As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, the Discovery Channel will be airing a documentary on the fourth of March called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus". The makers of the documentary claim a tomb uncovered in 1980 is the tomb of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, complete with the bones of Jesus and his son. I am not here going to enumerate the details of this claim, or the reasons given for or against, as that is already being taken care of in great earnest by many other parties. I will however include a small quote from Professor Amos Kloner, who was responsible for the excavation of the tomb in 1980.
"It makes a great story for TV, but ... it's nonsense. There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb. They were a Galilee family with no Jerusalem ties. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE [Christian Era]."
However, this talk of the tomb of Jesus got me thinking. Hypothetically speaking, if researchers were to all agree that this tomb is in fact the tomb of Jesus' family, and somehow they also all agreed the bones were in fact the bones of Jesus of Nazareth (I don't know how they would do this, but we're pretending, so the how is unimportant right now), would this fundamentally change my beliefs about the world?
I like to think I'm a fairly rational person. I like to think I have somewhat well thought out reasons for the things I believe, and even rationale for things which must by necessity fall into the category of "faith" (a category which every person must have, for we do not at this time have indisputable answers to all questions), which brings me to this hypothetical proposition regarding the supposed bones of Jesus.
I believe though that in answer to the question, it would not change my beliefs to a great degree. Some would say this is an intellectual cop out, that to deny such obvious evidence would be proof that religious belief is blind to the facts. I would of course disagree, and my disagreement stems from my understanding that our current wisdom is not necessarily any greater for being current. In other words, I don't think we as a collective human race are by default wiser than the people who came before us simply because we happen to be the most recent. For example, our current level of understanding regarding the workings of the human body is more advanced than at any known time in human history, but it's debatable whether we are any better at healing disease than the ancient Chinese were. What we currently consider advanced thinking in a great many areas will undoubtedly be labeled as foolish in the future, and this is simply the human condition.
In this particular case, were I to take the eye witness accounts in the New Testament, couple those with the fact that the same eye witnesses later died for their testimonies, and weigh that against expert testimony two thousand years later, I believe I would find the New Testament account more compelling.
Now I can sleep, knowing I've answered a question which was never asked.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
My contribution
I really enjoy Weekend Update, and will sometimes watch SNL just for that portion of it. This week though I was somewhat saddened by one of its segments. It wasn't really their fault, they were just doing their job, molding satire like master craftsmen and craftswomen. The subject of the segment was Ted Haggard's "rehabilitation", and the sadness came when I realized SNL had every right to comment on it. I'm aware that every Christian in America, and possibly the world (including me) is tired of hearing and talking about Ted Haggard, but after seeing the material his rehab is providing for writers, how can they stop talking about it? Here's a little excerpt with reference to Mr. Haggard, and mind you this is after three weeks of counseling:
"He is completely heterosexual," Ralph [Rev. Tim] said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing."
He's heterosexual except for the times over the last three years when he had sex with a man? This man has lied, deceived, adulterated, and engaged in immoral conduct for years, all while leading a church and an evangelical organization and after three weeks in counseling the statement is that at least he isn't homosexual?
I could go on here, but it would turn into a rant, and that's only mildly useful, and then mostly to myself. The point of sadness came for me when I realized why SNL (and several other programs) were having such a field day with the announcement that Haggard is "completely heterosexual" after three weeks of counseling. They find it so humorous because they recognize the complexity of people and life, and are amused that Christians apparently do not. I can almost see these people sitting around chuckling at another example of Christian naivety. "Oh, you've got a serious behavioral problem in your life? Here's a pamphlet with some bullet points; that should fix you up."
Clearly, this one statement from this one situation does not define all of Christendom, but I do believe it illustrates a tendency Christians have toward the clean and simple for fear of the involved and messy.
I realize of course that in many cases pamphlets with bullet points do immeasurable good, but we've got a big, rich, complex book called the Bible because in the final analysis life and death are not described with bullet points. Christians are supposed to know that people are all broken and messed up, and that even a belief in the saving power of Jesus does not necessarily free them from their past, from their bad habits, from their heritage. It is time we Christians stopped thinking and acting like a child and started treating people both in and out of the church not as projects but as invaluable individuals who need love, patience, kindness, forgiveness, and most certainly the grace of God.
"He is completely heterosexual," Ralph [Rev. Tim] said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing."
He's heterosexual except for the times over the last three years when he had sex with a man? This man has lied, deceived, adulterated, and engaged in immoral conduct for years, all while leading a church and an evangelical organization and after three weeks in counseling the statement is that at least he isn't homosexual?
I could go on here, but it would turn into a rant, and that's only mildly useful, and then mostly to myself. The point of sadness came for me when I realized why SNL (and several other programs) were having such a field day with the announcement that Haggard is "completely heterosexual" after three weeks of counseling. They find it so humorous because they recognize the complexity of people and life, and are amused that Christians apparently do not. I can almost see these people sitting around chuckling at another example of Christian naivety. "Oh, you've got a serious behavioral problem in your life? Here's a pamphlet with some bullet points; that should fix you up."
Clearly, this one statement from this one situation does not define all of Christendom, but I do believe it illustrates a tendency Christians have toward the clean and simple for fear of the involved and messy.
I realize of course that in many cases pamphlets with bullet points do immeasurable good, but we've got a big, rich, complex book called the Bible because in the final analysis life and death are not described with bullet points. Christians are supposed to know that people are all broken and messed up, and that even a belief in the saving power of Jesus does not necessarily free them from their past, from their bad habits, from their heritage. It is time we Christians stopped thinking and acting like a child and started treating people both in and out of the church not as projects but as invaluable individuals who need love, patience, kindness, forgiveness, and most certainly the grace of God.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Enemies
As we toured through the detention facility where Pol Pot's regime had imprisoned, tortured, and eventually killed thousands of people who were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong profession, or the wrong family, or the wrong place, I got to thinking about evil. To be honest it was difficult to think of much else in that place. It was as if its entirety had been saturated with evil and though most of it had gone, a pure residue remained on the ground, on the walls of the cells, and in the air. To stand in that old high school and breathe was to feel the other end of the human spectrum, the one opposite of child feeding programs, AIDS workers, good soldiers, blood drives, and free clinics; it was to feel the true breadth of human capabilities.
When I left the museum I believe I was literally in shock. It took me several weeks to recover to the point of considering what I had seen. As I began to consider it though, a somewhat odd reference came to me. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he states that the Christian struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world. That is, those who are for good in this world are not fighting against bad people, but against purely bad spiritual authorities. I take this to mean that Pol Pot himself was not evil, but rather influenced so heavily by the entities which are evil that he was capable of the horrors we see in Cambodian history. This makes a certain amount of sense. If one takes a look back at some of the worst atrocities in human history, the people generally held responsible for those things are recorded as honestly believing they were taking good actions. Now, obviously these peoples' definition of good was mutated beyond sanity and recognition, but in their own minds they still considered their behavior and that of those under them to be somehow correct. This means they deserve our love and pity, not our hate; easy to say, nearly impossible to live. I suspect though that Jesus was in tune with the idea that there are no evil people, only people influenced to varying degrees by evil. Here's what he had to say about it:
"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty...Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
In addition to holding some lambs, having good hair, being nice, and claiming he was God, Jesus was a decent philosopher too.
When I left the museum I believe I was literally in shock. It took me several weeks to recover to the point of considering what I had seen. As I began to consider it though, a somewhat odd reference came to me. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he states that the Christian struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world. That is, those who are for good in this world are not fighting against bad people, but against purely bad spiritual authorities. I take this to mean that Pol Pot himself was not evil, but rather influenced so heavily by the entities which are evil that he was capable of the horrors we see in Cambodian history. This makes a certain amount of sense. If one takes a look back at some of the worst atrocities in human history, the people generally held responsible for those things are recorded as honestly believing they were taking good actions. Now, obviously these peoples' definition of good was mutated beyond sanity and recognition, but in their own minds they still considered their behavior and that of those under them to be somehow correct. This means they deserve our love and pity, not our hate; easy to say, nearly impossible to live. I suspect though that Jesus was in tune with the idea that there are no evil people, only people influenced to varying degrees by evil. Here's what he had to say about it:
"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty...Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
In addition to holding some lambs, having good hair, being nice, and claiming he was God, Jesus was a decent philosopher too.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Leaving God at the farm
The Old Testament portion of the Bible has some accounts (or stories, depending on your particular outlook on such things) which can only be described as shockingly incredible. I have a few of these which always make my list of most likely to have caused personal revelation.
There's the prophetic version of "When Animals Attack" in which Elisha is strolling along on his way to somewhere, when for no recorded reason an apparently large crowd of "youths" begins to mock him with the name "bald-head". While not especially witty, the name apparently agitates Elisha, so he calls down a curse on these youths...and two bears come out of the woods and maul forty-two members of the crowd! This may be one reason we don't see wide use of the insult "bald-head" today. A few years earlier when the Israelites were on their way into Canaan, there was a fellow by the name of Balaam living there already. The details of the account are a bit long, but at one point this man is riding his donkey along a road. For various reasons God is not happy with what Balaam is doing, so he sends an angel to block the road. His donkey can see the angel, and so leaves the road to avoid running into it. Balaam beats the donkey to get her back on the road. This happens a couple of more times with the angel, the donkey avoiding it, and the beating. So then the angel allows the donkey to speak, and the donkeys says to Balaam "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?" Then, Balaam was either accustomed to talking animals or more of a man than I because he didn't miss a beat and responded, "You have made a fool of me!" They actually go on to have a little conversation about the happenings of that afternoon, and this was way before the invention of any synthetic narcotics.
There is one of these accounts though which I come back to with some frequency. It comes during the time of David. The Israelites were forever fighting with a particular group of people known as the Philistines. They were sort of like high school rivals in a way, only with wars and burning cities instead of football games and pranks. At one point the Philistines have the ark of the covenant, which was essentially an elaborate wooden chest which housed the holy things of Israel, including the tablets on which God had carved the ten commandments. The ark was extremely important to Israel. I'm sure you've seen the Indiana Jones movie. The Israelites went to get it back, and it wasn't hard because the Philistines had already decided to send it away. On the way back to Jerusalem, the oxen pulling the cart carrying the ark stumbled, so a man by the name of Uzzah reached out and steadied it. He was immediately struck dead. It was the law that no one except men of a certain tribe could touch the ark or any of the holy things, but David still got angry with God for killing Uzzah. He no longer wanted to take the ark to Jerusalem, so he left it at someone's house and went home. Three months later David went back to get the ark, and took it to Jerusalem with him.
Sometimes I relate to the way David felt when he left God on someone's farm. I have no way of physically leaving God anywhere, but I think maybe I would do it at times if I could. I probably wouldn't even go all the way out to a farm, I'd just leave him in the church parking lot, or maybe down at the neighborhood park. I'm sure any place I left him would be better for his being there, but at the time I might be too angry or confused to want to talk to him. I'm also quite sure I would go back and get him later and we'd be alright, but that time of separation would be necessary.
Even though I can't physically leave God anywhere, I am sometimes frustrated, confused, and angered by his actions (or lack of actions), just as David was. Mind you this is not an ongoing occurrence (as my pride might have it), but there are those moments when God's decisions become very personal. At these times I believe honesty to be more important than attempting to manufacture an attitude perceived as appropriate and correct, but which is in reality false, and I may emotionally remove myself from God for a season. But I believe this to be appropriate on occasion.
Without honesty I do not believe we can experience spiritual or emotional growth. In fact, I would suggest that believing there is a "correct" way to relate to God, which does not include a little raw emotion has only succeeded in the past to stagnate and embitter people. I tend to think of God as being rather understanding of the whole thing. After all, he did set the system up in the first place, and while it's clearly not exactly what he had in mind, I really expect that he still relates quite well to what's happening. He must know we can't possibly comprehend all of his ways (that's why he's called "God Almighty"), and that there will be times when our humanity gets the best of us, and we'll question him. He would know we're questioning him, and to express something other than this would be lying, which he has gone on record as disliking. No, I think God will understand if we sometimes leave him at Joe's Cafe for awhile...just as long as we come back sooner rather than later.
There's the prophetic version of "When Animals Attack" in which Elisha is strolling along on his way to somewhere, when for no recorded reason an apparently large crowd of "youths" begins to mock him with the name "bald-head". While not especially witty, the name apparently agitates Elisha, so he calls down a curse on these youths...and two bears come out of the woods and maul forty-two members of the crowd! This may be one reason we don't see wide use of the insult "bald-head" today. A few years earlier when the Israelites were on their way into Canaan, there was a fellow by the name of Balaam living there already. The details of the account are a bit long, but at one point this man is riding his donkey along a road. For various reasons God is not happy with what Balaam is doing, so he sends an angel to block the road. His donkey can see the angel, and so leaves the road to avoid running into it. Balaam beats the donkey to get her back on the road. This happens a couple of more times with the angel, the donkey avoiding it, and the beating. So then the angel allows the donkey to speak, and the donkeys says to Balaam "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?" Then, Balaam was either accustomed to talking animals or more of a man than I because he didn't miss a beat and responded, "You have made a fool of me!" They actually go on to have a little conversation about the happenings of that afternoon, and this was way before the invention of any synthetic narcotics.
There is one of these accounts though which I come back to with some frequency. It comes during the time of David. The Israelites were forever fighting with a particular group of people known as the Philistines. They were sort of like high school rivals in a way, only with wars and burning cities instead of football games and pranks. At one point the Philistines have the ark of the covenant, which was essentially an elaborate wooden chest which housed the holy things of Israel, including the tablets on which God had carved the ten commandments. The ark was extremely important to Israel. I'm sure you've seen the Indiana Jones movie. The Israelites went to get it back, and it wasn't hard because the Philistines had already decided to send it away. On the way back to Jerusalem, the oxen pulling the cart carrying the ark stumbled, so a man by the name of Uzzah reached out and steadied it. He was immediately struck dead. It was the law that no one except men of a certain tribe could touch the ark or any of the holy things, but David still got angry with God for killing Uzzah. He no longer wanted to take the ark to Jerusalem, so he left it at someone's house and went home. Three months later David went back to get the ark, and took it to Jerusalem with him.
Sometimes I relate to the way David felt when he left God on someone's farm. I have no way of physically leaving God anywhere, but I think maybe I would do it at times if I could. I probably wouldn't even go all the way out to a farm, I'd just leave him in the church parking lot, or maybe down at the neighborhood park. I'm sure any place I left him would be better for his being there, but at the time I might be too angry or confused to want to talk to him. I'm also quite sure I would go back and get him later and we'd be alright, but that time of separation would be necessary.
Even though I can't physically leave God anywhere, I am sometimes frustrated, confused, and angered by his actions (or lack of actions), just as David was. Mind you this is not an ongoing occurrence (as my pride might have it), but there are those moments when God's decisions become very personal. At these times I believe honesty to be more important than attempting to manufacture an attitude perceived as appropriate and correct, but which is in reality false, and I may emotionally remove myself from God for a season. But I believe this to be appropriate on occasion.
Without honesty I do not believe we can experience spiritual or emotional growth. In fact, I would suggest that believing there is a "correct" way to relate to God, which does not include a little raw emotion has only succeeded in the past to stagnate and embitter people. I tend to think of God as being rather understanding of the whole thing. After all, he did set the system up in the first place, and while it's clearly not exactly what he had in mind, I really expect that he still relates quite well to what's happening. He must know we can't possibly comprehend all of his ways (that's why he's called "God Almighty"), and that there will be times when our humanity gets the best of us, and we'll question him. He would know we're questioning him, and to express something other than this would be lying, which he has gone on record as disliking. No, I think God will understand if we sometimes leave him at Joe's Cafe for awhile...just as long as we come back sooner rather than later.
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