Right and wrong in religion

[JellyBean06]

My apologies Ffrenchie I was not meaning to aim at you, more so that some of the thread IMO, was getting a little off track.

[Refresh]

Thanks JB I agree but it seems to be the way it goes, most threads end up going off on tangents.

One thing I wanted to ask though (getting back to the first couple of pages) was about the Jews believing in multiple Gods? It was alwas my impression that they strongly believed in the one God - it being the first of the ten commandments (or the ten sayings as the Jews call then.)

I tried looking some stuff up about it but didnt get veyr far....could you point me in the right direction for some info about it? Thanks

[JohnC]

Many scholars believe that until post-exilic times the Hebrews were "henotheistic" ie "belief in one god without denying the existence of others", rather than strictly monotheistic, ie "the doctrine or belief that there is only one god." This is of course controversial, but you can see how the decalogue can be easily read this way:

2'I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, where you lived as slaves. 3'You shall have no other gods to rival me. 4'You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. 5'You shall not bow down to them or serve them. (Exodus 20:2-5, Jerusalem Bible)

So a search on "henotheism" will probably get you within striking distance. Here is the start of the discussion from the Wikipedia entry:

More recently, M.S. Smith's synthesis of the Hebrew religion in the Iron Age has put forward the case that it, like those around it, was also henotheistic. The discovery of artifacts at Kuntillet 'Ajrud and Khirbet El-Qom have arguably shown that in at least some sections of Israelite society, Yahweh and Asherah were believed to coexist as a divine couple. Further evidence of an understanding of Yahweh existing within the Canaanite pantheon derives from syncretistic myths found within the Hebrew Bible itself. Various battles between Yahweh and Leviathan, Mot, the tanninim, and Yamm are already attested in the 14th century B.C.E. texts found at Ugarit (ancient Ras-Shamra). In some cases, Yahweh had replaced Baal, and in others, he had taken El's roles ...

[JohnC]

Originally Posted by jojosdad

It is clear then that the historicity and composition of the Qur'an is in fact very much in dispute!
... you were misinforming people through a statement of simple factual error (the historicity and composition of the Qur'an is not in dispute?!? Only if you ignore Qur'anic studies!).

In all such discussions there are often pretty wild controversies but the basic facts about the Qur'an do command wide consensus, not the least reason for which was the incredibly high profile of Muhammad, his teachings and the Islamic movement during his lifetime. This is in stark contrast to Jesus, for whom no confirmed contemporary reference exists.

And the haddith that you were kind enough to find actually confirms my understanding - namely that the text of the Qur'an was stabilised and standardised under the Uthmanic Caliphate (644-656 - Muhammad died in 632, so this standardisation was pretty rapid, since the collection process only began under the first caliph).

Muslim scholars believe the variant readings prior to this final version of the Qur'an were mainly lexical and orthographic in nature (and a number of those differences are recorded). The earlier variants were said to have been in the possession of Abdallah Ibn Masud, Ubay Ibn Ka'b, and Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, and all three are recorded as accepting the validity of the Uthmanic text.

This view of the minor nature of the differences has recently been backed up byarchaeological evidence (see "Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts in San'a", Puin, in The Qur'an as Text, ed. Wild, Brill, 1996) from the restoration of the Great Mosque of San'a.

Of course, I am aware of the controversy sparked by Crone and Cook's Hagarism in 1977, but note that they have retreated from their extreme view that the text was assembled over several centuries, and other reputable scholars have over the past decade basically supported the traditional view of an early standard text.

[So, I'm sorry if you think I've been playing fast and loose with the facts. Perhaps part of the problem is the limitation of this kind of forum - but that is also its challenge. But like you I certainly also take some effort to check my data (and if you think my admittedly brief characterisation of Hebrew zoology is in error, please don't hesistate to add to the "atheist thread").]

As you are generous enough to agree, the details of Gospel composition are much murkier (and I think the earliest surviving fragment is still Papyrus 52, which dates from 125-50). But I don't think this is some sort of contest, since these details of composition and sources really don't affect my central claim that believing the Qur'an is the Word of God is, like the Jesus resurrection story, a dogma - ie a belief held without evidence (compared with say heliocentrism or common biological descent).

I’m beginning to realise that the reason you think this analogy works is that it describes the way you have made religious decisions (and, I agree, the way many others have as well). However, it doesn’t work as an analogy of how everyone makes religious decisions.

My analogy was not about how all individuals reach their decisions (remember, some Irish don't eat potatoes) but about how to understand the patterns of religious belief in the aggregate (ie sociologically) so we can then apply that understanding as a critical insight to our own and other's belief systems ...

[JohnC]

ps I considered saying something about Logos in John's Gospel but thought better of it (too hard ). But in looking up some Greek uses of the category I came across a useful web page - except that it also had an advert for logos: "custom logo design in 24 hours" ... the wonders of the internet

[jojosdad]

Hi JellyBean,

I reckon we've all probably lost interest by now , but just in case you haven't…

Originally Posted by JellyBean06

I was refering (as in my early posts which have been overlooked) to the Gnostic Gospels (ie The Gospel of Thomas, The Secret Book of James, Basilides, Naassene Fragment, Gospel of Mary, Dialogue of the Savior, Gospel of the Savior, Marcion, Epiphanes, Ophite Diagrams, Ptolemy, Gospel of Truth, Excerpts of Theodotus, Heracleon, Acts of Peter, Acts of Thomas). Many of which were burnt and destoryed by the 'Church'. Unfortunately for them, some copies survied.

You still haven't substantiated this claim! It is helpful to have more detail about which documents you think were deliberately destroyed, but that isn't evidence that they were all deliberately destroyed.
I'd be surprised if you can find some evidence. I've heard scholars make similar claims and the only way they have argued it is to say that if there wasn't a mass burning then we would have found more ancient copies of them. As other scholars have pointed out, this isn't evidence of deliberate destruction, it could just be they weren't copied nearly as much as the generally accepted documents. Obviously the christians of the first few centuries made a massive effort to make many copies of the documents they thought were valuable, and they wouldn’t have made the same effort for documents which they saw as deliberate attempts to compromise christianity.
It's similar today. You can easily find lots of copies of Darwin's The Origin of Species around the place, whereas I’d imagine finding copies of early attempts to refute Darwin's work is harder. This isn't indicative of a ruthless Darwinian plot to suppress all opposition. It's just that Darwin's work has been more valued by more people than that of his early opponents.

BTW, I don't think it's at all unfortunate that copies of many of these documents have survived. Personally, I've become more assured of the reality of Jesus as presented in the 4 canonical gospels by comparing them with the alternatives.

PS - here's a link from Buffalo Uni (USA) citing half a dozen Pagan deities whose story is the same as Jesus'. I would scout around for more but feeling so sure from the squillions of Pagan stories I've read (being a devout Pagan myself), I'm sure you can google on from there!

http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/l...say/ch3.2.html

The link you provided isn't actually a university publication. It's hosted by the Muslim Student Association of that university. It gives itself away as not being scholarly by not even trying to discuss any of the evidence which is meant to show that Jesus is the same as older pagan deities.

There are more scholarly attempts to discredit christianity than the material you linked to and these do of course try to provide the necessary evidence from paganism. However, because even the best attempts at this have been so poor, other scholars have now discredited them. The way they have tried to argue that paganism is the source of stories about Jesus has tended to be as follows:

1. They decide first of all that they want, for instance, Jesus' resurrection to be derived from pagan myths.
2. They present evidence that the pagan deities were believed to have died and been resurrected even if that evidence is much later than Jesus. eg Attis was known long before the time of Jesus but the archaeological evidence indicates that it wasn't until the 4th century that anyone said he was resurrected. In this case, if there was any influence from one religion to the other it must have been the other way round.
3. They don't worry if the idea of "death and resurrection" for a particular deity is vastly different from the idea of Jesus' death and resurrection. eg Osiris went to the land of the dead and ruled the dead there, nothing like Jesus actually rising from the tomb ie They distort the pagan deity in order to make it fit the category ("dying and rising god") which they hope to use against christianity.
4. Even when they have included evidence which is too late to be relevant and distorted the earlier evidence to make it fit, they have to ignore the fact that the category they have concocted ("dying and rising god”) doesn’t even fit Jesus. From the beginning the message of Jesus' resurrection was a message about what God did for him as a man (cf Acts 2.24, 32; 17.30-31 etc). It was not intended to prove that Jesus is God (they had other reasons for thinking that), it was part of what he did in his role as a man (eg 1 Corinthians 15.20-22). ie They even have to distort christianity itself in order to make it fit the category ("dying and rising god"), even though it's a category they had to fabricate for the pagan deities in the first place!

So pretty much all scholars (including nonchristian ones) have now rejected this approach. See http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2002/2002-09-07.html for a brief review of a relevant book and its place in the debate.

I’ve used the alleged “death and resurrection” of pagan deities as an example because I think that’s what you originally highlighted as a parallel to Jesus. See http://www.summit.org/resource/essay...hp?essay_id=29 for a discussion of some of the other features along the same lines. The main problem is looking at these other religions through “christian coloured lenses” and failing to see just how different they are because of what are, on closer inspection, only slight similarities.

I'm still confused though as to what difference these historical debates might make. I wonder if you have accepted these negative claims about Jesus for reasons other than the supporting evidence (perhaps because of your prior commitment to Paganism?). If so, discussing the evidence probably won't change your mind (and is probably very boring to everyone else… but that could also have something to do with my writing style ).

[jojosdad]

Hi JohnC, [edited to say "Hi" ]

Originally Posted by JohnC

Muslim scholars believe the variant readings prior to this final version of the Qur'an were mainly lexical and orthographic in nature

I think if you had said originally that the historicity and composition of the Qur'an are not in dispute by orthodox, Qur'an-believing Muslim scholars then your statement would not have raised my eye-brow . Other scholars present what I consider to be fairly strong arguments against this belief. That is what I would call dispute, like the scholarly disputes over the composition of gospels.

Also, this is all just about composition. The historicity of the Qur'an has obviously always been in dispute because, for instance, it makes historical claims about Jesus (eg he did not really die on the cross) which conflict with the much, much earlier and closer-to-Jesus claims of the New Testament.

I disagree with some of the others things you say about the Qur'an but as you say:

I don't think this is some sort of contest, since these details of composition and sources really don't affect my central claim that believing the Qur'an is the Word of God is, like the Jesus resurrection story, a dogma - ie a belief held without evidence (compared with say heliocentrism or common biological descent).

This is, as you say, more on target. I think it's a fallacy to suggest that if a theory lacks the massive supporting evidence of heliocentrism then we must regard it as being without evidence altogether. It too may be be supported by a lot of evidence, just not as much as heliocentrism.

Would you mind reading this lecture http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_J...surrection.htm? It gives a very brief sketch of one christian scholar's historical argument for the resurrection. It's not intented to persuade you that Jesus' resurrection is true, just that it is open to historical study involving evidence.

Have more to say but must go to bed .

[JohnC]

I initially quoted the Qur'an on Jesus coz I thought people may not be aware of the actual Islamic position, and hence what Jensen was referring to. I'm happy if we all agree that the bibles of both faiths are subject to vigorous scholarly debate - ie we start of with a level playing field, so to speak.

The excellent lecture you linked is of course another kettle of fish, and requires a different style of discussion to the somewhat rhetorical approach I've used so far - and a bit of thinking time, so I won't post at the moment except to say:
1. my own position is one of "engaged scepticism" (effectively agnostic)
2. unlike science, which excludes supernatural explanations by definition, history should not, ie i do not have an a priori "anti-miracle" position. however, this also means historical "truths" can never have the same status as scientific truths, and both are different from spritual truths. (so it's not just about the amount of evidence)