Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?
22) That Jesus is the Son of God even though the textual evidence in the New Testament conclusively shows that the founder of the Jesus cult was a failed apocalyptic prophet who prophesied that the eschaton would take place in his generation, which would involve a total cosmic catastrophe after which God inaugurates a literal kingdom on earth with the "Son of Man" reigning from Jerusalem over the nations.
11 comments:
WTF. I am sure persuaded by that. Every day is another day to be happy I mentally escaped from evangelical Christianity. I know one should not feed the trolls, but I am guessing DM has some serious mental issues, or is a poe.
Atheism, denial of truth
Marcus and I had an exhaustive discussion about this on his blog.
I tried to point out a few examples such as Jesus saying His return would be in the life time of His disciples, as well within the generation, but Marcus and Harvey ganged up a little to try to refute it.
I dont think people who are so overcome by the chrisrian faith are reachable, they will argue what the true meaning of the scripture says.
The problem for them, is that the apostle Paul, as well as others constently say things in the NT letters like- the time is short, and beleivers should live in expectation of Christs return, not to mention Jesus own commands to renounce all earthly attachments and sell all in expectation of the kingdom.
Well, the gospels are literature, and the Jesus in them is a literary character regardless of whether there was a historical person on which to model him. And the function of apocalyptic in ancient literature was not always or even primarily about immediate historical expectation, but rather should be considered a means of writing in coded language about the socio-political situation of the author and his audience.
Paul's eschatology does seem to be more oriented toward immediate historical expectation. But my point is, we need to be cautious about simply taking ancient literature at face value and assuming that apocalyptic fulmination like we see put in Jesus's mouth in Mark 13 is not meant primarily as literary symbolism that was later historicized and taken to be prediction about a real, and not a literary, world. "Apocalyptic" should not be considered synonymous with "eschatological" as it all too often is; "lifting the veil" can be read as secret knowledge that can only be imparted symbolically: divine truth, which the mere mortal can't take straight (cf Mark 4:11-12). Such is what I think is the flavor of apocalypse given in Mark, upon which the later gospels are largely based.
Shane,
I agree and find that if one reads the bible for the document it is (psychological groping towards the ineffable and death by flawed men) then there is something to learn. If one reads it as absolute truth then one kills their intellect.
Marcus is a perfect example of the latter.
CJO.
All I can really say is that, unfortunetly, most christians take the bible as the literal truth.
Chuck.
Thanks for agreeing!
22) here gets the prize for generating the most outrageous apologetic argument:
The Wandering Jew
"The origins of the legend are debatable; perhaps one element is the story in Genesis of Cain, who is issued with a similar punishment — to wander over the earth, never reaping a harvest again, but scavenging. According to some sources, the legend stems from Jesus's words given in Matthew 16:28:
'Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.'(King James Version)[1]"
Explain "truth" without quoting the Bible, Orthodoxos.
If Jesus was the son of God, then why does the Gospel trace his ancestry through Joseph?
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