Joshua 10.1-15: Ancient Cosmology vs Modern Cosmology

So, I went to church yesterday for "research" purposes and while the music reminded me of my evangelical Christian days in high school, I was appalled by the ignorance that was expressed in the sermon.

The sermon was based on Joshua 10.1-15 and a summary of this passage is that the Israelites are fighting against 5 kings of the Amorites who have united to destroy Gibeon for making a peace treaty with Israel. Joshua, the commander of the Israel army, receives divine help from the Warrior-Deity of Israel in the sky. The deity sends down giant hailstones to kill the Amorites and then, at Joshua's request, stops the sun from moving so the Israelites can continue to slaughter the Amorites.

Now, the preacher of this sermon went nuts about the miracle of G-d stopping the sun in the sky, declaring it the second greatest miracle next to the bodily resurrection of Jesus. The passage literally states:

"On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in mid-heaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded a human voice; for the Lord fought for Israel." (Josh 10:12-14 NRSV)

The "preacher" then attempted to explain using modern cosmology that G-d would have to stop the Earth from spinning and maintain gravity OR cause the sun to stay still, which would cause the rest of the solar system to be thrown off course and part of the earth to scorch while the other half was freezing. At this point in the sermon, I lost it because the book of Joshua was not written with a modern cosmology in mind, it was written with an ancient three-tier cosmology in mind. A picture of the ancient three-tier cosmology is at the beginning of this post in the upper-left corner. Now, if you closely examine that picture (a larger one can be found here: http://www.aarweb.org/syllabus/syllabi/g/gier/306/OTcosmos.jpg) you will see that the sun and moon are just objects that are moved within a solid firmament or glass dome. Therefore, it would not be impossible for the warrior-deity to reach down and keep the "sun and moon" still for a whole day. There would be little to no implication for this ancient cosmology.

So next time you hear a preacher say something incredible about the "miracles" of G-d in the Old Testament, just remember, it was written in a completely different time in a prescientific time and just like you would never kill an individual for adultery in modern society, you really shouldn't listen to the cosmology/worldview represented therein either.

-SkepticalSparrow

Theology or TheoBabble: Why I No Longer Classify Myself as a Christian

Hello,

As of recently, I have changed my religious views from a type of "Christian" to pure "Humanist." The reason behind this change is the complicated theology behind most of Christianity, especially theories of salvation or Soteriology, as it is known in the field of theological and biblical studies.

The question of what it means to be saved is the clinching point for ending my classification as a Christian: If you want to be saved, save yourself. Did Jesus not say, "The Kingdom of God is within you." I will utilize the wisdom found within the tradition but I will not suffer the question of salvation any longer.

That being said, I wish to participate in the larger striving of humanity and not just the subculture of one religion. I still have experiences that some would classify "mystical" or as "religious experience" but I believe that the fate of this Earth is up to all of humanity, not just the "Christians."

Fear and Anger Now. Peace and Wisdom Later.

The title of this post is adopted from the NakedPastor's blog over at www.nakedpastor.com

He has recently posted a cartoon entitled "Skeptical Sparrow."

The cartoon is as follows:

(Property of David Hayward at the NakedPastor Blog) See http://www.nakedpastor.com/2011/05/30/skeptical-sparrow/ for more details.

In his reflection, he states that the Sparrow on the right expresses "fear and anger" at his questioning of the passage in Matthew 10:29 (NRSV):

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.

This is how I felt when I learned a lot of the things I was initially taught (or assumed to be so) when I was a teenager growing up in church and trying to defend a fundamentalist-intellectual form of the Bible. I assumed that certain things had to be so: that all of the Bible had to be history and had to have happened literally.

So, when I learned that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John weren't written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (two of which are supposed followers of Jesus, Matthew and John) but these names were appended to the Gospels in the 2nd century CE, it was startling. When I learned that Mark was the earliest Gospel and was written nearly FORTY years after Jesus was crucified, I was shocked.

When I learned that Matthew misappropriated certain passages from the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) and misused/misapplied them to Jesus' birth, life, death, and "resurrection," I was afraid.

When I learned that the Bible was chock full of historical errors and contradictions within itself, I was angry.

I was afraid of what was going to happen to my personal faith and I was angry at those who taught me the Bible was inerrant (free of error) and was the inspired, literal "Word of God."

Now, through the usage of metaphor and a lot of time spend rethinking my personal theology, I am transitioning into the "peace and wisdom" that comes with accumulated life and applied knowledge.

I understand that religion (especially the texts that support the religion) contain history but transcend history into a greater, mythical story of meaning and communal experience with the Divine.

Now, for me, religion is primarily a system of meaning-making for all the events of life, including life itself.

I cannot insist on objective accomplishments regarding metaphysical events but I can affirm what is true and right for me.

I can affirm my personal experiences and my relationship to the Divine Other and to others through my religious experience.

I can affirm that I am human and that I am surrounded by other sentient beings who desire much what we all desire.

I can reach out through my developing peace and wisdom in love and compassion to others.

I can be holistic and not fractured in my outlook on life. I can be...

The Fruits of Academia

When I was a teenager, I was taught various protestant doctrines about Christianity. These teachings started at an earlier age than that but from what I recall, I really began to learn these doctrines in a fuller fashion when I was a teenager. The primary doctrine taught was the Doctrine of Salvation, what is known in the academy as soteriology.

Upon reflection, I was taught two different perspectives or aspects on soteriology. A negative aspect (Say this prayer/believe these things or you're going to Hell...) and a positive aspect (God loves you, Christ sets you free from your sin/bondage, etc) during my accumulative time at two churches in the first fourteen years of my life. It is sufficient to say that since I was taught the negative aspect starting at 7 years old, it sufficiently scarred my psyche and put a significant burden upon a child who was carefree and curious about the world before this was repeatedly shoved upon me over and over again.

I learned the positive aspect when I was around 13 years old and accepted this much more willingly then I did the other. Thanks be to the healthy and holistic ministers out there.

However, as much as the Bible was used to support both perspectives and revered as the "Infallible, Inerrant, Holy Word of God," the academic study of these texts were rarely bequeathed to me by those who possessed this knowledge. I know that there were (and still are) individuals who have been to seminary in my church and learned everything that I have learned and continue to research now. Why, I ask, was I not informed by these individuals?

To give an example of the knowledge I now possess, consider the Documentary Hypothesis. The Documentary Hypothesis states that the Torah (I will use Genesis as an example) was redacted or edited together from at least four different primary textual and oral sources known as J, E, P, and D. The first three chapters in Genesis show this primarly by what name they use in reference to the Divine - Genesis 1:1-2:3 use the Hebrew word, Elohim (translated into English as God) to refer to the Divine (this is the P or Priestly source) and Genesis 2:4b-25 use YHWH Elohim (translated into English as Lord God) to refer to the Divine (this is the J or Yahwistic Source).

If you wish to know more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis for ready information or a study Bible such as the New Oxford Annotated Bible or the Harper Collins Study Bible.

Now, it is not that I am stating that the Documentary Hypothesis is necessarily the end-all, be-all of the authorship of the Torah but it is certainly apparent that Moses didn't write the entire Torah. This is the line toted by the church I attended - Moses wrote the entire Torah, which is clearly wrong considering that there are parts of the Torah that continue on after Moses' death.

Therefore, I ask why was information such as this not taught to me in church? The "Fruits of the Academia" were not shown to me until after I was on my own at college and learning them in the classroom? What I learned in the classroom as well as what I experienced in college, "shocked" me out of my "shell" of what I thought I knew. If I was prepared for this, maybe things would turned out differently but alas, they didn't. At least I attended a church in my teenage years that had sense enough to put away unhealthy theology. Thanks be to them for that.

There is a post on a similar topic over on another blog that helped me to make the decision to write this post. Check it out: http://newtestamentperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-intellectual-life-matters.html

Please leave some comments!

A Reconsideration of the Genealogies in Matthew and Luke

So, about a year ago, I wrote a vehement post against the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. I haven't posted anything since that time.

In the meantime, I've been doing some rethinking of Luke's genealogy because of a phrase that is inserted in his text and also the Greek word that indicates "son" in that passage.

These thoughts and reflections were spurred by my reading of some old apologetics I found in a box I had at home that I found over break. I propose these reflections here because I wonder if there are any weight to the thoughts that my reading spurred.

In Luke 3, the beginning of the text reads:

"Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli..." (Luke 3:23 NRSV).

In this passage, the Greek isn't as certain as the English translation makes it out to be. The Greek reads:

" Καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν Ἰησοῦς ἀρχόμενος ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, ὢν υἱός, ὡς ἐνομίζετο, Ἰωσὴφ τοῦ Ἠλὶ"

The important part about this phrase is that it translates into "And when Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son of Joseph (as was thought) of Eli"

Thus one can argue that Luke is tracing Jesus' lineage through his mother's side (Mary) and that Jesus was a descendant of Heli/Eli because "υἱός" has this wider meaning inferring descendant. Thus, Jesus still isn't Joseph's son but, according to Luke, is the literal "Son of God" via the virgin birth.

Therefore, Jesus' lineage in Luke can be seen as being traced through Mary's side and Jesus' lineage in Matthew being traced through Joseph's side. In either account, Jesus is not his blood son but rather his adopted son while God is the true father.

But, honestly, I think I may be begging the question with the text here a little bit.

Nonetheless, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth isn't that important anyway because it strangles the meaning out of what Jesus did and who he was. There are also other problems with the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke like where Jesus' parents lived (Nazareth or Bethlehem), where was the family during Jesus' first days (being dedicated at the Temple or fleeing from the massacre to Egypt), and so on.

These are all my musings - feel free to tear my argument apart.

Have you found Jesus? Yeah, He's Over There, Behind the Couch!

Most people have probably been approached by the street evangelists or well-meaning Christians trying to save their soul from eternal damnation! The usually asked, "Have you been saved?," "Have you found Jesus?," "Do you know where your going when you die?," or the any of these garden-variety questions concerning intellectual assent in this life so you'll go to heaven after you die...

While these folks may mean well, most of them are severely mislead by their attempts to convert people to Christianity. They think following Jesus (the) Christ is about to going to heaven, but it's certainly not.

Jesus had very little to say about the afterlife and so does the scriptures of Jesus' faith (Old Testament = Hebrew Scriptures = Scriptures of the Jewish people). The majority of the text concerning following the ways of God in the Hebrew Scriptures is directly correlated to benefits in this life and not in the afterlife. See the Wisdom texts (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job) for great examples of following God benefiting this life with no concern for the afterlife.

When the rich young man asked Jesus, "What must I do to be saved?" Jesus didn't reply that he must believe "x,y, and z" but that he must go sell all his goods and give it to the poor. The proper Greek translation of John 3:16 (I owe this translation to Marcus Borg) is not everlasting life, but eternal life with eternal emphasizing that the life that is to come is to be lived now in this life! But how do we do this?

Well, as those attempting to convert everyone suggests, perhaps we should "find Jesus." Well, where is Jesus? According to Matthew 25, he's with those who are poor, naked, hungry, sick, and in prison. That's where Jesus is and that's where the radical grace of God drives us to if we really read the various texts found in the Bible! This is the essence of Jesus' message in the gospels and of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures!

The ethical and theological essence of the prophets can be summed in one verse from Micah:

"He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (6:8)

So, what is required of humanity? Do justice, live kindness, and walk humbly with God, the term we use for the "more-than" or sacredness outside of ourselves but that is crucial to our existence.

So yes, we must intellectually assent to live this way but we are not asked to intellectually assent to absurdities that the mind rejects and that is based on superstitious fears of the afterlife.

So, how does one do this in a manner that can be considered "Christian?" This will be addressed in my next post but keep in mind, whatever religious tradition you choose, may it be life-affirming and not destructive or deluding of this life.

Jesus: The Son of God?

So, in my last post, I pretty well destroyed any notion that Jesus could be born of a virgin and also be of Davidic lineage through Joseph. Either he is literally, born of a virgin and "Son of God" or perhaps, Son of God (like Christ) could be a title for Jesus.

To begin with, we need to trace back where "Son of God" originated. It originated in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures and it was applied to the king of Israel.

For example, in Psalm 2:7*, it states:

I will tell of the decree of the Lord:

He said to me, ‘You are my son;

today I have begotten you.

This is addressed to the King of Israel and indicates a special relationship between the King of Israel (Most likely David in this passage) and the God of Israel. Therefore, this is a designation of a special relationship between God and the King.

For another example, 2 Samuel 7:14A states:

I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

This is a passage regarding Solomon as the new king and God as his father. Again, it indicates that "Son of God" is a special relationship between God and the king.

Therefore, we can see what the title, "Son of God" designates, so let us turn our attention to the Gospel According to Mark, the gospel without a birth story.

When we turn our attention to the beginning of Mark, we see that it begins with the following: "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mk 1:1). Therefore the author of Mark is establishing that Jesus is the Son of God but in what fashion?

This is answered when Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist in the following verses. Mark 1:9-11 states:

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

Note, what the "voice from heaven" (presumably God) says to Jesus in verse 11: "You are my Son, the Beloved: with you I am well pleased."

What did God say to David in Psalm 2:7? "You are my Son; today I have begotten you."

Incredible. Jesus is the Son of God in that he is the Messiah (Christ [English] = Christos [Greek] = Messiach [Hebrew], which means the "Anointed One") of Israel and later, all nations. However, Jesus is a different type of king, in that his kingdom is the "Kingdom of God," which has all of it's own implications. However, he is anointed by the spirit, just like David was and seemingly given the spirit at his baptism.

This a lot of implications for soteriology (theory or doctrine of salvation) and what the good news of Jesus really is, of which I will explore in a later blog.

As for now, please leave comments and remarks. I open to constructive criticism but please no hate speech or negative remarks about my eternal "soul" and/or character.

*All biblical quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.