Note To Self - October 21, 2011

(Conversation relating to "Did Jesus Really Die For Our Sins?" - Piatt - Huffington Post October 18, 2011)

Me:

Quoted in the article is, "...the notion of Jesus dying for our sins did not gain traction in the Christian imagination until at least a dozen centuries after Christ's death." The article conflates the idea that somehow Christians' understanding that Christ died for our sin changed because historical Christianity held a moral influence view of atonement, which was supplanted by Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement in the Middle Ages. Yes Jesus' death on the cross is necessary to the idea of satisfaction, but it's equally essential to moral influence which would be impossible without it. What he's trying to say is that the Bishop of Canterbury "discovered" the doctrine of Christ's sacrifice in the eleventh century! We've understood that Jesus died for our sins from the beginning (1 Corinthians was written 20-ish years after the resurrection).

Chis:

...the Bishop of Canterbury "discovering" things really just fits into the history of the church. Now, before I go any further, let me say that I am no bible history buff or anything like that, so I may be talking out I the side of my mouth here. I have a bit of an issue with the bible itself. Not that it isn't the word of God as told to men, but that the church decided what books/letters/stories we were to be given. What is in the rest of the letters? What is in the Apocrypha? (I could find that out pretty easily). What about all the Pagan customs & traditions that were "adopted" to bring in the unwashed masses?

I think I may have lost the plot for what I was trying to get at to begin with here, but you might be able to find a point in there somewhere.

Me:

As far as the compilation of the Bible is concerned, I don't think people are ever going to be convinced that the result is all of God's word to man as well as His only word to man. Yes there are the Apocrypha and the unincorporated Gospels, but you must consider the quandry facing the men who assembled the Bible. It's very obvious that not all documents and ideas the are attributed to God are genuine. Jeremiah made a living out of contradicting "God's" prophets. And then there's the Gnostic gospels...some truly weird stuff there.

The pagan thing makes me chuckle every time I get to talk about it! I had a conversation with a lady last Christmas who was critical of the white Jesus depiction, and I think my point opened her eyes a little. Imagine that it's just four hours past noon and the sun is already setting because your Gaelic homeland is so far north when you see the men of you village (about 10...maybe) surrounding a travelling stranger. This stranger has come to tell you the story of the Savior of man. If he used a picture to do so, which is not out of the question being a foreign missionary, how do you think his message would be received if he depicted a Middle Eastern Jesus? These people have never, and will never see a person of color! On the Mongolian steppe, would it be out of bounds to depict an Asian Jesus? How about a black Jesus in the Congo? What's interesting about Christianity in this regard is that it is the only religious system that conforms to the cultures in which it finds itself so that the face of Christianity is myriad. You can't say that about Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism. You might say it about Buddhism, but Buddhism really isn't a "religion" per se so much as it's a philosophical worldview.