That was Wright, not Flew. The chunk is from 198-200. I’m not sure why you selected that chunk because I have not read it (again) yet—or your comments. At the outset in the original post I mentioned my schedule has me sleep deprived. I just got off work, I’m going to take a power nap, and I’ll look at this again.
What do you mean by that?
Is it your contention they did not? It seems so when you say “However, the fact that they didn’t”… And then I say… “Then why did they demand it?” and then you say, “See? It’s not a myth they were unenlightened.” Is that your point here? It was their skepticism which demanded verification, though. They verified prophets of God by whether or not they could perform a sign—and I highly doubt they expected him to actually do anything they would accept as a sign—they were like we are and explained away even the most outlandish, improbable circumstances as … shall we say … happenstance. Hume thought miracles were ruled out by their improbability, but if improbability makes something a miracle that did NOT happen, a beginning to the physical universe (even as a whole) would not be possible, nor any spontaneously emerging irreducible complexity. And so on & so forth.
Bob: “parallel legendary accounts of other religious figures.”
The recorded accounts of Jesus’ bodily resurrection are too early to have been legendary because the people who were around when he died were still alive when those accounts were circulating & would have called b.s., produced a body, etc etc etc.
Bob: “In the Hellenistic-Roman world, there were beliefs in divine or semi-divine beings descending to Earth in human form. For example, some rulers or emperors were deified, and stories of heroes and demigods often involved interactions between the divine and the human. These stories were often told after their death, exemplifying them.”
That is why Paul and Barnabas were mistaken for Zeus & Hermes and dismissed it. Just because they were surrounded by culture that can be confused in that way doesn’t mean they themselves would be confused in that way. And they didn’t take advantage of people’s ignorance, but instead set them straight. In fact they upset the economy of Ephesus because people were abandoning their idols. Etc. etc. etc. etc. Rather than benefiting from the whole situation, they were persecuted, and they had to help each other survive. In fact, Paul started out being one of the persecutors and gave it all up to join the people who were persecuted. I wonder what influenced his change of heart?
Bob: “What seems to be more poignant is that Christianity had opposing views to the common Roman attitudes. The deification of Roman emperors, who were sometimes considered divine during their lifetimes or posthumously, involved the creation of narratives that emphasised their connection to the divine. This served political and ideological purposes, reinforcing the ruling elite’s authority. The deification of Christ could be seen as a contradiction of these habits because Christ died on the cross as a result of his kenosis and was said to be ‘elevated’. It might have been a point of contention between Paul and the ‘Superapostles’ despite Luke’s fictional accounts.”
First of all, the “super apostles” Paul refers to are not the originals. Second of all, he met with the originals and they all agreed on the basics. Where they disagreed (separate situation) was that people were being discriminated against & expected to follow Jewish customs—he confronted the originals on that, & they fixed it. Luke’s account is not fictional and there’s like a crap ton of historical yada yada blah blah blah and you’re doing this on purpose.
Bob: “Jews to this day believe in the resurrection at the end of days, and the idea of someone being resurrected in the way Jesus was said to have appeared was completely at odds with common sense. Visions were accepted to a certain degree, but claiming the bodily resurrection was and is a sacrilege.”
The resurrection is bodily, except not all Jews believed it would ever happen… like the Sadducees. What was considered blasphemous were Jesus’ claims to divinity. Jesus himself was opposed to humans claiming to be divine when they weren’t, which is why he made the comment about the image of Caesar on the denarius (when paying tax), “Render to Caesar that which is Caesars and to God that which is God’s.”
I didn’t really consider the rest of the comments to be basic issues. Or they were already addressed. I don’t like quibbling over peripheral issues.
I see, so we are talking about Flew and not the book?
I’m sorry to read that you are sleep-deprived, but that’s life when you are young and want to do so many things.
No. You began your post by attributing all the quotes to Flew. That is what led me to ask if we were discussing a different book, because from what I scanned, the quotes were giving an argument Flew never gave in that book. (Though Flew had called it “fresh” in his reply to it, it scanned as familiar… to me… which is another reason why I did not immediately attribute it to Wright instead of, as you did, to Flew.)
What makes you think I’m young & want to do “so many things”? Are you implying you are old by comparison & … have already done most of what you wanted to do? Nothing left, or lost the will? It is not poor time management on my part, or wanting to do more than I am able. Well. I would like to be able to exist in more than one location, &/or change location without traveling. Holding off for the Resurrection. 
Perhaps we should try and make comments coherent. The quote is from the book.
The problem we face is that the Gospels are based on anecdotes woven into a narrative which were written during or after the uprisings that finally destroyed Jerusalem. Their intentions are recognisable in the style they adopt, such as Mark’s Gospel, which has the rise of Christ culminate at the transfiguration and then fall to the crucifixion. He has neither the miraculous birth nor the bodily resurrection in his original narrative, but instead, the young man in the white robe says he has been “lifted up.” Mark seems to think that Jesus was apotheosised or taken up into heaven, but he doesn’t emphasise this. He uses the phrase “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven”. That’s from Daniel 7. Everybody quotes it, takes it out of context, and says it’s the Messiah. But Daniel says what does it mean, the Son of Man in the clouds? And the answer is that it is the people of God taking over the rule of authority and power. So, Mark actually goes with Daniel and argues that the followers are just as divine as Jesus, not because of some incarnation or pre-existence or anything like that, but because they’re taking on a life of persecution and suffering against evil and that brings the kingdom of God.
So, I am saying that Wright’s argument takes the “modern myth” and refutes it with a quote from Lewis talking about the virgin birth, which was clearly leaning on the practice of using this to explain how this person is exemplary, like in so many other cases (Horus, Romulus and Remus, and various myths of ancient Greece that describe phenomenal inseminations). In the way that those who acknowledge the sacredness of the conception of Jesus by a virgin, the Greek and Roman myths were also concerned with the divine insemination of a pure body. This only then suggests that the resurrection is a similar story, and the earliest known recurrent theme of resurrection was in Egyptian and Canaanite religions, which had cults of dying-and-rising gods such as Osiris and Baal. Tryggve Mettinger argues in his book that the category of rise and return to life is significant for Ugaritic Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Osiris and Dumuzi. Adonis had a festival in the summer in which women mourned for his death and then, a day later, celebrated his resurrection.
The ancients knew what was being said and accepted the ambiguity because it was like a poetic expression that didn’t require exposition. Today, we have terminology that is treated similarly, although, with religion, we seem to have narrowed the use of language, and Matthew and Luke seem to have started this off. Paul thought of Christ as “born of a woman,” and John doesn’t mention a virgin birth because he has a different agenda. It is very simplistic to read these Gospels literally and not as compositions.
To truly be devout, embrace
The poetry within life’s grace.
It hides in chaos, both man-made and wild,
Till the words, “Let it be,” reconcile.
Life’s poetry enlightens, unfurls,
Revealing perspectives and new worlds.
Curiosity leads, senses keen,
Unveiling beauty, even in the routine.
In the hush of silence, after storms and fears,
“Meet your God!” it softly cheers.
Winds subside, tears blend with rain,
Hope emerges, washing away pain.
Love becomes an option, a stark contrast,
In a world where hate can amass.
A listening ear, a helping hand,
An embrace, a womb where we understand.
So to be truly religious, it seems,
You discover poetry in life’s streams.
In chaos and calm, let the words decree,
“Let it be,” and find divinity.
I have nothing more to say!
Did you post poetry for my sake? For whose sake did you post poetry?
I haven’t read it. Is it on topic?
Can someone else read it for me and let me know?
If it is not relevant to the topic, please have it removed, and I will resume.
Forget it! You really don’t catch on very quickly!
Are you cat fishing me? Stop finessing me, Bob!
If that isn’t what you’re doing, this constitutes my reply:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p … 0#p2928480
I (& others) have addressed the “copycat myth” & arguments from silence elsewhere. I feel we have exhausted our discussion of Flew’s “There Is a God”.
An extract from ‘Immortal Diamond’ by Richard Rohr, 2013:
“Roughly before 800 B.C., it seems, most people connected with God and reality through myth, poetry, dance, music, fertility, and nature. Although it was a violent world focused on survival, there is much evidence that many people might have had healthier psyches than we do today. They knew they participated in what was still an utterly enchanted universe. This was the pre-existent “church that existed since Abel” that St. Augustine and St. Gregory spoke of. Barfield called this Original Participation.
Consciousness emerged worldwide with the Eastern sages, the Jewish prophets, and the Greek philosophers, all around 500 B.C. It was the birth of systematic and conceptual thought. In the East, it often took the form of the holistic thinking that is found in Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism, which allowed people to experience forms of participation with reality, themselves, and the divine. In the West, the Greek genius gave us a kind of meditated participation through thought, reason, and philosophy.
On the cusp of East and West, there was a dramatic realization of intimate union and group participation with God among the people called Israel. The people were being saved; participation was historical and not just individual.
The confluence of the Eastern Semitic mind, Jewish religion, and Greek and Roman influence in Palestine created a matrix into which a new realisation could be communicated, and Jesus the Jew soon offered the world full and Final Participation in his own holistic teaching, which allowed him to speak of true union at all levels.
Unfortunately, the monumental insights of the period that formed all of us in foundational and good ways began to dry up and wane, descending into the extreme headiness of some Scholastic philosophy (1100 – 1500), the antagonistic mind of almost all church reformations, and the rational literalism of the Enlightenment. Although the reformations were inevitable, good, and necessary, they also ushered in the Desert of Nonparticipation, as Barfield called it, where no one belonged, few were at home in this world, and religion at its worst concentrated on controlling its own members.
Barfield foresaw the coming of a new Consciousness when the best of each era will combine and work together: the prerational, the rational, and the transrational. We live in such a time! In this consciousness, we can now enjoy intuitive and body knowledge, along with rational critique and deeper synthesis, thus encouraging both intelligent and heartfelt participation “with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength,” as Jesus puts it (Mark 12:30).”
— Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico, USA. Quoted with permission of SPCK Publishing.
“Come, let us self-retard ourselves together.”
— Isaiah 1:18
no, wait
I think I will follow inquiry where it leads, thank you.
“Wash yourselves. Cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil. Learn to do what is good. Seek justice. Correct the oppressor. Defend the rights of the fatherless. Plead the widow’s cause.
“Come, let us discuss this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land."
That sounds like an offer!
A pretty good, beautiful, & true one. Full of mind and heart and demonstration.
This thread started promisingly enough but broke down rapidly. Ichthus, what do you have against gnosticism? It was present in early Christianity and thrived among Christians until it was suppressed by the Romanized church of the 4th century. From the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy is it any more a heresy than Flew’s deism?
The New Testament authors redressed an early version of gnosticism from the get-go. The “gnostic gospels” were much later & never accepted. The current canon was accepted before that. Chain of custody stuff. Too simple.
More:
Deism is not maximally great. Love is not love without demonstration.
The problem with any teaching is the extent to which it retains humility. This is a huge deficit and visible in any tradition, and it is quite obvious that any teaching employs “gnosis” in the original sense of the word—knowledge—which it seeks to protect. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have the conflict about orthodoxy.
A significant portion of our knowledge about the Gnostics comes from their critics, often after their demise. Marcion, a prominent figure in early Christianity, was known for his theological teachings and was considered a heretic by many. Interestingly, he was long gone when the patristic authors began their critique. It’s possible that he was the one who took the first step in creating what we now know as the ‘New Testament’, which was widely accepted in his time.
When we examine the knowledge available today, it becomes evident that the exclusivist stance adopted by certain traditions, particularly Christianity, which attempted to rewrite or suppress every tradition it encountered, is not sustainable. As Iain McGilchrst said about the use of expressions which serve as “placeholders” for the divine or sacred:
Take those ‘placeholder’ terms – logos, lǐ, tao, ṛta, and so on. The place they hold is not nearly filled by the mere idea of a ground of Being. They suggest much more: a response to the second question with which this chapter began – why does Being take the creative, complex, orderly, beautiful, intelligible – vital – form that it does? And, though arising in different cultures, what they suggest is remarkably consonant. They suggest a co-ordinating principle in the universe which is evidenced in order, harmony and fittingness; a principle that is not only true, but the ultimate source of truth. This principle applies to all ‘levels’ of existence and therefore wraps within itself the human soul. Speaking of ṛta, for instance, Raimon Panikkar writes that it can be seen as the order behind the manifest world, the harmony among all aspects of manifestation, ‘each of which obeys its own level’. Ṛta is in the nature of things: ‘Man being an aspect and expression of this order has within him a reflection thereof’.
McGilchrist, Iain. The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (pp. 1865-1866). Perspectiva Press. Kindle Edition.
There were civilisations long before Christianity, or even Judaism (which borrowed from other traditions), which were struggling with the meaning of life in a paradoxical world. The Christian answers were extremely diverse to begin with, and later streamlined in the way that Felix described.
This is like the last thing I want to rehash. Hence the links I provided.
Hence, you avoided the discussion, as you always do.
More like I avoided the tangent. But feel free to reply at those links that I linked to above. And I hope you do engage with them.
What I get from that is that you read what several evangelical authors whom you respect said about gnosticism and that it is a closed subject to you at this point. Okay.
Yes, McGilchrist is getting close to the heart of the perennial philosophy there. I investigate gnosticism for clues to its mystical core. But, Ichthus isn’t interested in pursuing that question. What about Flew?