Comment by Forrest Curo on 11th mo. 20, 2012 at 1:39pm

It wasn't about any particular methods of interpreting the Bible...

Fox read the Bible, and interpreted his experiences of having its meanings 'opened' to him in its terms -- but what he read there confirmed his reliance on the Spirit rather than on scriptures in their own right.

He considered the Christian scriptures as the work of the Spirit -- which would not be a denial that other writings could likewise be considered its work, or a claim of absolute literal accuracy (although people tended to think so at the time.)

Fox couldn't have a conversation with other Christians without basing his statements on the scriptures they considered authoritative, certainly not in that time. But what he was saying about those scriptures was very much based on a Puritan doctrine that you needed Christ's help to read them correctly. What he was preaching was not based on simply reading what was written there and taking a commonsense human interpretation as authoritative.

I don't think you need to understand this as 'God killed Jesus so we could have God inside to teach and guide us.'

To me, it looks more like: We've always had God inside to teach and guide us -- but instead of learning, people were too busy throwing spitballs. God finally was able to use the teachings He'd given the Hebrew people -- to help Jesus see and trust this teaching and guidance at work in himself. Accepting that this was bound to lead to his death, under the circumstances, Jesus died and was resurrected. The stories about precisely how this happened are obviously confused and distorted by many factors before they were eventually written down; but it's equally clear that however the disciples recognized the resurrection, they couldn't doubt that God had intervened to vindicate Jesus' standing with God, what Jesus had done, what Jesus had said.

And then, as Jesus had told them, they started being more attentive to the Spirit. Following that, they spread what they had learned widely before the movement they'd started ossified.

The Puritans tried to get back to Jesus through the scriptures, using them as the letter of a new law; and Fox learned a lot from their efforts. What he had a hard time teaching people -- was not some different 'doctrine based on Scripture', another 'notion'.

More like: Your Scriptures are telling you that you need to trust Christ inside you, not some words outside you.

It is extremely hard to explain this to anyone without reference to Jesus, without reading the Christian scriptures and seeing where they lead -- and probably it's been a mistake to think we could do without them. But they won't do the job by themselves....

Comment by Lee Nichols on 11th mo. 20, 2012 at 5:05pm

Forrest your evangelistic fervor to spread your religion puts me to shame. Your religion is different from mine, but if there is a good reason, I may be won over by your consistent sermons.

I have tried to keep abreast of events related to the historicity of the Bible, but I believe you have more enthusiasm about that then I do. So to help me, rather than expressing your opinion about the evidence against the historicity of the Bible could you list one or two of the supporting facts that led you to conclusions such as secret origins discredits scripture. I hope you aren’t referring to novels like the DaVinci Code.

Also I really don’t recognize what I read in Fox etc. in your comments about Quakers, and I find the simplicity of your understanding of Scripture in the comment ‘God killed Jesus so we could have God inside to teach and guide us’ to be so lacking that it removes any starting point for a conversation.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, and I can see you believe strongly in your religion; but unless you are saying that because you are connected to the Spirit of God you are therefore speaking with the authority of God, you need to add some supporting facts to allow for an ongoing conversation.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 11th mo. 20, 2012 at 7:53pm

Starting with your last statement ... (Since I just wrote up a series of pieces trying to explain us to some Episcopalians, that looks like a natural starting point: [just read #3 if this is seeming too much!]

http://www.sneezingflower.blogspot.com/2012/11/about-quakers.html

http://www.sneezingflower.blogspot.com/2012/11/about-quakers-2.html

http://www.sneezingflower.blogspot.com/2012/11/about-quakers-3-some...

That is, this is not about "speaking with the authority of God" -- Because the effort to do so gets in the way of 'letting God speak.'

If you don't recognize Fox behind what I'm saying, we might agree better on the way Robert Griswold put it in the Pendle Hill pamphlet: 'Creeds and Quakers: What's Belief Got to Do With It?'

I don't know what you mean about "discredits scripture". The (widely-available) information in the book discredits any uncritical, face-value reading of the Christian scriptures as accurate history or as the expression of any unified human belief-system. It simply isn't and never was on-the-spot reporting of any particular event.

If you and I should ever have a misunderstanding -- An accurate, word-for-word transcription of everything said by whom would not be the best way to resolve it. In the same way, an accurate word-for-word transcription of God's interactions with the human race is not what we need from a Bible -- In any case, what we've got is an anthology that gradually clarifies God's intentions for us, and illustrates the ways human beings continue to frustrate God's good will -- "speaking with God's authority" being an example. ("Speaking under God's authority" -- much better! God can use human beings to speak for Him -- but the way we recognize this going on, is by 'listening' to God within us confirming it.)

If you want an easy example of why the Bible is not literal eyewitness accounts -- consider the way Jesus rides into Jerusalem in Matthew.

Comment by James C Schultz on 11th mo. 25, 2012 at 4:26pm

I don't believe there is widely available information discrediting bible accounts.  At least none that I have come across.  However I do hear that they are out there - like urban legends.  The inconsistencies in the bible are rather minor in my opinion and are always based on some assumption(s) such as the incident in question is the same incident.  There is a complete lack of understanding of Jesus' ministry behind many of these criticisms.  Jesus was an itinerant preacher in an age without tv or radio.  What is often referred to as the "Sermon on the Mount" was most likely his main message at each stop along the way.  He would come to a Town or Village, find a place to preach and give His message with power such as the people had not seen or heard before.  Sometimes he healed people afterwards.   Sometimes he fed them.  Sometimes he healed people and sometimes he raised some from the dead along the way.  What always impressed me about the Bible is how concise it is.  Brief and to the point.  This conciseness comes at a cost of specificity.  I don't doubt that some of the events are lumped together but I have no problem believing that there was more than one or even two occasions that Jesus healed Leper(s).  I also don't doubt for a minute that as he told the same parable again and again that he changed the wording a little to suit the moment.  I think the reporting of Jesus's ministry is probably as accurate as you are going to get from a human source and that the concern for not exagerating events is a major reason many alleged stories and other "gospels" were not accepted as part of the Holy Scriputes.  To think that those men who agreed on which scriptures belonged in the bible were less qualified than today's critics who have one eye on public taste and the other on career advancement/book sales is a form of elitism that unfortunately pervades a world hostile to the workings of the spirit and too confident in its own ability to understand the world we live in.  The same elitism that has been unable to lift man out of his selfabsorbed life style.  Please excuse my rant for today.  I have been bombarded by generalities attacking the bible for years by people who in one instance attack it as myth and in the next state that they read it once or at least parts of it.   Forest, I don't include you in the latter category as it is obvious you have a greater knowledge of the bible and the spiritual literature in general than myself but I would urge you to pray and go right to God about those parts of the Bible you have problems with.  That's what I do.  Sometimes you just have to go directly to the Horse's mouth. :)

Comment by Forrest Curo on 11th mo. 25, 2012 at 5:02pm

Hey, I don't "have a problem" with Jesus simultaneously riding two animals into Jerusalem to comply with Zechariah's poetic description; I just don't believe he did it.

The Bible was written by human beings with axes grinding nosily in the background; get used to it.

It's also where George Fox drew his confirmation of what God is continually trying to tell us: that we have 'Christ' inside as Jesus did; that this will navigate for us and enlighten us if we keep awake & attentive to it, but that we'll be at the mercy of 'notions' and illusions to the extent we reflexively substitute some agenda of our own -- whether this is "The Bible" or "Science" or any other means of oversimplifying. Any one of which can be enlightening if we don't try to wave it from our flagpoles.

Comment by William F Rushby on 11th mo. 25, 2012 at 6:14pm

Hello, Lee!  I enjoyed meeting you, James Schultz and others at the Northeast gathering of Christian Friends.  I don't have much to add to the discussion here, except to note that I find myself in your corner concerning Friends and the Bible.

For years I have enjoyed reading *Biblical Archeology Review* and its lively "Letters to the Editor" section.  I recommend this publication to Friends.

Comment by Irene Lape on 11th mo. 26, 2012 at 12:02pm

Please excuse the little touch of chaos in this comment - I've been thinking about how to respond to everything people have said here for hours. I think the chaos comes from having two things I want to say,  something I've been thinking of for a while and something that just came to me suddenly this morning. It is what it is.

1) I don't know why the scriptures - both old and new testaments - ever became so important to me in my life. Really, I wasn't raised to see them as central to faith or even faith to a meaningful life. Maybe I've been called to them because of a love for literature. When I think back on it all, it seems a bit mystical and miraculous to me.  I am interested in what you might call the "epistomology" of faith - the tracking of the process that goes on in human beings that leads them (us) to have faith in Christ, or Mohammad or Moses, perhaps even Krishna or Siva or "the Light." An epistemologist would object to my use of the term to talk about the road to faith at all, because the field is dedicated to how we obtain "knowledge" and not faith or belief. But I think what I believe and live by is much more important to me in the long run, and how I came to that faith and trust has been a process that very much includes the narrative I entered into when I started reading the Bible. Many Friends believe that the narrative is not essential - that the "light" of the creator is in every person regardless of whether they have discovered it through Adam, Noah, Moses, David, the prophets and Jesus or whether they came upon it through simple contemplation of the beauties of nature. But I don't think this is true. I think we can never arrive at the powerful spiritual communion and community that early Friends experienced - and early Jewish-Christians experienced without immersing ourselves in the narrative/history/tradition that they went through.

2) And the other, related thing is I had an experience of that mystical, miraculous presence of God's Spirit this morning in reading Revelation, which I am doing for my scripture-reading blog, that was very deep and moving; it made me realize how important the knowledge of scripture was, and I'm worried that I will not articulate it well.I've been struggling my way through Ezekiel and Revelation in my Daily Bible Reading. The schedule of readings was put together by the Liturgical Press of St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota YEARS AGO. The readings are ending the period of the liturgical calendar called "Ordinary Time" and leading into Advent. It never occurred to me until today that the Old and New Testament Readings were so synchronized, but they came together powerfully for me today. The end of Revelation is deeply related to the Book of Ezekiel. And the power I felt was the power of realizing how people for THOUSANDS of years have been struggling to understand the sense they have always had that "man" - "humankind" - has a special place in this creation. The Scripture Narrative, which is the record of that struggle, connects us back over that chasm of time and suffering; it gives us words that permit us to share and express the experience.  To a certain extent, we need to learn to put our spiritual insights into the language of that narrative. Without uniting ourselves to the common narrative, I don't think we would ever make any progress at all. We would always be starting from scratch.

Comment by James C Schultz on 11th mo. 26, 2012 at 4:05pm

I don't see a problem with Jesus riding two animals at different times on a decent size trip or riding one and leading the other.  Citing  flimsy statements like this which bear no theological significance can be construed as evidence of a negative bias against scripture which is not a good starting point for determining its authenticity.

Here's an article that does into more detail in defending the scripture in question.

A Donkey and Her Colt

by	Eric Lyons, M.Min.

Although most Christians would rather not concern themselves with some of the more minute details of Jesus’ life reported in the New Testament, when challenged to defend the inerrancy of The Book that reports the beautiful story of Jesus, there are times when such details require our attention. Such is the case with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem during the final week of His life. People who wear the name of Christ enjoy reading of the crowd’s cries of “Hosanna!,” and meditating upon the fact that Jesus went to Jerusalem to bring salvation to the world. Skeptics, on the other hand, read of this event and cry, “Contradiction!” Allegedly, Matthew misunderstood Zechariah’s prophecy, and thus contradicted what Mark, Luke, and John wrote regarding Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem (see van den Heuvel, 2003). Matthew recorded the following:

Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ” So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:1-9, emp. added).

Skeptics are quick to point out that the other gospel writers mention only “one colt,” which the disciples acquired, and upon which Jesus rode. Mark recorded that Jesus told the two disciples that they would find “a colt tied, on which no one has sat” (11:2). The disciples then “went their way, and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it…. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and He sat on it” (Mark 11:4,7, emp. added; cf. Luke 19:29-38; John 12:12-16). Purportedly, “[t]he author of Matthew contradicts the author of Mark on the number of animals Jesus is riding into Jerusalem” (“Bible Contradictions,” 2003). Can these accounts be reconciled, or is this a legitimate contradiction?

First, notice that Mark, Luke, and John did not say that only one donkey was obtained for Jesus, or that only one donkey traveled up to Jerusalem with Jesus. The writers simply mentioned one donkey (the colt). They never denied that another donkey (the mother of the colt) was present. The fact that Mark, Luke, and John mention one young donkey does not mean there were not two. If you had two friends named Joe and Bob who came to your house on Thursday night, but the next day while at work you mention to a fellow employee that Joe was at your house Thursday night (and you excluded Bob from the conversation for whatever reason), would you be lying? Of course not. You simply stated the fact that Joe was at your house. Similarly, when Mark, Luke, and John stated that a donkey was present, Matthew merely supplemented what the other writers recorded.

Consider the other parts of the story that have been supplemented by one or more of the synoptic writers.

• Whereas Matthew mentioned how Jesus and His disciples went to Bethphage, Mark and Luke mentioned both Bethphage and Bethany.
• Mark and Luke indicated that the colt they acquired for Christ never had been ridden. Matthew omitted this piece of information.
• Matthew was the only gospel writer to include Zechariah’s prophecy.
• Mark and Luke included the question that the owners’ of the colt asked the disciples when they went to get the donkey for Jesus. Matthew excluded this information in his account.

As one can see, throughout this story (and the rest of the gospel accounts for that matter), the writers consistently supplemented each other’s accounts. Such supplementation should be expected only from independent sources—some of whom were eyewitnesses. It is very possible that Matthew was specific in his numbering of the donkeys, due to the likelihood that he was an eyewitness of Jesus’ final entrance into Jerusalem. (Bear in mind, Matthew was one of the twelve apostles; Mark and Luke were not.)

Second, regarding the accusation that Matthew wrote of two donkeys, instead of just one, because he allegedly misunderstood Zechariah’s prophecy, it first must be noted that Zechariah’s prophecy actually mentions two donkeys (even though only one is stated as transporting the King to Jerusalem). The prophet wrote: “Behold, your King is coming to you…lowly and riding on a donkey [male], a colt, the foal of a donkey [female]” (Zechariah 9:9). In this verse, Zechariah used Hebrew poetic parallelism (the balancing of thought in successive lines of poetry). The terms male donkey, colt, and foal all designate the same animal—the young donkey upon which the King (Jesus) would ride into Jerusalem (Mark 11:7). Interestingly, even though the colt was the animal of primary importance, Zechariah also mentioned that this donkey was the foal of a female donkey. One might assume that Zechariah merely was stating the obvious when mentioning the mother’s existence. However, when Matthew’s gospel is taken into account, the elusive female donkey of Zechariah 9:9 is brought to light. Both the foal and the female donkey were brought to Christ at Mount Olivet, and both made the trip to Jerusalem. Since the colt never had been ridden, or even sat upon (as stated by Mark and Luke), its dependence upon its mother is very understandable (as implied by Matthew). The journey to Jerusalem, with multitudes of people in front of and behind Jesus and the donkeys (Matthew 21:8-9), obviously would have been much easier for the colt if the mother donkey were led nearby down the same road.

The focal point of the skeptic’s proposed problem to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is how He could have ridden on two donkeys at once. Since Matthew 21:7 states, “They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them” (NKJV), some have concluded that Matthew intended for his reader to understand Jesus as being some kind of stunt rider—proceeding to Jerusalem as more of a clown than a king. Such reasoning is preposterous. Matthew could have meant that Jesus rode the colt while the other donkey walked along with them. Instead of saying, “He rode one donkey and brought the other with Him,” the writer simply wrote that He rode “them” into Jerusalem. If a horse-owner came home to his wife and informed her that he had just ridden the horses home a few minutes ago from a nearby town, no one would accuse him of literally riding both horses at once. He merely was indicating to his wife that he literally rode one horse home, while the other one trotted alongside or behind him.

A second possible solution to this “problem” is that Jesus did ride both donkeys, but He did so at different times. However unlikely this possibility might seem to some, nothing in Zechariah’s prophecy or the gospel accounts forbids such. Perhaps the colt found the triumphant procession that began on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives near the towns of Bethphage and Bethany (about 1¾ miles from Jerusalem—Pfeiffer, 1979, p. 197) too strenuous. Zechariah prophesied that Jesus would ride upon a colt (9:9), which Jesus did. He also easily could have ridden on the colt’s mother part of the way.

Perhaps a more likely answer to the question, “How could Jesus sit ‘on them’ (donkeys) during His march to Jerusalem?,” is that the second “them” of Matthew 21:7 may not be referring to the donkeys at all. Greek scholar A.T. Robertson believed that the second “them” (Greek αυτων) refers to the garments that the disciples laid on the donkeys, and not to the donkeys themselves. In commenting on Matthew 21:7 he stated: “The garments thrown on the animals were the outer garments (himatia), Jesus ‘took his seat’ (epekathisen) upon the garments” (1930, 1:167). Skeptics do not want to allow for such an interpretation. When they read of “them” at the end of Matthew 21:7 (in the New King James Version), skeptics feel that the antecedent of this “them” must be the previous “them” (the donkeys). Critics like John Kesler (2003) also appeal to the other synoptic accounts (where Jesus is said to have sat upon “it”—the colt), and conclude that Matthew, like Mark and Luke, surely meant that Jesus sat upon the donkeys, and not just the disciples’ clothes (which were on the donkeys). What critics like Kesler fail to acknowledge, however, is that in the Greek, Matthew’s word order is different than that of Mark and Luke. Whereas Mark and Luke indicated that the disciples put their clothes on the donkey, Matthew’s word order reads: “they put on the donkeys clothes.” The American Standard Version, among others (KJV, RSV, and NASB) is more literal in its translation of this verse than is the NKJV. It indicates that the disciples “brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their garments; and he sat thereon” (Matthew 21:7, ASV; cf. RSV, KJV, NASB). When Matthew wrote that Jesus sat “on them,” he easily could have intended for his readers to understand this “them” to refer to the clothes, and not to the donkeys. If the disciples’ clothes were placed on both donkeys (as Matthew indicated), and then Jesus mounted the colt, one logically could conclude that Jesus sat on the clothes (which were placed upon the colt).

One of the fundamental principles of nearly any study or investigation is that of being “innocent until proven guilty.” Any person or historical document is to be presumed internally consistent until it can be shown conclusively that it is contradictory. This approach has been accepted throughout literary history, and still is accepted today in most venues. The accepted way to critique any ancient writing is to assume innocence, not guilt. If we believe the Bible is innocent until proven guilty, then any possible answer should be good enough to nullify the charge of error. (This principle does not allow for just any answer, but any possible answer.) When a person studies the Bible and comes across passages that may seem contradictory at first glance (like the verses explained in this article—Matthew 21:1-9, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:29-38), he does not necessarily have to pin down the exact solution in order to show their truthfulness. The Bible student need only show the possibility of a harmonization among passages that appear to conflict, in order to negate the force of the charge that a Bible contradiction really exists. We act by this principle in the courtroom, in our treatment of various historical books, as well as in everyday-life situations. It is only fair, then, that we show the Bible the same courtesy by exhausting the search for possible harmony among passages before pronouncing one or more accounts false.

Finally, in an attempt to leave no allegation unanswered regarding the passages discussed in this article, one more point must be made. Although Jesus and His disciples have been accused of stealing the donkeys used in the procession to Jerusalem (see Barker, 1992, pp. 165-166), the text never indicates such thievery. Jesus may well have prearranged for the use of the animals. However, since the donkeys’ owners did not know who the disciples were, there was a need to tell the owners what Jesus said to them. It was after the disciples stated, “The Lord has need of them,” that the owners let the disciples take the donkeys (Luke 19:32-35). It was voluntary. Jesus certainly did not advocate stealing on this occasion, or any other (Matthew 19:18; 1 Peter 2:22; cf. Exodus 20:15). Remember, we are not told all of the facts in the story—the Bible is not obligated to fill in every detail of every event. If it did, “I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

REFERENCES

Barker, Dan (1992), Losing Faith In Faith—From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation).

“Bible Contradictions,” Capella’s Guide to Atheism, [On-line], URL: http://web2.iadfw.net/capella/aguide/contrad.htm#num%20animals%20Je....

Kesler, John (2003), “Jesus Had Two Asses,” [On-line], URL: http://exposed.faithweb.com/kesler2.html.

Pfeiffer, Charles (1979), Baker’s Bible Atlas (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House), revised edition.

Robertson, A.T. (1930), Word Pictures in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

van den Heuvel, Curt (2003), “Matthew Misunderstood an Old Testament Prophecy,” New Testament Problems, [On-line], URL: http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/bible/ntprob.shtml.

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Comment by Forrest Curo on 11th mo. 26, 2012 at 5:11pm

I would have trouble believing that God told a whopper like that to see if He could get me to swallow it. God making use of a book full of human fingerprints, on another hand -- That, I have seen.

We know God -- and yet we've been fussing over whether or not we should believe absurdities in a book full of wisdom! Do I believe a flyspeck in an algebra book? -- or do I believe what I can understand from it?

Comment by James C Schultz on 11th mo. 26, 2012 at 5:56pm

I don't think it's a question of God using a book so much as God writing a book using humans. It's like writing longhand or in script which varies with the individual or using a computer or printing press generated font. There's only so much control God can exercise over a "free will" creature. The point Peter makes is that all scripture is inspired by God. I do not preclude that from including the holy books of other religions but I think Peter's claim is a valid position. A colt, a mare, doesn't make it less inspired and I think that's the whole point. It doesn't matter to me whether or not Jonah or Job actually lived and the events in their books actually happened or not. What matters to me is that if they are just stories, they were written under the inspiration of God and are useful to me in my personal life here and now in the year 2012 and they were just as useful to believers last year and the years before that. On the other hand they could very well depict actual events. There is no way of telling either way and it doesn't really matter to my personal spiritual walk unless I should get swallowed by a Whale or very large fish.:)
My position is that man has manipulated the inspired scriptures for his or her own benefit and not that God has used manipulative writings of man to inspire believers. This position comes in part from witnessing people completely ignorant of the scriptures quote them while speaking "prophetically".

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