A mystical journey
It's been a couple of days since I have blogged. That is mostly because I have either been busy or just plain too tired to get motivated enough to sit down and type.
It has been butt cold around here. Yesterday's high was only about 6 degrees. The day before that we were at -9. So because of the cold and the snow and ice I decided to work from home. While I was working from home I watched 2 very interesting documentaries. The first one was from the History Channel called Banned From The Bible. It was about the formation of the common canon of the Bible that we now have, and examining some of the books that didn't make the cut. I think that I had seen portions of the show before but it was nice to watch again.
The show looked at a lot of the writings that ciruculated around the early church that had various things about Jesus, spirituality, history and all sorts of mystical tales. It also talked about the power that Rome had for quite a while and Constantine's commission to form a standard of Christian reading. Hence the formation of the Bible.
There were very strong arguments at that time around what should and should not be included in the Bible. Some of the books were very interesting and are now again available to read on the Internet. But the most intriguing part was just the process. Men wrestled and wrestled with ideas of faith and logic; reason and spirituality. Even when it was "complete" there still wasn't a perfect consensus. Did the events in the Bible really happen? Were they just stories? Which accounts of Jesus' life were the most accurate? Did Paul really write some of that stuff? These were debates that took place more than 300 years after Christ
Then the other show that I watched was a BBC production by a more modern theologian called Who Wrote The Bible. He spent a lot of time investigating the historicity, accuracy, and scholarship of the Biblical writings. He talked to both Jews and Christians alike and found out their understandings of what the Bible is. Is it really the Word of God? Is it just the work of Man? Is it a combination of both?
He explored the historical claims of many of the Old Testament passages. He explored some of the well known surface contradictions found in the texts of both the Old and New Testaments. He talked to all kinds of believers on both sides of the fence to see how their views impacted their lives in a practical way.
His conclusion was that no matter which way you look at things, looking at the Bible from a scholastic perspective was messy. There are problems. People have sought to provide solutions to these problems. Some have been satisfied and some are still searching for answers. Either way it was still messy. So how do we find God? In the mess of our searching. In the mess of our lives.
My conclusion that I have come to is that, as helpful as it is; the Bible is for lack of better words "incomplete." We don't have all of the story. We don't have all of the understanding. There are many out there who would argue differently. The would look at the Bible and claim that it is supposed to be a manual on life; a textbook for the spiritual...the only means in which we can find God. I really wish that I could see things that way, but I am always reminded of something that Jesus told the Pharisees who put themselves under the same cloak- You study the Scriptures because you think that they contain eternal life; but I tell you that they testify of me.
So it seems as though even though they said they saw one thing, Jesus said that they had it all wrong. That was just like Jesus though, he always had an explanation/interpretation that was completely different from what the religious folk expected. He angered the people of God while the outcast were marvelling at his words and acceptance of them.
There are many today called fundamentalists. They take every word in the Bible as something to literall be followed to the letter. My brother in law is a prime example. They observe the Sabbath on Saturday, they still follow the feasts of the Old Testament...and his family has even lately stopped eating pork because it is unclean. Even though they say that they haven't, I wonder if they have lost Jesus in all of it. So much symbol without much good solid substance; but that is just my observation.
Jesus said that all of the law and the prophets were summed up in the commands to love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. So do either of those get lost in Bible study or theology? I reckon that they do.
While I don't believe that the Bible solidly answers all of life's questions or solves all of theology's problems, I do believe that it settles the fundamental reason for living- doing unto others as we would have them do to us.
It has been butt cold around here. Yesterday's high was only about 6 degrees. The day before that we were at -9. So because of the cold and the snow and ice I decided to work from home. While I was working from home I watched 2 very interesting documentaries. The first one was from the History Channel called Banned From The Bible. It was about the formation of the common canon of the Bible that we now have, and examining some of the books that didn't make the cut. I think that I had seen portions of the show before but it was nice to watch again.
The show looked at a lot of the writings that ciruculated around the early church that had various things about Jesus, spirituality, history and all sorts of mystical tales. It also talked about the power that Rome had for quite a while and Constantine's commission to form a standard of Christian reading. Hence the formation of the Bible.
There were very strong arguments at that time around what should and should not be included in the Bible. Some of the books were very interesting and are now again available to read on the Internet. But the most intriguing part was just the process. Men wrestled and wrestled with ideas of faith and logic; reason and spirituality. Even when it was "complete" there still wasn't a perfect consensus. Did the events in the Bible really happen? Were they just stories? Which accounts of Jesus' life were the most accurate? Did Paul really write some of that stuff? These were debates that took place more than 300 years after Christ
Then the other show that I watched was a BBC production by a more modern theologian called Who Wrote The Bible. He spent a lot of time investigating the historicity, accuracy, and scholarship of the Biblical writings. He talked to both Jews and Christians alike and found out their understandings of what the Bible is. Is it really the Word of God? Is it just the work of Man? Is it a combination of both?
He explored the historical claims of many of the Old Testament passages. He explored some of the well known surface contradictions found in the texts of both the Old and New Testaments. He talked to all kinds of believers on both sides of the fence to see how their views impacted their lives in a practical way.
His conclusion was that no matter which way you look at things, looking at the Bible from a scholastic perspective was messy. There are problems. People have sought to provide solutions to these problems. Some have been satisfied and some are still searching for answers. Either way it was still messy. So how do we find God? In the mess of our searching. In the mess of our lives.
My conclusion that I have come to is that, as helpful as it is; the Bible is for lack of better words "incomplete." We don't have all of the story. We don't have all of the understanding. There are many out there who would argue differently. The would look at the Bible and claim that it is supposed to be a manual on life; a textbook for the spiritual...the only means in which we can find God. I really wish that I could see things that way, but I am always reminded of something that Jesus told the Pharisees who put themselves under the same cloak- You study the Scriptures because you think that they contain eternal life; but I tell you that they testify of me.
So it seems as though even though they said they saw one thing, Jesus said that they had it all wrong. That was just like Jesus though, he always had an explanation/interpretation that was completely different from what the religious folk expected. He angered the people of God while the outcast were marvelling at his words and acceptance of them.
There are many today called fundamentalists. They take every word in the Bible as something to literall be followed to the letter. My brother in law is a prime example. They observe the Sabbath on Saturday, they still follow the feasts of the Old Testament...and his family has even lately stopped eating pork because it is unclean. Even though they say that they haven't, I wonder if they have lost Jesus in all of it. So much symbol without much good solid substance; but that is just my observation.
Jesus said that all of the law and the prophets were summed up in the commands to love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. So do either of those get lost in Bible study or theology? I reckon that they do.
While I don't believe that the Bible solidly answers all of life's questions or solves all of theology's problems, I do believe that it settles the fundamental reason for living- doing unto others as we would have them do to us.
posted by The Raging Paradoxidation at
11:07
1 Comments:
Hey man,
Good blog. I heard at one point during one of those defining 'moments of growing up' that the only "Truth is God's Truth", where ever it is found. I've read some Eastern philosophy, particularly Chung Tzu [sic}, therein, there were plenty of examples of Truth as God would have it, but otherwise it is considered an un-Christian work. Regardless of debating whether or not that the canon is God's complete message to human kind is a futile point because I think that we all can find truth in everything where we could grasp it.
"He who stands on toilet is high on pot" - Confucious
LOL
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