Tag Archives: Jesus

Presenting a well-thought through Christian Response*

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If there’s one thing I love about writing this blog it’s the considered, articulate comments I get from loving Christians.

A brave anonymous commenter left one the other day on the 2015 post ‘Gentle Jesus – meek and mild?‘. Short on time and rhetorical skills, Brave Anon opted instead for a different range of tactics. Here’s what he(?) had to say:

I’m a little short on time, and i wish I wasn’t, because I could pick apart your post piece by piece for hours. I WILL say though, that I’d expect someone who has dedicated a whole site to this matter to have actually read the book he’s so dedicated to disproving. It’s pretty clear that you haven’t and only used quick Google searches to try to prove your point. The big thing that i’d really like to point out is that most of the scripture you quoted to try to prove your point is from the Old Testament. That means it was law BEFORE Jesus was born. Yes, some of them are pretty harsh. That is why Jesus whittled the 613 commandments in the OT down to 10 in the NT. The most important being, ”Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The most important one, right behind that, is to, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That is why I just prayed for you. I wish that people like you would get away from trying to disprove the Word and find something else (literally ANYTHING else) to spend your time doing. What do you have to gain by making this site? Do you have such little self worth that, as a grown adult (I assume, but maybe I’m wrong), you really need someone to pat you on the back and say, “WOW! You did a really good job! You get a gold star. That means, you get to pick out what toy you want to play with at recess first today!” Will, if that’s what you need, I ain’t the one to say it. Your arguments are weak, and you are clearly uninformed on the subject you’ve chosen to focus on. Why don’t you, at least, read the Bible (I mean cover to cover) before you speak on it. If you need a little motivation, why don’t you remember that Satan knows the Bible better than ANYONE here on Earth. I mean, even better than the POPE!!! Familiarize yourself so you can, at least, make an educated, organized, well informed, argument. You do that, and I’ll consider giving you a shred of respect. Otherwise, good luck on your day of reckoning. I hear it’s hot down there, so make sure you pack shorts!!

Let’s ‘pick apart’ the tactics in use here:

  1. Mind reading: Brave Anon knows that I have never read the Bible. Impressive. Wrong, but impressive. He uses his telepathy too to work out my motivation for writing: so I’ll be rewarded with praise. Thanks, Brave Anon; in the 12 years I’ve been blogging I’ve never realised this.

  2. Jumping to conclusions: Brave Anon decides all my information comes from Google. While it’s true I do use Google to verify sources and provide links to articles, when it comes to the Bible, I quote it directly. All those references in brackets are the clue that this is what’s going on. They look like this: (Matthew 7:1-3), (1 Corinthians 5:12). Brave Anon might want to look these two up on Google.

  3. Confused irrelevancy: Brave Anon is unhappy I ‘quoted… from the Old Testament’ in the post in question. Wait – didn’t he just say I’ve never read the Bible? Isn’t the Old Testament part of the Bible any more? The point made by the post is that Matthew’s very Jewish Jesus says that the Law – that’s the one in the Old Testament – will never pass away, not one jot or tittle of it. Wasn’t the Old Testament, under a different name of course, the only scripture Jesus knew? Maybe that’s why I quote it alongside the later stuff Matthew makes up for him to say.

  4. Intuition: Brave Anon intuits I’m a full grown adult. Brilliant. He could of course have read ‘The Author…’ above, which would have told him that, and would also have informed him of why I post what I do. Guessing is so much more effective though, don’t you think?

  5. Condescension: Brave Anon prayed for me. Nice. Nevertheless, he felt moved to send a derisory comment.

  6. Withholding his respect: Jeez, if I’d known this was going to happen I’d never have written the post. I’m positively bereft.

  7. More confused irrelevancy: Satan, the capitalised POPE… what the…?

  8. Desperation: ‘Just wait until the day of reckoning then you’ll regret criticising my buddy Jesus ‘cause you’ll be burning in hell!’ This threat is always a part of Christians’ comments. I’m thrilled Brave Anon remembered to include it.

Thanks for dropping by, Brave Anon, and for reminding me to pack my shorts.

*Not really.

Just suppose…

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Let’s imagine that the gospels were all written by eye-witnesses or the associates of eye-witnesses. Let’s suppose that prior to their composition there was a vibrant oral tradition that accurately preserved the Jesus story and his teaching in particular. Let’s suppose that Paul learnt what he knew of Christianity initially from the early believers he persecuted and then, following his miraculous conversion, from his meetings with the disciples. Let’s suppose that the later books of New Testament were written by people who knew Jesus personally or were really by Paul. Let’s suppose that everything in the bible was inspired by God and is truly his word. Let’s imagine that as result of all this, everything predicted and prophesied in the gospels, in Paul’s letters and the later ones by apostles, came to pass.

Because we’d have to imagine this. Even if everything we’ve supposed was true, none of the prophesies, predictions or promises have materialised in reality. Not one. No Son of Man beaming down from heaven while the disciples and Pilate were still alive, (as he promises in Mark 9:1 and Mark 14:62 respectively), no visit from the Messiah while Paul and his acolytes were living (1 Thessalonians 4:17), no final judgement, no Kingdom of heaven on Earth, no Christians performing miracles greater than those attributed to Jesus. Not even any ‘new creations’ imbued with the Holy Spirit (‘by their fruits shall ye know them.’)

Apologists put a lot of effort into explaining away these failures, some even arguing the Kingdom is actually with us now (how incredibly disappointing it is if this is the case!) Most disappointing of all is that no Christian has ever resurrected from the dead. Not Paul, not Peter, Mary Magdalene nor any other early follower, and no-one since: not Martin Luther, Charles Wesley, C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham nor any bishop, minister or evangelist who has ever lived. All have remained resolutely dead, just like everyone else who has ever ‘fallen asleep’ and everyone who will in the future.

However much Christians want to insist the Bible is true, accurate and God-breathed, in the end it simply doesn’t deliver.

Either All True Or None True

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About 2,500 years ago, a man called Elijah went up to heaven while still alive. He was taken through a whirlwind in a chariot of fire, pulled by horses of fire. This amazing event was witnessed by several other people who were profoundly affected by it. The story of this ascension was possibly relayed orally for many years until finally being written down in what is now 2 Kings 2.

Did any of this really happen?

Of course not. It’s a myth.

Some time in the 4th century BCE, the first king of Rome, Romulus, was taken, while still alive, to the dwelling place of the gods. From that time on he was worshipped as a god – some said he was eternal to begin with – with a temple being built in the very place from where he had ascended. Later he appeared to one of his followers, Julius Proculus who said the resurrected Romulus was larger and more beautiful than ever, armed with weapons shining like fire. Julius Proculus attested to this appearance of the resurrected Romulus, swore an oath to its veracity and relayed it faithfully to others.

Did any of this really happen?

Of course not. It’s a myth.

https://mythologymatters.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/easter-mythology-the-resurrection-as-modeled-on-greco-roman-myths/

It is not known when Mithras was born, if indeed he was. He emerged from a rock in the spiritual realm as a child or youth, ritually slaughtering a bull and sharing a banquet with the god Sol. He guided souls to the after-life, propelled as they were by the bull’s blood and flames. He was worshipped primarily by soldiers who saw him as their salvation from the bitterness of earthly life. There were rituals to be followed to become a true initiate and for Mithraic mysteries to be revealed. How Mithras made himself known to his acolytes is unknown, but in the first three centuries CE, his cult rivalled that of the Christians in popularity.

Did all of this really happen?

Of course not. It’s a fabrication, a myth.

In the 8th century CE, the prophet Muhammad flew from Mecca to Jerusalem on a winged equine. Once in Jerusalem he climbed a ladder to heaven. Once there he travelled through the various levels, having conversations with other lesser prophets, before entering Allah’s domain. His journey was later revealed to two early prophets who had known Muhammed when they were boys. They conveyed the details accurately until they were recorded, briefly at first in the Qur’an and later in more detail in its supplement, the hadith.

Did any of this really happen?

Of course not. It’s a fabrication, a myth.

In the early 19th century, Joseph Smith was visited by Jesus and his Father in a vision. They told him that he should not join any existing church because they were all in error. Later, a hitherto unknown angel named Moroni appeared to Smith and indicated to him where some gold plates were buried. He instructed Smith to dig up and translate the plates. Obediently, Smith did so, using a pair of seer stones for the translation. The resulting Book of Mormon was a revelation of Christ’s activities in North America following his resurrection. Smith wisely had a number of his associates witness, in writing, the existence of the gold plates as well as their supernatural provenance.

Did any of this really happen?

Of course not. It’s a fabrication.

In 1916 the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times to three poor Portuguese children, giving them instruction and prophesying to them. She also promised that she would perform a miracle at Fatima. Accordingly, between 30,000 and 100,000 people, including reporters and photographers, gathered at Fatima where many saw multi-coloured lights before the sun itself ‘danced’. It came closer to the Earth before zig-zagging back to its usual place in the sky. While not all of the attendees testified to the phenomenon of the dancing sun (some saw only the lights, others nothing at all) many did and testified to the effect the miracle had had upon them.

Did all of this really happen?

Of course not. It’s a fabrication based on hallucinations.

Around 30CE, a rabbi known as Jesus, who had been born of a virgin, gathered together 12 followers and went around Galilee preaching absolution from sin and the imminence of the Kingdom of God. He announced he was the Messiah who would rule the Earth when the kingdom arrived. The Jewish authorities took exception to his claims and petitioned the Romans to have him executed. This they did, only for Jesus to come back to life three days later, appearing in visions to his followers. He ascended to heaven, promising that those who believed in him would enjoy eternal life. Some of his disciples spread his message faithfully until it was eventually written down, first by a former Pharisee called Paul and then by four authors who accurately recorded what Jesus had said and done.

Did all of this really happen?

What do you think?

If not Metaphor, then what?

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I’ve been arguing that everything in Mark’s gospel is metaphor (because he says so) but there are some pronouncements credited to Jesus in the synoptic that do seem to read as if they’re not. These look as if they are meant to be taken at face value: 

Mark 9:1 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

Mark 10:21. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.

Matthew 5:39. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

Matthew 5:40. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

Matthew 5: 43-44. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Matthew 6:24. No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6.25. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

Matthew 7:6. Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Luke 6:30. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

Luke 14:26 If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple.

Perversely, these are the very commands that most Christians insist are intended metaphorically. This includes those who oppose the idea that, Jesus’ parables excepted, the gospels are in any way symbolic. I know from experience that they have any number of unconvincing arguments of why Jesus doesn’t really mean what he is made to say. For example: ‘these pronouncements are too severe and impractical to be taken literally’; ‘the verses are being taken out of context’, and ‘they have a deeper spiritual meaning’ (oops – that’d be metaphor, wouldn’t it?). Ask these same folk if the statements are therefore metaphorical and you can expect to be met with barrage of abuse.

If they’re not metaphorical, why do we not find Christians striving to live according to them: renouncing wealth, giving to all who ask, selling all they have, resisting no-one, judging no-one, hating family, becoming a slave and having no care for their own welfare for the sake of the kingdom that Jesus promised was imminent.

Because they don’t believe him. Easier to disregard his words about the kingdom arriving within his disciples’ lifetime and the instructions for living in the short time until then. The hard stuff is treated as metaphorical when it makes demands on Christians themselves.

Possibly they’re right. I’d suggest that the pronouncements like those above were not Jesus’s at all. They’re cult-speak; the extreme demands of cult leaders seeking to control their acolytes. In case this sounds like an about face on my part, let me assure you it isn’t; I’ve long argued that among the metaphor and the reworking of Jewish scripture, the gospels include copious amounts of early cult rules.

Whether they’re metaphor or extreme demands once imposed on cult members, no-one today takes much notice of Jesus’ commands. What does this tell us about their worth? What does it tell us about Christians from the earliest days until now? What does it say about their willingness to crucify themselves (definitely a metaphor) in order to follow him?

Bible Study

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Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (Mark 3:1-6)

Greetings, my beloved Brethren. Today we are going to look at God’s Holy Word as revealed to our dear brother in the Lord, the one who will one day be called ‘Mark’. We’re looking specifically at the passage above, because some of you have expressed difficulty in discerning the full import of the text. I have to say I’m surprised at this. You only have to bear in mind Mark’s rule of thumb that everything in his gospel is a metaphor, which, when looked at with discernment, reveals a previously hidden mystery: 

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (Mark 4:11-12, referencing Isaiah 6:9)

Our passage today begins with the Lord healing a man with a withered hand, which should straight away alert us to the fact we are dealing with metaphor. All of the healings in the gospels are. They stand for something more significant than any actual healing.

Some of you might already have made the connection between the use of ‘withered’ here, with its use in another story (Mark 11-12-14), where Jesus withers an unfruitful fig tree. Of course, no actual fig trees were harmed during this miracle. The fig tree and its withering are metaphors.

The tree, you see, is a metaphor for the Jewish system of worship, the old Covenant of the Law. This had reached the end of its life. It was fruitless and God was done with it. He was in the process of replacing it with salvation through Grace. All of this is represented metaphorically by Jesus cursing the fig tree and causing it to wither.

So it is in our passage today, except this time, God offers healing to the Jewish nation. He is nothing if not gracious, reaching out and offering acceptance into the new Covenant, expressed here as the healing of a withered hand. You won’t have missed the fact – again symbolic – that the healing occurs in the synagogue, the Jews’ place of worship. We might also remember Deuteronomy (6:8) where the Lord God instructs the Jews to wear his Law on their foreheads and, more significantly, to tie them to the backs of their hands. But now their hands have, metaphorically speaking, withered away, just as the fig tree will.

God knows of course that few will accept his proffered healing, insisting instead of labouring blindly under the old Covenant. The rest of the story reflects this stubbornness and the incalcitrant attitude as the Pharisees – metaphors for the Jews as a whole – round on Jesus and castigate him for breaking the Sabbath laws in healing the man – in spiritual reality the Jews themselves. That Jesus heals on the Jews’ sacred day is metaphorical too, demonstrating as it does that all the old laws are now surpassed. Jesus, and more importantly his followers – you, my dear brethren – are no longer under the yoke of that law but have new freedom serving Jesus under his new yoke, which is easy to bear. At the end of the story, the Pharisees – the Jewish leaders of our own time, lest we forget – leave to plot against the Lord; in reality against us. With his help we will of course bear this persecution stoically.

So you see my brothers, this story was written for you, to remind you that you are saved. You are the New Covenant. The Old has passed away. You can follow Jesus’ example and do good, yea, even on the Sabbath. You need not fear the Jews or others who might persecute you because the Lord is with us. The Jews, on the other hand, will soon be cast into outer darkness when he comes in person. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

I hope this has made clear to you the mystery hidden in this part of Mark. I know there will be some of you who are not sufficiently advanced in their understanding of the mysteries, being still babes in Christ, and may yet object to this exposition of the deeper secrets of the Lord. So be it. But don’t say you haven’t been made aware of the Truth.

Next time, if there are those who need to know more of the mysteries hidden in God’s new revelation, we can look at the next part of Mark, though I trust that you are, by now, developing sufficient spiritual insight to discern for yourselves the hidden mysteries embodied by the gospel’s metaphors.

The Bible as Metaphor (again)

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A few days ago, Dennis and I visited Penrith, a small market town a short distance from the city where we live. What a delight it was to discover that the street preacher who plagues our city – the humourless Dale McAlpine – also inflicts himself on this smaller place. We so enjoyed hearing him bellow out, as we manoeuvered past his confederates handing out poorly written tracts, that we were all sinners – ye, everyone of us – bound for hell.

As we stopped at an ATM we heard Dale announce how Jesus healed lepers and cured leprosy, which patently he did not. He said Jesus’ healing of lepers was a metaphor for what he could do for us all, by removing our sin and making us whole again. His metaphor schtick – an sophisticated one for a simple street preacher – put me in mind of our very own Camp commenter. As Sunday school teacher Don frequently reminds us, the Bible is a) literature and b) largely metaphorical.

In case he’s forgotten and is arguing this week that we should view the bible’s stories as historical accounts (his other favourite tack), here’s what he actually said:

Much of scripture is the kind of literature in which metaphor and other kinds of figurative language is common… you are out of touch with the literary character of ancient literature.

I hope you all feel thoroughly chastised by this. I know I do. Don was taking exception to my post in which I itemised the Bible’s mythical creatures, talking animals and impossible events. So, I’m going to take him, and Dale at their word and take a fresh look at the Bible’s use of ‘metaphor and other kinds of figurative language’

First though, let’s understand that metaphor and figurative language are distinctly literary techniques. In literature and sometimes in speech, metaphors make subtle comparisons and bring to mind a host of associations that the author does not then have to explain. Outside of fiction, they don’t have much of a function. We don’t, for example, attribute metaphorical meaning to human events and interactions in the real world. The present war in the middle east is not a metaphor for something else, like, for example, the warfare that Christians believe rages in the Spirit world. Sleepy Joe Biden’s activity, or lack of it, is not a metaphor for the present condition of the USA (let’s hope not anyway). Our personal relationships are not metaphors for something grander. There is no metaphor embedded in actual events or real world interactions.

No. Metaphor exists almost entirely in literature. While the occasional non-fiction author might add a metaphor for flourish, strictly speaking, metaphor exists in and for fiction and poetry. More than this, when, in fiction, ideas are expressed metaphorically, it signals that the surface meaning is of lesser significance. It is the underlying or hidden meaning that matters. The fiction is the vehicle by which the metaphorical truth is conveyed. Don admits as much in his comment.

Let’s try some illustrations. The underlying metaphor of The Great Gatsby, its truth, is the dark underside of the American dream. Its surface story isn’t real; it is fiction. The metaphor conveyed through Moby Dick – the fictional whale as well as the novel as a whole – is the destructive nature of obsession. Again, as powerful as this is, none of the story that conveys it actually happened. Frankenstein’s central metaphor is the danger that uncontrolled science represents to humankind. The story that carries this message is, however, pure invention. In All The Light We Cannot See, Light is the metaphor, as it frequently is. The characters’ insights into truth are what the author seeks to convey. The fiction is the vehicle of that truth. Choose your own example: fiction embodies metaphor, the ‘truth’ of the story. But the story itself is rarely an actual event. Even when it’s based on one, as the movies say, the narrative is extensively fictionalised.

So, let’s go back to Dale’s leprosy metaphor. In several gospel stories, the authors have Jesus cure lepers precisely to illustrate how he can heal people of their inner leprosy: their sinful nature. Jesus almost certainly did not heal any lepers; this is the fiction. The creators of the gospels designed the story to carry metaphorical meaning, which, in this case, is that Jesus can heal us from sin.

Likewise the stories in which he heals the blind; the blindness is metaphorical. The saviour opens people’s eyes to spiritual truth. He didn’t really cure blind people; that is the fictional vehicle for the metaphor.

He didn’t turn water into wine; the writers of the fourth gospel wanted to convey the spiritual ‘truth’ that the new cult’s beliefs were superseding old Jewish ones; a metaphor was a memorable way to do it.

Lazarus was not raised from the dead; the story is a metaphor to illustrate how God will raise believers at the last day.

The Romans did not execute Jesus; it was the spiritual rulers of the age who, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:8, put the saviour to death. The Romans are the metaphor for the wickedness of these supernatural beings.

Jesus did not rise from the dead. This too is a metaphorical fiction.

How did I do, Don? I’ve interpreted isolated periscopes from the gospels metaphorically. I’ve borne in mind that metaphor and other figurative devices are purely literary, techniques in fiction. I’ve channelled the literary character of ancient literature as defined by you (except of course you never actually do define it.)

You are invited to respond. I offer to post your comment, if it is as lengthy as I expect it to be. You must, however, keep to the point and resist making personal jibes. Choose any of the miracles, healings or pericopes from the gospels and demonstrate that they are real historical events.

It matters to you and to other Christians that the events of Jesus’ life did happen. That they’re not just the invention of clever writers who, taking inspiration from Jewish scriptures, created metaphorical events to convey higher ‘truths’. So persuade us that at least one miracle, healing or episode is more than a literary device, a metaphor for some fanciful theological ‘truth’. Provide the evidence that it really happened. Claiming the disciples witnessed the miracles or healing won’t cut it, when the disciples are themselves characters in the stories, and metaphorical at that.

The Bible Is Fantasy

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The Bible contains:

113 appearances of angels, usually interacting with human beings;

50+ visions, on which all of Christianity hangs: those of Daniel; Cephas and others who ‘saw’ the risen Christ; Paul and John the Elder in Revelation. 

21 supernatural dreams, including those experienced by Jacob, Technicolor Joseph, NT Joseph, the Magi, Pilate’s wife and Paul. 

Numerous apparitions and ghostly appearances, including that of the resurrected Jesus as well as Moses and Elijah and, in the Old Testament, the spirit of Samuel, conjured up from the grave by the witch of Endor.

Innumerable resurrections: not only that of Jesus but several Old Testament characters, and, in the New, Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, the young man of Nain and the hordes who rose from their graves at the time of the crucifixion.

Multiple impossible astronomical events, ranging from the sun stopping in its orbit(!); a star wandering and hovering over a small house; a solar eclipse lasting several hours; stars that one day will fall from the sky; a God who lives just above the clouds and a ‘firmament’ between the Earth and the heavens that holds back water;

Several events in which nature is magically controlled: the parting of the Red Sea; Moses’ magician’s staff becoming a snake; the Nile turning to blood; Jonah being swallowed but not digested by a ‘great fish’ and Jesus calming a storm.

An abundance of fantastic beasts and fairy tale creatures: Giants (Genesis 6:1-4, Numbers 13:33); Leviathan the sea monster (Isaiah 27:1 etc); the Behemoth (Job 40:15-24); the Cherubim monsters (Ezekiel 1:4-21); the dragon and other beasts from Revelation

Many characters who are clearly legendary, from Adam & Eve, Noah, Lot and Abraham to Moses, Job, Daniel and gospel Jesus. Some of the Bible’s fictional characters lived to a literally incredible age: Adam 930 years, Seth 912, Methuselah 969, Noah 950, Abraham 175, Moses a pitiful 120. Jesus holds the record being now either 2,000 years old or eternal, depending on how you count it.

5 mythical places: Eden at the beginning of the book; New Jerusalem at the end; Heaven, the abode of God; Sheol the Old Testament place of the dead; Hades (Sheol mark II?) which Jesus visited while supposedly dead in his tomb (Acts 2:27, 31; Matt 16:18).

2 sentient ‘pillars’: one of cloud, one of fire (Exodus 13).

2 talking animals: the serpent in Eden and Balaam’s ass.

1 talking plant (Exodus 3:3).

0 science. No understanding whatsoever of what we now call astronomy, meteorology, germ theory, genetics, evolution, psychology… you name it.

So how do we read all of this? As the ancients themselves would, with an understanding of the world that regarded the supernatural, magic, miracles and monsters as real? We’re told often enough that this is how we should interpret scripture, not from a modern perspective. Perhaps we might credit the creators of the many books of the bible with greater skill, however, and interpret the inclusion of magic and miracle as allegorical or metaphorical; literary pieces, if you will. But then we have to decide which far-fetched stories are myth and which are historical accounts,. There really is no way to do this. A New Testament story awash with impossible events, implausible characters and symbolic tropes is every bit as allegorical or metaphorical as the same kind of story in the Old Testament (or, indeed, in Egyptian, Greek and Roman myth.) The reader who wants to see stories in the Old Testament as carefully crafted allegories has to concede that the Jesus narratives are of the same order.

It looks like we have to read the Bible as 21st century readers, because that is what we are. After all the Bible is supposedly a book for all time. We can, however, recognise the way in which its many creators saw the world – populated with fantasy creatures and subject to impossible events – and accept that they were wrong. Reality is not as they perceived it. What we cannot do is claim that the Jesus story is an oasis of truth in the midst of all this fantasy . 

Jesus Shows How To Treat Slaves

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Jesus’ parable of the talents

Three slaves are given money by their owner, two invest it while the third buries his share. He is castigated by his master (yes, it’s Jesus as his favourite metaphor: slave master) who says to him on his return:

I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. (Luke 19:26-27)

I know, that last sentence doesn’t fit the rest of the story, but it tells us what a despicable s**t Jesus was, quite happy to see those who didn’t want a peasant with delusions of grandeur lording it over them exterminated. Thank God the Romans got to him first (if indeed he existed.) No-one likes a dictator, specially not another dictator.

How about the conclusion to the actual parable, the one about the slaves and the money? The talents are evidently a metaphor for something or other. According to Christianity.com, it’s that the third slave, ‘didn’t take joy in the promise of the master’s return but instead wasted his time, his opportunities, and the master’s money.’

In other words, it’s fanatic talk aimed at those with a lack of commitment to the cult and its beliefs, including the ‘master’s’ imminent return, when wastrels will be in big trouble. As Christianity.com puts it:

Those who are not (faithful) may face the harsh reality of being called a wicked and lazy servant. Worst of all, they may not share in the joy of their master’s presence when he returns.

And there we have it, the softening of Jesus’ dictatorial original: ‘will’, as in ‘will lose everything’ becomes the hedging-your-bets ‘may’ while ‘slave’ (doulos again) becomes the watered-down ‘servant’. After all, we wouldn’t want to draw attention to how much of a cruel bastard Jesus was originally conceived as being. (Because, yes, these stories were invented by the early Jesus cult.)

The cult took no prisoners; in terms of commitment. It was all or nothing. Waiver in that commitment and you risked expulsion when the slave-master returned. So much for being redeemed unto salvation, so much for salvation by grace alone. If you weren’t utterly committed you stood to lose it all. What the original cultists weren’t to know, of course, was that the master would never return. The whole sorry parable was as irrelevant then as it is now.

Jettisoned

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It’s all very well discussing how the gospels came to be, but are they true and do Christians adhere to what Jesus purportedly tells them there? Let’s take a look at one of his instructions from Matthew 23.8-10:

But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 

Context: Matthew’s cult community is moving away from synagogue worship and so supplies Jesus with words condemning Pharisaic practices. Instead, because the new cult at this point is egalitarian, they have him endorse its practice. One teacher: the heavenly Christ. One church: the brotherhood. One Father: God in heaven. One Instructor: the heavenly Christ again.

How quickly the church jettisoned this advice! By the time of Ephesians (written in the late 1st or early 2nd and certainly not by Paul who was long dead) the church is awash with ‘the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, (given by Christ) to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up (Ephesians 4.11-12)

A little later still, 1 Timothy – again, not written by Paul – speaks of hierarchical structures of overseers (‘bishops’), leaders, teachers and instructors (the two words have the same meaning), while later in the first century, and in direct contravention of Jesus’ admonition, the Roman church started calling its priests ‘father’. The Pope, – the term means Father or Papa – soon became the Father of all fathers.

Did the early church not really believe that Matthew 23.8-10 recorded the words of Jesus? (They’d be correct if so.) Or did they think that they didn’t matter; were, in fact, optional? (Parenthetically, what is it with gospel-Jesus habitually referring to saviour-figures in the third person? He does it here – ‘one instructor: the Messiah’ – and when he refers to ‘the Son of Man’. Why should we suppose he means himself when he does this? He’s not afraid to talk at length in the first person about himself in John’s gospel, but in the synoptics he’s apparently too timid to do so and feels compelled to use the third person and hide behind alter-egos. Unless of course fictional gospel-Jesus, or his script writers, regards ‘the Messiah’ and ‘the Son of Man’ as beings other than himself.) 

Then there’s the modern church, with its pastors (‘shepherds’), bishops (‘overseers’), teachers, instructors and priests (‘elders’). Does it too consider that gospel truths about brotherhood, no father but God and no teacher except the Christ, to be optional – insignificant even? Apparently so.

Which other words of Jesus do believers feel free to jettison? We’ll take an occasional look in the weeks ahead.

 

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

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Sadly, we’ve failed to locate Jesus, the celestial super-being who is everything, everywhere, all at once yet nowhere at all. We’ve been presented with some possibilities, specifically that he exists in another dimension, which may or may not exist, from where he whispers directly into the brains of those who, over in this reality, call upon him. He even appears occasionally in visions, when the two dimensions ‘intersect’, which, as everyone knows, they’re capable of doing.

Unfortunately, all of this is undetectable by science but there’s no reason for concern because there is more to reality than that which science can observe. Equally regrettably, there’s no way of verifying this claim either; this is because science is deficient, limited as it is to investigating only ‘dirt and rocks’.

* * * *

It is far more likely that science can’t detect heaven and the eternal Jesus in precisely for the same reason it can’t detect Narnia, Valhalla and all the other fantasy worlds created over the millennia by human minds. Applying Occam’s razor, the imagination accounts for all these other ‘realities’ and the immortals that inhabit them.

No further explanation necessary.