Is the possibility of a God not a scary thought...?

looksee wrote: »

You have painted an image of a tyrant who demands utter submission while causing untold misery. You are right - if this god existed, the world would be an insane and scary place.
And the world was an insane and scary place for centuries while the church held sway at its height of power. Its only now that people are becoming more rational and able to think for themselves that rationality has emerged.

For example, why do we have such powerful inclinations to do evil? I cannot recall any circumstance where I might have had such inclinations. Oh granted, I am not perfect, but evil? No, not at all. And of all the people I have ever known personally there was maybe one that was seriously disturbed, a few that were selfish and/or obnoxious. But evil, no.

And the business about confession, little children are taught to search their minds for things to confess, small, childish things that they are made to feel guilty for, and you are comparing it to evil?

And ordinary men were given the power to decide who should be 'forgiven', whether they knew what forgiveness other people might need? Is there any wonder the church leadership became populated with arrogant, opinionated, authoritarians.

It is the greatest adventure you could possibly embark on. You will do things you have never dreamed of doing.
- For example? If not specifically, what kind of things are you talking about?

Sure, looking back on our life, the evil we have done might fill us with dread
Well I have a good bit of life to look back on and am not filled with dread. I may not have got everything right, I probably got very little absolutely right, but I can promise you there was no evil.

and cease your fear and trembling. Reading your post I can see how anyone might be excused for wondering where the love came in and might indeed be in fear and trembling.

I think this is the problem, there is the original message and then there is the layers and heaps and mountains of interpretation, hindsight and remembering that has been put on it since, and including, the time the gospels were written between 40 and 100 years after Jesus' death.

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006)
(chapter describing the work of Kenneth Bailey):

Bailey sought to address the claim made by some modern scholars that the oral transmission of the Gospels (from the Jesus event to the written word) was deeply unreliable and tainted by layers of additions. Bailey identified three methods of oral transmission in operation, drawing on his experience of life in the Middle East. The methods are: (1) informal uncontrolled, (2) informal controlled and (3) formal controlled. For Bailey, the first referred to transmission where there is no identifiable teacher or student and there is no structure within which material is passed from one person to another. He identified this most with “rumour transmission”. The second method, informal controlled, was to be found in situations where a predominantly oral society wishes to faithfully retain traditions over a long period of time. Here, although there exists no identifiable teacher, control mechanisms are in place, mostly through a community rejection mechanism of information which is deemed false. The person transmitting the story has a certain flexibility “as long as the central thrust is not changed”. Finally, the formal controlled method refers to transmission which is strictly undistorted, having a clearly licensed teacher and a system of control,such as, for example the necessity of direct memorisation. Bailey points to the transmission of the Koran as an example.

For Bailey, the oral transmission of the Gospels falls under the informal controlled method. He bases this assertion on his observations of how important traditions are passed on in Middle Eastern village life. He notes that in these situations, although there are no formally identified teachers and students, the community strictly enforces the boundaries of the stories recited, most notably through elders who are experts in these stories. Therefore, while the stories might be told in different ways, the punch line is never changed. Bauckham agrees that this is observed in the Gospels, which may appear to vary in details, but faithfully hand on key features and structures.

However, some scholars argue that the oral transmission of the Gospel could also have been achieved through the formal controlled method, which would make the Gospel accounts even more coherent in the details. Bauckham points to the writings of Paul as evidence for this. He notices that Paul uses technical terms for handing on and receiving tradition and speaks of faithfully retaining or observing a tradition in his letters. Bauckham also draws attention to the fact that Paul's stay with Peter in Jerusalem must have been used to carefully receive the Jesus narrative from an eyewitness and claims that Paul must have memorised a precise account of the Last Supper. He notes that Paul is cautious to distinguish his own words from those of the Lord (so as to not muddy the waters). Finally, Bauckham also tenders the proof that the Pauline churches had designated teachers appointed, further adding to the formal controlled character of the transmission.

Bart D Ehrman, The New Testament 4th ed., (New York, Oxford University Press; 2008).

Ehrman takes an interesting approach to the historicity of the Gospels. He borrows a number of tests from the legal world which are used to establish the credibility of evidence and applies them to the Gospels. He calls the first test “independent attestation”, which refers to the premise that assertions which are corroborated are more likely to be true. He points out that information on the historical Jesus exists in the Synoptic Gospels, John, the letters of Paul, the New Testament Apocrypha and historians such as Tacitus.

Ehrman calls his second test “the criterion of dissimilarity”, meaning that if something is problematic to the writer or community from which the text originates and yet is still included, there is a high likelihood of authenticity. He points to a number of examples. The Baptism performed by John the Baptist on Christ raises a number of issues, as it was assumed that “when a person was baptised, he or she was spiritually inferior to the one doing the baptising”. Yet this event is recorded in all four Gospels. Similar examples are the betrayal of Judas and the Crucifixion of Christ, which Paul himself called a “stumbling block” for the Jews.

The third test used by Ehrman is called “the criterion of contextual credibility”. This means that historical texts have to “conform with historical and social contexts to which they relate” in order to be credible. Therefore, the story of Jesus as found in the Gospels must sit well in the historical setting of first century Palestine, which it undoubtedly does. Interestingly, Ehrman points out that this criterion serves to cast doubt over the authenticity of the apocryphal Gospel of Philip, which contains a gnostic understanding of Baptism and the Eucharist more appropriate to the second or third century.

antiskeptic wrote: »

So, how do you account for the smitin' and a smotin' God who appears frequently in the Old Testament?

Through the prism of God that is..