I'm interested in truth & what it means for individuals & humanity. This re-vamped blog is dedicated to truth and honest questions about faith in Jesus Christ. It is an effort to engage in authentic dialogue among Christians, Atheists and all points in between. Posts that do not honor legitimate discussion may be removed at my discretion. That doesn't mean that you can't disagree, but it DOES mean that you can't be a jerk. Welcome to the discussion.
We can’t discredit the biblical text anymore than any other ancient text just because it is old, written by passionate people or because contains accounts of the miraculous or some other idea one find's objectionable. Again, if one chooses to do so, then it is only because he or she has a prior (and I will argue completely unfounded) belief that the Bible is not reliable.
If we compare the resources for the Bible with those of ANY other ancient text, the clarity, accuracy and consistency of it put ALL the rest to shame. The NT has more, earlier, and better supported manuscripts than all 10 of the best pieces of classic literature COMBINED. For example, the closest competitor to the Bible is Homer's Iliad, with only 643 copied manuscripts surviving into the modern era, and of all of those, the oldest text we have is a copy that is around 500 years later than the (now lost) original.
Contrast this with the Bible: there are close to 5,700 ancient manuscripts that cover fragments, sentences, paragraphs, complete books and full Testaments (of both the Old and New), and the earliest of these dates to within 25-30 years of the original texts, not 50 or 60 as some suggest, but that is a relatively unimportant detail right now.
A telling question about prejudicial accusations might be this: How many of us (historians and ancient literature professors included) question the reliability of Homer's works? Don't we take it on at least a little bit of faith? Why is it okay to take Homer's works on faith (even though he intended to write fiction), but not those who recorded the NT (even though they gave primary source accounts of non-fiction events)? Perhaps one would answer that the very differences in the genres they composed counters the argument, but that misses the point. What is being questioned is not the content, but the ability to accurately reproduce texts after various amounts of time has passed.
There is more to be said, but I'll wait until somebody else adds to the discussion.
Concerning Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, why do they not clearly say that the Messiah will be born at such and such date and his name will be Jesus? Why leave things up for interpretation?
Jared, Thanks for the good question. Short answer: I dunno with certainty.
Long answer: There are many prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Jesus. The most convincing ones for me are found in Isaiah. Most of these have to do with his mission in general (to all people, not just the Jews), but with regard to specific times and the name "Jesus," there is very little. The best counter argument is found in Daniel 9:24-27. Some interpret these verses in a way that spells out when Jesus is scheduled for his appearance. I hate to mention this book, because Josh McDowell tries to beat his opponents into submission rather than to simply love them, but he highlights this interpretation of Daniel's "70 weeks" on pages 195-200 of his book "The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict." It's not worth buying, but you might want to check it out at the library if you can find it. McDowell might be on to something, but it really only proves your initial statement that Jesus' timing etc. is pretty obscure/ not super-obvious in scripture.
So in response to that, my gut reaction is that the specific name of Christ was not given because it didn't need to be. Along a similar vein of thought, we might ask why God didn't describe sub-atomic particles or advanced medicine to the early Israelites. Undoubtedly he could have, but it would have been totally lost on them and would have distracted from the points God wanted them to get.
Indeed, we should consider that God values the process of our discovery. If there were no mystery to God's purposes and plan, then how seriously would we undertake our pursuit of them? I believe that one of God's ongoing strategies is to inspire our wonder and ultimately our trust, by coming through in ways that we did not expect. In mentioning the coming Messiah, God wanted to draw the Israelites' attention not to the Messiah's name, but what kind of servant and leader he would be. He wanted to inspire hope, namely, that God's chosen servant would reconcile humanity with God. The specific individual's human name was of little consequence in the shadow of this monumental movement by God.
Also, keeping Christ's name obscure served as a preventative measure against misleading scheming on the part of nefarious humans. In ancient cultures, as well as in our own day, society is filled with humans who claim (or have claimed) to be something or somebody that they are not. Reference David Koresh, Jim Jones, Jose de Jesus, Joseph Smith, and Muhammed, for just a short list of this kind of false prophet. Can you imagine the number of impostors there would have been if the OT had revealed Jesus' precise human name? Will the real Jesus Christ please stand up?
I understand that God does not make it easy for our modern, analytical minds to place faith in him. Certainty is an elusive thing. I agree that if he had revealed some things (instead of keeping them hidden), we might not struggle as much. But faith isn't necessarily meant to be a tidy or easy affair. Ultimately I must rest in the idea that God has made enough information available for us to make a decision about him. It isn't as exhaustive or simple as we might prefer, but it is sufficient. We can't know everything, but that doesn't mean we cannot know ANYthing.
Please keep in mind that comments which do not honor the spirit of legitimate dialogue may be removed at any time and without notification. You are free to disagree passionately, but not inappropriately. -CL
We can’t discredit the biblical text anymore than any other ancient text just because it is old, written by passionate people or because contains accounts of the miraculous or some other idea one find's objectionable. Again, if one chooses to do so, then it is only because he or she has a prior (and I will argue completely unfounded) belief that the Bible is not reliable.
ReplyDeleteIf we compare the resources for the Bible with those of ANY other ancient text, the clarity, accuracy and consistency of it put ALL the rest to shame. The NT has more, earlier, and better supported manuscripts than all 10 of the best pieces of classic literature COMBINED. For example, the closest competitor to the Bible is Homer's Iliad, with only 643 copied manuscripts surviving into the modern era, and of all of those, the oldest text we have is a copy that is around 500 years later than the (now lost) original.
Contrast this with the Bible: there are close to 5,700 ancient manuscripts that cover fragments, sentences, paragraphs, complete books and full Testaments (of both the Old and New), and the earliest of these dates to within 25-30 years of the original texts, not 50 or 60 as some suggest, but that is a relatively unimportant detail right now.
A telling question about prejudicial accusations might be this: How many of us (historians and ancient literature professors included) question the reliability of Homer's works? Don't we take it on at least a little bit of faith? Why is it okay to take Homer's works on faith (even though he intended to write fiction), but not those who recorded the NT (even though they gave primary source accounts of non-fiction events)? Perhaps one would answer that the very differences in the genres they composed counters the argument, but that misses the point. What is being questioned is not the content, but the ability to accurately reproduce texts after various amounts of time has passed.
There is more to be said, but I'll wait until somebody else adds to the discussion.
Concerning Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, why do they not clearly say that the Messiah will be born at such and such date and his name will be Jesus? Why leave things up for interpretation?
ReplyDeleteJared,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good question. Short answer: I dunno with certainty.
Long answer:
There are many prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Jesus. The most convincing ones for me are found in Isaiah. Most of these have to do with his mission in general (to all people, not just the Jews), but with regard to specific times and the name "Jesus," there is very little. The best counter argument is found in Daniel 9:24-27. Some interpret these verses in a way that spells out when Jesus is scheduled for his appearance. I hate to mention this book, because Josh McDowell tries to beat his opponents into submission rather than to simply love them, but he highlights this interpretation of Daniel's "70 weeks" on pages 195-200 of his book "The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict." It's not worth buying, but you might want to check it out at the library if you can find it. McDowell might be on to something, but it really only proves your initial statement that Jesus' timing etc. is pretty obscure/ not super-obvious in scripture.
So in response to that, my gut reaction is that the specific name of Christ was not given because it didn't need to be. Along a similar vein of thought, we might ask why God didn't describe sub-atomic particles or advanced medicine to the early Israelites. Undoubtedly he could have, but it would have been totally lost on them and would have distracted from the points God wanted them to get.
Indeed, we should consider that God values the process of our discovery. If there were no mystery to God's purposes and plan, then how seriously would we undertake our pursuit of them? I believe that one of God's ongoing strategies is to inspire our wonder and ultimately our trust, by coming through in ways that we did not expect. In mentioning the coming Messiah, God wanted to draw the Israelites' attention not to the Messiah's name, but what kind of servant and leader he would be. He wanted to inspire hope, namely, that God's chosen servant would reconcile humanity with God. The specific individual's human name was of little consequence in the shadow of this monumental movement by God.
Also, keeping Christ's name obscure served as a preventative measure against misleading scheming on the part of nefarious humans. In ancient cultures, as well as in our own day, society is filled with humans who claim (or have claimed) to be something or somebody that they are not. Reference David Koresh, Jim Jones, Jose de Jesus, Joseph Smith, and Muhammed, for just a short list of this kind of false prophet. Can you imagine the number of impostors there would have been if the OT had revealed Jesus' precise human name? Will the real Jesus Christ please stand up?
I understand that God does not make it easy for our modern, analytical minds to place faith in him. Certainty is an elusive thing. I agree that if he had revealed some things (instead of keeping them hidden), we might not struggle as much. But faith isn't necessarily meant to be a tidy or easy affair. Ultimately I must rest in the idea that God has made enough information available for us to make a decision about him. It isn't as exhaustive or simple as we might prefer, but it is sufficient. We can't know everything, but that doesn't mean we cannot know ANYthing.
I hope this helps. Thanks for the question.
-Corbin