Nomad

Why do so many Christians hate Bishop John S. Spong?

I was going thru some of my old VHS tapes and found an old episode of Politically Incorrect with one of my favorite Christians, Bishop John S. Spong. I haven't heard anything from him lately, so I did a google search on him.

I found a ton of links of Christians just ripping him apart, why do Christians hate him?

As an Atheist, I think the world would be a much better place with more people like Bishop John S. Spong around.


Here are a couple of short clips from that show.

Heretic

Truth


A funny clip from an episode of Becker

Dumbass

papermachesatan

Who is Bishop John S Spong?

Rodney

Former Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey, or part of it. Espoused an open-minded, non-literalist version of Christianity drawing on a number of different modern-day theologians, thinkers, and historians. Also very open-minded on views of human sexuality, etc. Roundly despised by religious conservatives of all stripes. Wrote a load of books, too.

chavos

i'm christian, and i credit his theology with helping me return to the church after being an athiest for most of my life.

Now, more critically, i see some problems with his theology, but its nothing to hate over. He does a good job in reclaiming the vocabulary of faith, especially for GBLT persons.

Mantus

Well I took the bait, i did some reading,

Very good reading might I add. Yet despite all his tearing down of wall he holds on to Christ and builds out of Christ that which probably never existed. He seems reluctant to take that leap of faith that Christ did himself and reveal to people that all their gods are one. Though I must give kudos to Spong for at least going as far as he did.

Sadly I believe his ideas would not change anything. Even if they were adopted by Christians they would only serve as an edifice for a new institution of Christ to replace to current institutions. As with churches of the past, it will become corrupt with the stench of human flaws all to quickly. Spong with his amazing understanding and depth of the subject doesn’t seem to see the obvious: despite all that Christ was, his teachings still resulted in Christianity we know of today. So how can he hope to achieve something greater that Christ by resurrecting him.

I am not sure whether the answer really lies within religion. Somewhere deep within us there is a spark to a new beginning to a better age of humanity.

Perhaps what we really need to do is lose all our gods. Maybe then as children who leave their parents to tackle the cruel world on their own we will mature. Then again perhaps not.

bermuDa

i like that guy, one of the few christian holy men who makes sense when he opens his mouth... aside from the whole believing in god part

__________________
I am the very model of a moderator gentleman.

Fibrosa

I've read a few books by Spong and I find him to be an intelligent and, for the most part, well-reasoned man.

I think most Christians dislike Spong because of his liberal views towards homosexual's, miracles, Jesus's divinity and the like.

He's preaching a new message and the old school Christians think that's akin to worshipping Satan..

asaris

I've never read him, so I might be wrong about this, but from everything I've heard, he doesn't believe any of the key Christian beliefs (divinity of Christ, His resurrection, et al). It just seems wrong and dishonest to call oneself a Christian if you don't believe these things. There's also comments he made about African Anglicans having just come out of the jungle.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

chavos

It was dishonest and wrong to call yourself Christian if you beleived in sola scriptura, and didn't follow the Pope during the reformation? Interesting.

As a "liberal" christian...i don't buy in to the idea that i have to affirm the creeds or their focus to be loyal to Jesus Christ's message. Literal, bodily ressurrection is just one interpretation of the Gospels. So is divinity of Christ. Its not dishonest or wrong to have an open, honest disagreement. That's what this is...

Tophat665

So far as I can tell, there is only one item that distinguishes a Christian from one who calls themself a Christian but ain't: Whether on not one has faith in Christ. Now, that does not mean that Christ needs to be any more divine than you and I. Just that you need to have faith in him.

Spong, it seems to me, is one who has his head screwed on more or less straight. Of course, that comes from the "If the Fundies hate him, he must be right about something," school of thought.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

almostaugust

Interesting man. I heard him talk on radio and was impressed with his insights.

__________________
'And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass'

Lebell

I've met him and enjoyed talking to him.

Very thought provoking.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

asaris

The whole point of the Christian faith is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ -- his victory over sin and death. Without his victory over sin, his victory over death would be meaningless, and without his victory over death, his victory over sin would be meaningless. So to compare these two beliefs to something of considerably less importance like the protestant reformation (and the Roman Catholics agree with me here) simply reveals a misunderstanding of what it means to be a Christian.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

tecoyah

Same debate different face. A prime example of the inability(as far as the public face ) of christianity to evolve into modern society.

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

chavos

I think it reveals disagreement, not misunderstanding. But that's me. Learn what the man has to say before you declare him to be wrong...

asaris

So I agree with Tophat that a Christian is someone who has faith in Christ. Where we disagree is what that means. I would argue that unless there's some difference between a Christian having faith in Christ and a Muslim, say, 'believing' in Christ, there's no meaning to the term Christian. There are plenty of people who think Christ was a good man, and said some good things, who should not be counted as Christians, and in fact would not want to be counted as Christians. Islam, for example, teaches that Christ was a great prophet. So what is meant by 'faith in Christ' that separates Christian belief in Christ from non-Christian belief in Christ?

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Tophat665

It is unnecessary top believe in Christ's ressurrection to have faith in Christ. How do I, as someone who thinks of Christ as a philosopher and the Bible as a primarily historical and political document make this assertion?

It is because it wasn't until well after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome that there was any uniformity in belief in Christ's divinity, and only then because, after the council of Nicea, it was official Roman doctrine, and to believe otherwise was heretical, and cut one off from the benefits of following the state religion (as well as subjecting one to the sanctions agains infidels.)

Now, how people could have been calling theselves Christian for 300 years, and suffering the displeasure of Rome (which tended to get deadly) and not have had faith is beyond me. However, not much more than half these folks believed that Christ had died and come back, and not much less than half took "Son of God" as something other than the literal interpretation it is given these days.

Therefore, to me Christian means having faith in Christ, divine or no; alive or dead; avatar, prophet, or philosopher.

Of course, to me a good Christian is one that 1) actually tries to live like Christ and 2) keeps his religion out of my politics. But that's something different.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

asaris

Of course, tophat, you don't actually answer my question. If being a Christian only requires, at a minimum, believing Christ was a prophet, then all Muslims are Christians. And that doesn't seem right. And you also misrepresent the Arian controversy that led up to the Council of Nicea. It did not arise until rather late in the history of the early church - the favorite heresy in the early church was gnosticism, which denied Christ's humanity. And in fact, nearly all of the early church fathers affirmed Christ's divinity as well as his humanity.

You want to argue that the desire for uniformity in belief only arose after Constantine, and it is certainly true that this desire was more prevalent then. But even scripture shows a great earnestness in preventing false doctrine, and the arian doctrine denying the divinity of Christ was rejected by a council in Antioch in 264.

Moreover, it's always unclear what most Christians believed in the early church, since most Christians could not read or write. You would be correct in saying that many bishops were Arian (in fact, a little over half were), but that doesn't necessarily mean that most Christians followed Arius.

For me it comes down to two arguments. First of all, Christ claims to forgive sins. But it's nonsense to forgive someone unless they have sinned against you. Therefore the people Christ forgave must have sinned against him. The only way this makes sense is if Christ is God. (And, in fact, the people of the time understood him to be claiming this when they heard him claim to forgive sins). But the central point of Christianity is the forgiveness of sins. So it must also be central to Christianity that Christ is God.

The second argument: Christ claimed to be God (there are other reasons to say this than the forgiveness argument). A man claiming to be God is either a con man, a lunatic, or God, since the claim is either true or false, and the person making the claim can either know it's false or not know it's false. In the first two of these cases, it doesn't make sense to claim that he's a prophet -- he must be less than that, either on a level with the man who claims he's a poached egg or a very bad man. In the third case, he must be more than a prophet, since he's God.

So I've given two arguments and a reason in this thread, and one in another thread, as to why I think a Christian must believe in the divinity of Christ. Do you have a counter-argument?

(facts come from "http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01707c.htm". The second argument is from Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis (while I'm citing anyway ))

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Mantus

asaris,

How about simply having faith in the idea of Christ. Many great men walked this earth. Having faith in Christ is choosing to believe that Christ’s teachings are the best way for humanity to become better then what we are.

Christ claims that both he and god will forgive our sins. This is a great lesson for humanity. Christ shows us that we should have the capacity to forgive the moral mistakes of others and that everyone should be given a chance to reform.

I don’t see why one must look at Christ as God. This is especially true if one does not take the Bible literally. If Christ was indeed enlightened then one can only imagine how difficult it would be to communicate such a state with others. Viewpoints, imagery, vocabulary and understanding change over time. The ontological vocabulary and understanding of Christ and his disciples could easily mislead us. Jesus believed that he was one with god and that god was within him. I do not see how that would make him crazy? If he were a mortal man his image of the world would be limited by what knowledge was available to him. In those days religion and science were practically inseparable and evoking god[s] was as normal to them as talking of science is to us in the modern days.

chavos

asaris...i'll say it once. Lewis was a smart guy. But the LLL arguement is a bunch of crap. First, it profoundly denigrates persons with mental illness. Delusions of grandour are not a reason to wholesale ignore what someone is saying. Second, it profoundly misrepresents the text. The claims to divinity are not clear in the primary witnesses to Jesus. Later texts, such as John still are only partly christological. In any case, you must first posit to literal innerancy for the Lewis argument to hold any water.

The forgiveness arguement assumes a narrow defintion of who can forgive...and who is empowered to forgive. I can tell someone that their sins are forgiven, becuase i trust in God's complete mercy. I don't need to be the wronged party to hold out the good news of God's reconciling love. I don't need to be God to do that either.

asaris

The problem with this and similar views (Jesus as guru) is that it's anachronistic. He was not a Buddhist philosopher, he was a Jew, and so was raised in a culture that firmly believed in the oneness of God. For a Jew to claim to be one with God can only mean one in the sense of identical with.

Chavos (rightly) questions the LLL argument. It's not an airtight argument, and it's not meant to be. But he goes a bit too far saying that it's a bunch of crap. Firstly, it's not meant to denigrate persons with mental illness, just to point out that we don't consider such persons to be good role models. Not that we should ignore everything they say, or anything like that, but that we don't consider such people to be prophets. Secondly, it's not true that it misrepresents the text. It is true that Christ nowhere says "I'm God". But he says as much.

I've already mentioned the forgiveness argument (which is also from Lewis). But there are other places. The most compelling is the fact that Christ applies the divine name (I AM) to himself. Before you object that he could hardly avoid saying I am in ordinary conversation, let me point out that the Greek used to render Christ's "I am" sayings is not the normal way of saying I am in the language. He also applies the name "Son of Man" to himself, which is not, as it is often taken to be, an affirmation of his humanity, but rather his divinity. It is a reference to a passage in the Old Testament (which I can't find right now) that fairly clearly refers to God.

Regarding Chavos's objection to the forgiveness argument: what you say is well and good, but it doesn't really fit with the text. It's clear that, when Christ claims to forgive sins, he's claiming to forgive them, and in doing so, claiming to be God. Why else would his audience pick up stones to kill him for blasphemy otherwise?

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

chavos

I'm going to hold back my anger, becuase i honestly don't beleive you intended to inflict it. But look at what you said. Then replace "mental illness" with "cancer," "heart disease" or "paraplegia." Then you'll understand, why i as a mentally ill person, consider what you said a grave violence against the dignity of my person.

Assuming that the text accurately quote him. and that you understnad the context and implied meanings of Aramaic, translated in to greek in the first century AD. Pardon me while i retain my skepticism. The intitial witnesses, the ones i regard as most reliable, do not point to a diefied Jesus. To me, Jesus of Nazarath does not need to be God for God to show God's solidarity, unity, and love....in being raised in to being Christ, those theological requirements are fufilled.

I'm not impressed that "bar-nasha" (son of man) is a theological title. it has the idomatic qualities of a generic reference such as "this mother's son." I'm not convinced that Daniel texts (7:13), which i assume you are referring to, are the way in which the phrase is used, nor do i bleive the figure in Daniel is meant to refer to a deified messiah. it may be an angelic servant of God or a human man, but there is no connotation that it is God.

The hebrew equal "ben adam" is used to decribe very human men through out the texts...try searching for it...in nearly every book after numbers. Son of man has non-messianic meanings...and this possibility must not be ignored. following this, the only witness to attest divinity is John, which is written much later. Not a very compelling argument, IMO.

you didn't really address what i said re forgiveness. first, why rely on the audience to correctly understand what Jesus is doing? Do they ever get it right? No...they persistantly misunderstand his ministry and the meaning he brings. secondly, i don't think the text agrees with your interpretation. the most original form of the story we have is in mark two. In verses five and nine, Jesus states that the man's sins are forgiven, perfect tense. Forgiveness is a completed action, that is already done. It takes no ownership...and points to a relation with God that does not require intercession, but is open and free. The reason, IMO, that they object. Jesus is upsetting their power structure with out even claiming a power greater that human relation with God.

asaris

As usual, good post Chavos. I don't have a full response yet, but let me make a few points. I agree that ben-adam is often used merely as a generic reference. It's clear that it's not being used in this way in the Daniel text. The two points in question are: 1. Does the Daniel text refer to a divine figure? and 2. Does Jesus identify himself with this figure in his use of the term? I think the answer to the second is more clearly a yes than the answer to the first, though I think that the answer to both is yes. But I also think that the interpretation is cloudy enough that reasonable people can disagree. What I'm arguing is that the preponderance of evidence is that Christ claimed divinity, not that every case where one could read it that way requires that one read it that way.

I should also point out, more as a point of interest, that I have met people who believe that before his incarnation as human, Christ was incarnate as an angel.

My roommate (who I'm sure I will be citing more than once here) brought my attention to another place where Christ's divinity is claimed, though a less obvious one. This is the story of his taming of the sea. To us, it seems like just another miracle. But in the mindset of an ancient Jew, such a miracle would require divinity, since the sea represents primordial chaos. Recall Genesis "...and the earth was formless and void, and the spirit of the Lord hovered over the water." Recall as well the Sumerian myths of Tiamat, and Marduk who tamed her.

You also mention the relative ages of the gospels. Well, the story above is present in Mark. Also, most biblical scholars agree that all of the NT was written in the first century CE, so I'm not sure how much age is going to matter -- certainly even when the gospel of John was written, eyewitnesses were still alive. Again, the epistles were written before the gospels, and these tend to support rather than deny the divinity of Christ.

Finally, forgiveness. I agree that audiences usually don't get what Jesus was doing. But that doesn't mean that their responses can't be used as a guide to what he was actually doing. Certainly you don't mean to argue that his audience always radically misunderstood him? I also want to disagree with your interpretation of the use of the present tense. I read those passages as Christ saying "As of right now, your sins are forgiven" -- that is, as claiming the power of forgiveness. You are right in saying that he points to a relation with God that doesn't require intercession, but that is because he is claiming to be God, and the intercession he is setting aside is that of the temple.

And less an argument than a question. I've always disliked the question "What would Jesus do?" because of my belief in Christ's divinity. If Christ is divine, then there are certain things he is entitled to do that we are not. But if he is not divine, but rather just a very good role model, then what of his actions that we would not think are very good, if done by anyone other than God? Say, his cleansing of the temple?

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

chavos

bar enosh is not clear in the daniel text...i took a seminar on the book with Prof. Agabo Borges de Sousa, a noted scholar on the text. The views presented by Collins, Koch, and others contained significant conflict as to the meaning of the phrase. it is clearly a divine figure, but may serve to indicate that God intends to act radically with in human history using a human as God's agent for change. It may also refer to an angel, who is devine but not a diety.

Simply because of the confusion, it is not enough to claim that Jesus must have meant or been understood as claiming to be God by referecing the passage. He could have just as easily been claiming to be a human, annoited messenger of God. His apocalyptic world view would fit in well with either interpretation. Simply, we will not find resolution with the term Son of Man. Its use was much wider than the Daniel text, for one thing...which you note.

Taming of the sea...again, we do not see by what power he is performing the action. In the book of Samuel, Elijah rains down fire. Is he God?

Regardless of if a eyewitness was still alive...John was clearly not written by an eyewitness. it disagrees substantively with the synoptics on timing, theology, and almost everything. it is a witness to the Jesus movement, surely. it is not a terribly reliable witness to Jesus of Nazareth. Some early material finds inclusion...but the corpus bears the signs of late authorship, and attendant high Christology.

The Epistles? If you refer to Paul's letters, or the Pauline material, then yes, there is some material that would suggest high Christology. IMO, its uncertain. But it is rather irrelevant, given that Paul never met Jesus of Nazareth. I'll assume he met Christ, but the witness is of Paul's faith, not of Jesus's words.

i maintain my forgiveness arguement as it stands, as i think i've responded to those points in previous statements...it is a point of disagreement on which there is probably soley sematic distinction, so it may not be profitable to argue.

Simiarly, i believe WWJD is a specious question much of the time. I don't always imitate Isaiah, Elijah, John the Baptist or Saul of Tarsus....as it wouldn't make much sense. I feel the same way with Jesus. He reveals and uncovers a means of interaction with God, the unbrokered basilia (kingdom). I tend towards liberation theology, so i would point to the importance of Jesus the Christ as being God's declaration that God will be fully present in our suffering and stay with us in love to resist and heal our rebellion, pain, and fall.

asaris

Raining down fire is not the same thing as taming the seas. Calling fire from heaven (or bears from the hills) merely shows mastery of natural forces. But taming the seas shows mastery of cthonic forces. That's the difference.

I've never really seen why people make such a big deal out of the differences between John and the other gospels. It's always seemed to me that one could hold everything John says and believes, and everything that the synoptics say and believe, without contradiction. Timing and material is just a matter of authorship -- certainly authors make choices about what material to include and what material to exclude. I should probably mention the traditional belief that it was written by one of Christ's disciples who was still alive late into the first century. I'm not clear what evidence there is that it wasn't written by him.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

chavos

The only reason i'm making the distinction is because its important not to conflate the High Christology of John with the beleifs of the other Gospel writers. Reading Johns beliefs back on to the synoptics, its possible to make it work, but it distorts the theology of the earlier texts greatly. Reading the Gospels independantly is v. important for discovering what they are trying to say. each has a specific theological agenda, and its good to let each author speak from themselves, and not simply blend them all in.

Sea/Fire. Not the point i was making. Elijah does these acts by God's intercession. God responds to the request of one he has annointed to preach to Isreal, and uses God's power to assist the proclaimation of that prophet. Elijah had no control over the fire.

In Mark's story, it is not clear by what authority Jesus does this or other miracles. John even still retains this Father centric passage in 5:30
So, while power over sea and water is divine, it is not clear that Jesus possess this power personally, or at the bequest of God the Creator (Father). If Jesus personally can control forces of chaos...perhaps its a signal of divinity. If Jesus can request God's control over forces of chaos, he is one who is close to God's heart.

This is not to say i'm not trinitarian. I've used this explination before:
I guess my trinitarianism is more unitarian that most: i don't tend to think of them as separate persons or entities...it is simply a means of thinking about the various ways in which God is revealed to us.

A post script on John and the synoptics...its important if you're going to trace who the historical Jesus is. If you're soley interested in the Christ of faith...then you can simply lump John in. But i believe that faith must be true to Jesus' original message, not just the later traditions. And John doesn't have a lot to say about the historical Jesus. His material is collected late, highly edited, and displays a great deal of Church redaction. Simply, it is challenging to trust that text as a witness, even moreso than the other Gospels.

PPS: John displays a lack of knowledge of geography and facts, that makes it highly unlikely to be written by a Disciple. The traditional beleif while good intentioned, is with out scholarly support.

asaris

I guess the difference is that it seems to me that the later tradition is invaluable for interpreting the original texts. Why do you think that we, thousands of years later, have better access to the texts than the people who were living shortly after it was written? Modern scholarship? It's somewhat overrated. I don't want to dismiss it entirely, but it's been wrong often enough before that, at the very least, it should be taken with a grain of salt.

Incidentally, where does John make mistakes of geography and fact? I haven't heard that before.

I'll leave the trinity alone. I don't understand it, and I think it's impossible to understand it without falling into a heresy or three. I'll leave it to the experts.

I want to note, not so much for your sake Chavos, but for others who might be reading this thread, that I don't mean to claim that any one of these things, or even their totality, proves that Jesus claimed to be God, only that if you take these things in their entirely, the preponderance of evidence is that Jesus claimed to be God.

Sorry this is so short -- I have to get ready for class pretty quick. I'll try and write something more detailed over the weekend.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

chavos

i don't think we have better access to the texts. i'd never claim that...history has destroyed a great deal of our access to the texts. but that doesn't make John a more reliable witness...its still a late document, that bears the marks of an evolving theology, not something that was original to the Jesus movement.

Mistakes in John:The location for John the Baptists ministry is non-existant. The text disagrees with itself over whether Jesus baptized anyone. The likely explanation is that there are two (at least) sources: one pro-Baptist, and a later High Christology source. The mistakes about John are due to an editor attempting to down play Jesus' direct involvement with baptisms and John in order to elevate Jesus as a deified figure.

He disagrees with Luke about the reception in the Samarian villiage as well...which probably again signals a later date when Gentiles were a bigger and more important part of the Church.

Nicodemus as a character seems to be pure invention-Josephus mentions a person of the same name...but it seems totally fabricated to have a Pharisee as a member of the Sanhedrin. Given the importance to the Christological arguement of many of the Nicodemus dialouges: especially chapter three, the possibility that such dialouges are whole cloth inventions places serious doubt of the authenticity of high Christology with the self-proclaimaitions of Jesus of Nazareth.

There are other vaciliations between higher and lower Christology with in the document: God the Father material alternates with I Am sayings...and the end result i see is that sources and documents are disagreeing as the evolution of Christology proceeds.

modern scholarship...frankly, i think its a lot better to make mistakes with eyes open. at least then, you've got a chance to catch yourself as you fall. I've never been able to approach the texts at face value, and probably never will...and so using the tools of form, source, literary and historical criticism is the only thing that makes sense to me in reading the texts. i have a respect and a reverance for them, but i won't exempt them from a scrunity of critical analysis.