i think its safe to say people two thousand years ago had very different beliefs. take xianity in egypt, it was obviously influenced by local gods. isis became mary, horus became jesus. the great thing in this arrangement is in an instant an entire religion was adopted into christianity with minimal cost. all the old statues simple got new names. old temples with all that art and idols didnt get destroued. its hard to know if worshippers even knew when the assimilation began. we also see this in the adoption of xmas. how is it possible that the empire of believers took a holiday they would have known was solar worship? why did they adopt the celebration if it was new and belonged to a sun god? perhaps the answer is, they already knew jesus had a human history but ultimayely he was the sun. we see this in the cross, art where a crown of thorns ot halo or sun disc with rays are always used. ,
Did Church fathers and Jesus see the Bible as metaphor?
by leavingwt 22 Replies latest jw friends
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Band on the Run
Why do we believe that earlier generations were stupid compared to us? Greek and Latin literature has only begun to lose its grip on higher education. I don't believe Homer believed the Iliad and the Odyssey literally. Perhaps there were always fundie. Literature that endures does not take Bible stories as literal truth. I believe Jesus understood Old testament stories both as stories and metaphor.
I doubt the historical details in the Bible for many reasons. Yet when I discuss these stories with friends, I often speak as though I do. The next conversation I can discuss what it truly means and the values behind the words. Jesus was fairly educated. Carpenter remain s olidly middle class. Complex geometry is involved. He used stories that everyone could reference. Their status as Jewish holy scripture helped to legitimize his work.
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slimboyfat
You might as well ask why do people believe earlier generations were any smarter tha us. After all most American Christians believe in literal interpretations of Genesis. Why do a liberal minority believe historical Christians were any different.
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Knowsnothing
Colossians 2:6-12
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces [a] of this world rather than on Christ.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh [b] was put off when you were circumcised by [c] Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
I doubt it.
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Band on the Run
I ewxpect that more educated upper classes saw metaphor and the illiterate people saw a literal view. So many commentaries exist from ancient times that see layers of meanings. Gnosticism appealed to the upper classes. It was the main reason why what is now called orthodox Christianity triumphed. One can read several layers at once.
When I first read Jack London's Call of the Wild while in junior high school, I was certain it was a sad story about a nice fat, suburban dog gone wild. I reread recently. With more experience, I see London's larger themes. It is about humans, not dogs. A story about a dog used to reveal the human condition.
We are not smarter or more sophisticated than the ancients. Technical proficiency is not intelligence.
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mind blown
That's a good question.
From what I'm finding, who really knows exactly what original books Jesus read from or for that matter Paul. There's many books not yet found. There's also many other books that were incorporated in past bibles which church fathers did not add to the reformed cannon. These books did not fit with thier agenda of appeasing the masses. Some sects believed the Father and Son were seprate, but as you can see FatherNSon are One made it into our current bible cannon, which majority ruled by vote.
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Terry
References to Genesis are cultural.
We could make Star Wars references and nobody would think we seriously considered Jabba the Hut an historical personage.
Jesus knew semitic people shared common knowledge of the Genesis stories.
There is no basis for insisting he was literally affirming the historical certainty of those stories. None at all.
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designs
Jesus taking a literal reading of Genesis would put him more on the side of the Sadducees than the more progressive Pharisees. One thing to keep in mind about the Torah-Pentateuch is that was considered a continuously growing and developing Scripture that gained authoritative status around 444 BCE. Layers on laws and social organization are seen as constantly becoming more complex. Jesus own sermons show he is constantly going back in time to a simpler law and progressive in trying to deal with the reality of modern life, such as it is, in a Palestine occupied by Roman Armies.
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mP
band:
Theres a famous quote by Seutonius about religion that the poor blieved, the rich doubted, while the rules found it useful. In that one sentence we find out why religion was invented.
@slimboy
Paul used the Genesis account to justify men having authority over women, after all "the woman was made for the sake of the man, not the man for the woman". So either he believed the Genesis account or he was knowingly basing the subjection of women to men upon a false premise.
MP
Not quite, Paul never says he believed the story to be true. His usage works just as effectively with Geneis being a story or truth.
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still thinking
Interesting thread...marking to read later...thank you