Review of Philip Pullman's "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ"

[vixengrl]

This is a very simple story with parts that should be very familiar to people who were raised in the Christian tradition, but there is a very meaningful twist that highlights the duality of the story of the hero of The New Testament; Philip Pullman tackles that duality by envisioning the character we've come to know as Jesus Christ, as twins. We have the straight-forward but sometimes impulsive man, Jesus, and his weaker, but somewhat more complicated brother, Christ.

For those familiar with the story of the Son of God, or the Son of Man, we are prepared for the idea of duality. The man Jesus was born of Mary, and was the son of a carpenter. He lived among fishermen in Galilee. He preached a reform version of the Book of the Law, and was kind to even tax collectors, prostitutes, and foreigners. But there is also the other story, laid over the human life-story of our supposed hero--the myth that became "Jesus Christ". A Messiah? A deity in human form? A miracle worker? An improbable mythical "Logos" who preceded time and would rule in the hereafter?

What Pullman subtly does in this simply but persuasively written biblically-inspired fable, is suggest how such myths might come to be, inspired in part by both good intentions, and even bad ones. He presents a likable enough Jesus, who often does say very good things, but also shows how his words are used against him and how they could be used to create a church that is oppressive and corrupt.

I like Pullman's tale a good deal, and find especially touching what I think of as "the Atheist Sermon" Jesus delivers when he is quite alone near the end. I would not doubt that religious people might find this work a bit subversive, but that is all the more reason why it's a good read--it makes one think, and it aligns with the things that I found were actually useful in the faith of my fathers, even if I didn't keep that faith, myself. I recommend it.

[Cheap_Trick]

1. Seeing how much the fundies got their panties in a twist

over the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, this should make their little pin heads :nuke:

[zeemike]

2. not as much subversive as uninformed.

Christ is a title not a name...it is Jesus THE Christ.
But to put it this way i can suggest some titles in some future era where this time is forgoten...like this
"The good man Gandhi and the scoundrel Mahatma."
"The good man ML King and the scoundrel civil rights leader"
"The good woman Teressa and the scoundrel Mother."

[NeoGreen]

3. True, but none of them claimed...

... to be God.

See YouTube video by Mr. Deity entitled "Mr. Deity and the Identity Crises"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mII6-IyaT3o

Plus, Pullman may write his vision/story as he pleases, with an intentional error or not.

[zeemike]

4. And neither did Jesus.

He called himself "the son of man"
But none of that stopped the people in later years from saying that he was god, just as in every religion they must do it to gain more control and power for themselves.
But no sense is trying to explain it now...Jesus is God whether or not he said he was because they say he is....and you will agree because you know how stupid they are.

[darkstar3]

5. "I and my father are one."

Jesus' claim to godhood was right there in the red letters. Any good pastor or priest will tell you that the various ways in which Jesus referred to himself in the gospels only go to show that he was BOTH God and man, as the Nicene Creed affirms.

Of course, that's only if you buy the bullshit...

[zeemike]

6. And made the same mistake the Jews did with Jesus.

Because they did not understand....like here.

John.10

<33> The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
<34> Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
<35> If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
<36> Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?

and in fact the modern day christians are a spitting image of the Pharisees of biblical times, and that is obvious to anyone that reads for understanding.

[darkstar3]

7. And there's the ad hom.

that is obvious to anyone that reads for understanding.
Which is to say "if you had the capacity to read it correctly you'd see it my way, but you're not smart enough."

Read verse 36 above again. You will see that what Jesus said could be seen as saying "how can you call me blasphemous when God himself sent me here?" Once again a claim by Jesus of his own divinity.

The Nicene Creed exists and has persisted for a reason, zeemike, and that reason is very deeply rooted in biblical verse.

[zeemike]

8. It has noting to do with being smart.

Reading for understanding can only be accomplished if the mind is open and not cluttered with biases one way or the other.
and it is helpful if you have some understating of Eastern mysticism and other works on spirituality....
The knowledgeable Buddhist would understand what Jesus said...because they have the understanding that Spirit is in everything and that spirit is the creator of all...And so Jesus would not have had to explain himself when he called himself the Son of God and the Son of Man to them, or other cultures like Native Americans that held similar beliefes...
But with the Jews and the Pharisees it was not about God but about this upstart gathering a following and pointing out all their evils, and so even if they could have understood they would have chosen not to.

The God that Jesus was referring to sent us all here....the creator... And many have a hard time grasping that concept.

[darkstar3]

9. An interesting take,

but entirely outside the context of the writing. Unless of course you are presuming that Buddhist thought had infiltrated Judaea during the time of Jesus' supposed life?

[zeemike]

10. Have you ever heard of Saint Isis?

It is said the Jesus in the lost years where the bible says nothing about him that he traveled to India and Tibet and taught and learned there. They called him Isis and there is reported to be records of his visit in Tibetan literature.

[darkstar3]

11. And he appeared before the nephites after his resurrection but before his ascention...

sure he did...

[zeemike]

12. that should have been St.Issa.

Saint Issa
Further information: Yuz Asaf
In 1887 a Russian war correspondent, Nicolas Notovitch, visited India and Tibet. He claimed that, at the lamasery or monastery of Hemis in Ladakh, he learned of the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men." Issa is the Arabic name of Jesus. His story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa," was published in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ. It was subsequently translated into English, German, Spanish, and Italian.

The "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" purportedly recounts the travels of one known in the East as Saint Issa, whom Notovitch identified as Jesus. After initially doubting Notovitch, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Abhedananda, journeyed to Tibet, investigated his claim, helped translate part of the document, and later championed his views.<3> Swami Satyasangananda conjectures that Jesus spent these eighteen years "growing in wisdom and stature" at Nalanda, the ancient Indian university.<4>

Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial. The German orientalist Max Mueller, who'd never been to India himself, published a letter he'd received from a British colonial officer, which stated that the presence of Notovich in Ladakh was "not documented." J.Archibald Douglas, then a teacher at the Government College in Agra also visited Hemis monastery in 1895, but claimed that he did not find any evidence that Notovich had even been there. The diary of Dr. Karl Rudolph Marx of the Ladane Charitable Dispensary, a missionary of the Order of the Moravian Brothers, and director of the hospital in Leh, clearly states that he treated Nicolas Novotich for a severe toothache in November 1887. However, Edgar J. Goodspeed in his book "Famous Biblical Hoaxes" claims that the head abbott of the Hemis community signed a document that denounced Notovitch as an outright liar; this claim has not been independently verified.<5>
From Wikapedia.

[darkstar3]

13. uh-huh...

and perhaps you've heard of the story of the "hero with a thousand faces"? Not to mention bias, both confirmation and otherwise...

[zeemike]

14. Never the less the teachings of Jesus are very much like

The Eastern mystics....which lends credence to the claim.
But it is way to easy just dismiss it all as myth and legend.

[darkstar3]

15. Sure, OK.

Well, the Mayans and the Egyptians both built pyramids. This similarity lends credence to the idea that an alien race is actually responsible for the design of said pyramids and forced them to be built. Or perhaps it lends credence to the idea that the Egyptians and Mayans were actually trading with each other, even though we have no evidence whatsoever that intercontinental sea travel was possible at the time of those civilizations, or that either culture knew of the other. Or maybe, just maybe, it proves simply that there is such a thing as coincidence...

[zeemike]

16. Well there you have it....it all depends on what we think we know

About the world thousands of years ago.
And we think we know a lot....but the truth is we know very little.
Had there have been trade between the continents thousands of years ago how would we know? Almost everything manufactured by man has rotted away and we base our knowledge on such a tiny amount of things that were somehow preserved.
It is like casting a net into the sea and bringing up a few fish and thinking that you know all about what is in the sea.

[darkstar3]

17. Knowledge of the ancient world

gleaned through archeology and anthropology paints an incomplete picture, to be sure, but there is much more to that picture than you are claiming. At any rate, my point stands. There is no evidence that the Egyptians and Mayans even knew of each other's existence, so using one similarity in their architecture to paint a relationship between them is a big stretch. Not unlike the stretch in claiming that Jesus was a Buddhist.

[zeemike]

21. i am not claiming Jesus was a Buddhist.

He was a Jew and remained a Jew.
But I am claiming that he did travel and study there among the ascetics.
And the evidence for it is dismissed...just as all evidence to the contrary of anything that is not accepted as fact by the scholarly community.
And that is where the bias comes in...if you believe that Jesus was a fictional character then you will dismiss all evidence to the contrary of that beliefe...and that is when science looses it's objectivity.

[Goblinmonger]

23. Here's the evidence I would like to see, in order:

1. evidence that there was a historical Jesus.
2. evidence that the historical Jesus traveled to India et al when he was a kid.

[zeemike]

25. What you ask for is unimpeachable evidence

And no evidence that does exist of historical events that long ago can be considered as unimpeachable.
The text of the bible and the accounts of a Russian that traveled to Tibet are all suspect in your mind because they ARE evidence of something you do not believe.
and any thing dug up that lends evidence to it will also be impeached for the same reason...and one can always find something wrong with it.

[darkstar3]

27. Not true.

We have unimpeachable evidence of things that happened in Greek, Roman, and Egyptian societies whose ages are far older than 2000 years. There can be evidence.

The text of the Bible is not suspect because we don't believe it. That's circular logic. It's suspect for many reasons, not least of which is its level of inconsistency, inaccuracy, and bald-faced fiction.

As for the accounts of one Russian traveler, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If we are to believe what the Russian wrote, we need a lot more than his word to go on.

[zeemike]

30. What unimpeachable evidence.

Name it.
And inscription on stone?...but a king or powerful ruler that most probably embellishes his accomplishments?...I just cant think of one thing that is unimpeachable but maybe you can.

But consider this fact that I am sure you consider unimpeachable....Kufu built the great pyramids and the Shinx...Dare I suggest to you that there is no evidence for that?

[darkstar3]

33. Are you telling me that we know nothing of Socrates?

Plato? Aristotle? Julius Ceasar? Tutenkamen? Nephertiri?

What about the famed architecural accomplishments of the Romans. Can we not prove the creation and usage of their aquaducts?

The list of ancient and even relatively modern (<1000 yrs) evidence of prior civilizations, people, and cultures is extensive.

[zeemike]

37. So are you saying that Jesus or the disciples should have built

something like the Romans did, and because they did not they have no proof of their existence?
The Pyramids exist yes but that is not proof the Khufu built them.
And we know of Homer too....and it is assumed that his account of Atlantis and the trojan war was all made up as a story....why then do we believe in Socrates and Plato....Could they not also be a made up figure if you apply the same standards?

[darkstar3]

43. Did Socrates or Aristotle build something I was unaware of? n/t

[zeemike]

47. no nothing that I know of

So where is the archaeological proof of their existence?
and who then can say that they ever existed?

[darkstar3]

49. We have Aristotle's writings,

and we also have the writings of Plato, for a start.

[zeemike]

54. You mean like we have Mathews writings about Jesus?

How do we know that Aristotle's writings about Socrates is real....perheaps he made it all up.

Don't you see the difference here...Plato Aristotle and Socrates are believable....but not so much Homer....and so we say thy are real and Homer had a vivid imagination...and so we believe it is real

The Gospels tell a story that is unbelievable (to most) and so we find a myriad of reasons to de bunk the whole thing....and many of them make no sense at all, but the fear of change or being wrong, makes us form a bias of the mind..
And this is true for both sides....those that believe and those that do not.

I am not in this game....just playing referee and calling the fouls as I see them....and they exist in great numbers on both sides.

[darkstar3]

55. Your equivocation is crap. See #53. n/t

[Goblinmonger]

18. Wow

Nothing like people making up even more shit to cover the other made up shit. As is mentioned below, read The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Traveled to Tibet in the lost years, indeed. I need to start a religion because it would be too damn easy.

[vixengrl]

19. Seriously (to insert myself back into the thread I started--

serves me right doing a book review... :eyes: )

I'm skeptical of any argument that involves the words "Jesus" and "said". Which would include all the things he's reputed to have said that match my slightly hippie ideals about love and being good and all, and the more far-out things like the "I and my Father are one" stuff that Christian apologists like C.S. Lewis base their faith on.

It's quite possible that Jesus was either crazy or dead right for saying something like that--if he ever said it. If it wasn't tacked on by someone who wanted to fashion a church based on that kind of thing. It's all very well to say we have certain limits when looking back at a culture through the artifacts they have left us. To get back to something like "what did Jesus say" is like Schliemann finding Troy. One can dig past the Troy one was looking for, dig around it, find something definitely that indicates there was a city were Troy should be or even acknowledge that Homer, whoever Homer, or the "Homers" were, were poetic fabulists. The Troy you find isn't exactly the same as the one in the Iliad.

Which brings us back 'round to the point Pullman was making--you can get a Gnostic Jesus, an Arian Jesus, a Catholic Jesus, a Buddhist Jesus, and so on. But all of that depends on words written a really long time ago, by different people, and with possibly different purposes in mind. (http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/christian/blchron_xian_nt.htm)

It might explain why there are four gospels, and why they have contradictions. It might explain why there are Apocrypha like the Infancy Gospels. Basically, one completely cynical atheist take on Christianity is some of it is fanfic with a major agenda. And so long as there are fans and agendas, well, more will be written.

(Would that make this book atheist Jesus fanfic....)

[zeemike]

22. Well to inject myself into your conversation.

You say the words of Jesus are doubtful because there are 4 Gospels and they differ.
but one must understand that under Jewish laws of the time witnesses to the truth were required....at least two, and it was held that if wittinesses told the exact same story they assumed that they had conspired to bear false wittness....and this is logical because no two people see events exactly the same way.
And the second point that you allude to is that sense the text was copied over and over for thousands of years it must have changed, and people added what they wanted and took out what they wanted.....However evidence does contradict that notion....the dead sea scrolls contain passages in the old testament that WERE copied all that time and remained unchanged....so we would have to conclude that at least the old testament was copied by the monks many times without change.
Speculating that monks put there own spin on it is not evidence.,and neither is finding difference in the testimony of wittinesses to an event.

[Goblinmonger]

24. So which of the gospels witnessed the "truth"?

It is more likely that the writers of that time were putting their own spin on the Greek epics. There's a lot more "proof" of that than that there was a Jesus.

[zeemike]

26. Why not all of them?

In a crowd of people watching an event do you think that they all remember or see everything the same way?...it never happens that way today so why should it be any different then.
and as I have pointed out the Jewish law took that into account.

[darkstar3]

28. The gospels were written at LEAST 50-90 years after Jesus' supposed death.

Assuming that the gospel writers were old enough to remember anything about Jesus, that would put Matthew (the supposed first writer) at the age of almost 60 when he penned his work. Aside from the damage to facts that can be caused by such a long time between witnessing something and writing it down, that age defies the average life expectancy of 2,000 years ago, which ranged from 20-40 years depending on the culture. Then there's the fact that the later gospels were written even longer after Jesus' supposed death...

What does this mean? That the gospel writers could not have witnessed any of what they wrote.

[zeemike]

32. Written 50 or 60 years after?

How the hell do you know that it was not written down the first time a year after the death?
That is an assumption about something you have no way of knowing unless you lived it.
Mathew was a tax collector and you could assume he was familiar with the written word and could very well have written it down right away and in the next 50 years it wold have been copied many times.
so tell me why you know that this cold not possibly be true?

[darkstar3]

34. The point was more about the length of time between events and manuscripts.

If Matthew was a tax collector at the same that Jesus supposedly walked the earth, then that would make him a grown man. His supposed manuscript is from approximately 50 years later. This means that he lived incredibly beyond the life expectancy of the time, or he did not write the manuscript attributed to him, or he did not witness what was written in the manuscript.

And that's just Matthew. Other gospels, due to the time of their writing and the timing of Jesus' death, suffer even more from this problem.

Aside from all of that, there are many places in the gospels where the author uses the third-person omniscient voice. How could those events cataloged in that voice have been eye-witnessed?

[zeemike]

40. Well I guess you miss the point that we do not KNOW

That it was first written 50 years later....He could have written it down as it happened or shortly after the events....how could you possibly know that he did not?
And it ignores the purpose of the witnesses...which was legal under Jewish law...that they felt the need to make these statements knowing that the Jews did pursue his followers and arrest and kill them for many years after the event....Paul was one of them.

Now imagine this witness statement...
"Yes I knew the accused...his mother was named Mary and his father Joseph and he was born in Bethlehem"
Does this mean that he must have witnessed it or he would have not said it?...Does this impeach his testimony that he heard Jesus say "Resist not evil"

[darkstar3]

44. Biblical and non-Biblical scholars alike have confirmed that the gospels were written much later.

In fact, though you'll undoubtedly dismiss this website as biased, there is a good case to be made that the synoptic gospels were actually written in the second century, long after anyone who knew Jesus firsthand would have died.

Also, you completely ignored my point above about third-person omniscient voice. Will you at least recognize that there are parts of the gospels which could not possibly have been eyewitness accounts?

[zeemike]

45. I thought I made it clear

no one could have witnessed the generations of Jesus in the gospells...but relating what you do know to be accepted fact is not the same as an eye witness account but is often found in the account....that does not prove that what WAS witnessed is not true.

But what about the good case I just made that it could have been written down at the time but that no copy of the original survived....which is the case for the vast majority of documents produced at the time.
One could make the assertion that Mathew was not a tax collector because there is no record of it too.
Or that Mathew Mark Luke and John never existed...because we don't have the documents to prove it.
And the same is true of Plato or Socrotees....we do not have the original in their own hand.

Now if you have convincing proof that the wittinesses never wrote it down in their lifetime I am listening.

[darkstar3]

48. What?!

You kept talking about witnesses and talking about Jewish law regarding eyewitnesses, and suddenly you're accepting that "no one could have witnessed"?

As for everything else you've said...
A) It's Socrates, and many other writings by his contemporaries were found in their original Greek. Now if Jesus' actual contemporaries wrote something, I'd be happy to read it, but so far we have trouble finding any actual people who lived alongside him and wrote about him.
B) You want me to prove that someone did NOT do something? I'll get right on that, as soon as you prove that you've never beaten your wife.

[zeemike]

51. I feel you are running me around in circles.

But maybe I am not making myself clear....in any statement made not every word is taken from actual eye witnessing as I alluded to in Mathew recounting the genealogy of Jesus...Obvioulsy he could have witnessed that.....but you turn that into proof that none of it is true because it is not all first person accounts.
In the original Greek you say...but who wrote it? and the copies you have....when were they made....how many years after his death....does that mean that he did not write it?...after all someone could have just have been making up a wise man of old for the gratification of a later day audience...
So you see that those peoples existence in time could be just as tenuous as that of Jesus.

[darkstar3]

53. Who's leading who in circles?

Are you actually trying to claim that there is no sufficient evidence of ANY of the great Hellenistic thinkers? :eyes:

It is unacceptable to compare the evidence for Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates to the historical evidence for Jesus. As for your attempts to claim that we must either accept the weak and uncorroborated evidence for a historical Jesus or throw out all of history because we just "can't know", I say get thee to a university History department and do not leave until you have learned a few things about archaeological and anthropological study and the ramifications thereof.

[zeemike]

56. It is not the evidence I am talking about

It is the method of applying that evedence...it should be done equally with fairness.

But instead with an unpopular idea like Jesus or Atlantis the dog pile effect takes over and they nit pick it to death with wild assumptions that make no sense....Like I can tell by the style of this text it was not made until 300ad...Style is evedence?...give me a break...That makes all kinds of assumptions of everything being rigid and unchanging...and there is nothing more changing than style.

But I am all for archeology and wish there were more of it...they have real evidence.
But too often they make assumptions....like the story of Atlantes cannot be true because of the flood it tells of...and so they look to amend it by saying that Homer exaggerated and it was really the island of Thera....they assume he exaggerated and fit the evidence to that assumption.

[darkstar3]

57. You're all for archaeology when it agrees with you.

Why do I say that? Because in one sentence you laud archaeology and in another you dismiss it. Document analysis and proper aging is a huge part of archaeology, and because it doesn't validate your pet theories you dismiss it.

You want to prove Jesus and Atlantis...are you planning on trying to prove the existence of Hercules?

[zeemike]

60. I do not dismiss it...I suggest they select the evidence to fit the theory

Would you like to discuss the evidence not used for any of those like Atlantis?
I was thinking of this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/science/30computecnd.html

[vixengrl]

29. I guess I'm hung up on the "eyewitness" part.

For example--take the Gospel of Matthew. For a long time, it was thought to be written by Matthew the apostle and former tax collector. But later scholarship suggests it wasn't, that it was some other author who was working off of Mark and some other source. There might have been a missing source, sometimes called "Q". Also, there is the Gospel of the Hebrews, which seems like it was pretty early, but isn't canonical for some reason. At some point, the four gospels that are in the New Testament made the cut. The gospel of John made it in, and that one is pretty mystical in comparison.

If were were talking about people witnessing an event, we'd want to know who they were and whether they were actually there. That there was someone "there" and that there was a Jesus, I tend to accept. "Mark" could have been working off of Peter's reminiscences--for all I would know, and my lack of knowledge doesn't falsify any of it. (My position is along the lines of "reasonable doubts" about the supernatural parts.) Some of the things in the gospels, though, don't seems like they could have been witnessed anyway. The birth and childhood stuff? The agony in the garden at Gethsemane when the aopostle Jesus took with him were asleep? Some of that is at least poetic license. But even among believers, Biblical scholars resolving the "synoptic problem" have also supposed that differences might be accounted for by looking at the aims of the authors.

[zeemike]

31. The "Q" document is all speculation.

And so is the theory that Mathew and the rest did not write it.
And it is all based on the assumption that Mathew could not have written it because?
and yet I can provide an alternate theory that they did actually write it...or spoke it to a scribe that wrote it down on paper....which over time wore out and had to be copied many times by other scribes who were devoted to transcribing it accurately because they thought it important.
That is not an extraordinary claim yet you reject it because...well it just could not have happened.
as far as content...it is not claimed that the witnesses witnessed everything in their statement...but some of it is background information just as you would find in any witnesses statement
If they all went to the garden and all fell asleep except one and when that one woke them and was sweating blood it would be fair to assume he was agonizing even though you did not actually see it.

Which brings up another point....why if someone wanted to create a supernatural god like man would you put such a thing as him saying that he was scared of his impending death and said "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"...one dose not usually make up a hero that admits to weakness.
And there are other things like that.

[vixengrl]

35. The reason for showing Jesus afraid of dying

would be to indicate that he actually did suffer and was primarily a man, to put down the heresy of docetism (the claim that the physical body of Christ was an illusion and that he did not suffer or die.)

I'm not making any assumptions about the authorship of Matthew, because I don't know his handwriting--the controversy is actually one debated by Biblical scholars. I'm out of it. Regarding whether any of it could be true--sure. Your theory that it was copied many times faithfully from an accurate eyewitness account is plausible. It just isn't binding on anyone to accept it as the case.


Achilles had wrath and hubris. Heros can have flaws--in Greek tragedies it's a part of the form. Would a God be so depicted--it's not out of the question if it serves the purposes of the narrative.

[zeemike]

38. But again it starts with the presumption that the story is made up

And then provide explanations that it is a literary device....that assumes that the author of fiction decided to make him a little human so that people could relate to him...and then presented the story as true to deceive the masses.
And the Genesis of this is the personal belief that it could not have happened....stating with an assumption and then fitting the facts to that assumption.

[darkstar3]

39. .

:rofl:
Talk about projection...And the Genesis of this is the personal belief....stating with an assumption and then fitting the facts to that assumption.

[zeemike]

41. I have made no assumptions

But I reconize one when I see it.

[darkstar3]

42. We are drowning a subthread full of your assumptions. n/t

[zeemike]

46. Point them out to me.

I claim I have assumed nothing. But you can correct me if I am wrong.

[darkstar3]

50. Really?

I have to point out to you that #4 and #6 were assumptions on your part? Not to mention #25, and that's just getting started.

If I have to actually scroll upthread for you and show where you've made assumptions in order for this farce of an argument to continue, it would seem that there is really no argument left to be had here.

[zeemike]

52. I'm sorry I went back and red those and I see no assumption on my part

So you will have to be spicific....what is it you thought I assumed.

[vixengrl]

58. Not really. I'm not sure about "fitting the facts" about anything.

I'm not even presuming that the whole thing is made up--I'm spotting you the possibility of an historical Jesus, I'm throwing in an eyewitness Peter, and that "Mark" might have worked for the bloke. I'm also saying that there's no reason to count out the possibility of historical revisionism. In the same way a person might use certain "facts" to set up a narrative for a conspiracy theory, and that book would be put on a non-fiction bookshelf, a story about a relgious figure could be....well, colored. Spun. Biased. Tweaked.


An often-told story about George Washington is that he chopped down a cherry tree but "couldn't tell a lie about it." That this story itself isn't true doesn't mean there was no Washington, and doesn't mean he wasn't honest, but was made up to create an illusion about an almost congenital form of honesty in the character of the Founding Father. The irony of making up a story and presenting it as real to make a point about honesty might have been lost on the biographer.

In just that way, even a well-intentioned 1st century religious writer could be motivated to make his own interpolations. There are examples of "pious frauds" littering religious history. It's human nature.

Again, when I'm talking about Biblical scholarship regarding the provenance and problem relating to the synoptic gospels, that there might have been interpolations by well-meaning folks trying to make the four "fit" and the idea that the different gospels were written with certain "agendas" in mind, these ideas aren't just atheists trying to tear down belief:

http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/faq.htm

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.html

http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/Matt.htm

http://www.awitness.org/nt/mark.html

http://www.bibletoday.com/htstb/spurious_text.htm

They represent historical work by anyone studying the Bible critically who are concerned with what it says and means because they use it. They aren't all making the assumption that the contradictions mean it's all bs, or that if the gospel authors weren't themselves eyewitnesses, nothing they say is of any use. So that isn't necessarily the assumption that form of scholarship is based on.

My interest in it pre-dated my atheism. I won't say looking into the matter did anything to impede my atheism....

[zeemike]

59. Interisting...my atheism pre dates my interest.

And I did not start with the bible but with eastern mysticism, shaman ism, and Native religions.
It was later that I took up the bible....and I have read it all...
But not with the closed eye of trying to prove my own belief system...but with the purpose in mind of understand the story....something I attribute to my previous study.
And that is what is missed when you are trying to de construct some idea that is strange or somehow threating....the story.

And I did take the time to read your links...so indulge me when I give my observations about this.
What is lost in this is the story...and one thinks that all you need to do to obscure some story that transmits a dangerous (to you) idea is to de construct it and show that someone made it all up...prove it fiction or show plagiarism and no one will take it seriously...especialy in the scholarly world of academia.

But for me I prefer to see it all as history...and I do not question the motives or accuracy of the of the author....in fact it does not matter at all who wrote it or why....Just as I do not care why Steinbeck wrote "The Grapes of Wrath" or care at all that ir was fiction....it has history and a dangerous idea that I happen to like.
And so I see all literature in that light...because in all of it there is truth, history and dangerous ideas.

[darkstar3]

36. "One does not usually make up a hero that admits to weakness."

That, dear zeemike, betrays an obvious desire to ignore literary history. Does the name Achilles ring a bell? What of Jason? Even the Bible contains heroes who admit and succumb to weakness, such as Sampson. It is a literary device designed to invoke empathy in the reader. You really should read "Hero with a Thousand Faces."

[Goblinmonger]

61. Literary Fail

Go read some epics for god sake before you talk about why someone would craft a hero a particular way. And/or read The Hero with a Thousand Faces as recommended above by me.

[zeemike]

62. And so you think that if I read it I will suddenly see the light?

I have yet to read a book that did that for me...but that is not to say this is not one of them.

But let me recommend a book or two also...
Jesus, Son of Man by Khalil Galbrath...it is a work of fiction...but in it is some truths about ourselves.
Siddhartha by (I think) Herman Hess....a work of fiction? but also containing some basic truths.
Or some others...like the Bhagavad Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, The book of Hopi....all non fiction but open to dispute.

The point I am making is that no one source is good enough when trying to come to understanding.

[Goblinmonger]

63. I'm not saying you are going to see the light

but that is really the seminal work on the hero which you seem to grossly misunderstand.

I believe Jesus, Son of Man is on my list of things I want to read, though admittedly very low.
Love Hess and have read Siddhartha several times (first time during my HS Catholic Seminary days).

[zeemike]

67. We all have things we grossly misunderstand

and it is fair to say I misunderstand a lot of things.
But the writing of Kahlil Gilbrand is special and a delightful read. And in Jesus Son of Man he takes an unusual approach to the subject viewing him from the eyes of the people of the time, both friend and foe.

[ZombieHorde]

66. Never mind, other posters already addressed this. nt

[humblebum]

64. "If you have seen me, then you have seen the Father" and

Thomas said 'My Lord and my God." Much more goes into referring to Jesus as God than simply what he said. Much of it has to do with what the OT foreshadowed and how Jesus apparently fulfilled many of those prophecies - "A child will be born...and his name will be called...Heavenly Father, Almighty God... ." Jesus also said, "Before Abraham, I was or I Am."

[vixengrl]

20. Actually, Pullman probably knows it's a "stretch" to have

the one twin named "Christ". In the story, there actually is a visitation by the "wise men" and shepherds, and the one named "Christ" (the weaker twin) is "supposed" to be the one. The story goes on to say:

"The firstborn was to be named Jesus, but what to call the other, Mary's secret favorite? In the end they gave him a very common name, but in view of what the shepherds had said, Mary always called him Christ, which is Greek for Messiah."

I think even though it's not technically correct, the naming in this way was a necessary part of the conceit, since nowadays we do seem to say it as if "Christ" was Jesus' last name. Also, there is a flavoring of "Jacob and Esau" in just that bit--where Esau was the bigger, firstborn brother, but the mother prefers Jacob and maneuvers him to steal Esau's birthright.

[Goblinmonger]

65. An attempt to "re-rail" this train wreck

Sounds like he is taking the Cain and Able concept and applying it to Jesus. Anyone?

Sounds like a bunch of people are going to be pissed about this one having lived through the "Last Temptation of Christ" crap.