RESPONSE TO JOHN LOFTUS AND MISCOMMUNICATION, PART I: THE MURDER OF GOD

Dateline - July 25, 2009  Not only does the Bible frankly admit the connection between murder, religion, and power, the central message of Christianity proclaims that God was murdered in the name of religion in the struggle for power. As such, it is an incredibly salient cautionary, if not an indictment, against those who would carelessly and gratuitously make religious condemnations. Any writing or gospel that points to – indeed, makes the... Read more

THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF JESUS CHRIST: THE PHARISEES ACCUSE HIM OF FALSE WITNESS

When Jesus proclaimed that He was the Light of the World, the Pharisees accused him of not only making claims about himself, but making false claims about himself, that is, bearing false witness, or breaking the ninth commandment. This sets up a discussion of epistemology – how do we know? What is truth and how can we know what the truth is? To witness is to testify, or present a testament, derived from the solemnity of swearing upon the testicles. ... Read more

PROBLEMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT POSED BY HISTORICAL CRITICISM

The following summary is based on Kenton Sparks’ review in God’s Word in Human Words: The Pentateuch Was Not Written By Moses The Pentateuch account is written from the third-person. Numbers 12:3 states that “Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth.” Genesis 36:31 reports that certain Edomite rulers lived “before any king reigned over the Israelites.” The Problem of the Pentateuch’s Internal... Read more

JOHN THE BAPTIST ENCOUNTERS THE PHARISEE (THE LITERALIST AND THE RATIONALIST)

When John the Baptist saw the crowds coming to him for baptism – many of which were Pharisees and Sadducees – he said to them, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father,’ for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”This term ‘viper’ means... Read more

KARL BARTH ON HOW THE BIBLE SHOULD BE READ IN LIGHT OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM

Continuing Kenton Sparks’ remarks on Karl Barth (from Sparks’ book God’s Word in Human Words): “If God commits no error, as orthodoxy demands, then how is it possible for the Bible to be so utterly human as Barth suggests?  How does  God speak through such a human text?  Let us follow Barth’s logic through to its end.  In Barth’s view, biblical criticism was suited to explore all sorts of questions about the... Read more

KARL BARTH, PART I: THE FUNDAMENTALIST MINDSET BROUGHT BIBLICAL CRITICISM

I didn’t know I agreed so much with Karl Barth, until I read Kenton Sparks’ commentary in his book, God’s Word in Human Words.    In what follows, Sparks describes how Barth dealt with the issues raised by historical criticism of the Bible: “Barth believed that biblical criticsm was ‘both necessary and justified,’ and he expressed in the strongest possible terms that the biblical writers  and the texts that... Read more

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE JESUS SEMINAR, PART III

We continue in our consideration of the Gospel of the Jesus Seminar, those sayings that the Seminar believe that Jesus undoubtedly said or said something like it, with Mark 4:25 “In fact, to those who have, more will be given, and from those who don’t have, even what they do have will be taken away!” So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but is this a purely social and economic statement. If not, then WHAT is it that will be given... Read more

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE JESUS SEMINAR, PART II

The next verse, the fifth, that we shall consider comes from Mark 3:27. Yet again, this verse is pink (reds are apparently hard to come by indeed): “No one can enter a powerful man’s house to steal his belongings unless he first ties him up. Only then does he loot his house.” Say what? Is this man Jesus a thief? So far he’s talked about being a physician and a bridegroom and he’s talked about making wine. He’s made a pretty outrageous... Read more

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE JESUS SEMINAR, PART I

Supposing we accept the work of the Jesus Seminar and base our faith and spirituality only on the red or pink words of Jesus, do we really have anything of meaning? (Red meaning “Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it” and pink meaning “Jesus probably said something like this.”) I went through the red and pink of the Gospel of Mark recently to see if I could make any sense of what was left. In what follows, I’ll use the... Read more

THE GOD OF JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO Q

I’ve been studying the Book of Q – the version produced by Burton Mack of the supposed “Sayings Gospel”, source for the common material of Luke and Matthew not found in Mark. Again, supposedly, they have been stripped of any taint of the hypothetical “Christ Cult.” I wanted to see if there was anything we could learn about God – God, not ethics or morality – from just these sayings of Jesus, since this comes from a very liberal wing... Read more

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