Romans 1:3-4, The Virgin Birth, Part I of V
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power….
//Liberal Christians like myself often don’t feel it’s necessary to read the Bible in an entirely literal manner. Some of the stories, we insist, not only contradict common sense but were never meant to be read literally in the first place!
Consider the virgin birth of Christ. The Christmas story is a staple of Christian belief, it seems, yet was it really meant to be read as history? While I would never criticize you for believing in the story as a historical event, I don’t think it’s necessary for Christians to believe Christ was born of a virgin. There are a number of clues that make me believe otherwise.
To kick off this series, let me point out that the earliest writings in the New Testament imply otherwise. Pauline and Markan writings don’t just ignore the virgin birth, they hint that their authors didn’t believe it … probably have never heard any such stories. Paul writes merely that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the law” (for an idea of how this phrase was understood, see Job 1:1, 15:14, 25:4) and that Jesus descended from David “according to the flesh.” In today’s verse, Paul hints at Adoptionism; the popular understanding among many early Christians that Jesus became the Son of God later in life, rather than at birth. Meanwhile, Mark portrays Jesus as estranged from his family, disowning mother and brothers, hardly an endorsement for the idea of Mary being informed by an angel of Jesus’ divinity. The evidence from the Bible seems to point to the idea that the virgin birth stories evolved 40-50 years after Christ died.
Continued tomorrow.
The Dubious Disciple ranks in the top 100!
The Dubious Disciple won an interesting distinction this week. We are being featured on a list of “100 Exceptional Websites for Christian Theologians,” as selected by TheologyDegreesOnline.com. Featured websites fall into various categories, including Leadership, Art/Music/Literature, and Bible Study. We’re ranked in the category of General Christianity, where we place 9th out of 39 nominees described as such:
“These sites have a lot to offer for someone looking to learn something new about Christianity, but they aren’t quite sure what. The massive amount of scholarly research that has been published on Christianity makes it hard to know where to start, and these sites are more approachable and fun to read.”
Says TDO, “The websites on the list were selected through a rigorous campaign of research and nomination-seeking. We feel that each site on this final list offers prime examples of high-quality Christian thought and research being published online.” Here’s what TheologyDegreesOnline has to say about us:
“The Dubious Disciple alternately discusses scripture through the lens of a liberal, and sometimes skeptical, believer, and reviewing books with Christian ties. This blog is a great place for book recommendations or to explore a new point of view.”
Thanks for the vote of confidence, TDO! Check them out here: Theology Degrees Online
Book review: Miracles
by C. S. Lewis
★★★★
How I’ve missed C. S. Lewis! I picked this book up to read for a book club, and settled into it like conversing with an old friend.
The topic is miracles. Do they exist or not? Do they contradict Nature or not? This is not a nuts and bolts proof book; it is a call to see miracles in a different light. There is, for instance, nothing miraculous about turning water into wine … nature itself can do this. God has created a vegetable organism that can turn water, soil and sunlight into a juice which will, under proper conditions, become wine. Wine is merely water modified. Should it surprise you that one day, God short circuited the process, using earthenware jars instead of vegetable fibers to hold the water?
As in this example, Lewis’s arguments sometimes amount only to warm fuzzies. Pantheism, he explains, is nothing special, for people are merely predisposed to believe this way … pantheism has hung around like an unwanted parasite from the beginning. In contrast, the story of a dying and rising God is surely true because nature itself teaches this concept, as any farmer knows. Now, beneath the surface, these two arguments are similar, but Lewis manages to draw the desired results from each with a bit of conversation made elegant in one circumstance and ugly in another.
Lewis errs also in his science, imagining that “every event in Nature must be connected with previous events in the Cause and Effect relation.” We know better today (Lewis was writing in 1947), and thus the foundation crumbles for many of his arguments against Naturalism. (Lewis attempts to argue that there must be a God who is not a part of Nature, and reasons that this God must surely be our creator.)
But it’s the way Lewis writes that so grabs the imagination! I absolutely love reading his books. There is a spellbinding discussion of Morality and Human Reason herein (their divinity earns their capitalization). Yet I cannot honestly award the book five stars, because Lewis never accomplishes what he sets out to do. Lewis’s God is elegant and beautiful, but no less unlikely for Lewis’s efforts, and must remain a matter of faith. Yet for those who already believe in this particular God, this book cannot fail to lift their spirits.
Very much recommended.
Matthew 6:12, Forgiving Our Debtors
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
//This verse is part of the Lord’s Prayer (the “Our Father”), and it reads straightforwardly. But what does it mean? How can God forgive our debts?
It’s possible to read too straightforwardly, but it’s equally possible to not read straightforwardly enough. We must remember the climate of first-century peasantry, where debt was a serious foe, ranking up there with food and shelter. If a person fell into debt, he would most likely lose his land or wind up in indentured servitude (temporary slavery).
Thus when Jesus came proclaiming the year of the Jubilee (see Luke 4:19), the year when all debts are forgiven, he was referring directly to releasing the burden of debt.
It’s common to read the Lord’s Prayer like this: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive the sins of others. But those who had fallen into debt aren’t sinners, they are merely unfortunates. It is not by forgiving the sins of others that we appeal to God, but by lifting up those who have fallen on hard times…especially if they owe a debt to us.
Luke 24:50-51, When Did Jesus Ascend?
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.
//Everybody knows the answer to today’s question. Jesus ascended to heaven forty days after the resurrection, as indicated in the book of Acts. Why, then, does Luke give a different story? Let’s trace the events through the final chapter of Luke:
Verse 1 tells us that “the women” went to the tomb early on the first day of the week, and found Jesus gone.
Verse 13 says that on the very same day, Jesus met with two men on the road to Emmaus. They soon sit down to dinner.
Verse 33 says that after Jesus disappeared from their sight, they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem, and met with the Eleven.
Verse 36 indicates that while they were talking about this, Jesus appeared to them.
Then verse 50, the very same day, Jesus leads them out to Bethany, where he ascends into heaven.
The most curious thing about this story is not that Jesus ascends on the day of his resurrection. After all, John’s Gospel says the same thing (see verse 20:17, where the present tense is clear: Jesus is ascending at that moment), before appearing back on the ground a week later. What’s curious is that scholars universally agree that the author of Luke also wrote the book of Acts. The same author has Jesus ascend the day of his resurrection and then has him ascend again 40 days later.
Were there two ascensions?
Book review: Revelation: The Way It Happened
by Lee Harmon
★★★★
This review comes from Pastor Jeff’s website: http://pastorjeffcma.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/revelation-the-way-it-happened-a-review-or-the-future-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/
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There is certainly no book of the Bible that attracts attention like the book of Revelation. People seem either fascinated, frightened, or confused by it–or maybe all of the above. It is commonly said that if you read 25 books on Revelation you would get 26 different opinions and there is probably an element of truth in that.
Revelation, as a work of ancient apocalyptic literature, is a familiar entrance into a very unfamiliar genre of writing. Much of the church has read these many cosmic symbols and cataclysmic events as a figurative description of what will transpire at the end of time climaxing in the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. But such a futuristic interpretation, while being widespread, is certainly not the only understanding “out there” even among evangelicals. What about the possibility that the description John gives in his vision is not about what will happen at the end of time, but what did happen shortly after his writing it? In theological terminology this is know as the Preterist view and that is what is presented to us in “Revelation: The Way It Happened” by Lee Harmon.
Even though the author is both theologically liberal along with being an adherent to the Historical Jesus school of thought, thereby having a far different biblical understanding than I would have, I found much to appreciate about this text. Even though he offers a “verse by verse” treatment of the “apocalypse,” do not expect the rather dry & dusty exegesis one might receive from far too many commentaries.
Lee has provided not only a wealth of textual and historical information alongside his own commentary, but we are provided his preterist interpretation through the eyes of a father and son as they live through these “apocalyptic” events. And then as a further aside we find a sprinkling of anecdotes from the likes of Nero himself. All of that to say, that even if you find yourself in theological disagreement, you will simply enjoy reading the book. While a review is no place for a theological debate, I would certainly take issue with some of the book’s conclusions.
My main concerns with the text are twofold. First, while such an historical treatment has much to offer, there are some places which, from a desire for a “perfect” fit I will imagine, the author presses a bit too hard on some of the details. This runs the gamut from some of the cosmic signs to a composite of “Johns” and a few things in between. Secondly, while there are a sprinkling of footnotes throughout the text I would have wished for a greater amount of documentation. While from a historian’s perspective many of the events referenced might be “common knowledge,” that would most likely not be the case for the lay reader.
Let me encourage you to read this very accessible presentation of a subject that is far too often quite inaccessible. The reader will find it to be fun, exciting, and informative. Allow me to make some disclaimers at his point. If you have come from a futurist perspective on Revelation and this is your first exposure to the preterist view allow me to also recommend consulting http://www.ligonier.org/blog/top-5-co… for some other important texts with some similar interpretations. If you likewise are unfamiliar with the futurist interpretation of the book (outside of some sensationalist end-time evangelist) allow me to encourage Robert Mounce’s commentary on Revelation from the NICNT series.
Mr. Harmon has written a book that I can highly recommend to the critical thinker who enjoys the interplay of ideas and conclusions with which he may or may not agree.
Matthew 5:41, Go the Extra Mile
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
//It’s amazing how many figures of speech come from the Bible. Today’s verse is one of many examples provided by Rev. Anne Robertson in her book, What is the Bible? Here are a few more:
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom [and] honour. –Ecclesiastes 10:1 (Fly in the ointment)
Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills? –Job 15:7 (As old as the hills)
Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. –Isaiah 40:15 (Drop in the bucket)
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. –Genesis 3:3 (Forbidden fruit)
And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: –Matthew 12:25 (A house divided against itself cannot stand)
Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. –Matthew 15:14 (The blind leading the blind)
My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. –Job 19:20 (By the skin of your teeth)
2 Kings 4:32, The First Artificial Respiration
When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the LORD.
//Elisha is about to raise a boy from the dead.
I died once. Nearly. As a child, perhaps about the age of this young fella, I got a little too brave in a private pool before I could swim. I passed out in the water, and woke up beside the pool, gasping. Someone apparently knew how to put breath back in me.
Here’s what happened to the boy in Elisha’s day:
Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy’s body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
Has Elisha discovered artificial respiration?
Book review: The Idolatry of God
by Peter Rollins
★★★★★
Have we turned God into an idol? In this thought-provoking book, you’ll learn to think about God, life, and love differently.
The idea of God as the fulfillment of our desires is so all-pervasive today that most of us take it for granted. But is this not the very definition of an idol? That which we focus on as the solution to our unfulfillment, in hopes of attaining happiness?
Next time you attend church, listen closely to the worship hymns. Each one promises to provide something which will fill the emptiness we feel by nature … a nature that began with birth, and our severing from the universe to create a separate being. In this way, the church takes it place beside every other industry that is in the business of selling satisfaction. Religious hymns become little more than advertising jingles, and the clergy come to resemble slick salespeople presenting their god-product to the potential consumer. If idolatry is the artificial search for ultimate satisfaction, then the church today does not offer an alternative to the idolatry that weighs us down, but instead blesses it and gives it divine justification.
What can we do about it? Rollins encourages us to be part of the problem, not the solution, and he closes the book with several intriguing group exercises to help us think outside the box, recognizing and embracing life for its uncertainty and unattainable satisfaction. Remember when Jesus died, and the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom? The Holy of Holies lay exposed, and the separation between man and God finally came down. So what did temple visitors find there, beyond the curtain of separation?
That’s right: nothing. There was nothing behind the curtain. That is not to say that Christianity is a lie, or that the scriptures are wrong. The reality is more interesting than this.
Like every other idol, God proves to be meaningful only while unattainable. Once obtained … once lived … the meaning dies, but is reborn, as it shifts from idolatry to experience. An experience which cannot be ours until we lay down our certainties and our doomed quest for ultimate understanding and satisfaction.
Mark 16:15, Preach to All Creation
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation…”
//Some time ago, I asked in a blog post whether or not the animal kingdom was part of “God’s creation.” Today I offer this verse in Mark. St. Francis of Assisi, you may recall, took this commission literally, preaching to birds, crickets, bees, wolves. Was the guy nuts, or are the animals part of God’s creation as well? The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, says Psalm 24.
When God told Jonah to preach to Nineveh, it appears to be partly out of concern for the animals. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well.
This may seem like silliness to many Christians, but for others, who recognize humans as little removed from the same ancestry shared by the rest of God’s creation, this is a true concern. Homo sapiens are just a tiny, current-day stage in a vast evolutionary process that, for all we know, is far from complete.
Fantasy Football, Anyone?
Put on the whole uniform of the Team, that ye may be able to stand against the blitz of oncoming linebackers. Don the hip pads of truth, the shoulder pads of righteousness, the cleats of preparation. Don’t forget the facemask of faith and the helmet of salvation. Then clutch the pigskin with much Spirit, for that is what the Play Book of your Coach in Heaven demands.The River of Life
Twice before Lee Harmon has written about Christian topics, once on the gospel of John and once on the book of Revelation. But the question people keep asking him is this: As a liberal Christian, why do you care so much about the Bible? Others wonder whether he is truly a Christian at all.
The Way It Happened
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| Revelation: A love story gone awry. | The Gospel: A love story set aright. |
What really happened 2,000 years ago? How did a persecuted minority of end-time believers known as Christians, with their dreams of Armageddon and a conquering Messiah named Jesus, evolve into the largest religion in the world? Author Lee Harmon explores the period in which the New Testament was written in his books about John's Gospel and Revelation.
(Bloggers: you may be eligible for a free review copy! Just contact us.)
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The God Show
Lee Harmon interviewed on The God Show about the History Channel's miniseries The Bible and Lee's latest book, John's Gospel: The Way It Happened.
About Lee
Hello! I'm an author, historical Jesus scholar, book reviewer, and liberal Christian, which means I appreciate and attempt to exercise the humanitarian teachings of Jesus without getting hung up on any particular supernatural or religious beliefs.
The Bible is a magnificent book that has inspired and spiritually fed generations for thousands of years, and each new century seems to bring a deeper understanding of life’s purpose. This is true of not only Christianity; through the years, our age-old religions are slowly transforming from superstitious rituals into humanitarian philosophies. In short, we are growing up, and I am thrilled to be riding the wave.
I avidly read all thought-provoking religion titles. New authors: I'd love to read and review your book!
Contact me here.
About Leslie
Hi! While Lee writes the articles and reviews the books, I edit, organize, and maintain the blog. The views expressed here are Lee's but I'm his biggest supporter! :-)
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