Tag: Christianity

Mesmerised by “Hip gnosis” – or maybe not

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The internet gives us the power to encounter people that we could never have otherwise met, and then disagree with them.  I found an article by a certain Michael Kaler in a Canadian paper, the Globe, entitled “Hip Gnostics”.  (The title is nice, since it highlights the hippy interest in gnosticism).  It began with the following whopper:

If there ever was one unified Christian movement, it probably died with Jesus at the first Easter. Ever since, Christianity has been a collection of any number of diverse groups.

Coming across it, by accident, I wrote a comment, but as this was abbreviated by their software and crunched up — and because I quite liked it — I thought that I would post it here.

*        *        *        *        *       

Every so often, someone decides to make up their own religious group. If they live in a culture where Christianity has some moral authority, they will try to hijack that in some way. They will pretend that they too are Christians, as the Moonies did, or the successors of Christianity, as the early Moslems and the Manichaeans did. But of course it’s terribly easy to spot the fake; you just get hold of their holy books, and look for the bits added on. The bits will always be taken from the contemporary culture, instead of the teachings of Jesus.

This process has gone on for centuries. The earliest Christians tell us that it was going on in their day. The apostle John had gone to the Roman baths. Told that a certain Cerinthus was in the baths, he exclaimed that everyone should get out, because Cerinthus was so dishonest that if he leaned against a wall the place would probably collapse. John’s disciple Polycarp taught in Rome ca. 150 AD, where he met the early cult-maker Marcion, and refused to have anything to do with him. Polycarp’s own pupil Irenaeus, while sympathetic to Christians who thought different things, wrote a long attack on these outsiders who were trying to hijack the reputation of Jesus for their own ends.

It is mildly depressing to see that your article pretends that none of this happens. The writings of the Fathers of the church are online in English. Which of them, we might ask, contains descriptions of themselves as leaders of differing factions? What do those whom the apostles appointed to lead churches, and their successors, say on this? Do they talk about “diversity” — such a 20th century US idea! — or orthodoxy and heresy?

There can be no doubt that they do the latter. Nor is this surprising. Christians had a reputation in the ancient world, for living and dying for their beliefs. Others, making up their own ideas, wanted the name, although not to die for it. These others were the gnostics. Their teachings came from the pagan philosophical schools, not from Christ (Tertullian, De praescriptione 7); and no gnostic felt obliged to follow the teaching of any other unless he felt like it! The diversity of this movement was commented on very harshly by the Fathers.

So I’m sorry to say that your article is rather misleading. The statements made in it result from a piece of linguistic legerdemain which goes like this (1) first label all early people who claim to be Christians “Christians”, regardless of what they teach and where they got it from; (2) argue that since this label includes people who held wildly different ideas, this proves that early Christianity was diverse. Such circular “reasoning” hardly deserves our attention.

It is an old anti-Christian debating ploy to argue that since there are many Christian denominations, any Christian who comes along to talk about Christianity must be lying, since which — he is asked, mock-piously — is the “real” Christianity? Elaine Pagels is merely the latest in this line of polemicists. But a look at the Ante-Nicene Fathers — all online — should dispose of this swindle. A look at the Nag Hammadi texts — which include a portion of Plato, and are also online — should make the difference plain.

The Nag Hammadi texts are indeed very interesting, as is the story of their discovery. How many people realise that the sands of Egypt have produced a steady flow of other books written in antiquity over the last few decades? The find that included the Gospel of Judas included three other ancient books; a Greek mathematical treatise, and a Coptic Exodus and some Letters of St. Paul. More manichaean texts have been found at Kellis in the Dakhla oasis, with a text of an oration by Isocrates. A pile of leaves were found at Tura in 1940 under some stone blocks, which turned out to be lost works by church Fathers Origen and Didymus the Blind. And so it goes on. Undoubtedly there are many more, waiting to be found.

Is there an Indiana Jones among your readers, willing to go and find them and restore them to the knowledge of mankind?

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How not to translate the bible

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I found a blog pushing the TNIV, and added a comment to a post or two before I realised that the blog title “Better bibles” was really just Newspeak for “Use the TNIV.” 

The TNIV is the version of the New International Version which was revised in accordance with the principles of political correctness.  If the bible said “brothers”, it changed it to say “brothers and sisters.”  And so on, sometimes with farcical consequences.  Fortunately US Christians treated it with the contempt it deserved, and it sounds as if it is dead (praise God).   But the damage is severe; the NIV was well on the way to being the standard Christian English translation.  Now few will trust it, or its owners.

It is hard to imagine what was going through the minds of the people who did this deed — although judging from the commenters on that blog, indifference to the idea that this is the Word of God is pretty evident, as is a determination to use the bible to promote political correctness.

But just imagine if we did the same to other texts!  Das Kapital, revised to say what Ronald Reagan thinks it should have said.  Mein Kampf, as translated by an Israeli extremist (a version in which the word “Jew” is replaced by the word “Arab”, “in order to situate it better in modern society” or some form of words which would walk the streets for any vice).  Robert Mugabe translating Jefferson.  It’s almost funny, isn’t it?

I do a bit of translating from time to time, and I tend to favour reader comprehension over literal incomprehensibility.  But if I have to paraphrase, I’d put the original in a note.  If I felt the meaning was unclear, I wouldn’t paraphrase; I would stick the meaning in a note.  To fail to know where to draw the line between a translation and a note is the nadir of incapacity in a translator.

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End procrastination, but not yet

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Isn’t it remarkable how much you can get done, doing it in odd moments?  And how little gets done, when you sit down to it with a full day ahead of you?

Here I am, on Bank Holiday Monday.  I have the whole day off.  It’s grey outside, so no real reason to go anywhere.  I have Agapius before me, and am getting close to the end of translating another quarter of the text.  And my mind wanders.  Compare that with when I was working on it last, in odd moments, and got some 300 pages done.

Of course then I start reading the blogs, pop over to the shop, and so on.  In the process I came across bits and pieces.  At ETS I learn (who get it from Archaic Christianity) that a photographing expedition by CSNTM has put several more new testament manuscripts online.   

I also see this truly revealing comment on a political blog, here.  Defending the a political leader from a smear, he writes:

Take a bow – the guy’s son has just died and you are attempting to smear him for doing what every 19 year old student does, or at least should do – getting an STD test. Scumbag.

Every 19 year old is fornicating with such abandon that they all take a test for the clap?  God help our rotting society, if so.  But one must remember that this is written by a student politician, and such people are notoriously self-seeking, self-indulgent, and devoid of any morals, and were even in my day. Probably this one is merely projecting his own vice onto others, or repeating what he believes true. 

For the last 30 years the ruling class in this society has sought to debauch the young by every means possible.  It has failed, of course, since few are that self-destructive!  But they would be pleased to learn that their efforts have been so fruitful as this, that even a conservative could write like that.  All of us rely on our families, in sickness and in health, to help us through life.  Yet what family life is possible in these circumstances, when no permanent attachments can be formed?  No wonder the divorce rate is ato 50%.  Those from stable homes, with wealth and opportunity, will suffer only emotional damage thereby, and be corrupted in their sense of right and wrong.  The less fortunate have their lives destroyed, as may be observed on every TV programme jeering at trailer trash. 

This is all self-limiting, of course.  Every society rests on the labours of those who do the real work.  When the Roman peasantry was destroyed, replaced by the slave-run latifundia and encouraged to drift into Rome to become parasites, the Roman state did not immediately collapse.  But when that state faced the stresses of the 5th century, no-one made much effort to save it.  Self-indulgence is utterly destructive.  Why risk your pleasures for others, when you’ve never done so before?  It was not Gothic strength, but Roman weakness that destroyed the Western Empire.  Augustine chronicles that when the refugees from Rome came to Africa, their first question was not how to fight back, but what games were planned at the public entertainments.  As the rulers trash the ruled, the state crumbles from within.  When a war comes, as come it will, such a people will not fight.  The state will be destroyed, the corrupt attitudes replaced by those of the victors.  The diseased portion of the body drops off. Thus is the sickness contained.  That is why God allows wars to take place; because, in times of peace, the moral rot sets in.

Back to avoiding Agapius… maybe a diet coke would help.  And I need to wash my hands.  Perhaps I should turn the heating on.  Not long to lunch, now.  Perhaps I’ll have a lie-down after lunch.  Is there anything on the box?

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History and rare events

Posted on by Roger Pearse

How probable is it that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead? James McGrath has been posting on this here and here, and quotes Bart Ehrman to the effect that it is utterly unlikely, and suggests that we cannot know by historical investigation whether such a thing happened. Each is articulating a religious opinion, of course, rather than anything on which scholarship as such has something to say, as they are entitled to do. 

It seems to me that these arguments only be made by making some assumptions which won’t bear examination.

Non-mathematicians frequently have difficulty with probability. Most people would imagine that if you flip a coin five times and it comes up heads each time, that it is more probable that next time it will come up tails. In truth the probability that it will come up heads remains unchanged at 50%.

We all know that miracles do not happen very often. That is a direct observation and may be taken as a fact. But the actual probability that any given event is a miracle must be unknown to us. We have no way to calculate this, for rare events.

I think that it would be useful here to stop talking about miracles specifically, and to discuss the general case: the “rare event” in history.  To discuss miracles brings in all sorts of prejudices which hamper the investigation.

Are we really being invited to say that rare events do not happen very often — indeed! — that what often happens must be what usually happens, and therefore, in loose terms based on gut feeling, that any given event other things being equal is “most likely” to be a common event than a rare one?

I think that we are — and so we are not saying something very profound here. Once we define an event as rare, we define it as “not usual.” This is just semantics. Most events in our lives are indeed commonplace.

But if we argue from rarity to what actually “must” be happening, doesn’t this involve the same fallacy as the coin-flipping earlier? There is a logical fallacy here. Surely it tells us precisely nothing as to whether a particular rare event did indeed happen, or whether a particular coin-toss will give one result or another. It only tells us a generality.

To argue that rare events never happen is a simply a mistake. For example, we all know that it is not very often that the taxman will give us a refund! We do not therefore presume that refunds never happen.

Dr McGrath would no doubt interject at this point that he doesn’t deny that miracles — rare events — might happen; only that we cannot know from studying the historical record if they do, since any evidence that appears is “more likely” to be a mistake than genuine.

Unfortunately the same logic applies to this argument. Can we never know if rare events occur? Imagine that a statement appears that in 2002 the taxman gave me a refund. Why should we ignore this? Surely we would sift the evidence?

In general, we should not do history by deciding in advance what is “most likely” to have happened in the past and then finding reasons to ignore whatever the evidence actually says. We need to let the historical record speak, and then assess that narrative in the light of other portions of the historical record. We may consider that a rare event did not in fact happen; but we should hardly decide this before considering the evidence. Still less should we refuse to consider evidence, on the grounds that an event is rare!

Now I am aware that some will be getting impatient with me here. They will feel that I am missing the point. I think that a common feeling is underlying all of this discontent, unstated, which I will now drag out of its hiding place and into the sunlight. It’s something like this:

“All religious claims that miracles happen are lies.”

or possibly

“Religious claims are more likely to be lies than other claims.”

We all find this feeling in our minds, whatever our beliefs. If we conduct a thought-experiment and imagine that a statue of the virgin spoke, the first instinct of all of us is a knee-jerk suspicion that it is a lie. But this is what we call a “prejudice”.

We need to decide whether we are doing history, or merely decorating our prejudice with snippets of historical data. It is no doubt the case that most references to miracles in classical texts are bogus. But if we intend to discover whether a specific miracle did or did not happen, we cannot simply appeal to this prejudice, which we might accept in cases where we are not directly investigating this issue. When we wish to decide whether a rare event did indeed happen, we must investigate it directly, rationally, and examine the evidence.

This is the problem with the kind of argument being made; that it evades the evidence in favour of a pre-judgement. No valid conclusion can be reached this way.

To argue that most miracles are fake therefore all miracles are fake is merely a prejudice. It tells us nothing about whether a given miracle was actually fake.

To argue that we cannot know whether any miracles are genuine because anyone who mentions one is “probably” lying is merely a form of words to express the same prejudice. What we think probable may be the only thing that we will believe; but if so, we will never learn anything that we do not already know.

Enough talk about “likely” or “probably”, disguising a non-rational secularism: for every event let us examine the data — all of the data — and go where it leads us. Scholarship can only advance when we address the difficult pieces of data, and open our minds.

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Trouble at Tearfund

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Long ago charities like Oxfam and Christian Aid were infiltrated and hijacked by the political left.  They then started pushing left-wing ideology as if it was morally righteous and attempting to overthrow regimes unpopular with that constituency.  Meanwhile they kept demanding money from the public.  This went so far that War on Want were rebuked by the Charities Commission.  They also abandoned any serious Christian element to their programmes.

Thirty years ago, the Evangelical Alliance in the UK recognised that at least half the population found these charities repugnant, while wanting to aid those suffering from famine etc in the Third World.  They set up a charity to do so, naming it The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, or Tearfund.  Since then it has done good work.

But something is wrong.  Last weekend I turned on the TV news and found myself watching a march of organised anti-capitalist demonstrators in London — described as such –, preparatory to the G20 riots then being anticipated.  To my astonishment, amidst the usual banners of the hard left, I saw banners reading “Tearfund.” 

Going to the Tearfund website, I found a page urging participation: “Join the global church’s call for justice” — a typical code word for more state control or something of the kind. The “global church” is not calling for anything; at least, I didn’t hear me call, and I’m part of it!  Calls for “justice” tend to be code-words for demands to force poor taxpayers in rich countries to fund rich despots in poor countries.

Today I find this page, showing a photograph of their presence at what they call:

Saturday’s rally for jobs, justice and climate… The rally afterwards was supported by a coalition of development agencies, unions, faith and environment groups, demanding jobs and public services for all, an end to global poverty and the creation of a green economy.

Since when was running the UK economy something that Tearfund specialised in?  The real story is in the Guardian: it was a standard left-wing coalition protest.  The photograph carefully omits the Socialist Worker placards that were so prominent!  This story in the Observer tells the truth of what was going on:

This time the protest – although it draws on equally diverse social and political quarters – is a complex weave of movements and priorities united by one emotion: a disgust at the latest incarnation of capitalism that demands a different way of organising the economy of the planet.

Another page on the Tearfund website trumpets a “victory” — but for whom?

We’ve got some great news to share with you! Last week Ed Miliband, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, announced that the target for reducing the UK’s emissions by 2050 would be raised from 60% to 80% in the Climate Change Bill.

For over two years Tearfund has been asking you to join thousands of other supporters in campaigning, praying and making changes in your lifestyle as part of the campaign run as part of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition. …The campaign has been asking for three things which will ensure that the UK plays its part in keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees, these were:

• Ensure that 80% of UK emissions are cut by 2050
• Include annual targets and milestones (to keep progress on track)
• Include the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping in emissions reduction targets.

Lots of bureaucracy needed there.  Lots of activity, none of which produces any wealth or goods.  Lots of interference in the lives of ordinary people.  And… lots of rises in the prices of transport, indeed of everything — including food –, to pay for it all.  So Tearfund as a famine relief charity is  boasting about a “victory” that will raise the price of food!?!   

None of this is the sort of thing I expect from a Christian famine relief agency.  I expect them to feed the hungry, not make their food cost more.

So I wrote and queried all this. I also asked whether they were still part of the EA.  I got back a letter which tried to justify this on the grounds that the only way to deal with poverty was some sort of political action.  I have asked in return whether they have obtained the approval of the Charities Commission for this change of mission.  They didn’t answer my query about their relation to the EA.

Now of course there is a sense in which poverty is indeed a political problem.  Most famines are caused by wicked men.  For instance, everyone agrees that the misery in Zimbabwe will only end when Mugabe is removed.  But removing him is not the duty of a famine relief charity.  If it is, then few political parties could not claim charitable status.  It is not specially the concern of the Christians.  If Tearfund spent money campaigning for his overthrow, it would be abuse of the donations, even though the cause is worthwhile. 

There are many different political opinions on how to “mend the world.”  In my time at college the political left agreed that only a Soviet-style despotism in the UK would do this — thankfully it never happened.  In a democracy, the proposals are submitted to a vote, and none is given tax privileges.  Those are reserved for charities where the benefits are universally agreed.  Unfortunately some sections of the political spectrum take the view that only they are right, and they are entitled to do anything they like because they are right and everyone else is wrong.  These people have been rioting in the streets today.

It is very sad to see Tearfund promoting agitprop.   This is precisely what it was set up to avoid.  Looking at the website, all the Christian material appears to be old, to be legacy material.  What the current managers of the charity are interested in is partisan politics.

If you are a Tearfund donor, I suggest that you cancel your donations immediately, and write to them and tell them why.  Make sure your charities reach the poor as you intended.

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The curse of too much reading

Posted on by Roger Pearse

JPS points us to a post by Kevin Edgcomb:

I curse my studies. Sometimes, anyway. What good is it to be following a Bible reading plan for the faithful when half of what is going on during my reading is (Lord, have mercy!) a critique of the translation, a mental retroversion to the Hebrew and/or Greek involved, mental notes on historical illumination and literary parallels, and all manner of distractions. The wonder is often gone. I hate that.

The same experience can afflict the classicist, who can no longer sail with Telemachus in a black ship across the wine-dark sea to see fair-haired Menelaus, for all the scholarly footnotes that howl in his head. 

Is there much practical difference between this and being unable any longer to read the book in question?  Is a textual scholar — let us say one with perfect command of Homeric Greek, who has memorised the scholia and knows every volume of important scholarship published in the last millennium — perhaps the least able, of all men, to read the Odyssey any more?

Kevin rightly observes the problems in bible reading for those with too much head knowledge.  It has been many years since the ordinary off-the-shelf bible-reading guides have been of much service to me.  They are aimed at some common average, of sympathies and intellect and attitude; and perhaps few of those inclined to study, even as amateurs, will fall into that group.

I say this with regret, not pride.  I am the loser, not the gainer thereby.  I have not gained in knowledge of God; I have merely become unable to learn from some who know more than me on every important point, except in matters of manuscript studies.

How easy it is for the less perceptive to suppose that they have “risen above” this sort of guide, when in truth they have merely become  unable to read it and profit from it, for all intents and purposes.

What shall it profit a man, if he knows every footnote in Nestle-Aland, and loses his soul?  In my time of dying, which may be very much sooner than I suppose, how much of that to which I have devoted my life will seem other than dry and dusty shreds of paper?

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