Thank you Stephen.
I see that Heiser speaks of three issues the messiah has to resolve in addition to ending oppression of the Jews:
The Fall of Adam and Eve
The Sin of the Watchers
and the Tower of Babel incident which justifies evangelizing Gentiles because the nations have to be brought back into the fold of God.
John the Baptist and Jesus do not quite communicate all this I would say, but Heiser with his peer-reviewed material says it is so…
You’re welcome.
As I’ve said elsewhere Heiser has credentials and the languages but what spoils it for me is his fundamentalism. He thinks all this stuff actually happened. And of course he can’t see the myth of the “Fall” of Adam and the “Sin” of the Watchers as contrasting stories about the origin of evil. For Heiser they have to be complementary because they happened in history.
Stephen
He thinks all this stuff actually happened. And of course he can’t see the myth of the “Fall” of Adam and the “Sin” of the Watchers as contrasting stories about the origin of evil. For Heiser they have to be complementary because they happened in history.
Steefen
Are you saying the myth of the Sin of the Watchers is just a Hebrew interpretation of the Babylon myth of the Apkallu?
or
Just as there was a flood that affected both the Hebrews and the Babylonians, there were aliens/Sons of God/Watchers for the Babylonians and the Hebrews?
We have mythologized historical origin / element of truth, so why shouldn’t he hold something actually did happen in history?
Steefen said
StephenHe thinks all this stuff actually happened. And of course he can’t see the myth of the “Fall” of Adam and the “Sin” of the Watchers as contrasting stories about the origin of evil. For Heiser they have to be complementary because they happened in history.
Steefen
Are you saying the myth of the Sin of the Watchers is just a Hebrew interpretation of the Babylon myth of the Apkallu?
or
Just as there was a flood that affected both the Hebrews and the Babylonians, there were aliens/Sons of God/Watchers for the Babylonians and the Hebrews?
We have mythologized historical origin / element of truth, so why shouldn’t he hold something actually did happen in history?
This is all Ancient Near Eastern mythology. Do you believe in Zeus? Or Thor? History is for humans. The gods dwell in the imagination.
Oh Steefen, no.
C S Lewis once said of his friend, writer Charles Williams, that he put things in his theology that should have been left to his fiction and things in his fiction that should have been left to his theology. Books like Giants on Ancient Earth are fantasy novels disguised as history. Pseudo-history.
Why isn’t the mythology of the Watchers interesting to you without having to pretend it’s real?
How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman, with a kindle price of $1.99, is now #2 in New Testament Criticism & Interpretation on Amazon.
Lowering the price of one’s book as a promotion is effective. The $13.89 paperback is now #57. The $6.99 Kindle version of Jesus, Interrupted is now #59.
Stephen said
Evidence That Demands a Verdict: I think that book really does not know the history of Egypt during the time of the biblical Saul, David, and Solomon.
I remember reading Evidence That Demands a Verdict decades ago, and my verdict on the book was that it was mostly bogged down by a bad understanding of the evidence it claimed to present. A faith that has to be based on that kind of nonsense is not much worth having. What Josh McDowell, and now his son, Sean McDowelll, mostly seem to be doing is trying to bury their own sense of doubt under a false sense of certainty. The son is a bit more charismatic and slicker than his father, but both are snake oil salesmen. I prefer apologists who accept that faith is what fills that large gap of what we just do not know for sure. My own personal struggle has been characterized by a battle between the fact that I like much of the idea of Christianity, and what it promises, and that preference forms a bias that affects my interpretation, and my response to that bias is often an over-reaction, leaving me somewhere in the middle. I absolutely see why Bart Ehrman’s current position evolved from an inability to reconcile his evangelical faith with the genuine problem of pain, suffering and misery that so often besets us and those we love. (What cannot endure any degree of analysis is a particular view of God as a kind of benevolent father figure who grants our wishes made in prayer and always seeks to make life better for the faithful. And what also must crumble is the idea that the Bible is a perfect book written, if not actually by God, by his direct and very literal inspiration.) I also see that true atheism offers literally nothing to replace that sense of hope to persevere and face a new day. I might prefer the relative bliss of a little ignorance.
JAS
I remember reading Evidence That Demands a Verdict decades ago, and my verdict on the book was that it was mostly bogged down by a bad understanding of the evidence it claimed to present.
Steefen
It is not written well and there is an attempt to baffle readers.
JAS
A faith that has to be based on that kind of nonsense is not much worth having.
Steefen
Evidence done well produces a faith worth having?
In my book, Historical Accuracy, evidence is done well.
JAS
What Josh McDowell, and now his son, Sean McDowelll, mostly seem to be doing is trying to bury their own sense of doubt under a false sense of certainty. The son is a bit more charismatic and slicker than his father, but both are snake oil salesmen. I prefer apologists who accept that faith is what fills that large gap of what we just do not know for sure.
My own personal struggle has been characterized by a battle between the fact that I like much of the idea of Christianity, and what it promises, and that preference forms a bias that affects my interpretation, and my response to that bias is often an over-reaction, leaving me somewhere in the middle.
I absolutely see why Bart Ehrman’s current position evolved from an inability to reconcile his evangelical faith with the genuine problem of pain, suffering and misery that so often besets us and those we love.
Steefen
An evangelist’s notion of God is likely incorrect. To reconcile is to make one account consistent with another. One account cannot be faulty.
JAS
(What cannot endure any degree of analysis is a particular view of God as a kind of benevolent father figure who grants our wishes made in prayer and always seeks to make life better for the faithful.
What also must crumble is the idea that the Bible is a perfect book written, if not actually by God, by his direct and very literal inspiration.)
I also see that true atheism offers literally nothing to replace that sense of hope to persevere and face a new day.
Steefen
Maybe have hope in a secular humanism that delivers.
Modern Christian apologetics is largely a response to the popularity of the so-called New Atheists. (So-called because none of the people labeled as such ever referred to themselves in those terms.) Faced with the very real decline in religion in the US (the demographics are indeed quite ominous) the response is to engage secular society on its own terms using its own methodology. (You know, science, rational argument.)
Seems to me though that it is inherently self-contradictory given it’s stated aims. Once you’ve ceded the terms of the debate to the rationalists and spend all your time trying to prove something to somebody, you’ve given up the greatest strength that religion has. To help someone engage with the irrational and to achieve some measure of transcendence. When a Christian tries to argue someone into heaven they’ve already lost the battle.
And perhaps this explains the decline of organized religion in the West. The Church can neither convince people rationally nor can it provide an engagement with the numinous. So it becomes like a dead hollow tree waiting for just the right wind to come along and blow it over. It might stand for decades but it’s dead nonetheless.
Modern Christian apologetics is largely a response to the popularity of the so-called New Atheists. (So-called because none of the people labeled as such ever referred to themselves in those terms.) Faced with the very real decline in religion in the US (the demographics are indeed quite ominous) the response is to engage secular society on its own terms using its own methodology. (You know, science, rational argument.)
You seem to be thinking of a very different US than the one I see every day. Religion or not, a little less than half of the country is clearly stark raving mad, and relying on ideas even less plausible than traditional religions. As for the New Atheists, groups rarely get to choose the name for themselves. It seems to me that New Atheist isn’t inherently all that derogatory, or at least adding New does not make it any more derogatory.
I might note that even a convinced Atheist and hard and fast Determinist like Robert Sapolsky calls religion “nature’s anti-depressant” and admits to a sometimes passing sense of envy for that. (Sapolsky is very vocal in his opposition to any idea of free choice, such that one wonders why he is bothering to teach, which, in his own view, would seem not be able to change anything. I suppose it might be suggested that everyone has to make a living, and that is cause enough.)
You seem to be thinking of a very different US than the one I see every day.
Well all the Christian Denominations in the US, even the conservatives, are declining in membership. The fastest growing religious demographic in the US are the “Nones”, folks who report that organized religion plays little or no part of their lives. The percentage of these folks increases the younger they are. Will America ever become as secular as Western Europe? Who knows? But Christianity is clearly on its way to losing its privileges in our society.
It seems to me that New Atheist isn’t inherently all that derogatory, or at least adding New does not make it any more derogatory.
Perhaps but it does make it seem like they’re saying something new which all of them denied at some point.
“nature’s anti-depressant”
I don’t think it is a coincidence that the countries with the highest standards of living that possess the strongest social safety nets have the lowest levels of open piety.
Sapolsky is very vocal in his opposition to any idea of free choice, such that one wonders why he is bothering to teach, which, in his own view, would seem not be able to change anything.
In a game of billiards the ball is struck but also strikes.
Stephen said
I don’t think it is a coincidence that the countries with the highest standards of living that possess the strongest social safety nets have the lowest levels of open piety.
I think it is a matter of selective interpretation. We do not really have sufficient data, with consistency over time, to make such claims. After all, the Soviet Union was officially an atheistic state, as is China (although China at least tolerates several religions). I would hardly consider those great societies setting ideals to which we should strive. The idea that eliminating religion somehow produces a wonderful and decent society seems to me at least as much a fantasy as the idea that everyone adopting any particular brand of evangelistic Christianity would do so.
JAS
Could you not find a less credible source? Giuliani is one of those people who, if he called me by name, I would feel compelled to check my driver’s license, just to be sure I was me.
Steefen
A quality response would focus not on the messenger but the content of the message. Alternative, if you just have to fault the messenger, do that AND deal with the content of the message.
The message is a grave wrong.
Steefen said
A quality response would focus not on the messenger but the content of the message. Alternative, if you just have to fault the messenger, do that AND deal with the content of the message.
The message is a grave wrong.
If the messenger is as tainted as Giuliani, I have no idea of the value of the content. Even if the worst he might say turned out to be true, what exactly do you think anyone can do about it?
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