1 Corinthians 14:35 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
She was testing me my after my first sermon in a new church. Her next question was. "What if my husband is stupid?" I laughed and said then she could ask me or others for input and have a good talk about whatever the question was. What else was I going to say? "You still must abide by the wrong and stupid answer your husband gives you"? (Some Pastors I know would). She smiled and said, "I like you Mr. Diehl"
Another was the woman who told me her husband had announced that he was the King of the Home and she was NOTHING! The NT and WCG gave men and husbands all the backing they needed to make such brash statements. It gave those men already so inclined more reason to be "in charge" than they needed to fuel their ego and often to heap abuse on wives and children. I asked what her response was? She said she told him, "Then you're the King of NOTHING!" Nice shot I told her.
Occasional a deeply thinking younger person would ask some pretty deeply reasoned out questions.
One teen approached me asking if Mary was married when she had Jesus and to whom? I said , I can see this coming and best I could come up with was "she wasn't". "Right!" he said. Then came, "Who was Jesus Father?" I smiled and said, "Evidently in the story, God". "Right!" he said. Then, "So didn't God commit fornication impregnating Jesus in the single young girl Mary?" I said, "What do you think?" He felt, minus all the apologetics, it would seem so. I said, "yes, it would seem so by definition of the concept and that Jesus birth stories and subsequent theological concepts of his being God's literal son born of a virgin etc does raise many questions theologically. Nice question and there are answers that are more satisfying than others. Keep thinking."
And then there was , for me, a perspective changer for which I have no good answer but "Seems so". This experience in theology came long after I was no longer a pastor and from a therapeutic massage client who knew my background. (I realize I have told this several times along the way, but I'd like to focus on it in this posting for the perspective of others here with WCG/COG backgrounds.)
Within a minute of starting the session she started to sob and while I have learned not to just jump in with "What's wrong?" and just letting the moment pass quietly until I could ask, "Are you OK?" I have given up being a fixer. She said she wasn't and I still just listened until she said, "Can I talk to you?" Well of course she could and I asked what was going on?
She went on to tell me that her only teen daughter had committed suicide and knowing my background was telling me how her church was of no help. I asked if they made sincere efforts to encourage her with "God won't give you more than you can bare"? She said yes and I asked if it helped? "NO, it did not" I asked if others said that she's in a better place now etc and she said yes. I asked if helped? "NO, it did not!" Other standard efforts to comfort followed such as seeing her again and as her only child, no one said anything about at least she had other children etc. She didn't. (The story of Job losing his ten children in a storm and then getting ten brand new replacement ones later comes to mind as this kind of total lack of understanding how family really works but I spare us)
Then the fatal question. "And was your pastor helpful?" She physically contracted and almost exploded with "NO!", I asked what he said and in a moment, I knew he was in deep theological trouble with a very poor analogy.
"He told me, ' Well God lost his only child too'" Uh oh...and I asked what she said to him. She said that "in that story" Jesus knew he was going to died but in just three days come back better than ever! In that story, God knew he wasn't dead and gone. My daughter is DEAD! If I knew she was coming back in three days I'd be getting the welcome home party ready. SHE IS DEAD! Shouldn't a sacrifice stay DEAD! As far as I'm concerned , that story was merely a weekend inconvenience..."
All I could say, as she was right and in her grief went deep into what she had been told all her life that no longer seemed meaningful seeing it through the eyes of the suicide of her teen child and her pastors good faith effort I would assume to encourage her.
I asked what did her pastor say after her answer to "God lost his only child too"? She said he apologized for a bad analogy. (I'm not sure I ever heard one of my pastoral colleagues or church administers apologize for anything so at least there was that. I am sure he got a theological jolt as well.
Now I see the concept has gone mainstream. My experience with her was at least 15 years ago. So help me with this. Why does this "Theological Zinger" give such pause for thought?
30 comments:
Dennis,
I would say that Paul was a product of his times, and that his attitudes toward women often reflected the paternalistic and misogynistic culture of which he was a part. However, as you know, the views attributed to Paul concerning women are not all of a piece. For example, he did write that there was no distinction between male and female in Christ, and the epistle to Timothy does commend his mother and grandmother as the source of the young man's faith (so much for women not teaching a man). This is the problem with making cultural norms into eternal spiritual principles. It also underscores why fundamentalism and literalism are such theological dead ends.
As for grief counseling, unfortunately, most of us do a piss-poor job of offering empathy, compassion and comfort to those engulfed in grief and sorrow. In fact, we are so inept that just listening would probably be of much more benefit to the person than opening our mouths to say anything! The book of Job has its problems (like the replacement children you mentioned), but one of the things that that book does do well is capture some of the standard ways that humans employ to try to comfort/console each other. And, we can see that they didn't work three thousand years ago, and they don't work today! We can't fix the loss of a loved one - we can offer a shoulder to cry on and actively suppress our impulse to judge/condemn (or make things more painful).
Finally, the theological question you raise is obviously a difficult one, and it should provoke contemplation and reflection instead of apologetics. And, ultimately, each person must resolve the question to his/her satisfaction. From my perspective, Christ paid the penalty for sin - death. Ostensibly, the entire point of his resurrection from the dead was to be the first of many - to ensure that death would not be eternal. Sure, we can focus on the fact that Christ only gave up a weekend - was dead for three days; but was the length of time that he was dead the point? What would have been an acceptable time for him to be dead? Would a thousand years have been intellectually/theologically more satisfying? If Christ had remained dead, how would that have benefited all of us? For me, our opportunity for something more than this life rests not just in Christ's death, but also in the fact that he was resurrected (that he didn't remain in the grave). In other words, while we believe that Christ died for us, his new life makes our new life possible (life perpetuates and sustains life). As Tabor has pointed out, Paul's notion of the resurrection does not contemplate the perpetuation of this physical existence/body/life.
For you, this answer will probably be unsatisfactory, and that's ok. We both see the errors and inconsistencies in scripture and have recognized the theological/philosophical problems which the Christian Church has manufactured over the last almost two thousand years, but we have arrived at different conclusions. For you, the question you posed is a dilemma which cannot be resolved (and I understand that). One of the things that Armstrong, his followers and many more traditional Christians have never seemed to learn is that we can't answer these questions FOR each other. Sure, we can and should help each other to reach our own conclusions, but it is intellectually and spiritually dishonest every time we simply adopt someone else's answers/conclusions as our own.
Lonnie
Dennis - the question you've posed is an excellent, thought-provoking one. However I think the bigger question is this: where is the logic in Jesus being made to die for the sins of others? Such a concept is nonsensical to me. The notion that another individual must be found guilty and given the death sentence for the crimes of others lacks any semblance of critical thought. I've never been able to square away why a supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving Father God would make such a declaration. You might as well say "because I dropped my pencil then you can paint my kitchen walls blue".
I'd love to see you write a post about this topic. It's not one I recall ever reading about here at Banned.
It is funny that you allow garbage like this on here but someone who may get a little pissed off at the puke you publish is barred.
Maybe if you stopped acting like a little whiney know-it-all prick your comments wouldn't be deleted? Capish?
Abel has been dead over 5,000 years, give or take. Jesus was dead 3 "days". I think Jesus had no concept of time elapse when dead and neither did Abel. So at their resurrections there was/will be no awareness of how long they been dead. Therefore length of time in the grave is, what, irrelevant?
As to Job's children: I'm not so sure they died. Probably I should check out the Hebrew first but by KJV account "young men" died but there is no mention of the daughters. It could be Job's sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine with others, namely young men - Job 1:18-19.
Jesus will rule in the kingdom of God.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Dennis - the question you've posed is an excellent, thought-provoking one. However I think the bigger question is this: where is the logic in Jesus being made to die for the sins of others?
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Like all theology it evolves. One question gets raised that is legit and before you know it, the appropriate apologetic is the answer. That's where topics like the Trinity and yet it's a mystical monotheism in three "persons". It builds over centuries.
We have the same problem with "Original Sin" The cause is the sin of Adam and Eve for which somehow we too are responsible. However, only fundamentalists and literalists think the tale is literally true. Therefore, if it not literally true, and it isn't, then no Original Sin really happened for which I am not really accountable for.
Even as a kid when I first heard, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin". Really? Why not? Why not just apologize? Why not just forgive? It's a very Bronze Age concept that leaks through into NT theology.
Huge topics but good questions that deserve critical and not emotional answers.
Thanks Lonnie for a nicely thought out response. Once one understands the kind of story the Gospels relate and the way they do it, it comes a bit more clear but literalists don't like that approach. Jesus, as well, in the story, could be resurrected and then hang out getting older and dying again. Stories like this have brief appearances after the meaningful death and then they must get taken off the stage forevermore or the religious aspects won't grow or be credible. Once gone, the story becomes a tale of faith and belief and can never be questioned. Passion plays are well written with all the elements we see in the Gospels.
PS "Anonymous Anonymous said...
It is funny that you allow garbage like this on here but someone who may get a little pissed off at the puke you publish is barred."
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Your response is emotional and reactive to the question I imagine you have no good answer for either. I also believe I could address you by name because your style and vocab is ever the same :) But I could be mistaken and it matters not. You're kind of response is typical of those intimidated by critical thinking and the real experiences of others when scripture falls short of reality.
My understanding of this passage, about women remaining quiet in church, is that the men, who engaged with the community more than the women (who went out to shop only once a week) understood the language better. The women were always interrupting the talk by leaning over and asking their husbands, "What's he saying?" So, rather than being disruptive, save your questions to when you are out of the building or after the sermon is given.
It has nothing to do with "authority" or with who is the smartest. When I go to Kenya, Belarus or Tanzania to teach, I don't know the Russian or Swahili languages. I am not going to ask my interpreter, "What's he saying now?" during the service. I would ask later. Make sense?
I am reminded of a made for tv movie I seen 20 or so years ago called, "The Lottery". In this movie the towns folks of a quiet but prosperous small town held a lottery on the same date every year. The name chosen didn't win a prize but had the misfortune of being stoned to death The belief they had was one of the towns residents had to be sacrificed in order for good furtune to continue to be showered on the town. Near the end of the movie this strange and horrific yearly ritual was exposed and the towns folks where made to look like the lunatics that they actually where. Why isn't the widely held belief of Christianity of the ultimate sacrific more widely believed as being as strange as it now seems to be by me?
No one can come to God unless you are called by God, it is God the Father, not Christ, who calls people to enter the Christian way of life. I can say that many do not understand the truth on this blog for those people you will be on the second ressuerction and for the ex wcg members that God has already called who rejected his way you will be on the third ressuerction and for the few who defend the truth here will be with me on the first resuerction.
Dennis wrote, Even as a kid when I first heard, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin". Really? Why not? Why not just apologize? Why not just forgive? It's a very Bronze Age concept that leaks through into NT theology.
It did not 'leak through' into NT. It never was in Tanakh ...
Lev 17:10-12 ‘And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. FOR the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘No one among you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger who dwells among you eat blood.’
The passage speaks of the sin of eating blood, which is used only on the altar. Blood is not the only way to atone for sins. Lev 5:11-13 states flour can be used if one cannot afford an animal sacrifice for trespass offering.
Num 15:30-31 states there is no sacrifice for presumptuous/rebellious/intentional sins. Manasseh was restored after repentance (2 Chr 33:10-13). Read what he did after he was brought back to Jerusalem 2 Chr 33:15-16. He offered peace and thanksgiving offerings, not sin or trespass sacrifices.
Read Ps 51:15-17; Isa 66:1-2; Hos 14:1-2.
Hos 14:2b 'We will offer the sacrifices of our lips'.
The literal translation is 'We will pay for bulls with our lips'.
David Bentley Hart in his translation of the New Testament said this in a footnote on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35:
"These verses are a considerable textual problem, as they clearly constitute an interpolation that breaks the flow of the text, and seems written in a voice unlike Paul's, and that contradicts other passages in Paul . . . And, in fact, the whole tenor of Paul's genuine writings is one of almost unprecedented egalitarianism with regard to the sexes (Galatians 3:28 being perhaps the most famous instance, but 7:4 above being no less extraordinary for its time). . . In any event, the best critical scholarship regards these verses as a later and rather maladroit interpolation. . . and the evidence preponderantly indicates that they are almost certainly spurious."
Hart's footnote is lengthy and well worth reading. He further notes that this block of text occurs in some Western manuscripts at a different location accompanied by editorial markings. And the Codex Vaticanus has an editorial marking between these texts and verse 33 which seems to indicate a dubium.
The uncertain nature of these verses might not be good news to everyone. But I find the paleographic evidence and the contextual critique both convincing and refreshing.
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Anon July 5 at 12:13 PM focuses closely on "the bigger question . . . : where is the logic in Jesus being made to die for the sins of others?" And goes on to say, "I'd love to see you write a post about this topic. It's not one I recall ever reading about here at Banned."
I'm not Dennis, but as it happens, I once wrote an article on this topic. Way too long to submit as a comment, but I can do a synopsis. Some may find it a helpful supplement to the profound comment by Lonnie and the stimulating post and follow-ups by Dennis.
However bizarre this doctrine seems from a rational point of view, it does make psychological sense if we examine how two powerful human influences have intertwined: our conflicted reactions to eating animals and our tendency to believe in the supernatural.
All cultures recognize that we share with other animals the same nutritional reality. For us to live, something else must die. Most of us are untroubled if the thing that dies is an insensate turnip or mushroom, but animals are a different matter. Both hunter-gatherers and herdsmen feel a certain respect, or even tenderness, toward the sensate beings they slaughter. Members of our species cope with such conflicted feelings with rituals. Ever since our species came into being, most of us have felt a need to turn at such times to gods of one sort or another, who we think must be scrutinizing what we do. We design our rituals with those gods in mind. Members of cultures that believe all animals have a spirit may condone slaughter by claiming the victims were complicit, or they may utter a prayer to the animal's spirit. In cultures that worship a creator who is distinct from creation, people may excuse killing other creatures by saying their god demands the slaughter.
Many cultures have believed in gods who demanded top-of-the-line sacrifices. The more prized the sacrifice, the greater joy it gave to the gods, and the more leniently they would treat the person who made it. Some cultures carried this trend beyond animal to human sacrifice. It made sense. What is even more valuable than the finest bullock? A captured slave. What is more valuable than a slave? Someone who represents the future of one’s own tribe. Incas seized on females entering prime breeding age. Aztecs upped the ante by sacrificing gods.
Though these gods came in the physical form of human beings, such mortals were identified as avatars of the divine. Christians also ritually sacrifice such a god/man, inflicting symbolic, not actual death. The slaughter of Jesus, the linchpin of salvation, is re-enacted yearly in passion plays. Believers then symbolically eat the sacrificial flesh and drink the sacrificial blood in the Catholic/Anglican Eucharist, the Protestant Lord’s Supper, or the Passover as observed by followers of Herbert W. Armstrong. The symbolism is a powerful way to affirm the believer’s closeness to Jesus. No relationship can be more intimate than the assimilation of one being into another.
So this part about sacrificing Jesus so that others may live makes perfect emotional sense. The Lamb of God is performing the same role as a literal lamb, except symbolically, on a spiritual level. Just as they know material meat will help keep them alive during this life, Christians believe spiritual flesh and blood will keep them alive forever.
I cannot get past the illogic of it all. So I cannot accept either my Baptist relatives' urging to "make Jesus my personal savior" to avoid eternal torment in the Lake of Fire or my COG relatives' urging to observe Sabbaths and Feast Days so that I can avoid incineration in the Lake of Fire followed by eternal oblivion. At the same time, I recognize that their emotional needs are different from mine and that we all have to work out our own "salvation" as we each understand what salvation is and what we must do to achieve it.
July 5, 2021 at 12:13 PM
The law is NOT done away, that means EVERYONE has to KEEP the SABBATH and the HOLY DAYS and TITHE and KEEP the TEN COMMANDMENTS!
Jesus died for our sins, he didn't stay dead for our sins. I think it was the shedding of blood and dying that was important, not duration of bodily death. It bring to mind the idea that the Jews were to LIVE by the Law. They took this to mean that they are not to die in order to obey the Law. You can break a law to save a life, yours or the sins of someone else. This is why lying isn't always wrong.
3:55, so do you kill those who break the Sabbath commandment? You folks are so inconsistent. Pick and choose and adapt the law to your liking is not the same as Keeping the Commandments.
One "weekend" to Jesus can mean eternal life for you. It meant (and means) that much.
Anon 3:55 -- I definitely support all your statements EXCEPT tithing.
Sure, God loves a cheerful giving, a laborer is worthy of his hire, ... but unless the Levites are performing their duties, you live in Eretz Israel (not some BI fantasy Israel) and are a farmer, you don't tithe. Sure, you can make a personal pledge of money to your church, the poor, etc, but that is NOT Biblical tithing.
Don't let twisting of scriptures (Hebrews) fool you. The other "tithing" is what the Catholic Church invented (first tithe only) which was not really followed by Catholics until Charlemagne started his tithe policing.
Anon 333 notes: "It did not 'leak through' into NT. It never was in Tanakh ...
Lev 17:10-12 ‘And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. FOR the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘No one among you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger who dwells among you eat blood.’
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And how would you apply this concept to Gospel Jesus saying "John 6:54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day." in light of the Tanakh prohibitions as well as the prohibition against things strangled and eating the blood in Acts 15?
The eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of the gods was a very pagan practice. Some would call it cannibalism.
But back to the original question. Was Jesus death as portrayed in the Gospels merely a weekend soap opera where it all works out just fine. And if so, how is that such an amazing sacrifice?
An aside: "He was marred above any man" Isa. 52:14. This is simply not true. Look up how others have been tortured in history. Unrepeatable here.
Jesus even got out of the typical days long crucifixion , rotting off the cross and eaten by dogs treatment typical of a Roman crucifixion. He died in a mere 6 hours and then with merciful help. He got a nice new grave to come out from complete with spices, stone rolling earthquakes, sleeping Roman guards who in reality would be executed and one angel, or one man or two angels to announce his resurrection depending on which gospel you read.
And in a flash, back better than ever in three days or parts of days, you pick.
It's a passion play and most of the events are taken out of the Old Testament scriptures and not any eyewitness accounts of anything.
Hey Dennis, you betrayed Herbert Armstrong by quitting Sabbath keeping and joining Joe Tkach and GCI, now you've lost your calling.
Dennis,
I wrote the 3:33pm comment ...
Your question does not apply to me. It has been years since I renounced the Christian faith.
Dennis, your characterization of a spear plunged into the abdomen as a "merciful death" is just as tendentious as the rest of your comment. What would satisfy your expectations?
Retired Prof:
Christ could have descended to the porch of the Temple in Jersalem, announced that all sins were forgiven with belief and then ascended. But he came here, lived daily life and died horribly. His empathy for us was unrestrained and this was underscored with phyiscal evidence.
The ritualistic meaning of blood and its various prohibitions were rendered meaningless by Jesus instituting the symbols - bread and wine. Christ made circumcision, the sabbath and sacrifices all spiritual. It is just that the latter retained a physical ceremonial aspect.
Jesus' death was not illogical. It was, rather, overpowering in its magnanimity. You may contend that it was made so by artifice, but it measured out the depths of sin and the greatness of God's love. It was a paradox. But everything gracious is paradoxical to hominids competing to survive.
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Blogger Normalized_Eigenvalue_Orthogonal said...
Dennis, your characterization of a spear plunged into the abdomen as a "merciful death" is just as tendentious as the rest of your comment. What would satisfy your expectations?
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Would relatively merciful compared to what could happen over the next three or four days on the cross help? Considering the events and sayings of Jesus were taken from the OT and not on scene, and it was not history prophesied but prophecy historized, we can't really know what parts of the story are literary license and what part, if any, are real. Certainly the four Gospels couldn't get the story straight.
I have no expectations to be satisfied.
Dennis, you wrote ". . . we can't really know what parts of the story are literary license and what part, if any, are real."
This statement is too broad. We cannot know within the bounds of modern forensic evidence collection and analysis would be a more supportable statement.
Further, what you are actually saying is that we cannot believe the Biblical record. The Bible is a detailed record of the execution of Jesus. The Jews would not have any evidence of what Late Second Temple Judaism was like without the NT and Josephus - the same sources that mention Christ. The Sadducees, for instance, left no writings - or at least none have been discovered. But you are saying that we must first set aside the best evidence, the Biblical record itself, in its abundance of manuscripts, and look for corroborative evidence.
In regard to the crucifixion, the historical landscape is barren. But there is circumstantial evidence. For example, the Romans had a vested interest in supressing all First Century Jewish rebellions. They had the philosophical development to challenge Christ's crucifixion, the on scene participation of Roman officials and the literacy to preserve their arguments. Would they not then do everything they could to expose the Jesus Movement as a fraud, if it were one? Yet, we do not have those documented exposés. Instead we find Roman adopting Christianity years later.
This is an apophatic approach - arguing from the idea that something that should be there is not there. But you have already rejected the cataphatic evidence - the Biblical record. There are then niminous arguments but I don't think that body of evidence will fly with a materialist.
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Actually, according to Paul, Jesus never really came in the flesh. Later NT writers called this heresy. See Richard Carrier for an explanation.
Scholars are generally agreed that Christians altered the words of Josephus, so that "historical" record is pretty useless. There is way too little evidence to go by to base your faith or salvation on, and all the evidence we do have is dubious.
All through history, a great many people did not like Jews. Is it possible that acting like "The Chosen People" and claiming gentiles were just animals with no soul kind of pissed people off? Did claiming they had the right to charge gentiles interest and rip off gentiles (the very word means "cattle") in various ways, and rule over them cruelly contribute to their not being very well liked? It is possible that some of the "persecution" of COG members is also due to resentment over their presumed superior status and their claim that they will rule the world with a rod of iron? Do Jews play the race card and claim victim status to deflect the fact that they might have brought retribution onto themselves? Are Jews the common denominator in their conflicts with gentiles?
July 6 at 7:15 PM says of the word "gentile" that "the very word means 'cattle'."
Not so. The word is based on the Latin root *gens/gentis*, referring to a family, clan, tribe, or nation of people. I'm not sure how it came to mean "those other people" as opposed to "us Jews" but it happened. And it got extended. Mormons use it to mean "non-Mormon," and I have heard ACOG people use it for people like me who are "not in the truth."
Nothing in the word's etymology or usage suggests the meaning "cattle."
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