To Please Jesus?

As you likely do not know, every morning I read one very short essay in a small religiously conservative Daily Devotional magazine published by the denomination of the church that I attend. People from across the denomination, and others, submit a brief thought from their religious experience to share with readers. The purpose of each essay is to encourage the faith of the readers of the magazine. I initially began reading the magazine as an academic experiment to see if it is possible to identify the gender of the writers, but I have come to discover a second reason for reading. It is to get a sense of what is going on in the heads of those who occupy pews in the modern church, to sense the contemporary faith of believers of the modern Christian tradition. These are the anonymous voices of men and women from around the world, from the church’s mission fields and other countries, and from the New York Islands to San Francisco Bay. They are everybody and nobody, and represent all levels of the educational systems of the world; mostly, however, they are everyone’s next door neighbor. And their voices are all intensely religious, and trinitarian in orientation.

I was a bit confused by an essay I recently read one morning, however. The writer averred that “a pure heart reflects…a desire to please Jesus…” I was under the impression that the Bible holds up Yahweh, the God of Biblical faith, as the setter of standards for the way one lives one’s life in the Christian tradition. That is to say: people who consider themselves children of the God of the Bible, should aim to please God, or at least the biblical writers seem to think so (for example, Micah 6:6–8; 1 John 3:19–22). Aiming to please Jesus with one’s living may be traditional orthodox Christian theology but it is not Biblical theology. Pleasing Jesus is a statement based on the fourth-century church’s belief that God is a three-in-one whole, a Trinity, comprised of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three divine entities are depicted in the Bible as being separate entities until they were declared to be one by Church councils in the fourth century.¹

There are at least three passages that attest to a belief in the oneness of God among the earliest followers of the Jesus way. The first is from the Bible used by the earliest followers of Jesus: Deut 6:4, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” The second is from Mark 12:29–30, where Jesus quotes from Deut 6:4, showing that followers of the Jesus way believed that Jesus shared this belief. The third is a liturgical or confessional statement from 1^st Tim 6:4, “For God is one, and one mediator of God and humanity, a human being, Lord Jesus, the Anointed…” This confession shows distinct and different roles for God and Jesus.² God is God, and Jesus, a human being, is the mediator between God and humanity. I suspect the earliest followers of Jesus who made this confession would be quite surprised at the attempt to interpret God’s oneness as meaning three distinct figures constitute one God.

There is a similar liturgical/confessional statement in 1 Cor 8:6 that contrasts with 1^st Tim 6:4 both in the role of Jesus and in the character of God’s oneness. In this confession Jesus appears to play a part in creation, which appears either to make him share in the divine nature (a duality) or be a second divine entity. From the context (8:4–5), a second contrast is that the oneness of God is clearly intended to contrast with the many Gods of polytheism. That is to say, we affirm one God in contrast to the many Gods of paganism. Most of the creedal-like statements in the New Testament share a similar view as 1 Cor 8:6,³ which makes 1 Tim 6:4 all the more unusual in its naming of Jesus only as one the mediator and lacking the higher Christology of other confessions.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Hedrick, What the Church Doesn’t Tell You. Pondering Christian Tradition (Eugene, OR: Pickwick: 2026), 232-36.

²My translation. See, What the Church Doesn’t Tell You, 215-18 for a discussion of the passage.

³For example, Col 1:15–20; Phil 2:5–11; Heb 1:1-4.

Curiosity, Critical Thinking, Skepticism, and Faith

Can a critical thinker also be a person of traditional religious faith? It is true that many are, or at least appear to be, but who knows what goes on in another’s mind. As a purely theoretical question, the answer must be: perhaps. Two variables skew the response: the thinker’s curiosity and the reasonableness of the article of faith. Faith may not demand that critical thinkers affirm something they know to be patently false. Critical thinkers by their very nature are curious. Leading them to evaluate and critique the evidence before making a decision, or making a faith commitment. Curiosity is the mother’s milk of critical thinking. Without it there will be little critical thought.

            Religion in Western culture is generally conservative and offers its propositional truths as paradigmatically absolute; they are the product of divine revelation, we are told, to be questioned only at the risk of one’s immortal soul. Nevertheless, critical thinkers are not typically so generous as to affirm without critiquing. Regardless of the stakes, an individual who suppresses curiosity and affirms a religious proposition without serious challenge is not thinking critically.

            The real difficulty with religious truths, however, is that the absolute religious truth of one group frequently refutes the absolute religious truth of another group. Here is an example of one divine truth canceling another. Catholics regard the wine and bread of the Mass as transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ. Lutherans reject this view but affirm that in some way Christ is truly present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Baptists and others, on the other hand, regard the bread and grape juice (for Baptists certainly not wine!) of the Lord’s Supper as only symbolical. The bread and grape juice only represent the body and blood of Christ. As long as such ideas as these are considered simply different “beliefs” between religious groups, it is merely an oddity prompting the response, “how odd. How can people in the same religion who use the same holy books believe such remarkably different things?” But when it is remembered that these three groups hold that their respective views are absolutely binding on their memberships as the product of divine wisdom, it should strike a critical thinker as a curiosity for further investigation, particularly into the rationale of each group. Of course, they cannot all be the result of divine revelation! But the solution is not as easy as determining which is the correct view and eliminating the other two.

            The problem really goes to the nature of “religious truth.” Religious truth is not objective like mathematics—like 2+2=4, for example. Rather religious truth is only subjective truth in every case. Like beauty, religious truth lies in the eye, or in this case mind, of the beholder. That the character of the propositional truth is absolute is only true for the one who believes it is true. It is unlike Einstein’s theory of relativity E = MC², which is universally true—although true believers are scarcely apt to agree. Such an uncritical perspective is apt to strike the critical thinker as suspicious—if not worthy of complete skepticism.*

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*This essay first appeared in Charles W. Hedrick, House of Faith or Enchanted Forest. American Popular Belief in an Age of Reason (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009), 39–41. It appears here newly edited and under a new title.

Greek Mythology in the New Testament: Tartarus

Here is an interesting question for my friends who regard the Bible as being literally the Word of God, Himself: Must I believe everything written in its pages to be truth revealed from God?* There may be the odd equivocation here and there, but my impression is that religious leaders, whose beliefs about the Bible correspond to what a majority of Southern Baptists are said to believe, would answer that question in the affirmative.¹

There are reports in the Bible, however, that will cause a twenty-first century human being, who has had a basic science course, to pause before answering. One incident that comes immediately to mind is God causing the sun to remain at its zenith in the heavens and not go down for an entire day. Practically, this means the earth pauses in its journey around the sun. The incident is reported in the book of Jashar, which is not in the Bible, but it is also found in Joshua 10:12-14, which is in the Bible. There are also many other things in the Bible that might even tax the incredulity of a generally credulous true believer.²

            There is one passage, however, in Second Peter that, if pondered, just might undermine how most Baptists (and others) view the Bible (well, except for true believers, who are generally disinclined to ponder what they read).

For if God did not spare the angels who had sinned, but delivered them down captive into Tartarus in chains of nether darkness in custody until judgment…(2 Pet 2:4a, my translation)³

The word translated Tartarus is tartarōsas. It does not signify a person, place, or thing; it is a participle from the verbal form tartaroō, describing an action. In this case, "being held captive in Tartarus."

            I don't know of a story in the Bible about angels, who having sinned, were cast into nether darkness into Tartarus, but the Book of Enoch has a report about sinful angels and their fate (1 Enoch 10:4, 11-12).⁴ In Greek mythology Tartarus is both an earth-God (one of the earliest primeval Gods of Greek tradition, Hesiod, Theogony,115-129) and it is also a place, the deepest location beneath the earth. It is

as far beneath the earth as heaven is above the earth; for so far is it from earth to Tartarus. For a brazen anvil falling down from heaven nine nights and days would reach the earth upon the tenth; and again, a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and days would reach Tartarus upon the tenth. (Hesiod, Theogony, 721–725)

Tartarus is lower even than Hades. The ancient Greek poet, Homer, describes the distance from Hades down to Tartarus being, "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth" (Iliad 8. 16). Hades is the abode of the dead and Tartarus is reserved for the enemies of the Gods.

            Hadēs, is another bolt out of the Greek mythological blue: in Greek mythology Hades is also an ancient Greek God and a location beneath the earth, where people are punished for their sins.⁵

            How are believers in the Bible, as in some sense "the Word of God," supposed to handle what are standard features of Greek mythology appearing in the Bible? Are they mandated to take aspects of Greek mythology as God's Word?

            What they believe about these texts does not alter what they are, however: texts written by human beings whose inspiration by God could never be investigated; texts collected by human beings whose names are lost to memory; texts translated into numerous language, human beings choosing the modern language equivalent for the Greek and the Hebrew; texts whose Hebrew and Greek words that appear in the critical text are decided by human beings (text critics) and translators by judicious comparison of the ancient manuscripts that have survived.

            The truth is: the Bible is a collection of selected Hebrew and Greek texts that point toward a particular understanding of God.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Here, for example, is what Southern Baptists say that a majority of Southern Baptists believe about the Scriptures: "The Baptist Faith and Message Statement 2000," https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/#i

²See Charles W. Hedrick, "Superstition, faith, and the Marginal Relevance of the Bible" in Unmasking Biblical Faiths. The Marginal Relevance of the Bible for Contemporary Religious Faith (Eugene, Or: Cascade, 2019), 1-12.

³Compare a similar translation in the Holman Christian Standard Bible, a translation that is associated with the Southern Baptists.

⁴See also Gen 5:1-4; Jude 6.

⁵And a regular word for the place of punishment in the New Testament. For example, Hadēs: Matt 11:23, 16:18, Acts 2:31, Rev 1:18. Gehenna (generally translated Hell) is another name for a place of punishment in the New Testament: Matt 10:28, Luke 12:5, Mark 9:47, Jas 3:6.

Some Personal Perspectives on Religion

This essay describes a few practical guidelines for engaging religious traditions that have evolved from my personal experience and pondering. So far as I know they are not yet writ in any book; they are personal insights to which I have come through the years. I consider them to be truisms¹ for me in the practice and the study of religions. They are simply commonsense observations of which it is easy to lose sight, particularly in the practice of religion.

What is true in religion depends on whom you ask. There is no ultimate religious truth, but all people hold religious views as seem right to them. Religious truths are not verifiable and that is religion’s Achilles heel, a fact leading to competing religious truths.

Religious faith cannot reasonably demand that I believe whatever I find to be patently false or illogical. Actually, religion does make such truth claims, but, if I think about it, I am under no obligation to believe what I am told, if I find it to be incredulous.

I have discovered through the years that I have no independent knowledge of Gods, spirits, or other supernatural “entities.” I only know what I have read, what others have told me and what I have worked out for myself through my own ponderings. In general, religious professionals are too partisan, in favor of their own set of beliefs, to be trusted with giving unbiased and objective answers to questions about religion. They give answers based on the perspectives of their own personal faith.

I cannot read the minds of those closest to me; so, I never know what others are thinking; even if they tell me what they think, I have no way to verify it. The same is true of literary characters in a narrative. When a reader is told by the narrator what is going on in the mind of a character that is the author putting thoughts in the minds of his characters. In short, do not confuse the literary character of a gospel, for example, with the actual historical figure on which the literary character is based, for literary characters in a narrative are always inventions of authors.

Many believe the Bible to be a Holy collection of texts, divinely inspired. That idea cannot be proven in whole or in part. It is an opinion. What can be proven is that the Bible owes its existence to human ingenuity and labor. The role human beings played in creating the Bible is easily demonstrated. Human beings authored the ancient manuscripts that comprise the Bible. Others gathered them from the literary stream of Western civilization into collections. Scholars (called text critics) decide what the words of your Bible probably originally read from among the ancient copies of manuscripts. And human beings translate these ancient texts into modern languages. Text Critics and translators do not always agree. Hence various translations of the Bible do not agree in all particulars.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Truism: “a statement, the truth of which is obvious or well-known, commonplace.” Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4^th ed., 2002), under “truism.”

Knowing Jesus

I was chatting with a friend about someone I knew who was at the extremity of life and described him/her as a person of devout religious faith in one of the more liturgical traditions (for example, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.). My friend, quickly replied, “Does he know Jesus?” For a moment I was flabbergasted! The suggestion was palpable—how could one of those possibly “know Jesus.” How does one respond to such a question and suggestion?

            Jesus, as every conscious person in these United States knows, is a figure of the ancient past; he lived around two Millenia ago. An obscure (in his day) healer, thaumaturge and religious teacher during his life, he was crucified at the hands of the Romans on a charge of sedition and near the middle of the first century CE he was touted by his followers as being raised from the dead.

            Hence, the question could mean, does my seriously ill friend know Jesus like a figure of human history, or does he know Jesus as a figure in modern culture, for the name of Jesus is touted by innumerable religious groups, by their church steeples on countless corners, in religious commercials on television, in religious publications, in political movements, in marketing, etc.

            But I do not think my friend, who raised the question, was talking about knowing Jesus as a figure of the ancient past or as a cultural icon in the modern world. I was being asked if my seriously ill friend knew Jesus intimately, as we know those dear to us. That is, does he know Jesus spiritually, in his heart by faith? Has he been “born again” through a faith encounter with the living Jesus?

            Physically, human beings have only five faculties of sensation: seeing, smelling, hearing, touching, tasting.¹ These are the only means by which we are able to “know” the world around us. Physical sensations encountered through our senses are transmitted by means of neural activity to the brain where the brain interprets them. For example, we sense a touch, and the brain interprets it as soothing or painful.

Christian folk, however, believe there is also another non-physical way of “knowing.” It is by perceiving “spiritually.” Spiritual perception, they claim, is not dependent on the physical senses but rather on the Spirit of God that communes with the human spirit (Rom 8:14-16; 1 Cor 2:11-14; 6:17) to impart a knowledge of Jesus, the Christ (Phil 3:7-11). It is in this spiritual sense that I was being asked if my seriously ill friend “knew Jesus.”

The difficulty, however, is that human beings don’t have indwelling spirts as a distinct, identifiable aspect of the human anatomy. Human beings can “show spirit,” for example, but the spirit in this case is a motivational attitude that animates an individual, and that attitude would likely be considered an emotional response to some exterior stimulus. “When Paul speaks of the pneuma [spirit] of man, he does not mean some higher principle within him or some special intellectual or spiritual faculty of his, but simply his self…”² Nor do we usually speak in polite society of an exterior spirit acting upon us to produce an emotional response, such as that of “knowing Jesus.”

            As with any stimulus, the brain must process the putative “spirit encounter.” The stimulus in this case would be hearing the “Gospel” in the clamor of the different gospels preached by the likes of a Jim Jones or Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Benny Hinn or Billy Graham, Martin Luther or Norman Vincent Peale, Billy Sunday or Bishop John Shelby Spong, etc. Two texts in the New Testament even disagree over the role of Faith (Paul: Gal 3:6-19) and Works (James 2:18-26) in salvation. In short, there are competitive gospels, and each proclaimer is arrogant enough to think the gospel he preaches is absolute divine Truth to the exclusion of all other truths. Compare Paul’s arrogant statement about those who disagreed with his gospel in Gal 1:6-9. We tend to forget in our arrogance that it is God (if God there be) who will judge the condition of the human soul (if human soul there be) and will thereby “separate the sheep from the goats.”³

            There appears to be no accounting for the unusual things people will take as “gospel truth” when it comes to religion.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Philip G. Zimbardo, et al., Psychology. Core Concepts (Boston, MA: Pearson, 2009), 305.

²Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (2 vols. in 1; trans. K. Grobel; New York: Scribner’s1951, 1955), 1.206.

³An image used by Matthew’s Jesus in Matt 25:31-46.

Personal Religion: should one just "take it all on Faith"?

I am usually given a non-answer when I ask a question that rubs-up uncomfortably against someone’s religious beliefs. For example, I may say “how can the Bible be the Word of God when it contains errors?” God is perfect, right? Then comes back the perturbed answer, “I just take it all on faith,” as though that answered the question.

Here is one of those questions: Was Mark (or God?) in error when he wrote that Abiathar was priest on the occasion that David entered the Temple and ate the bread from the altar (Mark 2:24-26)? Actually, Ahimelech (2^nd Sam 8:17) was priest at the time that David ate the holy bread from the altar (1 Sam 21:1-6; cf. 2^nd Sam 15:35).¹ The discrepancy is not really a problem, however, unless you have the mistaken idea that the Bible sprang immediately from the mind of God, and was wholly and perfectly received through inspiration into the minds of its writers (something like osmosis). Bringing the Bible into print in the language of readers is a much sweatier, human process.²

            Taking matters on faith is not something that people do in virtually any other area of life. For example, in buying a house or a car, people count-up the cost, carefully read the contract, have the house checked that all is in stated condition and in working order, and have the car checked by a mechanic, if it is a used car. The rule in life for virtually all is “trust but verify.” People trust but verify because they believe the old adage caveat emptor (“buyer beware”). Particularly in everyday activities people are led by that adage. They diligently make shopping lists, and follow them, so that they will not give-in to urges and purchase things they do not need, cannot afford, or pay-for. They shop the sales offers and compare the costs of the same item in several different stores in order to pay less for an item. People as a general rule “take with a grain, or two, of salt” political promises made during an election year, and they check the politician’s background, reputation, and public record before casting their vote.

            So, why would anyone take personal religion on faith, without critically examining the beliefs? Surely, one’s religion is as important as buying a house? What happened to the old adage caveat emptor where religion is concerned? Why should religious faith take less critical thought than hanging pictures on a wall?

            Socrates, according to his student Plato, spent his life examining his own life and the lives of others (he was something of a gadfly on the citizens of Athens). Socrates once said (just before he was condemned to death on the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of the city by means of his persistent questions) that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”³ If one is going to shape one’s life by religious beliefs, those beliefs should be critically examined and probed. How, for example, can anyone claim that the Bible is the Word of God, when text critics decide its content, and translators bring the Bible into your language in their words? Questions about one’s personal religious faith deserve a more thoughtful answer than—I just take it all on faith.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Matt 12:4 and Luke 6:4 eliminate the name of the priest; one possible reason for their omission of the priest’s name is that they recognized Mark’s error.

²Hedrick, “Inspired Writings”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=inspired+writings

Hedrick, “The Bible’s Story: A Brief Summary”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2023/10/the-bibles-story-brief-summary.html

³Plato, The Apology, 38a.

Religions and Religion

This essay is about something we all likely know, or at least should know. The term “religions” refers to various historical movements that captured the religious imagination of believers through human history. The term “religion” refers to these phenomena generically. Religions are only temporary manifestations. They come and go with time and competition. Religion as such, on the other hand, seems to be endemic to the human condition.

I do not know if this is because such a thing as a “God gene” exists,¹ or because human beings are simply incurably superstitious.² The God gene option explains that we are innately predisposed to religion in some form and cannot help ourselves. In other words, religion is a part of the human DNA. The second option explains that human beings cannot rid themselves of a predisposition to superstition. In other words, we seem to be naturally superstitious. Human history is awash with odd beliefs, supernatural beings, and gods that were invented to explain what were found to be unexplainable.³

            Here are two brief scenarios illustrating the rise and fall of two religions. The universal religion of Manichaeism was founded in the third century C.E. by the Iranian prophet Mani. The religion was universal in appeal and moved beyond the Mesopotamian region in which it was born. It was a successful competitor with the indigenous religions it encountered in the regions it entered before it passed from the pages of history. It survived for twelve hundred years and traces of the religion can still be seen datable to the 17^th century C.E.⁴

            Christianity, a religion that emerged in the first century C.E. successfully competed with the indigenous religions of the Roman Empire with the help of the Roman Emperor Constantine. The fortunes of orthodox Christian churches prospered under Constantine. By a decisive victory at the Mulvian Bridge north of Rome Constantine became Emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 317 and in 323 its sole ruler. His victory at the Mulvian Bridge he credited to a vision of a single cross and the words “Be victorious in this.” He sent his soldiers into battle with the sign of a cross painted on their shields. Although outnumbered they won the battle, and Rome and Africa passed under Constantine’s control. Constantine saw the hand of the orthodox Christian God in the victory and to ensure continued support by that God the church was everywhere granted freedom from persecution.  He restored church property that had been confiscated, gave privileges to the clergy, and undertook a building program in the church’s behalf. It appears that Christianity initially received preferred status by the Roman government in the competition between religions.

Christianity was a way for Constantine to unify his empire and in 325 Constantine called and presided over the first Ecumenical Council of orthodox churches at Nicea, where in a climate of theological controversy separating the churches, the Trinitarian Creed was pushed through.⁵ Constantine further directed that the orthodox Bishop Eusebius procure for the churches, which Constantine intended to build, 50 copies of the Holy Scriptures.⁶ This action forced Eusebius to decide what books he would include in the New Testament, an issue that was then still in flux, as he reports in his Ecclesiastical History.⁷

After 440 C.E. no pagan names are listed among the elite at Rome,⁸ and over time the indigenous Roman religions were driven into the countryside. Today, so far as I know, no one worships Zeus/Jupiter any longer, and the indigenous religions of the Roman empire have effectively disappeared from the historical scene.

The passing away of even one religion raises the question of the permanency of any religion—even Christianity. It causes one to ponder what is meant by the term “true religion.”⁹

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene

²See, for example, Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Cascade, 2019), 1-12, 20-22.

³Hedrick, “Forces at Work in the Garden of the Lord,” pp. 20-22 in Unmasking Biblical Faiths.

⁴Paul Mirecki, “Manichaeans and Manichaeism,” vol. 4:502-511 in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992).

⁵R. P. Davis, “Constantine I,” Oxford Classical Dictionary (3^rd ed.; 1999), 378-80.

⁶https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Bibles_of_Constantine

⁷Ecclesiastical History, III, xxv.

⁸Charles Hedrick, Jr., History and Silence. Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity (University of Texas; 2000), 57.

⁹https://www.quora.com/Is-Christianity-a-true-religion-1

Responses to the Biblical Proposition: "God"

In biblical texts there are accounts of different responses to divinity. In this essay the divine is considered a proposition that individuals affirm, or not. The content of the proposition (what or who God is) differs from person to person; for people respond differently to the proposition “God,” because they conceive God differently. In general, we gather our ideas of divinity from our culture, engagement in society, religious gatherings, parents, and our own personal thought.¹

I realize that people who believe firmly in God would state the title differently. Some might entitle the essay “Experiences of God found in the Bible.” My title and way of focusing the essay is necessary to maintain objectivity, for if there is no God, then claims to experience God, must arise from within the individuals who make such claims.

            In the Bible there are very few personal testimonies about experiencing God made by those individuals who had the experience. A personal testimony is made by the person who claims the experience. In such cases the identity of the claimant must be known, for the claim to be personal testimony. All other claims are secondary or tertiary. A secondary level of testimony is when a given writer claims an experience with the divine on someone else’s behalf. For example, the author of Acts, regarded as Luke by critical New Testament scholarship, records three accounts of Paul’s religious experience (Acts 9:1-19; Acts 22:4-16; 26:9-18) and another of Stephen (Acts 7:55-56). Paul also describes religious experiences on the part of Peter and others (1 Cor 15:5-7). A tertiary level of testimony is when a writer of unknown identity claims a religious experience on someone else’s behalf; for example, Mark makes a claim for Jesus (Mark 1:9-11); the author of the book of Job records the religious experience of Eliphaz (Job 4:12-17); the author of First Kings records a religious experience of Elijah (1 Kgs 19:9-18). There is less chance of accuracy in secondary claims of experience with the divine, since such claims can be made to serve the interests of the writer.² Tertiary claims of experiencing the divine are reliably open to charges of being fictionalized.

Here are three personal testimonies of experiencing the divine. Isaiah claimed a personal experience with God when he “saw” the Lord “high and lifted up” (Isa 6:1-3). This distant, holy, yet forgiving Lord (6:4-7), called on Isaiah to proclaim a harsh message to the people of Judah (6:8-13). Did Isaiah “see,” these things in the sense that the images were registered on the retina of his eyes (i.e., there was actually something physically there to see), or did he imagine the entire experience (i.e., it only happened in his mind), or did he “create” the account out of his religious faith?

John, the author of the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse), describes a psychedelic-like³ experience when he was enraptured “in the spirit on the Lord’s day” (Rev 1:10). He heard behind him a voice “loud like a trumpet” (1:10). What he “saw” was the resurrected Lord presented in rather bizarre images (Rev 1:12-19). The rest of the book of Revelation constitutes other things John sees: “what is, and what is to take place hereafter” (1:19), which John wrote down in obedience to the command to “write” (1:19). Once again, a reader must decide if this experience was registered on the retina of John’s eyes, or were produced by his imagination, or created out of his system of religious beliefs.

Paul does not describe the actual moment of his encounter with the divine but alludes to aspects of it (Gal 1:11-17; 1 Cor 15:8). The elements of the event were:  God revealed God’s son to Paul to preach among the Gentiles (Gal 1:16; 1 Cor 15:8) and Jesus Christ himself revealed to Paul the gospel he preached (Gal 1:11-12).⁴

None of these experiences with the divine should be regarded as normative for one’s own experience. There is no such thing as a normative religious experience because people have different ideas about God.⁵ Gods conceived differently, “interact” differently, with those who conceive them.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹The Bible is not listed here because it is something we learn about and are taught by our parents and the culture in which we live.

²As in the case of Luke’s description of Paul’s experience: see Hedrick, “Paul’s Conversion/Call: A Comparative Analysis of the Three Reports in Acts,” Journal of Biblical Literature 100 (1981): 415-32.

³Imitating the effects of psychedelic drugs such as distorted or bizarre images or sounds.

⁴It is unclear to me whether Paul’s confidence that God set him apart before he was born and called him through grace was part of the divine encounter or is simply a part of Paul’s personal faith.

⁵http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=normative+religious+experience

Piety and the early Christian Tradition

Do you think of yourself as pious? In the practice of religion, the word pious is construed today in contradictory ways. The first definition for pious in my dictionary is: "marked by or showing reverence for deity and devotion to divine worship." The second reads: "marked by conspicuous religiosity." The first definition is positive; reverence for deity (if such there be) and devotion to worship of the divine (if such there be, and if one believes in behaving in such a way) is a positive act. The second definition sounds like "excessive religiousness." How could anything in excess be positive? Too much of anything is not a good thing (nothing in excess is an ancient Greek maximum). The fourth definition is divided into two parts: 4a reads: "marked by sham or hypocrisy"; 4b is: "marked by self-conscious virtue."¹ So it seems the definitions for piety range from a humble reverence for deity at one end and conspicuous hypocrisy at the other.

            Several words for piety from the ancient Greek world appear in the New Testament. The verbal forms (eusebeō and thrēskeuō) and their derivatives receive different translations from scholars. These words appear in what I construe as the later books of the New Testament. The words do not appear in the gospels or the undisputed Pauline letters. In the Bauer/ Danker lexicon eusebeō is translated as "to show uncommon reverence or respect, [that is,] to worship." And thrēskeuō is translated "to practice cultic rites; to worship." Here are some passages that use these verbal forms or their derivatives (1 Tim 5:4, Acts 17:23, I Tim 2:2, 2 Tim 3:5, 2 Pet 1:3, 2 Pet 1:6, Tit 1:1, Acts 10:2; James 1:26-27, Acts 26:5, Col 2:18). These words in the New Testament do not seem to have the strange positive/negative definition found in the meaning of the English word "piety." Likely because they do not address the issue of motivation.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6:1-7:29), created by the gospel's flesh and blood author,² one finds a short section (Matt 6:1-7, 16-18) directly addressing motivation for religious behavior. (Motivation constitutes the reasons why one behaves as one does.) Matthew does not use eusebeō or thrēskeuō. Instead Matthew uses dikaiosunē a word usually thought of as "righteousness." In its context here it is best translated in English as "righteous behavior,"³ but translators have rendered it variously into English as piety, religion, good deeds, charity, acts of righteousness, and righteous deeds in the few translations I checked. In these few verses Matthew condemns conspicuousness in the practice of religion and directs that charitable deeds, prayer, and fasting should be quietly and inconspicuously done.⁴ Those who do these acts in order to be seen by others get no credit with God (6:1, 2, 5, 16). Those who do receive credit with God for their righteous behavior are those who do their religious acts "in secret" (6:3-4, 6, 17-18).

            In Matthew's view righteous behavior (think of it as pious acts) in the earliest Christian tradition consisted of unostentatiously giving charitable gifts (alms), praying privately, and inconspicuously depriving oneself of food (i.e., fasting) for religious reasons. In addition, one must do these activities motivated by the right reasons (Matt 7:35 = Luke 6:45). The writer we call James adds to these behaviors, humane consideration for others (1:27-28; cf. Matt 25:31-46):

Devotion to God (threskeia) that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

To judge by Matthew's words our modern ecclesiastical ideas about piety may be misguided. Piety does not consist of church-based religious activities. For example, attending a preaching hour of the church is not a "service" rendered to God. (I assume we attend such a gathering for ourselves.) Piety is an attitude toward deity that may be judged positive, negative, or misguided by its behavioral expression. In other words, piety is expressed in specific activities that are commensurate with a certain attitude toward deity. Modern piety, which seems to consist of serving God through group activities in a church context, differs from piety in the early Jesus tradition, which, idealistically, was a deep reverence toward God expressing itself in certain private acts performed with no pretentiousness—or so Matthew thought.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. "pious."

²There are five addresses by Jesus that the flesh and blood author of Matthew's gospel has arranged throughout the gospel: Matt 5:1-7:28; 10:1-11:1; 13:1-53; 18:1-19:1; 24:1-26:1. Note especially the endings to the addresses: "when Jesus finished these…"

³Some manuscripts use the word "alms" (eleēmosunēn), suggesting the tradition found the word (dikaiosunē), as used in most manuscripts, to be unclear or unsatisfactory.

⁴Very little of this material (6:3 and perhaps 6:6a) was found to have originated with Jesus by the Jesus Seminar: Funk and Hoover, The Five Gospels, 147-48. Two of these religious acts (giving alms and praying) are found linked in Acts 10:2.

Faith and Superstition

In common vernacular superstition is a negative word. It evokes images of voodoo, magic objects, and fetishes. In a milder form in the modern world it might relate to things people carry for luck, such as a rabbit’s foot, or things they wear for protection, such as a cross necklace or the evil eye, or holding certain beliefs about the nature of the universe. Faith, on the other hand, is a positive word, and evokes such acceptable images in a democratic society as family worship in a synagogue, or men praying prostrate in a mosque, or people in pews praying and singing hymns together in a church sanctuary. Nevertheless, the definitions of the words reveal that, as concepts, faith and superstition are similar ways of thinking. Here are the Google definitions for religious faith and superstition. Religious faith is: “A strong belief in God or in the doctrines of religion based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”¹ Superstition is defined as: “An excessive credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural beings.”² God, Allah, and Yahweh, as generally conceived by religious people, are all supernatural “beings.” Why should not Christian, Muslim, and Jewish beliefs in supernatural “beings” also be regarded as superstition? Many, if not most, people in these three religious groups also share a belief in supernatural spirits. Why should not such beliefs also be labeled superstition?

            I confess that the close similarity between faith and superstition, as revealed by the definitions of the words, has always surprised me and have described their relationship as follows:

Faith and superstition actually seem to function in a similar manner. What I conclude from the shades of meaning accorded the word superstition is that superstition and faith are not two qualitatively different kinds of belief. Rather they reflect a range of similar attitudes best represented by a spectrum [or a continuum] with superstition at one end and religious faith at the other end. They meet somewhere around the middle, depending on who is describing the middle point. In short, what some define as acceptable religious belief, others will define as unacceptable superstition.³

In short, superstition and faith are the same mental exercise. That one is negative and the other positive depends on who is doing the evaluating. In my view, however, they can only be judged good or bad in how they affect believers. In other words, religious faith and superstitious beliefs may only be judged positively or negatively in terms of their ethical effects on believers. Where the behaviors of believers are judged unethical or harmful to themselves or others, their beliefs are best judged as superstition. Where the behaviors of believers are judged to be ethical and beneficial to themselves or others, their beliefs are best judged as faith.

            Google offers a second definition of superstition: “A widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such belief.”⁴ This definition fits a short episode in Acts 19:11-12:

And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. So that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them” (RSV).

This episode in the Bible (and others as well; for example Acts 5:15-16) immediately plunge one into the occult world of ancient magic, superstition, and religious fetishes.⁵ The Bible has many similar accounts fitting the Google definition of superstition; they offer encouragement to contemporary Christian and Jewish believers to think and act superstitiously. The Bible contributes to superstitious beliefs in the modern world because many take it as a handbook for understanding the universe.

How do you define superstition and faith? Where do you draw the line between faith and superstition?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹For the definition of faith, google: “definition of faith.”

²For the definition of superstition, google: “definition of superstition.”

³Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Cascade, 2019), 5. There are various explanations of superstition in Graeco-Roman antiquity, see pages 1-12.

⁴Google: “definition of superstition.”

⁵Hedrick, Unmasking, 7-10.

A Religious Experience?

What are religious experiences and whence do they arise? I raise the question because certain observations seem to challenge the adjective “religious” as being produced by spirit forces outside oneself. Here are the first two observations:

If God is spirit (John 4:24), then God is not an entity existing in space and time, as we human beings do. We humans are existents, bound in space and time during our brief lives. God, on the other hand, appears to be nothing more than a concept, an invention of the human imagination, whose nature and character changes with each religious group and/or individual. Hence, it appears that God, however conceived, has no independent being, which exactly corresponds to any of those ideations of the human mind.

The rationale for this surprising statement is self-evident when viewed from the perspective of the history of world religions. Each religion (and there have been a lot of religions through human history) conceives God differently, yet the adherents of this or that religion believe that God is exactly like what they conceive. In short, they believe their view is the only accurate and true view that captures the essence of God. But, alas, different understandings of God do exist in other religions and the adherents of these other religions likewise think that their understanding of God is exactly how God is.¹

Here is the third observation:

Spirit may still be “tangible,” however; depending on how it is conceived. If spirit is conceived as an entity that takes up space, like visible steam from a tea kettle, or the nearly invisible vapor arising from a heated substance, or the taste left in the rum cake when the “spirits” have evaporated, then it is tangible. If spirit is not left-over taste, or vaporous mist—or something barely visible to the naked eye; that is, if spirit does not leave an image on the retina of the eye, what is it?

I would suppose that God, as intangible spirit, is likely a denizen of a parallel spirit(ual) universe, a complex that does not occupy space and time. In this case, God is not part of the physical universe, but “over there” in the spirit(ual) universe, along with other invisible spirits (good, evil, and unclean), demons, devils, Satan, and other spiritual forces, such as angels, the Prince of the Power of the Air (Eph 2:2), the Principalities and Powers in heavenly places (Eph 3:10), the world rulers of the present darkness (Eph 6:12), the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places (Eph 6:12), angels, principalities, powers (Romans 8:38), etc.,² and including the myriads of other spirits humankind has invented through time.

I boil these three lengthy observations down into three propositions: (1) God, if God there be, does not occupy space and time and (2) is not part of our universe; (3) our human inability to access God directly renders any description of God completely subjective and idiosyncratic.

If these propositions have any merit, then what we think of as a “religious” experience is simply a human response to a perceived “attraction” from a putative spirit world,³ and the “substance” of our religious experiences is all of our own making; it arises from within an individual and is formed by human experience; that is, it derives from what we have been taught by others, from our personal reading, from social conditioning, and the like. In other words, we humans create at a subliminal level “religious” experiences for ourselves out of our personal experiences.

William James, in his Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature, examines religious experiences by beginning with individuals who claim to have had such experiences. He examines “the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.”⁴ For an experience to qualify as religious, James cites three criteria: it must reflect religious luminousness, philosophical reasonableness, and moral helpfulness. He finds that the essence of religion is human feeling “characterized as a zest for life” coupled with a sense that there is something wrong with us that requires a solution whereby we can be saved from wrongness by connecting with higher power. There are two types of religious psyches: the healthy minded who are unburdened by a sense of sin, and the sick souls who are burdened with a sense of sin. Conversion occurs for the latter person, whereby the divided and unhappy self becomes unified and happy. James has been criticized for relying too closely on liberal-Protestant sources and citing insufficient non-Christian anecdotes. This brief statement of the analysis of religious experience sounds very similar to what I stated in the preceding paragraph.

I realize that many will object that I have gone off the deep end by claiming that spirits, Holy or otherwise, are not found in our universe. Spirits, however, like God, can only be analyzed indirectly through the anecdotal claims of human beings who claim to have experienced them. Our inability to examine spirits directly renders any attempt to describe them completely subjective and idiosyncratic. In short, the evidence for spirits, Holy or otherwise, derives from the psychological makeup of the human beings who claim to have experienced them.

Something to think about!

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Hedrick, “God Does not Exist” pp. 168-70 in Unmasking Biblical Faiths, 168.

²Hedrick, “From Where does a Sense of the Divine Come,” pp. 170-72 in Unmasking, 170.

³Hedrick, Matter and Spirit: Making Sense of it All,” pp. 174-177 in Unmasking, 176-77.

⁴Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature (New York: Longmans, Green and company, 1905). I am following a review of the book by Tim Knepper: http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/relexp/reviews/review_james01.htm

Thomas Paine and the Bible, Third Part

Readers of the Age of Reason should not assume that Paine is in step with all positions of modern critical scholarship. One way that he is out of step with the results of modern scholarship is his view of the canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Judging by the current state of scholarship, Paine correctly understood that the gospels were anonymous and that their authors were not eye witnesses; that they contradicted one another in many ways both large and small; that they were written many years after the times they describe by persons he described as “half-Jews”¹⁶ (meaning, I gather, that they were from a mixed culture); that they were not written by apostles.¹⁷ He thought, however, that the canonical gospels were independent of one another,¹⁸ whereas the dominant position in modern scholarship postulates that a literary relationship exists between Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source drawing on another source no longer extant (Quelle, “source”) for material Matthew and Luke shared but does not exist in Mark. The dominant position on the Gospel of John is that John was written independent of the other three gospels.

            Paine, however, was not really interested in advancing the cause of critical scholarship of the Bible. He was primarily interested in the Bible only as a means of debunking Christianity as a religion of revelation, for Christians argued that the Bible was the word of God, God’s revelation to the world. Paine, on the other hand, argued that it is “fraudulent” to classify the Old and New Testaments as “being all revelation”:

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrible cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us. Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Old Testament is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the [Old Testament] have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the [New Testament the cause of ] the other.¹⁹

Nevertheless, Paine should probably be regarded as something like an “independent” scholar in the history of biblical scholarship. In contemporary language the term means that the individual so designated is not connected to an institution of higher learning, but has the requisite credentials and demonstrated learning to be included among the “guild” of scholars. In Paine’s case he would qualify as a scholar who demonstrated sufficient knowledge of the subject to be taken seriously by others in the field of the critical study of religion. “Layman” is an ecclesiastical term, meaning that that an individual is not ordained clergy, and hence would not be familiar with the professional knowledge of clerics. This term is surely not appropriate for Paine because of his demonstrated hostility against both the church and members of the clergy. As a deist, he would not want to be associated in any way with traditional Christianity.

Although his writing does not reflect the discipline of a mind academically trained, his insights were original for his day. He deserves to be included among the vanguard of modern critical scholarship and required reading for theological seminaries.

Paine deserves the last word. To close this essay, here is a challenging comment from Thomas Paine completely dismissing the entire theological enterprise as practiced in a Christian context, which relies on the Bible for its data:

The study of theology as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.²⁰

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹⁶Paine Collection, 217, 219.

¹⁷Paine Collection, 210-16.

¹⁸Paine Collection, 212, 216.

¹⁹Paine Collection, 222.

²⁰Paine Collection, 225.

Thomas Paine and the Bible, Second Part

It is surprising to me that, although my graduate education was in the critical study of the New Testament literature in its historical context, I never read Paine’s Age of Reason. I cannot recall offhand that anyone ever cited Paine as a part of the history of biblical criticism. Because of the character of his book, one would think that at some point I should have encountered Paine’s work since he preceded both D. F. Strauss and F. C. Baur in describing the importance of mythology and its influence on Christianity and was interested in the historical Jesus before Ernst Renan.¹

Paine’s writings reflect a better than competent knowledge of the content of the biblical texts. Although he lived at a time when public education was not compulsory, on his own initiative he read in translation many of the Greek and Roman classics, especially in the sciences.² He was basically self-educated with respect to the biblical texts yet he anticipated many of the positions that critical scholarship has come to hold today.

            For example, Paine anticipated the necessity for textual criticism, a basic approach to the Bible in modern criticism, but did not have the requisite skills or training to follow it through. Textual criticism is an investigation of the ancient manuscripts of the Bible with a view to producing a version of the biblical texts that restores the readings of the originals.³

It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as they now appear under the name of the Old and New Testament, are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them up.⁴

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are of themselves evidence that human language, whether in speech or in print cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God.—The Word of God exists in something else.⁵

Paine’s Age of Reason is a part of the Quest for the historical Jesus, an attempt to separate what can be known of the historical man from the Christ of early Christian faith. Paine viewed Jesus as the son of God “in like manner that every other person is; for the Creator is Father of All.”⁶ The canonical gospels do not present a “history of the life of Jesus Christ but only detached anecdotes of him.” Little is known of his childhood.

Where he lived, or how he employed himself during this interval, is not known. Most probably he was working at his father’s trade, which was that of a carpenter. It does not appear that he had any school education, and the probability is that he could not write, for his parents were extremely poor, as appears from their not being able to pay for a bed when he was born…Jesus Christ founded no new system. He called men to the practice of moral virtues and the belief of one God. The great trait in his character is philanthropy.⁷

The public career of Jesus was short, lasting “not more than eighteen months.”

            Paine raises the issue of traditional material being found in the Bible, meaning that it was not invented by the author in composing the text in which it appears but was material passed down until its inscription. For example, he says of the Genesis account of creation:

[I]t has all the appearance of being a tradition which the Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt; and after their departure from that country, they put it at the head of their history, without telling, as it is most probable that they did not know how they came by it.⁸

The canonical gospels he regarded as “founded upon tales, upon vague reports, and put together by I know not what half-Jews, with but little agreement between; and which they have nevertheless published under the names of the apostles of our Lord…”⁹ The recognition that the Bible contains traditional material anticipates at least two contemporary critical approaches to the biblical literature: Form Criticism (the attempt to identify oral forms in Old and New Testaments before they became incorporated into the biblical texts),¹⁰ and Tradition Criticism (the study of Hebrew and Christian oral traditions).¹¹

            Here are a few of the conclusions that Paine shared with contemporary critical scholarship: Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible);¹² the Book of Proverbs was not written by a single author but it is a collection;¹³ David is not the author of the Psalms; they are rather a collection;¹⁴ and the canonical gospels were not written by eyewitnesses.¹⁵ It seems clear that Paine shared the critical spirit of modern scholarship.

            The third part of Thomas Paine and the Bible will follow.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Paine Collection, 148, 153, 156, 161, 170. See Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1968) 1968. For Strauss, pp. 68-77; for Renan, pp. 180-92. For F. C. Baur see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Christian_Baur

²Paine Collection, 172, 186.

³W. Randolph Tate, “Textual Criticism,” in Interpreting the Bible. A Handbook of Terms and Methods (Hendrickson: Peabody, MA, 2006), 368.

⁴Paine Collection, 158.

⁵Paine Collection, 160.

⁶Paine Collection, 161.

⁷Ibid.

⁸Paine Collection, 158,

⁹Paine Collection, 217.

¹⁰Tate, Interpreting the Bible, 137-38.

¹¹Ibid., 374-75.

¹²Paine Collection, 186.

¹³Paine Collection, 159.

¹⁴Paine Collection, 200.

¹⁵Paine Collection, 216.