Loading...SORRY ‘BOUT THIS. MY ORIGINAL POST FOR MEMBERS ONLY ON “MORE ON RAMTHA” WAS NOT SHOWING UP (FOR SOME WEIRD REASON) AS A POST YOU COULD ACCESS. SO HERE IT IS A SECOND TIME.
Trying Again: More on Ramtha
January 19, 2014
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Seems like crazy things that we’re more familiar with tend to strike us as much more crazy than other things perhaps equally crazy that are newer to us. I’m also one who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family. I have viewed that kind of religion as crazy for the past 48 years. But reading about channeling Ramtha seems more weird…even though I can’t honestly say the ideas are crazier than what I was repeatedly exposed to early on. (No answer expected; just a comment.)
Dr Ehrman:
I so enjoyed your talk at Ramtha; so much so I went on Youtube and watched part two. I found it very informative.Now as far as LOOPY is concerned, picture this. Some 60 years ago a child getting up on a Sunday morning, The temperature is about 0 degrees outside, snow blowing, walking to church in it just to consume the body of a man, who was crucified 2000
years earlier and raised from the dead, and told if I didn’t go my “immortal soul” was in danger of going to hell. Now, don’t you think that sounds LOOPY??
And don’t forget sturdy support of the death penalty as another Great Divide…
I watched your talk and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
I have a question, but I need a prologue. From the early 80s to the mid-90s, there was a movement in Buddhist scholarship initiated by two Japanese scholars and called “Critical Buddhism”. These scholars pushed for a revision of what is to be accepted as Buddhism. Most of the scholars rejected that view on the anthropological ground that anyone claiming to be a Buddhist is to be considered a Buddhist, as far as academic enquiry is concerned. The Japanese scholars, on the other hand, contended that *historical* research allows them to distinguish the characteristics of early Buddhism, and, since that religion had a founder, the older we can trace back a doctrine, the more accurate it is likely to be.
My question for you is this: As a historian of early Christianity, would you say that Christian Gnosticism is Christianity? Would it matter to you if it were not?
Yes, I think Christian Gnosticism is a form of Christianity. I don’t think that trying to find the “origin” of a religion provides any particular traction on defining what htat religion is. If it did, almost no one in the world today would be Christian.
Bart,
What, exactly, is “Shirley MacLaine style reincarnation”? Some special kind? When Jesus says “Indeed Elijah will come and will save all the world” (Hebrew Matt. 17:11) referring to John the Baptist, HE is teaching reincarnation. Mystics teach reincarnation. How is it any harder to believe that people incarnate repeatedly and forget about the prior life, than the fact that your three trillion cells are walking around and *thinking*? Have you some proof that it isn’t true?
And if Christian teaching abides by the whole Bible, maybe we should stone adulterers and bad children, or gays. I don’t see what you are concerned about.
You can look up Shirley McClaine. I didn’t say that I thought it was crazy. I said if someone thinks it is, my giving a talk at a school that supports a similar view won’t change their minds.
According to 2 Kings 2:11, Elijah didn’t die, JWJ, so what need had he of reincarnation?
lol
Where does 2 Kings say Elijah did not die? It says “a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them and Elijah was taken up into heaven by a whirlwind of fire.” Lots of fire, not so much death. He did die bodily, as we all do, even Masters. Mine’s body was cremated in the Beas River, Punjab, India.
Note that Elisha “took up the mantle that had fallen from him.” That isn’t his coat. It was his MASTERSHIP. Elisha was the successor of Elijah, just as Jesus succeeded John, and James succeeded Jesus — in John 13. John 13:18-19 is the succession. The Psalm 41:9 reference is to Jacob and Esau, “heel grabbing” not David and Ahithophel and betrayal. The ‘Betrayal’ is all invention.
Great post! But, seriously…I wonder whether your having given a talk before those people at Ramtha might have induced even a few of them to wonder whether their views could be wrong, and yours right?
Don’t remember where I read this a few days ago…someone is actually claiming *Edward Snowden* has confirmed the existence of that “hollow-earth” civilization. (I know that’s nonsense, of course. Poor Snowden!)
About many of us having entertained loopy ideas at one time or another… I once came up with my own new-and-different theory (which I never inflicted on anyone else) about the origin of Christianity. I speculated that it had grown out of a (completely hypothetical) lost early version of…of all things, the Gospel of Nicodemus. I thought the parts of that Gospel that interested me were really meant to be taken symbolically. And I thought the overall point of it was that if we opened our minds in the right way, we’d be able to receive spiritual knowledge from the future. Not “channeling” any specific “entities”! Just a higher knowledge from the future.
But I lost interest in that idea, for one reason or another, long ago. I don’t believe anything of the sort now!
No, not sure I convinced a soul! 🙁
Perhaps their souls weren’t present, Bart.
You do know I was just kidding, for as much as I believe it is that to be absent from one’s soul is to be dead, don’t you? 🙂
I didn’t think it was weird or unusual for you to give a talk to them. I like the weird, strange and unusual myself so if I were in your shoes I’d have gone just to see what they were like! Most people with what I consider weird ideas are normal in all other regards…
Bart,
This is off topic, but the question occurred to me, so hopefully you won’t mind giving your thoughts… when doing historical study of something like Jesus’ alleged resurrection/visions of Jesus, would it be relevant to draw on/study/discuss not only ancient parallels but *modern* instances of stories of this nature? But specifically, stories/visions that aren’t necessarily *about* Jesus? I’m thinking eyewitness stories people tell of Hindu Guru’s (e.g. the famed, but now dead Sathya Sai Baba) walking through walls and miraculously (and physically) appearing to people in their homes. I’ve been told that real historical scholars of Jesus do not make use of such material in their analysis/studies of the visionary experiences of the first disciples of Jesus. If true, it seems they would be overlooking some relevant data. What’s the scoop? Do scholars make frequent use of these modern stories of “visions”; “apparitions”; and “hallucinations” of figures other than Jesus?
Thanks!
Ben
Yes, in my new book I’ll be looking at what modern scholars (psychologists, e.g.) say about visions, based on what happens today, as a way of figuring out what happened back then….
Your reaction to the Ramtha School reminds me of Mark Twain’s reaction to the Salt Lake City Mormons in Roughing It: “The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read. But there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable. It’s smooched from the New Testament and no credit given.”
Had another thought. You’ve mentioned that at one time – when you were at least on your way to becoming an established scholar – *you* entertained an offbeat theory: that “Cephas” and “Peter” were two different people. Can you tell us why you thought that, and what convinced you they were one and the same?
Ah, that might be an interesting set of posts. I’ll think about it.
If you are interested in the name game in the NT, read Eisenman. He devotes whole forests worth of paper and tubs of ink to the subject. It really demonstrates the obfuscation motive the gospel authors were engaged in.
Sometimes I try to imagine what it was like when there was no science to answer my questions, but only mythology. What was it like not to know where rain comes from, where disease comes from, what the sun is, even what happens inside my body? Would I find the myths of my culture enough or maybe even some I made up?
The 21st century is different. Empirically solid knowledge is vast. It may not extend to how many guns people should own or how much animals should suffer to be my food, but science covers a lot of questions.
Yet many people prefer mythology, not just traditional myths of our culture, but sometimes entirely new ones with “sucker” written all over them. Why? Is it the simplicity of myth, the group certainty if you believe it? I don’t know that science has answered that, but to say all people are crazy is just silly. All people are crazy if they know nothing but myths, but that’s not the case for everyone in the modern world.
Prof Ehrman
I’ve always assumed some of the most fun you could possibly have in your position would be to appear before audiences with a completely different mindset than yours. (I mean it Jesus could associate with the tax collectors and sinners…!)
If you’re a Dickens fan don’t miss Ralph Fiennes new movie THE INVISIBLE WOMAN about Dickens’ relationship with actress Nelly Ternan. A moving evocation of a different time (and yet not so different).
I have always thought that any belief system based around a a man born of a virgin coming back to life 3 days after dying would have to be particularly audacious in characterising other belief systems as ‘wrong’ or ‘bizarre’ – but there you have it. I have always wondered how Christians can so confidently critcize Scientology’s beliefs – to me, a Xenu brainwashing intergalactic rebels in a terrestrial cineplex is no more bizarre than a dead man coming back to life and eating broiled fish. Live and let live I say.
Having said that Dr. Ehrman, this seems a natural break point to ask you a question that has often puzzled me – the ending of the Gospel of Mark at 16:8. Apologetic Christians say that Mark couldn’t have ended his Gospel account at that because, as per them, no work of Greek literature has ever ended in the phrase ‘gar’ (this is all Greek to me, I wouldn’t know ‘gar’ from Adam). What’s your take on this? Do you think Mark was supposed to end at 16:8? Or is it a case of the original ending being lost to posterity and hence not recorded in the Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus?
It is debated whether a book can end with gar, but it appears that indeed it is possible. And Mark almost certainly did. It heightens the suspense and makes it a brilliant ending. The other choice sometimes thrown out there is that hte original last page came to be lost. Seems highly unlikely to me…..
I was surprised you spoke there, but I noticed the audience quite enjoyed your talk and seemed really receptive to the arguments you put forth.
Another for your list: parents encouraging their kids to go out for football (expose themselves at a tender age to concussions).
Great Post. Most of religion seems crazy to those outside the given religious system.
Watching the second half of your talk (the Q&A), I can see the value of you having participated now. Most of the people getting up to ask questions soooo wanted you to tell them what they wanted to hear – the Jesus and Mary Magdalene *really were* married and that there was a Dan Brown-like conspiracy, or that you really believed in the gnostic ‘divine sparks’ etc. Your answers disappointed them. But at the same time, they were respectful, and by the end, it was clear you had won them over, if not changed their minds. Your closing remarks, where you were given an opportunity to express what you believe (or don’t believe) on a personal level and why, I think was extremely valuable.
I enjoyed the video. The Ramtha School folks invited you to educate them about the Gospel of Judas and you did. It is hard to find fault with that.
Professor,
I guess if giving the lecture does not prevent you from giving a lecture at a more suitable venue, then there is no harm.
Perhaps, if you want, you could comment on the story you recounted in the question period (I think you called it a “tradition”, but I can’t find the part in the video now) about Erasmus and his promise that, if someone showed him a Greek manuscript with the Johannine Comma, he would include it. It seems some people have challenged Metzger’s account of these events. I have your revision of Metzger’s, the 4th edition of _The_Text_of_the_New_Testament_, and there it’s said that the promise “may” have happened (p. 146). What exactly is the confusion as to whether Erasmus made the promise or not?
Sincerely,
Peter
Good question! I may post on it. Metzger himself was inclined to think it happened, but htere is almost no hard evidence for it.
“almost” no hard evidence, Bart? Does this mean there is a shard?
Sorry — I forgot what you are quoting me on!
😉 I was quoting you on your response to Atethnekos’ comment, regarding Erasmus and the promise.
Ah. It’s a bit tricky, but the short story is that there is no explicit statement in Erasmus’s writings that he made any such promise; on the other hand, there is the fact that he did later introduce the passage into his text after being shown a Greek manuscript that had it. so why do that? Possibly he just caved under pressure….
It sounds like your audience enjoyed your talk on the Gospel of Judas as much as I did. (As an aside, I loved how you wove your personal stories into the talk. Funny!)
Yes, JZ’s teachings are really wacky, (and it seems that it is not infrequent that selling personal revelations and practices leads to lawsuits and accusations of abuse of authority, as in her case), but yes, I couldn’t agree with you more that in 300 years (less, I think) people will be saying that our generation’s systems of thought and social organization were nuts.
As for Part 1 of the talk, the way you describe the Gnostic system of thought, on the one hand, sounds like an S-F story, but on the other hand has a core that is very appealing: that of people possessing a divine spark that is trapped in matter and can be released with special knowledge and practices. It sounds like a LOT of other religions and philosophies.
You were tongue in cheek when you joked with the audience that you have the secret about how to rejoin the divine, but you have some doubts about them so can’t tell them. 😀
So here is my question:
It is “secret”, but not in the sense that it can’t be told. It is only “secret” because a person won’t understand the knowledge (that is in Jesus’ sayings in the Gospel of Thomas or elsewhere) unless you have the background information (the Gnostic cosmology) that will help you to correctly interpret and understand what Jesus said. Is that correct?
tracy
Yes, more or less. It is “secret” because it can be told to, and understood by, only some people.
Tracy,
This “secret” business is there because the scholars who translated the Gospel of Judas translated it wrong!
Bart tells me I don’t know Coptic so I can’t help. No, I don’t know Coptic. BUT THE PASSAGE IS IN GREEK, loanwords, and the words are mistranslated! The secret account of the revelation [“Apophasis Logos”] by which Jesus spoke to Judas Iscariot, during eight days, three days before he celebrated Passover.” That’s the Critical Second Edition version by Meyer, pertinent Greek part in quotes. It is not even a sentence the way they do it, so it is not a definitive version. The words are “apophasis” (not say) and “logos” (Word) http://www.yourdictionary.com/apophasis
and they mean “Word said without saying” (or speaking). This is the heart and soul of Mystic or Gnostic teaching. It is not a “secret account of the revelation” that you see most often here, Tracy. it is not “the secret denial” of some others. It is the ethereal Word from Heaven, the Holy Sound Current, Word of John 1, and is the real from of the spiritual Masters of Mysticism. That’s a heady concept, but that is what they teach. I have heard it in person. Judas is “given” Word by Jesus.
The scholars do not know Mysticism. I DO!
It’s not a sentence in Coptic either. Welcome to the joys of translation!
Maybe it isn’t a sentence, but you still got it wrong. I know what the Unspoken Word, or Ineffable Name is because I have a mystic Master who is Word incarnate, and I hear it every day! You don’t believe it, that’s a given, but it does explain a lot — especially when you see “region never called by any name” in the revelatory section, a dead-ringer for “Anami Desh” (No-name Region) of Sant Mat’s highest heaven. 🙂
i think we can call some veiws dumber than others. for example if Bob believes that the world is flat while Jim believes that the world is flat and that it was created b aliens then Jims veiws are dumber than Bobs because jims views contains more illogical thinking than Bobs (by ilogical thinking im talking about thinks that make a good explanation such as testability, ocams razor ect)
btw here in Australia we think the poms have some pretty silly ideas such as the Queen, obsession with soccer and love of warm beer!!!!
Bart,
Are you going to post Part 2, so we can comment on it? Q/A’s?
Yup!
A Christian friend of mine refers to you, regarding the way you teach about the Bible, as a “respectful unbeliever.” The discussion about Ramtha reminded me of this. Watching your lectures on the videos you provide and in The Great Courses has helped me find ways to discuss religion with others in a more respectful way. This is in marked contrast to some others who share my atheism, but enjoy ridicule more than I do. To me, string theory is crazy, but I don’t ridicule the physicists who accept it.
I can’t begin to understand why anyone would choose to believe what the Ramtha followers seem to accept, but I have bought into a few bits of nonsense over the years and I expect that everyone else has done so, too, if they carefully examine their lives. Engaging with people whose beliefs are different from one’s own beliefs can be educational as well as respectful. Both learning and respect are essential for a civil society. As long as someone is not trying to impose their beliefs on me, they do me no harm, as T. Jefferson once wrote.
I think our toleration of the things they will say are nuts in 300 years, is nuts.
Bart,
I watched Part 2 today. I can’t help show you the spiritual dimension I know we all have, to help you beyond Materialism, but I can show you the regional hospital in Beas, India, that my Master Maharaj Charan Singh, commissioned 30 years ago: http://rssb.org/organization.php (click on ‘hospital’)
Knowing of your commitment to alleviate suffering, I think you will be much impressed. They treat and put up for FREE, not only patients, but THEIR FAMILIES as well, for the duration. It’s a huge volunteer operation, as is the entire Beas, Punjab Dera Colony operation of some 25,000, supported by 3 million Satsangis worldwide, like myself.
Notice also that the “kiss” in gPhilip which signifies spirit, is also present in the ‘Betrayal’ in the same function, only INVERTED (Eisenman shows the m.o. of Pauline NT inversion from the Scrolls) to hide James as ‘Judas’. I can put ALL this together in a coherent cause and effect for you. There is so much to see, and I want you to see it all!
We both started in such similar Evangelical beginnings. Let me show you a Path you might have taken. Suffering is not a ‘problem’. It is an effect. We all make choices, and karma is inexorable. You need to accept reincarnation as part of the schema. Without it, nothing makes sense at face value. Release is the goal. That’s Gnosis. The Masters have it to give to others.
I assume that when they invited you to speak, they knew what they getting. But I am curious to know what thread of common interest they would have had with you to cause them to invite you.
As I was brought up a young earth creationist, a fundamental Baptist kid, going to Christian school and church, and playing in a band for years spreading the good news, I look back on it all and think now, I was absolutely insane to believe in such teachings as fact. My point is what’s the difference is Bart talks to a bunch of fundamental Christians or Ramtha? – Nothing
Bart, with regard to lost gospels and lost forms of Christianity, how important as sources of manuscripts have been the ancient Christian towns of Syria like Maaloula. Is it likely that the ongoing upheaval there, quite apart from the huge human tragedy, has also resulted in the loss of important ancient documents?
Great question! I’m afraid I have no idea!
“But are the doctrines of transubstantiation (the elements really do become Jesus’ body and blood) and biblical inerrancy (this demonstrably mistaken book is completely without error) REALLY less “crazy” than the view that we are all gods and that we are reincarnated and that someone from 35,000 years ago is being channeled today.”
No, not at all. Human “beliefs” are completely arbitrary. And I’d go so far as to say that the Ramtha people are actually more moral in their beliefs than Christians, since they chose them willingly as sentient adults, rather than had them forced on them with the threat “believe this or else!” as children.
Addressing a few comments in general… re: mysticism or beliefs seeming crazy. Agree with Prof. Erhman that yes, 300 years from now (if we haven’t all destroyed each other and the planet) that we may very well be seen as superstitious or ignorant wackadoos. One thing that is interesting to me is precisely how today’s physics, quantum mechanics, string theory (which I don’t understand very well, but “Through the Wormhole” is an interesting series and poses some scientific evidence that does point to multiple universes, life after death or reincarnation, out of body experiences or astral projection, near death experiences, psychic phenomena, etc etc, in a very “unquacky” way). One day future humans may indeed look back at us and laugh and say, “Those poor folks were entirely earthbound and had no idea of their capacity to project their consciousnesses to other planes of reality.” See, I sound like I’m on an acid trip, but maybe we are not the wise ones we like to think we are. 🙂
The problem with mysticism is that … well, mystics all sound like they’re on acid trips. Right? The Book of Enoch? Was he sniffing myrrh? Eating lotus flowers? Ezekiel? WHAT was that?! Revelation? John, dude, put down the crack pipe. Paul on the road to Damascus? Was he taking ecstasy? But still, *something* in human beings yearns towards the Divine. Well, some humans. Haven’t scientists even talked about a “God gene” that seems to be particularly turned on, pun intended, in people of great faith? However, if you have a mystical experience, nowadays people don’t tend to believe you because you can’t PROVE it. All you can say is what happened to you. And it is not easy to articulate. So “secret knowledge”… well, maybe it’s just stuff that can’t be understood except by other people who have also had a mystical experience of some kind. I’m surmising here, but that mystical experience, perhaps, was called gnosis, and though all people have that “divine spark,” most just aren’t tuned into it. We also just don’t have the language to express it understandably to those who have not had a mystical experience. Physics may one day–finally–give us that language.
Anyway, I’m just pondering in writing. One physicist named Tom Campbell has written an interesting series of books called the My Big TOE trilogy (TOE= theory of everything). He has a scientist’s answer to out of body experiences and what’s out there because he’s had them himself, with other colleagues, in a research lab setting. He has a channel on Youtube. He’s clearly highly intelligent and NOT crazy.
I guess I’m trying to suggest that it’s possible that one day science will catch up to the mystics.
Oh, the Ramtha group. Duh. I don’t know anything about them, but just from your description, it sounds like they believe in Atlantis (philosophers of 35,000 years ago) and the Lemurians (who, legend says, have had to hide in the center of the earth, or at least very far below ground). These esoteric/hermetic beliefs have been around since well before the time of Jesus. And many, many cultures believe in reincarnation. Didn’t the Essenes? Certainly the Hindus and the Buddhists. And also some Christians I know even believe in reincarnation. Alas, you recall a past life and tell somebody that… boom! Somebody is bound to say your mind has gone. So, perhaps “gnosis” was kept secret more for self-protection than anything else.
Who knows? I wasn’t there. At least, not that I can recall. 😉
And now I’m off to watch the video…
Joyce
The core problem with reincarnation is simply a law of numbers. There are a lot more of us now on the planet, so unless they had souls on ice up there, or in there, there wouldn’t be enough souls to go around…so maybe some people are just soulless. Guess that would explain a few things…maybe they are on to something 🙂
good point!
And hence… multiverses. More than one universe, more than one planet. Maybe it’s possible to incarnate on different planets.
Or, you’re right, some people just have no souls. LOL