The Bible Geek

My favorite podcast for several years has been “The Bible Geek” with host Robert M. Price.   A New Testament scholar, former evangelical pastor, and current atheist, Bob Price has a great love and respect for theologies, religions and myths (including comic books, of course!).   

He has little patience with “axe-grinding apologetics”, but he also has great friendships with apologists which creates an atmosphere where relationship is valued over polemics - although Bob will certainly tell you what he thinks about an issue!

He is also a master of accents, reading questions from listeners in the accent of their choice.  He usually reads Scripture in the voice of Charlton Heston, unless Jesus is speaking, then it is Willem Defoe.  And the apostle Paul is Paul Lind (Bewitched). 

All in all, it is a fascinating podcast if you like such things.  

I got a bit of a thrill when he recently addressed some of my questions.  If anyone is interested, I will paste the questions below.  Happy listening!   Or not listening!  :)

These questions are addressed at the beginning of the Dec. 5 2013 podcast.  I am particularly impressed by his response to the first question.  There is a lot for me to explore in there.

Hi Bob!

1.  My chosen myth is that of a pantheist, or panentheist, God.  God is all that is (including myself and the Bible Geek!).  And even if there is a stand-alone person of God in the mix, creation must reflect God's thought and intention,  and therefore that creation should be considered part of God, just as our thoughts and intentions are a big part of who we are.

Is there any history of this type of thought within the Judeo-Christian tradition?

2.  It seems to me that the problem people have with determinism, whether theistic or naturalistic, is that they assume there is a separate "I" being played like a marionette.   However there is no separate "I."    We are not controlled by naturalistic factors - we ARE those naturalistic factors.   The alternative is that we are disconnected from the phenomena around us.  It seems to me the same is true if one believes in theistic determinism.  God is not pulling our strings to achieve His intention - rather we ARE God's intention.

I suppose I agree with the Calvinists a bit on this one.  Too bad they mix up God and the devil!

I would be interested in your thoughts on freewill within this context.  Is there an "I" that is separate from naturalistic phenomena or from God's intention?  The idea seems incoherent to me.   

Thanks so much for your incredibly valuable insight.  I am in the car a lot teaching music lessons and playing gigs, and I always enjoy the Bible Geek!

These questions are addressed in the middle of the Dec. 7 podcast.  I was glad to hear him generally agree with me on the first, as the meaning of “turn the other cheek” has come to mean “ignore” instead of what it actually means - “OFFER the other cheek.”    The 2nd question was not addressed directly, but he offered interesting thoughts anyways.  The 3rd question response was interesting, but I think it may show a bit of a weak link in Mr. Price’s Christ Myth Theory.  However I am still very interested in the theory, and it is quite possibly correct.  Who knows?

Greetings to the garrulous Geek who knows his Greek!

I have a few questions for you, sir.

1.  I have been listening to some episodes of The Bible Geek over the last year and the subject of "turning the other cheek" has come up a few times.  Your view seems to be that the best interpretation of that passage is that it is a rejection of a retributive honor system.  While this makes some sense for sure, particularly since it is a direct challenge to "an eye for an eye" in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, I wonder if there is more to it than that.  

The passage does not say simply to walk away.  Rather it says to offer the striker the other cheek as well.   This seems to go a bit further than rejecting retaliation for the offense.   To me, it seems to imply a non-violent power play, where the struck takes back control from the striker - as in "You may have hit me, but I am the one calling the shots.  Here, hit my other cheek as well."

Doesn't this seem close to the kind of non-violent resistance we saw from Ghandi in the 20th century?  It seems an act of taking back power for the powerless by shaming the conscience of the offender.    

What sayeth the Geek?

2.  I join the Geek in criticizing the Penal Substitution Theory as fundamentally unjust.   How does punishing an innocent for the crime of another satisfy justice in any coherent way?   The sins of humanity are not presented by Paul as being akin to a parking violation, where another might pay a measly fine in our stead.  Rather the author of Romans sees the sins of humanity as a capital offense - "the wages of sin is death".

Killing an innocent in a guilty person's place makes no sense according to any civilized justice system.  Or, to put it in a way we have all heard many times, two wrongs do not make a right.

However, I am wondering if the "substitution" idea can still be moral if we remove the "penal" from in front of it?

The version I will offer here is still one of substitutionary atonement. It maintains that Christ still takes the place of sinners in a sense. But it removes the "penal" part, which is the idea that Christ's sacrifice was to appease God.

Christ submitted himself to death at the hands of sinners. He showed us the wages of our sin by taking them on himself, for sinfulness responds to love in violent ways. Contemplating the death of Christ at the hands of men, who represent the imperfections we all have, convicts our hearts. This leads us to turn from the destructive ways of sin. Therefore Christ has substituted himself for us, showing and bearing the consequences of our sin and convicting our hearts in order to lead us to the more beneficial path of right action. And of course, this right action, leads us to "at-one-ment" with God.

Christ dies for our sins, because of our sinfulness. But not because God needed to be appeased, but rather because there is a natural suffering that comes about when we do not know love.

This interpretation is one along the lines of Ghandi's hunger strikes. By taking this physical burden on himself to protest potential combat between Muslims and Hindus, he convicted the hearts of both sides and, at least for a while, led them to avoid conflict. His was a substitutionary atonement.

Is there a history of this view of atonement in Christianity?

3.  Finally, I am getting more and more familiar with the Christ Myth Theory.   While I still don't see it as the most likely candidate for describing the "historical" Jesus, the Geek has certainly succeeded in convincing me that it is a possibility to be taken seriously.

My question is this - according to the CM Theory, what would have been the catalyst for the formation of the early church?   It makes sense that if there was a person named Jesus, and he was crucified, and his followers believed him to have been raised by God, then this would have led to a reinterpretation of Jesus' past role on earth, a development of a heightened Christology over time, and the formation of a new religion.

If the Christ idea came about from a combination of Gnosticism, other mystery religions, and the notion of Yahweh as a dying and rising God - what was the spark which brought it all together into what would become Christianity?

I love your show.  Thanks for the education and the entertainment, friend!

Little Dragon - Yahweh or No Way?

ME: (strumming through the Plain White T's song "Hey There, Delilah" which LD is learning) "Hey There, Jezebel....Hey There, Esther....Hey There, Bathsheba...."

LD: Ha ha! Is Bathsheba really a person's name?

ME: Sure. She is the woman in the Bible that King David fell in love with. Then he sent her husband Uriah to the frontline of a battle, hoping that he would be killed, which he was. Then David married Bathsheba.

LD: What? That is terrible!

ME: He did get punished.

LD: OK, good. I was thinking that would be really weird if he didn't.

ME: Yeah, this prophet named Nathan came to him and said that God was angry. Then King David's baby died as a punishment.

LD: What?!

ME: Yeah, sounds like more of a punishment for the child than for David, huh?

LD: Yeah! I hope that was on Nathan's orders and not God's.

ME: No, it was on God's orders.

LD: WHAT?!!!!

ME: At least according to the Old Testament writer.

LD: That is terrible. Why didn't God just make David's wife not love him or something? Why kill his child?

ME: Yeah, I know!

LD: I tell you what, if I was that baby, I would not want to go to heaven. I would definitely rather go to the other place. I mean, He just killed me!

ME: I hear ya.

LD: If someone just killed me, I would not want to hang out at his house.

ME: I understand. But remember, not everyone believes that the Old Testament is exactly right about what God is like. Many people believe it was written by humans and therefore is not exactly perfect.

LD: Yeah I mean, if God really did that, he should be taken down and replaced with some other God from some other religion.......though I don't know who exactly that would be.

ME: I agree! OK, so back to "Hey There, Bath...I mean... Hey There, Delilah"!

I can't help but notice a parallel in Scripture to LD's pronouncement against this concept of God. In Psalms 82 God takes his place in the divine council and judges the other gods. He does not condemn them because they are gods of different peoples, less powerful, or competition. Rather he judges them because of their inability to "give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute." "The foundations of the earth are shaken" because of the injustice over which they preside. This is stirring imagery - right to the bones of the world! As John Dominic Crossan says, "they are dethroned for injustice, for divine malpractice, for transcendental malfeasance in office."

It would seem that LD agrees with the author of Psalm 82 that might does not make right - whatever name, mental image or association one might ascribe to it. For King David's child to die because of David's sin is not a just punishment by any rational accounting of justice in the modern world. David did not "maintain the right of the lowly", but in this story, neither did God.

Psalms 82 not only suggests how we might judge ourselves and our leaders, but also how we might judge different concepts of God.

Article on Matthew's birth narrative

"You can debate whether Matthew's birth story is history or parable. In my own view, it is clearly a deliberate and very powerful parable. But what does it mean? And there is an even more important question which still presses, whether you take it literally as history or metaphorically as parable. It is also the only question Matthew would have thought worthy of debate: Who is your King and what is your Rule? Is it the violent power of a Herod or the non-violent power of a Jesus?"

- John Dominic Crossan

full article here

Matthew and Luke: The Birth Narratives

This is a post I wrote last year containing a comparison of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke and my ideas on how we should read such stories. I have edited it slightly and present it here, if you feel like reading something that is probably too long. I hope you are enjoying the holiday season!

Matthew and Luke each contain short but elaborate birth narratives concerning Jesus’ birth. They also contain genealogies of Jesus which are quite different from each other. Matthew traces Jesus’ ancestry back to Abraham, accentuating his connection to King David and mentioning the deportation to Babylon. Luke traces Jesus’ ancestry back through David and Abraham to Adam and to God, perhaps meaning to be more universal by implying the inclusion of Gentiles. I have read some attempts to reconcile the different genealogies, but they do not seem too credible. One Christian apologist suggested that Luke may have traced the lineage of Jesus through Mary’s line, despite the lineage stating “son of, son of, son of, etc.” Another suggests that each just skipped certain generations. Quite possible, but does this make the lineages seem more literally correct? They are theologically driven, not historically driven. Matthew even makes the genealogy divisible by 7 to display a perfect numerology in Jesus’ line.

In the book of Matthew, Joseph and Mary appear to live in Bethlehem. They give birth to Jesus and live in a house, where they are visited by Wise Men. When King Herod hears of the birth of a Messiah and seeks to have him killed, they escape to Egypt. Herod then orders all the children age two and under living around Bethlehem to be killed. When Herod dies, Joseph receives a dream telling him this (this is his third dream by the way. Matthew focuses on Joseph more than Mary, and all his dreams are reminiscent of the famous Joseph of the Old Testament who could interpret dreams). The family returns to Israel, but moves to Nazareth after Joseph receives a fourth dream warning them against returning to the land of their previous residence.

In Luke, Mary and Joseph live in a town called Nazareth in Galilee. When Emperor Augustus orders a census of “all the world”, they must go to Bethlehem because Joseph is descended from King David. While they are there, Mary gives birth and lays Jesus in a manger, because there is no room at the inn. Then the angels appear to the shepherds announcing the birth of Jesus, the Messiah. The shepherds visit the child quickly (he is still in the manger - in fact this is the sign the angels said to look for). It is a joyful scene.

Eight days later, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Jerusalem to be circumcised. They meet Simeon and Anna who both recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Then the family returns to “their own town of Nazareth.”

Luke’s version has a few historical problems. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus’ birth takes place during the reign of Herod the Great. The worldwide census takes places while Quirinius is the governor of Syria. However, Herod the Great died in 4 BC and Quirinius did not become governor of Syria until 6 AD. Many have tried to explain this error. Some have proposed that the Bible has not been translated correctly. This approach has not gained traction. Others have suggested that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice or that there were two different Quiriniuses. This does not work with history since scholars know who the previous governors of Syria were.

One archeologist named John McRay, who is also a conservative Christian apologist, has even proposed the “two Quiriniuses” theory based on so-called “micrographic” letters on ancient Roman coins. Another Christian archeologist named Jerry Vardaman makes this claim. Vardaman states that the use of micrographic letters was widespread for centuries, yet no other archaeologist seem to be aware of them. He has never produced any evidence, not even any photos of coins, to any colleagues for peer review. There are only some sketches he made. It seems unlikely that Romans kept track of their history using letters so small on their coinage that only a magnifying glass could reveal them. Vardaman suggests they used a diamond stylus of some sort to write the super tiny letters, but of course, Roman coins are a bit rudimentary to begin with. Even Craig Blomberg, another prominent Christian apologist, in reviewing McRay’s book on Paul, questions aloud why McRay puts any stock in this “micrographic letter” theory since no one has ever even seen these coins. McRay and Vardaman suggest new chronologies for the life of Jesus and other ancient events that are far off from the ones agreed upon by evangelical and secular scholars. And to boot, Vardaman never mentions a Quirinius coin in any publication. It seems that he just mentioned it to McRay, and now McRay uses it as evidence. The McRay/Vardaman claim comes from the book “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel, a favorite of conservative apologists.

Anyway, we could go on and on. The faith of many people is contingent on a literal interpretation of the Gospels. Therefore, some will go to great lengths to maintain the plausibility of that interpretation. The previous paragraph is just one example of this. By the way, these are often nice, good people. Just people that I disagree with on this issue. (Ha! I’m so non-confrontational.)

Another problem with Luke’s account of the census is that there never was a worldwide census while Octavius Augustus was emperor. There was, however, a census of Judea, Samarian and Idumea, the territories ruled by Herod the Great’s son Archelaus, while Quirinius was governor of Syria. The most likely scenario, by far, is that the author of Luke made a simple mistake. As scholar and author E.P. Sanders states in his book “The Historical Figure of Jesus” :

“This is a relatively slight historical error for an ancient author who worked without archives, or even a standard calendar, and who wrote about a period some eighty or so years earlier.”

Also, Luke states that Joseph and Mary must return to Bethlehem to be counted because Joseph is descended from David. It’s very unlikely that people would have to return to the homes of their ancestors for a census. That would be like someone from America returning to the home of one of the Pilgrims because they are descended from Him. And David lived almost 1,000 years before Joseph the father of Jesus. This is most likely a scenario invented to put Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, since the Messiah should have been from the Davidic line and born in Bethlehem according to the Jewish thought of the day.

These stories are beautiful. They describe how these writers thought of Jesus. Did they invent these narratives? Perhaps. Were they part of traditions that evolved in different regions over the course of Jesus’ life? Maybe. Are they literally true? Well, anything is possible, and I try to remain open to anything. But history is about finding probability, not maintaining plausibility. And I think it is highly probable that if you were in Bethlehem (or Nazareth) at the time of Jesus’ birth, you would not have seen what is described in Matthew and Luke. However, if you met Jesus as an adult, perhaps you would have thought back to that first Christmas and considered it much more amazing than it seemed back then. What made the followers of this Jewish peasant construct mythic stories about him to rival the ones written about the births of emperors? This is the true question.

Finally, I will state the case that what is symbolic can be more powerful than what is literal at times. If something is literal, it happened. Very cool, perhaps amazing. If something is symbolic, then it means that the reality behind it is so incredible, so real, so foundational, that we can’t really get a good idea of the meaning through regular language. Thus myth, stories, music, art, poetry and dreams become essential ways to communicate in this awareness we are all experiencing called life. There are literalists on both sides of the issues. Some think it happened, others say it didn’t happen, and that’s it. But perhaps what did happen for the authors of Matthew and Luke was so real and present in their lives, that they could only express it through figurative language. We know ancient historians worked that way. They were not dispassionate scholars. They had an interest in what the reader thought - they were trying to convince their audience of a theological, spiritual truth. They are not just laying out facts here.

Look at the writer of Luke. The gospel is only part one of his work. The other part is the book of Acts. He wrote in a way that consciously avoided repetition. E.P. Sanders describes Luke as an “artist” because he never writes the same thing twice. The ascension stories of Jesus are different at the end of Luke and at the beginning of Acts (but not necessarily contradictory). He relates the story of Paul’s conversion three times in Acts and it’s a little different each time - in Acts 9 Paul falls to the ground, but his companions stay standing. They hear a voice, but see no one. In Acts 22, the companions see a light, but hear no voice. In Acts 26, the companions fall down when Paul does. In each version of the vision, Jesus’ speech to Paul is different and the last one in Acts 26 the message is much greater in detail and purpose.

Now the author of Luke wasn’t too worried about precise, literal facts. Why should he be? He was not a court reporter. I do think that he investigated traditions about Jesus and the disciples, but surely no Christian had a detailed version of exactly what Peter said after the arrival of the Holy Spirit or what Paul said on trial, etc, etc. This is historical fiction. The writer takes these traditions and makes it into a story. Some think that the author completely invents many details and stories in Luke/Acts. For instance, the Greek scholar and writer Gary Wills thinks that Luke definitely invented the idea that Paul was a Roman citizen since Paul was beaten so many times and it was illegal to beat a Roman citizen. It is certainly possible. I tend to think that the author of Luke did a lot of work gathering up traditions from different Christian communities and worked them all together. I think this because Luke claims to have investigated things thoroughly at the beginning of his Gospel. But once again, surely there was no transcription of what Mary said in response to Gabriel (the Magnificat) or Simeon’s speech when he met the infant Jesus (the Nunc Dimittis). These are either poetry by the author, or maybe early Christian hymns/speeches/traditions that he works into the story. This is the communication of spiritual truth more than historical fact.

I have had different attitudes about the Christmas story through my life. As a child I wanted presents mostly, but I still felt a sense of holiness at the Christmas Eve service when we read the stories. As a teenager I felt this sense deepen as my understanding of the Christian faith deepened. I felt amazed that God would love humanity enough to come down in human form and experience what we go through. In college, many of my literalist beliefs did not hold up under scrutiny, and I became a little snotty about religion. I have never considered myself an atheist, but I was always very eager to explain that I didn’t think what I used to think. I was not a fundamentalist! I seldom bowed my head in public prayer, even though I prayed constantly by myself. As I matured a little, I finally became more OK with reclaiming religious expressions and church again. I could talk about God or Jesus again, without a preamble concerning Biblical history and different interpretations. I realized that talking about God in a real, experiential way is talking about faith. And talking with faith. And perhaps most readers of this blog know that I define faith as a positive attitude of openness, more than belief without evidence. Belief is holding on. Faith is letting go.

I am still happy to discuss theories of the historical Jesus, Paul’s theology, the process of canonization of the New Testament, etc. In fact, I’m more “happy” to, with less to prove or disprove. I still believe in an honest exchange of views of course, and I’m grateful that readers of these entries feel the same. But I feel that all of us are essentially the same, despite our different levels of literal belief in the New Testament. When we’re alone. When we’re seeking hope. When we’re grateful. When we’re worried. When we’re joyful. When we’re together.

Thank God.

And Merry Christmas!

Church Ladies - A Probable Pauline Interpolation

- I posted this back in April, and I thought I would put it up on the new blog after some topical conversation in the comments section here.

Many people are familiar with the following verses of Scripture:

“As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35

There are other verses in the New Testament that also speak of limiting women’s roles in the church and in the home. These verses are in the so-called “pastoral epistles” which include 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Though these letters claim Pauline authorship, many scholars do not consider them to be written by Paul. One reason is that they reflect a church structure that did not exist when Paul was writing. So someone wrote the letters “pseudonymously” , which is kind of a polite way of saying that someone forged them.

However few scholars doubt that the Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. But here is the kicker. There is very good reason to think that Paul did not write the verses quoted above. Many scholars consider them a later edition by a scribe copying the letter. In fact, a likely scenario is that a scribe wrote these “verses” as a note in the margin of the letter while copying it. The scribe’s note reflected a later, post-Pauline view of women’s role in the church. Eventually, after much distribution and subsequent copying (by hand, of course), the scribe’s note in the margin found its way into the letter itself.

There are three reasons for thinking these verses are not original to 1 Corinthinans.

The first is that these verses “move around” a bit when reading ancient manuscripts of 1 Corinthians. Sometimes they are verses 34-35. Others times they are located after verse 40. This would support the idea of verses 34-35 being a later interpolation.

Secondly, if one leaves out those verses all together, the flow of the letter makes more sense in its discussion of the role of prophets in the “gathering” (or “church”).

The third reason is that if we read 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, Paul gives instructions that women should wear veils on their heads when they pray and prophesy. This is in reference to the gathering (or church), as it makes little sense for Paul to mention this regarding a woman at home alone, praying and prophesying.

Consider Paul’s view of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14:3-5:

“On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church. Now I would like all of you to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. One who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.”

So the nature of “prophecy” was that it was something done for the church. Prophecy was “speak(ing) to other people”. It was public. Remember that “church” to Paul was simply the gathering of believers. It was not a building, or anything as “official” as it is today. It was the believers gathering together, sharing a meal in remembrance of Jesus, and then in turn offering up hymns, prophecies, lessons, etc. It was not very hierarchal in structure. Yet!

So why,when giving instructions for worship, would Paul say that women should be silent in church after stating that women should have their heads covered when praying and prophesying?

He probably didn’t. As Christianity became more established, it seems to have reverted back to something closer to the societal norms of the day, including the secondary status of women. But what did Paul write of gender roles within the early church in another book?

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28