun, doesn't it?

[von]

Perhaps Jes is proving that I'm 180 degrees wrong. An alternative formulation may be: "Most religions can survive a nearly infinite degree of historical deviation, so long as the alternatives are not more attractive."

[von]

BTW, so my cards are on the table, I'm essentially a Deist from a Christian tradition. There are a number of Jewish vonnites, however.

[Katherine]

I'm not sure why you group Conservatives in w/ the Orthodox on this. Whether Reform judaism = deism depends on what you mean by deism and what form of reform judaism you're talking about. Belief in God isn't optional so much as not the point.

[Jesurgislac]

Von, recently someone who claimed to be a devout Catholic made an enormous fuss about someone making a joke that was based on a literal interpretation of what all Catholics are required to believe - that Jesus was fully and completely human. Judging by the number of nasty remarks that many other people who also claimed to be devout Catholics then made about the joke, most of them had no idea that they were, in fact, dogmatically required to believe exactly what they were attacking as vulgar and irreverent.

An alternative formulation would be: "Most religions do survive a nearly infinite degree of historical deviation. We know this, because we have the historical record of it happening."

[Brett Bellmore]

Doesn't seem to have mattered much that there are living witnesses to the fact that L Ron Hubbard started Scientology on a bet. Why should religions whose origins are comparatively shrouded in mystery be worried, then?

Religions get their hooks into peoples' minds before they develop the capacity for rational thought, and perhaps as a consequence are not terribly influenced by rational evidence. I don't think this tomb will have much effect no matter how much evidence it contains.

[Jesurgislac]

Cards on the table - I was brought up a Quaker, and in my teens, painlessly and gradually realized I am an atheist.

Quakers are one of the least dogmatic of Christian sects: "But what do Friends believe?" will have three answers if you ask any two Quakers. (Quaker A will give one answer. Quaker B will give another answer. Then they will both work out a third answer that satisfies them both. This process multiplies up for number of Quakers present. It's not a question to ask unless you have a lot of time to spare to listen to the answers.)

[von]

OK, Katherine. I'm just trying to focus on the fact that the Conservative and Orthodox traditions have historically viewed the Ten Commandments reflect God-made rules, whether or not they were inscribed in the specific manner set forth in the Torah. I wanted to exclude the Reform tradition merely because it introduces way too much of a wild card. If my gross generalizations about the Reform movement were, well, too gross -- my apologies. It wasn't intentional.

[Katherine]

About Conservative Judaism: see, e.g..

We have long since accepted something similar to this for the Torah's assertions in Deuteronomy that we will be punished if and only if we sin. That is how we accommodate to the reality of innocent suffering. We recognize, or should recognize, that the Bible can't be taken literally when it says that only sinners suffer. So why is the suggestion made that the Exodus, or the conquest, or David's or Solomon's reigns, must have happened as the Torah says, or we have become heretics

[Katherine]

God-made != dictation from God without human beings playing any role, I don't think. In the Conservative and Reform traditions, at least.

[Anarch]

Is there going to be a holy war between the vonnites and the Publisonians? 'cause that would be awesome...

[von]

Is there going to be a holy war between the vonnites and the Publisonians? 'cause that would be awesome...

Yes, but the "holy" part of it will be a facade; the actual dispute will be about zoning. I demand a 100 ft. set back on that strip-mall, Publius!

[von]

God-made != dictation from God without human beings playing any role, I don't think.

I'm not excluding humans from the process, only stating that the rules are God-made.

[Donna Queen]

for all that [the host] feels and tastes like bread

Actually, in my experience as an Episcopalian (I think our host is made from pretty much the same recipe as the Catholic) the host feels and tastes like styrofoam.

[Steve]

My personal belief is that religion is far more about the values and the message than it is about the stories, and that the deeper meaning of religion would survive any debunking of the various stories. If you think loving thy neighbor is a good idea, you're not going to change that view no matter what the archaeologists come up with.

[Nell]

What is left of Christianity if Jesus died and then just remained dead?

The Sermon on the Mount.

[BKerr]

This is a side issue, really, but it should be kept in mind, when making generalizations about the different iterations of Judaism, that their American versions are very different from the non-American ones.

Reform synagogues outside of the U.S. resemble our Conservative synagogues, and Conservative synagogues outside of the U.S. resemble our Modern Orthodox synagogues. For instance, sex segragation in Conservative synagogues is much more prevalent outside of the U.S. than within.

Also, note that the tiny Reconstructionist movement, which derived from American Conservatism in response to the Shoah, is explicitly deistic. Reconstructionists view God as ahistorical. I don't know how prevalent that movement is outside of the U.S.

[Bernard Yomtov]

what if it was established that the Ten Commandments didn't come from God but were a joke that have been taken way too seriously?

But once you allow that the Commandments could merely have been dictated to a stone-carver you pretty much lose the ability to show that they didn't come from God. What would prove that? Discovering the actual tablets wouldn't, I think, have that much effect.

(Side note: I remember learning that there is a tradition that the Commandments were not just engraved in the tablets, but that the letters were actually cut all the way through. This includes even letters that are fully connected, like "O" or "D." It is considered a miracle that the central part of these letters did not fall out of the tablets, but hung suspended. Now if someone found those!!)

Similarly, I don't see why the discovery of some bones, even if they could be shown to be those of Jesus, would affect a Christian's faith in the Resurrection. If Jesus can be resurrected, surely it's no great trick to provide some new bones, if bones are needed at all.

[Jesurgislac]

Actually, in my experience as an Episcopalian (I think our host is made from pretty much the same recipe as the Catholic) the host feels and tastes like styrofoam.

Whenever I've taken communion in an Episcopalian church, the host has looked like a flying saucer (only, not multicolored, obv.) and tasted/been textured rather like thick rice paper, too. (No sherbet and no fruit flavor, though.) In fact, until I discovered that the host has to be made of wheat flour, I did kind of assume it was rice paper. It sort of dissolves in the mouth in a dry kind of way. The wine tastes like wine, though not very good wine.

[BKerr]

Segregation, rather.

Von may wish to investigate Reconstructionism. It's small size could be interpreted as a data point that favors his view. Other factors might account for it, still.

[cleek]

The Sermon on the Mount.

i'd bet that a good number of Christians know as little about that as i, a semi-pacifist atheist, do.

[von]

Whenever I've taken communion in an Episcopalian church, the host has looked like a flying saucer (only, not multicolored, obv.) and tasted/been textured rather like thick rice paper, too. (No sherbet and no fruit flavor, though.)

Presbyterians (in the US) frequently get little bitty squares of what I swear must be Wonder bread. That (IMHO) is an improvement over Episcopalians. (I've never tasted the Catholic host, since there's always this stern instruction regarding how nonCatholics must strictly stay away, but it looks very much like the Episcopalian one.) The downside is that Presbyterians also tend to get grape juice instead of wine.

Now, if I could find a religion that offered Cheetos and bourbon, I'd be set.

[von]

Oh, and Lutherans get pretty much the same as Episcopalians. (I realize that I now sound as though I wander around from church to church for the snacks.)

[von]

Thanks, BKerr. I wasn't aware of that.

Noted, Bernard. I'm not really thinking about the practicalities of disproof, but rather the seeming illogic (to me) of Rabbi Gellman's claim.

[sidereal]

Bernard has it. Given sufficient faith in an omnipotent and inscrutable force, there is literally nothing that cannot be explained away.

Once you're willing to believe that God planted de-carboned dinosaur bones that only seem millions of years old without even bothering trying to explain it, a few fake Jesus bones are no problem at all.

[Bob Shackleton]

I expect that a lot of Christians would agree with Gellman's statement ("Unlike Judaism and Islam and Hinduism and even Buddhism, which are built on God's teachings, Christianity is built both on God's teachings as well as on an historical event proving a transcendental miracle.") but it's still an opinion rather than an undeniably true statement. To a large extent, a system of religious belief is what its followers say it is, so if all Christians believed that Christianity required belief in the rebirth than I suppose it would be so. However, lots of people who call themselves Christians don't believe in the rebirth and don't believe Christianity requires such a belief. Are they less correct than their fellow believers who take a different view? I expect similar observations apply to other religions as well, so that the most you could reasonably argue is that a larger share of people calling themselves X-ists consider a strict belief in A to be integral to the X system of beliefs than the share of people calling themselves Y-ists require a strict belief in B to be integral to the Y system of beliefs. And if that's the best you can do, why not take up birdwatching instead? Identifying empids is a great deal more interesting.

[sidereal]

if I could find a religion that offered Cheetos and bourbon

Discordianism not only offers them, it mandates them.

[cleek]

A better discussion would include the more faithful (from any religion)

i for one, am sorry i commented. maybe you could specify, in future posts, who you think the ideal commenters should be.

[Jesurgislac]

Von: (I realize that I now sound as though I wander around from church to church for the snacks.)

Heh. I was wondering if I was going to have to explain how an ex-Quaker atheist could be taking communion in an Episcopalian church, but I guess not.

Sidereal: Discordianism not only offers them, it mandates them.

If it were possible to make a heretical statement about Discordianism, the claim that it mandates anything would be heretical.

[bob mcmanus]

Many Christians became Christians on the basis of very little actual direct evidence. A missionary told some Irish or Chinese or Amazonian natives a story, and they converted and believed. All Christians certainly faced and face indirect evidence that some of the fundamental assertions were unlikely, IOW, we do not commonly see people rise from the dead. Yet they believed.

Soren Kierkkeggaard (and probably others)said this was the paradigm for all Christians, the Bible can be helpful and useful, but evidence and argument are not necessary to belief, and in fact are often counterproductive.

I am not a Christian because of any evidence or argument, I do not accept any as sufficient. I have chosen. I am a Marxist, and though it may be fun to crunch some numbers on the Labor Theory or Surplus Value or Declining General Productivity I consider facts pretty much irrelevant to my Marxism.

I don't completely understand how my eyes work, was it Newton that showd the image was inverted onto the retina? WTF? Yet I use my eyes aas a tool of interpretation, and believe most of what I see.

[bob mcmanus]

Aw heck. Should von's "decisive refutation" occur, I would personally have no problem respecting a Christian still believing that Jesus died on the Cross and rose on the third day. Etc.

I have no criticism of Mormons or string theorists.

Reason and evidence and argument are for losers.

[bob mcmanus]

Finally, IIRC, Nietzsche accepted the concept of the Eternal Recurrence not on the basis of reason or argument or evidence, but because it was the most horrible and beautiful thing he could imagine, because it was extremely irrational, and because it was useful. Period. I am not his better.

[von]

i for one, am sorry i commented. maybe you could specify, in future posts, who you think the ideal commenters should be.

I'm not asking for ideal commentators; with the exception of me, there are no such things. ;-) I'm merely asking for more of them from as many viewpoints as possible.

[Bernard Yomtov]

von,

Yeah, I understand, but then it gets circular, since the only way there can be a "decisive refutation of Jesus' resurrection" is as a matter of faith. So if the Resurrection is necessary to a particular Christian's faith, he becomes a non-Christian when he ceases to believe in the Resurrection.

The Ten Commandments are a different problem, because they are instructions, not just a miraculous event. Take away the miracle and the instructions are still there. Maybe that's what Gellman (who always strikes me as a pretty pompous sort, BTW) was getting at. Judaism is built on elaborate laws and rules. The Talmud is crucial (so to speak). You can eliminate the miracles, and you are still left with what to many is the core of the religion.

Now, my understanding is that Christianity, granted that it makes strong moral demands, is not like that. It depends on the idea of Jesus as Savior and the Resurrection as a central part of that idea, in a way that has no parallel with any miracle in the Hebrew Bible.

(Disclaimer: I'm really sort of making this up as I go, based on bits and snippets picked up here and there. Corrections accepted gracefully.)

[d]

De-lurking to say: it was an inspired choice to file this post under the category "Not Yet A Buddha."

[bob mcmanus]

I must, must go step further into outrageousness. :)

I swore in the early 70s to go to my grave never having voted fr a Republican. Can't quite think of any real example, so as a theoretical example, I would vote for a 1960 era Strom Thurmond over Jacob Javits or Lincoln Chaffee without hesitation. And be proud.

What exactly does faith, committment, & religion meant to you? A smorgasboard of rationally and scientifically weighed choices? It is like a marriage...ooops. Maybe anymore it is like a marriage, which you dissolve because of a difference over Cable preferences, or adultery and lying, or disabling disease and loss of income status, or sexual incompatibility. It is only an oath, after all.

[Doctor Science]

R. Gellman, IMHO, seriously underestimates the degree to which Islam is based on a putatively miraculous historical event.

More inexplicably, he seems to be misquoting Dayenu:

If the Red Sea never really split, there would still be the Ten Commandments and the Torah for me.

The point of the song is surely that the splitting of the Red Sea is just one in a whole chain of miracles, any one of which -- specifically including the Torah -- would be enough for faith in G*d.

[Francis]

cheetos and bourbon, together? as Emeril would say, what did bourbon ever do to you?

wait. you may not want to answer that question.

on the main point, as a verrrry lapsed Episcopalian, I see a lot of these kinds of religious debates essentially meaningless. what is meant by a "decisive refutation" of the resurrection? miracles, pretty much by definition, are not subject to refutation.

kinda like a divorced-and-remarried Catholic, or ones who use birth control, or believe that women should be ordained. they can claim to be good, if cafeteria, Catholics. but the rules say that you can't be a cafeteria Catholic. which wins? the rules, or the people who claim to be members?

[completely off-topic: for most of my life I believed that there was some real evidence supporting the claim that a single identifiable Jesus Christ lived. i've come to learn that there is no reliable contemporaneous evidence of his existence and to the contrary some evidence to suggest that he did not exist, that instead the various original gospels are more or less completely ficticious. odd, that.]

[CaseyL]

It sems to me if a religion is based primarily on one's relationship with God, then you can't refute any miracles, since miracles are (a) God's stock in trade. Scientific proof is irrelevant, since miracles by definition exist outside of science. Historical proof is irrelevant, since it can be (and is) negated by an act of faith.

If a religion is based primarily on one's relationship with others - other people, other lifeforms, etc. - then that changes the nature of, and the emphasis on, a relationship with God. Miracles and such aren't as relevant, since (presumably) the laws for relating to others make sense in their own right, and would stand even if God was removed from the equation.

[stickler]

It might be well to remember that, for whatever the fourth-century Church might have mandated, the Resurrection story is not quite as concrete as some would have us believe. (For example, Mel Gibson, who plants a camera in The Tomb and has Jesus doing a Hollywood-mummy-movie reanimation. I know some Dominican sisters who rant and rave about how awful that scene was.)

If you'll all turn to the resurrection story in the actual Gospels, you'll note that the actual moment of Resurrection is left vague: all the witnesses see is an empty tomb.

[Anderson]

Santayana's "There is no God, and Mary is His mother" seems on point here somehow.

I guess topics like "Jesus's Tomb - Film at 11!" don't engage me much because it's so obvious to me that there's not going to be any "proof" either way, and if you're hung up on "proof" as some kind of answer, then you really haven't understood the question.

Anderson's Axioms # 26: An insistence upon proof about God is itself proof ... of lack of faith. (Hence the foolish insistence, by so many "faith-based" Christians, that the Bible itself is proof of God, Jesus, etc.)

[Jackmormon]

Some religious traditions require greater historico-hermeneutic dexterity than others, I'm sorry to say. I'd bet that over a third of Mormons holding advanced degrees have some form of theological belief that boils down to "yeah, well, your religion isn't so logical and evidence-based, either!"

[cleek]

I'd bet that over a third of Mormons holding advanced degrees have some form of theological belief that boils down to "yeah, well, your religion isn't so logical and evidence-based, either!"

i offer evidence that a non-zero number of Mensan Southern Baptists hold that view.

Atheists, ironically enough, enjoy no similar logical advantage, and are usually reduced to arguing that they are personally behaving in a moral manner based on a morality that someone could invent if he just sat down and thought about it enough, although strangely, none of them ever claim to have actually done so himself. So, they decry the evil done by Muslims and Christians for adhering to moralities based on the dictates of imaginary beings on the basis of their own hypothetical morality.

--Vox Day, whirled nut

[jrudkis]

Evidence that God does not exist only strengthens Faith, because you don't have to believe in something that you know. As one philosopher put it:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."

Douglas Adams used the Babel fish, but I think you could equally apply that logic to hefeweizen.

[liberal japonicus]

Dunno what's so interesting about this. Everyone knows that the tomb of Jesus is in Japan.

[Slartibartfast]

What Christianity would be without the death and resurrection of Jesus? More like popular philosophy than religion, I think. A basic tenet of Christianity is that Jesus is, basically, God, sacrificed to atone for our sins. Take away that, and Jesus is just another prophet, and then you have Isaiahism, or the like.

[kenB]

Not entirely on topic, but I heard an interesting Sunday School talk the other day. The lecturer pointed out how ineffectual miracles seemed to be in instilling real faith in the people of the Bible. How many miracles had the refugees from Egypt seen and yet they still turned to a golden calf? And Peter walked with Jesus for years, heard his teachings, saw his miracles, and yet still denied him at crunch time.

(Another thing the lecturer mentioned was an odd feature of the genealogies of Jesus at the beginning of Luke and Matthew -- did you ever notice that they trace his ancestry through his father Joseph instead of through Mary?)

[Doctor Science]

A friend just mentioned, describing problems with a building her group is using:

the pastor of the church said he didn't believe we had termites because he didn't see them, even though the wood is all chewed up and such.

In other words: whether most people believe in what they see or not depends on what's in it for them.

[DonBoy]

Side note: I remember learning that there is a tradition that the Commandments were not just engraved in the tablets, but that the letters were actually cut all the way through. This includes even letters that are fully connected, like "O" or "D."

And the tablets read correctly no matter which side you look at. (That's how I heard it, and I heard the one you mentioned as well.)

[liberal japonicus]

kenb's comment reminds me of Father Guido Sarducci's comment about a candidate for sainthood. "She only performed 3 miracles, and two of those were card tricks..."

[Jesurgislac]

kenB: (Another thing the lecturer mentioned was an odd feature of the genealogies of Jesus at the beginning of Luke and Matthew -- did you ever notice that they trace his ancestry through his father Joseph instead of through Mary?)

Dogmatically not at all odd, really: Jesus is supposed to have been fully human as well as God, and therefore, a good Catholic is required to believe that Mary was filled with hot, white, sticky... Holy Spirit.

Oddly enough, Catholics are also (I think) dogmatically required to believe that Mary was a virgin all her life even after she had Jesus's younger brothers, and perhaps sisters (no reference to sisters in the gospels, but at least two brothers definitely referred to).

Dorothy L. Sayers noted, after writing The Man Born To Be King, the difficulty she had with many Christians who were shocked at the idea that Jesus really was human... even though they had recited their belief that he was human every Sunday for all their church-going lives.

[Joe Thomas]

To return to von's original point, I think that the statement about historical proof is basically true, but Christianity is much more based around a single event than, as the obvious example, Judiasm, which is based around a centuries/millenia long tradition and series of events.
And I have two cross tattoos, does that make me the ideal commenter?

[Bucky]

It has been written that Hinduism differs from Christianity and other Western religions in that it does not have a single founder, a specific theological system, a single system of morality, or a central religious organization. There is no one historical event that shapes the religion; nor even any several events.

Then there is paganism, if you can prove one myth is just a myth --- so?

I think it only Christianity that depends deeply on one story being exactly the way it is recorded. Just ask any big-haired Baptist preacher.

[von]

I think it only Christianity that depends deeply on one story being exactly the way it is recorded. Just ask any big-haired Baptist preacher.

I don't believe that statement is correct; although one can lump in all Christian continuations, conintuation-in-parts, and divisionals* into on big "Christian" category, there are some very real doctrinal differences between, say Baptist and Catholic (to take two relative extremes). There are even notable doctrinal differences between Episcopalian and Presbyterian -- two strains of Protestantism that came out of the same small island at virtually the same time. And don't confuse any of the foregoing with the evangealical preacher on TV, who has usually adopted a very personalized form of Baptist theology.

von

*These are terms for different types of patent applications, but it seemed to fit.

[hairshirthedonist]

I'm certainly no religious scholar, but I don't see how literal physical resurrection is a prerequisite for being the son of god or having died for our sins (if those are even necessary for Christianity).

The resurrection cannot be "disproved" even scientifically, given the limitations of archaeology. I can only be shown to have been highly unlikely.

[john miller]

Slarti: "What Christianity would be without the death and resurrection of Jesus? More like popular philosophy than religion, I think. A basic tenet of Christianity is that Jesus is, basically, God, sacrificed to atone for our sins. Take away that, and Jesus is just another prophet, and then you have Isaiahism, or the like."

Pretty accurate summary. Paul basically said that without the resurrection basically you have nothing. Not discounting the sayings of Christ or his teachings, which are wonderful moralistic guides, but from a religious point of view, Christianity is based upon the resurrection.

I would like to respond to some of the points made by various commenters but that would take to long. Suffice it to say, the basic Catholic teaching is the the bread and wine during the eucharist becomes the essence of Christ's body and blood, His spirit, so to speak, not actual flesh and blood. It is the responsibility of Catholics to prepare themselves to receive this gift and then to bring that essence into the world.

There is also a big difference between Catholic dogma and teachings. Birth control involves a teaching, not dogma. The Bible makes refe4rence to Christ having brothers, but it is questionable whether that word meant then (in its original Greek) what we take it to mean now.

I doubt the original Ten Commandments had an O in them as they would not have been using either the Roman or Greek alphabet.

I think those who say they could still be Christians even if the resurrection was disproved (which IMO is an impossibility) are speaking in terms of believing in and following the teachings of Christ, which is commendable, but not what I would consider a religious experience.

[freelunch]

Re: The Sermon on the Mount

Not only do fewer Christians know it well than should, there are some preachers with names like Falwell, Bob Jones, and Robertson, who appear to actively oppose the teachings found in that sermon.

I am strongly affected by Jesus's moral teachings, even though I no longer see any reason to accept claims about gods and an afterlife. Would my moral basis still count as Christianity? Would Christianity still exist if there were no such claims? Certainly most UUA would have no problem with that. I suppose that a good number of UCC would also be happy with it, but at some point we would run into church bodies that would be destroyed by such an idea.

Re: This and that

Presbyterians are Scottish Reformed (Calvinist). Episcopalian (Anglican) began as just the Roman Catholic Church with Henry VIII as the head and divorce legal for the king. Doctrine and reform weren't of much concern to Henry. Over time the Anglicans were influenced by Protestant thought (and nationalism and Cromwell and other such disasters to the church), but the reforms in the Anglican church never came with the same blood-spattered certainty found where Calvin, Zwingli, Knox or Luther held sway.

I grew up Lutheran, so communion was generally a sweet upstate New York red wine and barely palatable flour wafers. The wine was tolerable, but if they wanted to keep the Kosher for Passover theme for the bread product, I think that matzoh crackers would have been preferable.

[hairshirthedonist]

There's resurrection, and then there's resurrection. I don't want to argue with someone who knows more about this than I do, so I'll simply give some impressions and ask a question.

It seems to me that if Jesus' crucified body was still left in the tomb when his spirit went to heaven and he later showed up in a fully grown clone of himself, that would be pretty damned miraculous.

So, my question is, did Paul say that without physical resurrection you have nothing, or without resurrection you have nothing?

(And I will trust just about anyone's answer, because there's no way I'm whipping out a bible to find out for myself. That would require effort.)

[john miller]

Since the basic premise was physical resurrection, based upon such things as empty tomb, wounds in the side and hands, etc., that is the releveant topic. The Church teaches that all will have a physical resurrection (in a sense) in the future. That is one reason the Catholic Church opposed cremation for centuries.
That has slightly changed.

[Jeffrey Kramer]

ISTM that proof Jesus was never resurrected would pretty thoroughly destroy the case for evangelical Christianity. If Jesus was not uniquely the Son of God, as proved by the resurrection, why should accepting/acknowledging/serving him be the only path to salvation? And if Christianity is not the only path to salvation, why concern yourself with converting non-Christians?

[moe99]

I remember Sermon on the Mount. Wasn't that about the cheesemakers?

And show of hands: how many have read "Another Roadside Attraction" by Tom Robbins? It seems indicated here.

[trilobite]

I agree w/ Bernard Yomtov. I came late to active Judaism, but my understanding is that for the hardcore Orthodox, Talmud and not the Bible is the center of the faith -- and Talmud does not make historical claims. It does make deductions from the text of the Torah, but much more from details of the phrasing than from the substance.

Nor is Judaism much for credos (lists of things you must believe in order to be a Jew.) Our greatest sages made some up, most famously Maimonides's Precepts, but they are opinions, not requirements.

Talmud does derive its authority from the belief that it is a compilation of oral law revealed to Moses but not written down at the time. So one would think that proof that Moses did not exist, or that Talmud was invented out of whole cloth later (which is, frankly, much more what the text looks like), would discredit the whole enterprise. Yet, somehow, Judaism has fairly well weathered reasonably good archeological and historical evidence that the Torah was a work of fiction by a propagandist in the court of King Josiah, that David was a Philistine bandit, that the Exodus never happened, that the Twelve Tribes never considered themselves especially related until the Kingdom period, and that Deuteronomy was written by the prophet Jeremiah. Everybody either denies the evidence or says that it's the rules that are important, not how they got there.

I don't, however, know how well we would weather the discovery of, say, a diary by Rabbi Judah Ha-Levi, or Shammai, chronicling the invention of the Talmud.

[Bernard Yomtov]

I doubt the original Ten Commandments had an O in them as they would not have been using either the Roman or Greek alphabet.

Hebrew, I think, John. Still no "O" though at least one letter - samekh - that is fully connected.

Since you tell us that the Resurrection was physical, as evidenced by the empty tomb among other things, my previous point about bones is obviously wrong.

[john miller]

Bernard, thanks for the Hebrew tip. I didn't know that, but then my knowledge of Hebrew is virtually non-existent.

BTW, if there were ever proof of the lack of a physical resurrection, my best guess is that there would be some changes made in what the resurrection really was. However, I can't think of any way in which there could ever be proof.

And as some people who have defended the resurrection point out, would not the Jewish leaders made a point of trying to exhibit the body of Christ in the face of all the uproar over a physical resurrection? (This assumes, btw, that Jesus really did live and die in the manner recounted in scripture.)

[hairshirthedonist]

If I can digress and flashback to reference a well upthread comment:

(in the voice of Homer Simpson)mmmmmmm, ...hefeweizen.

[Hartmut]

The NT refers to 4 brothers of Jesus by name and sisters without giving names.
The idea that the words signifying the relationship "persons of the same parents" do not mean that but unspecified relatives is an ideological one that developed in the first 4 centuries. Hieronymos first tried to make them sons and daughters of Joseph from an assumed first marriage and later found that Joseph too must have been asexual and that therefore they had to be cousins of Jesus. He also subtly changed other meanings when translating the Bible into Latin (e.g. The Hebrew Spirit of the Lord (ruakh Jahweh)) is female, in the (Greek) NT it is neutral (to pneuma), Augustine and Hieronymos used spiritus (male)). Both authors left evidence behind that those choices were deliberate.
The virginity of Mary had three steps: prae/in/post natu(m)/partu(m) (conception as a virgin, hymen not violated during birth, celibacy afterwards). Only the first is "biblical", the other two were thought up probably in Syria (Protevangelium of Jacob, ca. 2nd century) and are accepted as dogma mainly in the RCC and orthodoxy). Additionally the "immaculate conception" of Mary by her own mother was dogmatized by the RCC in 1854(!).
Personally I couldn't care less, if somebody found the proof that Mary ran the Judean Brothel Union with Joseph as front man ;-)
And some Catholics don't like Paul's complaints that some people criticized him for taking his wife with him on his missions "as do Peter and all the other apostles" ;-(
The whole history of Christianity is a permanent discussing away of inconvenient "facts" and (imo pseudo-)problems.

The faith has remained.

I use to say that someone living for the last 2000 years and not changing his "Christian" beliefs (taken from whatever period) would have been thrown out of the church at least twice for heresy (and probably burned at least once). The same would imo not be true for any other of the major religions.

The paradoxical conclusion would be that the "fixed belief system" most centered on a presumed "historical fact" has shown the least consistency.

[Hartmut]

John,
the Jewish leaders, according to the bible, claimed that the followers of Jesus had stolen the body and in order to pretend that he resurrected [maybe they put the bones back later ;-) ]

[tzs]

Von--I loved your description of the development of Christian religions: divisionals, CIPs, etc....Yup, yup, and yup.

Now how do we go about asking for a reissue?

[Slartibartfast]

Side note: I remember learning that there is a tradition that the Commandments were not just engraved in the tablets, but that the letters were actually cut all the way through. This includes even letters that are fully connected, like "O" or "D." It is considered a miracle that the central part of these letters did not fall out of the tablets, but hung suspended.

If that's a tradition, its sources aren't Biblical, as far as I can tell. Which is not to say that there aren't other writings that refer to it, naturally.

Of course, the Ark along with everything in it disappeared long ago, so if you were looking for those tablets, you'd find a number of other things along with them, such as the staff of Aaron and a golden jar of manna.

Which, I think, might taste good with an organic, well-hopped ale.

[Hartmut]

First Letter to the Corinthians, Chaptr 15, verses 12ff:

15:12 Now if Christ is preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 15:13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised. 15:14 If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith also is in vain. 15:15 Yes, we are found false witnesses of God, because we testified about God that he raised up Christ, whom he didn’t raise up, if it is so that the dead are not raised. 15:16 For if the dead aren’t raised, neither has Christ been raised. 15:17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. 15:18 Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 15:19 If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.
15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep.

Although it doesn't say "physical", it seems obvious that exactly that is meant.

[hairshirthedonist]

mmmmm, .....organic, well-hopped ale.

[Donald Johnson]

"To a large extent, a system of religious belief is what its followers say it is"

That's true, to a large extent. Of course, if there is a God then one religion might come closer to the truth than others, which is where all the talk about who is a real Xist vs. who isn't comes from. (I'm speaking in my objective voice here--actually, since I'm a Christian, I'm a partisan.)

But I think it's good to remember that a religion is what its adherents practice when in discussions about whether Christianity or Islam or Judaism are inherently violent or oppressive or whatever. Christians have a 2000 year history with innumerable episodes were Christianity was used to justify horrible atrocities, but I don't think it means Christianity is inherently oppressive. The same is true of Islam. Jews haven't had much opportunity to commit mayhem on the same scale, but judging from extreme cases the religion can be used to justify horrible actions. But it's obviously not inherently oppressive.

The same is also true of that relatively young and now declining religion known as Marxism. The commies had their inquisitors in power in too many places too darn soon, and discredited the whole religion as a result.

On the Resurrection and Jesus's alleged bones and so forth, two points--

1. Most Christians except the extreme liberals still think it's kinda important that Jesus rose from the dead. It's central. Take that away or make it metaphorical and why should one be a Christian? Christian ethical teachings are not unique to Christianity--C.S. Lewis wrote a short little book making that point.

2. I don't think Paul mentions the empty tomb, but it's sorta implicit in the belief that if Jesus was resurrected, something miraculous happened to the body. But if he just settled down with Mary Magdalene and had a kid named Judah and then died in the usual way (as presumably happened to Lazarus, unless you think "A Canticle for Leibowitz" is canonical), it would make one think the Biblical writers weren't being straight with us.

[Donald Johnson]

Um, Lazarus died again, I mean. I don't know who he married, if anyone.

[Slartibartfast]

And...I'd guess that the Testimony was probably written in Aramaic, which also has closed characters.

Maybe it's built like a stencil, though. Hey: maybe it's used like a stencil, although I bet spray paint hadn't been invented yet.

[hairshirthedonist]

Repeat: It seems to me that if Jesus' crucified body was still left in the tomb when his spirit went to heaven and he later showed up in a fully grown clone of himself, that would be pretty damned miraculous.

[Slartibartfast]

It would also be untrue to the Biblical account, wouldn't it?

[OCSteve]

If you had told me that a thread on religion here would quickly go to 82 comments I would have scoffed.

[hairshirthedonist]

It would also be untrue to the Biblical account, wouldn't it?

Perhaps, but would it really be crucially so?

[Hartmut]

As Abraham a Sancta Clara observed there can be great heresy in a shifted colon.
Angel in the tomb:
Resurrexit, non est hic vs. Resurrexit non, est hic
Maybe the second version was correct after all (provided the angel spoke Latin and not Anglais ;-) )

[Slartibartfast]

Probably Aramaic.

Yes, crucially untrue as far as some Christian sects (say that aloud 3 times for some funny looks over the cubicle wall) are concerned. Of course, we picks and chooses the passages that we holds to be literally true and which we holds to be allegorical.

Allegorical. Allegorical. Makes me think of big power bills.

Of course, there's that missing passage detailing how the angel of THE LORD carried Jesus up to the heavenly axolotl tanks that might just connect all the dots, if we could only find it.

[Slartibartfast]

Or, possibly, Greek.

[Slartibartfast]

Likely. Nearly certainly. Hey, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

[hairshirthedonist]

Paul: Jesus was able to go from zero to sixty in 4.3 seconds because he was driving a blue Porsche.

Now an archaeologist finds that the Porsche was actually red. What does that have to do with Jesus' ability to accelerate as Paul wrote?

[Donald Johnson]

I had a similar conversation with two atheist friends the other day about the Jesus "tomb". They were surprised it would bother me. I realized it's because to them the whole thing is false anyway, so if the standard Christian beliefs about the Resurrection were disproven, then no problem. We fall back on Plan B, where He was raised from the dead and rather than Ascending, lived out his remaining years in a planned retirement community somewhere in Jerusalem. Put that in your Nicene Creed and recite it.

[Slartibartfast]

Paul: Jesus was able to go from zero to sixty in 4.3 seconds because he was driving a blue Porsche.

Now an archaeologist finds that the Porsche was actually red. What does that have to do with Jesus' ability to accelerate as Paul wrote?

Not much. But that doesn't really map over well to resurrection all that well. If scripture said that Jesus' body was gone but he'd left behind a monogrammed towel, and archeologists found a towel that wasn't monogrammed, I think the shock level would be rather low. But that's a much smaller difference than body vs. no body.

[Hartmut]

Or we could go with the theory (actually believed by some groups)that it was not Jesus but a close relative or look-alike who got crucified (why does that remind me of a certain Fu Manchu movie?[the first with Cristopher Lee]).

[Bernard Yomtov]

If that's a tradition, its sources aren't Biblical, as far as I can tell.

No, it's not Biblical. I don't know the origin.

[cleek]

or, we could go with the theory that it's the product of many decades of people telling a progressively-more-compelling story to new believers in dark rooms, out of the way of those who would feed them to lions, until a few people wrote down the last version they heard. those written versions then became the canonical versions, thus halting the embellishment-on-retelling that had generated the story in the first place.

[hairshirthedonist]

Fair enough, Slarti. (Can I call you "Slarti?")

My point is that body or no body (monogram or no monogram), a dead guy was walking around. That's a miracle, whether he was in the same body or a new identical one. I'm not saying that no one should be bothered by the difference. I'm just saying that the difference doesn't seem to negate divinity.

This is all moot, as there can be no proof that any given 2000-year-old bones are those of Christ. Even from a scientific standpoint, any proof would be probabilistic in nature, and not absolute. So one could rationally maintain that Jesus was physcially resurrected, even if the archaeology suggested very, very strongly that his bones were found, which would be as good as it could get.

[bob mcmanus]

"And show of hands: how many have read "Another Roadside Attraction" by Tom Robbins? It seems indicated here."

Yo. What did the Lady say:"There are three true things:Birth, Sex & Death." Something like that.

[kenB]

This is from way upstream, but to Jes@4:19AM: sure, but given that the Gospel writers want to show that Jesus descends from David etc., wouldn't you think they'd establish it through the parent who actually shares some DNA with him rather than through the adoptive father?

[cleek]

rather than through the adoptive father?

doesn't that presume that Jesus' father (in reality, not in legend) was, in fact, adoptive ?

[von]

Von--I loved your description of the development of Christian religions: divisionals, CIPs, etc....Yup, yup, and yup.

Now how do we go about asking for a reissue?

Don't know about that, but I do know that there's a reexamination going on. And, possibly, an interference (with a phantom count, no less).

And that's about all the patent lawyer humor I can stand today. I'm here all week, folks!

[von]

OK, I also can't help but note that we're waaaaaayyyyyy past the time for a broadening reissue.

OK, now that is the last patent lawyer injoke.