This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don’t think there were ever any group hallucinations. I think initially probably one or two or three people had (individual) visions of the risen Jesus, and the more spectacular stories in the gospels are the result of legendary accretion and invention years later. I have a sort of pet theory about what might have happened on/after Good Friday that I can share if you want (I started to write it out here but it got too long), though of course it is just speculation.
But for now, to see how an initially not-particularly-remarkable experience can snowball in memory (even something that took place before dozens of witnesses, even in the memories of those witnesses themselves), consider the ‘transfiguration of Brigham Young.’ To be very brief, this was an event in which Brigham Young supposedly demonstrated his right to succeed Joseph Smith as LDS prophet by giving a speech before the ‘saints’ at a camp meeting. While speaking before them, he was supernaturally transfigured so that he was identical to Joseph in speech and appearance.
The problem is that the earliest accounts, from weeks or months after the event, don’t mention this wonder. They talk about Young's speech, but with regards to the supposed miracle, they at most talk about “the mantle of the prophet” falling upon Young, or say that he appeared to take on Joseph’s mannerisms.
But within a few years/decades, dozens of people claimed to have witnessed firsthand the marvelous transformation. Some claimed only that the voice of Joseph came out of Brigham’s mouth, but many claimed that he literally took on the features of Joseph, a few even that a glowing light shone out from his face.
I don’t think any of these people were lying; I think over the years, they genuinely came to believe they had seen this miracle.
Well, that’s what Matthew says the claim was. Was that what people in Jerusalem the morning after Easter Sunday were actually saying? Did anyone in the early months even care enough to dispute Christian claims? Maybe. Or maybe not. There’s no actual Jewish or pagan polemic against Christianity until Census 200 years later.
Depends on what you mean by “old.” I think they were written after AD 60. Thirty years, even twenty or ten, is more than enough time for stories and rumors to circulate and grow. “Jesus was buried” (Paul) easily becomes, “Jesus was buried in a fancy rock-cut tomb,” (Mark) easily becomes, “Jesus was buried in a fancy rock-cut tomb and the governor even set a watch on it!” (Matthew)
You’re assuming he has to. Elsewhere in the gospels the risen Jesus can teleport and walk through walls. Matthew may have even believed Jesus was assumed directly from the tomb up to Heaven. The rock seems to have been rolled away as much for the benefit of the witnesses as anything (“come and see the place where he was laid”).
I disagree. You can accommodate anything, but the more accommodations you have to swallow the less convincing the whole thing becomes. After I certain point for me, it becomes easier to just say the authors were wrong about things.
There are a few verses here and there that look maybe-sort of resurrection-like if you squint, but I maintain the single verse in Daniel is the only clear articulation of this doctrine in the whole OT, which I think is surprising.
Yes but also no. From the NT down to the present day there is a tension between affirming that Yahweh is sovereign over everything but that also somehow, the evil spirits are genuinely his enemies and fighting against him in some real sense. The tension doesn’t exist in the OT. See the “lying spirit” Yahweh uses to deceive Ahab in 1 Kings 22 or the “evil spirit” he sends to torment Saul in 1 Samuel 16. These spirits aren't rebellious or anything like that, they’re just members of Yahweh’s heavenly court that do his “dirty work.” In the OT (with the exception of a few vague references to the defeat of the chaos monsters in primordial history, Yahweh’s enemies are always human).
The problem is mainly with the prophecy of the “King of the North” in Daniel 11. I didn’t want this post to be too long, but I can go into detail if you want.
Jesus’ claims that “the generation” of his disciples would not pass away before the fulfillment of all things (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). He says some of his disciples will not “taste death” before the Son of Man comes (Matthew 16, Mark 9). In the olivet discourse he explicitly places the final judgment following the destruction of Jerusalem. Paul says that the time is so short that those who are married should live as unmarried, those who are mourning as if they were not, etc. (1 Corinthians 7). He also refers to himself and his generation as those “upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10). The entire Book of Revelation is a promise that God is going to destroy the Roman Empire. Once you see the imminent apocalypticism in the NT IMO it’s hard to unsee it. It’s everywhere. John saying that “already the axe is at the root of the tree,” the epistles referring to their time as “the last days,” the periodic admonitions in Revelation that these are things “which must soon come to pass.”
Yes, there are apologetic answers to all of these problems, but I don’t find any of them particularly convincing, and again IMO the simplest answer with the greatest explanatory power is that Jesus and the early church expected the speedy wrap-up of history, and they were wrong. I actually think the famous “one day as a thousand years” line in 2 Peter, represents a very early example of apologetics on this precise issue. The author says that people have been mocking Christians, asking them, “where is the promise of his coming?” This of course would not have happened unless Christians were preaching the parousia as something in the imminent future, and now the author has to explain why that has not come about, hence the “thousand years” apologetic.
IMO this makes the constant promises of “soon” and “very near” and “at the door” throughout the NT meaningless. Okay, well that’s not human time, it’s God’s time. So why say it? Why this sense of urgency? Might as well have said “not very soon,” “pretty far away” and “it’s gonna be a while.” This would have been significantly less misleading to 1st century Christians, who presumably thought “soon” meant “soon.”
More and more I think “monotheism” and “polytheism” are not especially useful categories.
In Assyria, Assur was called “God beyond gods,” “the lord of all lands” who “fashioned the vault of heaven and earth.” Enlil in Sumeria is called “the god of all the foreign lands” who “alone is exalted.” In Egypt Amun is “lord of the thrones of the earth, the oldest existence, ancient of heaven” and “the one, maker of all that is.” Even Zeus, who is often thought of as being simply a guy on a mountaintop with superpowers, was often viewed in a much more exalted way. See Cleanthes’ hymn to Zeus written 300 years before Christ, which calls him “ever omnipotent,” and says that “the whole universe” obeys him and “all the works of nature” happen by the power of his thunderbolt. “Not a single thing that is done on earth happens” without him and it is even said that man “bears his likeness.” Yet the religions of the Greeks, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, are never considered “monotheistic,” while Israelite religion is, although this is the exact same sort of language that is regularly applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament. It’s not supposed to be rigorous theology, it’s just “praise language,” a way to say “my god is great.”
“I am that I am” is a strange passage. It might be more like “I will be who I will be,” not a philosophical statement of divine self-sufficiency but a deflection; “none of your business what my name is.”
I'd love to hear it.
Yeah, this is a good point. I'd have to look into the claims, but it does sound like eyewitness testimony is less reliable—I don't know that a large delay between Christ's death and the birth of Christianity is reasonable, though, so they at least had enough to act on.
The portion of 1 Corinthians is usually considered to antedate the writing of the epistle by a good measure, so that limits the measure of corruption.
I seem to have been wrong, I thought it was attested by non-Christians, but it looks like the earliest other attestation is Justin Martyr, who could well have gotten it from Matthew.
In any case, it seems less likely that he would put in such a thing when there were no people saying as much—why even bring it up, then?
I'm inclined to push it earlier, since Acts ends abruptly, but I get that that's not the scholarly consensus.
This is definitely true, I'm just not sure that these are especially substantial accomodations—Jesus ascending up (keep in mind elevating has other effects as well—it fits much better with Jesus reigning, etc. than the opposite), and a reference to a "third heaven" don't seem too significant to me, and to have much less weight than some of the other things you've said.
Yeah, this is a good point, and agree that it does seem like they were only told obscurely that a final resurrection would be a thing. I think this is seen to some extent in the gospels themselves—the surrounding people are expecting one type of messiah and get another.
Well, there's an exception in Daniel, but you've established that Daniel doesn't hold much weight in your eyes. What do you think of Genesis 3, or maybe Job 1-2? I know you think those aren't quite the same as the new testament accounts.
The Matthew 16 and Mark 8 is immediately followed by the transfiguration. This is very straightforward.
The others are more difficult—fair point about 2 Peter possibly being a 2nd century polemic on precisely this point. 2 Thessalonians also claims that it's not yet, but it's less strong about it compared to 2 Peter.
Here's one take (well, more like three compatible takes) I found—I think the main points are that in Christian history, we're basically in the end phase, and we should expect the end whenever, even if we don't know the day or hour.
I'll take a second to point out that the canonicity and inerrancy of any part of scripture is a different question from whether Jesus rose from the dead.
I wasn't aware of the expansive language referred to the other various gods.
Jesus is crucified. Later, he is taken down and buried in an ordinary grave in a potter’s field. Because he was executed as a criminal, his grave is not marked, making later identification nearly impossible.
Most of his followers scatter. The disciples, Jesus ‘inner circle,’ return to Galilee (it appears that the earliest tradition is that Jesus first appeared to his disciples in Galilee).
A few days later, Mary Magdalene, a woman subject to visionary experiences (she was once possessed by demons), goes to the market. Moving through the crowd, she is sure she sees Jesus’ face among the multitude. She calls out to him, but he is gone.
She goes to her friends, and tell them what she has seen. They don’t really believe her. “Sure, Mary. Go home and get some rest.” But it plants a seed of doubt in some. She’s obviously seeing this—but what if she isn’t?
A few days after this, Peter has his own experience. It’s late at night, and he is grieving the death of his master, wondering if he really threw his life away, if everything Jesus said about the resurrection and the kingdom was false, and if there’s any hope at all. Then, in a flash, there’s Jesus, alive and well, standing a few feet away. Peter knows sometimes shades walk the earth, but this can’t be that, because it’s just so real. He feels like he can reach out and touch him. It’s so vivid. And he remembers what Mary said. In a moment he knows in his heart that Jesus is really here, alive again, standing before him, and he will never doubt it for the rest of his life. Jesus says his name, and tells him not to fear. Peter calls out, “lord, lord!” but Jesus is gone.
He rushes to his friends and tells them what he has seen. They desperately want it to be true. If Jesus is really raised, then he can still be the messiah. And if he’s still the messiah, then the kingdom is still coming, and there’s still hope. And why not? If God can raise all the dead, why can’t he raise his chosen one a little ahead of schedule?
Some can’t bring themselves to believe. They say, “sorry, Peter, you’ve lost it. Jesus is dead. It’s over. We’re going home.” These people disappear from history. But those who remain search the scriptures. And they find it right there in Isaiah, the servant who was crushed for our iniquities, and yet whose day will be prolonged, who will receive a portion with the great. They find it in the psalms; “you will not allow your holy one to see corruption.” It is true! The lord has truly risen and appeared to Simon. Hallelujah!
So those who believe Peter (who is not lying, or deceiving anyone, but himself believes with all his heart) become the first Christians.
And the rest is history.
The primary objection is that the disciples just wouldn’t be that gullible, wouldn’t believe on such flimsy evidence, like a single, fleeting vision of a single man. This is also an objection that has been made by Christian apologists such as NT Wright and Mike Licona. On that I simply disagree. I don't think we can know the minds and psychologies of the disciples well enough to say what would or would not have been convincing to them. These men were not necessarily hard-nosed rationalist skeptics, they were men who had followed a charismatic prophet hoping he truly heralded the kingdom of God, and whose hopes had just been brutally dashed, and who may very well have been desperate for any slender reason to believe that they hadn’t followed Jesus for years in vain (think the Millerites on the morrow of the Great Disappointment).
So where do the elaborate stories in the gospels come from?
Imagine this:
A third generation Christian (someone who was converted by someone who was converted by the apostles) is preaching. He says, “and Jesus was raised from the dead by God, and he appeared to his disciples.”
One of his listeners asks, “wow, he appeared to all of them?”
“Uh…yeah!”
“At the same time?”
“Sure!”
Ten, twenty, thirty years later, after these stories have circulated and grown, ‘Matthew’ sits down with a copy of the gospel of Mark in front of him, intending to write his own, better gospel. He goes line by line, changing or tweaking things he doesn’t like. Then he gets to the end. Mark has no resurrection appearances, and this is entirely unsatisfying to ‘Matthew.’ He has to write some. He knows Jesus appeared to the disciples in Galilee, but he’s unsure of the details. So he puts pen to paper and exercises his imagination…
You can say, “this is all speculation,” which is fair, but two points:
First, the only alternative to some speculation is simply to take the gospels entirely at face value (something that should not be done with any historical document). But if we are trying to prove or disprove the resurrection, than we cannot assume what we’re trying to prove, that the gospels are reliable historical accounts.
Second, I think there is some evidence that the accounts in the gospels are not faithful recollections of the original appearances. There are little inconsistencies like the number of women at the tomb, at what time they went, if there were guards, but most importantly, the gospels can't even agree where the appearances took place.
According to Luke, Jesus first appears to the disciples in Jerusalem, where he comes among them and lets them touch him to see he is not a ghost. He eventually takes them out to Bethany, from where he ascends to Heaven. There are no appearances in Galilee. In fact, Luke rules out appearances in Galilee, because Jesus explicitly tells the disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they are “clothed with power” (Pentecost).
Matthew has the women go to the tomb, where Jesus and an angel tell them to tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where they will see Jesus. They do, and they see him on a mountain there, and he delivers the great commission. No appearances in Jerusalem.
John is almost identical to Luke, except he doesn’t include the ascension, and adds an appearance in Galilee, at the sea of Tiberias.
Now yes, they can be reconciled if you try hard enough. You can say that Matthew and Luke have simply cut out the appearances in Jerusalem and Galilee, respectively.
But it’s a convoluted reading, IMO. The apologetic would have it that the women were told to tell the disciples to go to Galilee, and then Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem, and then they went to Galilee and saw him on the mountain, and then they went back to fishing for a little while, and then they went back to Jerusalem, and then finally Jesus ascended to Heaven.
And it raises some questions:
Why even tell the women to tell the disciples to go to Galilee if you're just going to appear to them here in Jerusalem first? Why not tell them yourself? Why would Matthew and Luke almost surgically cut out the Jerusalem and Galilee appearances, respectively? What's the point of that? When the disciples go to the mountain in Galilee and see Jesus, "some doubt." This makes sense if this is his first appearance, but if he appeared to them earlier in Jerusalem? What are they doubting? They just had lunch with him a few days ago. While Matthew doesn’t explicitly state that Jesus left the disciples immediately after the Galilee mountain appearance, it’s strongly implied, since this is where Jesus gives the Great Commission, and finishes with the assurance that he is “with them always, even to the end of the age.” It comes across as a strangely final thing to say if Jesus then went back to Jerusalem and hung out with them for a few more weeks. Furthermore, the Sea of Tiberias appearance in John is identified as the third time Jesus has appeared to the disciples, so it has to be after the Great Commission, if the Jerusalem appearances took place first, and then the mountain appearance in Galilee. So Peter and friends have already been told to go and “make disciples of all nations.” What the hell are you doing fishing?
IMO Occam’s razor cuts in favor of the explanation that these accounts are so different because Matthew, Luke, and John knew the tradition that Jesus appeared to the disciples, but either did not know the specifics, or decided the specifics weren’t exciting enough, and spiced them up. Either way, the gospel stories of Jesus eating fish and letting the disciples touch his wounds may not be accurate depictions of the Christophanies that sparked the movement.
1/2
More options
Context Copy link
It predates Paul's letter, of course, but by how much is pretty hard to say. I'd guess it probably wasn't composed a week before, and probably more than a year, but beyond that, who knows? Sometimes you'll see people confidently say things like "the creed dates to within six months of the crucifixion" which is just bizarre; there's no way anybody could possibly know that. Not to mention, Paul is clearly adding to the creed, since obviously when it was handed down to Paul it didn't include the appearance to Paul. So what else has he added to it? And who else added to it before him?
Well, precisely to preempt that objection. It wouldn't take much for the author of the gospel to think, 'huh, what if people say the body was stolen?'
It's possible. I tend to think both 'liberal' and 'conservative' scholars have a bad tendency to overstate the weight and quality of the evidence on dating one way or the other. IMO getting more specific than "after the crucifixion, before AD 100" is pretty tenuous. Nevertheless, even if you wanted to posit some super early date like AD 40 (earlier than even the most conservative critics are generally willing to go), I think ten years is more than enough time for legend to grow up.
I guess Genesis 3 is an exception now that I think about it insofar as it includes a non-human enemy of God, but the serpent is not a fallen angel or a god, he is...a snake. He loses his legs for telling the woman about the fruit. 'The Satan' (here it is a title, not a name) in Job is not God's enemy; he's a member of the Heavenly court who comes among the other "sons of God" to present himself before Yahweh. His job (ha) appears to be to test the faith of human beings, but he is not presented as an evil figure. The story of Lucifer the rebel angel doesn't really appear anywhere in the 66 books of the Bible.
Ehhhh, I'm familiar with this argument but I think it's weak. In both gospels Jesus clarifies what he means by the coming of the kingdom--"the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done" This clearly was not fulfilled during the transfiguration. Not to mention saying, "some here will not taste death" is a weird thing to say about something that's going to happen next week. Nobody tasted death by next week.
2/2
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link