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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Did Moses exist and does it matter?
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Heh heh heh ...
I'm sure we could find some Orthodox comment on the 3 Little Pigs if we looked hard enough.
Let's see, ah yes, Heiromonk Fr Silouan Pliadoupolodollopodopodes ...
'Ze story of zee t'ree leetle peegs is an instructive parable designed to teej us zat zee West has departed from zee Patristic tradeetion ... why, ze reason ze weeck-ed volf - an emblem of ze Papacy - vass able to demolish ze house made of straw and ze house made of steecks with a seengle breath vass because ze deed not hev domes ... eet ees essential for zese beeldings to have domes. Not spires as een ze West, but domes ... not zese 'ow you say, chapels or meeting-houses either - but beeldings viz domes ...'
That's rubbish that is. That's an Eastern patristic interpretation and liberal to boot. There were no domes on the piggy's houses and no screen for them to hide behind, only a chimney to climb (Book of Maps ch. 4 vv. 23)
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Rumbled ... ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
On the 'facts' thing, EE. Boogie can no more marshall 'facts' against the historicity of Moses than you, I or anyone else can marshall 'facts' to support his historicity.
There isn't a column around with 'Moses slept here' inscribed on it. Neither is there going to be one with, 'Hey, you know that Moses chap? It's all a myth you know, he didn't actually exist ...'
Now, as Shamwari and others have said, the balance of probability lies in favour of there being a Moses figure around whom later stories developed.
Whether these stories are 'myth' or 'history' and whether it's even possible to differentiate between the two at such a remote period is the moot point.
Without wishing in the least to clash with you or 'talk past' you, I would like to hear what evidence you have for the historical existence of Moses?
And incidentally, I'm not saying that he wasn't an historical character - let's get that one straight.
Earlier you stated that you have never been convinced by the 'evidence' for mythic status.
I'd like to hear what that evidence is from your perspective and what 'evidence' you have to reject it.
My own view is that whatever position we adopt on this it's a faith position. That's not to say that one position is as good a stab at it as any other or that the whole thing is resolved by some kind of nebulous post-modern soup. That's not what I am suggesting at all.
I am more than happy to accept the 'faith once delivered to the saints' and to go with the scriptures as true even though some parts might not be objectively/historically true in the contemporary sense of the term.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It's generally pretty obvious which bits of the Bible are symbolic and are parabolic, and which are not to be read in that way.
.. but there are some parts of the Bible that aren't as clear cut as that. Look at the various parts which appear at first to be some kind of primitive history - which later prove to parallel etiological stories from other cultures from the same era.
I have already conceded that the Book of Revelation is not clear cut, but that is the exception rather than the rule. As for parallels with stories from other cultures, that argument is often deployed to cast doubt on the historicity of the Bible, but it is just as logical to say that these stories may describe a commonly known historical event, with the accounts becoming embellished when fed through the filter of different religious viewpoints.
In fact, is this not true of the events of the life of Christ? Islam's version of events is rather different to that of most Christian denominations, and, of course, we have different viewpoints within Christianity. I've heard a version of what happened on the cross from a "New Ager", who explained about the nails being on chakra points to channel energy, or something to that effect, and there is another New Age view which claims that the crucifixion messed up Jesus' chakras. Does this variety of views mean that there is no historicity to the life of Christ?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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barrea
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# 3211
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Posted
Yes Gamaiel I wast anther suprised that you wrote "We have All movement on from there" how do you know what all are thinking? Please speak for yourself.
Posts: 1050 | From: england | Registered: Aug 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
It didn't 'happen' but it's true.
I'm intrigued. How do you actually know? Where's the facts for your rejection?
I don't actually know. I believe it's true. My heart, mind and senses tell me so, but it's a matter of faith, not knowledge.
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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shamwari
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# 15556
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Posted
An interpolation
The Ships software seems to be awry
Items posted don't get a response. So they are posted again. Hence duplicate ( and triplacate) responses
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
@EE, of course these different views, such as the New Ager one you've quoted and the Islamic view - or the Jewish view come to that - don't detract from the historicity of Christ.
If anything, as C S Lewis observed, they actually work towards establishing the historical veracity of the Christian story. As per the passage you quoted about pre-Christian and non-Christian stories of incarnations and avatars and so on - that these don't detract from the Christian story of the Incarnation in any way.
So we're on the same page there.
With the Exodus accounts, though, we are in different territory to some extent as there is apparently no external evidence for the death of the Pharoah and his army in the Red Sea and for the Plagues of Egypt and so on. Of course, that, in and of itself, doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
All I'm saying is that there is very little external evidence (beyond the Pentateuch itself) for or against the historicity of Moses.
So that throws us onto the literary aspects and onto the faith aspects and our mileage may vary on those elements.
@Berrea ... my comment about 'moving on from that' was in relation to a literal six-day creation. As EE rightly pointed out at the time, not 'all of us' have moved on from that. I would imagine that you still understand the first chapters of Genesis in a literal sense.
EE accused me of being rather dismissive towards those who do take a literal approach to the creation account (or accounts, there are several) - which was probably fair enough as my tone was probably unnecessarily sniffy.
That said, I don't believe that Christian faith requires us to take the creation story in Genesis as objective, historical fact. To do so raises all manner of issues - not just in terms of evolution and the fossil record and so on but also how we deal with a literal talking snake and so on.
And then there's the evident poetic form - 'It was evening, it was morning and the ..th day' and so on.
Some - including leo here on these boards - even detect a liturgical pattern in that.
It's multifaceted and many-layered and to some extent is combatting various pagan creation-myths then prevalent. All that and more.
A bald, literal, dare I say 'wooden' -
![[Biased]](wink.gif) - approach doesn't do it justice.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
A common New Age view of the cross is that it brings together opposites, e.g. time and now, the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of reality. Actually, that's quite interesting.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
A common New Age view of the cross is that it brings together opposites, e.g. time and now, the horizontal and the vertical dimensions....
New Age? Its a commonplace of evangelical preaching.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Is it really? I will need several days to digest that. Smell you later.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Perhaps one might consider the question from the Jewish perspective (rather than simply leapfrogging to Patristic or even Reformation Christianity):
I take the central claim of Judaism to be that God has a special relationship with the Jewish people, which is embodied in the Law. The Jewish people--against all odds--exist; the Law exists; if you stipulate God, there's nothing more to be proved. The OT is midrash--the stories of how the Law was given and how the people obeyed it or didn't, and what this meant for the relationship are illustrative, not evidentiary (this accounts for some of the contradictions--is it OK to take a census?--different understandings of the implications produce different stories). I'm no expert, but I believe this is a fairly commonplace view among more sophisticated Jewish thinkers, going back at least to Hillel, probably earlier. Literal truth as a modern historian would think of it is beside the point. (One might say the same of Buddhism: if the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path are the truth, then Buddhism is true, even if Gautama never existed.)
Christianity has a different relationship to historical truth, which makes factuality more important, at least from some theological perspectives. But this involves reading back into the OT a conception of truth that wasn't relevant to the people who actually wrote it (even though they probably could have understood it perfectly well).
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
It didn't 'happen' but it's true.
I'm intrigued. How do you actually know? Where's the facts for your rejection?
I don't actually know. I believe it's true. My heart, mind and senses tell me so, but it's a matter of faith, not knowledge.
Aaah but how do you "know" it didn't happen?
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Aaaah, but how do you know it did?
It seems to me that whether we believe in the historicity of the Exodus account in modern historographical terms (if that's the right word) or whether we:
- Treat all of it as mythology.
- Regard some of it as mythological and some of it as objectively true in historical terms.
- Regard it as largely mythological in the C S Lewis sense only set against an actual historic backdrop and context or
- Whatever other variations and permutations there might be ...
We are all of us adopting a faith position.
I think Timothy's recount of the Jewish position on all of this - which accords with what little I've read on the subject - is salutary.
At the risk of introducing the Orthodox Christians into the equation and facing some sarcasm from ExclamationMark, it strikes me that the Jewish view is similar to theirs.
I've heard Orthodox sermons which combine scriptural incidents with the hagiographies of the Saints (with some clearly mythological material) and present the whole thing as if they were all equally objectively true.
Of course, that doesn't mean that all the Orthodox listening to those sermons take the hagiographies (or some of the scriptural stories come to that) as objectively and historically true in every detail. I soon found that out by talking to them afterwards.
But the whole kit and kaboodle is presented as all-of-a-piece and part of the Tradition.
What struck me, however, was that the points and principles to be derived and applied from such sermons were exactly the same as what you might get from an evangelical sermon or a sermon in any of the other Western traditions ... ie. love of God and neighbour, the need to evangelise, the need to develop a holy life etc etc.
Which brings me back to the 'what difference does it make?' point.
It seems to me that if the 'more sophisticated' Jews can live with a Moses who isn't necessarily historical in every respect then why do we need to?
Why is, as EE asserts, the historicity of Moses such a crucial point?
You can still have a concept of the Exodus as a major, formative event even if it didn't happen exactly as presented in the OT. It's place in the development of the plan of salvation and the Christian soteriological framework ultimately fulfilled in Christ isn't necessarily jeopardised.
All that said, and as Timothy has pointed out, Christianity does 'require' an historical basis. A real incarnation in a real location in a real point in time. Granted. And I fully and gratefully accept all of that.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well, if Moses were fictional, then God would be a God not rooted and active in human history. His appeal to His people repeatedly referred to a definite act He performed, namely, delivering them from Egypt. This act is referred to throughout the whole of the Old Testament, and if this event did not happen, then God is relegated to nothing more than an experience of human consciousness
There's a scale between Moses is fictional, God doesn't exist and Everything happened exactly as it says in the Torah. As you often do, you're arguing in terms of a binary choice, when reality is usually more complex.
For God's appeal to his people to be true, all that needs to be the case is that He delivered them from Egypt. That doesn't strictly require Moses to exist, and it definitely doesn't require all of the events that happen in Exodus to be totally and utterly historical.
It would be enough that a guy called Bob and a gal named Beth led the Israelites out of Egypt under the guidance of God, and the fictional legend of Moses arose later. God can still then legitimately say "I led you out of Egypt".
I do believe that there was someone called Moses, who led the Jews out of Egypt and into the desert, and who gave the Law to the people. I think that a lot of the stories about him are probably legends based on history. But that doesn't mean that I think that God isn't rooted in the original events that happened, or that he is relegated to an experience of human consciousness.
It happens today - God does something great, and we feel like we have to tweak or embelish the testimony to make God look even better, partly because we want to make the story even better - the Tony Anthony story (amongst many others) is an example. Does the addition of human fiction mean that underneath it all there wasn't some great Act of God? And as is often the case with Myth, the additional stories are there to give us a lesson, to teach us something insightful or new through the narrative.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think, Plique-de-Jour, that you're taking what I'm saying and making rather more of it than I intend.
I probably am, because once you start appealing to evidence and likelihood, you forfeit the privilege of deciding where the line is drawn. Your faith is yours, my faith is mine, but reason is reason, and none of us gets to say 'when'. Your faith is not more rational than EE's, my faith is not more rational than yours. The baselessness of your condenscension, not your disbelief in the existence of Moses, is what I'm addressing. In this post I'm replying to, a huge chunk at the end is you explaining to me that some things in the OT sure seem like tall stories. I won't be addressing that because it's an attempt to explain something I already understand. If I didn't understand, I wouldn't have written what I did in the first post.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I can say the Nicene Creed without my fingers crossed behind my back. I do accept Christ as Lord and Saviour and repent of my sins. Back in the day, my evangelical credentials would have been impeccable.
I'm certainly not liberal in my theology - although I am certainly more liberal than many evangelicals.
Of course I can accept that if we accept the veracity of one miracle we can accept the veracity of them all. That's not the issue.
But the way things have been couched by some posters here strike me as unnecessarily binary. As if to concede any possibility whatsoever that there are mythological elements in the OT is to undermine the whole edifice and see it crashing down into atheism and apostasy.
I don't see it that way.
Then frankly, you have no basis for talking to people as though they were hicks. Many would regard you, EE and I in the same light. Nobody's denying that there are mythological elements in the OT. Job is literature, Jonah seems to be a story. But Moses is clearly not intended to be of this order. Treating him as though he was because you're unable to believe he existed is fine if that's what you must do, but don't pretend that this is intellectually defensible, or more sophisticated than believing he existed, because it simply isn't.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I can't see why we can't have a mythological Moses (to some extent) and an historical Christ.
So you think there was a historical Moses? Why?
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
After all, all we have is the Christ of faith when all is said and done - and I believe that the Christ of faith is the same as the Christ of history. Any attempts to reconstruct or posit a separate Christ of history is doomed to failure, it seems to me, because, as has been wisely said, as soon as we do that and look down the well, all we see is our own reflection looking back up.
The 19th century German liberal theologians did that and ended up with a Christ of their own making.
So please, don't misunderstand me.
I haven't misunderstood you, you've misunderstood the implications of your own statements. No, all that we Christians have is the Christ of faith, but once you start talking about evidence and likelihood you no longer get to restrict the conversation to people of faith, or reason to what you personally are comfortable with. The attempt to piece together who the historical Jesus might have been has progressed beyond the vested interests of theologians. You believe the Jesus of history is the Christ of faith, but that's not a conclusion anyone would logically derive from examination of the NT as a collection of historical texts. If we think so, it's because we're Christians.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Please forgive me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that EE and Plique-de-Jour are Quixotically tilting at windmills that they imagine I'm setting p not at what I'm actually saying.
No, I'm dealing with what you're saying and what it means.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I am not a liberal, I am not an atheist, I am not apostate.
We can hold things in tension surely?
I really don't see any logical issue with, say, a belief in the miracle stories in the Gospels and Acts as literal occurrences and an acceptance that elements of the OT miracle stories might be mythic.
I really don't.
Then you're not being logical. What possible justification is there for thinking any of the miracles in the Gospels and Acts actually happened? Other than faith, there is none. Don't the miracles in Acts seem awfully like plot devices to make the progress of Christianity easier and faster than reason would lead one to expect? Never mind the implications of Paul's experience on the road of Damascus leading directly to his visiting the apostles with no mention of the time spent establishing a rival franchise mentioned in Galatians. Or the oddly comic incident in Acts 20:9-12 that seems to have been pinched from elsewhere to add colour.
This doesn't bother me, because I'm a Christian. But if I wasn't, it would seem no different from the hazel rod just-so children's story about cattle variation, or the miscalculation of pi in 1 Kings, or whoever forged Titus not remembering Paul was a Jew; amusing and all too human.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I am also well aware that some of the evangelical posters on this thread aren't scholars.
The problem is, they don't realise that themselves.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
What an unpleasant attitude. You're a Christian yourself, no amount of self-conceit is going to get you a seat at the grown-ups' table, so do stop patronising us, there's a good fellow.
[ 10. September 2013, 08:48: Message edited by: Plique-à-jour ]
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
It's a bit like the perennial "Did King Arthur Exist" question.
Did a King of all what is now England, Wales and Cornwall exist, who drove the Saxons to the shore as Geoffrey of Monmouth claims at a battle at Badon Hill, held court at Camelot, was born of Uther Pendragon and Ygerna and had a half sister called Morgana and died in battle at Camlan against Mordred?
No.
Did a Romano-British warlord called something like Arturius (or with a nickname based on the Brythonic word for a bear) temporarily halt the Anglo-Saxon takeover and win some skirmishes and inspire some of his people so that they told stories about him for centuries? Quite probably.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
if Jesus was mistaken about a man who lived around 1500 years before He did, we have no intellectually consistent basis for believing that Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, performed miracles of a far greater order.
For me that smacks of Monophysitism. Jesus the finite man was restricted to having contemporary bog-standard human knowledge and experience unless things were specifically revealed by the Holy Spirit. He gave up his omniscience as well as his omnipotence. It's even possible he made a mistake when recalling scripture.
In Jesus the Divine and human natures collided. His miracles primarily came out of that divine nature. His knowledge of Moses came out of the mundane experience of humanity. He learnt about Moses the same way as we do, by reading and discussing the scriptures. He wasn't born with some special full-knowledge of the universe including how historically accurate the stories of Moses were.
Let me clarify what I meant: if Jesus had no way of knowing the truth about Moses, we have no way of knowing the truth about Jesus.
We have faith, yes. That's my point. Nobody's faith gives them a licence to sneer at what other people are comfortable with. From a Christian point of view, it's unChristian. From an atheist point of view, it's like a kid with a security blanket laughing at the size of another kid's teddy.
[ 10. September 2013, 09:01: Message edited by: Plique-à-jour ]
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
- Regard some of it as mythological and some of it as objectively true in historical terms.
Is there any such thing as 'objectively true in historical terms'?
Even the most recent history, the chemical weapons in Syria, has 100s of different versions of what actually happened.
I don't think anyone will truly know except those who dropped them.
History is like that - converted into a story as soon as it's told, even with modern media to show us what happened.
It's the same with our own memories, we embelish and change them to make them better/worse depending on our needs. We often do this subconsciously and only realise it when reminiscing with others.
If this is the case for recent history and our own memories, how much more must it be so for things which happened 1000s of years ago? It's not that they didn't happen - it's that they are never factual or accurate, we can't expect them to be imo.
Far better to take our lessons from the stories than to waste time wondering if the details are correct - especially when those details include stuff which is so far out of our experience as to seem utterly incomprehensible. If we went back to Moses and talked to him of mobile phones and computers we'd be just as hard to believe as his accounts of God's voice, burning bushes etc.
ETA - of course it's so much safer and more comfortable to see these things as cut and dried!
[ 10. September 2013, 09:05: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
My problem is, if God never actually does anything other than put his stamp on a range of edifying fictional stories, then why does God matter? The mythologising discourse seems to render God rather lazy. E.g. we're told that he could have given succour to a Moses figure, but he probably didn't. So what did God do, then? If he didn't help the people of Israel in any way that resembles the OT accounts, then how exactly did he help them?
The Bible makes great claims for God. Miraculous claims. We in the modern world, especially in the West, rarely see or experience anything that offers the kind of wow factor that the ancients supposedly experienced. There's a kind of trade-off going on here; we don't have these experiences but we trust in God because the Bible shows that for him, these experiences are possible. Questioning the actuality of these events inevitably disrupts that trade-off.
Ironically, a religion that retreats from God as a Miracle Maker of old requires more rather than less faith. More faith yet lower expectations of that faith. But maybe it was inevitable that Christianity was going to move in this direction.
^ THIS.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
This sounds like "believe this, not because it's true, but for some other reason."
The repercussions of a mythological or historical Moses do not tell us whether he actually was mythological or historical. It's no more than argument from adverse consequences.
[ 10. September 2013, 09:23: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
This sounds like "believe this, not because it's true, but for some other reason."
Which post, and which bit?
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
This sounds like "believe this, not because it's true, but for some other reason."
Which post, and which bit?
Svit's post above. It's fairly obvious I thought - the argument is "but if it's not historical then this, this and this, and they're bad, therefore we should consider it historical" - argument from adverse consequences.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
This sounds like "believe this, not because it's true, but for some other reason."
Which post, and which bit?
Svit's post above. It's fairly obvious I thought - the argument is "but if it's not historical then this, this and this, and they're bad, therefore we should consider it historical" - argument from adverse consequences.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
This sounds like "believe this, not because it's true, but for some other reason."
Which post, and which bit?
Svit's post above. It's fairly obvious I thought - the argument is "but if it's not historical then this, this and this, and they're bad, therefore we should consider it historical" - argument from adverse consequences.
To me it seems more like "if it's all myths, what are we even talking about?"
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Plique-a-Jour - fair enough and guilty as charged. I had admitted that I was being patronising, though, to be fair and I'd have thought the rank of three smilies would have been sufficient to indicate that I was being tongue-in-cheek and also ironic - because I'm no more of a scholar than your good self.
But your points are well made.
I s'pose there was a certain ad hominem aspect too in the sense that I'm afraid that EE's rather binary approach - and I'm not the only one who notices this - does tend to wind me up the wrong way. I suspect I may have been inadvertently tarring you with the same brush.
That I was patronising, yes I accept that.
That I was being nasty and spiteful ... less so, because I was teasing and also being post-modern and ironic ... but then, that's got me into trouble a few times on these Boards as what can appear to me as mild teasing can appear offensive to those on the receiving end.
I apologise if I caused offence.
The other thing I'd say - and this isn't a defence necessarily - is that I'm often thinking on the hoof and my posts can be rambling - I accept that.
I can see how this can be irritating. 'He does accept the historicity of Moses ... oh now he doesn't ... ah, now he does ...' and so on.
I will try to adjust this style in future.
Meanwhile, yes, I accept your rebuff and agree with many of the points you've made. With your permission, I may use them myself elsewhere in a different context.
I'm a bit of a Magpie too, I'm afraid.
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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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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's a bit like the perennial "Did King Arthur Exist" question.
Did a King of all what is now England, Wales and Cornwall exist, who drove the Saxons to the shore as Geoffrey of Monmouth claims at a battle at Badon Hill, held court at Camelot, was born of Uther Pendragon and Ygerna and had a half sister called Morgana and died in battle at Camlan against Mordred?
No.
Did a Romano-British warlord called something like Arturius (or with a nickname based on the Brythonic word for a bear) temporarily halt the Anglo-Saxon takeover and win some skirmishes and inspire some of his people so that they told stories about him for centuries? Quite probably.
I think you've got it in one. "Did Moses exist?" is not a yes/no question. The question is more like, "How does the Moses of literature relate to history?"
The comparison with Arthur is an interesting one, because it shows us what other things we might ask about Moses. Is it okay to continue to repeat the stories, as stories, even when we know they're not "history"? Is it okay to have a sort of romantic admiration for the person in the literature? Perhaps most importantly - is it okay to share the ideas of honour, chivalry, duty and courtly love ascribed to the Arthur of literature, even when you know that the Arturius of history probably had no such ideals?
I'd answer a firm "yes" to all of the above.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
SvitlanaV2 said quote:
Ironically, a religion that retreats from God as a Miracle Maker of old requires more rather than less faith. More faith yet lower expectations of that faith.
Yes, it does require more faith. The thing about Moses is that you don't just have to believe that Moses existed, you have to believe that God is the sort of God that the Exodus reveals always and everywhere. It's not a strange belief about a corner of history that might be vulnerable to evidence or the massive lack of evidence concerning ancient Egypt, it's a belief about how the world is. A God who cares? A God who rescues? Whole peoples? A look at the later history of the Jewish people would tend to make you think otherwise.
Nonetheless, the God of the Exodus was a powerful belief again in the liberation theology days in South and Central America, and we still haven't forgotten that, and are still wrestling with how to make sense of such a belief.
Whether or not Moses existed is not worth having a belief about. Just say 'who knows?' because nobody does. Whether the poor of the world have a hope in the face of global systems - now that's a proper belief. It takes huge faith, and we're going to hang enormous expectations on it.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
@Karl Liberal Backslider ... just to complicate things, the idea of a mobile cavalry leader called something like Artorius who gave rise to stories about Arthur has recently been called into question.
History works through a cycle of propositions and revisions. The prevailing view these days, from what I can gather, is either that 'Arthur' was conflated with the more historical Ambrosius Aurelianus or with Riothamus, a character who operated on the continent and another, if I remember rightly, of these late/post-Roman usurper figures.
I suspect he's a composite of various different figures.
You'll notice how the fire and sword explanation for the early English settlements have now been modified by many historians to simple and gradual infiltration and not out and out ethnic cleansing/driving the Britons into the West and so on.
Probably both/and ... rather than either/or
As with most things.
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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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
This sounds like "believe this, not because it's true, but for some other reason."
Which post, and which bit?
Svit's post above. It's fairly obvious I thought - the argument is "but if it's not historical then this, this and this, and they're bad, therefore we should consider it historical" - argument from adverse consequences.
To me it seems more like "if it's all myths, what are we even talking about?"
Even if that is the argument, it still doesn't follow that it isn't all myths. It's still argument from adverse consequences.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Hatless has raised an important point. I was going to raise the use/centrality of the Moses/Exodus story to the struggle of the slaves for liberation in the US and Caribbean plantations in the 19th century.
It was more than quaint, 'Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt's land ...' spirituals.
The central thrust of Exodus, liberation from oppresion, was crucial to the struggle of the slaves.
It's how the story is 'used' that is the key here.
And the point about what kind of God we believe in. Now there's a subject to unravel ...
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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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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I have already conceded that the Book of Revelation is not clear cut, but that is the exception rather than the rule. As for parallels with stories from other cultures, that argument is often deployed to cast doubt on the historicity of the Bible, but it is just as logical to say that these stories may describe a commonly known historical event, with the accounts becoming embellished when fed through the filter of different religious viewpoints.
I'm not sure it's that clearcut tbh. Sure if we have a story of event A happening to in various cultures with minor variations that is one thing, but if every cultures history starts off with now Ogg was the father of So-and-So and Such-and-Such, and where it ends the 'father' of every nation around there's clearly an ethiological purpose involved. When the stories of origins all contradict each other you either assume they are all wrong (and perhaps only the Bible is accurate) or you have to deal with the possibility that propositional accuracy is not the point.
Let's go back to Genesis; is the Tower of Babel meant to give us a definitive story of the origin of languages? Or does it have some other purpose?
When we get to the NT and what the authors there believe about the Old Testament do we believe all the things that they seem to have picked up from Talmudic and Pseudographical sources?
What about the belief that the rock that Moses struck followed the Israelites about in the desert - clearly referred to by Paul in Corinthians?
What about the argument over Moses' body?
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Karl Liberal Backslider ... just to complicate things, the idea of a mobile cavalry leader called something like Artorius who gave rise to stories about Arthur has recently been called into question.
History works through a cycle of propositions and revisions. The prevailing view these days, from what I can gather, is either that 'Arthur' was conflated with the more historical Ambrosius Aurelianus or with Riothamus, a character who operated on the continent and another, if I remember rightly, of these late/post-Roman usurper figures.
I suspect he's a composite of various different figures.
You'll notice how the fire and sword explanation for the early English settlements have now been modified by many historians to simple and gradual infiltration and not out and out ethnic cleansing/driving the Britons into the West and so on.
Probably both/and ... rather than either/or
As with most things.
Yeah I know. And then you've got Stephen Oppenheimer wanting to say there was no Saxon incursion at all and the English, speaking English, had been here all along
Far be it from me to suggest a Biblical parallel with that last point, but I'm going to anyway - Hebrew is a Canaanite language.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
Let me clarify what I meant: if Jesus had no way of knowing the truth about Moses, we have no way of knowing the truth about Jesus.
I don't really see how that follows. Please can you elaborate?
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Karl Liberal Backslider ... just to complicate things, the idea of a mobile cavalry leader called something like Artorius who gave rise to stories about Arthur has recently been called into question.
History works through a cycle of propositions and revisions. The prevailing view these days, from what I can gather, is either that 'Arthur' was conflated with the more historical Ambrosius Aurelianus or with Riothamus, a character who operated on the continent and another, if I remember rightly, of these late/post-Roman usurper figures.
I suspect he's a composite of various different figures.
You'll notice how the fire and sword explanation for the early English settlements have now been modified by many historians to simple and gradual infiltration and not out and out ethnic cleansing/driving the Britons into the West and so on.
Probably both/and ... rather than either/or
As with most things.
Yeah I know. And then you've got Stephen Oppenheimer wanting to say there was no Saxon incursion at all and the English, speaking English, had been here all along
Far be it from me to suggest a Biblical parallel with that last point, but I'm going to anyway - Hebrew is a Canaanite language.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
Let me clarify what I meant: if Jesus had no way of knowing the truth about Moses, we have no way of knowing the truth about Jesus.
I don't really see how that follows. Please can you elaborate?
He was nearer in time to Moses than we are to him.
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Posts: 333 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
Let me clarify what I meant: if Jesus had no way of knowing the truth about Moses, we have no way of knowing the truth about Jesus.
I don't really see how that follows. Please can you elaborate?
He was nearer in time to Moses than we are to him.
And we're nearer in time to Robin Hood than we are to Julius Caesar. It doesn't follow that we know more about Robin Hood with more certainty than we do Julius Caesar.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
Let me clarify what I meant: if Jesus had no way of knowing the truth about Moses, we have no way of knowing the truth about Jesus.
I don't really see how that follows. Please can you elaborate?
He was nearer in time to Moses than we are to him.
And we're nearer in time to Robin Hood than we are to Julius Caesar. It doesn't follow that we know more about Robin Hood with more certainty than we do Julius Caesar.
This doesn't work at all. I don't understand what point you think this makes.
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Posts: 333 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
Let me clarify what I meant: if Jesus had no way of knowing the truth about Moses, we have no way of knowing the truth about Jesus.
I don't really see how that follows. Please can you elaborate?
He was nearer in time to Moses than we are to him.
And we're nearer in time to Robin Hood than we are to Julius Caesar. It doesn't follow that we know more about Robin Hood with more certainty than we do Julius Caesar.
This doesn't work at all. I don't understand what point you think this makes.
It makes the point that proximity in time is not the be all and end all of knowing about the historicity of a person.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
Let me clarify what I meant: if Jesus had no way of knowing the truth about Moses, we have no way of knowing the truth about Jesus.
I don't really see how that follows. Please can you elaborate?
He was nearer in time to Moses than we are to him.
And we're nearer in time to Robin Hood than we are to Julius Caesar. It doesn't follow that we know more about Robin Hood with more certainty than we do Julius Caesar.
This doesn't work at all. I don't understand what point you think this makes.
It makes the point that proximity in time is not the be all and end all of knowing about the historicity of a person.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I'm certainly not saying that flat literalism should be the be-all and end-all of biblical interpretation. I wouldn't want to reject my Methodist and literary background to such a vulgar degree! The multi-layered quality of the Bible is one of the reasons why the world is still interested in it 2000 years later. My own tentative journey so far has been into postcolonial and Black readings of the Bible, and I'd love to go further.
I think I'm suggesting two things. Firstly, that mythologising certain key Biblical stories raises the question of what we can actually expect of God. If God didn't guide Moses (or let's say a Moses-like figure) to lead his people out of bondage, then what did he do for the people of Israel, and what, by extension, can he actually do for us? Have we been fooled into thinking that God will do great things for us, when he probably won't? If so, where does this leave Christianity?
Some scholars say the Israelites actually did quite well in Egypt, that their suffering was exaggerated in the Bible in order to emphasise Jewish specialness. Nevertheless, we still have to try to get to the core of what God did that was so great that we should pay attention 1000s of years later. A story is fine, but if we're talking about real people with real suffering (then or now), then ISTM that our faith rests on a sense that God can and in fact does do great things. The Exodus story is key, because it affirms quite graphically that God gets involved on behalf of the oppressed, not just that he would if he could, or if he was in the mood.
Secondly, our clergy and theologians are normally reluctant to engage ordinary Christians openly with readings of the Bible as myth. I'm always suspicious of any theology that doesn't either reach out to or arise from the ordinary people of faith. As I say, if myth is wonderful then everyone should be encouraged to benefit from that news. Otherwise it's just for the ivory towers, and a few sophisticates on the ivory fringe. That's fine - we all have a different journey - but what has it got to do with the people who sit on the inner city pews next to me?
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Secondly, our clergy and theologians are normally reluctant to engage ordinary Christians openly with readings of the Bible as myth. I'm always suspicious of any theology that doesn't either reach out to or arise from the ordinary people of faith.
I don't think that this necessarily need be out of a bad motive - it may simply arise out a realisation that the mythic element has to be put in context alongside any number of other things and then merely mentioning it on it's own is a kind of drive by theological attack of sorts.
Anyone here who has had to change their view on anything they hold dear will understand that it takes time to do so and may involve open wounds and healing over some time.
Lastly you have a background assumption that clergy/theologians are necessarily over this process themselves - it may well be that they themselves are reconciling themselves to it and having their faith adjusted as a result.
That a theology has mass appeal doesn't necessarily validate it either.
[ 10. September 2013, 13:02: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
If it's important that God did great things for the Jews in Egypt, what do you make of God's failure to do even the tiniest little thing to help the Jews in mid-Twentieth Century Europe?
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I'm certainly not saying that flat literalism should be the be-all and end-all of biblical interpretation. I wouldn't want to reject my Methodist and literary background to such a vulgar degree! The multi-layered quality of the Bible is one of the reasons why the world is still interested in it 2000 years later. My own tentative journey so far has been into postcolonial and Black readings of the Bible, and I'd love to go further.
I think I'm suggesting two things. Firstly, that mythologising certain key Biblical stories raises the question of what we can actually expect of God. If God didn't guide Moses (or let's say a Moses-like figure) to lead his people out of bondage, then what did he do for the people of Israel, and what, by extension, can he actually do for us? Have we been fooled into thinking that God will do great things for us, when he probably won't? If so, where does this leave Christianity?
Some scholars say the Israelites actually did quite well in Egypt, that their suffering was exaggerated in the Bible in order to emphasise Jewish specialness. Nevertheless, we still have to try to get to the core of what God did that was so great that we should pay attention 1000s of years later. A story is fine, but if we're talking about real people with real suffering (then or now), then ISTM that our faith rests on a sense that God can and in fact does do great things. The Exodus story is key, because it affirms quite graphically that God gets involved on behalf of the oppressed, not just that he would if he could, or if he was in the mood.
Secondly, our clergy and theologians are normally reluctant to engage ordinary Christians openly with readings of the Bible as myth. I'm always suspicious of any theology that doesn't either reach out to or arise from the ordinary people of faith. As I say, if myth is wonderful then everyone should be encouraged to benefit from that news. Otherwise it's just for the ivory towers, and a few sophisticates on the ivory fringe. That's fine - we all have a different journey - but what has it got to do with the people who sit on the inner city pews next to me?
Svit - this is still argument from adverse consequences. It's still "if we take it as myth, then the following bad things result". Whether or not those bad things result is moot; whether they do or not tells us nothing about the actual historicity or otherwise of the OT accounts. That is a logical tail wagging its dog.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Indeed, I think that this ties in neatly with the point Hatless raised. Let's talk about the implications of a belief or a non-belief in the historicity of Moses or a belief that it's as much, if not more, to do with mythology than with apparent 'objective' fact and history - and as Boogie says, history isn't 'objective' anyway ...
So, for the mid-19th century slaves in the US and slightly earlier in the Caribbean, the central motif of the Exodus story provided an exemplar and an aspiration. Hence the echoes of going up the mountain and looking over into the Promised Land that you get in the speeches of Dr Martin Luther King 100 years later.
That's one application.
How about in Pentecostalism or charismatic spirituality? There, to a greater or lesser extent, the Exodus story will stand for deliverance from sin and from all that oppresses us - whether spiritually, physically, morally etc etc ...
And the stories of divine intervention - the Plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, the mannah and the quail and so - will be interpreted as encouragements to believe that supernatural intervention can and does happen in the every day life of the believer - through miracles, through healing - through financial provision and so on if they are at the health/wealth end of the spectrum.
That would be another application/implication.
For those who don't understand the Exodus story in such 'literal' terms - Hatless, I presume is one such, it's more about effecting change in terms of human society and relationships, tackling injustice and so on.
It may be all these things and more.
It seems axiomatic that someone who believes in the literal historicity of the Exodus story is going to be more inclined to believe that God may just intervene in dramatically supernatural ways today than those who don't entertain such a belief or who interpret and apply the stories in more allegorical or symbolic terms.
I s'pose that's the nub of the question in terms of whether it makes 'any difference'. It affects the way we conceive of God and also the way we see our mission and task in the world.
One might submit that whatever approach we take it affects our behaviour and the way we out-work our faith for better or for worse.
Which is then a matter of perception.
From the perspective of a very conservative evangelical, a more symbolic approach that serves as a catalyst for social-action rather than traditional evangelism in the proclamation sense say, might appear reprehensible. Equally, to the more liberally inclined an insistence on the literal historicity, particular if it is allied with a 'conservative' approach to social issues and so on, is also going to appear reprehensible.
As to what it means or can mean to the person in the pews - in either an inner-city context or any other context - well, I suspect there are as many answers to that as there are contexts.
I know that to my inner-city 'folk-Anglican' great-aunts the Book of Common Prayer and house-bound communion were sources of great comfort. To people of an Afro-Caribbean heritage it might be gospel songs and a different form of spirituality under similar circumstances.
I think the Exodus story and the whole trajectory of scripture can and does speak into those situations. Whether it might do so in the way we expect is another issue.
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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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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
If it's important that God did great things for the Jews in Egypt, what do you make of God's failure to do even the tiniest little thing to help the Jews in mid-Twentieth Century Europe?
A very good question. How do you answer it? Why do you think the Bible gives us all these stories of God doing impressive things if he doesn't want to or can't do them? Is it a cruel trick? I don't know.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Svit - this is still argument from adverse consequences. It's still "if we take it as myth, then the following bad things result". Whether or not those bad things result is moot; whether they do or not tells us nothing about the actual historicity or otherwise of the OT accounts. That is a logical tail wagging its dog.
So do we put faith on the backburner while we conduct the appropriate archaeological research as to what 'really' happened? This is what you seem to be saying. But I'm not sure how Christianity works without a modicum of faith in 'something' that we haven't got proof for.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
No, I'm simply saying that you can't decide on whether Moses was mythological or historical or his degree of historicity based upon whether you like or don't like the consequences you perceive of one option or the other.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Has it been proven that Moses didn't exist? In the absence of certainty I'm not sure why it's inappropriate to have faith that he did. That's what faith is.
[ 10. September 2013, 13:29: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
If it's important that God did great things for the Jews in Egypt, what do you make of God's failure to do even the tiniest little thing to help the Jews in mid-Twentieth Century Europe?
A very good question. How do you answer it? Why do you think the Bible gives us all these stories of God doing impressive things if he doesn't want to or can't do them? Is it a cruel trick? I don't know.
Well, I don't think a big being did do great things to rescue the Jews. I don't know if Moses existed or not. My impression from occasionally glancing at adverts for books about these things is that Moses is probably more likely than Robin Hood, and about as likely as Arthur. I think the idea that the Jews were mainly a Canaanite tribe who invented a sojourn in Egypt probably has legs, but maybe that tribe based its largely fictional identity on a story about an exodus that did have roots in an actual exodus and that maybe there was someone with a name something like Moses who was part of all that. Who knows? Who will ever know?
I do think that there is powerful medicine in telling the downtrodden and hopeless that they are the apple of God's eye. (I do it frequently in the mental health hospital where I work.) I think the idea that God is not the exponential projection of the glamour and gloss of whatever society you live in, but is a subversive befriender of the grotty underbelly of that society, is a complete hoot, a joyful, bonkers, transformative conceit, and that it has the potential to restore the humanity of everyone in that society.
March out of Canaan, up the hill to Jerusalem, proclaim yourself a proud nation and declare that your ancestors are not the glorious and great of the past, but the slaves, the dishonest, sell-your-brother, decline into bricks-without-straw-making, rabble who didn't even know they were a people - wow! I want to be part of that society, a society whose founding myth subverts every temptation to glorify power, wealth and inequality.
And that message, allegorised, taken metaphorically in this way or that, will speak to the poor of S America or to Black American slaves, or bonded labourers in India today. If only the modern state of Israel knew the story as well.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
The liberal thought on this subject is surprisingly binary, to judge from this thread. We either read the Bible for encouragement, or we read for some glimmers of fact, as seen through a glass darkly. But never the twain shall meet! For my faith, the two need to meet at some point, but this obviously isn't so much the case for many others. Each to his own.
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