Surprisingly enough the title of this post was not something that I said today, but instead it was from a fellow bible school student that I had lunch with. He is a good student, he loves God, and he is a youth leader in his local church. He runs a home-group, and the current youth pastor is phasing out and this guy is stepping in as the new leader soon.
So here I am feeling bad because I have all these doubts, and I come to find out that just about all of us have them. Heck our pastors and professors have them.
We were eating lunch and started talking about things we are learning (we take different classes) and he started talking about things he is learning in his Old Testament class. He said that his professor was going over the book of Genesis (creation story) and mentioned that it really was just a myth and should not be taken literally at all. The Professor then pointed out that the story of Genesis is basically just a common creation myth of the whole Mesopotamian region. Basically all the people groups / religions of that area tell and re-tell the same basic creation story over and over again, but simply tweaked it to fit their cultures.
We come to find that our Christian creation story was told hundreds and in some cases thousands of years earlier in other regions and religions, but some of the names and places are changed to account for different gods and goddesses. We are encouraged to simply look at the creation story as a story, as a myth, and not as something factual or divine. In fact, we fully acknowledge that it was just folklore that was taken from other pagan religions of the area.
He was told to simply think of this and other stories as “moral fables” that help teach us lessons about life, inspire us, or help us better understand the nature of God.
You can apply this to all kinds of things if you think about it: What about the entire story of Job? The Flood? Tower of Babel?
That was when my friend said “You know, it’s funny… The longer I am in bible school the less I believe in the bible.”
After this point, what is it I can do? I guess I could try to reassure him of the validity of his bible. Maybe I could condemn him for having doubts? Or maybe I can open up to him as well, and let him know that he is not the only one with doubts and concerns.
Sometimes just knowing that you are not the only one out there with an issue is quite helpful.
I told him that I never at any time that I could remember considered the bible to be a literal piece of historical literature. I always have considered it to be a blending of historical fact, personal opinion, political opinion, divine inspiration, and common mythology of the region. I tend to read it as an entire book, and look at the larger point that it is trying to make as a collective work – getting to know the personality of God, and how to know him more.
Heck I think that the apostle Paul was a sexist, and a bit of a jerk. Most churches, for example, read his writings on the role of women in the church and have one of 2 reactions:
- They take his words literally, and think women should not be allowed to be leaders in church, preach, teach, and even try to make them not wear makeup, certain clothing, and keep their heads covered at all times.
- They try to explain away Paul’s words with elaborate, imaginative, and speculative commentary. They can not declare that something in the bible is wrong, so instead they try to explain away what it says. Basically, oh it may say that, but it does not really say that. Maybe we do not know the whole background story, or we translated it wrong… etc etc.
I like approach number 3 better myself. Approach number 3 is simply saying – Yes it totally says that, and I disagree with it. Paul was wrong. He is being a bit sexist here. He was from a different culture, and a different time period. He was just a man. Not everything he said was sacred.
I then opened up to my friend, and let him know that although I did not know about this whole Genesis creation story thing, I was aware of the debate going on as to if the story of Jesus was actually just a re-telling or Jewish adaptation of the story of Mithra (or Dionysus).
I said that it was refreshing to hear that in our schools our pastors and professors are teaching that certain Old Testament stories are just borrowed stories from earlier religions – adapted to Jewish culture. But what about the New Testament? I find it funny that we can take such an open minded stance on the Old Testament, but the New Testament is totally off limits.
There is overwhelming evidence that the story of Christ is just a rehash of other Christ stories from earlier religions.
Based upon the facts that we know now, we can easily say that the creation story in Genesis was borrowed from other religions in the area. That it was common mythology for the Mesopotamian regions. We then say that it does not matter in the end. It does not get in the way of the point we are trying to make. It does not change our religion.
But what do we do about Christ? We have just as much proof that he too is just a borrowed story, a re-telling of the Christ story – passed down and picked up from various towns, peoples, and generations. The idea or ideal of Christ was simoly common myth in that area. It started in one area, and as people spread out the story was adapted to different people groups.
It is most-likely that there was no Jesus Christ as we know him in the bible. Either the historical Jesus was totally fabricated, and was simply a Jewish take on the worship of Mithra; Or he existed and later after his death people merged his teachings in with common fables of Mithra worship in an attempt to create a religion.
However, what does this realization mean for me as a Christian? As a Christ- ian? Sure I can easily dismiss a flood or a 7 day creation and say I can still be a Christian, but what about the knowledge that there was no Jesus?
Does that matter, or can we one day come to terms with that and realize that this as well does not take away from the greater concept or purpose of the religion?
Right now I am studying the Gnostic Scriptures, and am starting to consider the possibility that they were the first true “Christians”. I am open to the idea that the Gnostics had various myths that they adapted from region to region. These myths were not sacred to them – they were just stories to get people to become aware of some greater truths.
The Gnostics adapted the story for the Jewish culture, and in time we got Gnostic Christians. Some of these followers missed the point and took the story literally, and division occurred. Another option is that the orthodox church as we know it – knew it was a myth but intentionally wiped-out the Gnostics anyway for money and power.
It became a controlling religion with a power structure – bishops, popes, priests, repentance, penance, money, power, government – and so they wiped out the originators of the religion who stood in their way or exposing the myth for what it was – simply a story to help inspire us to take a first step to be better people, to realize that deep-down we are all spirit, and we are all son’s and daughters of God. If people had that revelation and knew they did not have to go to church, pay money to the church, and be controlled by the church – the church would loose it’s power. This power was also tied into the State government at the time (Rome), so the myth had to be preserved or even amplified.
I hate being this confused on the matter of my faith. What also concerns me is that none of this is new revelation to our church leadership and it’s teachers. The majority of the people in charge know this information in full detail – better than I do. They know, but they teach contrary to this knowledge anyway. In fact, some of them do not even have faith anymore, but they stay in positions of power to keep their churches or careers going.
———————————————————————————————————————
For more heresy please join me on my new blog at www.evolitionist.com
I think I may have a solution for your faith on this one. But, as with everything, it will still be up to your openness. It’s hardly taught anywhere anymore, but a study of the types in scripture can make a huge difference for the confidence you can have in Jesus and God’s plan through Him. I’ll talk more if you like but if not, I’ll leave you alone
.
Eric
Hi Eric, please feel free to state whatever you wish to me on this matter. I am only seeking truth, and I am not just trying to prove my point. If you have advice or a recommendation that will help direct me – I am interested in it. Right now I have been studying the history of and the authorship of the scripture and not the “types in scripture” so enlighten me.
I hardly have time to flesh much out at this point, but still I will try to say a little something.
I have an M.S. in Biblical and Related Studies from Abilene Christian University but I didn’t get my best understanding of Scripture from school. I really did get it from God. I mean I wasn’t really expecting that, I just did. He really taught me to see a different “level” of scripture–not a better level, just different. It might be akin to seeing one of those “magic eye” pictures, where you see beyond the surface. Everything is still just the same as it was, but your seeing something that you didn’t before until you really focused the right way.
Here is the short of it. It comes down to knowing whether or not Jesus is at the heart of God’s plan from the beginning. Is He or not, and how can we know. Consider the Bereans in Acts 17:11. They were “more noble” because the studied the scriptures every day to find out if what Paul said was right. Where in the world did they study? Did they just look at verses like Isaiah 14:7 and actually get convinced of Jesus’ lordship. Certainly not. That sounds ridiculous. No proof texting would lead those of thoughtful, “noble” character to accept such a world-view altering truth. It had to be more.
Now this is just the beginning (I MEAN A SMALL TASTE) but just consider the life of Abraham as told in Scripture. We see his offering of Isaac in Gen. 22–arguably the clearest depiction of Jesus’ future sacrifice in all of Scripture. There are some very clear allusions going on that story and we don’t even have room to get into all of them. But still, the text is universally acknowledged as an incredibly up-front text showing God’s plan to sacrifice His unique Son, Jesus.
Now consider how the story of Abraham’s life begins. The first thing that happens is that he is called to new land. He arrives and begins to praise Yahweh. But the very next story in the text (12:10ff) is about the great famine that forces Abraham to Egypt. While there, his beautiful wife is taken by Pharaoh. To make a long story short, God steps in, sends “plagues” (yes, same word as in Exodus) on Pharaoh’s house and gets the beautiful bride released. Abraham and his bride leave Egypt with many more goods than they ever had before and return to the land that God gave Abraham. I’m sure you see it, but this is the first major event in the life of God’s people as a whole. It is so very clear–from the famine that got him there to the release laden with goods and being kicked out of Egypt. This is certainly the story of God and His bride.
Now if this is one of the very first stories in Abraham’s life and one of the last is the story of the Isaac’s sacrifice, then a huge question should come to mind. What if the stories included in Abraham’s life actually mimic, in order, the history of Israel, from inception to death of Christ, and beyond to the inclusion of the Gentiles (Gen. 24)? That’s what the types show us. It becomes as clear as day. And it must be clear if we are to believe it all. But it is–it is extremely clear.
Now we know for sure (thanks to the Essenes) that the Scriptures we have were written as we have them at least as early as 200 B.C. Since that’s true, we know that the scriptures couldn’t have been modified to include the Jesus type so clearly after His existence. It had to have already been there and it had to have been there in the right place in the timeline of Abraham’s life. And there it is.
I’m saying so precious little here in light of all that is there in Abraham’s life and beyond. Volumes could be filled with the significance of the types and the clarity with which they show God’s plan in Jesus over and over and they had to be written centuries, at least, before He ever lived. It is a testimony to the certainty of Scripture that is, for me, unlike any other. But a study of types on a wide range needs to be done in order to really have a grasp on the incredible magnitude of this truth. It is truly dumbfounding.
I would be happy to walk down this road with you further if you like. I hope that this intrigues you even a little. The faith that this will put in you for the certainly of the plan in Jesus cannot be matched (in my opinion). I find it disturbing that I heard absolutely nothing about this when I was in school. It is so very important.
I will look forward to hearing back from you. God bless.
Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to seek a matter out is the glory of kings.
So the story of Christ is proven to be true because you can deduce that its major themes were plagiarised from an older story/religion?
Is this then just a case of unoriginal thought, or in the kindest sense – the interconnectedness of all things? Wouldn’t it be quiet easy for there to be parallels between the story of old and the re-telling of it anew considering that the people who wrote the new story were quite familiar with the old story? I would argue that parallels exist not due to some kind of divine foretelling, but simply due to the fact that the people who created the story of Christ knew the Jewish tradition and scriptures.
You’re claiming that the stories are written similarly because the writers amended stories to match after the fact? And you could be right if there were only a couple of stories that had to be matched up with (or 3 or 4 or 10)–at least you could be partially right. But it doesn’t work at all to argue this way when the types are as rampant throughout the Scriptures as they are. The magnitude of amendations and necessary consistencies would be mesmerizing. Like I said, I was giving only the slightest bite of what God has filled His word with. I assure you, I’m not as simple as you perceive. I have not been a Christian my whole life, not raised in the church. I’m no happily duped, raised-in-fun-youth-group, swallow what your feed me pew-sitter. I attempted suicide at 20 because I had reasoned that there was no real meaning in life–nothing that didn’t end in futility. I’m a thinker–can’t help it.
The Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Scriptures were set as we have them at least 200 years prior to Jesus. The OT Scriptures would have been impossible to amend after the facts of Jesus’ life. On the other hand, changing the facts of Christ’s life in the first generation after Christ would have been almost impossible because of the presence of eyewitness account. But even if I grant that possibility, I still must wrestle with the presence of the types, which are overwhelming in their frequency in Scripture. How could one man be smart enough to see them all in Scripture when no one else did and then convince enough people of what he saw throughout all the Scriptures to base a religion on it accordingly?
So although I appreciate your argument, I respectfully must dismiss it. It is not that I haven’t thought of it before. But as I say, the sheer magnitude and consistency is what is baffling (and humbling). Please don’t think me daft. It won’t serve our conversation well.
Oh don’t worry I never assumed or treated you as daft:)
Thank you for your personal testimony in your last comment by the way. That is one thing that I can never debate. I can not and will not ever be able to debate your personal experience, the change that took place in your life, and what you simply know in your heart to be true.
I am well aware that I am speaking to a person of both faith and intelligence. I believe I have spoken with you respectfully. I am debating historical evidence of the life of Christ, and nothing more. Now, as per your comment:
I would never state that the Jewish scriptures were altered to match with the life of Jesus, in fact I do not see where I made that claim at all. I was suggesting that the life of Jesus was fictionalized to line up with the Jewish scriptures, and not the other way around.
It would be quite possible to accomplish, especially in that day-and-age. They had no internet, BBC, reporters, and cell phone cameras. Our governments even today somehow manage to still change the accounting of events even with all of this against them: It would have been comparably much easier for Rome to do so. When the church came into power as the State religion under Roman rule they manipulated historical documents as they saw necessary. This was already proven ages ago.
There have already been many proven cases of portions of or entire books of scripture and documentations later being found to be edited, added to, or totally fraudulent. Also, there were many famous historians (I have studied about 50 so far) in that area and living in the time of Jesus though, and none of them even mentioned his life or death: there were no Roman accounts of his trial or punishment, and they kept track of those things. All we really have is the bible to go off of, and we can not use religious text as a history book.
There is no Roman record of his trial by Pilate, or being executed. There is no mention of his life by arrian, Pliny, Martial, Petronius, Appian, Plutarch, Seneca, Juvenal, Apollonius, Dion, Theon, Pausanias, Quintilian, Hermogeones, Columella…
They produced enough works in that timeperiod to fill a library, and they say nothing of it. We have a small writing from governor Pliny un 112 CE asking how to deal with Chrsitians, but that is not an account of the life of Christ. We have a Roman historian named Suetonius about Christians but not about Christ. He did make one comment about Jews in Rome being upset that a Crestus was punished for leading Jews in an uprising in Rome, but that was not Christ. Christ never rose up a rebellion, and never was in Rome. Crestus was a common word used for many false Messiah’s in that age who were trying to rally the Jews to arms. The only historian Christians can brag on is Tacitus. He wrote of the great fire that Nero most-likely set himself. He writes of Nero blaming the Christians. He states that the Christians say that their origionator was Christ and was killed by Pilate. However, Tacitus was not in the area at the time of the death, and was not a witness. This account is well into 112 CE, and his historical facts were even wrong. He referrs to Pilate by the wrong rank and title (as per the bible story and not Roman records) so he was going off hearsay and not any real records of documentation.
Philo was a Jewish historian who lived during the supposed life of Jesus and never made record of it. We have over 50 works of his still around today. They deal on history, philosophy, religion, and even speak of Pilate, but make no claim to Jesus.
Josephus was a younger contemporary. The church did manage to get actual writings from his books that were historical accounts of the life of Jesus. For hundreds of years his passages were the proof historians in the church used to prove a historical Christ, but critical scholarship and testing later proved these passages to be later additions to the text. This was a huge blow to the church, and they had to pull these forgeries out of their list of documents.
The case for historical proof of the accounts of His life is still very much in question, and there is more hard evidence and data pointing towards U.F.O.’s being real than the gospels. If you have some kind of real proof, I would love to see it. Heck, we should publish it: because nobody else out there seems to have it.
In all seriousness though, if you have resources that I should check out that will help me realize the historical life of Jesus then feel free to point me in that direction. I will be more than happy to read the articles, website links, or get the books and study them. I have yet to find any that I find to be authoritative on the subject.