A Brief Essay about Nothing

Why is it not the case that nothing exists—no rivers, grass, trees, rocks, animals, people, stars, empty space, etc.? In short, why is there nothing at all? My question is about cosmogony, that is, about the genesis of the ordered universe. The Judeo-Christian answer to the question, learned in religious schools, is the myth of creation.¹ The first account of Creation (Gen 1:1-31) begins as follows:²

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness (Gen 1:1-4 RSV).

From this account God is depicted as initially calling into being, or generating from nothing, an amorphous watery mass without firmament into a dark void (Gen 1:6-10). God brought order to this chaos, and then filled the earth with life.

Does one need God to explain the genesis of an ordered world? If so, then the explanation for the genesis of everything is based on religious belief, but sectarian religious belief will not satisfy some as an explanation for there are other Gods and other cosmogonies competing with the Genesis narrative.³ The objection to using theology to explain the genesis of an ordered world is that there is absolutely no verifiable evidence that anything preceded the universe as we know it.

Modern evolutionary theories for the genesis of the universe do not address the originating cause (if cause there be). Theories are of three types:

a universe which starts from a point origin at a finite time in the past and expands continuously to become infinitely large after an infinite time;

a universe whose radius has a certain value at the initial moment of time, and thence expands to become infinite after an infinite time;

a universe which expands from zero radius to a certain maximum and then collapses to zero again; this process of oscillation being capable of indefinite repetition. Within each of these main categories a large number of possible models can be constructed differing in various points of detail.⁴

The competitor to these evolutionary types is the steady-state or continuous theory of creation.

The steady-state model is an alternative to the Big Bang Theory of the evolution of the universe just above. In the steady-state model, the density of matter in the expanding universe remains unchanged due to a continuous creation of matter, thus adhering to the perfect cosmological principle, a principle that asserts that the observable universe is basically the same at any time as well as at any place.⁵ The history of the universe on the steady-state model extends to an indefinite time in the past and future.⁶

While the steady-state model enjoyed some minority support in the scientific mainstream until the mid-20th century, it is now rejected by the vast majority of cosmologists, astrophysicists, and astronomers, as the observational evidence points to a hot Big Bang cosmogony with a finite age of the universe, which the steady-state model does not predict.⁷ The theory of a steady-state universe is seriously challenged by the evidence that the universe is expanding. This demonstrated reality makes the “Big Bang” theory of the genesis of the universe far more plausible, and raises in an urgent way the question of what generated the “Big Bang”—unless we decide that the question is unanswerable.

            The question “what generated the universe” or put another way “why is there nothing at all” I personally find to be unanswerable, but for me it is an important question. It makes me more confident in the proposition that “God” is. “God” in this case, however, is not the personal God of Judeo-Christian faith, but rather the nonexistent point of origin whence all began.⁸ What do you think?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Virtually every society has a myth of creation to explain the origin of everything. See J. E. Wright, “Cosmogony, Cosmology” in NIDB 1:755-763.

²The second account is Gen 2:4-3:24.

³See for example the short collection of myths of the world before creation from the Pacific basin: Carl Sagan, Cosmos (Wings, 1980), 256-60.

⁴Young, Exploring the Universe (Oxford, 1971), 419-20.

⁵https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_principle#Perfect_cosmological_principle

⁶Young, Exploring the Universe, 411.

⁷https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_model ; Young, Exploring the Universe, 380-81.

⁸Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Cascade, 2019): “Matter and Spirit: Making Sense of it All,” 174-77; and also for an earlier version: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2015/08/matter-and-spirit-making-sense-of-it-all.html

Myth and Mystery

Profiling the Early Christian Mind¹

Writers of the New Testament use the words “myth” and “mystery,” suggesting that the mindset of early followers of Jesus may, in part, be described as arrogant, anxious, aggressive, and intolerant. They were lacking in critical thought and were hampered by a lack of curiosity. Features such as these might today be described as symptomatic of a personality disorder.

The word “myth” appears in a few of the later texts of the New Testament where it is always employed with a pejorative edge. The term is used to disparage the views of others and defame those holding such views (1 Tim 1:3-4; 4:7; 2 Tim 4:3-4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16). The word “mystery” suggests early followers of Jesus are confessing to a type of cognitive dissonance. “Mystery,” on the other hand, is generally used positively to describe the incomprehensible working of divine power, which the early followers of Jesus struggled to understand rationally. There were five issues that perplexed them and oddly some of these issues still remain problems for the modern Christian mind. These five issues are: the mystery of the failure of the Jewish mission (Rom 11:25-29); the mystery of the spiritual body (1 Cor 15:51-52); the mystery of God’s will to unite all things in Christ (Eph 1:9-10); the mystery of lawlessness already at work (2 Thess 2:1-12); the mystery of Christ (1 Tim 3:16).

The canonical gospels use “mystery” to describe a deliberate strategy used by Jesus to teach about the kingdom of God in oblique language in order to prevent the unwashed masses from understanding his teaching (Mark 4:11-12=Matt 13:11-12=Luke 8:10). The Book of Revelation uses the word almost as an equivalent of the word “puzzle” (Rev 1:20; 17:5, 7). Revelation 10:7 is obscure when it refers to “the mystery of God being fulfilled.”

What I have attempted above is to “profile” writers of certain New Testament texts. When scholars of ancient history attempt to characterize a figure of the past, they engage in “profiling.” A profile is a concise biographical sketch, but depending on the available evidence a more complete description might be possible. “Profiling” is an act whereby the researcher infers the likely character traits of individuals on the basis of the profiler’s data and reasoning. Depending on the amount of data available it may, however, amount to little more than educated guessing. In law enforcement profiling an unknown perpetrator consists in inferring the traits of individuals responsible for committing criminal acts. Speculation, however, is a conjecture without firm evidence. Hence a profile is a collection of inferences from data.

In New Testament studies drawing inferences about an author using textual data is an accepted practice. Scholars routinely describe an author’s beliefs on the basis of statements in the text. For example, Joseph Fitzmyer in his esteemed two volume commentary of the Gospel of Luke provides a rather lengthy sketch of Lucan theology.² The author of Luke is actually unknown and scholars who describe the theology of anonymous authors are basically profiling an unknown subject (an “unsub” in police jargon). It is also the practice of New Testament scholars to profile known authors of texts—Paul for example. They will even include psychoanalytical assessments of known and unknown figures from what has been written about those figures, as is regularly done with Jesus of Nazareth.³

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹This essay is an adapted excerpt from an essay recently published in The Fourth R, volume 32.5, September-October 2019, 7-10, 20.

²Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke I-IX, Anchor Bible 28 (Doubleday, 1979), 143-270.

³For example, Marcus J. Borg, Jesus a New Vision. Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (Harper & Row, 1987), 39-56.

Of lowly Prepositions and Bible Contradictions

A preposition is a “linguistic form that combines with a noun, pronoun, or noun equivalent to form a phrase that typically has an adverbial, adjectival, or substantival relation to some other word.”¹ There is a recurring phrase in three of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and Revelation that refers to a certain figure coming in the future. His coming is associated with heavenly clouds. In the gospels this figure is the Son of Man and in the Book of Revelation this figure is the resurrected Lord Jesus.²

            All of these recurring expressions are thought by New Testament Scholars to be derived from the Book of Daniel 7:1-28, where the author says:

I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him (Daniel 7:13, RSV).

The preposition (‘m) in the phrase “with the clouds of heaven” is regularly translated as with and it is so translated in the Septuagint (Greek translation of Hebrew Bible) as meta, which is “with” in Greek. The image evoked by the phrase (“coming with the clouds of heaven”) is unclear—that is to say: do the clouds surround him or precede him or follow in his wake?

            In the New Testament three different Greek prepositions are used in the phrase “coming [with, in, upon] the clouds of heaven. Two verses (Mark 14:62; Rev 1:7³) use the preposition “with,” as it appears in Dan 7:13. Three verses (Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27, 1 Thess 4:17⁴) use the preposition “in” (en in Greek). The image evoked by the phrase (coming in the clouds of heaven) is also unclear. Is the figure covered by the cloud, or among the clouds in the air? There are parallels in Hebrew Bible for this figure being covered by (that is, he is “within”) the cloud (Exod 19:9, 24:15-16, 34:5; Lev 16:2; Num 11:25, 12:5). On the other hand, five verses (Matt 24:30, 26:64; Rev 14:14-16) use the preposition “upon” (epi in Greek). There is no question about the image evoked in these verses. The figure is upon the cloud (in Revelation he is “seated” upon the cloud).

Ancient Gods were associated with heavenly clouds. The Greek God Zeus, for example, lived on Mount Olympus among the clouds and was called the “Cloud-gatherer”; and the Canaanite storm God, Baal, was known as the “Rider of the Clouds.” Here is a similar statement from Hebrew Bible:

An oracle concerning Egypt: Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud (Isa 19:1, RSV).

Artists have shown a great fascination with the subject of the triumphant Christ returning [with, in, upon] clouds of heaven. Modern readers of the Bible, however, should note that a scientific view of clouds was common knowledge in 5th century BC Greece. Here is a quotation from a comedy by the Greek playwright, Aristophanes, making that clear:

[I]s the phenomenon of rain best explained as a precipitation of totally fresh water, or is it merely a case of the same old rainwater in continuous re-use slowly condensed by the Clouds and then precipitated once more as rain?⁵

For the careful critical reader, the inconsistencies between the images and their obvious mythology do little to inspire confidence in the historical credibility of the biblical narrative. Only in myth, romance, or fiction do clouds become stable platforms for divinities.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. “preposition.”

²Critical Scholars in general think that the “Son of Man” is an apocalyptic figure other than the resurrected Christ. See Funk and Hoover, The Five Gospels (Harper, 1993), 76-77.

³A few manuscripts change the preposition “with” to “upon” (epi in Greek) in these verses.

⁴1 Thess 4:17 refers to the saints “in the clouds,” while the Lord is “in [eis] the air.”

⁵From The Clouds: W. Arrowsmith, Four Plays by Aristophanes (Meridian, 1994), 125.

Did Paul believe in the Christian Heaven?

Fortunately we do not have to wonder about the uncertainties of what Paul may have believed; his views can be described from what he himself wrote. How Paul used the word "heaven" (ouranos) shows that he clearly understood heaven as the divine realm, the abode of God, Christ, and the angels (Rom 1:18; 10:6; 1 Cor 8:5; 15:47; Gal 1:8; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:16). The view as expressed in these passages is identical to that of the ancient Greek world where heaven, and/or Mount Olympus, was seen as the abode of the Gods.¹ In Paul's view this heavenly abiding place of the divine appears to have been permeable (2 Cor 12:2), so perhaps its nether regions were open to visitation by other travelers on heavenly journeys as well as Paul.²

 

            Paul described those who shared his religious views as citizens of the commonwealth of heaven (Phil 3:20-21), which is their transcendental home in the heavens (2 Cor 5:1-4) where they would always be with the Lord (2 Cor 5:6-8; 1 Thess 4:16-17). With respect to the sovereign rule of God, in five instances the concept appears to be something that is realized in the future (1 Cor 6:9; 15:24, 50; Gal 5:2; 1 Thess 2:12), but in two instances it appears to be something one can experience in the present (Rom 14:17; 1 Cor 4:20).

 

            One way Paul may have differed from contemporary views of the Christian heaven is the state in which the departed soul would experience heaven. The Christian view of heaven today seems to be more Greek than that hope anticipated by Paul. Today, in general, Christian churches tend to think of a person's soul in terms of the disembodied state; the soul is the essential spiritual essence of a person that remains after the body has been discarded. This is essentially the ancient Greek concept.³ Paul, however, being Hebrew, was more influenced by the Hebrew myth of the first human being (Adam), who was created as a unified living being (Gen 2:7), and hence for Paul a disembodied soul was apparently a strange concept. In Paul's view a person was essentially a living being, and not an embodied spirit/soul. He argued that the dead will again be embodied with an imperishable "spiritual body" (1 Cor 15:35-50; 1 Cor 5:1-5), and, I suppose, in that state the believer would experience heaven.

 

            Another concept in Paul, strange to Christian ears today is Paul's association of the hereafter with the liberation of the physical creation from its futility (Rom 8:20) and bondage to decay (Rom 8:21), perhaps occasioned mythically by God cursing the ground when Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden (Gen 3:17). Romans 8:19-23 reflects a kind of restoration or renewal of the physical universe to its original "very good" state (Gen 1:31). The idea of a "new heavens and a new earth" (Isa 65:17) is shared by other early Christians (2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1). Paul, however, has specifically associated this restoration of the physical universe with believers awaiting the "redemption of their bodies" (Rom 8:22-23) as the universe awaited its renewal. I am not at all sure, however, what role a restored physical universe would play in the completely spiritual reality of heaven. But Paul dies not elaborate.

 

            In sum, Paul anticipates that after death the believer will be with the Lord in heaven; nevertheless that experience does not appear to be identical with contemporary ideas of the blessed state of the Christian heaven.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

1 Helmut Traub, TDNT, 5:500 [497-502].

2 James D. Tabor, Heaven, "Ascent to," ABD, 2:91-94.

3 Christopher Rowe, OCD, 1428.

Are there Gods among us?

It is not such an idle question as one may think. Many Christians believe that "entertaining angels unawares" is at least still possible even in the twenty-first century (Heb 13:2).  In other words they think that angels are actual heavenly entities who still walk among us in today's world.  Certain biblical texts support this way of thinking by describing humanoid angels interacting with human beings in the ancient world (Genesis 18:1-19:23; Judges 13:2-21; Tobit 5:4-5).

 

            The Greek Gods, for example, are well-known for their philandering ways; they descended from Mount Olympus in human guise on many occasions involving themselves in human affairs and having amorous liaisons with human women; similar activities are at least suggested by Genesis 6:1-2 where the "sons of God" (a sort of heavenly being) discovered that human females were fair to behold and "took to wife such of them as they chose." By contrast the God of Hebrew faith was more circumspect in his activities among human beings.  He descended from Mount Sinai and involved himself in human affairs, at times even taking on human form (Genesis 18:1-19:23, 32:24, 28, 30). He is described as having face, hands, and backsides (Exodus 33:11, 21-23), among other anthropomorphic characteristics such as eyes and ears, mouth, heart, arms, fingers and feet. He talks, writes, sees and hears, sits and rests, smells, whistles, laughs, walks, sleeps and awakes, and claps his hands.¹

 

            Occasionally God is described as walking among human beings as an angel (Judges 2:1-4; 6:11-18; 13:2-22). More often God's presence in the world is portrayed by natural visible phenomena: a cloudbank (Exodus 16:10-11; Leviticus 16:2; Deuteronomy 31:15; Mark 9:7), fire (Leviticus 9:24), or a burning bush that was not consumed (Exodus 3:2-6; Acts 7:30-33). Frequently his presence is signaled by an unnatural light referred to as "the glory of the Lord" (Exodus 16:10; Leviticus 9:6, 23; Numbers 14:10; 16:19, 42; 20:6; Acts 7:2). One modern writer described it this way: "The 'glory (kabod) of Yahweh' was God manifesting Himself in the brightness of light, revealing His holiness and power to men."² Sometimes glory is spoken of as an aspect of God, rather than God himself; that is, the glory appears with no reference to God's presence (Leviticus 9:6, 23).

 

            There is only one other figure in the Judeo-Christian tradition who has been described as God in human form: Jesus the Judean teacher of wisdom, who was called the Anointed (Christ). Only one passage in the early Christian canonical literature makes his identity as God even remotely possible, John 1:1-2. Other passages cited in this regard do not claim that he is God, but they do hold that he is a divine personage. In these high Christological passages there is always a clear distinction between the Anointed and God (Romans 1:3; Philippians 2:5-11; Hebrews 1:1-4; Colossians 1:15-20). Later in the fourth century the Nicene Creed confessed what the church believed was the true identity of Jesus: "We believe in one God the Father…And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father…"³

 

            Worshipping Jesus as God is rendered marginally respectable by the fourth-century Nicene belief in the Trinity (382 CE): "it is the faith that teaches us to believe in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. According to this faith there is one Godhead, Power and Substance of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; the dignity being equal and the majesty being equal in three perfect hypostases, i.e., three perfect persons."⁴ With three divine personages in the Christian pantheon, Christians had to find some way to ensure they were not really polytheists—hence the doctrine of the Trinity.

 

            If angels can walk among us, shouldn't Gods (if such there be) be able to do so as well?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

¹ Paul Heinisch, Theology of the Old Testament (St. Paul, MN: Liturgical Press, 1955), 57-58.

² Heinisch, Old Testament, 57.

³ Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, eds. Documents of the Christian Church (3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 27.

⁴ "The Synodical Letter of the Council of Constantinople," in H. R. Percival, ed., The Seven Ecumenical Councils, of The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers (second series; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), vol 14: 189.

Sex and Death: Paul’s Arguments from Mythology

Aspects of Paul's theological argumentation, social ethics, and anthropology are based on a Mediterranean myth of the divine origin of the first man found in an earlier Babylonian account and a later Hebrew account; they seem to be related. The word "myth" (μῦθος, mythos) is basically translated as story or narrative, but the term can either be neutral or pejorative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth. In the letters that virtually no one disputes as Pauline, the word "myth" does not appear. It only appears in the New Testament in the Pastoral Letters (1, 2 Timothy, and Titus), which most critical scholars attribute to a Pauline disciple, and in 2 Peter.  In these four cases "myth" is used in a negative sense:

 

1 Timothy 4:7—"have nothing to do with godless and silly myths." (RSV)

2 Timothy 4:4—"and turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths." (RSV)

Titus 1:14—"instead of giving heed to Jewish myths or to commands of men who reject the truth." (RSV)

2 Peter 1:16—"For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (RSV)

 

               These sentences clearly mark myth as misleading and untrue. Myth is not something that someone wanting to be "a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of good doctrine" would heed (1Timothy 4:6).

 

               Nevertheless, here are two instances of Paul drawing on the Mediterranean myth of an original man who was fashioned by God.

 

               In Romans 5:12-21 Paul asserts that all people are sinners because the sin of the first man (Genesis 3:1-13) passed into the entire human race, which is the reason that all people die (Romans 5:12; Genesis 2:17, 3:19)—although in the final analysis Paul blamed Eve for the wretched situation of the entire human race (2 Corinthians 11:3), as did one of Paul's later disciples (1 Timothy 2:13). The principle of passing Adam's sin into his descendants was set in Torah where God extended the sins of the fathers onto their descendants to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 20:5). Paul was clearly familiar with Torah (Romans 7:7 quoting Exodus 20:17; Romans 13:9 quoting Exodus 20:13-17), so it seems safe to assume that the principle of holding children culpable for the sins of their fathers was not lost on Paul. Hence, an act in mythical space and time before the beginning of historical time explains why people are sinners and why they die. Paul's ideas have no basis in fact or reason, but only in myth, so don't look for confirming evidence of sin in the human genome.

 

               In a second example (1 Corinthians 6:12-20) Paul again draws on the Mediterranean myth of the first man, arguing that an act of coitus with a prostitute establishes an essential physical relationship with her; they in fact become "one body" as a result of coitus. To support his rationale he again quotes scripture appealing to the myth of the first man and his consort (Genesis 2:23-24) of whom it is written "they two shall become one flesh." In other words, as it happened in mythical space and time between the first couple Adam and Eve, so it is in historical space and time between a man and a prostitute. Coitus is not simply a casual physical moment between men and women; it is a deed that effectively alters the physical composition of the male body/flesh, for the female prostitute is incorporated as part of the male body (Genesis 2:23), and the two are essentially one, so Paul argues.  Again, as in the first example, Paul's idea has no basis in fact or reason, but only in myth—so don't expect confirmation from a physical examination by your physician.

 

               It is important to note that Paul's argument is not based on "Scripture," which only informs him of the myth. His argument turns on what putatively "happened" in the case of the mythical man Adam. It was the "event" (so to speak) and not the later writing about it that is authoritative for Paul's argument. The mythical man, Adam, was fashioned by the divine creator as male/female and then s/he was divided into different genders –male and female (Genesis 2:18-23). Subsequently the "union" between a man and his mate restores the original state of the first man (Genesis 2:24)—the two become one flesh.

 

               Are the arguments of Paul invalidated because they are based on the "experiences" of a mythical man? It depends. Readers having a high view of Scripture will necessarily be compelled to accept his arguments that human beings are sinners and die because they are infected with the "germ" of Adam's sin. They will also be forced to accept his argument that coitus with a prostitute makes the male and the female essentially "one body" and would likely appeal to the "spiritual truth" of the statement to explain his argument.

 

               Readers guided by reason, however will not be impressed by Paul's argument about Adam's sin infecting the human race, since a "theological truth" is not necessarily historical data; and there may be excellent reasons for not engaging the services of a prostitute, but not because of the "experience" of the mythical man on whom Paul bases his argument.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Revelation: Did God talk to Paul?

The ancient Greeks, and the Romans, were both very superstitious and religious.  One of their many ways of divination, i.e., ways to find the will of the Gods, was through consulting special intuitive persons at some twenty religious sanctuaries throughout the ancient Mediterranean world.  These "diviners" were called "oracles," and were the mediums through whom a God transmitted revelations and oracles (as the sayings of a God were called).  The most famous of these religious sanctuaries was Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus overlooking the Gulf of Corinth.  People, from kings to paupers, came from all over the ancient world to Delphi to consult the Pythian oracle, prophetess of the God Apollo, one of the sons of Zeus.  She would receive her revelations while being possessed by the God in a cave located under the Temple of Apollo, whose ruins still exist, and she would communicate them to those inquiring of the God as sayings of the God (compare Acts 16:16-18: where a young girl is described as possessed by a "Pythian spirit").

 

            In the latter part of the first century and early second century A.D., a philosopher and literary figure, Plutarch, who was a priest at Delphi, wrote an essay explaining why many oracular centers in Greece had ceased to function ("Obsolescence of Oracles").  In other words a customary practice of ancient Greek religion was dying out.

 

            In the first third of the first century after the death of Jesus (around 30) certain followers of the Christ were also believed to be prophets (see Didache 11:3-13:7; 1 Corinthians 12:10, 29); they were moved by the Spirit to utter "the Word of the Lord" to their contemporaries, just as was done by the oracles in the religious sanctuaries of ancient Greece and Rome.  One of these early Christian Prophets was the author of Matthew's Gospel, who channeled a saying of the crucified and resurrected Christ (Matt 28:18-20).

 

            But perhaps more interesting is the claim of the apostle Paul that he himself, like the Pythia at Delphi, possessed the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 7:40), and said that Christ spoke through him (2 Corinthians 13:3).  Hence he was able to channel sayings (or oracles) of the deity, as the Pythia and the early Christian prophet Matthew had done.  Here is a clear instance of Paul claiming to be privy to "an abundance of revelations," channeling a saying of the Lord:

 

And to keep me from being puffed up with pride by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too puffed up.  Three times I begged the Lord about this that it should leave me; but he said to me "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:7-9; see also 12:1).

 

Further Paul claims that the gospel he preached was not something he learned from others or something he came up with on his own, but rather that it came to him directly "through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11-12).  He even claimed that he was directed "by revelation" to do certain things (Galatians 2:2), and on occasion he "would speak a revelation" to the assembly of saints (1 Corinthians 14:6).  He was not that special in this regard, however, for there were others in the gatherings of saints who also were believed to utter divine revelations to those assembled (1 Corinthians 14:26; for the divine gifts in the Pauline assemblies see also 1 Corinthians 12:4-11).  These spiritual abilities were not given to everyone, but only to certain individuals (1 Corinthians 12:28-30).  Paul used the same word to describe the revelations he received from the deity as the word he used to describe the authoritative prophetic writings of the Jewish Scriptures (Romans 16:25-27).  In other words his revelations were as authoritative as the Scriptures.

 

            To Judge by the experience of John, oracular utterances are received while the oracle is possessed by the spirit in a state of spiritual ecstasy (Revelation 1:9-20); that is, while the oracle is in a state of rapturous delight and beyond reason and self control.  There are still ecstatic churches today for which public utterances of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) are believed to be revelations from God.  Like the ancient oracle, the individual is thought possessed by the deity when bringing a revelation to the assembly (see Paul's description of such a public occasion, 1 Corinthians 14:1-25).  But for most of those churches, which are historically descended from the Reformation of the 16th century, glossolalia is a thing of the past—probably for obvious reasons.

 

            How does it seem to you?  Were there ever those among us so sensitive as to read what passes for thoughts in a Divine mind?  And was this intuitive ability on the part of some able to be used by all Gods of the ancient Hellenistic world to channel words of revelation?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

See also "Wry Thoughts about Religion" Blog: February 3, 2015; June 26. 2015; August 14, 2015.

Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel

The fourth Gospel (John) is the latest of the four canonical gospels. Its "tone" (i.e., its ideas, style, and manner of expression throughout the text) is remarkably different from the earliest gospel, Mark.  Compared to Mark, John breathes the rarified air of a high Christology and a religious tradition completely different from Mark, Matthew and Luke.  Their narratives rarely overlap in content, and on the rare occasions that they do John's version has little in common with the Markan narrative and its characterization of Jesus. For example, compare the healing of the lame man (Mark 2:1-12 and John 5:2-18), where John tells a very different story, which has few similarities to Mark.  And in the story of Jesus walking on the water (Mark 6:45-52 and John 6:16-21), where John's version is much shorter and only superficially similar.

 

               I have described John 1:1-18 as a confession, and indeed it is, but it is also unabashed mythical (not historical) language (compare Philippians 2:5-11), which sets the tone for the Gospel of John.  In general Myth is a story about gods and heroes in a time and place not recognizable as our own.  Myth is about creation and origins; it is an "attempt to explain creation, divinity, and religion."  History is about what actually happened in the past, and historical description is based on evidence available to a neutral third party.  This event, described at the opening of the gospel, is not historical in the sense that it takes place in common space and time; it occurs for the most part in the primordium—i. e., earliest origins and events taking place before the world and time began.  It describes the event on the basis of the faith of the author.  Plato, however, regarded all the Greek myths told by the Greek poets as "made up" stories; hence they were things that never happened in the past.

 

               The character of John is such that critical historians attempt to rehabilitate its history by appealing to its rare similarities with the synoptic gospels, and in this way arguing that it is possible that "within the material shared by John and the synoptics" the author of John had access to an "independent and primitive tradition" about Jesus (Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. Doubleday, 1966, 1: xlviii).  It is virtually impossible to harmonize the linguistic interests of the Judean Jesus of Mark with the language of John's Jesus.  For example, the striking dualisms in John, light/darkness (1:5), truth/falsehood (8:44-45), Spirit/flesh (3:6), above/below (8:23), do not fit the language world of the Judean Jesus of Mark, even though they are, in part, shared with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were contemporary with Jesus.

 

               Nevertheless John is not without its historical value, even though critical scholars generally recognize that it tells us virtually nothing about Jesus, the Judean man who lived more than a generation earlier than the writing of John.  Its value lies in the fact that the Gospel of John attests a very different type of Christianity at the end of the first century from what we find portrayed in the synoptic gospels a generation, or more, earlier; John represents a type of Christianity, which draws on different traditions some of which are likely as early as the synoptic tradition.  John demonstrates that a wide breadth of responses to the Judean man, and ideas about him continued to proliferate.  The Jesus traditions in the first century were pluralistic, rich, complex, contradictory, and none could claim exclusivity.

 

               There are remarkable differences between John and the synoptic gospels; here are a few of the most notable:

 

Synoptics:	John:
John baptizes Jesus with water.	John observes Jesus baptized by the spirit.
Jesus tells parables.	John has no parables.
Jesus' message announced the kingdom of God.	The kingdom barely mentioned.
Last meal Jesus says my body/blood given for you.	At the last meal Jesus washes disciples' feet.
Jesus performs exorcisms.	There are no exorcisms in John.

 

               In describing who Jesus actually was, one must make an either or decision between Mark and John.  As Albert Schweitzer saw at the beginning of the twentieth century, one must choose either the Jesus of Mark (which he incorrectly regarded as history) or the Jesus of John's gospel.  A middle path of harmonizing the two is not a historical solution.  Hence, since the beginning of the twentieth century the Gospel of John has been discredited as a historical source for Jesus, the Judean man who lived at the end of the first third of the first century.

 

What do you think about giving up the popular Jesus of the Gospel of John for Mark's Judean Jesus?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

See: Hedrick, When History and Faith Collide (Wipf & Stock, 1999), 30-47.

The Sibyl’s Wish: A Mythical Encounter

T. S. Elliott begins his famous poem "The Wasteland" (1922) with an epigraph from the Satiricon of Petronius (first century CE):

 

I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar and when the boys said to her, "Sibyl, what do you want?"  She replied, "I want to die." (The Satiricon 48:8)

 

For the rest of the story we must look to the Roman poet Ovid in his poem Metamorphoses (first century CE), collections of tales from classical and near eastern myth and legend.  He tells a story about the famous Sibyl of Cumae (Greek colony on the eastern coast of Italy).  The Sibyl, a prophetess who channeled the oracles of the God, was offered eternal, endless life by the Greek God Apollo if she would consent to sacrifice her virgin "modesty" and make love with Apollo.  She pointed to a mound of sand and asked for "as many years of life as there were sand-grains in the pile."  But she forgot to ask that for those years she would be perpetually young.  Through 700 years of life she continued to shrink and fade away until the time would come some 300 years in the future that she, a tiny thing, consumed by age, would shrink to a feather's weight—and at the end she would only be known by her voice (Metamorphoses xiv. 130-153).

            Of course it is only a mythical account; the God Phoebus Apollo and the Sibyl did not actually have such a conversation or liaison, and the Sibyl did not live for 1000 years.  Such mythical stories do not inform us about ancient history, although they may serve a didactic purpose.  In this case the "moral" of the account is perhaps something like: be careful what you wish; for your wish may be granted.  So we may benefit from mythical narratives as long as we do not insist on their historicity—that is, as long as we recognize them for what they are: made up stories.  If we insist that a mythical account is really history, we confuse two very distinct types of narrative, and what is worse we mislead people about past history.

            Much of the biblical narrative is mired in myth (stories about Gods in a time and place not recognizable as our own).  For example, Mark's account of the baptism of Jesus by John (1:9-11) is mythical (viz. the heavens open up, Spirit descends on Jesus, and a voice from heaven: "my beloved son").  And so is the story about the transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8) of Jesus (his garments became glistening intensely white as no fuller on earth could bleach them; Jesus was joined on the mountain by the dead heroes of Jewish faith, Elijah and Moses; a voice comes out of a cloud overshadowing them: "my beloved son").

There are other definitions of myth, and no one definition satisfies all. Here are a few others:

 

Myth is "a story that interprets natural events in terms of the supernatural."  "Myth is a means by which a people legitimizes a secular ideology by projecting social patterns onto the supernatural realm."  "Myth is a narrative expression of an idea foundational to human existence which can be known, experienced, and appropriated repeatedly by means of recitation and ritual."  Myth is "a traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the worldview of a people."

 

The early Greeks used the term in a neutral way as simply stories about the Gods; later, however, the stories about the Gods were recognized as fictional.  Plato, for example, describes some stories from the past as true, but others are fictitious (ψεῦδος), and those in Homer and Hesiod in particular "taken as a whole are false (ψεῦδος), but there is truth in them also" (Republic, 377A).  Hence Plato refers to myth (μύθος) as something not wholly lacking in truth, but for the most part [it is] fictional (J. A. Cuddon, Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 525).  And for that reason in The Republic (Plato's description of the ideal state) Plato (5th/4th century BCE) virtually banned telling children the stories of Greek poets, like those in Homer and Hesiod and others who told "false" stories about the Gods.  The reason is that such stories misrepresent the Gods (Republic 377A-383E), in spite of the little truth in them.

            Is there harm, do you suppose, in telling children mythical Bible stories and letting them think they are historical narrative?  I have in mind such stories as narratives portraying God ordering the complete annihilation of a people (the Amalikites: 1 Samuel 15:1-35), or a story that portrays God attempting to kill Moses, after sending him to tell Pharaoh to release the Israelites (Exodus 4:24-26), or a narrative about Baalam's talking ass (Numbers 22:15-35), or the sun standing still at Joshua's command while the Israelites took vengeance on their enemies (Joshua 10:12-14), or Jesus' bodily ascent into the clouds of heaven (Luke 24:36-42; Acts 1:6-11).

            How do you suppose an average adult in the United States reads the stories in the Bible—as history or fiction?

 

[My thanks to Charles W. Hedrick, Jr. who put me into this blog]

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University