Again, this is a liberal interpretation: “They didn’t understand sexual orientation, mutual consent… ” And, it doesn’t take into account the two Levitical injunctions, which are pretty clear: if two men lie together, it’s an abomination, and both shall be put to death.

Leviticus is also pretty clear on the matter of wearing wool blend socks and eating shellfish.

We’ve discussed the Leviticus passage here in the past. If you look at it, it’s in the middle of a big section on the religious practices of the surrounding pagan cultures, which suggests (though doesn’t conclusively prove) that there is some specific misbehaviour that this passage is speaking against. (Large parts of Leviticus seem to be about that.)

Once again, I’m not saying that Leviticus is all good from a modern perspective. It isn’t. What I’m saying is that saying that this is a “pretty clear” statement against all homosexual practice is a conservative interpretation. Stepping back, there’s not very much that’s “pretty clear” about it.

Again, I disagree. It’ all over the place. It may be that the authors didn’t want it to be the main focus, but the ideas of etrnal damantion and salvific exclusivism are there from the beginning (of the NT).

I just re-read the first couple of chapters of Matthew, just to be sure, and couldn’t find anything.

Perhaps this is a classic case of eisegesis. If you have hell and damnation on your mind, you’ll see it everywhere. If you’re convinced that devils are behind everything, you’ll see them everywhere.

I personally see very little about the popular conservative notion of hell anywhere in Jesus’ preaching. It really is “a verse here and a verse there”, and even then, you need to squint a bit.

This is why I’m trying to emphasise what textual critics (whether Biblical or otherwise) refer to as higher criticism. I’d rather understand what someone was trying to say before dismissing them as worthless. (I may still dismiss them as worthless, but at least I have a legitimate reason why!)

If they hadn’t included Revelation in the final draft (I understand that Luther considered it a mistake), it might have made something of a difference – but they did.

Anyone who tells you they understand what Revelation says is probably lying.

OK, that’s a bit unfair. We do know the general idea of the book. It basically says “Caesar is not Lord, Christ is Lord”. The rest is just expanding on that theme.

Partly, it’s a form of literature that we don’t fully understand. (It’s like trying to understand a screenplay if you’ve never seen a movie before, only much harder.) Partly, it’s highly, highly symbolic, and we don’t get all the references. (That’s like someone from the 1930s trying to understand an episode of Seinfeld.)

One thing we can be sure of is that Revelation is the one book of the Bible that was certainly not meant to be read literally in any way whatsoever, simply by virtue of the literary form. Kind of how if you look at the page and “see” that it’s a poem, you know that you’re not reading a newspaper report, and adjust your expectations accordingly.

I happen to agree that we’d probably be better off if Revelation weren’t included in the canon. It almost wasn’t, after all. But then I’d be discounting the generations of persecuted people who gained a lot of comfort from that book, so who knows.

But again, I really don’t see anything about eternal punishment for humans in there. To see it, I think you need to be thinking it first.

cipher:

. . . it becomes a matter of “Who owns the label?

Yes. My view is that no one “rightfully” owns the label. (BTW, I’m an atheist, not a Chrisitian.) Some people who consider themselves Christian take a book that’s full of contradictions, use convoluted arguments to pretend that there are no contradictions, and then selectively pick some of the worst passages to justify being horrible. Others consider themselves Christian, take a book full of contradictions, and focus on certain messages to practice social justice. I think both of these groups are properly called Christian. Given that the starting point is a book full of contradictions, it’s hardly a math exercise with a clear correct answer. The fundamentalists like to claim that they own the label, and that the former approach is the only way that’s true to being “Christian.” The eagerness of some atheists to let fundamentalists define what constitutes being Christian is funny, but I don’t think it’s a good idea, and I also don’t think it makes sense.

Just to be clear: The mainstream liberal position on hell and homosexuality is that the text doesn’t really support either, but it doesn’t directly contradict it either.

Taking homosexuality as an example, Paul of Tarsus would be considered a homophobe today, as would any other thinking person of the age. However, he never really said anything about what we understand today as “sexual orientation”.

Again, this is a liberal interpretation: “They didn’t understand sexual orientation, mutual consent… ” And, it doesn’t take into account the two Levitical injunctions, which are pretty clear: if two men lie together, it’s an abomination, and both shall be put to death.

The “scriptural support” for the popular idea of “hell” is a couple of hard-to-understand verses here and there. If it were that important, the Bible would talk about little else. So I guess that means the Bible isn’t very religious.

Again, I disagree. It’ all over the place. It may be that the authors didn’t want it to be the main focus, but the ideas of etrnal damantion and salvific exclusivism are there from the beginning (of the NT).

If they hadn’t included Revelation in the final draft (I understand that Luther considered it a mistake), it might have made something of a difference – but they did.

Your unedited version appeared in my inbox, and I’d actually rather respond to that:

Cipher, I thought when you said “I don’t think Christianity changed all that much prior to the late 19th century,” you meant that it hadn’t changed that much. Apparently you mean that it’s changed in many ways, but some changes don’t count for you, because they’re only important to the practice of the religion, rather than doctrinal, and others don’t count because you see them as changes for the worse. I must say, this is a rather odd definition of “not changing.”

That is my point – the doctrine hasn’t changed very much. What change has occurred has been largely in matters of outward form and societal impact.

I don’t agree with your characterization of all the changes as negative

Obviously, I disagree. It was a bad idea that degenerated over time, until, as I said, the late 19th century, when the liberals began to become more influential.

If past Christians really made a number of changes for the worse, that’s so much more incentive for liberal/moderate Christians to change it for the better.

You’re welcome to try to change it. I’d rather have you be liberals than fundamentalists. I just don’t think you’ll have much success. I don’t agree with people like Christine Wicker and our own Mike Clawson – I think the fundamentalists are far more numerous and influential than they want to believe. Christianity will continue to polarize, then it becomes a matter of “Who owns the label?” (There’s a similar problem in Judaism.) I don’t think we have much time left as a civilization, or probably as a species, and I think that religious fundamentalism, more than any other single factor, will be responsible for our demise. If we do manage to survive, it will have to be in a far more secular format.

I’m guessing (perhaps incorrectly) from your posts that you’re a Christian, and that you think that interpreting the Bible is important in learning about morals and God, but that you also see the Bible as a human product, with contradictions between different human authors, and the assorted human cultural biases. Is this correct?

That’s fairly accurate. I was brought up as a liberal Christian, and I still identify as such, even though I lean a little closer towards some mix of omnism and theistic rationalism with a strong dose of Joseph Campbell.

My opinion of the Bible, incidentally, is not very different from my opinion of other “good” sacred texts in the world. “Good” is subjective, but I would include, say, the Bhagavad Gita but exclude Dianetics. There is some grey area here, but I think most sensible people can tell the difference.

Sacred texts were written by humans who came into contact with “the divine”, and are an attempt to make sense of what they experienced. I furthermore believe that mythology is a good and noble thing, and that it’s a shame that more people don’t appreciate this.

If so, I wonder if you could suggest a book or essay that talks about how someone with your viewpoint goes about interpreting the Bible. For example, if some authors have one view of the afterlife, and some have another, how do you decide which is right?

That’s a hard question to answer.

Part of the problem is that while liberal Christianity is big on scholarship, and trying to find out what the author intended, that’s actually not the basis of what we do. Liberal Christanity is much more about practice than doctrine. That’s why, for example, while anything by John Shelby Spong is worth reading, you might find it disappointing if you’re interested in Biblical interpretation; he’s far more interested in doing.

If you want some authors, I’d be looking at J.B. Phillips, Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann and anything from the Jesus Seminar (e.g. John Dominic Crossan). I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard good things about Richard Holloway’s How to Read the Bible; it’s only 120 pages, so it can hardly be a good technical survey, but from the reviews, it looks like it gives a good overview.

cipher:

That is highly contentious, but I see it as the same sort of controversy as that concerning homosexuality – liberals want to read it a certain way, and I don’t want to discourage all of you, but I don’t feel it’s supported by the text.

Just to be clear: The mainstream liberal position on hell and homosexuality is that the text doesn’t really support either, but it doesn’t directly contradict it either.

Taking homosexuality as an example, Paul of Tarsus would be considered a homophobe today, as would any other thinking person of the age. However, he never really said anything about what we understand today as “sexual orientation”. That is, calling homosexuality a “choice” or “lifestyle”, or advocating change-of-sexual-orientation therapy, or making it illegal, is also not supported by the text.

Putting it more simply: What I believe about homosexuality may have no direct support in the Bible, but what Pat Robertson believes doesn’t either.

The reason why liberal Christians have a strong emphasis on scholarship is that we’re far more interested in what the Bible actually does emphasise, such as the many words expended on the evils of greed.

This is where I partly agree with Jamie Whyte. The “scriptural support” for the popular idea of “hell” is a couple of hard-to-understand verses here and there. If it were that important, the Bible would talk about little else. So I guess that means the Bible isn’t very religious.

Prior to the 19th century? Are you kidding? The reformation wasn’t a significant change?

Not in the way that I mean. The underlying beliefs were the same. The biggest change was that they did away with the magisterium of the church. And, again, insofar as it did change, my contention is that it got worse.

Prior to Luther, if you went to mass and confessed your sins regularly, you’d get into heaven. Faith was considered a gift from God. If it came, well and good; if it didn’t – just go through the motions, and you’ll be taken care of.

Luther did away with all that. A Protestant had to find faith within himself first, then he’d be saved. How could you know you were saved? You couldn’t – so Calvin came along and threw the whole thing back into God’s lap. The bottom line became that God created the vast majority of humans for no other reason than to torture them for eternity. Calvinism is an abomination so obscene that I deny its right even to exist, yet it may be the single most influential doctrinal strain in fundamentalism today.

And – under the old system, most people were going to Purgatory, and you knew you’d get into heaven eventually. Luther ditched that as well. Now, it’s either heaven or hell, for eternity, no second chance. Thanks, Marty.

I’ll also point out that antisemitism increased, for two reasons: 1. Because Luther himself had some lovely thoughts concerning the Jews, and 2. Because, with the Reformation (and, subsequently, the Counter-Reformation), the feudal system broke down, upward mobility became a possibility, Christians were allowed to fill societal niches they hadn’t been allowed to before, and the Jews, who had operated more or less outside of the system for centuries, got herded into ghettos.

I’m sorry, but from my perspective, the whole thing is a train wreck. As you can see, I’m really not generous when it comes to Christianity.

So you don’t think that the evolution of Christianity from a Jewish sect to one more compatible with Greek philosophy (as was done by Paul of Tarsus) was a big change? What about Constantine? Not a big change there?

Paul – I’m not even counting the first Jewish messianists. It was a small group prior to him; I suppose you could even call it a “study group”! We aren’t even certain about what they believed. It didn’t begin to become what we think of as “Christianity” until he came along. In fact, I should have included him in the list of people who really fucked it up.

Constantine – His biggest “contribution” was to make it the state religion. The triumphalist overtones, the antisemitism – they were already there. He merely sanctioned them. Should have included him, too.

The phrase “substitutionary atonement” doesn’t appear until… probably Aquinas, I’m not sure about that.

Anselm, about the turn of the first millennium – but the idea was there already. It’s right there in the NT! He merely codified it, basing it on the feudal model, and gave it a philosophical pedigree. He was opposed by Abelard, who wanted to emphasize God’s love for humanity, and you know what happened to him – they castrated him! (All right, that wasn’t the reason – but I think it’s highly symbolic nevertheless.)

As for “eternal damnation”, the idea is not known until after the Bible, and certainly you won’t find in the Bible any descriptions of eternal punishment for humans (as opposed to eternal destruction; not the same thing at all).

That is highly contentious, but I see it as the same sort of controversy as that concerning homosexuality – liberals want to read it a certain way, and I don’t want to discourage all of you, but I don’t feel it’s supported by the text. In Revelations, it says that those not found in the Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire, and “the smoke of their torment goes up forever”. I know there are those among you – annihilationists, conditionalists, universalists – who want to play with the wording, want to believe it means that death itself will be destroyed, or that it doesn’t say the torment goes on forever, or some damn thing – but I think it’s pretty plain. And this is only one example that comes to mind; refute it, and we can find a dozen more.

Autmunal Harvest,

Re: icons – that’s a matter of form. The basic underlying beliefs are the same.

Re: sola scriptura – along with the examples cited above, this pretty much illustrates my point, actually. The really interesting thing going on here is that you guys are doing more to prove my point than you are your own – what changes have occurred, as time has gone by, have only served to make it worse.

I’m guessing (perhaps incorrectly) from your posts that you’re a Christian, and that you think that interpreting the Bible is important in learning about morals and God, but that you also see the Bible as a human product, with contradictions between different human authors, and the assorted human cultural biases. Is this correct? If so, I wonder if you could suggest a book or essay that talks about how someone with your viewpoint goes about interpreting the Bible. For example, if some authors have one view of the afterlife, and some have another, how do you decide which is right? Is it just a numerical count, or are there other weighting factors? And if you discount some views as the result of the cultural biases of the authors, rather than universal truths, how do you know which ones it’s safe to discount? How do you prevent yourself from unintentionally discounting all the views that don’t agree with your modern beliefs? I’m not asking you to explain all these things, since I think you would be stuck writing for pages and pages, but if you can recommend a good Christian author who discusses these things, I’d appreciate it.