From The Archives: Matthew Accuracy

In their book on Rumor Psychology Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia mention the concept of "Matthew Accuracy". Deriving its name from the principle in the Gospel of Matthew that "to the one who has more will be given, but from the one who does not have even the little he has will be taken away", Matthew Accuracy denotes the tendency of truthful rumors to become more truthful, while false rumors tend to become more false (pp.152-4).

If it could be confirmed that this same tendency applies in cultures more closely related to that in which the Gospels were written, I wonder whether this principle might not be useful to historians evaluating the developing Gospel tradition. In essence, might it be arguable that those sayings and stories that tend to become increasingly fantastic and to develop in predictable ways according to the tendencies of the tradition are less likely to be historically accurate, while those that either persist in their essential details or accumulate additional details that seem historically plausible and/or defy the tendencies of the developing tradition are more likely to be historically accurate? I am not suggesting that this is an entirely new idea, but it might be possible, on the basis of research into the psychology of rumor, to turn what may have been a "hunch" for historians up until now into a solid working principle with strong theoretical underpinnings.

From The Archives: God is a Mystery, not an Explanation

The world we live in is full of mysteries. When we envisage the self-replicating molecules that drive life on this planet, we wonder how they could have arisen, and we seek explanations. Likewise with the very fact than anything exists at all, we wonder why there is something rather than nothing.

To say "God did it" is not an explanation. To suggest that an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient being is somehow self explanatory and a way to eliminate mystery is misguided. This doesn't mean that it is inappropriate to talk about God when talking about these mysteries. But God is part of the mystery, and to speak of God is to affirm that beyond these tangible mysteries we perceive there are even greater mysteries regarding which we may not even yet be asking the right questions yet.

You might ask whether or not God was in fact an "explanation" for the ancient Hebrew authors who wrote the Biblical creation stories. To answer that question, we must put ancient Hebrew thought in its context in time and space. Although the Hebrew word olam has evolved to mean 'universe' or 'world', in the Biblical world it still had a meaning more akin to 'age'. There was no single word that referred to everything that exists, because existence was not generally thought of in unitary fashion. The sun, the moon, the earth were, in the wider context, all separate divine entities. In this context, in which other peoples were talking about "deities" in the plural, the Hebrews began to use the plural as an abstract singular noun (as was done in Semitic languages) to refer to "the deity" in the singular. This was an affirmation that all these divine realities (what we would refer to as impersonal "forces of nature") were in fact united in a single "being" that encompassed all of them and of whom all of them were an expression. So, in a sense, all that we mean by "universe" really was encompassed within the Hebrew term elohim, the deity. While I would not go so far as to argue that the ancient Hebrew authors were advocates of panentheism, their worldview can be plotted on a trajectory moving in that direction.

That we are dealing with a trajectory and not an end point is important to note. Some Biblical authors still thought of God fighting with the sea monster to create, as was the norm in the wider Mesopotamian context. The furthest that the Israelites got was to think of all the deities - the storm god, the heavens and mother earth all wrapped into one God in the singular who is responsible for all the things these diverse deities were thought to do - fertility of womb and of soil, creation of life, blessing of households, and so on. But there is still much of the assumptions of pre-scientific polytheism in such a view of God, and it still attributes a personal purpose to forces of nature, to weather, to earthquakes, and so on.

Without the Hebrews' insights into the unity of these divine/natural forces, the rise of modern science might never have been possible. The challenge to the theologian in the modern scientific age is to find ways of embracing science - one of Abraham's children every much as Judaism, Christianity and Islam - and to find the next spot we can affirm on the trajectory of mystery that begins, but by no means ends, with the writings of the Biblical authors.

From The Archives: The Two Doctors (Arguing With Oneself)

For many fans of Doctor Who, among our favorite episodes are the ones where the Doctor encounters his earlier selves - which inevitably leads to arguments! Although intended primarily for comic value, I presume, there is an important insight in these episodes. If I were to meet an earlier me, I would encounter a person very different from the one I am today, and I can easily imagine arguments ensuing, as I who I am today tried to share what I consider the wisdom of experience with my younger self, and my younger self rebukes me for having gone over to the dark side, from "his" perspective. (Notice how hard it is to speak of such things!)

As I began watching Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith again recently, this too gave me pause, as I watched characters discuss evil as a point of view - the importance of point of view is a theme that runs throughout the films. Do I now hold views that I would have considered "evil" earlier in my life, and do I now consider the views of my earlier self "evil"? My hope is that I have discovered, as Luke Skywalker eventually did, a middle way. Just as the attempt of the Jedi to avoid all attachment left one open to temptation to the other extreme of being carried along by one's passions, I hope that I have found a middle ground between fundamentalism and atheism, just as Luke found he could let his concern for his sister enrage him and his compassion for his father stop him from going too far. But I doubt that my younger self would have accepted this argument - I saw everything in black and white, once upon a time, as we all did at some point.

This led me to ask myself what, if anything, I might wish to tell my earlier self? Would I warn "him" against the perils of fundamentalism? As I thought about it, I decided I probably wouldn't. I gained much from that period in my life, and just as I would not go back to tell my childhood self in kindergarten things I would not then be ready to understand, I think I might go back and observe myself, but would try to avoid tinkering. If I had not passed through the fundamentalist phase that followed my experience of being "born again", for all I know I might have no faith today rather than the mature faith that I do. Adolescence is a healthy step on the way to maturity, and it cannot be bypassed.

Thinking further, I decided that this same principle applies to lots of other aspects of my life. There was a time before I really got into "classical" music, and then a time when Shostakovich and Bartok were beyond my range of appreciation. I had to work my way through Rachmaninov and Bruckner first, and had I gone by another path, I might not value the music of Atterberg and Korngold the way that I do.

I personally suspect that time travel is not possible - I am inclined to think that the past is not a static entity that is still 'out there somewhere'. But even if it were, I do not think I would go back and tamper with it. The past is there to be learned from, and there are probably very few instances where we could go back and avoid the mistakes that we have learned from, because mistakes are one of the principal ways in which we learn.

[Since I first posted this, the same question came up for a time-travelling John Locke on LOST]

From The Archives: What's Wrong With Being 'Right'?

For those who are enthusiastic about the voices calling for a return to or preservation of the Christian foundations of our society, you will probably find yourself largely in agreement with the sentiment of another famous politician, who said:

The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.

Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during recent years.

For those following currents in American religious and political life, the language sounds very familiar, and you may wonder precisely whose words these are. They are the words of Adolf Hitler. This is a quotation from the address he gave after coming to power in Germany (from "My New Order, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939", Vol. 1, pp. 871-872, Oxford University Press, London, 1942).

I was tempted to simply leave it at that, without comment. But just to make certain my point is clear, I will say just a few words about it. It is my hope that, by highlighting the similarity between current American voices and that of Hitler, my fellow Americans will understand why the voices on the far-right scare so many of us who do not share their views. Moderate leanings to the left or right are not what I am talking about here, but there are voices that are far to the right of center, and some use that language often without realizing what it means: far in the direction of Hitler, of the Nazis, of fascism. Many in our time lean in that direction, and reflect a view which claims that our heritage (cultural, religious, economic, political, whatever) is the best, and that it is our destiny to be the most powerful nation precisely for this reason. It claims certainty that those who question our cherished values are wrong, and would ideally like to see our laws uphold and enforce these values.

Yet in an American context, to claim that our nation's heritage is simply "Christian" is misleading. The faith of Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, would not be considered acceptable to most of those American Christians today who claim that the founding fathers were Christians. The Bill of Rights guarantees Americans the right to break at least the first two of the Ten Commandments by guaranteeing religious freedom for all.

What is wrong with being on the right? There are voices in our time that seem to be leaning further and further in that direction, even though they would claim to abhor what Hitler did. Yet all it takes for history to repeat itself is a nation leaning in that direction, a leader willing to use the language of Christianity and conservativism to manipulate the populace and exploit their faith and enthusiasm, and a failure to care when those we disagree with are persecuted and punished. The spirit of the far right is absolutely antithetical to the heritage and foundations of American democracy. And it is precisely that democracy that protects Christianity as well as all other religions to present their case, to make their appeal, to urge any and all who will listen to follow their lead and adhere to their values and convictions - whether they are about abortion, social justice, or the editing of Veggie Tales on NBC.

It is only a faith that is insecure that wants to force itself on others through legislation, because of a lack of trust in the persuasive power of the message itself. It is only the faith of the proud that claims absolute certainty, as opposed to humility and absolute trust in God as the only one who truly knows with certainty.

I found a couple more quotes from Hitler that illustrate just how similar the language he used is to that of certain voices in American Christianity today:"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people." (Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933).

In his book Mein Kampf he wrote: ". . . I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."

The founding fathers, despite what is so often claimed, were very careful to point our nation in a direction that could not (at least not legally) be taken in that direction. Much of what we assume to be the case about our "Christian nation" (such as the universal addition of the motto "In God We Trust" and the addition of "under God" to the pledge of allegiance) is shaped by things that were added in the 1950s, and certainly subsequent to the composition of the Constitution. Not only did Thomas Jefferson emphatically argue that American law is NOT based on the Bible [letter to Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814], but in Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, which the U.S. Senate ratified, it emphasizes that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." Fundamentalists claim to believe the whole Bible and take it literally, and yet they ignore whole vast parts of it and impose their own interpretative framework on those verses they quote out of context. They claim to be following in the footsteps of the founding fathers and yet clearly have never read the writings of our nation's early leaders or studied the historical evidence in an appropriate, scholarly manner. This is not to deny the profound influence of Christianity upon all of them in some way, shape or form. It is merely to assert their awareness that as soon as one allows a particular religious tradition to have a unique status, then there will be wrangling over whose version of that tradition is the right one, and the debates will never end.

Returning to our original subject, it is true that once he rose to power Hitler came to oppose Christianity, but it is important to note that this does not suggest that his earlier religious views were simply a charade. His opposition to Christianity results from his conviction that the church was a threat to his power; it is clear, however, that his anti-Semitic views were adopted in close connection with his extreme religious views. Quotes found online illustrate this point and the shift in his views well.

The form of Christianity that he adhered to was known as Positive Christianity, and it essentially remade Jesus in the image of the culture and ideals of Northern Europeans. Now it is inevitably true that people read their own cultural and personal presuppositions and ideals into their Scriptures, and project these values onto God, but some do it more radically than others. American fundamentalist Christianity does this to a lesser extent than Hitler's Positive Christianity, but to a far greater extent than is healthy for the church if it is to have a role in challenging cultural norms with the Gospel. [There was a wonderful illustration of this on the 2006 season premier of Trading Spouses, where an orthodox Jewish mother from Boston changed places with a Pentecostal mother from a small town in the South. The latter viewed the Jewish woman's way of thinking as "un-American", and she assumed that her own traditions were what is meant by Christianity, as did the rest of her family.]

Hitler had been raised a Catholic and viewed himself as such at least until 1941. Lest it be assumed that these views have nothing to do with other branches of Christianity, let's have a few quotes from Martin Luther: "The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves," and "We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them."

It is because racism, greed, lack of concern for the poor, and countless other values that are at odds with the most basic teachings of Christianity (as of most religions) continue to flourish in our society that I am so passionate about getting good Biblical scholarship to the public and teaching not only religion majors but as many students as possible. There is a wonderful paragraph in LeAnn Snow Flesher's recent book Left Behind?: The Facts Behind the Fiction that puts it beautifully and shows the connection with the topic we've been discussing:

Every fall a new set of students enters my Introduction to the Old Testament course, and invariably, at least one student will come up to me and say, "I really don't need to take this class, I already know the Bible." Having read the Bible is not equal to knowing the Bible. Reading the Bible is essential, of course, but the Bible is a very complex collection of documents from an ancient age and culture. In the United States today, and I dare to say in much of the world, the common method for reading has become one of direct application wherein the reader selects a passage, often at random, reads it through, and immediately sits back to contemplate how the text directly applies to today andto his or her life. This almost magical approach entirely disregards the realities of what the Bible is and what it means to read it with integrity. In the end, this method demonstrates disrespect for Scripture and replaces the authority of the Word with the authority of the reader's time, place, and needs. Scripture verses pulled out of their contexts and strung together can be made to say almost anything. Many bad interpretations have resulted from such a process- some of which have been downright devastating (pp.57-58).

It fascinates me that religion seems to mean two completely opposite things for people in our time. On the one hand, there are the fundamentalists for whom religion is all about certainty, about my own knowledge about God being accurate, about being correct in what one believes/knows. On the other hand, there are those of us who have had a personal spiritual experience of genuinely being born again, and although most of us start out spiritually with a fundamentalist outlooks (just as young children see the world in black-and-white terms), as (or I should say if) we mature we acknowledge that all our words and doctrines are simply pointers to that experience that transcends them, to a God who transcends them. For us, religion is not about our own certainty, but a recognition of our own human limitations, so that we cast ourselves utterly upon God who alone is certain, alone is wise, alone knows, alone is right.

[NOTE: The above post originally appeared as two separate entries here and first appeared as a combined single post here]

The Apocalypse of Eve

Pat McCullough has posted Biblical Studies Carnival 43, in the form of a 'recently discovered text' called "The Apocalypse of Eve". Take a look!

The Church Of Jesus Christ Has Begun Considering The Only True God

I couldn't resist the opportunity to have a blog post with such a striking title. But of course, it is the blog The Church of Jesus Christ that has begun to consider (and blog about) my recent book, The Only True God. Given that the blogger in question goes by the nickname Polycarp, it will be obvious how many potentially striking church history-related headlines I had to pass up...

From The Archives: Things Your Minister Wishes He Or She Could Tell You

There are things your minister, pastor, priest or preacher would love to be able to tell you, but cannot because of concerns about job security. I am not only thinking about the scandalous revelations that occasionally come to light, nor even the relatively minor fact that your pastor sometimes comes to the pulpit the same way all of us come to church at times – feeling less than inspired, having just argued with a spouse, or in some other way or for some other reason less ready than we would like to do what we need to in church – whether preach or simply worship.

Most ministers have had theological training that exposed them to a diverse range of viewpoints. In some very narrow seminaries, it will be reiterated again and again which is the “right” opinion, which is the “sound” theology. Be that as it may, even pastors who studied in fairly conservative schools have wrestled with issues and confronted evidence that many Christians are simply unaware of. I remember when, towards the end of my doctoral studies at the University of Durham in England, I was invited to give a talk on my research at a sixth form study day (i.e. for students doing A Levels in religion, the approximate equivalent of advance placement (AP) exams in the United States). Wanting to have a sense of the appropriate level, I asked for copies of syllabi or exams for religious studies A Levels in the U. K. As I looked them over, it struck me that teenagers in the U. K. who choose to study religion are expected to deal with subject (such as the Synoptic Problem) that many Christians who have attended church for 60 years have never even heard of. Is the relationship between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke really of such little importance for those who (we hope) read them that we can set this issue to one side altogether? No, the reason why the subject is never addressed is that it might make some people uncomfortable to talk about it. Many pastors and preachers will give a wide berth to other issues, such as creation and evolution, to avoid controversy, even though they may feel strongly that fundamentalist approaches are misguided. Why rock the boat? But is lack of controversy really preferable to having well-educated believers? Is preserving one’s job worthwhile if it means leaving fundamentalism to grow and fester?

I reflected on these questions yet again as I read the short book by Rev. Oliver “Buzz” Thomas, 10 Things Your Minister Wants To Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs The Job). While it is not the case that all the things Thomas mentions are things that all ministers would tell you if they could, I suspect that enough of them are, and if not these things then there are other things that they could tell you were they not afraid that ordinary Christians, rather than welcoming a deeper understanding of the faith, of the Bible, and of Christian history, would complain, argue, and eventually drive the minister out who dared expose them to uncomfortable truths.Although a very short book, it packs a serious punch and reveals more in its 108 pages than many other works of much greater length on more specific subjects. It was particularly refreshing to encounter someone else so adamant about the importance of the fact that the main character in the creation story in Genesis 2 is called “Human” and not “Adam” as though the latter were a name in Hebrew. Although his language at one point seems to leave a door open for “teaching the controversy” (p.9), his approach to most topics is balanced and healthy. His recognition not only of the fact that Jesus gave more than one answer about salvation (p.47), but that Jesus was mistaken about the end of the world and this simply makes him human (p.97), are refreshingly honest but even more than that refreshingly Biblical compared to the selective quote mining of the fundamentalists. And he too emphasizes, as I try to whenever I get the chance, that fundamentalists only claim to take the whole Bible literally and believe it all, but this is far from an accurate representation of what they in reality do and believe (p.101).

Here are a few particularly memorable quotes:

…my old Irish Catholic uncle used to say: “Trying to use the Bible to prove the church wrong is like trying to use the phone book to prove there isn’t a phone company” (p.23)

Authentic religion is not a theology test. It is a love test. (p.41)

God will not be locked into the culture of the first century, whether we like it or not. If God exists, then, he is alive today and is continuing to reveal himself. (p.63)

This may be a useful book for you to read, or to pass on to those who are interested in understanding the Bible better and in a broader way. But certainly the subject of the book is one whose time has come. To paraphrase a famous quote that the book mentions at one point, all that has to happen for fundamentalism to thrive is for those who have actually studied the Bible and understand it in depth and detail to keep silent.

Biblioblog Top 50 - June 2009

The Biblioblog Top 50 list for June 2009 has been posted.

On The Fly

I don't have time to put together a post with a round-up of all the interesting posts around the blogosphere today, so I will simply point readers to the sidebar on this blog with posts I've recently read and chose to share.

Someone found their way to this blog today by searching for "why are some churches saying obama is the antichrist and something about a fly". And so I'm confident that whether you are looking for something very specific and unusual, or just interesting blog posts, you'll find them, with or without my help...

From the Archives: Advice for Those Buying a Used Religion

This is a second repost of something I wrote on my old blog about Carl Sagan's The Varieties of Scientific Experience, which are essentially a transcript of his Gifford Lectures. Sagan's approach to religion is so thoughtful, level-headed, and rational that it is tempting to advocate "Saganism", an approach to truth that is open to both the sciences and spirituality, and which acknowledges (as Sagan did) that the spiritual quest and the human effort to understand out place in the universe did not end 1,400 or 2,000 or some other number of years ago. Rather, it continues (pp.x-xi,xv-xvi). His lectures began (p.1) with a quotation from Plutarch: "The truly pious must negotiate a difficult course between the precipice of godlessness and the marsh of supersitition".

One of my favorite analogies in the book is between buying a used car and choosing a religion (pp.144-145). It is not enough, Sagan emphasizes, to know that you really need a car. You seek for evidence, and know that the salesman cannot always be trusted. Yet many people not only do not seek critical investigation of religious claims, they get upset when purported miracles are disproved or at least cast into question (p.138). Thomas Paine made an argument that is as powerful today as ever: "We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie" (quoted pp.136-137). According to the Bible, God gave great and undoubtable signs - parting seas, fire from heaven, and so on. Yet Sagan asks the pertinent question: "why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?" (p.167). Unless Christians and other religious believers are to abandon reason altogether or compartimentalize the Bible out from the world we live in today, then such questions must be reflected on seriously and not dismissed.

Another key moment in the book is his discussion of nuclear war in relation to American Protestant fundamentalism. Fundamentalists tend to be premillenialists who believe that there is an apocalyptic end of the world in store in the near future. Hal Lindsay famously offered his Cold War interpretation of Revelation, with allusions to a nuclear holocaust. It is not at all difficult to imagine a Christian leader of the nation or the military who either willingly and actively accepts the role of pushing the button and bringing in the apocalypse, or who at the very least decides not to stand in the way of the final unfolding of God's ultimate plan (p.207). If you thought that Islamic fundamentalism is more dangerous to the future of humanity than Christian fundamentalism, think again.

In spite of his (entirely appropriate) skepticism about miracles and the supernatural, Sagan has an appreciation for the positive contribution of religion to human history that critics such as Dawkins and Dennett lack (pp.206-207). For those seeking a reasoned guide on the spiritual quest, one can do far worse than Carl Sagan. Arm yourself with inspired spiritual writings (both scriptural and contemporary), and Sagan's famous baloney-detection kit, and you most likely will not go wrong.

The Insufficiency of Scripture

There have been books about the "sufficiency of Scripture", but yesterday as I was reading the Bible I happened across a verse which testifies to the insufficiency of Scripture. 2 John 12 reads:

I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

How are we to understand this Scriptural witness to Scripture's own insufficiency in certain respects? Of course, most of us will agree that the author of this letter did not think of himself as writing Scripture. Be that as it may, the church has included this letter in its canon, and some readers would go so far as to ignore the author's voice and claim to hear only the voice of God. For such readers, this verse presumably is to be taken as an expression of God's desire that readers of the Bible not become so focused on it that they fail to realize that personal interaction is better than communication via writing.

For other Christian readers, this presumably serves for us too as a reminder that personal interaction is more important than interacting with writings - even writings in the Bible. There are some things that personal relationships can accomplish that reading often cannot. We find it easy to persuade ourselves that writings (whether the news, a letter from a spouse, or texts in the Bible) mean what we deeply hope they mean, even when their plain sense would not seem to support it. But "as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another" (Proverbs 27:17). Other people who challenge us are often harder to tune out - although that doesn't prevent us from trying.

For those of us who are at times tempted to focus too much attention on the Bible, or to believe that it contains all the answers and solutions to all problems, this verse is a helpful reminder that an author of a letter that is now part of Scripture thought some things were better said face to face - that there were things that could not be accomplished as well or as effectively or simply as joyfully through written words as through personal interaction.

The Reformation sola scriptura notwithstanding, I think most Christians including most of the Protestant Reformers would have agreed that in this important sense, "Scripture alone" is not enough. And yet if there is something that characterizes much contemporary North American Christianity, it is the lone Christian reading the Bible in private.

And so, to my blog readers, I close by saying that I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use pixels and bytes. It would be far better to talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

From The Archives: What Did Jesus Mean?

I am still wondering about the saying attributed to Jesus in various forms in various Gospels (and in Mark, denied as a false accusation), "I will destroy this temple and in three days rebuild it". That something like this was the earliest form is most probable, and it seems to be authentic.

The big question is what he meant by it. On the one hand, given the other evidence that Jesus expected the kingdom to fully dawn in the very near future, I see no particular reason not to take it literally - with the "I" in this case presumably being God, and Jesus speaking in the prophetic first person. On the other hand, given Jesus' propensity for parables and striking images, I am hesitant to simply assume that the literal meaning is the most likely meaning on the lips of Jesus. Since the Gospel of John dates this saying (and the temple incident) to a period when John the Baptist is also still active, might this not be something Jesus said (and did) while still connected with John the Baptist's movement? In such a setting, a literal meaning is still possible, but so is a figurative one in which the proclamation of repentance and baptism bypasses (and thus 'destroys') the temple, putting in its place a community that is united in repentance and ritual rather than by space and sacrifice.

One final thought. When Josephus says that John's followers seemed ready to do anything for him, so that Herod was concerned, might not Jesus' action in the Temple be in mind? Might not Jesus' action in the Temple have led rather directly to John's imprisonment, to Jesus' withdrawal to Galilee, and thus eventually to his sense that his own fate my parallel John's? Is it also perhaps due to the reaction to this prediction that Jesus was from then on inclined to use the less direct 'son of man' rather than 'I'?