Diary 5/17/24
I’ve been reading a few books, among them “Old Testament Parallels” by Victor Matthews and Don Benjamin, “Studying the Historical Jesus” by Darrell Bock,” “Gospel Fictions” by Randel Helm and “Adam’s Rib” by Robert Graves. Again, they raised the question in my mind, “What is fact and what is not?” These books are only a few of those that shed light on the historicity of the Bible.
I remember that when I was growing up, we believed in the Bible, even the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent and Cain and Abel. After all, the Bible was considered “God’s Words” or the Sacred Book, “Divinely Inspired.” These stories were unquestioned and unquestionable. We accepted them literally. Joshua and the Whale, Moses and the Parting of the Red Sea, David and Goliath, Noah and the Flood, in the Old Testament. Jesus and the Miracles, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection of Jesus, the feeding of the 5000. These are only a few of the stories whose factuality has been questioned. No, this is not just a Da Vinci Code kind of rendering. Scholars like Bart Ehrman and Melvin Mayer and others have made us aware that there is more out there than what we were made to believe.
I do not know since when but I remember that Albert Schweitzer’s “The Quest for the Historical Jesus” was the first one I saw that brought up the subject. Now more theologians, Biblical scholars and writers have raised issues about the historicity of these stories and the authorship and sources of the Bible. How much of the Bible was influenced by and copied from the ancient literature like Gilgamesh and other mythologies from Egypt? Robert Graves claims that Genesis was copied and misinterpreted from ancient myths. How about the Trinity? In what language were the “original” gospels written? How is the “Q” related to the New Testament? How did the belief in Jesus as God evolve? There are also scholars who have raised the question of the relationship of Jesus and Mary Magdalene from the Gnostic Gospels, something that is not even hinted at in the synoptic gospels. What is a Christian to believe?
Other questions have been raised: Who wrote the gospels? How did they evolve? Where did Jesus spend his “lost years”? Did he study in the East (Tibet or India) or Egypt? Did Jesus actually die on the Cross? When was Jesus born? Was Jesus fully human, all-divine or both? Why are there so many inconsistencies in the Bible? Some do not make sense. Did he ride one camel or two? Was he born in a manger or in a room? So many questions have come up not only on the Bible but also on the different customs and traditions and practices of Christianity as they developed since the Crucifixion of Jesus.
How is a Christian to respond to these claims and ideas?