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Have you read the whole Bible?

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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Harry Marks wrote:. . . As far as I know, there is no text in the OT that even seems to say sacrifice is in place of a penalty. Perhaps I am missing something.
I'm not following too closely, and there may be something I'm missing, but the very term "scapegoat" has its etymological roots in the book of Leviticus.
And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for Azazel.

— Leviticus 16:8
The idea—and practice—of scapegoat goes back thousands of years. The Greeks sacrificed animals to the gods and there are many (mostly unconfirmed) reports of sacrificing a king (or stand-in), allowing him to don the robes of whatever king or god for a period of time, and then kill him in a ritual sacrifice to keep the good times going. Even if human sacrifice was rare, the idea of it pervades many of our myths.
"They take one of the prisoners condemned to death and seat him upon the king's throne, and give him the king's raiment, and let him lord it and drink and run riot and use the king's concubines during these days, and no man prevents him from doing just what he likes. But afterwards they strip and scourge and crucify him."
- Dio Chrysostom, a Greek orator, philosopher, historian
The resemblance of Jesus's crucifixion to the earlier ritual sacrifices is glaringly obvious. The idea that Jesus died for our sins is strangely compelling to us, even today, many centuries later.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Chris OConnor wrote:How would an abbreviated bible work as a BookTalk.org discussion? Also, I have to wonder where we'd put such a discussion forum. Non-Fiction, Fiction or in our "Special Forums" section?
Non-fiction for sure, otherwise, follow your bliss.

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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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geo wrote:
Harry Marks wrote:. . . As far as I know, there is no text in the OT that even seems to say sacrifice is in place of a penalty. Perhaps I am missing something.
I'm not following too closely, and there may be something I'm missing, but the very term "scapegoat" has its etymological roots in the book of Leviticus.
And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for Azazel.

— Leviticus 16:8
The idea—and practice—of scapegoat goes back thousands of years. The Greeks sacrificed animals to the gods and there are many (mostly unconfirmed) reports of sacrificing a king (or stand-in), allowing him to don the robes of whatever king or god for a period of time, and then kill him in a ritual sacrifice to keep the good times going. Even if human sacrifice was rare, the idea of it pervades many of our myths.
"They take one of the prisoners condemned to death and seat him upon the king's throne, and give him the king's raiment, and let him lord it and drink and run riot and use the king's concubines during these days, and no man prevents him from doing just what he likes. But afterwards they strip and scourge and crucify him."
- Dio Chrysostom, a Greek orator, philosopher, historian
The resemblance of Jesus's crucifixion to the earlier ritual sacrifices is glaringly obvious. The idea that Jesus died for our sins is strangely compelling to us, even today, many centuries later.
True, but it is quite an ego trip to think that a God would die just to reverse his unjust condemnation instead of his just forgiving us outright without that farcical situation that ignores that God cannot die in the first place.

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DL
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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geo wrote:
Harry Marks wrote:. . . As far as I know, there is no text in the OT that even seems to say sacrifice is in place of a penalty. Perhaps I am missing something.
I'm not following too closely, and there may be something I'm missing, but the very term "scapegoat" has its etymological roots in the book of Leviticus.
It is a constant problem to go back to the original social setting and try to make sense of writings which have been given particular interpretations later. For example, we use "scapegoat" to refer to someone who is abused in place of the truly guilty party, with everyone pretending it is the scapegoat's fault. Clearly that is not exactly what is going on in Leviticus 16, but it colors how we hear the passage.

Perhaps it is meant to say that killing the scapegoat takes punishment meant for the community? Well, no, that is not what is said. The scapegoat is clearly stated to "carry the sins" of the community away from them. It is a transport mechanism for cleansing (also clearly stated) the community of impurity.

Note that there is no implication that the sacrifice is in proportion to the sin, or otherwise corresponds to the penalty. The focus seems to be on impurity. With a little imagination that makes sense - sins build up a nasty atmosphere of injury, resentment and defensiveness in the community. "He got drunk and vomited on my garden!" "That man has been eyeing my wife! I saw it!" So the community has a ceremony to repent, ask forgiveness and "send away" all the sins.
geo wrote:The idea—and practice—of scapegoat goes back thousands of years. The Greeks sacrificed animals to the gods and there are many (mostly unconfirmed) reports of sacrificing a king (or stand-in),
Yes, sacrifice was a pervasive practice. At least some were human sacrifices - Moloch seems to have preferred the child of the one sacrificing, the Celts seem to have preferred burning criminals, and the Minoans probably expected the bulls to do a number on the young people from tributary cities that they put into the arena with them, although eventually bull-dancing turned the confrontation into an art form.

I am not well-enough read on the subject to categorically state that the Hebrews did not consider the sacrifice to be a substitute payment. However, I do know that we read that into early church NT texts based mainly on theologizing by later readers. If it is in the NT texts (with the possible exception of the Epistle to the Hebrews) it is implicit, being understood by everyone but not actually stated.

And I know that sacrifice to sanctify an agreement was pervasive in the Bronze Age, with many references to attest it. The equally prevalent idea that a sacrifice would "please the gods" and influence them to act favorably is surely embedded in much of the Hebrew practice, but it is surprisingly absent from the "theory" presented there. Perhaps it was edited out by the one who pulled the material together in the histories, often thought to be Ezra or his followers. Perhaps the two views of sacrifice were closely intertwined, with some sense that gods enforce oaths and so a sacrifice at a ceremony of mutual commitment made perfect sense.
geo wrote:
" no man prevents him from doing just what he likes. But afterwards they strip and scourge and crucify him."
- Dio Chrysostom
The resemblance of Jesus's crucifixion to the earlier ritual sacrifices is glaringly obvious.
Not to me. I think it is much more like the case of Spartacus, whose followers were crucified in their hundreds along the roads of Italy, bodies left as a warning to slaves not to rebel. Crucifixion is mainly just a cruel death with its cruelty on display.
geo wrote:The idea that Jesus died for our sins is strangely compelling to us, even today, many centuries later.
Substitutiary death is compelling in whichever story it is found. Damon and Pythias, Horatio at the bridge, Leonidas at Thermopylae, Tale of Two Cities, the Ghanaian-American who recently died trying to rescue a fifth person from a fire after having rescued four already from the fire, well, you get the idea.

What bothers me about it is that the pathos of this compelling notion took over, in part due to the influence of the church which created a system of supernatural mechanism under its control. If you just read the early part of Acts you will see that to the early church, resurrection was the meaningful phenomenon, and the crucifixion is mainly meaningful in its light: Jesus died a horrible and humiliating death at the hands of authority, and then love won after all. Once you have seen that, the gospels never read the same again.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Harry Marks wrote: Jesus died a horrible and humiliating death at the hands of authority, and then love won after all. Once you have seen that, the gospels never read the same again.
Love won?

Perhaps, but moral action certainly lost when people are told to shed their responsibility for their own sins and let an innocent man suffer for them.

No moral person would teach that to their children today.

They would be taught that having another innocent person suffer for the wrongs you have done, --- so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, --- is immoral. To abdicate personal responsibility is immoral.

That is more like what you would teach your children. No?

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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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I love The Great Courses and have close to a hundred lectures covering various topics.
The series Biblical Wisdom Literature, by Joseph Koterski, S.J. Phd is excellent, particularly his discussion of Job and the suffering of the innocent.

Reading the bible superficially with preconceived notions and biases can be a terrible experience. No question about that.

Koterski's doctorate is in philosophy, which is what attracted me to the course. His philosophical expertise is a great compliment to his biblical analysis.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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ant wrote:I love The Great Courses and have close to a hundred lectures covering various topics.
The series Biblical Wisdom Literature, by Joseph Koterski, S.J. Phd is excellent, particularly his discussion of Job and the suffering of the innocent.

Reading the bible superficially with preconceived notions and biases can be a terrible experience. No question about that.
My preconceived notions were of a just and merciful God who loved people and watched over them. That's what I was taught by priests and nuns at school. Then I read the Bible. They lied to me.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Chris OConnor wrote:How would an abbreviated bible work as a BookTalk.org discussion? Also, I have to wonder where we'd put such a discussion forum. Non-Fiction, Fiction or in our "Special Forums" section?
I can't see myself participating in any effort to slog through the whole bible. If we wanted to work on a commentary on a book, or a modernist "new look" at Christianity, I think that might be more practical. Isaiah is certainly the best bridge between NT and OT, but Job has its good points also. Has anyone here looked at Archibald Macleish's "J.B."?

May I suggest the late Marcus Borg's "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time"?

Alternately, I am still eager to look at the Tillich text suggested by Robert Tulip. I will probably be reading it this year whether BT undertakes it or not.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:
Harry Marks wrote: Jesus died a horrible and humiliating death at the hands of authority, and then love won after all. Once you have seen that, the gospels never read the same again.
Love won?

Perhaps, but moral action certainly lost when people are told to shed their responsibility for their own sins and let an innocent man suffer for them.
The message that Resurrection means love wins is pretty clear. Without any supernatural assertions at all, the simple fact that his disciples carried on his message of love and forgiveness, passing on the baton of merciful action to others through thousands of years, is an argument that love wins. And whether or not you believe in a bodily resurrection, the triumph of moral truth over violent power is the real message.

There is no volition involved in Jesus' sacrifice, or in God's love. We don't "let" Jesus suffer for us, he just did it. In a properly developed theology, we do not thereby skip away as one released from punishment because we have a whipping boy we can put it on. Rather, we perceive an action as one of ultimate commitment to love, and we are challenged to respond from the love within us.

As you may have gathered, I would not agree with a substitutiary penalty interpretation of the meaning of the cross. I never taught that to my children, and never taught it in many years of Sunday School. I have no doubt the church came to teach it that way - I have heard such things myself. But I think they got it wrong, and for the ugly reason of wanting to control "access" to this supposed transaction on our behalf.

Since, in my view, your real beef is with the religious leaders who teach it that way, I see no reason to criticize you for your objections. I just want to clarify, for those who might come to the conclusion that Christianity has to be that way, that there are alternatives out there and they are fully mainstream.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Litwitlou wrote: My preconceived notions were of a just and merciful God who loved people and watched over them. That's what I was taught by priests and nuns at school. Then I read the Bible. They lied to me.
They did. Sort of.

As observed in Kushner's "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" it is difficult to square an omnipotent God with an all-loving God. The option seems to be "it is a great mystery why this suffering is allowed by God, and we will have it explained to us over on the other side." When I faced this myself, I came to the same conclusion Kushner did, which is that omnipotence is a crock.

It was like the scales falling from my eyes. Suddenly I could see that the whole trajectory of faith makes sense if you don't try to make God into an all-controlling force in charge of everything, whose job therefore is to keep us from suffering deeply, but who is, for unfathomable reasons keeping the reason from us why we end up suffering anyway.

So who is God? The spirit of love in human community. Maybe there is some separately existing entity "behind" that spirit, but we are told even in the Bible that "God is Love" and the Spirit is given equal relationship within God by ancient Trinitarian doctrine.

That's my current understanding of the key questions in Christian theology. It makes it difficult, in many ways, to connect with Christian tradition when you, as I do, subtract notions of "Creator" from your ideas about who God is. But not as difficult as one might think.
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