The Atlantic’s Ross Douthat has a thoughtful essay up on the New York Times entitled “Dan Brown’s America.” It doesn’t really appear to fit the whole NYT worldview, however:
Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah — sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.
But the success of this message — which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators — can’t be separated from its dishonesty. The “secret” history of Christendom that unspools in “The Da Vinci Code” is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling — they’re far, far weirder than that — nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — jealous, demanding, apocalyptic — may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.
But the picture to go along with the op-ed doesn’t do Douthat that much justice.
Susan Etheridge he’s not.
So Lex, you think Susan maybe was the photographer?
Not unless David Brooks took his own photo
Lex/
The constant, unrelenting, highly focused incrementalism that the studies Brooks mentions are perhaps best exemplified by Gillette, which only does (mainly) razor blades and, surprising to some, the Russian development of fighter aircraft which tends more to constant model improvement and new variations spun from old–as opposed to the US which tends to the gold-plated “great leap forward” philosophy which attempts to leap-frog the competition with never-before-seen cutting-edge technology.
(Although perhaps the constant mods to the F-4
came closest to the Russian “MO.” in ac development)
Quote:
“The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — jealous, demanding, apocalyptic — may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.”
What a bunch of rat-patoot sucking, elitist, crapweasely ignorant, revisionist pile of hooey that is.
Jesus could’ve been many things. He lived, he died, people remembered him. I have no doubt he was a Rabbi, was married and had kids. THAT is what Occam’s Razor would lead you to, based on even the most cursory examination of Jewish life in the 1st century AD.
I personally believe, based upon my own readings, that it was Paul who deified Jesus, but that’s neither here nor there. That’s another theological argument for another day.
Jesus lived. I do not doubt that at all. Josephus and Tacitus both mention him. However, the greater mystery is why everything else is so silent? Where are all the records? For a (Roman) culture as retentive about records as anyone in history, where are the records of his execution, the notes about deploying an entire Cohort to arrest him? His trial?
The only plausible reason is that the records were destroyed. One camp will argue they were destroyed when the Jews revolted in 67 AD and burned the Roman records and structures. Yet, copies of everything were sent to Rome, so some copies MUST have survived for quite awhile.
Yet another camp will argue that the records were destroyed in order to keep the story of Jesus’ divinity unsullied. The Greatest (conspiracy) Story Ever Told.
I don’t have an answer. I believe that the story everyone is taught is false. That’s not a knock on the values of Christianity. Those alone have worth, being the bedrock of western civilization. Yet there is so much Christianity requires be taken on faith, and so many troubling parallels to other faiths and cults.
Please understand I am NOT knocking anyone’s faith, just stating my own opinion, and that and $4 will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Maybe.
But Douhat really cr@pped in his hat, in my opinion, with that statement I referenced. It points out everything that is wrong with the self-appointed intelligentsia, and their incredible lack of understanding of the whole Christian philosophy and the mystery surrounding one incedibly important man.
respects,
AW1Tim/
Hear, hear!
Seconded.
Um…last time I checked Dan Brown was a writer of fiction. And we do live in a world where people can choose what they read, right?
The mustache is close though.
Well, I knew when I saw this post that I would have to respond – I just didn’t think it would be to support the basic tenets of Christianity. But of course, you didn’t think that a future chaplain (and current seminarian) would let this challenge go unanswered, did you?
As far as the “historically accurate” Jesus is concerned, I don’t think we will ever satisfy ourselves with what became of the Roman records of his existence. Remember, the Roman empire was widespread at that time,and I find it hard to believe that they kept such meticulous records on all their subjects in all their far-flung provinces.
But there is another reason as to why the events surrounding his death may not have been recorded or kept – they were an embarrassment to the local government. If you follow the Gospel narrative you’ll find in Matthew 27:62 – 28:15 that Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus’ tomb sealed and a Roman guard placed around it. After his resurrection, the chief priests were at a loss to explain what happened to his body, so they paid the soldiers to claim that his disciples had come during the night and stolen it. They went on to say that “If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” Simply put, they wouldn’t have had to devise a story if they could produce a body instead – thus putting to rest once and for all the question of Jesus’ claim of divinity.
That said,the Gospels we have today are first-person accounts of those who interacted with Jesus. And they do describe a teacher, but not the traditional Rabbi. Paul was not the first to deify Jesus – Jesus made that claim for himself, equating himself with God on numerous occasions (e.g., Luke 9:20-21). In fact, this was the very reason that the Jews tried to stone him (John 10:31-33) and for which he was eventually crucified (Mark 14:61-64).
As for being an “incredibly important man,” I guess that depends on what your definition is. I’ve heard it said that if Jesus was not in fact Lord, he was either a liar or lunatic; that is, he either knowingly deceived people as to his true identity, or else he really believed it himself – like any number of religious kooks up to this present day. Neither of which would make him “incredibly important” in my book.
Of course, there’s much more to say on the subject but I’ll give it a rest for now.
Hear, hear to you, chaplain.
BTW, our son-in-law has just been called to active duty in the Army as a Chaplain. Yes, the so’jurs need one too.
Best regards…
Peter-
Awesome! I’m also preparing to be an Army chaplain – though thanks to my recent accident my timeline has been moved back a bit. Lord willing, I’ll graduate next June and be assessioned on active duty shortly thereafter.
Where did your son-in-law go to seminary? Who’s he serving with?
AW1 Tim,
Can’t let that go unchallenged. If He was just as average as you portray, you can’t explain away the reason for over a billion Christians in the world. If He were a nobody, he would have joined countless other false messiahs and false prophets forgotten on the ash heap of ancient history. You cannot explain why a people numbering only 13 million in the world today have such a lop-sided impact on the world, especially western society if they were not indeed the Chosen People, regardless if they missed the arrival of the Messiah after receiving about two hundred prophesies ahead of time and still screwing it up. Not unlike the rest of us, mind you. A people by the way the world had been trying to wipe out for millenia. Wonder why?
The roots of Christianity are Jewish. The Old Testament is replete with prophesy and foreshadowing types of Who was to come. Scripture is also history.
Next, don’t make a hipshot comment about Paul being the first to claim Jesus is God. If you want to argue Scripture, read it in context and with an understanding of the literary style of the authors. And that means with the entire Bible. Start with the Gospel of John.
I’m not looking to win any argument here nor is proseltizing in my job description.
I cannot leave your broadside unanswered. I am tired of the one sided tirades against Catholics and Evangelicals in this country as if we have some sort of intellectual defect.
Faith is a gift that has to be requested: “ask and you shall receive” . If you are Faith Impaired, vent your spleen in some other direction. This believing cradle Catholic has had it with the sneers and venom.
“To those who have, more will be given; those with little will lose all they have.”
Rant complete. Out.
Amen, Dust. Your handle reminds me of the old story of God being confronted by the Devil.
The Devil challenged God to a contest of creation; creating man from dust, er… dirt. God accepted, reached down and picked up a handful of dirt, molded man in His fist and produced a man.
The Devil reached down to pick up a hand-ful of dirt, but was quickly interrupted by God, who said, “Excuse me Devil, but you make your own dirt!”
Dust,
I’m saying that what we have for scripture was written after the man was long gone, and by folks with an agenda. Then there is the Council of Nicea, where Constantine and the Church fathers decided what would be “Gospel” and what wouldn’t be. There again, all sorts of theological agendas were in play, and the fact that the Church went to such great lengths to destroy anything NOT in full agreement with what THEY considered to be the orthodoxy speaks volumes about their own agenda.
Something has always gnawed at the Church Authorities and made them terribly uncomfortable. For tens of centuries they have refused to argue or debate, but rather sought to destroy. The Inquisition, which is still in effect, and whose most recent head is now Pope, went out of it’s way to repress anything they considered unorthodox, through execution, torture, excommunication, whatever. And why? Why not simply debate the issue and show the validity of scripture?
The point is that Christianity has chosen to stick it’s fingers in it’s ears and ignore gathering evidence that all might not be as it’s made out to be.
I admire Christian doctrine in it’s moral application to one’s lifestyle. As I said, it’s been, along with Judaism, the bedrock of western civilization, law, customs, etc.
However, something happened between Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem, including his brother James, his family, and most of the Apostles, and Paul of Tarsus. Regardless of those arguments, it is clear that Paul won out, and it is to be remarked upon the Paul, of all the disciples, save Peter, was to be the one who codified the message of Jesus’ deity. It was Paul’s interpretations, Paul, the Temple Guard who may well have watched Jesus dragged off to crucifixion, who developed the message, the liturgy, the church as it is known today.
Why him and not the rest of the Apostles? Why repress the gospels of Mary, Thomas, and others who were THERE, and instead take to heart the letters and teachings of Paul. who wasn’t one of the Apostles?
respects,
Tim-
You say that “what we have for scripture was written after the man was long gone, and by folks with an agenda.” I dispute that. Much of Scripture was written within 30-40 years following Jesus’ death and resurrection, and not all of it was written by his apostles. Saying that people had an agenda is ambiguous at best – after all, who writes anything without an agenda? Lex has one, as do you – so do I for that matter. The question is, does one’s agenda necessarily mean that the words they write are untrue? I think not.
The Council of Nicaea, convened by the Emperor Constantine in 325 A.D., was not organized to decide “what would be ‘Gospel’ and what wouldn’t be.” Initially, it centered around the conflict between Arius and his bishop, Alexander and was concerned about heretical teachings that were not in accord with church doctrine. Therefore it became necessary to agree on a common set of beliefs, or orthodoxy, to distinguish Christianity from the other religions or religious teachings that were operating under the guise of Christianity. This gave rise to what is now known as the Nicene Creed.
Contrary to what you write, the “church” has not always refused to argue or debate. Read a little bit about the life and work of Bernard of Clairvaux, for example. I’ll allow that there have been times where the Catholic Church has been more concerned with hegemony and resorted to extreme measures in order to maintain their power, but that has no bearing on the overall validity of Scripture. And I can point to councils at Carthage, Constantinople, Ephesus, Hippo, Trent, and others where debate was the order of the day.
So what’s your beef with Paul? He was one of the apostles, in case you weren’t aware – he himself claimed the rights of an apostle and was accepted as such by the others (see Galatians 1:1, 11-17). Even Peter deferred to him on some issues. So why did God choose him? I don’t know – why does God choose anyone? Why did he choose a liar like Jacob, a hot head like Moses, or a shepherd boy like David?
For the record, the “gospels” of Mary and Thomas were not “repressed,” they simply weren’t considered to be divinely inspired and therefore were not included in the canon of Scripture. Who says they were actually written by Mary and Thomas? This holds true for all of the so-called “Gnostic books” that Dan Brown is so enamored with.
I agree with MajHarvey’s post above. The fact is, the accounts we have of Jesus are far more numerous, contemporary, and veracious than accounts of just about any other major figure in ancient history. The earliest surviving accounts of Plato were written 15 centuries after his death, for example, compared with surviving fragments of the Gospel of John written less than a century after Christ’s death, with complete manuscripts dating to a few decades after that; literally thousands of complete (and virtually identical) manuscripts of the gospels date from within 3 centuries. If critics of the gospel accounts applied their criteria to all historical works, we would have to disregard just about all that we believe about the people and events of the ancient world.
For what it’s worth, if anyone is interested in taking this conversation off-line, my email address is ttharvey3@yahoo.com. I would be happy to talk to any who desire about spiritual issues great & small, and would even make my phone number available if a personal conversation would be more to your liking.
I subscribe to the philosophy that one can never argue another into the kingdom of God, but that it is nearly always a byproduct of someone becoming convinced through observation of another’s lifestyle – living out the Christian faith, as it were. This is inherently limited in a forum such as this – for, though you may “know” me by my expressed opinions, you’ve never observed me in person. And it’s hard to carry on a coherent conversation with such a multitude of diverse beliefs/opinions. Nevertheless, a defense of one’s faith is sometimes in order, as there are any number of silent witnesses to the whole spectacle.
Tim, if you’re well & truly interested in this topic, I would highly recommend C.S. Lewis’ book “Mere Christianity” to you for perusal – he was a self-described atheist and “the most reluctant convert” to Christianity who went on to become probably the 20th century’s greatest apologist for the Christian faith.
MajHarvey/
I think you would enjoy one of my favorite modern philosophers, Eric Voegelin, (since passed away) The Voegelin Institute is at my alma mater LSU where I once had the privilege of hearing him speak. He has done several excellent historical treatments of the Gnostics and the gnostic tradition of those believing themselves to be possessed of “the word” or true knowledge, tracing their roots up into the modern “progressive” movement and on to totalitarianism, i.e., the end result of “progressive” politics seen by him as always being the establishment of totalist systems. And as a refugee of Hitler’s Germany, he should have known…
At any rate, if you haven’t acquainted yourself with him, I think you would find him a most thoughtful–if somewhat turgid–he IS German, after all– and enjoyable read.
Thanks Virgil-
Once this academic quarter is over and life returns to normal, I’ll give him a look-see.
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
– Saint Augustine
We walk by faith, not by sight.
— 2 Corinthians v. 7.
- SJS
Tim,
I would agree that the early Church Fathers definitely had an agenda but for the reason of preserving the Faith as it was handed on by the Apostles. Heresy has been around since the birth of the Church at Pentecost. At the end of the 4th Century what would become the New Testament is pretty much locked in but it was a long process. There was much dispute on certain other books but even the great St Ambrose, author of the Vulgate Bible, did not support Revelation as part of the Canon submitted to the decision by the Bishops to include it. The Gospels were fixed as early as the 2nd century (Irenaeus, “Against Heresies”A.D. 182-188)
If you want the all the facts then you should read the writings of Sts Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, among others. These people knew the Apostles themselves or were taught by those who were taught by the Apostles. You will find nothing but consistency there about the Divinity and Nature of Jesus. The writings you think should have been considered was treated as the heresy it was.
Another point: in Aramaic and Hebrew there are no word describing a brother as a blood sibling, the term brother denoted a kinsman. Note that in Genesis, Lot is called Abraham’s brother in the text but was actually his nephew. Also, when Jesus was on the cross and he gives His mother into the care of John, in Jewish culture of the time this would NEVER would have been acceptable had he male sibling. James and John were Zebedee’s sons.
For any more on this subject, I’ll join the good Chaplain Major over at his place. To the relief of many here I am sure.
BTW, I’ll still look you up in Bath to buy you in a beer if you can dare be seen with a Papist.
Dust-
Hebrew & Aramaic may not have a word for brothers, but Greek does – αδελφοί (adelphoi).
This is the noun used in Matthew 12:46-49 when Jesus is told that “his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.” So apparently, Jesus did have at least a couple of male siblings.
As for what was acceptable in 1st century Jewish culture, Jesus did many things that were considered scandalous – associating with prostitutes, eating with tax collectors, etc. – so I would look for another explanation as to why he entrusted John with the care of his mother.
MAJ H,
You are confirming the point. The original language was translated into Greek. Secondly, Jesus did many things that were scandalous to the Pharisees. But then he was God. Secondly, He followed the Mosaic Law and Tradition in vast prepondence of his public ministry and personal example, even right up to His sacrifice on the Cross as the Pascal Lamb. He told the people to do what the Pharisees say because they occupied the chair of Moses, but not to follow their example. Your argument does nothing to nullify the fact that he gave his mother into the care of John contrary to Jewish tradition. I’ll join you at your site when I get a moment rather than continue this here.