5/11/2009
Someone who had read my previous post about Crossan and the “miracles” attributed to Jesus emailed me (PLEASE NOTE: I prefer that people leave their comments on the blog itself, rather than emailing me personally!) and asked me if I believed Crossan’s interpretation of things more than I believe the canonical gospels accounts. He expressed his belief that Jesus “was God performing these acts literally.”
I replied to his email, and then realized that it might be helpful here to include my response here in the blog as well, to clarify some of my own beliefs/understanding in a succinct way (especially for those who have read only a post or two here, rather than a large portion of the blog–which, of course, explains a lot more). Here it is:
It is, of course, a subject that can (and has been) written and
discussed endlessly; past a certain point I see all of the discussion
as rather pointless (as when, for example, two people with differing
opinions about the Bible/Jesus/God toss bits of apparently discordant
Scripture back and forth at each other, hoping to convince the other
that THEIR view is the “right” one). For one thing, spiritual
matters, in my mind, should be more of an intuitive thing than an
intellectual one. For the other, I believe that people should respect
others’ understanding of the Divine (as long as that understanding
does not cause them to harm others in any way) and not badger them to
believe otherwise.
I will say, briefly, that I do not believe everything that Crossan, or
Pagels, or King, or anyone else says about Jesus, or the nature of his
mission, etc.–but there is a great deal of it that makes sense to me
for reasons I’d probably never be able to explain to you (my blog
hints at some of them), but that I am very comfortable with. Nor do I
believe, or disbelieve, everything in either the canonical gospels
(which I think were most likely NOT written by the apostles, and at
any rate were written decades after Jesus’ death) or those left out of
the canon. Everything is subject to memory, interpretation,
political/social events at the time, individual ambition and
institutional attempts to gain power, etc., etc. Obviously, I am not
among those who believe that God is the Editor-in-Chief of the Bible;
I believe it’s the work (like any other spiritual text) of people of a
certain time or place trying to understand God and their own
relationships to the Divine. And I certainly do not believe that the
Bible is the only “authoritative” text on those things–it’s one of
many.
And I won’t attempt to debate whether or not Jesus actually performed
“miracles” as described in the gospels. I, personally, would love to
think that all of those stories that I grew up taking for granted as a
Catholic were true.
What I do believe about Yeshua is that he was a very intelligent,
sensitive, thoughtful man who had an ability to “think outside the
box” about the human condition. I also believe that he talked to and
had a close relationship with God, who asked him to try to demonstrate
and teach God’s will–love–by treating ALL with compassion and
love–regardless of social status, faith, power, health, gender, etc.
I don’t believe that he was God incarnate; his message was that that
relationship with God was just as much available to anyone as it was
to him (and this without outside intervention from those in power, or human-invented rituals and rites that serve more as obstacles than as bridges to relationships with God).
Therefore, regardless of whether or not Yeshua raised people from the
dead, or actually healed their diseases, the most important part of
his message was that he was willing to reach out across the
traditional divisions that people like to put between themselves and
people they see as “different”, and demonstrate his own, and God’s,
love for them by touching those who were seen (and had come to see themselves, perhaps) as without worth/outcasts/expendible/unworthy of the love of human beings or God, and by caring about them as
individuals.
That’s about it. I’m not Christian, nor do I call myself anything
else in reference to my spirituality, but I believe very strongly in
God, and I love and respect Yeshua’s teachings as I understand them,
and I’m trying to learn to live by them to the best of my ability.
