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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kerygmania: Slain By the Spirit
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
In the light of knowledge available to us today many Biblical descriptions are capable of other analysis. Epilepsy is not simply and always a case of demon possession.
No kidding. Trying to project modern understandings of disease onto a 2000 year old text is a crazy anachronism. It's like trying to come up with some scientific explanation for how Jesus walked on water, which totally misses the point of the story.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
I fail to understand what Bullfrog is getting at.
Is he saying that its Ok to attribute epilepsy to demon possession in the 1st Century but not OK in the 21st?
Is he claiming that the Biblical description was not eplipsy but some other ailment?
Is he saying that we have to accept the pre-scientific mind-set of the Biblical writers if we are to interpret the Bible correctly?
Is he denying that all the knowledge gained in science and medicine over 2000 years is of any value in establishing the truth of things?
And the implied suggestion that using todays knowledge in order to understand Biblical events is really an attempt to explain away things is a cheap shot.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I fail to understand what Bullfrog is getting at.
Is he saying that its Ok to attribute epilepsy to demon possession in the 1st Century but not OK in the 21st?
Is he claiming that the Biblical description was not eplipsy but some other ailment?
Is he saying that we have to accept the pre-scientific mind-set of the Biblical writers if we are to interpret the Bible correctly?
Is he denying that all the knowledge gained in science and medicine over 2000 years is of any value in establishing the truth of things?
And the implied suggestion that using todays knowledge in order to understand Biblical events is really an attempt to explain away things is a cheap shot.
No, it's plausible, yes, no, and sometimes.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
A simple yes, no, yes, sometimes answer tells us absolutely nothing of where Bullfrog is coming from. Or what he thinks.
Substantiating his answers would be helpful to us all.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
A simple yes, no, yes, sometimes answer tells us absolutely nothing of where Bullfrog is coming from. Or what he thinks.
Substantiating his answers would be helpful to us all.
I've had a long weekend, and a distracting toddler. Sorry if I'm terse sometimes. Also, I thought what I was saying was kind of obvious, which was probably an error.
Also, what I typed is what I thought. If you want to understand my thinking, read what I type.
But I'll try to clarify...
1) "OK" is an odd expression in this case. It's not whether or not something is "OK," it's about what they actually did. it doesn't matter to me whether or not it's scientifically sound, since what I'm studying isn't a strictly scientific text. In a sense it's myth. Trying to shoehorn a modern medical assessment onto an ancient miracle story is about as reasonable as trying to work out the mechanics by which Zeus could target people with lightning bolts. It's outside the realm of the story, and trying to shoehorn it in generally breaks the story completely.
If that's what you're into, fine, but that's not how one studies the Bible, IMO. You'll end up with nonsense.
2) As above, trying to put a modern medical definition onto a miracle story is anachronistic. Also, diagnosing a medical condition while you're a doctor in the same room with the patient, sharing a common language, culture, and worldview is actually a fairly difficult thing to do. It takes a lot of money and training, at least in the US. Why on earth do you think any9one can accurately diagnose a medical problem based on the extremely skimpy factual evidence we have in the Biblical account? This is why I said that calling it epilepsy is plausible, but not certain and really, again, the question is meaningless to me.
3) Bingo. You can't get the Bible, to a certain extent, until you get the worldview in which it was written. And you have to learn to put aside your modern pretensions and just accept these freakish little stories as they are. Trying to turn demon possession as it existed for them into modern illness is, again, anachronistic and really missing the point (IMO.)
4) That's a red herring. I'm not talking about general epistemology, but specific biblical hermeneutics. If I try to turn my child's babbling into a treatise on evolutionary biology, I'll probably misunderstand her completely. Instead I have to learn how she speaks and understands the world before I try to project my own expectations onto her. That's how we communicate.
5) Not sure I'd call it a "cheap shot," more like a profound miscommunication. Sometimes you can try to use the Bible to establish historical stuff, but even then you have to filter it through the eyes of those who wrote it, about whom it was written, and whom it was written to. Otherwise all you get, to a lesser or greater extent, is garbled nonsense or an echo chamber in which all you hear is what you want to hear because all you're doing is projecting your expectations onto the text (IMO.)
Is that clearer?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
A lot clearer. Thanks.
But I feel your explanation is just the beginning of a discussion about Biblical interpretation and I come at it from another angle.
This is perhaps not the thread to pursue it. But my basic problem is that the Bible needs to be interpreted, not only in terms of the mind-set of those days, but in terms of what we know and understand today.
A basic example is that the Biblical writers never drew the modern distinction between purpose and consequence. Hence they attributed every action to God. The story of the man born blind in John's gospel is a case in point.
The Biblical writers knew nothing of Evolution as a process. My judgement is that the category of evolution enables a far deeper (and yet still Biblical) understanding of such doctrines as Creation; The "Fall" etc.
But this has nothing to do with "slain by the Spirit" in its narrow context so will pass it over.
[ 19. October 2010, 18:40: Message edited by: shamwari ]
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
A lot clearer. Thanks.
But I feel your explanation is just the beginning of a discussion about Biblical interpretation and I come at it from another angle.
This is perhaps not the thread to pursue it. But my basic problem is that the Bible needs to be interpreted, not only in terms of the mind-set of those days, but in terms of what we know and understand today.
A basic example is that the Biblical writers never drew the modern distinction between purpose and consequence. Hence they attributed every action to God. The story of the man born blind in John's gospel is a case in point.
The Biblical writers knew nothing of Evolution as a process. My judgement is that the category of evolution enables a far deeper (and yet still Biblical) understanding of such doctrines as Creation; The "Fall" etc.
But this has nothing to do with "slain by the Spirit" in its narrow context so will pass it over.
Glad to be helpful.
Yep, it's a huge discussion, and I figured we were coming from different angles.
And yes, I fervently agree that you have to interpret the Bible with an eye to your own context as well. For myself, somewhat pastorally and practically, any biblical hermeneutic that refuses to accept either the past or the present is broken. I saw one kind of error in your post, but that doesn't mean there aren't others.
Evolution certainly informs theology, but I still think that trying to shoehorn it directly into the bible, as if Genesis were really just about evolution instead of being about creation (not the same thing for most theologians, I think,) you're gonna miss the point of the story or project more stuff onto it than it'll bear.
Another example would be flat earth stuff. There's plenty of evidence that the Bible was written in a space that didn't see the world as round. To some, this means it's not worth reading at all. To others, it's an embarrassment so they try to shoehorn some kind of understanding into he story. Others might try to force themselves to think in flat earth terms because it's more biblical. To me, it's irrelevant because it's not a book about a flat earth, it's a book written form the perspective of people who understood a flat earth, so the conversation about the shape of the earth isn't really pertinent, beyond accepting that this is what they saw and it informed their views thuswise. You don't have to either force yourself to assume their views or try to project your views onto them, but merely to mind the gap between yourself and the text.
It's an interesting tangent. I've got stuff to do and so shouldn't be on here as often as I sometimes am, but I'd be interested in chasing it.
[ 19. October 2010, 18:54: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
To get it back to the point, in the passage here...
On one hand, I could simply assume the worldview of the culture and say that this was a literal miracle where someone died directly because of their embezzlement. God did it and that's that.
I could try to shoehorn a scientific model in and explain it as an extreme case of a nocebo. The shame and fear of Ananias was so intense that he literally died because he felt he'd blasphemed against the Spirit. Likewise with his wife.
I think to take either reading by itself would be anemic. Both are part of the story, and are important in their own right, but I don't think that's the end.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Agreed. looks like nocebo to me. keybord kput - some bits missing.
when s comes in Luke doesn't just tell us she doesn't know wht's up. She asks the question. something like free indirect speech in modern usage.
In the Greek, Peter "nswers her". KJ keeps this. Others "correct" to Peter sed to her...
Bck when mechine fixed.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Running repairs done. Fingers crossed!
Here is what I "see" and "hear" when we get to the part where
Sapphira [ Enters :Hello!
Nobody returns her greeting. No-one makes eye-contact What's the matter? Where's Ananias?
[approaching Peter, diffidently] Well?
Peter: Sapphira, tell me, how much was it you paid for the field? Twenty-five shekels, was it?
Sapphira: Twenty-five, yes. Look, what's all this about? Where's my husband? [ pause ]What have you done to him?
Peter: Oh, Sapphira, why have you conspired with the devil to try to fool us? Your husband is dead. Dead and buried. And you - you are next. The young men are waiting outside the door now. With their shovels.
[ 21. October 2010, 12:58: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Well I'm no Stoppard. But I think there's very little in the above drama that could be held to contradict the text. Peter answers Sapphira with a question, increasing her anxiety. And it's a leading question - one he'd be thrown out of any modern court for asking.
Nevertheless, summary conviction and punishment without any right of reply are not unusual in the Bible. One death - that of Ananias, could have been from any number of stimuli. He could have had a weak heart. He could have had a condition which meant his heart could give out at any time - he could have been (potentially)
dead before Peter's tirade.
But the second death is one too many, IMO, for any serious consideration of divine intervention.
Regardless of whether Peter was full of the Holy Spirit or just full of himself - the same act and speak first, think afterwards character we meet in the gospels - the text unequivocally informs us that it was Peter's intent that Sappira should die. Three hours after the death of Ananias, when you'd think he might have cooled off a bit, the young men are still there, with their shovels, waiting.
Perhaps things were getting on top of the apostles. A little later on, they admit they need help:
quote:
Now during these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. And the Twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order tto wait on tables...
[Acts 6:1-2]
Over all, I think the early church in Acts shows us a spiritual and emotional hothouse trying to form a perfect society enthused with the Holy Spirit. Amodel almost bound to fail under the weight of its own piety. Writing to day in The Independent newspaper, Peter Stanford suggests, in a different context -
quote:
Perhaps it all dates back to one of our templates for fashioning heroes - Christianity's long-established penchant for saint-making. For nigh on 2,000 years it has tended to be an all-or-nothing business, shining the spotlight only on what the Church still calls "heroic virtue". But it is a flawed template because it omits all the other details that drag would-be saints down to the level of everybody else.
Peter found "Feed my sheep" to be no synecure.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Wonderful. Just what lttle Christian children need! "Now tell me again, little Johnny, are you sure you've never read anything by Mr. Pullman?"
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Here's my second attempt at a double-post to explain my point, the first evidently having been wiped by the devil!
Children just love a moral tale, where the baddies, in due course, get their come-uppance. This is a large part of the attraction of tales by J.K.Rowling, Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl et al. But the message needs to be quite clear. Lying is wrong. Bullying likewise. And cowardice. Victims can conquer their fear.
But when the moral makes claims upon a person's religious faith, it can muddy the waters. The idea that it is more important to be truthful to Daddy, Miss Biggs, Father John - or even God - than it is to be truthful to one's friends is fraught with danger. Where the sanctions for being caught (or even accused of) lying are unimaginably frightening, we have an incipient tyrants' charter at best, a free hand for paedophiles at worst.
Ananias and Sapphira were not zapped for cheating. Nor for lying per se. They were told they had lied to God. So far so good - perhaps.
Except that Peter said "you have not lied to men..." which is false. An intelligent child, brought up to recognize just retribution, could be forgiven for wondering at this point why God did not zap Peter.
The story in the linked clip is told quite blandly. I find that more sinister than comforting. It is, after all, a self-confessed scary tale. But the imputation of jealousy on A&S's part is pure conjecture. One could with equal validity wonder if Peter's tirade was not fuelled by his - or the community's - jealousy of A&S's wealth.
Tainted though it was, A&S's gift was generous. Peter's redeption of it was grudging - as was his acceptance of Jesus' offer of reinstatement (if that's what it was).
Oh, please, leave morality to the likes of Aesop and J.K.R. They do it better. The biblical story did the job it was meant to do in its day, I expect. It's a mixed blessing now.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thought I'd got you wrong pimple, after Kelly's plea below, now I'm far from sure.
Peter didn't lie. Their primary, essential, fundamental lie was to God. In lying before men, to men about the matter they were 110% lying in the presence, to the face of God.
No I was right first time:
You ARE a rationalist.
My apology was premature.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Thought I'd got you wrong pimple, after Kelly's plea below, now I'm far from sure.
Peter didn't lie. Their primary, essential, fundamental lie was to God. In lying before men, to men about the matter they were 110% lying in the presence, to the face of God.
No I was right first time:
You ARE a rationalist.
My apology was premature.
Millions and millions have lied to God since then - why have they not been struck down in a similar manner?
(This would liven up Church services!)
I listened to a preacher a few years ago preaching about purity. The next week he tried to feel my bum in the kitchen - no thunderbolts, apart from a hard slap across the face from me.
He preached for many years.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Well, it sounds like he got what he deserved, Boogie, even if it wasn't the thunderbolt some of us would have liked.
Good for you.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Good on you Boogie.
As to why God killed A & S at that critical, formative time for the example of billions of nominal Christians and the Elect ever since, my guess is as good as yours.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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