Monthly Archives: July 2022

Jesus And The Resurrection Metaphor

Posted on by
21

While choosing Jesus quotes to use in an earlier post, it struck me how the risen Jesus never declares his resurrected status. He doesn’t say, ‘I am risen’ or indeed anything similar. Instead it’s left to others to claim, ‘He is Risen!’ That’s because the resurrection is a declaration of those others’ visionary experiences and their subsequent faith in those visions. Rather than have him declare himself risen, the Jesus in the (much later) gospels goes about ‘proving’ his reappearance is ‘in accordance’ with scripture (Luke 24:25-27; Acts 1:3 etc).

For those who insist Jesus resurrected physically, this is a bizarre turn of events: Jesus having to ‘prove’ he’s alive again by referencing bits of scripture? In fact, this is the biggest clue we’re dealing with a made-up story. ‘Proving convincingly’ over forty days that he’s risen because it somehow fits with a few unrelated quotes from scripture is an attempt by the gospel writers to ‘prove’ to those in the early Jesus cult that the visions of its founders were completely kosher: ‘visions they might have been, but they really were Jesus, honest: scripture says so!’ If Jesus had really risen in his physical body, he would have had no reason to ‘prove’, convincingly or otherwise, he had resurrected. Eye-witnesses would have seen him in the miraculous flesh. All the ‘proof’ needed, surely.

In fact, the gospel authors knew Jesus’ resurrection was nothing more than inner-visions experienced by a few fanatics. We know this was the case for Paul and John of Patmos. The risen Jesus’ real world appearances were invented by Matthew, Luke and John (Mark of course doesn’t even attempt it) and retain the visionary nature of those original spiritual ‘encounters’. In the stories they created for him, risen Jesus is frequently unrecognisable, even by those who supposedly knew him in life, appears as if by magic in locked rooms, vanishes at will and levitates into the sky.

The gospel authors were well aware they were fleshing out, literarily, the visions of those with overactive imaginations. Nonetheless, despite having him eat fish and inviting others to poke his wounds, they stop short of making Jesus declare explicitly he had returned in the flesh. They knew he had not. The point of the resurrection appearances was to bring to life those visions and to connect them with Old Testament ‘prophecies’. It was not to recount an actual event.

The resurrection is a literary trope, a metaphor intended to illustrate supposed Old Testament prophecies; literature begetting literature. Except in people’s heads, nothing else happened.

More on Prophecy

Posted on by
33

Commenter Koseighty wrote this response to Don Camp following Don’s assertion that we’re living in the End Times. Koseighty explains perfectly how Biblical prophecy is constructed and how inevitably it can only fail.

Don said:
I base my conclusion (never absolute) on the fact that all the markers of the end of the age are converging in these days.

Koseighty: This is what every generation of Christian has said since, and including, Jesus himself. But, besides being nauseatingly clichéd, it shows you don’t understand Jewish apocalyptic literature.

Here’s how Jewish apocalyptic literature works. It’s written in two parts. In the first part the author elaborates all the woes afflicting the people, most often in highly symbolic language. In the second part, the author tells how God is going to set things right, again most often in highly symbolic language.

The first part, the woes part, is not in any way prophetic. The woes and abominations it describes is how the author see his world at the time of writing. The second part, while prophetic, is imminent. It is not something that will happen thousands of years later. The author’s prophecies are going to happen any minute now. “Behold, I come quickly!”

Inevitably what we see in these writings is the first part accurately describes the time of the author, and the second part fails to occur. Believers then either twist the words of the second part to “show” they really did happen, or they place the fulfillment at some future date, collectively called by Christians “The End Times™.”

We see this in Daniel. Scholars can give the year Daniel was written – 167 BCE, if I recall correctly – because the first accurate part describes events prior to that date, and the second prophecy part never happened.

The same can be seen in Mark. The author describes the, current to him, destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, but the imminent coming of Christ in clouds of glory doesn’t happen.

The same with Paul. He describes his times and the imminent resurrection at Christ’s coming (which will include Paul and his followers), but neither the coming nor the resurrection ever happen.

As with the author of the Revelation. He describes his current view of the world and the Roman empire and the imminent destruction to precede the imminent coming of Christ (“Behold, I come quickly!“) which never happens.

Sorry, Don. You’re making the same mistake all those Christians have made before you. Taking Revelation as a prophecy of a distant (to the author) future time instead of happening right then in the time the author was describing.

Perhaps the church should have listened to all those heretics rather than burning them. Perhaps they should have read those heretical texts rather than burning them. Perhaps then Christianity could have come to an accurate consensus on these things rather than the ridiculous one they came up with.

Jesus Quiz

Posted on by
23

Sort these statements of Jesus’ into the following categories: a) metaphor, b) hyperbole, c) literal:

Be perfect as your father in Heaven is perfect

Judge not that ye be not judged

Remove the log from your own eye before attending to your neighbour’s

Slay my enemies in front of me

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.

Turn the other cheek

Give to all who ask

Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life

Whatever you ask for in prayer believe that you have receive it and it will be yours

If you have faith enough you can move mountains

Love your enemies

There are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

After three days I will rise again

Some who are standing here will not see death before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom

I am the Resurrection

Do works even greater than mine

Answers? Damned if I know (and no doubt damned if I don’t.) I do, however, know a man who thinks he knows. He says as a rule of thumb, if you don’t like the sound of something Jesus says, it’s definitely not literal. But if it fuels your fantasy then of course it is.

Thanks, Don.

If It Walks Like A Duck…

Posted on by
3

Psychology Today has this to say about cults:

Destructive individuals and cults use deception and undue influence to make people dependent and obedient. A group should not be considered a cult merely because of its unorthodox beliefs. It is typically authoritarian, headed by a person or group of people with near complete control of followers. Cult influence is designed to disrupt a person’s authentic identity and replace it with a new identity.

Let’s break this down a little:

Destructive individuals: But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me (Luke 19.27).

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34).

He said to them, ‘But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, “And he was counted among the lawless”; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.’ They said, ‘Lord, look, here are two swords.’ He replied, ‘It is enough’ (Luke 22: 36-38). [This is evidently a fictitious episode created around a supposed prophecy (Isaiah 53:12).]

Use deception: The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news! (Mark 1:14-15). Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11.24).

Undue influence: Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple (Luke 14.33). No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9.62).

To make people dependent: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14.26).

…and obedient: If you love me, keep my commands (John 14:15). Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me (John 12.26).

Typically authoritarian… with near complete control: You are my friends if you do what I command you (John 15.14).

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’ (Matthew 7.21)

Disrupts a person’s true identity: If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Luke 9.23). 

And replaces it with a new identity: Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18.13).

(John said,) ‘He must become greater; I must become less’ (John 3.30).

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Luke 5: 31-32).

Whether Jesus said these things or they were put into his mouth by his early followers, it is still the case that if it looks like a cult, talks like a cult and behaves like a cult… it’s a cult.

As it was in the beginning, now and ever shall be.

The End Is Always Nigh

Posted on by
10

No-one could possibly live their entire lives in accordance with Jesus’ exacting and impractical commands, loving their enemies, turning the other cheek, giving to all who ask. It can’t be done, which is why no-one, but no-one, manages it.

There’s a reason his expectations are so ridiculously unrealistic. Jesus didn’t anticipate that people would have to live according to them for very long. He fully expected that within a very short time, God would be imposing his kingdom rule on the Earth (Mark 1:15; Matthew 4:17; 10: 5-23; 16:28; 24:34 etc). The old system was about to pass away and the new golden age of the Kingdom of Heaven was just about to make its spectacular appearance. This was Jesus’s good news: if his fellow Jews changed their behaviour in the way he commanded, they could earn a place in the Kingdom (Mark 9:35; 19:47, Matthew 25:34-40; 31:36; 20:27-28 etc) Sacrificially serving others, putting oneself last, going the extra mile, all of it, was a small, short-term price to pay for eternal life in a renewed Earth from which all evil had been eradicated.

Of course, it didn’t happen. The Son of Man did not descend from the clouds within the disciples’ lifetime to make Earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10). As the first century progressed it was obvious that Jesus’s prediction of ‘thy Kingdom come’ hadn’t happened in the time scale he (and Paul) had anticipated. Consequently, his good news had to be adjusted*. We see this in Luke’s gospel, which starts to speak of the kingdom as an inner, spiritual experience, and in the fourth gospel where the coming kingdom is eliminated entirely. By the time of 2 Peter, its non-appearance has become the nonsensical argument that the then one hundred year delay was so that God could give people more time to repent.

All the same, the new cult’s members were now stuck with Jesus’s unreasonable commands. They’d been codified in the stories about him that were by then doing the rounds. (I’m of the view that the various sects within the cult created the commands themselves, as short term rules while they waited for the Great Reset.) As a result, the words put in Jesus’s mouth went from being instructions for the time at hand to impossible demands for the long haul. Two thousand years later and they’re still there. So how do most Christians deal with them? By ignoring them, dismissing them, insisting Jesus didn’t mean them literally, which of course he, or his scriptwriters, most certainly did.

The early cultists, believing an angelic figure would soon be descending from heaven to kick start God’s Kingdom on Earth, were wrong. Just about as wrong as it is possible to be. The writing they left behind, the so-called New Testament, is testimony to the failure of their beliefs.