gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz) (05/25/85)
> is Chuck Hedrick Let me preface my remarks with a few quotes from a recent book by George Lindbeck (Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale) - The Nature of Doctrine - Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. ... religions are seen as comprehensive interpretive schemes usually embodied in myths or narratives and heavily ritualized which structure human experience and understanding of self and world... ... a religion can be viewed as a kind of cultural/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought... ...it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the descriptions of Reality.... ...it is a communal phenomenon that shapes subjectivities.. rather than being primarily a manifestation of those subjectivities... ...instead of deriving external features of a religion from inner experiences the inner experiences are viewed as derivative... ...A religion is above all an external word that molds and shapes the self and its world, rather than being an expression or thematization of a pre-existing self or preconceptual experience. ...religious experiences...can be construed as BY-PRODUCTS of linguistically or conceptually structured cognitive activities of which we are not directly aware.... > >The thing that upsets me most in your message is the following: > >> It all depends on where YOU live and the particular way that YOU have >> re-made the world that decides if the "virgin birth" is Reality or is not >> Reality. > >I still cling to the outmoded idea that Reality is independent of my >attitudes... (I I think that the above quotes make clear my position that all Reality is mediated by interpretive systems. I do not deny the existence of an independent Reality but what you pass over in silence is the affect of ones beliefs and attitudes on the construal of that Reality. We may therefore talk of a Reality "for me" or "for you" or for the "20th century" or for the "first century". There are as many "replaceable Realities" as there are symbol systems to construe the World. It is within this context that I wish to place the Xian literature as well as all literature of the 1st century. > I would like to propose that there is a middle ground, >which says that Scripture is roughly what we would expect from an honest >witness in a courtroom, namely a good faith attempt to tell the truth, but >subject to limitations of human accuracy, and to differences in standards >between the first and twentieth centuries. Now here I woukd want to invoke Lindbecks model of religion to recover what remains unthought. Namely, that we ought include the affects of symbolic/interpretive mediation in thier "good faith attempt to tell the truth". That is, the Xian writers share in every way those ways of understanding Reality common to 1st century Man - Pagan or otherwise. In Dungans- Documents for the Study of the Gospels there are ancient testimonies regarding the birth of various individuals from intercourse of a human female and a deity. These are: -Plato -Alexander the Great -Augustus -Pythagoras -Herakles Would you count these testimonies on the same level as the birth narrative we find in Luke and Matthew ? That is, could you propose this "middle ground" for these pagan authorities as you do for the gospel writers ? > I would like to propose that there is a middle ground, >which says that Scripture is roughly what we would expect from an honest >witness in a courtroom, namely a good faith attempt to tell the truth, but >subject to limitations of human accuracy, and to differences in standards >between the first and twentieth centuries. Again, citing ancient pagan literature, I could count 20 or so miracles performed by Pythagoras (Porphyry - The Life of Pythagoras) Apollonios of Tyna performed miracles as did Asklepios. Ascensions ? Romulus, Apotheosis of Antinous, Herakles There are ancient testimonies (gospels ?) to all these things as there are testimonies to Jesus in our canonical texts. Again, would you propose this "middle ground" for these testimonies ? An honest attempt to tell the truth ? If so, there are many more miracle workers than just Jesus. There are more "Sons of God" around the 1st century than you might expect. > >Nevertheless, I think there has to be some control on this sort of critique. I dont think so. The Xian literature needs no such pleading... unless that is, if used to serve ideological ends to legitimate already established socio-political institutions founded on "biblical principles". > I am willing to believe that the church did have a basic >understanding of what Jesus was trying to say, and that we do have a >substantially correct picture of his teaching and the sort of things he did. Well, one might consult volume I of Bultmanns Theology of the New Testament for some discussion on the radical mis-understanding on the part of the early Xian community in founding a "church" against the apocalyptic message of Jesus (see also Bultmanns History of the Synoptic Tradition (p147-150) > > And the church seems to have chosen documents written >by people who did have a reasonable regard for fact (always understanding >that the form in which it shows in them is not the same as it would show in >a modern historian). Well I dont know about this.... The two documents I know of that discuss the content of the canon are Eusebius Ecclesiastical History and the Muratorian Fragment. The criteria of canonicity is simply church use. If "authority" or "authenticity" is at issue then would you exclude 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thess... all said to be pseudonymous by mainline biblical scholarship from the canon ? Would you remove the resurrection narrative in Mark (longer Mark) that is without doubt a much later addition according to manuscript traditions ? If 2 Cor is an editing and composition of 5 Pauline letters as scholarship now thinks is it essential to remover Paul from the editing and interpolations ? Although it has been worked to death one can oppose Paul of the authentic Pauline corpus to the Paul of Acts. In what way is Acts a distortion of the career of Paul in the context of later Lukan theology. Does oppressive ideology masquerade as divine Truth in the biblical texts? One might consult Elisabeth Shussler Fiorenza in A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins - In Memory of Her. > I would... also >like to point out that the history of Higher Criticism is not a very >encouraging one. If you want to be in tune with what scholars are going to >think 50 years from now, you are better to bet on the Biblical text than on >the current scholarly theories. s Here I would disagree. I find Higher Criticism, studies in interpretation theory, hermeneutics and History of Religions as Critique of Ideologies very encouraging. But then again, you and I are after different things. Im sum, I think that Lindbecks Cultural/Linguistic model for understanding religion is a good one. What I think you forget is this effect of the interpretive system in construing Reality. Since what is operative in the Xian case is also operative in the pagan case I would wonder how one can draw such as sharp distinction between Xian texts and non Xian texts insoafar as one is considered "Word of God" and Truth while an almost identical (pagan) genre of literature is considered "mythological" or false. If one accepts the testimony of the gospel writers regarding the (supernatural) virgin birth of Jesus then why not also accept the testimony that Herakles, Pythagoras, Augustus, Alexander and Plato also partook of supernatural origins. If one accepts the miracles of Jesus then why not also the testimony that Asklepios, Pythagoras, Vespasian and Apollonios of Tyana performed similar miracles. If one accepts the ascension of Jesus then why not also accept the pagan testimony of the ascension of Herakles ? On Lindbecks model then I might say that the virgin birth is accepted as Fact by believers simply because Xianity as one of those cultural/linguistics interpretive systems does a great deal to define what Reality is and what is possible and what is not more than what one might expect. But then my open question is... If this supernatural cosmos is in place with these things possible then why are these "gospel-like" testimonies of contemporary pagan authors discounted. Let me close with a quote from Lindbeck regarding who Jesus is. "The Jesus of the gospels is the Son of God in the same strong sense that the Hamlet of Shakespear's play is the Prince of Denmark. In both cases the title with its reference to the wider context irreplaceably rather than contigently identifies the bearer of the name." Gary