Notable Quotable

Hector Avalos in The End of Biblical Studies writes of Hermann Samuel Reimarus [1694-1768] who is often credited with producing the first modern critical enquiry into the “historical Jesus.”  Avalos quotes Reimarus on the subject of Jesus’ resurrection:

    Now, if all the apostles who, of course, had seen and heard Jesus’ earlier miracles…were still skeptical and doubtful about such an important event, how much less should we be reproached today for being doubtful and skeptical since we cannot experience all the things with our own senses but must accept it seventeen hundred years later from the reports of a few witnesses?

Albert Schweitzer is quoted:

    There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the Life of Jesus…”

Avalos summarizes thus:

The quest for the historical Jesus is an abject failure.  After hundreds of years and probably millions of person-hours, reconstructions of Jesus are no better than the one of Reimarus in the eighteenth century.  Reimarus had nearly exhausted the critical search for any historicity, and he found mostly a myth.  … Further progress is futile because we simply don’t have any preserved accounts of Jesus from his time or from any proven eyewitnesses.”

Can God blame us if we search for any historical evidence of Jesus and come up empty handed?  Is there any fairness to state that we will all be tortured in a burning hell forever and ever and ever when God has not even given the proper tools for belief?  There is no eyewitness account to be found of Jesus. The gospels are in not eyewitness accounts.

 Even Christian Biblical scholars admit that the vast majority of what Jesus is alleged to have said in the New Testament, those letters in red that you see in your Bible, could not, or would not, have been spoken by their Jesus.  The vast number of additions and omissions in the New Testament are astounding.  It all strikes me as so not inspired by all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God

Notable Quotable

Ecclesiastes

Hector Avalos in his scholarly book, The End of Biblical Studies points out out that Bible translations are tainted by the doctrines and profit motives of the translators : 

“…Ecclesiastes 2:25, of which a good English rendition would be: ‘For who will eat and enjoy, except for myself.’  The author’s idea is radical because he could be construed as saying the God is irrelevant in the happiness of human beings. For some, the author of Ecclesiastes expresses a very humanistic idea insofar as he thinks that one should pursue one’s happiness for the sake of oneself, not for some god.  This humanistic concept was sufficiently bothersome to prompt the following alternative translations:

    NAB: For who can eat or drink apart from him?

    NJB: for who would get anything to eat or drink, unless all this came from him?

    REB:  For without God who can eat with enjoyment?

The REB suppresses the humanism even more assertively by introducing “God”,  which is definitely not in the Hebrew text."

Later, Mr. Avalos provides us with one definition of a lie:  ‘According to the ethicist Sissela Bok, a lie is “an intentionally deceptive message in the form of a statement.”’

Remember, the verse could be reasonably translated as "For who will eat and enjoy, except for myself.” So, the Bible scholars who did these interpretations are lying.  They are using words that do not match the words, nor the intent, of the original language.  And they know they are fudging to make sure that we, the  audience, won’t get the idea that humanistic ideas are in the Bible.  They are placing God into the text when God is not present. How do you get a phrase like" For without God who can eat with enjoyment?"  when the phrase says: "For who will eat and enjoy, except for myself.”   

Throughout church history this has been the case.  That it is fine to lie as long as you do it in the name of, and for the glorification of, your version of God.  A shameful way to present your Truth is to lie to make your point.  How can Truth ever come from all these lies?

How about just being honest?  Then I might have a bit more respect for the Christian religion.  The lies, the misquotations, the rewriting of history are enough to make me think that Christianity doesn't have anything real to offer.  Oh, wait, it doesn't for the most part. 

I’m really enjoying this book.  Hector Avalos shows, through examples, what, where, when, why and how the Bible has been manipulated for the doctrines and ideas that various churches want to believe.  He also points to the profit motives involved, as well.  So, if they aren't lying to make sure their version of god is presented correctly through the Bible then they are lying to make sure that people want to buy their product, to make the Bible more acceptable to our modern tastes and sensibilities. He says it a way that is clearly understandable.  Thank you, Hector Avalos for writing The End of Biblical Studies.  It is a keeper.