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True Follower's Of Christ


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Alterman,

That’s a funny typo! :lmao: As I always, I enjoy your replies. :grin:

 

About Paul's vision of Christ. Paul speaks of this vision several times in the book of Acts. First we have his account of the story in 1 Cor. 15: 8 From the Messsage Bible: "He (Jesus) finally appeared and presented Himself alive to me...I don't deserve to be included in the inner circle, as you well know, having spent all those early years trying my best to stamp out God's Church."

You’re quoting from a paraphrase bible, not a translation. All the other versions read essentially, “and last of all, as to the child untimely born, he appeared to me also”. “Showed himself alive” has a more specific connotation than just “appearing”. I haven’t seen any translation that uses words that have that specific connotation added to it. This is what happens in paraphrase Bibles; you get the “impressions” of the interpreter (versus translator). Regardless, even so using the paraphrased word choices, it could mean “he showed himself alive to me through a vision he gave to me”.

 

Seeing something non-physical, seeing a “transcended” being, is through a vision, not with earthly eyes. Did Christ go up to heaven after 40 days on earth? So Paul could not have seen him physically. Christ had already ascended.

 

Paul was a stunch Pharisee believing that the followers of "the Way' were in serious error and leading Israel astray. He imprisoned followers and was present at the stoning of Stephen. I don't think a 'spiritual vision" or an image in his head of Jesus would have changed his heart and mind so dramatically and cause him to travel the known world where he suffered imprisonment, beatings, shipwreck, stoning and eventually beheading.

Yes it would! Do you think that a spiritual vision is some minor thing, some mundane, “cool, what was that?” sort of experience? Hardly! These sorts of experiences are usually profound and life changing. I had a vision when I was younger that forever changed the course of my life and made me the person I am today. I joined the church, went to Bible College on my way into the ministry, preached, taught, brought souls to Christ, etc, etc. I’m not going to share publicly everything that vision was, but believe me when I tell you in was a bright white light and a voice from heaven, stepping outside of both time and space – much like what Paul describes! Did it change my life? Profoundly. And here’s the point – it was a spiritual vision, and spiritual visions can in fact have a profound and life changing effects on people – like Paul.

 

 

Acts 9:1-9 says a light came from Heaven and was all aronnd him. He fell to the ground. He heard of voice. When he stood up he couldn't see anything. In fact he was blind for three days. A spiritual vision wouldn't cause him to be blinded for three days.

Been there. Blindness? Depends on the cause of the spiritual vision. Myself, it was temporary paralysis. (I’m driving you nuts, aren’t I? :grin: )

 

 

To me this seems perfectly reasonable to believe the biblical account for what it says. "He (Christ) appeared to me."

It does to me also, as being explained as a vision. Again… Christ had ascended already. He was in heaven, not on earth. No human eyes could see him, only a spiritual vision would “reveal” him.

 

If the Resurrection wasn't true then I wouldn't believe in His miracles and wouldn't be a believer, although His teachings I would try to observe.

The Gnostics believed in him but denied he was human flesh and blood. It didn’t stop them. Yet, and Amy here’s the real crux of all of this, you just said that you would try to observe His teachings! Why? I’ll venture a guess. Is it because they have meaning to you, that they speak to you? If you embrace his teachings in the same way you do now, then how is that not "having Christ in your heart"? (Are the scales beginning to fall off a little maybe? :) )

 

In regard to your last question: If the headlines read today that there has been an amazing discovery proving that Jesus never existed would I stop believing? Keeping in mind that the scripture states that in the last days there would come a powerful delusion that would lead many astray, I hope not. I don't believe I would lose my faith. But here's where I trust in Him to keep me. Peter swore up and down that he would never deny Christ. So except for the grace of God there go I!

I hope Amy, I really hope, for the sake of your spirit, that you do not live under fear of being deceived by powerful delusions that the devil is going to send to shake you off your path. If you are, then you are blocking yourself, you are limiting yourself to a tightly defined set of teachings and that is – dogma. Also, been there! It's spiritual prision, kept in a unlocked cell by our own fear and insecurity instilled by maniuplative men abusing the Bible.

 

As much as you are sharing what is meaningful to you, others are also sharing with you. I hope that some of what we offer finds meaning in your life also. Being human is sharing both ways :10:

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Paul was a stunch Pharisee believing that the followers of "the Way' were in serious error and leading Israel astray.

 

Which "The Way" do you suppose they were referring to? Followers of "The Way" predate the time when Jesus was supposed to have existed.

 

There are many references to the followers of "The Way" found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. No references to Jesus. Not one.

 

If you like, I can give you the specific documents and fragment numbers from Qumran. (they are numerous)

 

If you're only interested in telling us what you think you know, I understand.

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I don,t know if this will help guys, but as part of my meditation/contemplation practise I will sometimes imagine and visualise relating to Jesus, or if I,m feeling in need of relating to the feminine, the goddess Sophia. Or sometimes just a being of Light and Love.

 

Sometimes if I am struggling to still mind and find the Presence of awareness, actively engaging with my mind in the imagination helps to "lift" my mind there. This can be very powerful and healing, and I have started to embrace my inner child with this tecnique. The point is that one uses these imaginal relationships to raise the level of conciousness.

 

This is exactly the same as when I was a christian, except that when I prayed it was in such a limited way. I realise now that my christian "relationship with Christ" was only ever in my mind!

 

So when christians talk of a personal relationship with Christ I agree wholeheartedly with them, so do I sometimes! Just as a muslim will have a personal relationship with Allah, or the Hindu a personal realationship with Krishna.

 

 

The imagination is such a wonderful way in which we can transform ourselves and grow spiritually.

 

Jesus or whoever else we relate to can be as "real" or "alive" as we choose to make them.

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Antlerman!!! Alterman!!! I am laughing so hard! Well that's me! No matter how hard I try to look good something like this happens! That's too funny.

:grin: Yeah, I wasn't sure if that was a typo or if you just misread it? It's still funny.

 

So when you talk about a spiritual vision are you talking about something in your head or an actually three demensional vision in front of your eyes? I believe our brother Paul saw the glorified body of Jesus with literal rays coming from Him and that's what blinded his eyes.

It could be just light, it could be 3 dimensional. I don't think there's anything in the Bible that indicates it was rays coming from a phycial (or glorified) body. That would be your assumption. But again, even it it was the glorified body - he would have to have been seeing up into heaven because Christ had ascended. If the glorified body was back on earth... guess what? That's the 2nd coming. So seeing his glorified body in heaven cannot be done with Paul's two physical eyes. It would have to be a vision.

 

I always learning "Antlerman" :grin: I just don't like things that contradict what's already been written.

Would you agree to say rather that you (like most people) don't like things that contradict what they understand? It's not really "what's already been written", it's really your understanding that you have come to belief about it. Again, there is not only one way to read the Bible. If so, explain 30,000 denominations?

 

I guess you could say i'm a little orthodox about the Scriptures, ya think?

Not really orthodox (because then we'd have to argue which orthodox reads it right), but maybe never really challenged at other interpretations? I think OM would be the master of mulitple readings and understandings to speak to that. :)

 

But I do respect your opinion.

 

Peace and love!

Thanks.

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:) Great post ALTERMAN!

 

Seriously... it was. :thanks:

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ALTERMAN??

 

IS THAT AN ALTERBOY ALL GROWED UP??

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Actually I believe oral tradition was a very rilable way of passing down family history and events from genertation to generation, especially in ancient times. In addition, some of the early Church Fathers knew and were disciples of the original Apostles, so they must have heard actually eyes witness accounts form Peter, John, James and so forth.

 

The Resurrection is the foundation of Christianity. Without the Resurrection Jesus would have been another false Messiah. There were others who claimed to be the Messiah. Judas the Galilean being one of them. Because of the literal bodily Resurrection of Christ I believe in the miracles attributed to Jesus in the Bible. If there wasn't a Resurrection I don't think we would be talking about Christ today. He would be dead and forgotten. After His death the disciples went into hiding. They would have had no reason to leave Galilee and suffer hardship, including death for a dead Messiah.

 

Amy....

 

Yes oral traditions are very important to the study of ancient history. But, there is a reason scholars call them oral "traditions". These traditions are typically (across all areas of ancient history) not play-by-play accountings of actual historical events. People who passed these traditions down from one generation to the next actually studied and learned. They were held in high honor in their communities. But the procedure of passing a tradition down from one generation to the next was not what you might think from a typical 21st century world view.

 

We think of history as being factual in nature - as if reading a newspaper account of a specific event. And we recognize that even with honest effort to lay out the facts of a specific event there will be variances between the different reporting parties.

 

In ancient cultures - where the worldview was different from our own - passing a tradition down from one generation to the next was not so concrete as in our own culture. There was typically a core event at the center of a story. But the surrounding details could be (and often were) varied by the story teller. This could be done as part of the process, no one looked upon this part of the story telling as being dishonest. The story teller could vary the tradition to teach a lesson, to meet the needs of the audience. This is why - as the tradition came to be put into writing - we will find variances between the gospels regarding the same event.

 

So... as I was saying in an earlier post - most scholars (90% or more) who believed Jesus lived, also believed that there are many embellishments, mythologies and legends in the gospels. The puzzle work comes in trying to figure out what is factually true and what is embellishment.

 

With regards to the resurrection, following is an excerpt from one author. This view point is the norm of what mainstream scholars feel about the resurrection. I couldn't give a percentage of how many mainstream scholars (Christian - or otherwise) view it this way. But, I don't think it's an outlandish to say that the overwhelming majority view the resurrection in this way.

 

The God We Never Knew
by Marcus J. Borg

 

We do not know whether the resurrection of Jesus involved an empty tomb or something happening to his physical body. Of course, if we read the resurrection stories in the gospels literally, it did. According to the earliest gospel Mark (written around 70), the tomb of Jesus was empty. Moreover, the stories about the risen Jesus in the other gospels sometimes imply a quite physical reality: Jesus eats, invites Thomas to touch him, and cooks breakfast. Yet it is not clear that we should read these stories literally – that is, as reporting the kinds of events that could have been experienced by a disinterested observer (or, as I sometimes put it, the kinds of events that could have been videotaped). The stories themselves contain “signals” that suggest that we are dealing with a non-ordinary reality and non-ordinary perception: we are told that the risen Christ passed through walls, that his followers sometimes did not recognize him, and that it was possible to see him but still doubt.

 

Nor does it seem to matter whether the Easter experience involved something happening to the corpse of Jesus, once the distinction between two often-confused words is seen. “Resuscitation” intrinsically involves something happening to a corpse; a person dead or believed to be dead comes back to life, resumes the conditions of physical existence, and will die again someday. “Resurrection” does not mean resumption of previous existence but entry into a different kind of existence. To use Paul’s phrase, it involves a “spiritual body” (not a body of flesh and blood); moreover, a resurrected person will not die again.

 

Anyway ... what I'm trying to say ... is that majority scholarship does weigh in towards Jesus actually existing. But, majority scholarship also views the gospels as 60% (or more) mythology, legend and embellishment.

 

In fact, if one wants to talk about the spectrum of scholarly consensus.... Most scholars do agree that Jesus lived and walked this earth. But the ratio is something like 60% to 40% in favor of Jesus actually living.

 

When one looks at the ratio of scholars who hold to a new testament filled with mythology, legend and embellishment the ratio of scholars in favor of that view is something like 90%.

 

This is what I meant in an earlier post when I said that if one is going to use a scholarly majority to defend the historicity of Jesus, then one can not ignore a scholarly majority in other areas, as well. :shrug:

 

Yes! I love John of the Cross, especially his poetry The Dark Night of the Soul and Living Flame of Love. Several singer-musicians have put his poetry to music. John Michael Talbot and Laurenna Ma Kennet (sp? sorry!) are two of my favorites. I have used several of their musical renditions of St. John's poetry in my dramatic presentations on the Song of Solomon and the life of Christ.

 

Julian of Norwich is another favorite of mine. I am moved by her insight of Jesus as a Mother to the Soul.

 

Father Keating? That book sounds interesting.

 

Amy... this discussion (about the Christian contemplative tradition) is very near and dear to my heart. There is so much that I'd like to write, but it is getting near my bedtime. I will try to get another post put together with my thoughts on Christian contemplation tomorrow morning.

 

I really am enjoying this discussion. You seem to be a very sincere person, and I do look forward to futher discussion.

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ALTERMAN??

 

IS THAT AN ALTERBOY ALL GROWED UP??

I'm still trying to process that one... :twitch:

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Amy ... it's morning and I'm back again. I see you didn't make it to this thread last night ... so I don't feel too badly at leaving only a partial response to some of the things you've written about.

 

Below are some thoughts of yours, that stood out in my mind as I was reading last night.

 

Much of my art is about spiritual myticism commonly referred to as that spiritual union between Christ and the Soul, or Christ and the Bride. The woman in my pictures represents my soul or the Bride of Christ as a whole. She can be your soul as well. One can also find in art pictures of Saint John the Apostle leaning on the bosom of Christ. Christian mystics have written much on this subject drawing from The Song of Solomon. Especially in Medieval times there were some who sang songs about Jesus being the Lover-Knight. (I would love to do an entire thread about that. Some of the poetry is breathtakingly beautiful.)

.......

Yes! I love John of the Cross, especially his poetry The Dark Night of the Soul and Living Flame of Love. Several singer-musicians have put his poetry to music. John Michael Talbot and Laurenna Ma Kennet (sp? sorry!) are two of my favorites. I have used several of their musical renditions of St. John's poetry in my dramatic presentations on the Song of Solomon and the life of Christ.

 

Julian of Norwich is another favorite of mine. I am moved by her insight of Jesus as a Mother to the Soul.

 

Father Keating? That book sounds interesting.

 

Hmm.... where to start....

 

Some background might help. I've been meditating now for over 30 years. I started when I was 17 years old. I've experience with both eastern and western forms of meditation.

 

Like you, I love John of the Cross. The Song of Solomon also resonates deeply with me.

 

If you've not read Father Keating, you really should. You can find more information about him at http://www.centeringprayer.com/.

 

Father Keating teaches an ancient form of Christian meditation, but he teaches it with contemporary knowledge of physchology and interspirituality. The form of meditation he teaches is called Centering Prayer.

 

Briefly, Centering Prayer was developed from a book called the Cloud of Unknowing. Following is a description of this book from Wikipedia.

 

 

The Cloud of Unknowing is a practical spiritual guidebook thought to have been written in the 14th century by an anonymous English monk who counsels a young student to seek God not through knowledge but through love. "Our intense need to understand will always be a powerful stumbling block to our attempts to reach God in simple love [...] and must always be overcome", he writes. "For if you do not overcome this need to understand, it will undermine your quest. It will replace the darkness which you have pierced to reach God with clear images of something which, however good, however beautiful, however Godlike, is not God."

 

The book, which draws on the mystical tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, has reputedly inspired generations of mystical searchers from St. John of the Cross
to Teilhard de Chardin. It has been described as Christianity with a Zen outlook, but has also been derided by some as anti-intellectual.

 

The practical prayer advice contained in The Cloud of Unknowing formed the basis for the practice of centering prayer, a form of Christian meditation developed by Trappist monks William Meninger and Thomas Keating in the 1970s.

 

So... here's the thing that I'd like to discuss further. If you've read John of the Cross, you will know that he feels the intellect can only take a person so far on the path to divine union. Eventually a person must transcend the need for constant internal chatter and seek an internal silence. So, John of the Cross, the Cloud of Unknowing and Father Keating (through Centering Prayer) teach the use of just one simple one-syllable word - to "center" on during the meditative session. Father Keating says this one simple word is used to open ourselves up to God, "as God is". Not as we perceive God, not as we manufacture God. The centering word is simply used as a point of intention to be open - in love - to God, as God IS.

 

Following is an excerpt from The Ascent of Mount Carmel - Chapter 8, John of the Cross: Selected Writings, Editor-in-Chief, John Farina (Paulist Press © 1987 by the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, Inc.)

 

No creature or knowledge comprehensible to the intellect can serve it as a proximate means for the divine union with God.

 

Before dealing with faith, the proper and adequate means of union with God, we should prove how nothing created or imagined can serve the intellect as a proper means for union with God, and how all that can be grasped by the intellect would serve as an obstacle rather than a means if a person were to become attached to it.

 

The Cloud of Unknowing discusses the limitations of intellect, imagination, etc... as well.

 

Cloud of Unknowing
, Edited by William Johnston (Image Books, Doubleday © 1973)

Chapter 7

 

It is inevitable that ideas will arise in your mind and try to distract you in a thousand ways. They will questionyou saying “What are you looking for, what do you want?” To all of them you must reply, “God alone I seek and desire, only him.”

 

If they ask, “Who is this God?” Tell them that he is the God who created you, redeemed you, and brought you to this work. Say to your thoughts, “You are powerless to grasp him. Be still.” Dispel them by turning to Jesus with loving desire. Don’t be surprised if your thoughts seem holy and valuable for prayer. Probably you will find yourself thinking about the wonderful qualities of Jesus, his sweetness, his love, his graciousness, his mercy. But, if you pay attention to these ideas they will have gained what they wanted of you, and will go on chattering until they divert you even more to the thought of his passion. Then will come ideas about his great kindness, and if you keep listening they will be delighted. Soon you will be thinking about your sinful life and perhaps in this connection you will recall some place where you have lived in the past, until suddenly, before you know it, your mind is completely scattered.

 

And yet, they were not bad thoughts. Actually, they were good and holy thoughts, so valuable, in fact, that anyone who expects to advance without having meditated often on his own sinfulness, the Passion of Christ, and the kindness, goodness, and dignity of God, will most certainly go astray and fail in his purpose.
But a person who has long pondered these things must eventually leave them behind beneath a cloud of forgetting if he hopes to pierce the cloud of unknowing that lies between him and his God. So whenever you feel drawn by grace to the contemplative work and are determined to do it, simply raise your heart to God with a gentle stirring of love
. Think only of God, the God who created you, redeemed you, and guided you to this work. Allow no other ideas about God to enter your mind.
Yet even this is too much. A intent toward God, the desire for him alone is enough.

 

If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one. A one-syllable word such as “God” or “love” is best. but choose one that is meaningful to you. Then fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may.
This word will be your defense in conflict and in peace. Use it to beat upon ethe cloud of darkness above you and to subdue all distractions, consigning them to the cloud of forgetting beneath you. Should some thought go on annoying you demanding to know what you are doing, answer with this one word alone. If your mind begins to intellectualize over the meaning and connotations of this little word, remind yourself that its value lies in its simplicity. Do this and I assure you these thoughts will vanish. Why? Because you have refused to develop them with arguing.

 

Father Keating discusses the use of a sacred word, or centering word as well....

 

To what exactly is our attention directed in centering prayer? Is it to the sacred word? To the meaning of the word? To the sound of the word? To a vague sense of God being present?

 

None of them. We do not try to fix our attention on the sacred word during centering prayer. We do not keep repeating it or think of its meaning. Its sound is of no significance. The sacred word is only a symbol. It is an arrow pointing in the direction intended by our will.
It is a gesture of sign of accepting God as He is
?

 

Now ... this dimension of Christian meditation - opening oneself to God "as He is" - takes much discipline and practice. As the author of the Cloud points out, the mind is easily distracted. Even by thoughts, visions, etc.. that seem good and holy. But, to simply let go of all that, and be open to God "as He is" takes faith. Because we don't know God "as He is". We have come to know God through our traditions, our cultures, our personal way of perceiving things.

 

From personal experience, I can tell you that reaching and transcending this particular aspect of meditation was by far the most challenging dimension in my 30 years of meditative experience. If you are an artist and Antlerman is a muscian, I am a writer. Words flow from me in waves, and I often find myself struggling to let go of this aspect of my being. There comes a time for internal silence - not a forced silence - but a peaceful indwelled silence (the silence of the universe) so-to-speak. The Sacred Silence of God alone.

 

And so... in my meditative practices I would often find my mind flowing to what seemed good and holy and sacred thought processes, revelations of untold numbers. And ALL of this ALL of it - no matter how good it seemed on the surface - was keeping me from knowing "God as He is".

 

Amy, you are a sincere person. You are creative and intelligent as well. What I write here is not intended as a sermon - simply as communication about my own contemplative journey within the Christian tradition.

 

You mentioned that Father Keating sounded "interesting". Do, research his work. Attend a Centering Prayer workshop. You'll be happy you did... it will take you to an entirely different dimension of Christian contemplation.

 

Before I ran into Father Keating - most of my experience was in eastern forms of meditation. And although I learned much from these forms of meditation - something was missing. In finding Centering Prayer - everything came together for me. Father Keating talks of the complimentary disciplines of eastern and western meditation practices from his own perspective. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Fr. Keating. http://www.centeringprayer.com/resting.htm

 

CB: What is sesshin?

 

TK: Sesshin is seven or eight days of mostly sitting [in meditation] interspersed with teisho, a presentation by the roshi on a particular text or theme, and dokusan, a private interview with the roshi. The private interview isn't spiritual direction. You don't discuss whether you should eat meat on Friday; it is much more profound. It focuses on a koan, an unanswerable question that frustrate s the intellect so that you have to answer not with reason but with the body, a gesture, or words that show that you have understood the particular experience the koan is designed to awaken. If you don't, the roshi rings the bell and you get out. It is very simple. The question is: How much are you willing to change?

 

CB: Did you also participate?

 

TK: I did because I had great admiration for the roshi's spiritual attainment and wisdom. The teishos were wonderful; [they provided] a whole different perspective on ultimate reality, truth, and the false-self system.

 

I learned a great deal from the roshi, especially how dependent on the intellect we are in the West. Zen really begins where the intellect ends. Not that it despises the intellect, but Zen recognizes its limitations and deliberately works on developing the intuitive faculties and moving to a union with all reality. Certain experiences of that unity can't be expressed in words but only in koans, in poetry, or in symbol.

 

CB: Did your experience with Zen inform your Christian faith?

 

TK: Yes, it enriched it. I read the Gospel from a different perspective and saw the truth of Zen in much of the Gospel. Buddhism is a very advanced religion. Roshi Sasaki, who is still functioning at 89 in Mount Baldy in Los Angeles, thought that Zen could help Christians become better Christians. He saw-and I would certainly adhere to his insight-that there is a certain Zen quality in all religions. It is a fundamental religious attitude. Centering prayer is very rich but quite diffuse and tends to put the emphasis on grace in a way that perhaps needs to be balanced by the Zen attitude, which is that we have to do something, too. Actually, St. Ignatius expressed it well when he said, "Act as if everything depended on you, and trust as if everything depended on God." Well, how do you do that? That is a koan. You could spend a lifetime trying to figure out how to do that. What the world religions all have in common is [the fact that] transcendence is the name of the game. This means first having a self and then surrendering it, opening oneself to union with God, which is a gift.

 

CB: In reading your books, I thought that you saw God as immanent as opposed to transcendent. Did I read that incorrectly, or is this another koan?

 

TK: That is what it is. [God is] infinitely transcendent and infinitely immanent. That is the extraordinary part: God couldn't be closer, closer even than consciousness. But the Christian articulation of that mystery is a little different from [that of] the East. The Christian would say you are not God, whereas the Vedic tradition says that you become God. I think we may be talking about the same experience of divine union, but our belief system requires us to say that you may be so united to God that you can't distinguish yourself from Him but that He nevertheless remains ontologically-that is, metaphysically-distinct. That theological disagreement could simply be the result of having an experience and trying to articulate the inexplicable according to your particular belief system.

 

So although it sounds different, it may be the same thing. But we don't have enough experience to say that for sure. We have to have a lot more people in that state and be at a good stage of dialogue to precisely understand each other's terms. We started a little group called the Snowmass Interreligious Conference, where teachers from various spiritual traditions got together and just talked about what helped them the most. This gave us a chance to see a religion through somebody else's eyes, someone who has really been through it and now embodies it.

 

Amy... you've obviously pursued contemplative Christianity in great depth. You would really find much benefit in learning Centering Prayer. It would open up whole new dimensions of Christian contemplation....

 

I hope this wasn't too much, but as I said earlier, "words flow from me". And, it's always such a wonderful thing to run into someone else who has read the Christian mystics. :grin: I look forward to your thoughts.....

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(OM great posts, I haven't read it all yet, but from browsing through, you seem to have done a fair amount of data collecting.)

 

Anyway, I just wanted to throw in something that I find peculiar. (I did this too when Christian btw) How is it that a person can trust oral traditions 2000 years ago or more, with all their "hearts", but at the same time easily understand that a news paper does not reproduce a story 100%? Somehow many think that people back then, before any science or philosophy about the mind/world had developed much, had a better way of understanding things, and to be less guillable?

 

I've considered this many times before. If we today, in the modern world, with internet and years and years of school, easily get duped by email urban legends, yet somehow people 2000 years ago would be smart enough, scientific enough, skeptical enough to see through some rumours of miracle events?

 

Shouldn't we be honest enough to realize that it must be the opposite? If we are guillable to a certain degree today, then people were far more easily fooled back then! If we today spread rumours about "HIV needles at the gas pump", or "Chinese eat fetuses", wouldn't "Someone healed a blind man" back then have been extremely easy to accept and spread? In essence, oral traditions today are unreliable; oral traditions 2000 years ago are even more unreliable.

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Shouldn't we be honest enough to realize that it must be the opposite. If we are guillable to a certain degree today, then people were far more easily fooled back then! If we today spread rumours about "HIV needles at the gas pump", or "Chinese eat fetuses", wouldn't "Someone healed a blind man" back then have been extremely easy to accept and spread? In essence, oral traditions today are unreliable; oral traditions 2000 years ago are even more unreliable.

Yes, very much so. Everyone had stories of miracle workers everywhere back then. It was popular entertainment for the masses. However here is the trick to scholarship (as I understand this process), they look for kernel ideas, commonalities that seem to be behind all the flourishes and regional embellishments to a possible core. This is where the historical Jesus has some legs to stand on. I find it a fascinating archeological dig, so to speak.

 

What I see happens today is that there is magic wand waved over the Bible, that makes all human tendencies to inject all the embellishments and personal perceptions through oral traditions, magically all go away! That magic wand, or magic pill to swallow, is the belief of assumed infallibility. Why do they fight so hard to make the earth 6,000 years old instead of the more accurate 4,500,000,000 years old? Because it will break their magic wand that they created, and force them to reevaluate how they approach their particular chosen beliefs, and more importantly - why they do.

 

I recall somewhere hearing about the historical origins of literalism in regard to scripture. I recall in began around the 200 BCE time period with Ben Sira, who was reacting against the Hellenization of Judaism and was the first to start viewing scripture as infallible from God. Again, fundamentalism is by it very definition a reactionary movement against modernism. But if these things are true, then we can see that people prior to this approached their stories and traditions with a different mindset then the fundis. Fundamentalism is not the original beliefs; they are a reactive belief system that tries to define the original beliefs as their own by waving a magic wand of infallibility over how they see things in the scriputures.

 

If anyone has more information about this history I would be interested in digging deeper into it.

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Just like the story about the "Chinese eating fetuses", it does have a background story from where it started.

 

It was a big performing art festival or something few years back where one of the artists had a chicken with a dolls head, cooked it and ate it. Pretending he was eating a baby. It was to shock the vieweres. It got photographed, and since he didn't reveal his secret (a chicken), people believed he ate a real baby. This got spread, embellished, until last year when one of my partners at my company said "we should outlaw abortions, just look at China, they have fetuses as a delicacy!" And that's how why I started to look into the background to that outrageous claim. Her church (Catholic) talked a lot about this "fetus cannibalism in China". So yes, urban legends do have (sometimes) a core of truth in them, or they're built on some strange event.

 

Now, take the "woman dried cat in microwave", from what I understand it was a complete made up joke, and didn't have any foundation at all. Or some of these other legends, for instance, send your email to Bill Gates, he's handing out free money. Stuff. Or a company that got accused of certain things, and it was a disgruntled employee spreading false rumours. These things have a root from where they came, but not necessarily an event that builds the core of the story.

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(OM great posts, I haven't read it all yet, but from browsing through, you seem to have done a fair amount of data collecting.)

 

Thanks HanSolo .. but don't go too fast here. ;)

 

I've considered this many times before. If we today, in the modern world, with internet and years and years of school, easily get duped by email urban legends, yet somehow people 2000 years ago would be smart enough, scientific enough, skeptical enough to see through some rumours of miracle events?

 

First.... the embellishments were in line with the culture back then. Oral Traditon is not the same thing as "duping" someone intentionally. There is nothing sinister in it. The embellishments and legends were just a normal part of the process.

 

Just like the story about the "Chinese eating fetuses", it does have a background story from where it started.

 

It was a big performing art festival or something few years back where one of the artists had a chicken with a dolls head, cooked it and ate it. Pretending he was eating a baby. It was to shock the vieweres. It got photographed, and since he didn't reveal his secret (a chicken), people believed he ate a real baby. This got spread, embellished, until last year when one of my partners at my company said "we should outlaw abortions, just look at China, they have fetuses as a delicacy!" And that's how why I started to look into the background to that outrageous claim. Her church (Catholic) talked a lot about this "fetus cannibalism in China". So yes, urban legends do have (sometimes) a core of truth in them, or they're built on some strange event.

 

I can see something like this happening in any culture. But when scholars speak of oral tradition they are speaking of something else.

 

Let's go back a few thousand years. Time before the printing press and the computer. Time before easy access to information. In order to preserve history individuals were educated and trained to pass history down from one generation to the next in the form of story or song or play, etc... The story of Job is considered by many scholars to originally have been a play .. for instance.

 

Now... here's the thing. Since cultures were dependent upon memory to hand down the history of a people - they were excellent at memorizing stories, songs, etc... They had to be. We can see a change happening like this today in our very own culture. Our grandparents did not have as easy access to books, literature, computers etc... They were much better at memorizing needed information. How many of you know elderly people who have memorized bible verses by rote, or talk of learning at school by memorization when they were young. The young people of today would never dream of standing in front of a public school classroom and reciting information by rote. That doesn't happen anymore because it isn't necessary for learning or passing knowledge from one person to the next.

 

Ancient cultures excelled in oral traditions. People were schooled in the history of their culture - they memorized the history. Scholars find that at the core of any oral tradition is real - live history. Now, in order to make the "history" stories interesting to their audiences it was entirely within the realm of normal and expected behavior to vary the setting and minor details, or to embellish, exagerate. Think of actors today - they are taught to "overdo" facial expressions if they are acting on stage - or to over act certain parts to draw emphasis. We don't look at that behavior as sinister or intentionally misleading. It's part of the norm. The same could be said for the audiences 2000 years ago, they knew they were listening to stories. They knew the minor details of a story could change from one community to the next. IT wouldn't have surprised them and no one would have thought it sinister, or that those watching the play were in any way gullible.

 

Yes, very much so. Everyone had stories of miracle workers everywhere back then. It was popular entertainment for the masses. However here is the trick to scholarship (as I understand this process), they look for kernel ideas, commonalities that seem to be behind all the flourishes and regional embellishments to a possible core. This is where the historical Jesus has some legs to stand on. I find it a fascinating archeological dig, so to speak.

 

You hit the nail on the head, Antlerman. It is indeed a fascinating archealogical dig - on all levels. I don't just mean the Bible. Have any of you ever studied ancient sumerian literature - talk about fascinating? I've every book Noah Kramer ever wrote and I still can't get enough. Different versions of the same stories can be found miles and miles apart from each other, they can be found in differing strata of physical digs (showing that they came from differing time periods) and still the core of these stories can be quite intact. It is really fascinating what human beings learned to do to preserve their history, their story, for us. These people could have run circles around us in their ability to memorize cultural history - we'd have much to learn from them.

 

And - we've managed to loose it all in literalism. (sigh)

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Oh... one other way to look at ancient oral history is to imagine a narrator coming out before a play or story telling session and saying to the audience... "The following story is based on a true story".

 

Much like our movies. Once we know the movie is based on a true story, we accept the embellishments for what they are. We don't view them as sinister, or audience members as gullible.

 

Ancient people knew this, that stories were "based on a true event" was common knowledge in the culture.

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It's interesting that you bring up cultural traditions. For instance in Sweden in the old days, people believed in gnomes under the house and elves in the forest. (I'm not kidding) And the stories went in oral traditions through generations. And if oral traditions can be considered trustworthy, shouldn't we consider that gnomes and elves actually could exist in some form?

 

I'm not saying that all urban legends are started from a mischievous intent, but when someone say something, we tend to agree and accept the story. The more we trust a person, the more we approve to their stories. And we probably do this to fit in into the group.

 

But I agree that the older generations had better skills to remembers stories, facts and people. But regarding sincerity in telling stories, we can't assume people were more honest, less gullible or less deceiving at the time of Jesus than they are today. Do we tend to paint the ancient time as heaven on earth and everyone filled with the fruits of the holy spirit, and suddenly today, we have con artists, scams, greedy company owners and jokesters inventing stories to further their agenda? How is that? What happened? To be a bit cynical, the difference is that we have more Christians today, so if they were so straight on honest back then, maybe we would've been better off without the religion? You see how backwards it becomes when we put more trust in 2000 year old oral traditions over facts printed on a paper today?

 

I'm not criticizing you OM, because you have a lot of sensible views on these things, but my critique (or my question is why it is like this) is against religious people in general that take old books for granted and truth, and from people they've never met, but refuse to look at a report from a scientific experiment by people they can see on TV or read about in the papers or online.

 

Btw, it's also well known that eyewitness accounts are very unreliable the longer time passes. That's why it's not enough to convict someone only on hearsay and "eyewitnesses", there's always some physical evidence to prove the guilt. Was it any different back then? Even if they could remember facts better, lets say (made up numbers) today we can only remember an event to 70% correct for 3 year, and back then they could remember 70% for 10 years, still 40 years before they write it down, still a lot is forgotten and misunderstood.

 

Now let's say that the oral tradition was reliable to some extend, for facts, people, events etc. Why is there some confusion and errors in the accounts of the gospels? For instance who were the rulers and alive when Jesus was born? Or who saw the empty tomb? (My questions are directed more towards Amy, and not you OM.)

 

Another sidetrack, why didn't Jesus pick out a disciple that was skilled in writing and had him write down all the events? If God really wanted us to have a full, exact and complete Gospel (and I guess here, but I assume the "message" was the most important part) shouldn't he have made sure someone got the story 100% correct for everyone to read? Why wait? Why someone else? Why wasn't even the 12 apostles any important for the foundation for the Church, but Paul was "selected" several years later to build the Church and preach the "message" (that wasn't written down, and he didn't even speak to the apostles to get it)? And here's an interesting twist to it, why did Jesus choose Zacchaeus? I heard some theories that Zacchaeus supposedly became Jesus money manager, if that is true, then it sounds like Jesus was more interested in keeping the money issues in order, than get the message out to the world in our time.

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Oh... one other way to look at ancient oral history is to imagine a narrator coming out before a play or story telling session and saying to the audience... "The following story is based on a true story".

Like The DaVinci Code? ;)

 

Much like our movies. Once we know the movie is based on a true story, we accept the embellishments for what they are. We don't view them as sinister, or audience members as gullible.

Not that we view them as such, but they still are. If I make a movie that is fake, but claim it to be true, some people for certainty will believe it to be true. And that's in our time when people should be less guillable.

 

Ancient people knew this, that stories were "based on a true event" was common knowledge in the culture.

And some stories were not based on true events. Like I presented before, we believe in stories today, made up or distorted from the base event, and huge amounts of people believe it.

 

I even have a book at home with stories during the 20th century, with scientists falling for stories and experiments, that later proved to be false. And even the people the "came up" with the experiments did not intentionally wanted to dupe anyone, but they believed in what they wanted to believe in so much, that they started to see evidence where no evidence were present. (Cold Fusion, N-Rays, Lamarkian Evolution and much more)

 

My argument is that if we as highly evolved scientific skeptic members of a modern society can fall for stories that aren't true. Why can't people 200 years ago? 500 years ago? 1000 years ago? etc... Do people's mental capability to understand truth diminish over time, and get better the further back in history we go? Wouldn't that make the people at Jesus time extremely trustworthy, and honest, and completely impossible to fool?

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It's interesting that you bring up cultural traditions. For instance in Sweden in the old days, people believed in gnomes under the house and elves in the forest. (I'm not kidding) And the stories went in oral traditions through generations. And if oral traditions can be considered trustworthy, shouldn't we consider that gnomes and elves actually could exist in some form?

 

HanSolo ... I appologize. I was using the verbage "oral history" and "oral tradition" interchangeably. Of course there is a difference between an oral tradition and oral history - and I should have known better than to use one term when I was meaning another.

 

My point is ... that oral history was a discipline in all ancient cultures. It was taught. People did not expect the kind of exactness that we expect to be recorded for more recent history. They understood that at the core the story was "history" but that the larger narrative was loosely "based on history".

 

About your overall message ... I agree. In general people are no better (or worse) today than they were 2000 years ago. The standards have changed. I would like to think we are growing and maturing. Most humans consider it immoral to own slaves (for instance). But, at the core, with human nature being gullible - or capable of deception - yes that is a human nature issue (with us from the beginning).

 

All I'm saying is that ancient oral history deserves more respect than being lumped in with "urban legend". There is no intentional discipline to transmitting "urban legend". None that I know, anyway. In ancient cultures it was not uncommon at all to have a local "story teller", "historian" whatever. This person was held in high regard and was highly educated in the oral traditions (both oral history and other oral traditions) of his community. If you want a more local example of this dynamic - talk to anyone familiar with ancient Native American history and tradition.

 

Your other questions, directed at Amy, are valid and I will leave them for her to answer.

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I think we're very close to each other in this subject OM.

 

One of the problems we have today is that when we think of history, we tend to think "true facts and true events", while history at that time was a whole different ballgame. We project our understanding of the world unto a different world that had different views. It's like the ant trying to understand the fly.

 

 

The midrash (sp?) tradition for instance (did you mention it earlier?) where when a moral concept was enclosed into a new body of story that was fitted into the current and contemporary time. It's like the "Hoodwinked" movie. It's the Red Riding Hood story with a new twist. Same basic story, but a new "body" to it. That midrash tradition were commonplace in the Jewish religion. (At least that's what I read/heard/learned somewhere. :) I think it was from The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell.)

 

(edit: I think I'm repeating myself to much here, so I'll leave this particula subject for now, but will keep up reading what y'all post.)

 

Oh, I did have a little addition. The "story tellers" that you mentioned, I heard somewher that "prophet" was the original name of these "tellers". That the early "prophets" had nothing to do with telling the future as an oracle was, or telling a message from God, but was telling the religious stories (with midrash, wich could be said is "message from God" but in a bit different perspective). I can't remember what the root of the word was though... but I think it literally meant "singer". Just like Saul (in old testament) dancing and singing with the other singing and dancing prophets under a prophetic spell or annointing (christus).

 

So, if prophetic annointment is being a christinized "truth" teller, like Jesus preaching the message or the religious morals and views into a new modern concept, then he was "Christus", the same way as many others before and after. Like many on this site.

 

And btw, OM you're right, I should NOT just throw away the stories with the excuse they all are "urban legends", even though there's a possibility much of it is, and even maybe all, but not necessarily so. I'm standing in the middle ground there. :) (I accidently wrote "I should just throw away", but I meant the opposite.)

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Yes, I think we have a different expectation of information today than in the past. Our tendency is to expect things to be accurate and credible when it comes to history and the natural sciences. I can easily see back then where people having exposure to the same stories, having heard many variations of it, would "generally" accept the story, but not has hard cold gospel fact in all its details. I'm sure a concept like that would seem foreign to them. Stories are a vehicle of telling a message. This is what the Gospels are. It is equally as wrong to say they are absolutely true, as it is that they are a lie.

 

Some literalist elsewhere on the site suggested that our reasons for not being Christians were because we viewed the "bible was unreliable” My answer to that seems appropriate here:

 

But you see, that would not be correct. I would never say it like that. The bible has a lot of mythology throughout it. You can't call mythology unreliable. Mythology serves a different purpose than scientific or historical facts. That is why and I still maintain the problem is literalism. Curious you didn't include Literalism of the list of choices?

The embellishments are part of the story. The surrounding mythology tells of the story. They aren't "lies and fabrications" as such. The problem is with the audience, or the preacher who tells the audience to take this as "infallible". This is why we have the arguments we do. Things just don't add up if you look at it that way.

 

Back to Ben Sira in 150 BCE, being the first to call scripture the actual, literal words of God (from what I seem to recall from elsewhere). Prior to that no one took them that way. I'm sure most people saw like that as a little "extreme" under the circumstances. Actually, it would have been ideological and political. Just like today. :) (No I'm repeating myself too)

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Sorry! I'm still back at Paul's vision of Christ. When I first referenced 1Cor.15:8 I used a paraprased translation, the Message Bible. The Jerusalem Bible also uses the same word, "Appeared." "And last of all He appearaed to me."

 

<snip>

 

This appearance of Jesus was real indeed. So much so that Paul was literally blinded by the radiance that shown from His person. This was not a vision of the mind.

 

Sorry I wasn't able to address your thoughts on meditation.

I found this interesting essay on the possible understandings of the ressurection. So far it seems a fair and scholarlly approach which is looking at and considering the different options or a physical ressurection or a spiritual one. There are actually differening accounts of Paul's vision within the book of Acts itself. This is a good section of his essay on Paul:

 

Paul's own account of his encounter with the risen Lord is described first in Acts 9: 1-9 and then in his speeches reported in Acts. In Acts 22: 6-9 Paul says, 'As I made my journey and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" And I answered, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said to me, "I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting". Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me'. In other words, in this account, it was an inner voice. On the other hand, in the passage in chapter 9 the others hear the voice but see nothing. And later, in Acts 26: 13-16, where Paul is speaking to king Agrippa, Paul repeats his story, saying that on his way to Damascus 'At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It hurts you to kick against the goads". So here again his companions see the light but do not hear the voice. Here the voice speaks for much longer than in the other account, Jesus going on to commission Paul as his apostles to the gentiles.

 

Now Paul (according to Luke, the author of Acts) reports this experience as the risen Lord appearing to him. You remember that in his listing of Jesus' appearances he includes this. 'Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me' (I Cor. 15:8). This was of vital importance to Paul because it was this that made him an apostle. He refers to himself as an apostle in his letters (for example, Gal. 1:1) and says (Galatians 1: 16) that God 'was pleased reveal his Son to me'. In I Cor. 9:1 he asks, 'Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?' - using the same Greek verb, opthe for this as for the other apostles' seeing the Lord. However the scholars are widely agreed that this word, followed by the dative, is better translated as 'appeared to' or 'was seen by'. In other words, it is compatible with visions rather than a physical presence.

 

So in this overwhelming experience on the Damascus road Paul saw a bright light, received a vision of Jesus, and heard a voice. There was no physical presence of Jesus, not only because Paul does not speak of one but also because if there had been, those who were with him would also have seen it. He had a vision of Jesus and heard an inner voice. And it seems very reasonable to treat Paul's experience as our clue to the earlier experience of the first apostles. If so, they had visions of the risen Lord, but no bodily presence was involved.

 

Indeed the idea that Jesus' resurrection was a physical event would be incompatible, for Paul, with his belief that 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God' (I Cor. 15: 50), and his belief that the resurrection of the faithful will not be in their physical body but a spiritual body. He says, 'It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body' (I Cor. 15: 44). If this was what Paul believed, he may well have thought that what he saw in his vision was the spiritual body of Jesus.

 

Note his use of the word "vision"? If you read the rest of his article, you will see him evalutate the phyiscal ressurection side. He makes no definitive conclusion as far as I can tell. What I would expect from a scholarlly look at this subject.

 

Again, I don't want to get bogged down on this. The point is Amy, there are legitamate other ways of looking at this - not just one. Do you see this? You're understanding seems right to you, but don't be married to one way of looking at things. That's the end of personal growth. There are other possiblities. There is not one understanding.

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And also, one should remember that Acts is not written by Paul, but a document written by supposedly Luke as a documentary of Paul's experience. But it's also based on hearsay and retold stories. From what I understand, scholars don't trust Acts to be a complete accurate document of Paul's journey, since it conflicts on some points with Paul's own words. Where did he go after the "vision" for instance? So if the Acts are different than Paul's words, we shouldn't trust too much how Acts represents the "vision" Paul had, or the event itself.

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In my opinion it is far easier to believe
And this is what separates the believers from the unbelievers.
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Hello Amy....

 

For whatever reason, there seems a need for you to discuss the resurrection in more depth. To be honest I had hoped we could move on to the contemplative dimension of Christianity (since this whole area is fascinating for me). :) But, it seems important to you to fully explore the resurrection, so maybe we can delve into contemplative christianity at a later date. :)

 

It's not like I haven't heard or read such arguments before. You lean more towards the view of liberal scholars and I toward more conservative views. Again just like our discussion about the existence of Jesus we agreed there were arguments for and against this on both sides. Whenever I quote anything from the Bible, well, " that's just heresay", even the fact that Paul was blind for three days, which a mere spiritual vision wouldn't blind a person for three days ~ just heresay.

 

There are very valid scholarly arguments for and against the existence of Jesus. As I said in another post, the ratio of scholars as divided on the historicity of Jesus is somewhere in the range of 60% feeling that Jesus did live and 40% going with the Jesus myth. So... on the question of the historicity of Jesus, there is no clear consensus (one way or the other).

 

However, Amy, on the question of legend, mythology, embellishment in the gospels - the consensus is huge in FAVOR of an oral tradition at the core of the gospels (which is based on truth), but that this core is layered in years of oral legend, mythology and embellishment. Amy this is important, 90% (or more) of mainstream scholars hold to this view. There are a few who do not hold to this view, who hold to a more literal reading of the gospel - but Amy those "scholars" are in an EXTREME minority (as in 10% maybe). And I do use the term loosely here - because scholarship implies the willingness to study archeology, literary analysis techniques, etc... just because someone has a doctorate in theology does not qualify them to study ancient Biblical history in depth).

 

Let's take the longer ending of Mark - for an example. I won't go into all the minute details here... but suffice it to say that

 

Mark 16 is the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It asserts the discovery of Jesus' empty tomb by Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, who might or might not be Jesus' mother, and Salome. They find instead a man dressed in white who announces Jesus' resurrection. In the disputed "longer" ending section Mary Magdalene sees the resurrected Jesus then tells other followers of Jesus about this, but they do not believe her. Jesus then appears to the disciples, gives them instructions, and then is taken up into Heaven.

 

There is much debate about the ending of Mark, and many textual problems—
there are nine different endings (or combinations of endings) known—but most of the debate focuses around the so-called ‘longer’ ending (16:9-20). There is evidence that these verses are not part of the original document, but rather an ancient ‘completion’ of it. According to Daniel J. Harrington they are probably a second century compilation of resurrection stories mostly found in Luke 24 and some from John 20

 

You can read about it more depth at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16

 

But, back to my original point, about scholarly consensus. The OVERWHELMING majority of scholars feel there is a major problem with the ending of Mark.

 

Scholarly conclusions

Almost all
contemporary
New Testament textual critics
have concluded that neither the longer or shorter endings were originally part of Mark’s Gospel
, though the evidence of the early church fathers above shows that the longer ending had become accepted tradition.
The United Bible Societies' 4th edition of the Greek New Testament (1993) rates the omission of verses 9-20 from the original Markan manuscript as "
certain
."
For this reason, many modern Bibles decline to print the longer ending of Mark together with the rest of the gospel, but, because of its historical importance and prominence, it is often included as a footnote or an appendix alongside the shorter ending. Nevertheless, a handful of scholars, particularly those in traditionalist or fundamentalist traditions, argue that the evidence is insufficient to justify its exclusion or that the evidence in fact supports its inclusion. However, in biblical scholarship, changes and advances due to creative detective work and new discoveries have a long past history of proceeding with caution very slowly,
so the almost unanimous conclusion with regards to the inauthenticity of the ending(s) of Mark should be seriously considered
.

 

Because the "almost unanimous conclusion" of New Testament textual scholars is to read the New Testament in another way than literally - I do not agree with your following statement:

 

Again just like our discussion about the existence of Jesus we agreed there were arguments for and against this on both sides

 

There may be arguments for and against the historicity of Jesus. But, I'm sorry Amy, there just simply isn't any valid evidence for reading the gospels as literal, 100%, inerrant truth. There just simply isn't - it goes against common sense. This is where we differ. Those who hold to an innerant view are clinging to church tradition for defense - and church tradition is just that "tradition". It is not church "fact". It is possible that "tradition" can be wrong.

 

And what troubles me, on a personal level - because I am still Christian, because I still consider myself part of the church - is that so much of the meaning of the gospel stories and the New Testament as a whole has been lost over the centuries. Once a person gives themselves permission to read the Bible in another way besides literal they will find all new layers and dimensions to the Bible that they never knew existed. They will discover infinite possibilities instead of finite possibilities. Clinging to church "tradition" is killing the soul's quest for Christ, Amy. It dead-ends the search. :(

 

In my opinion it is far easier to believe that something incredibly dramatic happened to Paul to cause him to go from throwing Christians in jail, agreeing with the stoning of Stephen, hating Jesus, to suffering mryterdom for His sake. Jesus appeared to him.

 

I too believe something incredibly dramataic happend to Paul. Following is another quote from the Book, The God We Never Knew. I quoted this source yesterday in my earlier post... most (as in 90% or more) mainstream scholars would hold to this view.

 

The Post-Easter Jesus of Christian Experience

 

In the beginning was experience. The primary cause of the transition from the pre-Easter Jesus to the post-Easter Jesus was the experience of the community - more specifically, the Easter experience. The early Christian conviction that "God raised Jesus from the dead" is so widespread in the New Testament that it has been called "the earliest Christian creed." That conviction was grounded in their experience of the risen Christ, and it gave birth to the post-Easter Jesus.....

 

This expansive meaning of Easter as the experience of the living spiritual Christ is pointed to by Paul's letters, the earliest writings to refer to the resurrection of Jesus (and the earliest writings in the New Testament). In 1 corinthians, written to a Christian community in Greece in the 50s, Paul says, "I have seen Jesus our Lord." When did that happen? Paul had not seen the historical Jesus; he therefore was referring to the risen Christ. But when did Paul see the risen Christ?

 

Not until at least a few years after the death of Jesus, in what is commonly known as Paul's "Damascus Road" experience, described three times in a the book of Acts. This experience was a vision, complete with a "photism" and "audition." In I Corinthians 15, where Paul includes himself in a list of those to whom the risen Christ appeared, his language also suggests a visionary experience. Moreover, in the rest of the chapter, Paul insists that the resurrection body is nota a physical body but a spiritual body. Thus Paul's "Easter experience" was the ecstatic (visionary) experience of the risen spiritual Christ some years after the death of Jesus.

 

Amy ... I am asking the following not with anger, not with intention to cause pain - but with very sincere intention to promote your own inner search.

 

Why does this understanding of the resurrection bother you so much, why is it threatening?

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It's not like I haven't heard or read such arguments before. You lean more towards the view of liberal scholars and I toward more conservative views. Again just like our discussion about the existence of Jesus we agreed there were arguments for and against this on both sides. Whenever I quote anything from the Bible, well, " that's just heresay", even the fact that Paul was blind for three days, which a mere spiritual vision wouldn't blind a person for three days ~ just heresay.

 

In my opinion it is far easier to believe that something incredibly dramatic happened to Paul to cause him to go from throwing Christians in jail, agreeing with the stoning of Stephen, hating Jesus, to suffering mryterdom for His sake. Jesus appeared to him.

Have I ever said that, "that's just heresay"? If what you are refering to is oral histories as "heresay", to use the term "heresay" reduces it to something it really wasn't. I would reread OM's post on that subject a few posts back.

 

In either case, what you seem to be hanging your case on is two things: (and for the sake of argument I will accept the premise that these acouunts are 100% accurate in detail).

 

1. You say a "mere spritual vision" wouldn't blind a person for 3 days.

 

First what do you think a spiritual vision is? Why do you call it "mere"? I would really like to know how you view them in such incidental light like that? Do you think it's like just getting high? I had a spiritual vision and it was hardly "mere". Go back and read that post again. It changed the entire course of my life. That is not something "mere" vision like having some sort of light headed apperation appear. It was profound. Why couldn't the same thing be true with Paul? It hardly seems a trite thing to me to see Paul's experience as a vision.

 

Let's look at one passage on how Paul see's visions: (2 Cor 12:1-4)

 

It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

"Visions" is his word choice. In the body or out of the body, to him made no difference, it was a vision. Was it profound? That's definitely the impression one seems to get reading this! What he heard was so profound he dare not repeat it to another soul! In fact, let me take it one step further Amy, it was more profound than his Damascus Road experience!! He was able to repeat the words he heard there ("Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me..."), where in this one they went beyond even that to the point he dare not utter them! So yes..... a spiritual vision would in fact be enough for Paul to become the great evangelist (that coupled with other personality traits that made him suited for the job).

 

2. You say blindness could not be caused by a vision

 

You are making an assumption that blindness was caused by the light. Did it blind all his companions? No, I don't see that as the cause. Paul's blindness had spiritual overtones to it. There would be lessons in it for Paul. Latter in life he had an infirmity that he spoke of, "you see with how such large letters I write to you?" Many read that Paul's "infirmity" was his poor/failing eyesight.

 

The blindness could easily be a symptomatic reaction to his profound experience. These sorts of "inexplicable" physical symptoms happen all the time in the world, where there is usually some psychological trigger that causes paralysis, etc. Now, don't jump to a conclusion that I'm saying this shows Paul's vision was "psychological". The only thing I am saying is that it could be HIS psychological reaction to what happened.

 

What I see you do is keep running back to this "symptom" as one of the two supports you base your view on. You have no support to say that the light was the cause of his blindness. Again, were his companions blinded? My point is to point out yours is not the only possible, reasonable explanation. The above is not "impossible". A vision with profound emotional impact that changed his life, so profound that he experienced a period of physical reaction to it.

 

Amy, from the heart, I see you getting hung up on your beliefs being "right". Any challenges to ways of looking at this things that don't meet with yours causes a reaction in you to defend you views. I cannot help but believe that this limits you in reaching out to other ways of understanding and responding to the world. The anchor of "truth" in seeking knoweldge of the heart is not in the head. It feels like you are putting "God" in a box of rational thought.

 

BTW, I'm curisou if you have done other art with other religious themes from the Bible, or even other's impressions non-Biblical of your spritual sense. I would really enjoy seeing them. :)

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2. You say blindness could not be caused by a vision

 

You are making an assumption that blindness was caused by the light. Did it blind all his companions? No, I don't see that as the cause. Paul's blindness had spiritual overtones to it. There would be lessons in it for Paul. Latter in life he had an infirmity that he spoke of, "you see with how such large letters I write to you?" Many read that Paul's "infirmity" was his poor/failing eyesight.

 

The blindness could easily be a symptomatic reaction to his profound experience. These sorts of "inexplicable" physical symptoms happen all the time in the world, where there is usually some psychological trigger that causes paralysis, etc. Now, don't jump to a conclusion that I'm saying this shows Paul's vision was "psychological". The only thing I am saying is that it could be HIS psychological reaction to what happened.

 

How about a head injury? Just because Paul didn't record the possibility he may have taken a blow to the head, doesn't mean he would link it to the visions experienced.

 

And blind for three days? if muscles around the optic nerve were swollen as a result of trauma (or seizure even), three days would be how long it would take for swelling to subside.

 

Amy, if someone in a Psych ward had a seizure, and later reported seeing angels and smelling the sweetness of heaven, would you believe them? Would you go rushing for pen and paper so you could take dictation on what is obviously a new revelation from god through this person?

 

Of course you wouldn't! Because NOW we have a better understanding of physiological events and how they are perceived by the mind.

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