Miracles

[AletheiaRivers]

What I am suggesting is that a literal interpretation of the resurrection is both right and wrong. (another paradox)

 

Yes yes yes!

 

I would say that the literal interpretation is right AND a metaphorical interpretation is right. There are double meanings in so many scriptures it makes my head spin. Studying Jewish mysticism really brought that home to me. They wove double meaning into just about every word. Heck, even the letters themselves have double meanings.

[cunninglily]

I would say that the literal interpretation is right AND a metaphorical interpretation is right. There are double meanings in so many scriptures it makes my head spin. Studying Jewish mysticism really brought that home to me. They wove double meaning into just about every word. Heck, even the letters themselves have double meanings. 

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Yes, exactly so. While I was showering I had this thought: What if Spiritual Reality IS Reality and Material Reality is the metaphor? hmmm.

 

...and if I don't get ready for work we'll be eating manna this weekend.

 

later,

 

lily

[FredP]

Yes, exactly so. While I was showering I had this thought: What if Spiritual Reality IS Reality and Material Reality is the metaphor? hmmm.

We're not human beings having a spiritual experience; we're spiritual beings having a human experience? (Is that Teilhard? Anyone?)

[AletheiaRivers]

To me, Jesus being " literally rose from material reality and death to spiritual reality and Eternal Life [sic] is true but the scripture that discusses it is not literally true or the details would be consistent.

 

Which is why I appreciate the difference between literal and inerrant and infallible. Coming from a JW background (which believe ALL THREE to be true, like most fundementalists), it's taken me a long time to appreciate I can affirm scripture as trustworthy and even affirm that Jesus was resurrected without saying that the Bible is a scientific history book that is to be looked upon as a reference book.

 

McLaren says something about "Narrative Theology" that I need to look up and re-read. It was something that made me go "A-HA!" when I read it.

[AletheiaRivers]

We're not human beings having a spiritual experience; we're spiritual beings having a human experience?  (Is that Teilhard? Anyone?)

 

Oh oh oh!

 

NT Wright did an interview at bnet that I just came across. In it he discusses the words used to translate physical body and spiritual body in 1 Corinthians and how they aren't correct.

 

Your Spirit Powered Resurrection Body - NT Wright

 

It's a very short article and quite thought provoking.

 

He might say we're "Soul powered humans having a human experience looking forward to being Spirit powered humans having a human experience."

[DCJ]

You've brought up the issue of inspiration twice now, des... Though it doesn't relate directly to my earlier assertion (I was merely hypothesizing about the thing itself, not the knowability of it), it has generated lots of discussion, and it's where the conversation would've gone anyway, so it's a good tangential discussion...

 

First, inspiration is not the same thing as dictation. Dictation would mean that the human authors were merely passive robots in the whole process. Total human authorship without divine assistance is the other extreme. Inspiration is in the middle (how's that for a moderate position?). The authors retain their unique writing style, etc, but God the Holy Spirit is still working through them to communicate his message to us. Jesus, Paul, and others in the OT and NT say things like "Scripture cannot be broken" and Scripture is "God breathed". If Scripture really is from God, then by definition it is trustworthy.

 

Which brings us to biblical "contradictions". Do you really think that we post-Enlightenment folk have just now realized that there are difficult and seemingly contradictory statements in the Bible, which the Christian fools in previous millenia were ignorant about, thus we have discovered that the Bible is in fact unreliable? Any "cursory glance" at material aimed at shedding light on difficult biblical passages would largely put the issue to rest. Firstly, the Bible is not a science textbook. When the OT speaks of the sun rising and setting, that is truly the behavior of the sun from the perspective of the author on earth. (I may point out that the OT also speaks to scientific truths far ahead of its time, such as the earth being round and the vastness of space.) Secondly, regarding "contradictory" accounts of the Resurrection and so forth, it would be a contradiction if Matthew said that there was 1 AND ONLY 1 angel at the tomb, and Luke said there were 2 AND ONLY 2 angels. If "an" angel was there in one account, then 2 angels can be there in another account and they do not contradict each other. Further, if every detail was exactly the same, people would cry "collusion", the authors must have gotten together and compared notes to foist this fairy tale on the ignorant masses. How many witnesses of a car crash describe the exact same thing? Just because people may have had slightly different (but not contradictory) recollections of the event, in no way diminishes the factuality of the event.

Edited May 6, 2005 by DCJ

[cunninglily]

You've brought up the issue of inspiration twice now, des... Though it doesn't relate directly to my earlier assertion (I was merely hypothesizing about the thing itself, not the knowability of it), it has generated lots of discussion, and it's where the conversation would've gone anyway, so it's a good tangential discussion...

 

First, inspiration is not the same thing as dictation.  Dictation would mean that the human authors were merely passive robots in the whole process.  Total human authorship without divine assistance is the other extreme.  Inspiration is in the middle (how's that for a moderate position?).  The authors retain their unique writing style, etc, but God the Holy Spirit is still working through them to communicate his message to us.  Jesus, Paul, and others in the OT and NT say things like "Scripture cannot be broken" and Scripture is "God breathed".  If Scripture really is from God, then by definition it is trustworthy.

 

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These are good points DC.

 

The words "authority" and "authentic" share the same origins. There is scripture that relates that "He (Jesus) spoke as one having authority", which, I believe denotes that he spoke as one *who knows* or *authentically*; from experience and not only from "inspiration". Jesus WAS as He spoke. This suggests to me that to the degree we experience what the scriptures point to, is the degree that it will hold any authority for us...and this is surely a work of the Holy Spirit both in us and through scripture. In other words, I don't think the problem is with inerrancy or infallibility when it comes to the Bible...I think its the fallibility of man and the nasty habit he has of thinking he knows something when he knows nothing that is the problem.

 

Much of this, in my mind, stems from not understanding what is stated in the Epistles and the writings of the Early Church..."I come to you as Babes in Christ, with milk and not solid food, for you are not yet able to receive it". First, this tells us that there are "initiations" or "levels" of understanding and revelation pertaining to scripture, and secondly, and perhaps most importantly, that all the Mysteries of God are not writ. That is not to say that the Mysteries of God can not be discerned through the vehicle of existing scripture, because I believe they can, but that not all that "God has in store for those who love him" is written therein. The implication is that the Mysteries of God can not be written or spoken, but only authentically known, in other words we must become the Truth to know it. For me, this makes the Bible of great importance but not of ultimate importance, if you see what I mean.

 

I believe with Paul that "those who have the law written upon their hearts" and yet have never opened the Bible, can prove the things therein. This is because God has written the laws upon every heart and, indeed, upon Everything, and therefore The Truth is not confined to the scriptures of our Bible.

 

just my take,

 

lily

[DCJ]

I'd agree with that, with the caveat that the "solid food" not contradict the "milk". It should only build upon it.

[Cynthia]

Many things made with milk seem fundamentally different when first tasted... yogurt, sour cream... good, still based on milk, but don't try to convince a baby it's the same

[des]

>What I am suggesting is that a literal interpretation of the resurrection is both right and wrong. (another paradox) I believe that Jesus literally rose from material reality and death to spiritual reality and Eternal Life. So, personally, I find it closer to the truth to believe in the Resurrection literally, than to water it down to mean only that Jesus rose from the dead metaphorically.

lily

 

I think the Resurrection is "literal" but the explanation of the resurrection, such as the various ways the different Gospels describe it in their incompatible ways is the part that is metaphor. For example, the stone and the angels, or whether Jesus could be touched or not. All are trying to get their minds around the larger miracle/truth.

 

However, I have a problem with describing metaphorical reading as "watering down". In fact, I see metaphor as sometimes going beyond, being MORE true than literal events.

 

--des

[cunninglily]

However, I have a problem with describing metaphorical reading as "watering down". In fact, I see metaphor as sometimes going beyond, being MORE true than literal events.

--des

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I see what you mean des and I agree, but what I am referring to is the tendency of some to take the mystery out of such things as the resurrection by making it more understandable according to our common experience. We've all encountered the "Jesus was a good man who died to his ego and became a fully individuated human being" etc. etc. way of interpreting metaphorical truth.

 

Metaphor and parable and allegory and story are used as devices to trigger deep and powerful responses from those who hear. They are not meant as devices for "explaining" or "explaining away". It is my contention that all of these things were meant to "confound the wise"; to turn what we think we know on its head, and to elicit deep transformative experience from within us. It is my observation that we lose the power of Mythos to change us when we begin to interpret these mysteries as "nothing but" metaphors for psycho-spiritual processes which are of common knowledge.

 

I may be reacting to my own personal experience of having the creative tension of the mysteries fizzle out in my own exploration of scholarship and history. Surely some of you know what I mean.

 

Last night I was watching the history channel and "historians" were busy as bees trying to prove or disprove that A. Lincoln did or did not write the Gettysburg Address. It is not that I object to "fact-finding" or efforts to discover "what actually happened" rather than what we've been led to believe happened, its just that I observe a move toward a certain cynicism inside myself that threatens to do its own "transformative" work within me, and I believe that I can discern this same "cynicism" happening on a large scale. If we are not careful with our insistence on fact and historical truth we may end up with a generation who believes in nothing, or worse, a generation that believes that all the mysteries have been explained away and that only those things that we can perceive with our five senses is "real".

 

I think part of why so many are moving into modern Pagan reconstruction (and during my time on Pagan e-lists and such I watched many "ex", disenfranchised, marginal, heretical, exiled "Christians" come in) is that it offers "initiations" and "encounters" and "experiences" into the mysteries, as mysteries. I think all of us with a religious bent hunger for that. We want to be changed by our religious tradition; swept up by it and prepared to wager everything in order to experience what it stirs in us as possible and promised. It seems to me that this is happening less and less in the Churches, and I must confess, less and less to me, which is, btw, why I'm here.

 

lily

[Cynthia]

Language again Lily! I completely agree with what you said in your last post - but for me, literalism is the death of mystery. Metaphor opens me up to the mysteries that cannot be contained in words. When there is insistence on literal truth or historical truth (which I agree is interesting but missing the point), then the focus changes from experience, from mystery to proof and arguing. In my mind seeing the scriptures metaphorically opens them to much more profound and timeless meaning.

[cunninglily]

Language again Lily!   

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Yep and I don't know quite how to bridge the language barrier here, although granted, it may only be a barrier contrived of my own ignorance.

 

I like to use the example of Santa Claus. We don't believe in a literal Santa Claus, though some of us may believe in the "spirit" or metaphor of Santa Claus...but the telling thing is whether or not on Christmas Eve you are able to experience a heart pounding expectation of Santa Claus's arrival by Christimas morning. If you are a literalist, you'll be sorely disappionted. However, if in making Santa Claus metaphorically true, you lose the power to believe in his coming with any expectation, then Santa Claus is simply not real to you and meaningless; a nice story to tell the kids so as to teach them of the spirit of giving and etc.

 

My argument is that mystics do not believe in a literal Santa Clause, but are nevertheless able to believe with great expectancy that he will indeed come by christmas morning. Do you catch my drift? We need, imo, to find a middle ground between literalism and the 'nothing but" of metaphor.

 

lily

[FredP]

However, if in making Santa Claus [, Jesus Christ, etc.] metaphorically true, you lose the power to believe in his coming with any expectation, then [...] is simply not real to you and meaningless; a nice story to tell the kids so as to teach them of the spirit of giving and etc.

I've been groping for words to express this thought as well... And the fundamental impasse is that we as modern scientific folk (for better or worse, I believe both) have a really tough time entertaining this idea that the real meaning of something may be infinitely truer than the literal meaning of it. Our use of the phrase "but it is / is not literally true" betrays a nagging committment to the literal that simply didn't exist before a few hundred years ago, in the same way that it does to the modern mind.

 

I'm not a dreamy romantic who thinks the modern mind is the source of all our ills; yet that mind does turn out to be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it gives us the capacity to genuinely tease apart superstition from reality, and falsehood from truth. As such it has been a monumental step in human evolution. In the sphere of religion and spirituality, I truly believe that we can understand spiritual reality in a way that has never before been possible, because we are able to criticize it and ask it hard questions. But this capacity can also become a stage we get stuck at, and identify with. Insofar as we identify ourselves with "enlightened reason," we will always, I think, have a "Yes, but..." attitude towards the spiritual, preferring to emphasize what we don't mean over what we do mean.

 

The modern perspective of doubt and criticism is inevitable (and I say again, a good thing) in a person who has developed at least up to the capacity to comprehend the universe rationally. But in the more spiritually astute, I think it becomes relegated to a corrective, but not defining, role. Not a childish surface acceptance of fairy tales, but not an incessant rational clarification of belief either. A new thing that grows organically out of both. Transcend and include, to use a really great Wilberism.

 

And I hope nobody imagines that I'm putting myself in this "more spiritually astute" category. I struggle daily with letting my "Yes" be "Yes"... I can gauge where I'm at spiritually, almost moment-to-moment, by reflecting on whether my ego insists on following up "Yes" with "but..."

[cunninglily]

Insofar as we identify ourselves with "enlightened reason," we will always, I think, have a "Yes, but..." attitude towards the spiritual, preferring to emphasize what we don't mean over what we do mean.

 

The modern perspective of doubt and criticism is inevitable (and I say again, a good thing) in a person who has developed at least up to the capacity to comprehend the universe rationally.  But in the more spiritually astute, I think it becomes relegated to a corrective, but not defining, role.  Not a childish surface acceptance of fairy tales, but not an incessant rational clarification of belief either.  A new thing that grows organically out of both.  Transcend and include, to use a really great Wilberism.

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Awesome. Great post. Thanks Fred. This helped to clarify my own thoughts a great deal.

 

 

lily

[des]

>'ve been groping for words to express this thought as well... And the fundamental impasse is that we as modern scientific folk (for better or worse, I believe both) have a really tough time entertaining this idea that the real meaning of something may be infinitely truer than the literal meaning of it. Our use of the phrase "but it is / is not literally true" betrays a nagging committment to the literal that simply didn't exist before a few hundred years ago, in the same way that it does to the modern mind.

 

Halleluah! I think you beautifully summed this up. I don't know what Native American groups said this but when they describe the stories they say something like "I don't know if this really happened or not, but it is True".* I think our modernist language and culture allow for a kind of dualism that just didn't exist back when. So that the Biblical authors could describe things, and not really worry about whether people judged it as literally factual. It would not have been an issue at all. You were allowed to tell stories with all kinds of truth-- literal, historic, factual, metaphorical, mythical blended together (actually we are too, but it won't be in the religious area for sure). You were allowed to quote older stories without givign the source, etc. Our minds simply don't work that way. Progress? :-)

 

I think its the advantage of things like communion, song, meditation, etc. where we aren't meddling about in the language thing. :-)

 

--des

* Or to quote my favorite spiritual scholar Worf :-) When asked if the stories on Kahless were real, "I have studied them all my life, and have found many Truths."

[FredP]

... So that the Biblical authors could describe things, and not really worry about whether people judged it as literally factual. It would not have been an issue at all.

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It's not that they didn't worry about whether it was literally factual; the concepts of literal, metaphorical, real, etc. were simply not yet differentiated in the cultural consciousness. We can appreciate that fact, but we will never be able to read the texts the way the first readers did (nor should we). We've lost some of their epistemological innocence, but gained a valuable critical capacity. By knowing that Jesus' body didn't physically float up off the ground and up into the clouds at the Ascension, we're free to differentiate the various meanings of this (true!) event and explore each in its own right.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback everybody.

[DCJ]

The biblical authors did use different literary genres (narrative, poetic, apocalyptic..) in their writings to communicate truth. But the difference is fairly easy to discern. The gospels and epistles are more narrative. Dr. Luke wrote to give an accurate account of what happened. Paul (the former persecutor of the church) frequently referred to "eyewitnesses".

 

Either Jesus is alive or he is not. If not, I'm wondering how the early church survived in the face of extreme persecution. I don't see any explanation to account for the historical data. I'm curious what alternative meanings the early Christians mused as they were crucified, beheaded, and fed to lions.

[FredP]

Either Jesus is alive or he is not.  If not, I'm wondering how the early church survived in the face of extreme persecution.  I don't see any explanation to account for the historical data.  I'm curious what alternative meanings the early Christians mused as they were crucified, beheaded, and fed to lions.

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I'm sorry, but I sincerly doubt that they were thinking about whether Jesus' body was physically resuscitated, lifted off the ground, and floated up into the clouds. (The three do go together; if the ascension wasn't "literal," then where did Jesus' body go?)

 

Clearly this is a point of divergence for us as progressives and non-progressives, and I think we just have to respect that, and formally disagree. As many times as someone plays the "how else do you explain the early church?" card, you're going to get the same answer, and it's not going to satisfy you. I'm not trying to be trite about it, but such is as it is.

Edited May 12, 2005 by FredP

[des]

Gee Fred, you sure word things better than I do. That is really what I meant. "They didn't worry" as they were not so dualistic to even think that way. I suppose the comment "didn't worry" implies that they may have perceived things that way and just not cared. That isn't precisely what I meant. Nice to have someone with such an excellent grasp of language. :-)

 

 

I think that because we think as we do we assume that everyone else thinks exactly the same way. Clearly other cultures even in our own time have a different view of things than we do.

 

--des

 

It's not that they didn't worry about whether it was literally factual; the concepts of literal, metaphorical, real, etc. were simply not yet differentiated in the cultural consciousness. We can appreciate that fact, but we will never be able to read the texts the way the first readers did (nor should we). We've lost some of their epistemological innocence, but gained a valuable critical capacity. By knowing that Jesus' body didn't physically float up off the ground and up into the clouds at the Ascension, we're free to differentiate the various meanings of this (true!) event and explore each in its own right.

Edited May 12, 2005 by des

[cunninglily]

Either Jesus is alive or he is not.  If not, I'm wondering how the early church survived in the face of extreme persecution.  I don't see any explanation to account for the historical data.  I'm curious what alternative meanings the early Christians mused as they were crucified, beheaded, and fed to lions.

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Well, for one thing DC, the Christian martyrs of the early church actually believed that martyrdom would get them into the Kingdom of God, or into heaven. This particular madness was widespread during the fourth century and was based on a literal interpretation of the directive, "Take up your cross..." In fact, even more so than other doctrinal differences, this understanding of what it means to "take up your cross and follow Jesus" is what ultimately split the church into orthodoxy and heresy. The Valentinian gnostic Christians, who considered themselves part of the Church and were not interested in separating themselves from it, were condemned as heretics because they believed that "courting" martyrdom was insanity and a literal interpretation of what was meant metaphorically (clearly, the literal versus metaphorical debate has been going on from the beginning).

 

Today, I don't hesitate to say, none of us believe that we are to literally court martyrdom; to actively seek persecution and death as a way to God. But the early orthodox Christians believed precisely this, and those who did not were branded heretics and false believers unwilling to die for Jesus.

 

My point is that the Christians who were "beheaded, crucified, and fed to lions" in many cases believed exactly as did the Muslim terrorists who crashed into the Twin Towers. They were sadly and tragically mistaken in their interpretation of what it means to "lose your life for My sake", which leads to the conclusion that people CAN believe a lie and even die for it. The examples throughout religious history are, sadly, endless. So, its not good scholarship or sound thinking to believe that because someone is willing to die for an idea that this alone makes the idea True.

 

lily

[FredP]

That is really what I meant. "They didn't worry" as they were not so dualistic to even think that way. I suppose the comment "didn't worry" implies that they may have perceived things that way and just not cared. That isn't precisely what I meant. Nice to have someone with such an excellent grasp of language. :-)

All those philosophy dollars hard at work.

 

Seriously though, I'm glad you didn't take my response as nit-picking. It's a subtle but important distinction. I'm not saying, of course, that the biblical authors were stupid and didn't know the difference between reality and fairy tales. But when they pored over the Jewish scriptures to glean some meaning (and some hope) from Jesus' ministry and execution -- a well-established interpretive tradition within Judaism -- it just never occured to them that those passages' metaphorical or spiritual meanings could be divorced from their "literal" implications. So, for example, when the OT speaks of the Son of Man in Ps. 8:10: "...you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay/corruption [Hebrew Sheol, the Pit, etc.]," this must imply that Jesus' body could not have been left to rot in a tomb. They were well aware of the spiritual meaning of the text, but the differentiation between its various levels and overtones wasn't taken into account until much later, and not by everyone, even to this day.

 

Orthodox Christianity still reads these OT passages as prophecies referring to Christ, and relies on the very NT passages that are based on them to confirm the link. The old habits die hard. How hard is it to read Isaiah 7:14, 9:6f. without thinking of Matthew and Luke, or 53:3f. as referring to the crucifixion?

[AletheiaRivers]

Issues and Methods in Interpreting Scripture

[cunninglily]

  I'm not saying, of course, that the biblical authors were stupid and didn't know the difference between reality and fairy tales.  But when they pored over the Jewish scriptures to glean some meaning (and some hope) from Jesus' ministry and execution -- a well-established interpretive tradition within Judaism -- it just never occured to them that those passages' metaphorical or spiritual meanings could be divorced from their "literal" implications.  So, for example, when the OT speaks of the Son of Man in Ps. 8:10: "...you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay/corruption [Hebrew Sheol, the Pit, etc.]," this must imply that Jesus' body could not have been left to rot in a tomb.  They were well aware of the spiritual meaning of the text, but the differentiation between its various levels and overtones wasn't taken into account until much later, and not by everyone, even to this day.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm not sure that I can agree with this. I know what you are getting at but I think we have to at least consider that the biblical authors were applying metaphor to metaphor and not metaphor to "literal events". It could be that our biblical authors were speaking of "spiritual realities" and not "material realities" from the get-go.

 

We, it seems to me, need to understand what it may have meant to the minds of the biblical authors to be "abandoned to the grave" or to "see decay and corruption". For instance, there was a widespread belief in reincarnation in the early church, which in time, of course, became heresy. Those who were thought to be Divinized were those who had transcended the wheel of birth and death and knew corruption no more. We do not know with any certainty whether the OT authors adhered to this belief or not. There are scriptural indications that were not excluded from the canon that suggest that some did. This would lend a completely different perspective on what "decay and corruption" may have meant in the minds of the authors.

 

The real point I am trying to make is that there were those from the very beginning who did not believe that Jesus was literally and totally Creator God, but a man become One with God; that Jesus the man became Divinized and both demonstrated and showed The Way to this ultimate Union with God. These two points of view would differ in their "interpretation" of the OT and would apply the prophecies in different ways. Did the NT authors write factual history or metaphorical/spiritual history? The latter was much more common in the day than was the former. As you point out, "facts" and "history" as we think of it today was argueably not the way they thought of "facts" and "history" then.

 

I know that I am making "subtle points" here as well, but I think you are coming from the a priori assumption that the events depicted in scripture are literally true but can be metaphorically understood. I'm not saying that this is a wrong way to look at it, only that its not the only way.

 

lily

[FredP]

I agree that the biblical authors often explicitly wrote in "literal" language about spiritual realities, knowing full well that they would be appreciated by differently developed readers in different ways. I think the letters of St. Paul and John's Gospel are clearly in this category. I don't see the evidence quite as strongly in the synoptics (I think a "collapsing" of meanings was already underway), but I definitely don't discount the possibility that it was going on there too.

 

I hadn't considered the reincarnation angle on the Ps. 8 passage before. That does shed an interesting light on it. It is pretty generally believed by scholars that there was a graudal progression in Judaism from a belief in no afterlife (or at least a really shadowy one), to a belief in a general resurrection. The Christian use of Ps. 8 to confirm the idea that Jesus' resurrection was the beginning of the general resurrection, fits quite well into this progression without relying on any reincarnation controversy though, so I'm personally a little bit hesitant to introduce it. That's just me.

 

...I think you are coming from the a priori assumption that the events depicted in scripture are literally true but can be metaphorically understood.

Really? Maybe I worded something badly. On the contrary, I think these NT passages are very much not literal history. I meant to say that, when the historical and spiritual modes of perception are not yet differentiated, the two sets of meanings get collapsed down into one, such that a passage like Ps. 8 directly implies certain historical/scientific facts, such as that Jesus' body could not have been left to rot in the tomb. But that implication is due to collapsing the two sets of meanings down to one. I didn't mean that was my view.

Edited May 12, 2005 by FredP