Monday, September 12, 2011

Why Jesus could not tell his own story

A couple of months ago on an atheist blog I participate in often another atheist asked the following question: "Did Jesus even know how to write?" I replied in the affirmative basing my reply on the gospel according to John 8:6-8.

6 They asked him this as a test, looking for an accusation to use against him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger.

7 As they persisted with their question, he straightened up and said, 'Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her.'

8 Then he bent down and continued writing on the ground. (NJB)

To my knowledge this is the only place in the N.T. where you hear of Jesus writing anything at all. In fact, in this particular text it does not even bother to say what it was he supposedly wrote on the ground.

This question got me to thinking about why if the message of Christ was so important and so dire did he not write his own autobiography or doctrinal texts? I think this is a legitimate question that needs a reply. He is supposed to have been the son of God or God incarnate depending on which branch of Christianity you choose to subscribe to. Because of this lack of foresight we are left with a bunch of anonymous works that have been altered through time and are nothing more than a collection of nonsensical contradictory expressions of their authors personal beliefs and interpretations of doctrine.

One of my favorite works is 'The Age of Reason' by Thomas Paine. Although he was a deist and a believer in a God, he did not subscribe to any written text claiming divine origins or inspiration.Paine believed in nature as the unmistakable language of God. For those of you interested in reading this book for free you can access an online version at http://www.ushistory.org/PAINE/reason/index.htm. Here is a direct quote from that book:

"It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a
word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language,
independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and
various as they be. It is an ever existing original, which every man
can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot
be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not
depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it
publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches
to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man
all that is necessary for man to know of God."

Although I am an atheist and do not subscribe to a belief in gods or a God of any kind I agree with Paine that the written word is an unreliable means for any deity to reveal himself to mankind. The fact that it is subject to translation, editing, suppression, and the manipulation of mankind makes it nothing more than useless.

The history of the church has proven these statements time and time again. The church decided which books or works they considered divinely inspired or not. If they did not like what the author had to say his book was rejected and not included in the Canon.

In conclusion to this short essay I believe that the reason Jesus did not write his own autobiography or any doctrinal texts is because he simply couldn't, because he did not exist.

1 comment:

  1. Good point. Why couldn't he write the Buybull himself or why couldn't God just send it down from the sky - in a perfectly understandable form and free of errors?

    ReplyDelete