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| Not Marcion |
The entire article is a whole three pages long, and two of them are focused on the New Testament. Surprisingly, given the publisher's predilection for cuddling up to obscure Old Testament laws, there's a certain Marcionite flavour to the discussion (not that Erik could probably tell Marcion from Marmite). The title says it all: "Jesus Christ Taught Peace and Nonviolence."
Well, okay, I'll sign up to that. But wait, what about those sticky stories in the Hebrew Bible? Not a problem! Erik lays out the solution in just four easy, pre-masticated steps.
1. God's Law is consistent. Bumping people off has never been acceptable.
2. Lack of faith. Those ancient Israelites were a feckless bunch and refused to simply trust in God.
3. Hardness of Heart. This sounds a lot like no.2 to me. Those dimwitted Israelites were allowed to kill and maim only because God took into allowance that they were spiritually unfit. Not like Erik and his mates in the One True Church of course.
4. Consequences. God took a dim view of people who followed his own policy compromises. Just look how he took away planning permission for a Davidic Temple because Dave, a man after his own heart, had carried out his orders.
So there you have it. Hangs together nicely doesn't it. And just think, all those needless books full of big words written by lesser mortals who tried to make sense of this before Erik and Discern came along."... there is no contradiction between the Old and New Testaments! God's consistent will was for his people to be peaceful and nonviolent."Well, bless your heart Erik, and thank you for clearing that up. Any questions? Oops, sorry, gotta go...
Erik has it all wrong...the "God" of the OT was the devil that Jesus was talking about in John 8:44 - Yahweh, the creator of the Jews. The "God" of the OT was the devil that tempted "Christ" in the wilderness with ownership of the earth because, according to the OT, that's who owns the earth. Or, as Marcion called him, the "demiurge", to whom the actual "God" of Genesis 1 left in charge of the world. This "demiurge", not being satisfied with the real God's original creation, planted a garden in Mesopotamia and created the Semite race to take care it.
ReplyDeleteSo, just blame it all on the demiurge (the father of the Jews) instead of the real God (the father of Jesus) and there you are - the gentiles were innocent victims and the Jews will suffer for their being deceived by the demiurge into committing genocide and murdering the son of God.
That's my story and I'm...uh...sticking to it...
Beware Corky, these days most of those on the Internet have little use for brilliant satire. On Yahoo, you'd get 2 thumbs up and 359 thumbs down. Well, I say two thumbs up, but there's no guarantee that anyone besides me would give you the thumbs up. Irony is so underrated and the sense of humor is gone too. I would suppose that it's a result of people being lied to so much... especially by religion (but there's government and corporations too and don't forget the scientific community [funded by the corporations] and academia). The other problem is all those people with factless opinions who think just because they believe something is true, it IS true.
DeleteThe Internet continues to lower the I.Q.
Dear Gavin,
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm technically challenged - thought I'd posted my comments a couple of days ago. Anyway, I wanted to say thank you for making me aware of the Jacob Wright class at Emory University. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and have gained new insights and perspectives on the Bible and the people who wrote it. Too bad that most Fundamentalists have cut themselves off from such knowledge and information!
With regard to your comments about the Erik Jones article, I feel that he deserves more credit for pointing out the inconsistency between Christian behavior and Christ's teaching on this subject. Nevertheless, I have to agree with you that the YHWH of the Old Testament is often described in very martial terms. There is clearly a contradiction between Christ's teachings and the often homicidal and genocidal Divinity depicted in those writings. (The blinders are definitely on in the "Why violence in the OT?" insert).
I think that this is to be expected, however, from anyone who continues to hold to the old Armstrong axiom about Scripture: "If you can't believe all of it, you can't believe any of it." I think it is very unfortunate that Fundamentalists and Atheists take this view of the Bible. As someone who believes in God and professes to be a Christian, it is counterintuitive for me to believe that the Bible is entirely Divine or human in origin. Why can't it be both? (I think that there is a lot of good evidence to suppose it is some of both) Humans have always tried to remake God in their own image. As a consequence, a great many things have been attributed to God that don't belong to God (like murder, war and genocide). And, as I've pointed out before, Jesus Christ was apparently not afraid to contradict the old stuff (i.e. Moses' teaching on divorce).
Even so, I think that Mr. Jones deserves some praise for pointing out the discrepancies in "Christian" behavior and for attempting to say (albeit imperfectly) that God is not a homicidal maniac.