But, Bill, .... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Monday, June 04, 2012, 20:00 (355 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley

Bill and all, wow, what a conversation. I've now read the whole string and feel like commenting on something in every post. I'm not sure how much time I have though but I'll make a start now. In a sense I took some of these thoughts down to the hospital with me and had a good chat with Eugene Stockton about some of the ideas we've been discussing on Catholica recently. He was also in need of some fresh reading material so I printed out a whole lot of our recent commentaries.

What we discuss in this place might upset the fundamentalist and triumphalists who want to take religion back to bells and smells, processions and novenas but I don't pick up any sense that society is heading in that direction on the big canvas (albeit that the fundamentalists might have a small resurgence because of the current insecurities in our world). What came with triumphalism, and clericalism, are all the things you complain about Bill. Will those who want to take us back to triumphalism and clericalism learn the lessons though? I am totally sceptical of that.

To something specific that you have written, Bill: do we need "proof" of the existence of Jesus? That is close to the heart of my question on Sunday in the original string. Eugene Stockton made the point to me an hour or so ago that his search is for the "mythic Jesus" (not "mythical" as in "make believe" – that is something completely different to the "mythic Jesus"). He argued "biblical scholars have taken us off track by this search for the historical Jesus" — implying, if I understand him correctly, that we're not going to find "the real Jesus" or "the Jesus that matters" in history books, archeological records and historical "facts". I don't think he's totally unkind to "biblical scholars" because all their research has turned up many valuable insights and he's not really being discouraging of "biblical scholarship". The point he seemed to be trying to make to me, perhaps agreeing with the point I'd been trying to make, is that the real substance of the Jesus "message" is in the insight and wisdom of the man (not whether this or that "event" recorded in scripture actually happened).

Bill, I honestly don't think it matters if we get "proof" of what the individual named Jesus actually said or did. I suspect a lot of it is "made up" (by the largely anonymous writers of scripture). They weren't endeavouring to give us a history or science lesson. It wasn't "modern journalism". They were "story tellers" — probably very similar to the ancient aboriginal dreamtime storytellers. We were never meant to interpret it all literally. We recite the story of the three little pigs to our children not because we are trying to teach them that pigs can think and talk but for "the moral of the story" — that it's best to build houses of quality materials rather than inferior materials. Quality pays off in the long run. That's how the Jesus' story is meant to be told — for "the moral" in the stories not whether he actually ever spoke to a woman at a well, or confronted a whole lot of people intent on stoning an adultress to death, etc., etc.

The confusion, I think, is whether we present Jesus as a "rule maker" or as a "rule breaker". Jesus tells us himself he wasn't like Moses in bringing down some great new set of "commandments" or "rules" from heaven. His principal message was about showing us how to navigate through all the commandments and the rules in order to make intelligent choices in life. I think there is still massive confusion — not only in Catholicism but some of the Protestants are worse than the Catholics — in what we present Jesus as attempting to do, or preach or teach.

On the other side I also think it is wrong, or perhaps that is too strong a word — misleading might be better, to suggest that Jesus was this "nice man" running around trying to get us to all engage in some huge "New Age love in". His message is "tough". To live it you do have to think — and think pretty hard about the choices one makes in life. But it is not "hard" in that style, to quote Enda from further down this string, "learned from Brother Belter at St Mary Miserable's or from Sister Terrorista at Our Lady Fear of Hell". It is "difficult" in the sense that often the choices that life throws up in our path don't have easy black or white choices and we need to navigate our way carefully to find the most sensible (and morally correct) choice.

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]