Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Elaine Pagels interview in Salon [Religion]

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 4/3/07, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, Jonathan King wrote:
> >
> > Pagels is a very smart and interesting person, and I would suggest that
> > what she has to say is interesting even if you aren't likely to see
> > things her way (which I suspect might be a common category around here,
> > since I know it will include Mike Miller and I suspect it might
> > include...people who aren't Mike Miller. :-))
>
> Why wouldn't I see things her way?

I would have expected you to roll your eyes when, in spite of the fact
that she pretty much has down the complete history of how the New
Testament was likely assembled and is fully aware of the textual
inconsistencies and takes a rather different view of the whole
endeavor, that she still professes to be a Christian.

> The interesting thing for me is that
> all the gospels contradict one another and she sees them as created by
> people to fulfill certain needs.  For example:
>
>     The earliest gospel, Mark, says Judas handed him over, but it doesn't
>     give any motive at all. The people who wrote after Mark -- Matthew's
>     and Luke's gospels -- apparently felt that what was wrong with the
>     Gospel of Mark was that there was no motive. So Matthew adds a
>     motive. Matthew says Judas went to the chief priests who were Jesus'
>     enemies, and said, "What will you give me if I hand him over to you?"
>     And they agree on a certain sum of money. So in Matthew's view, the
>     motive was greed. In Luke's gospel, it's entirely different. It says
>     the power of evil took over Judas. Satan entered into him.
>
> So the authors were trying to tell stories and make them seem consistent.

Not exactly (or maybe I misunderstand you here). I think she's saying
that the authors were telling stories that they knew to be
inconsistent, and made them inconsistent on purpose, because their
beliefs differed from those of other early Christians. But, at another
level, there was a core of good news that they did wish to communicate
that would be recognized  as the foundation of their beliefs.

> This contradicts the common view among conservative evangelical Christians
> that the Bible is "the inspired word of God" and literally true in every
> detail.

It obviously contradicts the "literally true in every detail", but I
am much less sure that it contradicts the "inspired word of God" part.
That said, I studied paleography at Oxford one summer when I was in
college, and doing that, you become acutely aware of the fallibility
of human copyists and translators and come to grips with other issues
like "what is the text" which sounds silly until you realize what a
squirrely mess ancient and medieval libraries really were. The whole
thing is completely fascinating, but even *I* could see that the
average amount of money you could expect to earn in that field was
much less than what the average part-time crossing guard gets, and you
could argue that their job is way more important in terms of lives
saved.

jking

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