“Rowland Croucher” wrote:

For the untutored (you lucky people): can we trust what the NT says about Jesus, and what Jesus said (about anything)?

Mark responded:

A good question.

Yes, we can trust … but should we trust?

or

Yes we are ABLE to trust but it may not be the best for us to trust every word.

For my position a good introduction is John Shelby Spong’s “Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism” (Harper SanFrancsico: 1991) I don’t agree wholeheartedly with all Spong says but this book raises the problems and gives a good overview …and is an easy read.

1. I approach the bible like any other ancient document. This means that original manuscripts (or as close as we can get to the originals), translation difficulties, cultural setting, time of writing, writer’s purpose and chosen audience have an impact on the meaning and cannot be dismissed.

2. Though having studied ancient Israel as history, I am not a Greek (or Hebrew) scholar and have to rely on others in this area.

3. For me, God stands apart from His bible and is not dependent on the bible or its accuracy. God is greater than the bible. My faith does not stand or fall on the basis of the bible but on the basis of God.

4. Although I view Jesus as both the Messiah and my Lord, I do not view Jesus as the same as the infinite One God. The errors that Jesus makes seem to me to ring true and indicate that it is Jesus’ words that are being stated.

5. For me, the inspiration of the bible comes from how God uses it to speak to me in my contemporary position not necessarily from the content contained within it. It is God’s use of the bible to enliven me that matters more than it’s historical accuracy.

6. I am aware of other views having been a pentecostal (and thus a fundamentalist) and an evangelical (Baptist) for my first 25 years as a Christian. I still read widely over a range of theological viewpoints. I do not write to convert others to my way of thinking (for it may be wrong …I’ve been wrong in the past many a time) but to discuss and learn (no-one did thius for me. I was raised as a “mushroom Christian” thinking that a fundamentalist view was the only view available.)

7. I don’t believe that God ever over-rides human will therefore the writers of the gospels express their own humanity and ideas in the stories that they are writing. The gospels are not the word of God but the story of other people’s experience of God in a past time. It is not written for us to slavishly follow today but for us to learn from and to forge our own unique journey with God.

8. Emotion is high in any discussion of the bible as for some it is the basis of their faith. I believe truth to be more important than church doctrine or the bible and that all truth is God’s truth.

There are a number of problems when looking at whether the words recorded as being said by Jesus are in fact Jesus’ words. These include (off the top of my head …there may be more)

1. Jesus spoke Aramaic but the gospels are written in Greek (of varying formality).

2. Paul wrote before any gospel was written. Paul never met Jesus when Jesus was alive as a human being. The incident on the road to Damascus was not seen by others but only paul (according to Acts). Paul doesn’t mention the Damascus road incident but may be referring to himself as caught up in the seventh heaven.

3. The gospel writers were not eyewitnesses or apostles.

4. The first gospel to be written was Mark. mark tells simple story without lots of miracles and parables. Jesus appears to be a human teacher / healer talking aboput the realm of God and helping others. There is no resuurection appearance by Jesus.

5. The last gospel written is John. This borrows heavily from the secular meaning of Logos (which I have previously written about).

6. There is a huge shift on who Jesus is from Mark to John’s gospel. John presents Jesus as God. From Michael Goulder’s work it would appear that there is very little of what Jesus actually said in John’s gospel. This is more accurately representing what Jesus had become to the early church now in exile.

7. Goulder also presents a good case for the gospels as a “midrashic” intepretation of the life of Jesus borrowing from Old Testament sources. (I have also written about this in past posts.) it is most likely that they are meant as a liturgy to be used in church for teaching the truth about God as seen in Jesus’ life. They can be divided up into sections for the Jewish calender.

[Barbara Thiering puts forth another view that the gospels have a hidden meaning and calls it a “pesher” technique. This also seems to work but greatly devalues Jesus to the level of a member of the Essene community fighting with John the Baptist … among others. I don’t find her arguments as compelling as Goulder’s but there may be some truth to a hidden message in the gospels as gnostics have long pointed out. I don’t totally dismiss this possibility.]

8. As a result of all the above I believe the words attributed to Jesus are not wholly his own words which one would have heard if a translator had been used and you were standing right next to Jesus. They are summaries (perhaps taken from a Q document … a supposed document where all the sayings came from …like the Gospel of Thomas). One is more likely to be closer to Jesus actual word’s in Mark than in John. I don’t think any of the words in John came from the historical Jesus … they came from the church’s interpretation of Jesus. The long speeches Jesus makes in John are obviously a paraphrase even if one does think them “historical”. How many people can memorise and quote a person’s speech word for word after 70 years? (John was written around 100 CE)

That is already a heap to digest. Each point could have a book written on it … and has had. There are many variations on each of the above points I have made …and each will be a differing Christian opinion.

Discussion does not mean quoting a bible verse to “prove” me wrong. A vomit of bible verses proves nothing.

Have a look at some of the links at Matt’s website: http://www.alt-christianlife.com/links.htm

In the end it is not what i vbelieve or what your chgurch believes but what you do with your own belief in order to follow God.

From John Milton’s “Areopagitica” (1644) [Appleton- Century Crofts; New York:1951]

p. 14 ” … the example of Moses, Daniel, and Paul, who were skilful in the learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, which could not possibly be without reading their books of all sorts, in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into Holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek poets, and one of them a tragedian …” (Acts 17:28 from Aratus; 1 Corinthians 15:33 from Euripides; Titus 1:12 from Epimenides)

p. 37 “Any man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy. There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to another, than the charge and care of their religion.”

p.51 “And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth to be the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.”