Pericles, my dear Year 3 Lad! No offense meant by my ‘style’! I remember your paper aeroplanes landing plumb centre of my paper tray! You didn’t know, but I kept your best models!

Can you now accept Mick V’s expansion of my ‘Read through John's Gospel, as you would any book’ as my carelessly-expressed meaning? John’s Gospel is well-attested as an example of the genre of ‘first hand eye-witness testimony’ to ‘Who Jesus Is’. Not only is it ‘well documented’, but it is comprehensive of its use of hard evidences in achieving its purpose. Also, it has been highly selective of material, as John attests in Chapter 20, verses 30 and 31 and Chapter 21, verse 25, but not for the purpose of discounting any evidence of substantial value.

Remco criticises Irenaeus valuing the earlier 1st Century four gospels over the later 2nd Century gospels, such as that of Judas, Thomas and Mary: ‘Ulterior motives’ belonged not to Irenaeus, but to the later Gnostic Christians, who quite definitely did not witness Jesus first-hand. John was such a first-hand witness, and in the late 1st Century was Polycarp’s Teacher, in Smyrna of Asia Minor, and Polycarp was the Teacher of Irenaeus in the early to mid 2nd Century. Heart, mind, soul and spirit, they shared a common love for the Risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Pericles, your request: “I would be interested to hear why you consider this sequence of thoughts (of AnthonyMarinac) to be a problem”. In another life I was a fizz-banger teacher, and by ‘problem’ I had in mind the scientific approach to classroom science experiments of ‘Problem’, ‘Hypothesis’, ‘Controlled Experiment’, ‘Results’, ‘Conclusion’. Resolving the two apparently contradictory positions of Anthony will be very much like solving a ‘Science Problem’. Good scientists and good Christians have characteristically been the same person, but not excluding many non-Christians! Enjoy solving your 'problem' Anthony, and anyone else who shares it!

And, you add: “It cannot be read as history either, given that the author wasn't actually there, but that's another issue”. May I take that issue up in my next post?

BeeTee, how flattering that you remember those paper aeroplanes. You have no idea how much care I lavished on their flimsy ailerons.

I am intrigued by your endorsement of Mick V's reading - "I try and interpret it as the author intended... narrative as narrative, history as history, symbolism in prophecy as symbolic, etc. etc."

Surely, before you can isolate the intention of the author, it is important to identify him. Or her. This is a discussion that, I am led to believe, has been under way for some considerable time, amongst scholars far more aware of the available material than I, and infinitely more capable of tracing its source.

Even were you able to pinpoint exactly which individual, or group of individuals, is responsible for the writing, how can you possibly discern their motives?

You propose that a sound analytical methodology might be to "try to see yourself amongst these people, in circumstances like these, people like you and me, witnessing these events."

This indicates the viewpoint to be a local resident of some kind, but with the assumption that the events actually did take place.

I prefer, as you may have gathered, to put myself in the shoes of the PR agency of an early religious evangelist, given a brief to "sex up" the story of a little-known figure who died a political death a few years earlier, but who was generally regarded as a really neat guy.

A few miracles here, a couple of arguments with authority there, a dramatisation of his execution and some mysterious happenings afterward and voilà!! The foundations of a new religion, one that reinvigorated its Jewish roots and refreshed the whole story into a more "human" package.

By the way, you once again referred to

>>Resolving the two apparently contradictory positions of Anthony<<

My question was not about your methodology, but the fact that I could not discern any contradiction in his position, and was wondering if you could enlighten me.

Just like you did in the old days, when you told us all about stamens and pistils.

We are getting totally lost in personal details and off the topic. BeeTee, I do not value some gospels over the others - I just question the authority and the impact of Irenaeus. But then I dont care about words on paper documenting stories.

I simply ask, what have Christians left if their book was proven no more legitimate than the Torah or the Koran? But let's not get on to that, what legitimacy do Christians really have? There is NO evidence their believe is superior to others. Yes there are some recorded "miracles" over the years but UFOs have been sighted and well documented as well. Take out the book and nothing is left except edifices, statues and people. Nothing superior to offer over other systems. It's all comes back to something past. Christians dont live longer, healthier, or have anything to show for their belief and practices. It is as hollow as the statues to saints in the temples. Empty words pretending as a "saved" they would be in "sin" whatever that means.

The author quite rightly reminds us that the apparent battle between science and religion is really the disguised dispute between naturalism (physicalism) and supernaturalism.

But what he claims to have discovered is that the New Testament does not really contain supernatural elements. Dispute solved!

He wants to urge us against missing the meaning of the Gospels but does this by spiritualising away the events the Gospels narrate.

Ironically, the unacknowledged commitment to naturalism the author condemns is the same commitment that has him rewrite orthodox Christianity according the gospel of Bultmann. If the author was serious about his biblical criticism he would avail himself of current scholarship ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’ Tom Wright (greatest living Protestant theologian) is just one instance. Or for a quick read Dr William Lane Craig http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/historical.html

Just because supernaturalism is unfashionable among a slight majority of his colleagues and just because many of them are philosophically illiterate and reductionistic does not mean that the solution to their ills lies in anachronistic re-interpretations of the Gospel narratives. Doing violence to the texts will not bring peace to insoluble philosophical disputes.

The author writes about causation but rules a particular kind out ab initio (from the beginning) his justification for this is to use Kant and Hume as authorities. Kant claimed all our knowledge is subjective and Hume believed that truth could never be found. Is the author’s essay merely subjective? Is it true? The dishonesty of the author is immediately apparent. I would much prefer the honesty of his atheist colleagues than Sellick’s dishonest theism.

On David Hume, these pages from GK Chesterton might heal his wounded imagination http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Gilbert_K_Chesterton/Orthodoxy/The_Ethics_of_Elfland_p3.html

How the author keeps the idea of a God who as Lord of history and the material universe could not (because of philosophical materialism!) do the things in the New Testament and the idea of omnipotence in his mind at the same time is surely a mark of an intelligence that has lost the ability to function.

Pericles,
If you have no faith, I don’t understand why you are concerned that Sells’s faith is on the verge of disappearing. Why should that bother you?

Remco is feeling the debate is becoming boring. Can we spice it up for him? He may be hard to impress. After the flames have gone down on his book burning bonfire he may be looking for some other pyrotechniques.

Remco, if you dislike the Bible so much, I don’t suggest that you burn them. Such protests bring free publicity, and it’s already a best seller every year. You will become very busy trying to burn them all.

You also say we’re getting off the topic, which I thought was the credibility of Christianity in the face of a modern materialist view which discounts miracles. Sellick doesn’t go in for miracles. But if you don’t believe at least in Jesus rising from the dead, why bother being a Christian? What would you do on Easter morning, eat chocolate?

The resurrection is the foundation of the faith, and that momentous event is what separates Christianity from other faiths and ideologies. The New Testament is the testimony of the witnesses of the event. We can’t escape the importance of those writings.

Following that, the testimony of Paul and others leading up to today who have experienced the miraculous power of the risen Christ. The evidence is in lives forgiven (forgiveness being Jesus’ main message) and changed for the better.

Most usually don’t believe in the possibility of current day miracles, unless you’ve experienced one for yourself. Miracles such as healing are a sign for unbelievers. (Though they are not a replacement for caring hospitals and medical science. Jesus never promised that life would become a bed of roses. He said faith would be tested by hardship. He predicted people would hate his followers just as they hated him. They may even come around and burn your books.)

Some of the growth among the Pentecostal churches can be attributed to their insistence that miracles can occur today. Unlike Sells, their faith is not on the decline.

The same old tired unbelievers arguing.