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Newsgroups: uk.religion.christian
From: pw...@cam.ac.uk (Paul Wright)
Date: 1997/05/09
Subject: Re: fundamentalism (was Jesus took our sins)
In article <E9rwyG....@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, Howard Sinclair <hs5...@bristol.ac.uk> wrote: [snip] >Mark Goodge (m...@good-stuff.co.uk) wrote: >: >: I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you mean that the New >: Testament is not history? >I am not denying that Jesus Christ existed in a time and place Actually, the amount of material in the Sermon on the Mount is such >which is described by the Gospels. I dispute, however that Jesus stood >upon a mount and spoke for hours about several different parts of his new >teaching then went on to teach his diciples even more. Don't you think >the crowd would have been a bit restless? Don't you think the odd person >might just have dropped off if Jesus really had compacted his new >manifesto into a massive sermon on a hill? that it doesn't take that long to say it. However, I don't think that it is necessarily a record of all he said on that occasion. He may have preached over several days for all we know. Why shouldn't he preach at length like this? He was an itinerant preacher, he said the same thing in different places (compare with the sermon on the plain): I don't think the sermon on the mount is the only time he would have said those things. It wasn't like this would be the only chance people had to hear it, even if a few they did grow restless or drop off, so what? The fact that some people may have got bored listening to it does not mean it did not happen. >: : I don't think the analogy with Winnie-the-Pooh is really helpful, Would you be able to give examples of other things which are fictional? >: because you're not comparing like with like. WtP is fiction, and has >: no meaning at all outside it's own context (just like any other work >: of fiction). >Sorry but I am comparing like with like because alot of biblical >literature is fictional, by your definition because it has no meaning >ourside its context. Evangelicals don't have a problem with the use of symbolism in some bits of the Bible, but the symbolic is seen as inspired as much as the historical things are. However, I don't see the Gospels as being fictional. The gospel writers weren't writing the same type of literature as 20th Century newspaper reports and analysis, and they themselves admit they didn't have space to include everything, but I see nothing in the examples you've given to suggest that they just made it up. >If we look at the eternal pain in the backside which we call the number I don't think I've come across anyone round here putting that >of the beast. 666 has no meaning for us in our context, it was a number >depicting the name of a Roman Emporer (most likely to be Nero) and for >people to try to say "Oh I think it's Hitler, no it's Sadam Hussein" is >rediculous. interpretation on the 666 bit in Revelation. It's the sort of thing you see mad Americans doing, it's not a valid criticism of British evangelicalism. The funniest one I've seen is a booklet about the European Union being the beast, which was done by Morris Cerullo I think. I agree this sort of thing is ridiculous, but bad interpretation does not prove that the scripture is fiction. >do you believe Jesus was asleep with a pillow under his head Why not? Again, there's no sensible reason why there shouldn't have been >on the boat? Perhaps he was, nice story, wonderful painting of scenery >but without it there would be no story. something for him to sleep on. >Without story there is no truth and without an eliment of fiction we I disagree. The only thing worth pinning your hopes on is something that >have nothing to pin our hopes and dreams on but mindless hopeless lists >of facts. is true. Anything else is not being honest with yourself, living an illusion. If it's all just stories, we are to be pitied above all men. But the facts are not mindless and hopeless for Christians. -- You must Sign in before you can post messages.
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