Can religion save the planet?
Prince Charles thinks it can. In a major speech on faith and the environment, he celebrates the positive potential of faith in the world and bemoans the "soullessness" of the modern age. Both the global environmental crisis and the international financial crisis are, he claims, "the outward consequences of a deep, inner crisis of the soul. It is a crisis in our relationship with - and our perception of - Nature, and it is born of Western culture being dominated for at least two hundred years by a mechanistic and reductionist approach to our scientific understanding of the world around us." Quoting C.S. Lewis, the Prince of Wales makes a case for a return to traditional values: "Sometimes you do have to turn the clock back if it is telling the wrong time".
Whereas the modern discussion about the environmental crisis has focused on developing better technology, Prince Charles argues that what is needed is "the recovery of the soul to the mainstream of our thinking."
Addressing the widespread abandonment of belief in the soul in the West, he writes:
"In general, we live within a culture that does not believe very much in the soul anymore - or if it does, won't admit to it publicly for fear of being thought old fashioned, out of step with "modern imperatives" or "anti-scientific." The empirical view of the world, which measures it and tests it, has become the only view to believe. A purely mechanistic approach to problems has somehow assumed a position of great authority and this has encouraged the widespread secularisation of society that we see today. This is despite the fact that those men of science who founded institutions like the Royal Society were also men of deep faith. It is also despite the fact that a great many of our scientists today profess a faith in God. I am aware of one recent survey that suggests over seventy per cent of scientists do so. I must say, I find this rather baffling. If this is so, why is it that their sense of the sacred has so little bearing on the way science is employed to exploit the natural world in so many damaging ways?"
In a wide-ranging, theological lecture, the Prince considers the spiritual contribution of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to the transformation of the global cultural landscape. Speaking to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, much of his speech addresses the relationship between Islamic theology and the environment. He says:
"From what I know of the Qu'ran, again and again it describes the natural world as the handiwork of a unitary benevolent power. It very explicitly describes Nature as possessing an "intelligibility" and that there is no separation between Man and Nature, precisely because there is no separation between the natural world and God. It offers a completely integrated view of the Universe where religion and science, mind and matter are all part of one living, conscious whole. We are, therefore, finite beings contained by an infinitude, and each of us is a microcosm of the whole. This suggests to me that Nature is a knowing partner, never a mindless slave to humanity, and we are Her tenants; God's guests for all too short a time."
The speech ends with a celebration of the power of spirituality to create a harmonious relationship between human beings and the natural world, an appeal for the re-enchantment of our understanding of the environment as a gendered, living organism, and a an invocation of mysitical wisdom: "The best of all Mosques is Nature herself."
Read on for Prince Charles's lecture in full. Read the Prince's 1993 lecture to the Oxford Centre here.
Speech by HRH The Prince of Wales marking the 25th anniversary of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
"It is a very great pleasure for me to be here today to help you celebrate the Oxford Centre's twenty-fifth anniversary. Whereas bits of your Patron are dropping off after the past quarter of a century, I find quite a few bits of the Centre still being added! However, I cannot tell you how encouraged I am that in addition to the Prince of Wales Fellowship, the number of fellowships you now offer continues to grow and also that this Summer you will welcome the fifth group of young people on your Young Muslim Leadership programme which is run in association with my charities. This is a vital contribution to the process of boosting the self-esteem of young Muslims - about whom I care deeply.
It has been a great concern of mine to affirm and encourage those groups and faith communities that are in the minority in this country. Indeed, over the last twenty-five years, I have tried to find as many ways as possible to help integrate them into British society and to build good relationships between our faith communities. I happen to believe this is best achieved by emphasizing unity through diversity. Only in this way can we ensure fairness and build mutual respect in our country. And if we get it right here then perhaps we might be able to offer an example in the wider world.
I am slightly alarmed that it is now seventeen years since I came here to the Sheldonian to deliver a lecture for the Centre that tried to do just this. I called it "Islam and the West" and, from what I can tell, it clearly struck a chord, and not just here in the U.K. I am still reminded of what I said, particularly when I travel in the Islamic world - in fact, because it was printed, believe it or not, it is the only speech I have ever made which continues to produce a small return!
I wanted to give that lecture to address the dangers of the ignorance and misunderstanding that I felt were growing between the Islamic world and the West in the aftermath of the Cold War. Since then, the situation has both improved and worsened, depending on where you look. Certainly the sorts of advances made by the Oxford Centre have helped to build confidence and understanding, but we all know only too well how some of the things I warned of in that lecture have since come to pass, both here and elsewhere in the world. So it is tremendously important that we continue to work to heal the differences and overcome the misconceptions that still exist. I remain confident that this is possible because there are many values we all share that have the powerful capacity to bind us, rather than what happens when those values are forgotten - or purposefully ignored.
Healing division is also my theme today, but this time it is not the divisions between cultures I want to explore. It is the division that poses a much more fundamental threat to the health and well-being of us all. It is the widening division we are seeing in so many ways between humanity and Nature.
Many of Nature's vital, life-support systems are now struggling to cope under the strain of global industrialization. How they will manage if millions more people are to achieve Western levels of consumption is highly disturbing to contemplate. The problems are only going to get much worse. And they are very real. Whatever you might have read in the newspapers, particularly about climate change in the run up to the Copenhagen conference last year, we face many related and very serious problems that are a matter of accurate, scientific record.
The actual facts are that over the last half century, for instance, we have destroyed at least thirty per cent of the world's tropical rainforests and if we continue to chop them down at the present rate, by 2050 we will end up with a very disturbing situation. In fact, in the three years since I started my Rainforest Project to try and help find an innovative solution to tropical deforestation, over 30 million hectares have been lost, and with them this planet has lost about 80,000 species. When you consider that a given area of equatorial trees evaporates eight times as much rainwater as an equivalent patch of ocean, you quickly start to see how their disappearance will affect the productivity of the Earth. They produce billions of tonnes of water every day and without that rainfall the world's food security will become very unstable.
But there are other facts too. In the last fifty years our industrialized approach to farming has degraded a third of the Earth's top soil. That is a fact. We have also fished the oceans so extensively that if we continue at the same rate for much longer we are likely to see the collapse of global fisheries in forty years from now. Another fact. Then there are the colossal amounts of waste that pollute the Earth - the many dead zones where nothing can live in many major river estuaries and various parts of the oceans, or those immense rafts of plastic that now float about in the Pacific. Would you believe that one of them, off the coast of California, is made up of 100 million tonnes of plastic and it has doubled in size in just the last decade. It is now at least six times the size of the United Kingdom. And we call ourselves civilized!
These are all very real problems and they are facts - all of them, the obvious results of the comprehensive industrialization of life. But what is less obvious is the attitude and general outlook which perpetuate this dangerously destructive approach. It is an approach that acts contrary to the teachings of each and every one of the world's sacred traditions, including Islam.
What surprises me, I have to say, is that, quite apart from whether or not we value the sacred traditions as much as we should, the blunt economic facts make the predominant approach increasingly irrational. I imagine that few of you are familiar with the interim report of the United Nations study called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Study which came out in 2008. It painted a salutary picture of what we lose in straightforward financial terms by our destruction of natural systems and the absence of their services to the world. In the first place they calculated that we destroy around 50 billion dollars worth of a system that produces these services every year. By mapping the loss of those services over a forty year period, their estimate is that, in financial terms, the global economy incurs an annual loss of between 2 and 4.5 trillion dollars - every single year.
To put that figure into some sort of perspective, the recent crash in the world's banking system caused a one-off loss of just 2 trillion dollars. I wonder why the bigger annual loss does not attract the same kind of Media frenzy as the banking crisis did?
This should demonstrate the flaw in the sum that does not need an Oxbridge mathematician to understand - that Nature's finite resources, divided by our ever-more rapacious desire for continuous economic growth, does not work out. We are clearly living beyond our means, already consuming the Earth's capital resources faster than she can replenish them.
Over the years, I have pointed out again and again that our environmental problems cannot be solved simply by applying yet more and more of our brilliant green technology - important though it is. It is no good just fixing the pump and not the well.
When I say this, everybody nods sagely, but I get the impression that many are often unwilling to embrace what I am really referring to, perhaps because the missing element sits outside the parameters of the prevailing secular view. It is this "missing element" that I would like to examine today.
In short, when we hear talk of an "environmental crisis" or even of a "financial crisis," I would suggest that this is actually describing the outward consequences of a deep, inner crisis of the soul. It is a crisis in our relationship with - and our perception of - Nature, and it is born of Western culture being dominated for at least two hundred years by a mechanistic and reductionist approach to our scientific understanding of the world around us.
So I would like you to consider very seriously today whether a big part of the solution to all of our worldwide "crises" does not lie simply in more and better technology, but in the recovery of the soul to the mainstream of our thinking. Our science and technology cannot do this. Only sacred traditions have the capacity to help this happen.
In general, we live within a culture that does not believe very much in the soul anymore - or if it does, won't admit to it publicly for fear of being thought old fashioned, out of step with "modern imperatives" or "anti-scientific." The empirical view of the world, which measures it and tests it, has become the only view to believe. A purely mechanistic approach to problems has somehow assumed a position of great authority and this has encouraged the widespread secularisation of society that we see today. This is despite the fact that those men of science who founded institutions like the Royal Society were also men of deep faith. It is also despite the fact that a great many of our scientists today profess a faith in God. I am aware of one recent survey that suggests over seventy per cent of scientists do so.
I must say, I find this rather baffling. If this is so, why is it that their sense of the sacred has so little bearing on the way science is employed to exploit the natural world in so many damaging ways?
I suppose it must be to do with who pays the fiddler. Over the last two centuries, science has become ever more firmly yoked to the ambitions of commerce. Because there are such big economic benefits from such a union, society has been persuaded that there is nothing wrong here. And so, a great deal of empirical research is now driven by the imperative that its findings must be employed to maximum, financial effect, whatever the impact this may have on the Earth's long-term capacity to endure.
This imbalance, where mechanistic thinking is so predominant, goes back at least to Galileo's assertion that there is nothing in Nature but quantity and motion. This is the view that continues to frame the general perception of the way the world works and how we fit within the scheme of things. As a result, Nature has been completely objectified - "She" has become an "it" - and we are persuaded to concentrate on the material aspect of reality that fits within Galileo's scheme.
Understanding the world from a mechanical point of view and then employing that knowledge has, of course, always been part of the development of human civilization, but as our technology has become ever more sophisticated and our industrialized methods so much more powerful, so the level of destruction is now potentially all the more widespread and un-containable, especially if you add into this mix the emphasis we have on consumerism.
It was that great scientist, Goethe, who saw life as the masculine principle striving endlessly to reach the "eternal feminine" - what the Greeks called "Sophia," or wisdom. It is a striving, he said, fired by the force of love. I am not sure that this is quite the way things happen today. Our striving in the industrialized world is certainly not fired by a love of wisdom. It is far more focussed on the desire for the greatest possible financial profit.
This ignores the spiritual teachings of traditions like Islam, which recognize that it is not our animal needs that are absolute; it is our spiritual essence, an essence made for the infinite. But with consumerism now such a key element in our economic model, our natural, spiritual desire for the infinite is constantly being reflected towards the finite. Our spiritual perspective has been flattened and made earthbound and we are persuaded to channel all of our natural, never-ending desire for what Islamic poets called "the Beloved" towards nothing but more and more material commodities. Unfortunately we forget that our spiritual desire can never be completely satisfied. It is rightly a never-ending desire. But when that desire is focussed only on the earthly, it becomes potentially disastrous. The hunger for yet more and more things creates an alarming vacuum and, as we are now realizing, this does great harm to the Earth and creates a never ending unhappiness for many, many people.
I hope you can just begin to see my point. The utter dominance of the mechanistic approach of science over everything else, including religion, has "de-souled" the dominant world view, and that includes our perception of Nature. As soul is elbowed out of the picture, our deeper link with the natural world is severed. Our sense of the spiritual relationship between humanity, the Earth and her great diversity of life has become dim. The entire emphasis is all on the mechanical process of increasing growth in the economy, of making every process more "efficient" and achieving as much convenience as possible. None of which could be said to be an ambition of God. And so, unfashionable though it is to suggest it, I am keen to stress here the need to heal this divide within ourselves. How else can we heal the divide between East and West unless we reconcile the East and West within ourselves? Everything in Nature is a paradox and seems to carry within itself the paradox of opposites. Curiously, this maintains the essential balance. Only human beings seem to introduce imbalance. The task is surely to reconnect ourselves with the wisdom found in Nature which is stressed by each of the sacred traditions in their own way.
My understanding of Islam is that it warns that to deny the reality of our inner being leads to an inner darkness which can quickly extend outwards into the world of Nature. If we ignore the calling of the soul, then we destroy Nature. To understand this we have to remember that we are Nature, not inanimate objects like stones; we reflect the universal patterns of Nature. And in this way, we are not a part that can somehow disengage itself and take a purely objective view.
From what I know of the Qu'ran, again and again it describes the natural world as the handiwork of a unitary benevolent power. It very explicitly describes Nature as possessing an "intelligibility" and that there is no separation between Man and Nature, precisely because there is no separation between the natural world and God. It offers a completely integrated view of the Universe where religion and science, mind and matter are all part of one living, conscious whole. We are, therefore, finite beings contained by an infinitude, and each of us is a microcosm of the whole. This suggests to me that Nature is a knowing partner, never a mindless slave to humanity, and we are Her tenants; God's guests for all too short a time.
If I may quote the Qu'ran, "Have you considered: if your water were to disappear into the Earth, who then could bring you gushing water?" This is the Divine hospitality that offers us our provisions and our dwelling places, our clothing, tools and transport. The Earth is robust and prolific, but also delicate, subtle, complex and diverse and so our mark must always be gentle - or the water will disappear, as it is doing in places like the Punjab in India. Industrialized farming methods there rely upon the use of high-yielding seeds and chemical fertilizers, both of which need a lot more energy and a lot more water as well. As a consequence the water table has dropped dramatically - I have been there, I have seen it - so far, by three feet a year. Punjabi farmers are now having to dig expensive bore holes over 200 feet deep to get at what remains of the water and, as a result, their debts become ever deeper and the salt rises to the surface contaminating the soil.
This is not a sustainable way of growing food and maintaining the well-being of communities. It does not respect Divine hospitality. The costs it incurs will have to be borne by those who will inherit what is fast becoming the ruined and frayed fabric of life. So for their sake, we have to acknowledge that the immediate, short-term financial benefits of our predominant, mechanistic approach are too expensive to continue to dominate our way of life.
This happens when traditional principles and practices are abandoned - and with them, all sense of reverence for the Earth which is an inseparable element in an integrated and spiritually grounded tradition like Islam - just as it was once firmly embedded in the philosophical heritage of Western thought. The Stoics of Ancient Greece, for instance, held that "right knowledge," as they called it, is gained by living in agreement with Nature, where there is a correspondence or a sympathy between the truth of things, thought and action. They saw it as our duty to achieve an attunement between human nature and the greater scheme of the Cosmos.
This incidentally is also the teaching of Judaism. The Book of Genesis says that God placed Mankind in the garden "to tend it and take care of it," to serve and conserve it for the sake of future generations. "Adamah" in Hebrew means "the one hewn from the Earth," so Adam is a child of the Earth. In my own tradition of Christianity, the immanence of God is made explicit by the incarnation of Christ. But let us also not forget that throughout the Christian New Testament, Christ often refers to Himself as "the Son of Man" which, in Hebrew, is "Ben Adam." He, too, is a "son of the Earth," surely making the same explicit connection between human nature and the whole of Nature.
Even the apocryphal Gnostic texts are imbued with the same principle. The fragments of one of the oldest, ascribed to Mary Magdalene, instructs us that "Attachment to matter gives rise to passion against Nature. Thus, trouble arises in the whole body; this is why I tell you; be in harmony." In all cases the message is clear. Our specific purpose is to "earth" Heaven. So, to separate ourselves within an inner darkness, leads to what the Irish poet, WB Yeats, warned of at the start of the Twentieth Century. "The falcon cannot hear the falconer," he wrote, "things fall apart and the centre cannot hold."
The traditional way of life within Islam is very clear about the "centre" that holds the relationship together. From what I know of its core teachings and commentaries, the important principle we must keep in mind is that there are limits to the abundance of Nature. These are not arbitrary limits, they are the limits imposed by God and, as such, if my understanding of the Qu'ran is correct, Muslims are commanded not to transgress them.
Such instruction is hard to square if all you do is found your understanding of the world on empirical terms alone. Four hundred years of relying on trying and testing the facts scientifically has established the view that spirituality and religious faith are outdated expressions of superstitious belief. After all, empiricism has proved how the world fits together and it is nothing to do with a "Supreme Being." There is no empirical evidence for the existence of God so, therefore, Q.E.D, God does not exist. It is a very reasonable, rational argument, and I presume it can be applied to "thought" too. After all, no brain scanner has ever managed to photograph a thought, nor a piece of love, and it never will. So, Q.E.D., that must mean "thought" and "love" do not exist either!
Clearly there is a point beyond which empiricism cannot make complete sense of the world. It works by establishing facts through testing them by the scientific process. It is one kind of language and a very fine one, but it is a language not able to fathom experiences like faith or the meaning of things - it is not able to articulate matters of the soul. This is why it consistently elbows soul out of the picture.
But we do have other kinds of "language," as Islam well knows, and they are much better at dealing with the realm of the soul and matters of meaning. Each is a different aspect of our language, in fact. Each deals with different aspects of the truth and if you put empiricism, philosophy and the spiritual perception of life together, just as the Islamic tradition at its best and richest has always done, then they tend to complement each other rather well.
Take the difference this made in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, as an example, during the so-called "Golden Age of Islam." It was a period which gave rise to a spectacular flowering of scientific advancement, but all of it was underpinned by an age-old philosophical understanding of reality and grounded in a profound spirituality, which included a deep reverence for the Natural world. Theirs was an integrated vision of the world, reflecting the timeless truth that all life is rooted in the unity of the Creator. This is the testimony of faith, is it not, embodied in the contemplative implication of the formless essence of the Qur'an's haqîqa? It is the notion of Tawhîd, the oneness of all things within the embrace of the Divine unity.
Islamic writers express it so well. Ibn Khaldûn, for instance, who taught that "all creatures are subject to a regular and orderly system. Causes are linked to effects where each is connected with the other." Or the great Shabistâri in Fourteenth Century Persia, who talked of the world being "a mirror from head to foot, in every atom a hundred blazing suns where a world dwells in the heart of a millet seed." Words that resonate, don't you think, with William Blake's famous lines, "to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower."
Other Western poets have captured this truth too. William Wordsworth, perhaps one of the greatest of all our Nature poets, describes "a sense sublime of something far more inter-fused... a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things, all objects of thought and rolls through all things." I quote the poets because they help us identify this "sense sublime" and inspire reverence for the created world.
Reverence is not science-based knowledge. It is an experience always mediated by love, sometimes induced by it; and love comes from relationship. If you take away reverence and reduce our spiritual relationship with life, then you open yourself up to the idea that we can be little more than a chance group of isolated, self-obsessed individuals, disconnected from life's innate presence and un-anchored by any sense of duty to the rest of the world. We are free to act without responsibility. Thus we turn a blind eye to those islands of plastic in the sea, or to the treatment meted out to animals in factory farms. And it is why the so-called "precautionary principle" is so often thrown out of the window.
This is the principle that would make us think twice if, say, we were to climb into a vehicle that happens to have a ninety per cent chance of crashing. Instead, because the danger is not proven beyond doubt, we think it is safe to embark upon the journey. This is how we proceed in many significant fields - in matters like genetic modification or climate change. We go on denying that there may be side-effects, even if our intuition warns us to be cautious, or even if there is some related evidence. Recently, for instance, the news emerged that, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of honey bee colonies in the United States failed to survive the Winter. More than three million colonies in the U.S. and billions of honeybees worldwide have died. Scientists say they are no nearer to knowing what is causing this catastrophic collapse, but there is plenty of evidence that modern pesticides have played their part. Given that bees, like nearly every other bug, are insects, I would have thought it was rather obvious. And yet we carry on with a narrow-minded, mechanistic approach to industrialized farming with all its focus on high yields at whatever price. So we lace the fields with pesticides that kill insects. It is quite bizarre how we continue to entrust our food security to the very substances that are destroying the harmonic cycle which produces our food. It really is a form of collective hubris and I often wonder if those who practise such well-exercised scepticism in these matters will ever see that "the Emperor is wearing no clothes?"
This, then, is why the wisdom and learning offered by a sacred tradition like Islam matters - and, if I may say so, why those who hold and strive to preserve their sacred traditions in different parts of the world have every reason to become more confident of their ground. The Islamic world is the custodian of one of the greatest treasuries of accumulated wisdom and spiritual knowledge available to humanity. It is both Islam's noble heritage and a priceless gift to the rest of the world. And yet, so often, that wisdom is now obscured by the dominant drive towards Western materialism - the feeling that to be truly "modern" you have to ape the West.
To counter that tendency I have done what I can with my School of Traditional Arts to nurture and support traditional and sacred craft skills - not least those of Islam - because they keep alive a perspective that we sorely need, even though short-term fashion deems them to be irrelevant. The geometry and patterning that are taught at the School are the basis of the many crafts that have been all but abandoned in many parts of the world, including the Islamic world. It is a tragedy of monumental proportions that they are being forgotten because they reflect the spiritual mathematics found everywhere in Nature. As Islam teaches very specifically, it is a patterning that reflects the very ground of our being. It is the Divine imagination, so to speak; the ineffable presence that is the sacred breath of life. As the Seventeenth Century mystic, Ibn Âshir, puts it, by the practice of these arts you "see the One who manifests in the form, not the form by itself."
For many in the modern world this is hard to understand because the view of God has become so distorted. "God" is seen as being, somehow, outside "His" creation, rather than part of its unfolding - what the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, called "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." Being the principle that underlines the Cosmos, the Cosmos is the result of God knowing it and of it knowing the uncreated God. Notice the emphasis there on "un"-created. It is of profound importance. The basis of all existence is in this relationship.
I suspect the reason why this is such an unfashionable view is that the deep-seated experience of participation in the living, creative presence of God is offered to us in all traditions not by empiricism, but by revelation. This is a rare and precious gift and only given to those whose supreme humanity and capacity for great humility achieves a mastery over the ego. It comes at the moment when "the knower and the known" become one - the moment when the mind of Man comes into union with the mind of God.
This, of course, is not deemed possible from an empirical point of view, but revelation is a very different kind of knowing from scientific, evidence-based knowledge, and I cannot stress the point strongly enough; by dismissing such a process and discarding what it offers to humankind, we throw away a very important lifeline for the future.
I must say, once you do blend the different languages - the empirical and the spiritual together as I am suggesting, and as I have been trying to say for so long - then you do begin to wonder why the sceptics think the desire to work in harmony with Nature is so unscientific. Why is it deemed so worthwhile to abandon our true relationship with the "beingness" of all things; to limit ourselves to the science of manipulation, rather than immerse ourselves in the wider science of understanding? They seem such spurious arguments, because, as Islam clearly understands, it is actually impossible to divorce human beings from Nature's patterns and processes. The Qur'an is considered to be the "last Revelation" but it clearly acknowledges which book is the first. That book is the great book of creation, of Nature herself, which has been taken too much for granted in our modern world and needs to be restored to its original position.
So, with all this in mind, I would like to set you a challenge, if I may; a challenge that I hope will be conveyed beyond this audience today. It is the challenge to mobilize Islamic scholars, poets and artists, as well as those craftsmen, engineers and scientists who work with and within the Islamic tradition, to identify the general ideas, the teachings and the practical techniques within the tradition which encourage us to work with the grain of Nature rather than against it. I would urge you to consider whether we can learn anything from the Islamic culture's profound understanding of the natural world to help us all in the fearsome challenges we face. Are there, for instance, any that could help preserve our precious marine eco-systems and fisheries? Are there any traditional methods of avoiding damage to all of Nature's systems that revive the principle of sustainability within Islam?
To give you an idea of what I mean, let me offer a few examples drawn from the work done by my School of Traditional Arts, where project workers have shown that re-introducing traditional craft skills brings a coherence to peoples' daily lives, perhaps because they fuse the spiritual with the practical.
Since I founded it, the School has helped restore these skills in places as far afield as Jordan and Nigeria. It also helps to build bridges within communities in this country which have suffered the worst fractures. In Burnley in Lancashire, for instance, project workers have been teaching children from many backgrounds an integrated view of the world using the patterns of Islamic sacred geometry. This has not just inspired the imagination of the children taking part, but their teachers too. They tell me they have discovered a much more integrated approach to education, where maths and art are not alien to one another, but are seen as two sides of the same coin and directly rooted in Nature's patterns and processes.
In Afghanistan, I have only recently managed to see the work being done under the umbrella of what we have called "the Turquoise Mountain Foundation" - an initiative I launched some four years ago - which is running similar education programmes and craft training courses. It is also helping with the urban regeneration of the old historic quarter of the city by guiding people to start businesses using the craft skills they have learned.
For example, in the building of schools, people are being shown how to use mud-bricks which are a quarter of the price of the concrete blocks used by other agencies. They are also resistant to earthquakes, whereas concrete is not. And they cope much better with extremes of temperature - mud-brick buildings are cooler in the Summer and warmer in the Winter. What is more, they use local labour and local, natural materials. So these schools are a good example of how traditional wisdom blends with modern needs. After all, you can still use computers and other modern technology in a mud-brick building! And more comfortably, too, given it is more suited to local conditions.
When I finally did manage to reach Kabul earlier this year - after several years of trying - what I saw was truly remarkable. It proved to me that teaching and employing traditional crafts is an effective way of re-introducing the kinds of techniques that are benign to the natural environment. They are also capable of restoring a cultural balance in peoples' minds. By encouraging a wider celebration of the traditional, ancient culture of Afghanistan, these skills help in a very practical way to counteract the oppressive effects of extremism in all its forms, both religious and secular. This is how traditional wisdom works. It is not a theory or a science written down. Its wisdom is discovered through practice and in action.
These are schemes that are close to my heart, but the Oxford Centre keeps me informed of many others. Working in Muslim countries, the World Wildlife Fund has found that trying to convey the importance of conservation is much easier if it is transmitted by religious leaders whose reference is Qur'anic teaching. In Zanzibar, they had little success trying to reduce spear-fishing and the use of dragnets, which were destroying the coral reefs. But when the guidance came from the Qur'an, there was a notable change in behaviour. Or in Indonesia and in Malaysia, where former poachers are being deterred in the same way from destroying the last remaining tigers.
And it is not just such interventions that are important. It is mystifying, for instance, that the modern world completely ignores the time-honoured feats of engineering in the ancient world. The Qanats of Iran, for example, that still provide water for thousands of people in what would otherwise be desert conditions. These underground canals - unbelievably 170,000 miles of them - keep the water from the mountains moving down the tunnels using gravity alone. And the water in every village is then kept fresh by the way the storage towers keep the air flowing freely, moved by the wind.
In Spain, the irrigation systems constructed 1200 years ago also still work perfectly, as does the way in which the water is managed by the local population - a way of operating devised before the Muslim rule in Spain disintegrated. The same sorts of Islamic management schemes operate in other parts of the world too, like the "hima" zones in Saudi Arabia which set aside land for use as pasture. These are all examples of how prophetic teaching, in this case framed by the guidance of the Qu'ran, maintains a long term view of things and keeps the danger of a self-interested form of short-term economics at bay.
I am sure that if an organization like the Oxford Centre could help to establish a global forum on "Islam and the Environment" many more very practical, traditional approaches like these could become more widely applied. They may range from science and technology to agriculture, healthcare, architecture and education. Think what could be achieved if mothers and fathers, the teachers in madrassas and Imams, all sought to demonstrate to children how to translate Islamic teachings into practical action - how to blend traditional knowledge and awareness of Nature's needs with the best of what we know now.
This is certainly something I feel we have to do in the one final issue I have to mention as I close. Perhaps a few facts and figures might demonstrate why.
When I was born in 1948, a city like Lagos in Nigeria had a population of just three hundred thousand. Today, just over sixty years later, it is home to twenty million. Thirty-five thousand people live in every square mile of the city, and its population increases by another six hundred thousand every year.
I choose Lagos as an example. I could have chosen Mumbai, Cairo or Mexico City; wherever you look, the world's population is increasing fast. It goes up by the equivalent of the entire population of the United Kingdom every year. Which means that this poor planet of ours, which already struggles to sustain 6.8 billion people, will somehow have to support over 9 billion people within fifty years. In the Arab world, sixty per cent of the population is now under the age of thirty. That will mean, in some way or other, 100 million new jobs will have to be created in that region alone over the next ten to fifteen years.
I am well aware that the very long term prediction is that population may go down. 150 years from now the trends suggest there may be as few as four billion people, maybe even just two billion, but there is no getting away from the fact that in the short term, in the next fifty years, we face monumental problems as the figures rocket. No mega-city can ever hope to catch up with the present expansion in their numbers to provide adequate healthcare, education, transport, food and shelter for so many. Nor can the Earth herself sustain us all, when the demands and pressures on her bounty worldwide are becoming so intense.
I know it is a complicated issue. The experts suggest that, in theory, the Earth could support 9 billion people, but not if a vast proportion is consuming the world's resources at present Western levels. So the changes have to be essentially two-fold. It would certainly help if the acceleration slowed down, but it would also help if the world reduced its desire to consume.
I have been following carefully the findings of my British Asian Trust in India which has been helping to run a women's education project in a drought-prone region of Maharashtra called Satara. They have noticed that a real difference can be made when women are able to become more involved in the running of the community. This is also the experience in Bangladesh. I have long been fascinated by Muhammad Yunus's Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. It operates micro-credit schemes that offer loans to the poorest communities through a bank which is now ninety per cent owned by the rural poor. Interestingly, where the loans are managed by the women of the community, the birth rate has gone down. The impact of these sorts of schemes, of education and the provision of family planning services, has been widespread. Whereas in the 1980s, the average family in Bangladesh had six children, now the average figure is three. But with mega-cities growing as they are, I fear there is little chance these sorts of schemes can help the plight of many millions of people unless we all face up to the fact more honestly than we do that one of the biggest causes of high birth rates remains cultural.
It raises some very difficult moral questions, I know, but do we not each one of us carry the same responsibility towards the Earth? It is surely time to ask if we can come to a view that balances the traditional attitude to the sacred nature of life on the one hand with, on the other, those teachings within each of the sacred traditions that urge humankind to keep within the limits of Nature's benevolence and bounty.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have endured all this with patience and fortitude. You have also given a very good impression of listening to my own personal thoughts on the perspective opened up by Islamic teaching. I have wanted to convey them to you because it always moves me to be reminded that, from the perspective of traditional Islamic teaching, the destruction of the Earth is represented as the destruction of a prayerful being.
Whichever faith tradition we come from, the fact at the heart of the matter is the same. Our inheritance from our creator is at stake. It will be no good at the end of the day as we sit amidst the wreckage, trying to console ourselves that it was all done for the best possible reasons of development and the betterment of Mankind. The inconvenient truth is that we share this planet with the rest of creation for a very good reason - and that is, we cannot exist on our own without the intricately balanced web of life around us. Islam has always taught this and to ignore that lesson is to default on our contract with Creation.
The Modernist ideology that has dominated the Western outlook for a century implies that "tradition" is backward looking. What I have tried to explain today is that this is far from true. Tradition is the accumulation of the knowledge and wisdom that we should be offering to the next generation. It is, therefore, visionary - it looks forward.
Turning to the traditional teachings, like those found in Islam that define our relationship with the natural world, does not mean locking us into some sort of cultural and technological immobility. As the English writer G.K. Chesterton put it, "real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them as a root." I would also remind you of the words of Oxford's very own C.S. Lewis, who pointed out that "sometimes you do have to turn the clock back if it is telling the wrong time" - that there is nothing "progressive" about being stubborn and refusing to acknowledge that we have taken the wrong road. If we realize that we are travelling in the wrong direction, the only sensible thing to do is to admit it and retrace our steps back to where we first went wrong. As Lewis put it, "going back can sometimes be the quickest way forward." It is the most progressive thing we could do.
All of the mounting evidence is telling us that we are, indeed, on the wrong road, so you might think it would be wise to draw on the timeless guidance that comes from our intuitive sense of the origin of all things to which we are rooted. Nature's rhythms, her cycles and her processes, are our guides to this uncreated, originating voice. They are our greatest teachers because they are expressions of Divine Unity. Which is why there is a profound truth in that seemingly simple, old saying of the nomads - that "the best of all Mosques is Nature herself."
Page 1 of 2
Comment number 1.
At 16:07 10th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:I knew Charles talked to his cabbages, but I didn't know that he got them to write his speeches for him.
That was simply the most vacuous inane codswallop I have read in 2010, and believe me I have had to trudge through some pretty turgid stuff in the past few weeks, including Stevie Fuller's nonsensical post-modern twitterings in "Should Christians Embrace Evolution?" [Nevin N.C. ed], which is itself a collection of some of the silliest material ever committed to print since they published the full scripts of Monty Python.
I think there is a reason the Good Lord is blessing Her Glorious Britannic Majesty with hale and healthy longevity, and long may it continue.
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Comment number 2.
At 16:23 10th Jun 2010, graham veale wrote:"From what I know of the Qu'ran, again and again it describes the natural world as the handiwork of a unitary benevolent power."
The Quran thinks that the world has a creator? D'ya think Charlie? Y'think it mentions this more than once?
Oh boy...
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Comment number 3.
At 16:32 10th Jun 2010, graham veale wrote:"wherever you look, the world's population is increasing fast..."
You need to travel to spot things like that! This is why we pay for a Monarchy folks! If the bonnie Prince didn't scurry all over the globe, we wouldn't know about the population explosion!
"Whichever faith tradition we come from, the fact at the heart of the matter is the same. Our inheritance from our creator is at stake."
Unless you're a Buddhist.
""God" is seen as being, somehow, outside "His" creation, rather than part of its unfolding - what the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, called "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." Being the principle that underlines the Cosmos, the Cosmos is the result of God knowing it and of it knowing the uncreated God."
As well as being incoherent twaddle, a few Muslims - by which I mean all the Muslims who aren't Sufi - might find that interpretation of the Quran a little...surprising.
GV
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Comment number 4.
At 16:43 10th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Graham, while our posts above await moderation, I am guessing that you know what I said in Post 1 :-)
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Comment number 5.
At 17:08 10th Jun 2010, romejellybeen wrote:Helio
I find the increasingly creative ways you find to employ the word "cabbage", very funny.
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Comment number 6.
At 17:31 10th Jun 2010, Scotch Get wrote:Is Eunice Prince Charles?
We should be telt!
>8-D
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Comment number 7.
At 19:26 10th Jun 2010, Eunice wrote:Scotch-git: Wedwabbit tried to uncover my identity but you win the prize! Congratulations! :-)
That said the Eunice Prince Charles welcomes Prince Charles pointing out that it is our disconnection with soul that results in all the disharmony - and equally it is by re-connection with the soul that we can restore harmony within ourselves first, and then the planet - as the outer reflects the inner. There are points of disagreement between us (EPC and PC) but to say that it is all cabbage reveals where the true cabbage is!! :-)
(said lovingly of course!). Pointing out that we have gone up the wrong road was the point I was suggesting on the other thread ....perhaps PC has been reading W&T and EPC posts for speech ideas! haha :-)
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Comment number 8.
At 19:35 10th Jun 2010, newlach wrote:I too would like the world to be a better place, but Prince Charles doesn't half talk a lot of nonsense about the missing soul. If everyone consumed what the Prince consumes would he consider the world a better or a worse place? Why shouldn't the Chinese have what we in the West have?
He should stick to Jackanory - I enjoyed "The Old Man of Lochnagar".
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Comment number 9.
At 20:22 10th Jun 2010, Eunice wrote:ps to answer the question - Can Religion Save the Planet ? Not religion as we know it and as it stands today in the world - which brings division and separation to humanity that can result in war/bloodshed/hatred as we know only too well in NI.
For me the religion of love can, in principle, save the planet. For the tenth time - love is our true nature and as we connect with this and become more self-loving/self caring we are also more loving of each other (including the so-called 'enemies') and live with more responsibility towards self, other and the planet. It is our very lack of love towards self that is then played out in all interactions/relationships with others and the planet that is causing all the harm. The soul is love and whilst it is not missing many are disconnected from it. As we become more loving we build love in the body and can embody the soul.
I use to say things like the soul /God does not exist, we are born live and die - end of and would have been in the atheist/agnostic camp on here......now I know that I spoke with such ignorance and arrogance - and in total separation to any true understanding of what love was/is, what God is, what the human person is....even though I thought I was clever and intelligent and didn't need any God crutch to get through life.(as I preceived the need for God to be a crutch for those who could not face life/death). However, I have come to realise that there is a truth that is so much better than anything I thought or believed back then and it has nothing to do with needing a crutch but living a life full of love, joy, vitality and meaning/ purpose/service. Why knock that?! :-)
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Comment number 10.
At 21:59 10th Jun 2010, Phil Lucifer wrote:We are wrecking Planet Earth because human population is growing exponentially. It took all of human history up to 1800 to reach the first billion. Now there are 7 billion of us and we shall add another billion in less than ten years. A world population of 7 billion, all wanting cars, electricity, housing, air travel, cheap food, etc, means that the whole planet is under pressure. Relentless population growth means pollution, deforestation, water shortage, fossil fuel depletion and climate destabilisation.
That is the reality of our situation. It is better to face that situation armed with a rational account of our place in the universe, than distracted by ancient mythologies. Religions perpetuate ancient tribal attitudes and generate social division. That is a hindrance, not a help. Some religions even denounce contraception and advocate unprotected sex. They merely add to the problems that we face. Religions are not part of the solution; they are part of the problem. It is better to face our uncertain future as one humanity, rather than as disparate religious tribes.
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Comment number 11.
At 02:51 11th Jun 2010, Dave wrote:I think he was smoking cabbage
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Comment number 12.
At 02:54 11th Jun 2010, wed wabbit wrote:lol - about the identity!!
I liked it - i do love the excalibre movie (filmed in ireland!!) when (i think it was percival) went to arthur when he atlast found the secret of the grail -
and the secret was.....
"You and the land are one." How true -
"Forte est vinum fortior est rex fortiores sunt mulieres super omnia vincit veritas: "Wine is strong, a king is stronger, women are stronger still, but truth conquers all" and it is the princes pillar!!
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Comment number 13.
At 03:23 11th Jun 2010, mumbles wrote:How sad our once, but not future king has lost all sense.
Edward is now the rightful inheritor of the throne of England unless he too divorces.
Charlie the cabbage patch kid was never up to the roll, as it takes a strong sense of duty, dedication, loyalty and intelligence.
If Charlie needs a spare sand bucket and spade, I have one spare.
God bless Queen Elizabeth, long may she reign.
mumbles
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Comment number 14.
At 14:18 11th Jun 2010, Dave wrote:"Edward is now the rightful inheritor of the throne of England unless he too divorces."
What about William and Harry ?? And it is the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland not just England.
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Comment number 15.
At 16:05 11th Jun 2010, Brian Thomas wrote:Religion can't save our planet...only Jesus Christ can.
John's gospel, chapter 3 verse 16
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Comment number 16.
At 17:03 11th Jun 2010, romejellybeen wrote:"A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is still a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed."
Deuteronomy. Chapter 22, verse 13-21.
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Comment number 17.
At 17:54 11th Jun 2010, 2manypeters wrote:At-a-boy, Dave! No surrender! ;-)
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Comment number 18.
At 20:48 11th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Deuteronomy is one of the clearest books in the bible for demonstrating that god had no part in writing it. Execrable muck.
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Comment number 19.
At 21:11 11th Jun 2010, Eunice wrote:Brian Thomas - I disagree. Each of us has that responsibility - to save ourselves and the planet. We can save ourselves by knowing that we are each an equal son of God just like Jesus - with the same potential and living from that truth such that we can come to embody the Christ - which is the light/love of God. :-)
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Comment number 20.
At 21:45 11th Jun 2010, 2manypeters wrote:You disagree with Brian, Eunice. Interesting. Jesus disagrees with you. :-)
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Comment number 21.
At 23:10 11th Jun 2010, Brian Thomas wrote:I would invite those who respond to my comments to stop taking other verses out of context. To insult the word of God like you do means you really don't understand it and I'm pretty sure you don't want to either...that's a real shame.
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Comment number 22.
At 23:19 11th Jun 2010, newlach wrote:Here is what Oliver Kamm writing in The Times thought of Prince Charles speech:
"Prince Charles' invocation of 'sacred traditions' is utterly opposed to scientific inquiry – for if truth is already known through revelation and sacred texts, why bother with fallible human reason and inquiry?"
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Comment number 23.
At 23:45 11th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Out of Iron Age context you mean? Too right, Brian. That *would* be a mistakey shamey thingy, wouldn't it?
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Comment number 24.
At 00:20 12th Jun 2010, Brian Thomas wrote:Yes it is a shame and I see you don't know much about history either!
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Comment number 25.
At 07:30 12th Jun 2010, Eunice wrote:2manypeters: according to your view/understanding Jesus disagrees with me. According to my view/understanding he agrees with me! For me, Jesus endeavoured to empower people to know they could do what he could and that there was no difference between people and him - all are equal and all have the potential within them to save themselves by embodying the Christ as he did. WHilst he was more evolved than us and a fully claimed Son of God - we all have that potential. Elevating Jesus to something more than us that we cannot achieve is disempowering to the human person and allows people to not take full responsibility for their lives - as they just imagine Jesus will save the day whatever they do or say or live. :-)
Brian Thomas: I do not insult the word of God, I honour the word of God and I honour the living God that I know lives within you and everyone else. Problem is many people choose to reject the God/love that lives within them and disempower themselves by adhering to teachings/interpretations that are far removed from that. Or they recognise the fallacy of those teachings (as I did and others like Helio etc) and then throw the baby out with the bathwater - not realising there are deeper understandings about God that are all inclusive, unifying, liberating and empowering. :-)
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Comment number 26.
At 12:03 12th Jun 2010, Brian Thomas wrote:Sorry Eunice, I was not trying to offend anyone but I have found that many, many people misquote the Bible and they regularly take verses out of their context.
I would say as I look at what you written that I don't quite catch your understanding of Jesus. The Bible teaches that he is the divine 'Son of God'. He was not created...If you read through John's gospel you will see this. People are born sinful...they only love themselves and their own righteousness. It is only when a person trusts Jesus Christ as their Saviour from their sins that they are empowered by His Spirit to love others as God intended.
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Comment number 27.
At 13:05 12th Jun 2010, romejellybeen wrote:Brian and Eunice.
I do insult the Word of God. When it is stupid, hate-filled, cruel, unforgiving and irrelevant.
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Comment number 28.
At 13:48 12th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Brian, my comment was in relation to the book of Genesis, the majority of which belongs to the Iron Age. People (like Wally Thompson of the Caleban) who pretend that Genesis indicates a young earth, that Adam and Eve were real people, and that the earth was really covered in a giant flood in the last few thousand years, for example, are taking the mythology and aetiological cultural fables of the Hebrew people *badly* out of context.
I would also suggest that many Christians take the *New* Testament out of its eschatological C1CE Palestinian & Graeco-Roman context, and read all sorts of silly nonsense into it, which is not backed up by historical analysis.
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Comment number 29.
At 14:08 12th Jun 2010, Brian Thomas wrote:Romejellybean...you have proved my point...you obviously are reading something else.
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Comment number 30.
At 14:47 12th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Incidentally, John's gospel is very late, and the theology is surely nothing remotely like anything a "real" Jesus the Nazarene might have come up with. Christianity really is a myth - not that there is anything wrong with that in principle.
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Comment number 31.
At 14:49 12th Jun 2010, paul james wrote:I always come down on the side of the lord when it comes to dirty fighting,
“When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity."
Nice.
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Comment number 32.
At 14:52 12th Jun 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Eunice, what are you saving yourself from?
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Comment number 33.
At 14:56 12th Jun 2010, Brian Thomas wrote:Heliopolitan,I certainly believe the Genesis account of creation.
My faith is backed up with sufficient evidence to believe it.
I would gladly e-mail you information if you want.
Like many...perhaps you probably often use the term seeing is believing.. faith, however is not all blind.
Having been a Christian for 25 years I can truly say God is sovereign.
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Comment number 34.
At 15:33 12th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Brian, Genesis does not provide an account of creation. It provides a Hebrew origins myth appropriate to the Iron Age and pre-scientific aetiological presuppositions. *Science* provides an account of creation, and the Genesis accounts are recognised as cultural artefacts, providing context to the Hebrew civilisation, but not a historical nor scientific framework. Please stop taking Genesis out of context.
Besides, I've been a Christian for 35 years, the last 17 of them as a Christian Atheist. Let's not embarrass ourselves by seeing who can get the highest up the wall, eh?
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Comment number 35.
At 16:22 12th Jun 2010, 2manypeters wrote:"I've been a Christian for 35 years, the last 17 of them as a Christian Atheist."
Flip, I'd like to hear that testimony ;-)
Make a change from the usual patter.
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Comment number 36.
At 17:34 12th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, you've heard it! :-)
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Comment number 37.
At 21:56 12th Jun 2010, Brian Thomas wrote:Thanks for making things clear Heliopitan.
A Christian atheist...thats a new one!
You've probably spent those last 17 years trying to prove God doesn't exist...when you know he does...that why your responding like you do.
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Comment number 38.
At 07:37 13th Jun 2010, Eunice wrote:2manypeters: I use to ask that question in my atheist days as the whole concept of salvation and being saved seemed irrelvant and non-sensical to me! I would ask myself what do people think they need saving from .....hell, damnation, the devil or something else??? For me, now, hell does not exist, we are never damned by God and the devil (as some sort of isolated being) does not exist. So what do we need saving from? Well my answer now is from ourselves! The lies, untruths, the misperceptions, misinterpretations that we have about ourselves, others, life and God. Salvation is when we are free from the emotional dramaramas that most people experience - able to live in the world and know one is not of the world and is not taken out by the events of the world but able to be a consistent presence of love and joy no matter what is going on around them.
Brian Thomas: I understand your view as it is the traditional teaching but I have come to a different understanding that is empowering to the human person and consistent with a God that is all loving. Jesus was a divine Son of God but so are you and so is every other human being. "ye are all sons of the most high" . He demonstrated the way to live, the ways of love as a divine son of God that we may each come to do this for ourselves. TO my understanding it is impossible for anyone including Jesus to save another person from their sins - the reason being as follows. As I have explained elsewhere, for me 'sin' is when we don't act, speak, think from love and we 'miss the mark' and this is just part of being human. However, all actions, thoughts, words deeds etc have a consequence due to the laws of cause and effect - so everything we do etc comes back to us at some point (karma - and is not punishment but just the way it is ) - the only way then to be saved is to live according to the ways of love and in that way we save ourselves and can even develop graceful karma. To my understanding we have many lifetimes as we are all on a return journey to God/to love but it has to be by free will and by our choice. All that we experience is as a consequence of our own choices over many lifetimes - hence there is no-one to blame but it is for each of us to awaken to our true divine heritage and live according to the ways of love or not. People are not born sinful - they are born love-full. The problem is that through growing up/education/religion etc we become separated from that centre of love and it is our lack of self-love that results in man's inhumanity to man and self. One of the greatest 'sins' (to use your terminology) in my book are the teachings that promote the separation from our essence of love by teaching that we are born sinners/sinful.
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Comment number 39.
At 13:24 13th Jun 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Brian, stick around - you'll see more marvellous things than that! :-)
I think Eunice is overstating things slightly in her fun way - it's not that she's wrong per se - she just hasn't worked out how to cancel unnecessary terms out of equations yet. Probably hasn't done enough maths. But you've got to admit, it's a lot more interesting than the sort of noise that Phil and others keep spouting out.
Anyone fancy a spare donkey? It seems like we've been over all this too many times...
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Comment number 40.
At 14:00 13th Jun 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Eunice,
Let me see. You/we need saving from the “lies, untruths, the misperceptions, misinterpretations that we have about ourselves, others, life and God.”
And we get the truth, where?
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Comment number 41.
At 19:52 14th Jun 2010, Eunice wrote:Helio: I am simplifying rather than overstating! I 'll stick with love and leave the mathematics to you ....never was my best subject :-)
2MP - we all have the same access to truth/wisdom within our inner heart/soul. So it is for each of us to re-connect to that source and that is empowering. Problem is we have been brain washed and fed lots of stuff by education/religion/culture/parents etc etc that mean we have lost touch with that wisdom of the heart and instead we are more reliant on the mind. We can begin to re-connect to one's innermost using a gentle breath technique - this helps to re-connect to the inner stillness. Then it is by FEELING - rather than thinking eg to make choices etc. This in itself is a journey for me as I was/am very much a thinking person.....even use to say I think I feel blah blah rather than just I feel this or that!! Using feelings reconnects us to the language of the body and the body tells the truth and reveals all our choices. Even simple things like noticing how one feels after eating/drinking certain foods etc - does it make me feel heavy, sleepy, stimulated, fuzzy headed or light and clear headed etc Or noticing how you feel around some people - eg are they draining or imposing or are they unimposing. Noticing what situations take you out of yourself - eg to become angry or upset etc as our true nature is stillness/joy/love and how you feel when that happens. Just a few suggestions if you feel to! :-) Even noticing how you feel about the things you hear in church that are not resonating for you as Truth even though you are told it is Truth. I think it was Buddha that said 'be a lamp unto yourself' and do not rely on any teaching/book/master/church etc without weighing it up in your own heart. (heart NOT mind! )
Of course because we have been living as if we are separated/ disconnected from the inner heart/Soul/Truth it is also helpful to have guidance from someone who has already walked that path and who is a living example of the teachings - but again that requires one to feel what teacher/presenter resonates for you (or for any of us) as someone who is consistent in what they say and do - they don't just talk the talk but walk the talk! Other helpful pointers are to ask - is this consistent with the ways of love, (but there is more to this as well as often our ideas of what love is and is not are confused/flawed!) with a non-judgmental God that is all loving, is it unifying or separating humanity? Someone who is fully connected/embodying the soul has access to wisdom that some would describe as omniscence as the soul is like a mini God with same properties as God. It could be said that this is the journey we are all on - to become soul-full - to embody the love and light of God in service. Jesus was an example of someone who did this and there have been others down through the ages that come to help awaken the rest of us that have been snoozing for a wee while! :-)
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Comment number 42.
At 22:03 14th Jun 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Eunice,
There sure are a lot of people who, in telling us to be a lamp to ourselves, go on to give us a lot of guidance.
"Of course because we have been living as if we are separated/ disconnected from the inner heart/Soul/Truth it is also helpful to have guidance from someone who has already walked that path and who is a living example of the teachings"
Do you not just mean, 'friend'?
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Comment number 43.
At 07:40 15th Jun 2010, Eunice wrote:2MP - There sure are a lot of people who, in telling us to be a lamp to ourselves, go on to give us a lot of guidance.
Yes this is true. It is also true that down through the ages there are those who have come to guide in a true way (eg Jesus) because fact is whilst we do have it all within ourselves we have become disconnected from it and guidance can help. In-truth guidance is not necessary and perhaps time spent in silence stillness and solitude would lead us to the same answers without needing any guidance but most of us don't live like that these days and do need a little help along the way. However, you still need to be a lamp unto yourself to discern which guide or teacher or friend you listen to - it still comes back to you as to which one resonates as Truth. It is never about handing your power over to someone else. If the guidance you get from whichever source does not resonate for you as truth - then you are free to ignore it and choose otherwise. There are many, many people out there saying things that are very harming and the more I understand, the more I see how true this is - so discernment of the teacher/guide/friend is very important. Pythagoras I think said study the school or teacher for 10 years before you join them!! Knowing how they live and how they are with people, is there a consistency in their way of being - are they joyful, is there consistency between what they are saying and how they are living ....things like that can help. Eg if someone is talking about the love of God but is down the pub getting drunk or smoking then there is a disconnect from the words and the living expression.
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Comment number 44.
At 15:30 18th Jun 2010, Dagsannr wrote:Brian (33)
'My faith is backed up with sufficient evidence to believe it.'
If your faith has evidence, it's not faith, it's factual. If you belive on faith, then you are, in effect, believing in something -without- evidence to back it up.
'I would gladly e-mail you information if you want.'
I'd LOVE to see this information. If it's as amazing as you hint, then perhaps we could issue a article to a scientific journal and become famous for doing what hasn't been done yet - proof that God exists!
'Like many...perhaps you probably often use the term seeing is believing.. faith, however is not all blind.'
You're missing the point of faith. Faith implies belief in something unprovable. If it can be proven, then you don't need faith.
'Having been a Christian for 25 years I can truly say God is sovereign.'
Having been a Christian for 20 years, and then realised what a waste of time it was and being an atheist for 10 more, I can truly say God has nothing to do with it. I do exactly the same things I did when I believed, however, now I accept responsibility for my wrong-doings (instead of blaming the devil), take the credit for the good things (instead of attributing it to divine grace) and accept that in this random universe, bad things happen to undeserving people (instead of tagging it as some God-inspired Plan).
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Comment number 45.
At 21:21 21st Jun 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Natman
"If your faith has evidence, it's not faith, it's factual. If you belive on faith, then you are, in effect, believing in something -without- evidence to back it up."
emm nope :-)
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Comment number 46.
At 22:55 8th Jul 2010, Tullycarnetbertie wrote:Can religion save the planet? No. Can God save the planet? Yes.If people would read their bibles properly they would realise that this world is never going to end. Based on what I read in God'd word, when our Lord comes back after the rapture he will set his kingdom in the new Jerusalem and those who have accepted him as Saviour and Lord will ruke and rein with him in a world that will be what it was like when God created this world.
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Comment number 47.
At 08:03 9th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:And what will we do with the flying pigs?
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Comment number 48.
At 10:24 9th Jul 2010, Dagsannr wrote:2MP:
Do you have a belief with evidence? I'd like to know what that evidence is and why it is still a belief, and not a certainty.
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Comment number 49.
At 11:35 9th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Natman
If you mean, can I prove God exists, or show you a little picture of Jesus sitting in a cafe in Jerusalem after Easter Sunday, or reproduce his walking on water business in my local swimming pool, no, I can't do any of those things.
However, are there reasons to trust, yes, I think there are. This is what I mean (and it is what classic Christianity means) by, believe. I wouldn't say I'm certain, though.
Trust is something we do all the time, the world don't work without it.
Perhaps this might be a useful conversation to have, we might even reach another consensus!
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Comment number 50.
At 12:51 9th Jul 2010, Dagsannr wrote:2MP, I doubt that ;-)
Reasons to trust and evidential proof are not the same. I am not belittling the fact that something requires faith, or that people have faith in it, far from it. Faith is one of humanities strongest drives, usually in the form of hope, and without it we would be poorer as a species.
My point is simply that once something has evidence to back it up, it no longer becomes a matter of faith, it becomes a certainty. Every believer in a god on this world does so on faith - commendable without a doubt, but ultimately, to convince another to do the same they need to have faith too.
Science, on the other hand, can provide this evidential proof, mountains of the stuff. Anyone who holds to a scientific opinion without such evidence is, possibly without realising it, holding onto a matter of faith. A good example of this is homeopathy, or crystal healing.
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Comment number 51.
At 14:27 9th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:I rather think 2MP is trying to conflate different types of "faith". There is the vague brassicaceous "faith" in god that a lot of people have, and it carries with it wafts of "hope" for the future, that even though now things are topsy turvy, the great mummy in the sky will some day come down and tidy up the play room and give us biccies and milk, pat us on our angelic heads and bring us up to our luvly fluffy beds. That is one popular type of "faith".
But there is another more pernicious "faith" that Peter wants to stuff under his jammies and read under the covers by torch light. That is "faith" that certain claims that are either demonstrably ridiculously improbable or certain events that we can be virtually certain did not occur are actually TRUE.
These are different beasties entirely. The former is the sort of "faith" that Eunice keeps torturing us with - like being repeatedly hit over the head with the fluffiest pillow in the history of philosophical discourse. It can be a pain, but is ultimately harmless and calorie free. The latter is not something that can be demanded by a god that values rationality, and, moreover, those claims are not ones which I can in good conscience allow to be made without challenge.
Moreover, the problem is that the challenges (and Peter knows this) are valid. The Bible is NOT inerrant - it contains stacks of mistakes and embellishments and stuff that is just plain *wrong*. It is not sufficient to say that you have "faith" that the bible is correct - you might as well have "faith" that Pi is 92. In this case your "faith" counts for nothing. It is disease. THAT sort of "faith" is very far from admirable.
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Comment number 52.
At 15:36 9th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Natman
"2MP, I doubt that ;-)"
Oh come on now, let's have a bit of faith in our ability to communicate! After all there is evidence of good communication so far! :-)
"Reasons to trust and evidential proof are not the same."
I agree - see, see!
So, to return to photos of Jesus and the like, no, I can't prove God. I guess we're agree on this too. However, that does not mean there is no evidence; what is in question here is the kind of evidence.
Perhaps we also agree on this?
You also say, "My point is simply that once something has evidence to back it up, it no longer becomes a matter of faith, it becomes a certainty. "
That's were I don't agree. For example (albeit a simple one), I tell you I can, oh I don't know, replace the dodgy tyres on your car, there is evidence: the correct tools, a garage with my name above the door, a good reputation. Do you trust me? Are you certain?
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Comment number 53.
At 15:49 9th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio,
Donkeys!
And I wouldn't be conflating at all. (but you know that too)
Of course, it would take real doubters like you and me to know this :-)
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Comment number 54.
At 17:01 9th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:2MP, as you know I set a great deal of store by donkeys. Donkeys are intelligent creatures, and we can learn a great deal from them. Indeed, some of the best made-up stories and tall tales (in the Bible and elsewhere) involve donkeys. As we have previously established, there was only one donkey on Palm Sunday, and Matthew simply threw in another one as proof that the bible was not to be taken literally. Similarly, Baalam's funny donkey story is another example where god in his supreme wisdom decided to place such an obvious myth into the bible so that people would not believe everything they read there.
If there can be talking donkeys and even Schroedinger's quantum donkey parallel universes, there can also be resurrecting messiahs and virgin births and all sorts of other implausible things that no god would really expect people to *believe*.
Which is why it is interesting that people continue to have "faith" that some or all of these absurdities must be true.
God has quite reasonably concluded that as far as humanity is concerned the Triumphal Entry was on Faithpalm Thunday.
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Comment number 55.
At 18:51 9th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Heliopolitan,
You set great deal of store by donkeys? Yes, I know; you’re a stable chap.
And yes, there are stories by the, ehem, cart load; and then there’s my little donkey, or is that pony? Whatever.
Funny enough though I don’t remember you establishing that there was only one donkey on Psalm Psunday. I’m quite sure there were dozens of the little critters, but I’d say we could be pretty confident (not *certain*, of course) that there was only one Jesus on only one donkey. Not unless he was donkey-ka-nevil; perhaps Paul the Tent-Maker could have made a Big Top and promoted the show all over Asia Minor.
Anyway, back to the donkey/s in question. Your gripe is that Matthew made a massive mistake, we could call it, Mr. Matty’s Marvellous Mistake and announce it with a drum roll and then read Zee Zebedee (I must say I really did like that one, nothing like a fairy’s tale for a bit of fun, like Eugene Petersen in ‘The Message’ when he begins with, ‘Once upon a Time’, he did too!! How’d he slip that in, eh, eh? Must be lots of bears laughing into their porridge at that one) Zechariah and ask what was Mr. Matthew doing with the words.
I set a reasonable store by them.
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Comment number 56.
At 19:59 9th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, so you agree that Matthew deliberately "fixed" Mark's account so that it would fit with his poor understanding of Hebrew idiom - idiom it appears that Jesus (and Mark) understood perfectly well? And you believe the derivative and tarted-up Matthew above Mark?
The reason I keep returning to this incident is that it is *important* and your glib attempts at evasion, while funny, are eunicious in their inanity. Do you agree that the bible contains falsehoods?
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Comment number 57.
At 20:51 9th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
Had to admit, you had me going with ‘eunicious’... almost looked it up. :-)
What was he doing with the words?
*Why* do what he did?
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Comment number 58.
At 22:17 9th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, glad you didn't go near Google with that baby ;-)
Why did he write the words he did? That is EXACTLY the point. We KNOW why he wrote the words he did. Because he was a fake. He was working off Mark's account, remember.
Now Mark knew and Jesus knew and everybody knew - all the two-bit messiahs before and since - that Zechariah had "prophesied": (KJV here):
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
When Mark wrote his bit, he knew about Zechariah, and Jesus had known about it too. However, Matthew did not understand the idiom in Zechariah - Zec was only talking about ONE donkey, and the "colt the foal of an ass" is simply there for poetic emphasis; it is NOT a second donkey! Matthew (correctly) spotted the allusion to Zec, but because he did not understand his Hebrew poetry, he thought, "Hmmm, something's up here - doesn't quite match... there! fixed it for ya!" He defrauded the account *specifically* in order to make it fit - not with the ACTUAL prophecy, but with his *misunderstanding* of the prophecy.
This is my point. Matthew did not write that section of his gospel; he copied it from Mark, and made certain alterations to fit with how he felt Mark *should* have written it. (Note, by "Matthew" and "Mark" I do not mean to imply that these gents actually wrote these gospels; they didn't - these names were attached long afterwards - the real authors are unknown).
This causes you a problem, because clearly the bible provably contains this definite error that can *only* have been present in the "original" (although the "original" is of course largely a knock-off of Mark).
As if this were not bad enough, we already know that Matthew has form. He made up the Nazarene prophecy - or rather he seems to have ripped off an aphorism that was a clumsy grecianisation of what we would call a NazirITE, and has nothing to do with NazarETH. Similarly, he confused the "young woman" and "virgin" issue way back at the start. In other words, Matthew is a serial embellisher and faker. THAT is why he used the words he used. It is also sometimes called *lying*. This author had never seen Jesus, but he knew what he *had* to believe, so he tweaked the earlier documents to fit.
So I am afraid, Peter, you iz busted. I win! :-)
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Comment number 59.
At 00:05 10th Jul 2010, Eunice wrote:Helio:it's eunicious caling..... I obviously need to use a brick instead of a fluffy pillow to get it into your head that I have never and would never suggest that *the great mummy in the sky will some day come down and tidy up the play room and give us biccies and milk, pat us on our angelic heads and bring us up to our luvly fluffy beds. That is one popular type of "faith".* This is isn't going to happen, it's not my 'faith' view or world view or anything like it!!!!! How you think it is after being hit so many times with the fluffy pillow is beyond me!! Either you haven't read what I have written, haven't understood a word of it or are just being a wind up merchant. Which ever it is (prob 2)- you obviously need lots more pillow bashing to get it sorted! :-)
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Comment number 60.
At 00:34 10th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
Hebrew poetry (like the end of Mark):
“...riding on a donkey, on a colt...” (Zacky 9:9) NIV-esy
Yea, yea, one donkey.
Me knows this.
Now, read it again.
Then read Matthew 21, verse 2, I think.
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Comment number 61.
At 07:55 10th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Yes, Peter, now read Mark 11 verse 2 - indeed, read the whole of both chapters. You should see that a/ Matt is riffing off Mark's document, and b/ he has embellished it by adding a donkey.
Hellooooooooooo! :-)
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Comment number 62.
At 12:48 10th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
”Hellooooooooooo! :-)”
You should change that wooden floor in your study and put some carpet down, seems quite echoey in there! :-)
Yes, yes.
Mark 11:2 - “"Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.”
Luke 19:30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.”
John 12:14, 15 “Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, "Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt." ”
Matthew 21:2 “"Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.”
Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.... “ (it continues, of course.)
Now, I know all this, so ask yourself why I’ve said what I’ve said. What is Matthew doing, why has he taken a different tack? (sorry!) You think it’s because he didn’t know the prophet, I think it’s because he did.
And remember what we now know about the oral culture, namely that it is/was acceptable to change aspects of the retelling in order to bring perspective while retaining the essential narrative.
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Comment number 63.
At 21:35 13th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, you are an intelligent and likeable guy, so it is puzzling to me why you insist on making an absolute fool of yourself and continually miss the point.
ALL the gospel writers (and Jesus himself; remember, I am assuming for the sake of argument that the story wasn't *completely* made up, but arguably based on misinterpretation and embellishment of real events) knew that Jesus had entered Jerusalem on a donkey - that was what messiahs DID - he was not the first to do this, and was not the last. It was part of the stage show.
WHY was it part of the stage show? Because of the "prophecy" in Zechariah.
So Matthew is sitting with the Mark Document in front of him, plagiarising and tarting-up liberally, when he comes across this bit; he puts 2 and 2 together, realises that it's the Zechariah prophecy (which is no biggie - that was the whole point in why Jesus did it and Mark wrote it!).
But he looks at Zechariah, and to Matthew's horror, ignorant as he is of Hebrew idiom, he sees that Zechariah appears to mention TWO donkeys - one an ass and one the colt, the foal of an ass! So what is poor Matt to do? Simple - he changes the Mark story to insert another donkey. Does he go back to Zechariah to check his interpretation? No - he "knows" that his interpretation of Zechariah is correct, so therefore Mark's hick gospel must be in error, and requires fixing.
It is an embellishment. A bolt-on. Matthew tells a LIE in order to make the Mark passage fit with HIS mistaken interpretation of Zechariah. No matter what way you look at this, it is an error. A PROVABLE error in the biblical text, as you yourself have admitted.
Ah, but you say, it does not change the narrative (other than, presumably, conjuring up a Middle Eastern Evel Knievel type donkey-surfing pyramid image of Jesus practically surfing into Jerusalem on these beasts!). But that is not my point. My point is that the bible contains ERROR, and that in certain cases that error fundamentally undermines the credibility (never mind the "inspiredness") of the text. Matthew further goes on to embellish around the resurrection - again, he "knows the narrative" he is trying to convey/propagandise, so he riffs away, inventing a guard for the tomb, inventing hordes of the undead descending on Jerusalem, inventing "angels" in the tomb, inventing post-"resurrection" appearances.
You keep pretending that Matthew was heir to an "oral" tradition; Matthew was using DOCUMENTS, not oral tradition, and splicing and tarting-up as he went along.
But the really funny thing is this: you AGREE that Matthew (not the disciple Matthew of course - we just use this name out of convenience - I keep having to emphasise this) embellished the account, yet (presumably) you don't think he embellished the stories of the post-resurrection sightings which do not appear in Mark.
So here is the deal: the gospel of Matthew is FATAL to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. Even when Matt was being written, no-one really knew the facts, and it was possible to distort and fabricate to one's leisure about this semi-legendary Jesus character, particularly in his final days and the confused set of "visions", rumours, Chinese whispers etc that surrounded the "loss" of his corpse (probably, I think, taken from the temporary mortuary by his family back to Capernaum for definitive burial in the family tomb, but I am open to other suggestions).
All your entertaining waffle about the principles and practice of "oral tradition" abjectly fails to address this.
And since the bible is proven to be in error, why should we believe it is the "word of god"?
Matthew, my boy, was spinning a yarn, and you should have more intelligence than to take this shaggy dog story at face value. It is *obvious* that Matthew was making stuff up as he went along. Now get yourself over to the Church of Jesus Christ Atheist - I would like your comments on the Parable of the Maiden and the Bears.
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Comment number 64.
At 22:42 13th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
The story about the bears was funny, it’s why I mentioned bears laughing into their porridge during morning devotions when using the Message. I’ll look it up again and see if I can find some way of disagreeing with you. ;-)
Right, donkeys. (Why do I want to say that Matthew put one and one together and got two!?)
Where do we agree? Did Matthew use Mark, seems likely - we agree. However you call it “tarting-up liberally” and “ embellishment”, I don’t see it that way. The culture is one of the reasons which explains this. Audience, purpose and so on explains some more.
However donkeys.
I agree too that Jesus knew the prophecy, and that he was making a point, that he wanted his disciples to ‘connect the dots’. He’d done this quite a bit, refering to various prophecies and relating them to himself. And now he gets to the donkey bit.
I agree too that the donkey and the colt are one donkey, I’ve said this already, quoted it above. So, connect the dots in Zechariah and Matthew, in a different way.
It's really straightforward.
Oh, and something else, remember e-Graham? Have you come across 'Scratch' from MIT, teaches basic programming, don't know what age your kids are but they might like it, so might you.
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Comment number 65.
At 23:11 13th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Thanks Peter - I'll look that up. However, remember what we have established here - Matt was working off DOCUMENTS, not "oral culture", and he *specifically* changes the story from one donkey (we are agreed that Mark is "correct" here and Matt is wrong) to two.
I have agreed that he did this because he did not understand that Zechariah was referring to one donkey, not two (Matt was working from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew, and he did not understand Hebrew poetic idiom).
It is embellishment, and it has led to error. We know *why* he made the mistake, and we can feel some sympathy for the poor fool as he made it. But the fact is that he still made it. There is really no way round this, and pleading that he did it simply to win over his audience (i.e. change the story for rhetorical effect) just makes it WORSE for your case!
Agreed?
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Comment number 66.
At 12:42 14th Jul 2010, Dagsannr wrote:I noticed this ol' thread had raised it's ugy head once more and in reading the posts I noticed this from 2MP:
'And remember what we now know about the oral culture, namely that it is/was acceptable to change aspects of the retelling in order to bring perspective while retaining the essential narrative.'
Now this is exactly the reason why the bible cannot be trusted, oral traditions distort through each successive generation. An over-simplified example (to use donkeys, as they seem popular):
Generation 1 (witnessed the original event) -
And he came riding into the city on a donkey
Generation 2 (simply wanting to add a bit of flavour to it) -
And he came riding into the city on a brown donkey
Generation 3 (seeking to justify why the donkey was brown) -
And he came riding into the city on a brown donkey, as white donkeys are the wrong colour
Generation 4 -
And he came riding into the city on a brown donkey, to use white donkeys would be wrong and a sin
In 4 generations of retelling, you've gone from a simple story, to an admonishment of white donkeys. Admittedly, the example is a bit implausible, and highly simplified and condensed, but this is what happens over the years - successive generations are unable to tell what has been added as 'aspects of the retelling in order to bring perspective' and what was the original.
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Comment number 67.
At 15:25 14th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Hi Natman,
Peter will try to argue that in the special case of Middle Eastern folklore, embellishment did not affect the fundamental narrative; the reference he previously provided is really of little value in this discussion, and specifically does not help at all with the fact that the biblical stories clearly *have* been embellished, so it's not even a matter of Peter trying to make some special (specious) case that the gospel stories were subject to some sort of rabbinical oral quality control - that is irrelevant. By the time the author of Matthew got the stories, they were written down. Yet he introduced this specific corruption. Peter has been attempting to wriggle on this hook, but I think any observers to this thread have found his excuses somewhat lame.
To reiterate, the issue is NOT one of a contradiction (or an "apparent contradiction") per se. It is of a change that can be very specifically identified in the context; we know WHEN the change was made (relatively speaking) - i.e. between the composition of Mark and the later redaction of Matthew; we can guess at WHERE the change was made (Matthew was presumably a Hellenised Jew with relatively little knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic, but reasonable Greek, working off the Septuagint and a Greek translation of "Q", suggesting that he was up-country in Antioch or somewhere like that); we know WHY the change was made - the original story did not match Matthew's rhetorical aims. So he faked it.
We don't even need to posit Chinese whispers in this particular instance - it was a conscious act of fraud.
And, of course, other frauds of Matthew were the virgin birth, the Nativity story en bloc, the prophecies ("he shall be called a Nazarene"), the post-resurrection zombies, the resurrection appearances, and much else besides - because here was a man who was quite happy to alter the "facts" (if Mark can be described as such) and gloss them to fit his purpose. He did not rely on the fact that one day HIS document would be compared to the Mark document, and his deception unveiled.
And some people have the ridiculous temerity to call this "scripture"!!
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Comment number 68.
At 16:51 14th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Natman
There you have it, Helio knows what my reply was going to be!! The funny thing is I actually like reading what H thinks I think, it's fun, and at least with Helio things are fun!
Never mind Helio or me though, if I were you, I’d listen to yourself, “Admittedly, the example is a bit implausible, and highly simplified...” ;-)
But you’ll notice something, Helio is using words like ‘embellishment’, I am using words like ‘perspective’. We agree on some things but he’s claiming more agreement than I am. Odd that. ;-)
And read that article I posted for yourself. I have no idea what thread it is on but I'll link it again if you want me to.
Helio
You know me so well! Did we ever meet on Bangor sea front? I’d have been the one trying to avoid the tract-mongers. I’ve been stalked more times than enough!
H, you’re still not reading the text. Remember I quoted them all. Why?
You can accuse Matthew of ‘tarting-up’ Mark’s text if you want to, but at least recognise the possibility that he got his second donkey from somewhere else. Is there any way in which he might have been right about another donkey? Remember, you are insisting he *must* be wrong.
Here they are again:
Matthew 21:2 “"Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.”
Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey...."
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Comment number 69.
At 18:52 14th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, Zechariah only has ONE donkey!!!
Where did Matt get D2 from? Simple - he faked it.
Dude!
Duuuuude!!!
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Comment number 70.
At 19:04 14th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
Matthew has a colt and a what in his 'embellishment'?
I can't believe we're doing this!! Wanna go for a beer?
:-)
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Comment number 71.
At 20:33 14th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, yes, beer suits me, but let's examine the donkey count:
Matt: 2
Mark: 1
Luke: 1
John: 1
Zech: 1
Now how about you explain to me why Matt lied?
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Comment number 72.
At 21:44 14th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
Beer, yea, I believe we get a harp in heaven!
So we're counting donkeys now. I had told Graham (the real one) that I couldn't quite bring myself to say, "Let's count the donkeys."
Honestly, it's making me laugh now! It's like the football scores: Matthew 2 - Mark 1, Luke 1 - John 1.
Yes, Matthew: 2 - A colt and a....?
"Lied"? (Like, liar, liar ass on fire!) :-)
I'm trying to ask you if there is an alternative...
Is there an alternative? Could he have been thinking something else? Is it possible?
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Comment number 73.
At 22:56 14th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Well spit it out, man! What is your explanation for Matthew's wee fib?
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Comment number 74.
At 23:54 14th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio,
"Spit it out." I didn't think I'd have to.
I’m tempted to write chapter 8 of the Lost Gospel of Zee. B. Dee, but, I’m thinking, could d-baby have had a d-mum?
Is that *possible*.
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Comment number 75.
At 00:11 15th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Jeez, Pete, I have explained exactly what was going on in Matthew's mind as he perpetrated his fraud. I also know why you are being evasive - you have no explanation.
Or do you?
Well?
Why did Matthew invent the Donkey That Was Not There?
Could it be that the bible contains ERROR? Yes. Agree?
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Comment number 76.
At 00:28 15th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:H,
Zechariah: the foal of a donkey
Matthew: donkey tied with her foal.
We can stick with embellishments, mistakes, misunderstandings if you wish, but, is it possible that this was the cause of the misunderstanding?
If not, why not?
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Comment number 77.
At 01:36 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:Helio, I don't know how serious you're being about the donkeys, but one of the common explanations is that bringing both the mother and the baby was a demonstration that it was indeed a young colt, rather than a mature donkey. The idea that Matthew misunderstood the Hebrew is rather contrary to his demonstrably good grasp of the language.
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Comment number 78.
At 08:23 15th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Jonathan & Peter, lads, stop being silly. Facts: Matthew thought Zechariah was referring to two donkeys when in fact he was only referring to ONE, and the colt/foal thing was *poetry*. Matthew's Hebrew was demonstrably *poor*, if he had any at all! Remember the "Nazarene" gaffe? Furthermore, Matthew was copying *documentary* Mark, where the allusion to Zechariah was already obvious.
Your valiant attempts make NO sense of the passage; the only viable explanation is that Matthew misunderstood Zechariah, and faked the extra donkey to make it fit. And he faked other things too. Matthew is a deeply flawed document, written without due care to the facts. Your objections fail.
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Comment number 79.
At 09:08 15th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:And, just in case there are still lingering misconceptions, the author of Matthew never saw any of these things, never met Jesus, and was working, not from oral tradition, but written texts which he did not properly grasp.
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Comment number 80.
At 10:22 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@Helio (78 & 79)
The scholars I've read say that his Hebrew is good. I'm inclined to trust them over you.
As for the Nazarene 'gaffe', in what way does that demonstrate poor Hebrew? If anything it demonstrates that Greek is a particular Aramaic dialogue, so occasionally he'll use odd constructions. Don't see what it says about his Hebrew.
Perhaps some day you'll lend us your time machine so we can all be as convinced as you of our misconceptions.
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Comment number 81.
At 10:35 15th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
The colt in Zechariah is quite clearly described as 'the foal of a donkey'.
Agreed?
And Matthew has Jesus describing the colt he wants as one which is tied with a donkey, 'her colt by her'.
Agreed?
There is no need of any other theory of embellishments or misunderstandings or poor Hebrew or whatever, the description of the colt is the same in both accounts.
It's like the end of Mark, within the cultural context there is no dilemma.
And why mention all that stuff about oral traditions? Because Matthew has the freedom to write as he writes, describing the colt, and Mark, Luke and John have the freedom to focus on the colt *without* this effecting the meaning of the accounts.
There is no issue here.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 81)
Comment number 82.
At 11:35 15th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Hi chaps, you are valiant, but you're backing a donkey that has already lost.
One more time, with feeling:
1. Matthew was NOT writing in an oral tradition, but a *documentary* tradition. He was tarting up Mark. That is incontrovertible.
2. Zechariah only mentions one donkey; the repetition involving a colt, the foal of a donkey was poetic emphasis - ALL Hebrew scholars accept this. Only one donkey. Matthew got this WRONG. Jonathan, what your other scholars think about Matthew's Hebrew knowledge is irrelevant - plenty of scholars recognise his command to be pretty weak, and as I have shown, he has made errors as a result of this.
3. Matthew very clearly takes a passage from Mark and alters it to incorporate HIS misunderstanding of Zechariah. Matthew clearly and demonstrably took the construction of the Zecharian passage to mean a donkey AND its foal. This was a mistake. If you read, for example, the Revised Standard Version, it uses the term "even" instead of "and" (in Zec), but correctly notes that Matthew uses "and", and thereby makes his mistake.
Your attempts to wriggle out of this are *utterly* feeble! Why bother? Why not admit that Matthew made an egregious error? What is the problem with acknowledging that he got this wrong? Certainly the majority of biblical scholars *do* accept that this is an error on the author's part.
Oh - you *can't* - is that it? Is that why you invent these crazy epicycles to try to maintain the myth that the gospels are actually part of "god's word"? Just how far *can* your credulity stretch?
THAT is why I keep harping on about this donkey thing. It is proof positive that the bible is NOT inerrant.
You have no escape.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 82)
Comment number 83.
At 12:51 15th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Aw shucks, and there was me expecting the penny to drop.
Do I really have to say, Donkey/colt/foal (same animal) of a donkey?
Let's call it a draw. I mean, it just couldn't be true, Goldilocks!
Heliopolitan 1 - Tag team JB and 2MP 1
Zechariah 2 - Matthew 2 ;-)
I'm off to Church of Jesus Christ Atheist.
:-)
Complain about this comment (Comment number 83)
Comment number 84.
At 13:39 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@Helio (82)
1. I don't think you know what word 'incontrovertible' means or what sources Matthew had access to in an oral culture.
2. Not all scholars 'accept' there was only one donkey. Stendahl thinks that Matthew knew of a Rabbinic tradition which spoke of two asses. Hagner thinks that Zechariah could refer to two animals.
Among those who think that Zechariah only mentions one, there are plenty who think Matthew understood that just fine and was recording an actual event. Gundry and Lindars reason that a colt which had never been ridden before might need the calming presence of its mother. Davis and Allison consider it highly unlikely that Matthew would misread Zechariah. Blomberg is confident in his reliability and use of Hebrew and Carson and Witherington find reasonable explanations for the text.
3. Dear oh dear, where do I begin here? Helio, although you read the Bible in English, I'm afraid that English is actually quite a recent language. Although you may be fond of the image of Moses speaking with thees and thous, the Old Testament was in fact written in Hebrew (and a little Aramaic) and the New Testament in Koine Greek. In Zechariah, the even/and you speak of is in fact a conjunction consisting of a single letter in Hebrew - a waw (or vav) - which has a range of meanings including 'and' and 'even.' Matthew, writing in Greek, uses the word 'kai' which similarly has a range of connective meanings, including both 'and' and 'even'.
4. No answer to the Nazarene issue? Glad you're in a agreement then.
5. Epicycles? Really? I'm afraid that kind of distraction won't ass-ist you much here.
6. I'm not sure you understand the word 'proof'.
Read the scholars. Teach the debate. Open your mind. Don't be a one-view narrow-minded fundamentalist. Escape the cage you have built around your mind.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 84)
Comment number 85.
At 14:30 15th Jul 2010, Dagsannr wrote:Jonathan, I find your use of the words 'one-view narrow-minded fundamentalist' to be a bit rich, considering Helio is simply trying to get you to admit that the bible isn't 100% perfect in every tiny words written within in in any language and any translation.
To insist that the bible is, and always has been, 100% correct, infalliable and inerrant is a fundamentalist viewpoint as it allows no alteration of opinion, no debate and claims a source of authority beyond reproach.
I'd be wary of any report written by someone who didn't witness the event, working from another report written decades after the event. Wouldn't you?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 85)
Comment number 86.
At 14:32 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@2mp (82)
If we're a tag team, do we need matching costumes?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 86)
Comment number 87.
At 14:54 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@Natman (85)
I didn't make a claim that Helio is proving wrong. Rather I'm rebutting his claim that there is only one way to understand this particular bit of Matthew. I'm not engaging in a debate about the trustworthiness of the Bible here. Don't you think that insisting that there is only one way to understand this text when scholars offer multiple reasonable interpretations is a little close-minded? If the roles were reversed, are you sure you wouldn't be laying into me?
Also I thought it would be a bit clearer that the last paragraph was more banterful than serious, but 'm sure Helio will understand, given his proclivity for trying to wind people up.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 87)
Comment number 88.
At 16:21 15th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
(Back from 'church'. Like you, I enjoyed the hymns!)
In #84 Jonathan has raised a number of points, some I am aware of, some I am not aware of.
Now, why haven’t I referred to them? Simply because all I’ve been asking you to do is consider the possibility that there is an alternative to your view that “the only viable explanation is that Matthew misunderstood Zechariah”. I asked this over and over.
And it is clear that an alternative reading is *possible*.
Just like the possibility of the ending of Mark that we discussed before, perhaps there was another section, lost, but the ending as we have it is perfectly viable.
We don't need theories, of lost endings, lost donkeys or lost Matthews.
The point, and I’ve said this for what feels like forever on this blog, is that the bible has context, the authors had purpose, they followed traditions, they lived within a particular culture, the language has meaning. Unfortunately, however, what we end up with, far too often, is a rash of proof-texting from both atheist and christian (it’s been happening on another thread just this morning) and it doesn’t get any of us anywhere.
Jonathan
What about these:
https://www.funwarehouse.co.uk/acatalog/info_1_2179.html
Natman
Don't be so literal ;-)
And read the Bailey article, it explains a lot about your concern regarding 'Chinese Whispers'.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 88)
Comment number 89.
At 16:50 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@2mp (88)
Excellent idea. And since there's apparently no escape from Helio, perhaps he should wear this:
https://www.funwarehouse.co.uk/acatalog/info_1_512.html
After all, they always get their man.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 89)
Comment number 90.
At 20:04 15th Jul 2010, Eunice wrote:I too was in stitches at the *Open your mind. Don't be a one-view narrow-minded fundamentalist. Escape the cage you have built around your mind.*
Although Jonathan - if you are able to joke about it - why not do something about it! :-)
Complain about this comment (Comment number 90)
Comment number 91.
At 21:49 15th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, I hate to tell you this, but at least Jonathan is making an *effort*. A doomed effort, but the lord loves a trier, as they say.
The problem is not that I somehow have my mind closed to alternative explanations, or that whoever the author of Matthew was was trying to make some subtle and devilishly clever point. No - the problem (for you) is that there is really only one rational interpretation of Matthew's error. When Matthew read Mark, he noticed that it only referred to one donkey, but Matthew's mindset required TWO donkeys - so he simply faked the extra one, and then, like a trump card, he produces his own misunderstanding of Zechariah.
So let's look at Jonathan's attempts to counter this (sorry, Peter, you have not engaged):
1. I don't think you know what word 'incontrovertible' means or what sources Matthew had access to in an oral culture.
Ah, but I think I do. He had Mark and he had the Septuagint DOCUMENTS, not oral. And he had "Q" (or some such Greek translation of an earlier Aramaic set of sayings attested to Jesus). Not oral.
2. Not all scholars 'accept' there was only one donkey. Stendahl thinks that Matthew knew of a Rabbinic tradition which spoke of two asses. Hagner thinks that Zechariah could refer to two animals.
Well, I'm sure those halfwitted loons maybe do think that. However, providing a cogent argument in favour of that, while still allowing that the other gospel writers did NOT make the same mistake is a bit of a tough challenge for our boys, even if they do only exist as germanic surnames.
Among those who think that Zechariah only mentions one, there are plenty who think Matthew understood that just fine and was recording an actual event. Gundry and Lindars reason that a colt which had never been ridden before might need the calming presence of its mother.
Which misses the point entirely - Matthew was not writing his own story here - he was embellishing Mark. So that feeble excuse fails too, even if there WAS another donkey. Besides, Jebus could calm storms - a feisty foal should have represented no problem. Our list of half-witted loons grows longer.
Davis and Allison consider it highly unlikely that Matthew would misread Zechariah. Blomberg is confident in his reliability and use of Hebrew and Carson and Witherington find reasonable explanations for the text.
If that were the case you would provide their arguments. You will find that they are based on a tottering pile of assumptions that do not hold up, and indeed are readily shown to be false. Matthew's understanding of the Old Testament was guff.
3. Dear oh dear, where do I begin here? Helio, although you read the Bible in English, I'm afraid that English is actually quite a recent language.
Oh I know this, but it does not change my point in the slightest. Matthew still made a change to Mark. It is the SAME account, but altered in a ridiculous way in order to make it look like Jesus was fulfilling Matthew's clear misunderstanding of Zechariah. It is not rocket science.
4. No answer to the Nazarene issue? Glad you're in a agreement then.
Oh - I missed that. Matthew thought erroneously that there was a Nazarene prophecy in the OT, when in fact there is no such prophecy. Furthermore, the term "Nazarene" is not related to the town of NazarETH. This is another area where Matt's Hebrew lets him down, and where his fakery of prophecies shows that he has no grasp of the facts.
5. Epicycles? Really? I'm afraid that kind of distraction won't ass-ist you much here.
Well, better Jesus riding epicycles into Jerusalem than unicycles, eh?
6. I'm not sure you understand the word 'proof'.
I rather think that I do. You have not been able to assail my argument. My premises hold, my argument is valid, and my conclusion sound. Here it is again: the anonymous author/compiler of Matthew changed the text of Mark to fit with his own misunderstanding of the Zecharian prophecy.
Once again, it is an ERROR. Now that is OK - pretty much all human documents contain errors, and there is no reason why this account, by a man working off several documentary (not oral) sources, never having seen the original events - indeed, probably never even having visited Jerusalem, should make errors.
It is not me claiming special status for this attempt at a gospel. As I have shown, all the feeble, yet inventive, efforts of your surnamed "scholars" are half-baked nonsense, and do not hold any water.
Helio's razor: do not multiply donkeys beyond necessity.
Matthew is *busted*, and you KNOW it.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 91)
Comment number 92.
At 22:42 15th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
”there is really only one rational interpretation”
Which requires
Assertion: Matthew had no access to an oral culture.
Insult: “halfwitted loons”
Insult: “Our list of half-witted loons grows longer.”
Assertion: Matthew was *embellishing* Mark
Character assassination: Matthew was a liar.
And I’m busted? #58
Yea!
Complain about this comment (Comment number 92)
Comment number 93.
At 22:56 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@Eunice (90)
'I too was in stitches at the *Open your mind. Don't be a one-view narrow-minded fundamentalist. Escape the cage you have built around your mind.*
Although Jonathan - if you are able to joke about it - why not do something about it! :-)'
You want me to arrange a prison break for Helio's mind? Well I'm sure Peter Morrow would be on board too, so all we need is a four team member and we can begin. I think it's well recognised on the blog that you're the most unhinged of us all Eunice, so you'll have to be Face. I'll mastermindthe plan, so I've got to be Hannibal, but I draw the line at smoking cigars. I suspect that Peter Morrow pities the fool, so he can be BA, which means we just need to find a Face. Anyone know of GV is much of a ladies' man?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 93)
Comment number 94.
At 23:10 15th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@Helio (91)
1. Why couldn't he have had oral?
2. But you can't beat the Germans. Unless you're Spanish. you're not Spanish are you Helio? I'm afraid you'll have to find an Iberian scholar to get you out of this hole. Having quoted scholars and a brief summary of their arguments, I'm disinclined to do any more until I've seen the same effort from you.
3. If your point rested on the meaning of English words but is nullified by the actual Hebrew and Greek then isn't it something of a whoopsie?
4. Again Helio, you're confusing your languages. Matthew was writing in Greek and the word Nazoraios which is much more likely to originate from a Galilean Aramaic word for residents of Nazareth than it is from any words for Nazarite. According to Blomberg and Ruger anyway. The theory goes that since Nazareth was a bit of a backwater and looked down upon, it;s a fulfilment of descriptions of the suffering servant who has a less than majestic origin and description.
5. I often saw people doing their shopping in Oxford on unicycles. No triumphant entries though.
6. Assailing your argument Helio would be like mount a 'Tidy up Holywood' campaign. It's won so many Best Kept Town awards that there's very little point.
7. Does Helio's razor prevent Eeyore from breeding?
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Comment number 95.
At 23:37 15th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, you will note that Jonathan threw up some really vacuous statements from disembodied surnames that hold no water at all. We have looked at these arguments, and found them to be nonsense.
Now that is OK; I understand how some madcap fundies might wish to flail around trying to distract from the mistakes in the bible by formulating shaggy donkey tales about "what Matthew was trying to say" and "oral culture" and similar vacuous cabbage, but NONE of that is relevant. Here, for example, is a selection of what some other people have had to say:
# Gerd Ludemann, Professor of New Testament Studies, University of Gottingen
“Jesus: After 2000 Years”, Prometheus 2001, p215
[Commenting on Matthew 21:7-PT]
“ In accordance with the fulfilled prophecy from Zec. 9.9, Jesus rides on two asses. ‘Only “Christian” theology can possibly justify these two asses’ (Wernle)”
# Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar (the Jesus Seminar consists of 70+ PhD’s in the field of NT research)
“The Acts of Jesus: What did Jesus really do?” HarperCollins 1998, p230
“Matthew takes the prophet quite literally and has Jesus mounted on both a donkey and a colt (v.7), to make sure the prophecy is completely fulfilled. It is difficult to imagine how Jesus could have ridden two animals at the same time.”
# Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Professor of History of Religion, University of Essen
“Putting Away Childish Things” HarperCollins 1995, p27-28
“ ‘Foal of an ass’ is an explanation of ‘colt’. The text speaks of a single ass, but because Matthew mistakenly thinks that Zechariah is talking about two asses, he also mistakenly translates [Matthew 21:4-5 is quoted here-PT] Accordingly Matthew had Jesus …[sitting on]…both beasts! Theologians have struggled in vain to make sense of this senseless passage “
# James D.G. Dunn, Professor of Divinity, University of Durham,
“Unity and Diversity in the New Testament”, Trinity Press 1990, p99
“One clear example of detail created out of prophecy is Matthew’s account of Jesus entry into Jerusalem riding on both an ass and a colt of Zechariah 9.9”
# J.C. Fenton, Principal of Lichfield Theological College
“Saint Matthew”, Penguin 1980, p.330-331
“The last two lines are an example of Hebrew poetic parallelism-i.e. repetition of the same idea in different words. Matthew thus seems to have taken this literally, and thus introduced two animals into the story… [Commenting on Matthew 21:7-PT]…Matthew has altered the wording here also, to bring in the second animal; ‘he sat thereon’ is a [KJV] translation that obscures what Matthew in fact wrote-viz ‘he sat on them’ “
# Don Cuppit, Theologian, Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
“Who was Jesus” BBC 1977 , p.44
“Zechariah does not envisage Zion’s King achieving the difficult gymnastic feat of riding on both an ass and a colt, as Matthew says Jesus does.”
# John Allegro, Lecturer of Old Testament and Intertestamental Studies, University of Manchester,
“The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reappraisal”, Penguin 1964, p151-152
“In his[the author of Matthew] rendering he has divided the parallel stichoi of the Hebrew verse to imply that there were two separate animals involved, an ass and a colt…Matthew’s quotation leads him in verse 7 into the apparent absurdity of the disciples putting their garments on both animals.”
# C.J. Cadoux, Professor of Church History, Oxford
“ The Life of Jesus”, Penguin 1948, p.180
“So literal minded has some Christian become by the time ‘Matthew’ was written, that in his account (contrary to all others) two animals were actually sent by Jesus…and-...- he is made to perform the impossible task of riding upon them both.”
Furthermore, I don't think I said Matthew had *no* access to oral culture (although it is actually fairly unlikely that he had anything like close access - at best this would have been third-hand commentary); in THIS episode he is using DOCUMENTARY Mark and the Septuagint, and NOT any oral culture, other than perhaps an explicit linkage to the Zechariah prophecy, which as I have explained before was blindingly obvious to the other gospel writers, as well as to every two-bit messianic pretender in C1CE. There would have been a veritable *convoy* of donkeys coming into Jerusalem all the time, with EVERY "messiah" attempting to fulfil the prophecy.
So, for you to claim or pretend that the anonymous author of "Matthew" was making some clever or deep point with this error is hugely disingenuous. What's worse is that you KNOW this, yet you persist in the pretence. Why not be honest for a change?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 95)
Comment number 96.
At 00:58 16th Jul 2010, 2manypeters wrote:Helio
It's "cmd,c" followed by "cmd,v" on my computer, what is it on yours?
And he did ride both donkeys. With cloaks right over both of them. (big cloaks, small donkeys) And you hadn't even got to that objection.
Gee.
Or should that be gee gee?
Read it all before.
Look, it's simple, the foal....
Complain about this comment (Comment number 96)
Comment number 97.
At 01:18 16th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:Helio, I've just read an interesting article on the subject and will give a 100% serious answer for a change.
David Instone-Brewer 'The Two Asses of Zechariah 9:9 in Matthew 21.' Tyndale Bulletin 54.1 (2003): 87-98.
Instone-Brewer offers evidence that Rabbinic interpretation in Matthew's time didn't think that there was any parallelism in scripture, therefore they would have read Zechariah as talking about two donkeys. In order for them to recognise the triumphal entry as a fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, details about two donkeys would have to be included, regardless of whether Matthew thought that there was parallelism or not.
That leaves us with a few possibilities:
1) Matthew only knew of one donkey and only expected one donkey because he believed in parallelism. The important point of the story is not the number of donkeys, but the fulfilment of prophecy therefore he included a second donkey so that rabbinic readers would get that prophecy is being fulfilled.
2) Matthew only know of one donkey, but expected two because he didn't believe in parallelism. He therefore invented the second donkey to create a prophetic fulfilment.
3) Matthew knew of two donkeys, but only expected one. Two includes one, so it was still a fulfilment of prophecy as far as he was concerned. The other gospel writers weren't concerned with rabbinic expectations, so they just recorded the one necessary donkey, but for the benefit of rabbinic readers, Matthew included both so that everyone would see the prophetic fulfilment.
4) Matthew know of two donkeys and expected both. He disagrees with the other evangelists in the number of donkeys required to fulfil the prophecy but agrees with them that the prophecy was fulfilled. They only felt the need to include one, he felt the need to include both.
That's a few of the possibilities. Can we agree that there are quite a few possible explanations for Matthew 21 without mandating that anyone adhere to one in particular? I'm not sure which I agree with to be honest.
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Comment number 98.
At 07:48 16th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Peter, the donkey IS the foal! Zec talks about the same animal. Jonathan, have you alink for Instone-brewer's musings? Also Peter, I provided a link. That is what I like to do when I cut and paste.
But it strikes me immediately that if I-B is right (which is dubious), it means that Matthew still "fixed" an error that HE saw in Mark, which is still fatal for the infantile and discredited fantasy of biblical inerrancy.
There is no way you can ride these donkeys without accepting that the bible gets things badly wrong sometimes.
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Comment number 99.
At 07:56 16th Jul 2010, Heliopolitan wrote:Boys, be honest now. What is the problem with admitting that Matthew contains authorial errors?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 99)
Comment number 100.
At 10:48 16th Jul 2010, Jonathan Boyd wrote:@Helio (98)
I've got a copy on my iDisk, but I'm concerned that if I post a link to it it might break BBC guideline. I recall a post being moderated before because I linked to a PDF. If you email me at[Personal details removed by Moderator]then I'll email you back a link.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 100)
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