Originally posted by Bosh
Right, the OT is a lot like the Iliad. If people viewed the OT as "these are the stories that Jesus' people told, some true some biased some pure myth, before he came along and straightened things out" that would make some degree of sense. But it seems that Jesus took the OT a lot more seriously than that. If you consider the OT as an equivalent to the Iliad then a lot of the NT. If you think that there's a real difference between the OT and the Iliad, what is the difference exactly?
Right, the OT is a lot like the Iliad. If people viewed the OT as "these are the stories that Jesus' people told, some true some biased some pure myth, before he came along and straightened things out" that would make some degree of sense. But it seems that Jesus took the OT a lot more seriously than that. If you consider the OT as an equivalent to the Iliad then a lot of the NT. If you think that there's a real difference between the OT and the Iliad, what is the difference exactly?
I don't freak out when someone claims X or Y did/did not happen; that's the least relevant and important part of scripture anyway. The moral lessons, and the theological underpinnings thereof, are far more valuable. The parts that Jesus "took most seriously" were Mosaic Law, which I imagine were preeeetty accurately passed on, seeing as they were in active use the whole time.
Bear in mind that, as an Orthodox Christian, I don't have the same...attachment to scripture as Protestants or even Catholics. It's still canon, of course, and used extensively in our services, but we don't have the insistence on literalism because we don't rely on it exclusively. It's regarded as the manifestation of church tradition, which is historically true; the New Testament as we know it didn't exist for the first five hundred years at least. Which books were considered canonical was decided by a slow, informal consensus that took centuries. The early Christians might have had any number of books in their individual churches, some of which may have been not only non-canonical but blatantly heretical.
WRT the New Testament at least, the church created the concept of scripture based on the tradition it had inherited. Dunno about the OT, since I never took as much interest in it, but my policy's the same: I follow the tradition it represents, while accepting that our account of it might have acquired glitches over the years.
Comment