Thread for non-MAGA Christians

[TarSpiel]

Walsh situates the gospels within the wider literary culture of the Greco-Roman world. When we talk Seneca (or whoever), we do not have to make an appeal to a "Senecan community," but instead understand his writings as participating in a certain generic milieu. So too with the gospels, which have some astonishing parallels in Greco-Roman literary genres.

This doesn't make much sense to me. The author of John certainly *had* a community, and I'd say it's equally certain that he himself and his friends and associates had an ongoing and conflictual relationship with a synagogue and/or group of traditional Jews. I don't know Walsh at all, but I'm sure even he wouldn't dispute those things.

The comparison to Seneca seems to me to be unhelpful. Seneca was the top of the top in Roman society, and wrote to a preexisting and thriving book market...bookstalls sold his works in thousands of cities all around the Roman Empire. That's not anywhere close to what John was. It just seems like an extremely strained comparison, and if the only payoff is you get to de-emphasize the role of "community" in understanding John, it borders on ridiculous.

I didn't know about Hollinger's work...I had a look at it this morning, and it looks pretty good. It does seem at first glance though that there's a pretty strong correlation between how he uses the word "Christianity" and what is in fact "White people Christianity." IE, a lot of those statements don't seem to apply so well to the black church.

 

[starheel]

i haven't heard of this guy but for some reason this was in my algorithm and i watched it. this is more along the lines of what i think Christianity is and should be. its a little political for a sermon in church, but i agree with it.

 

[breepf]

This doesn't make much sense to me. The author of John certainly *had* a community, and I'd say it's equally certain that he himself and his friends and associates had an ongoing and conflictual relationship with a synagogue and/or group of traditional Jews. I don't know Walsh at all, but I'm sure even he wouldn't dispute those things.

The comparison to Seneca seems to me to be unhelpful. Seneca was the top of the top in Roman society, and wrote to a preexisting and thriving book market...bookstalls sold his works in thousands of cities all around the Roman Empire. That's not anywhere close to what John was. It just seems like an extremely strained comparison, and if the only payoff is you get to de-emphasize the role of "community" in understanding John, it borders on ridiculous.

Since I'm too lazy to dig up the book, all I can do is give the best account of Walsh's book as I recall it, though the misleading Seneca example is my own.

Her point is that scholarship on the gospels emphasizes the insularity of the early Christian community at the expense of understanding the gospel authors as part of a wider literary network. The author's relationship to proximate proto-Christians matters, yes. But Walsh argues that scholarship tends to treat the gospels in terms of what we might describe as a "reflection thesis" or, worse yet, "zeitgeist." In that regard, John becomes a genius, in the romantic sense, synthesizing the beliefs of the Johannine community. Scholarship on contemporaneous non-biblical literature makes no comparable concession to a community, but would instead understand <insert someone other than Seneca> as an author participating in literary culture and making accommodations to genre. To that end, Walsh describes the miracle births, empty tombs, and whatever else that populate the literary culture of the Greco-Roman world.

Walsh is no mythicist, but she does draw attention to how the quest for the historical Jesus can obscure the rank literariness of the actual evidence. I quite enjoyed her book, and I apologize for being unable to give a robust defense of its arguments and evidence, which I found persuasive as a non-expert with a PhD in another humanities field. In the grand scheme of things, I know a pittance about biblical studies, but it's my impression that Ehrman would nowadays be regarded as conservative, disciplinarily speaking, inasmuch as he wants to move from text to history. But I'd love to hear an actual religious studies scholar's take. (For what it's worth, I very well may have first heard Walsh on Ehrman's podcast, though she made the biblical podcast rounds last year.

It's been several years since I read the Hollinger book, but I appreciated how it snapped into focus the dynamics of modern American Christianity, in particular the struggles of "liberal" Christianity.

 

[TarSpiel]

Since I'm too lazy to dig up the book, all I can do is give the best account of Walsh's book as I recall it, though the misleading Seneca example is my own.

Her point is that scholarship on the gospels emphasizes the insularity of the early Christian community at the expense of understanding the gospel authors as part of a wider literary network. The author's relationship to proximate proto-Christians matters, yes. But Walsh argues that scholarship tends to treat the gospels in terms of what we might describe as a "reflection thesis" or, worse yet, "zeitgeist." In that regard, John becomes a genius, in the romantic sense, synthesizing the beliefs of the Johannine community. Scholarship on contemporaneous non-biblical literature makes no comparable concession to a community, but would instead understand <insert someone other than Seneca> as an author participating in literary culture and making accommodations to genre. To that end, Walsh describes the miracle births, empty tombs, and whatever else that populate the literary culture of the Greco-Roman world.

Walsh is no mythicist, but she does draw attention to how the quest for the historical Jesus can obscure the rank literariness of the actual evidence. I quite enjoyed her book, and I apologize for being unable to give a robust defense of its arguments and evidence, which I found persuasive as a non-expert with a PhD in another humanities field. In the grand scheme of things, I know a pittance about biblical studies, but it's my impression that Ehrman would nowadays be regarded as conservative, disciplinarily speaking, inasmuch as he wants to move from text to history. But I'd love to hear an actual religious studies scholar's take. (For what it's worth, I very well may have first heard Walsh on Ehrman's podcast, though she made the biblical podcast rounds last year.

It's been several years since I read the Hollinger book, but I appreciated how it snapped into focus the dynamics of modern American Christianity, in particular the struggles of "liberal" Christianity.

Okay. I see now that I'm dealing with a smart, well-informed person with a judicious perspective. I'll try to moderate my tone accordingly.

I'm not currently engaged with that scholarship much at all, so I just have a layman's take on it. I don't really understand her points about "the rank literariness of the actual evidence" (I understand that this is your summary of her point, but even allowing for a more refined/jargoned way of putting it, I still don't get it), or her critique of traditional scholars (I'm guessing primarily Brown) for whom "John becomes a genius...synthesizing the beliefs of the Johannine community." Yes, Brown probably thought John was a genius, but no, that was not his main point, nor his main contribution to the scholarship. I don't think I ever read a single scholar say that John perfectly (or even imperfectly) synthesized the views of a group of people. What they say is that the experiences of that group influenced John's perspective, and helps explain a lot of otherwise problematic passages.

Just on the surface of it, (and granted her thesis is probably way more refined), it seems like she's using way too many syllables. The gospels are religious literature used by a very small group of people (maybe a couple thousand by the year 100 AD?). The literature had a communal function, and the communities weren't that big. The groups were probably most comparable to mystery cults, and there was probably an element of secrecy associated with them. I just find the concept of "communities" to be incredibly helpful in understanding those documents, how they functioned, and the arguments and disputes that arose out of them. So Walsh's critique that "other contemporaneous literature isn't interpreted with respect to communities" just really falls flat to me. Other contemporaneous literature wasn't functioning the same way as the gospels were.

Ehrman definitely wants to move from text to history. So do I/did I. It was actually a big moment in my gradutate eduction to realize that some very smart people weren't reading the text to see what was behind it (as me and Bart did), but rather reading it to see how it affected its readers. I had never even conceived of that approach. And the young woman who read the texts that way, one of my fellow grad students who wasn't interested at all in the history behind a given text, is now the Dean of Humanities at Yale...yeesh.

But last time I had drinks with Bart out here in California, we sort of got drunk on martinis and lamented the state of NT scholarship, how no one was even really trying to move from text to history any more. And granted, a lot of that work has already been done, and there don't seem to be that many good ideas left. But you're getting papers now like "A Jewish Transgender Reading of I Peter 2:2"...and, well, I guess I should just say that kind of crap bores me to tears and leave it at that.

 

[breepf]

If you're interested, here's an academic review of Walsh's book--the rest are paywalled--that concludes that her thesis is provocative but not entirely persuasive. Again, I profess disciplinary ignorance:

The origins of early Christian literature: contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman literary culture – Bryn Mawr Classical Review

bmcr.brynmawr.edu

I'd be more than happy to hear your thoughts on it, but isn't the quest for a historical Jesus an intellectual offshoot of Protestant preoccupations? In that sense, then, is it fair to say that you can take the boy (Ehrman) out of Protestantism, but you can't take the Protestantism out of the boy?

I also wouldn't be interested in a Jewish transgender reading of 1 Peter 2:2 either. I'm sympathetic to concerns that contemporary readers too often try to make texts therapeutic--what does this text say to me now about whatever I'm confronting? Along the same lines, though, I wouldn't be very interested in a contemporary devotional Presbyterian reading of 1 Peter 2:2. To paraphrase James Kugel, both readings are playing the "relevance" card with regard to the Christian New Testament and, to be perfectly frank, I'm not persuaded that it or the Hebrew Bible were designed to speak to modern concerns.

 

[Wheels81]

 

[TarSpiel]

If you're interested, here's an academic review of Walsh's book--the rest are paywalled--that concludes that her thesis is provocative but not entirely persuasive. Again, I profess disciplinary ignorance:

The origins of early Christian literature: contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman literary culture – Bryn Mawr Classical Review

bmcr.brynmawr.edu

I'd be more than happy to hear your thoughts on it, but isn't the quest for a historical Jesus an intellectual offshoot of Protestant preoccupations? In that sense, then, is it fair to say that you can take the boy (Ehrman) out of Protestantism, but you can't take the Protestantism out of the boy?

Thanks for that link...I read the Amazon blurb last night and was...skeptical. I'll read this review later.

I don't understand why the quest for the historical Jesus would be an "offshoot of Protestant preoccupations." I mean, it's just doing history, unless history itself is an offshoot of Protestant preoccupations, which seems ridiculous even on the surface. I'm confused. Why would trying to find the most likely historical description of one of the most important figures in world history be an offshoot of ideological preoccupations? And that idea, that you can take Ehrman out of Protestantism but his Protestant upbringing explains why he chose to investigate this material as matters of history (as opposed to, say theology) again just doesn't make any sense to me.

If the quest for a historical Jesus is an intellectual offshoot of Protestant preoccupations, wouldn't all history done by westerners be an offshoot of Protestant preoccupations? I mean, we do the same thing with Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Plutarch, Philo...and pretty much anyone else important who has ever lived.

 

[breepf]

Thanks for that link...I read the Amazon blurb last night and was...skeptical. I'll read this review later.

I don't understand why the quest for the historical Jesus would be an "offshoot of Protestant preoccupations." I mean, it's just doing history, unless history itself is an offshoot of Protestant preoccupations, which seems ridiculous even on the surface. I'm confused. Why would trying to find the most likely historical description of one of the most important figures in world history be an offshoot of ideological preoccupations? And that idea, that you can take Ehrman out of Protestantism but his Protestant upbringing explains why he chose to investigate this material as matters of history (as opposed to, say theology) again just doesn't make any sense to me.

If the quest for a historical Jesus is an intellectual offshoot of Protestant preoccupations, wouldn't all history done by westerners be an offshoot of Protestant preoccupations? I mean, we do the same thing with Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Plutarch, Philo...and pretty much anyone else important who has ever lived.

The quest for the historical Jesus is infused with Protestant premises, so the argument goes, because it uses skepticism about the received tradition to shift the grounds of faith to the pure and original Jesus of history. Inasmuch it derives from a textualist orientation, the resulting Jesus recalls "sola scriptura." And so, in this telling, even as he examines the merits of the recovered texts, Ehrman stays on agnostic-atheist side of a Protestant project.

 

[TarSpiel]

The quest for the historical Jesus is infused with Protestant premises, so the argument goes, because it uses skepticism about the received tradition to shift the grounds of faith to the pure and original Jesus of history. Inasmuch it derives from a textualist orientation, the resulting Jesus recalls "sola scriptura." And so, in this telling, even as he examines the merits of the recovered texts, Ehrman stays on agnostic-atheist side of a Protestant project.

I could see that sort of thing applying to Bultmann and Reizenstein and Holtzmann and all those German guys, but this just reeks of the perspective one loses during the multi-year process of reading German scholarship from 1850-1950 in the original language, in order to pass your qualifying exam for a PhD in New Testament Studies within the American academy.

Trying to understand what Jesus was like as an historical figure, and to see through the biases of the evangelists, isn't a "Protestant project," and anyone who says otherwise has lost their bearings.

 

[mpaer]

I am not knowledgable compared to many of you . For a few years I did "study" such things -often through the lense of Bart Ehrman. I will say three things
1. There are real history scholars who spend their life on this subject
2. The Bible we use has been rewritten literally thousands of time -it is not reasonable to say it is literally the word of G-d
3. The political evangelicals are Shape Shifters. There is no reason to believe at least half of what they say

 

[breepf]

I could see that sort of thing applying to Bultmann and Reizenstein and Holtzmann and all those German guys, but this just reeks of the perspective one loses during the multi-year process of reading German scholarship from 1850-1950 in the original language, in order to pass your qualifying exam for a PhD in New Testament Studies within the American academy.

Trying to understand what Jesus was like as an historical figure, and to see through the biases of the evangelists, isn't a "Protestant project," and anyone who says otherwise has lost their bearings.

As luck could have it, Walsh appeared this week on Biblical Time Machine, a second-tier bible podcast:

Reading the Bible as Greco-Roman Literature - Biblical Time Machine (podcast)

01:02:41 - The authors of the New Testament were playing with genres, philosophies and themes that were well-known in Greco-Roman literature. Guest Robyn Faith…

www.listennotes.com

 

[breepf]

As luck could have it, Walsh appeared this week on Biblical Time Machine, a second-tier bible podcast:

Reading the Bible as Greco-Roman Literature - Biblical Time Machine (podcast)

01:02:41 - The authors of the New Testament were playing with genres, philosophies and themes that were well-known in Greco-Roman literature. Guest Robyn Faith…

www.listennotes.com

For those keeping score at home, I'd rank the Bible podcasts that I listen to as follows:

1. NT Pod--Mark Goodacre (Duke) is a very well-established New Testament scholar who often delights in pushing against the disciplinary consensus, particular w/r/t to so-called Q source. Unfortunately, Goodacre rarely posts new episodes.

2. Data Over Dogma--Dan McClellan is a public-facing Hebrew Bible scholar who has a funny but informative podcast that primarily focuses on correcting Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps surprisingly, McClellan is a Mormon. My only beef with McClellan is his refrain about "structuring power," which means exactly nothing.

3. Misquoting Jesus--Bart Ehrman obviously farts more knowledge about the New Testament than I'll ever have. My issue with his podcast is that I get the impression that it sometimes downplays disciplinary arguments to give a more consensus view of issues.

4. The Bible for Normal People--Pete Enns and his sidekick do "faith" shows (which I skip) and "bible" shows (which I listen to). I like Enns, but I feel like his seminary background gives him a bit of a devotional/confessional take on the material, which I'm less interested in. But he certainly likes kicking evangelicals and fundamentalists in the penis.

5. NT Review--a pair of former Duke grad students talk through seminal works in New Testament studies.

6. Biblical Time Machine--meh

** New Books Network--hit or miss interviews with scholars with recent books on the Biblical Studies, Christian Studies, and Jewish Studies channels

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

i haven't heard of this guy but for some reason this was in my algorithm and i watched it. this is more along the lines of what i think Christianity is and should be. its a little political for a sermon in church, but i agree with it.

This thread has gotten way over my head... but shout-out for this video. THIS is a Christianity I would be open to knowing more about... not the one that constantly people attempt to shove down my throat.

 

[05C40]

One of my favorite examinations of Christianity is Diarmaid MacCulloch's "A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years." Loved both the book and the accompanying multipart TV series.

 

[fourheels]

My wife and I were doing our morning devotion today and it was focused on the difference between fear and love in attributing fear to evil or dark forces. I couldn't help but notice that the party that holds themself up as the righteous, Christian party is the one that operates in fear while the one they demonize as anti-christian and evil is the one that focuses on hope, mercy, kindness, love, compassion, equity, justice and empathy.

 

[lawtig02]

My wife and I were doing our morning devotion today and it was focused on the difference between fear and love in attributing fear to evil or dark forces. I couldn't help but notice that the party that holds themself up as the righteous, Christian party is the one that operates in fear while the one they demonize as anti-christian and evil is the one that focuses on hope, mercy, kindness, love, compassion, equity, justice and empathy.

Yeah, I don’t think that’s even a little bit coincidental. It goes to to one of the most entrenched aspects of human nature, and Jesus himself addressed it pretty directly in the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30. If your prevailing political disposition is one of fear and exclusion rather than joy and inclusion, it’s a solid sign you don’t have a clue what the gospel is really about.

 

[TarSpiel]

My wife and I were doing our morning devotion today and it was focused on the difference between fear and love in attributing fear to evil or dark forces. I couldn't help but notice that the party that holds themself up as the righteous, Christian party is the one that operates in fear while the one they demonize as anti-christian and evil is the one that focuses on hope, mercy, kindness, love, compassion, equity, justice and empathy.

Well, I think those of us on the left do our fair share of demonizing and fear-mongering about those on the right. There's a lot of dysfunction & toxicity on our side of the aisle too.

I do agree with you though that what passes for Christianity in MAGA is a lot of things, but Biblical isn't one of them. At least our religion is rooted in the basic emphases of the biblical tradition.

Our fall semester just started, and in my world religion class one of my students asked me what I thought about the evil, wicked people who lie to you all the time (and she meant that in a political/media sense). I told her that in my experience a lot of those people weren't intentional about it, they were just confused and/or deceived themselves. But she was pretty adamant: Satan is real, and people worship him, and they're coming to get you. We'll see how things develop going forward, hopefully she'll eventually start to understand that it's human nature that's messed up, equally in both "us" and "them."

 

[rodoheel]

Checking in to this thread, though I haven't read much of it. I have some thoughts and questions for the group.

I was raised Christian and still generally think of myself as a Christian, at least culturally, in the sense that I generally try to follow the teachings of Jesus in the Bible and raise my kids to do the same. And we still celebrate the major Christian holidays. But many people would probably not consider me a Christian because...at this point in my life I don't actually believe. I don't believe in a Biblical, omnipresent God; I don't believe heaven and hell are real; I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus as the literal son and embodiment of God on Earth.

I live in the city where I grew up and we still go to the church I grew up in from time to time; I'm still technically a member but we don't tithe. Like many churches I worry that it's struggling with attendance somewhat, but I generally think it's still a good church with a good culture and the current pastor, who's fairly new, is good and I enjoy and appreciate his sermons. It was an important place to me growing up, and there are still a lot of people there who mentored and cared for me when I was younger, who have been very important to my family (including helping my dad a lot when my Mom died), and who are good and kind people overall. My young kids enjoy going and enjoy the people they see there.

My wife and I go back and forth on whether to really commit to the church - trying to go every week, tithing, participating in the community, etc (I would probably get asked to join the session as well). Part of that decision is the normal stuff you consider about any activity for your family and kids at this stage - do we want to make the time commitment, do we want to make the money commitment, etc. But at least for me, part of the decision is also a moral and ethical decision: (1) is it right for me to commit myself as a member of the church community when I don't really believe some of the fundamental tenets underlying the religion; and (2) is it right for me to raise my kids in a religion to say and believe things that I don't believe myself? Of course I myself was raised as a kid saying and believing those things, and I still think I turned out fine (and obviously got to a place where I could think critically about those issues myself).

What says the ZZLP about the situation?

 

[Cappy the Stool Man]

Dear Trump-supporting "Christians":

I hope you enjoy HAYYYY-ELLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[fourheels]

Well, I think those of us on the left do our fair share of demonizing and fear-mongering about those on the right. There's a lot of dysfunction & toxicity on our side of the aisle too.

I do agree with you though that what passes for Christianity in MAGA is a lot of things, but Biblical isn't one of them. At least our religion is rooted in the basic emphases of the biblical tradition.

Our fall semester just started, and in my world religion class one of my students asked me what I thought about the evil, wicked people who lie to you all the time (and she meant that in a political/media sense). I told her that in my experience a lot of those people weren't intentional about it, they were just confused and/or deceived themselves. But she was pretty adamant: Satan is real, and people worship him, and they're coming to get you. We'll see how things develop going forward, hopefully she'll eventually start to understand that it's human nature that's messed up, equally in both "us" and "them."

That's certainly fair that both sides are afflicted by the flaws of humanity. I'm not one that buys into the Satan is real, good vs. evil, spiritual warfare stuff, etc... but it's certainly resonated in me the difference in tune of what we've heard the last three nights versus Trump's recent appearances, tweets, etc... I do think a healthy fear of neo-nazis, white supremacists, etc that comes from Charlottesville and their general emboldenedness driven by Trump and his cronies is different than fear-mongering that is rooted in isolation, ignorance, and selfish desire to take society backwards.