I grew up rigidly Southern Baptist, which believes the Bible is both infallible and inerrant. They also tend to believe in literal interpretations of scripture. However... in my extensive experience, there was very little "biblical" about any of the churches I attended. Most church-goers only cracked their Bibles open once a week on Sundays, to "follow along" with the preacher, who read off maybe 1-2 cherry-picked lines of scripture before launching into a 1-2 hour fire-and-brimstone rant that had little to do with the lines he read. I noticed an interesting dynamic, though. The infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible were somehow attributed to what the preacher was saying, too. People acted as if what the preacher claimed was divine or righteous, even if he went far beyond scripture. This resulted in groups of so-called Christians forming their beliefs around the opinions of their preacher more than the actual Bible.
Grew up in the same denomination and I affirm your experience as mine as well. These are also the people who have united for 47 in a way they wouldn’t for a music minister who plays too many songs with guitar 😂😬
Mary Magdalene, who actually was close with Jesus, wrote a gospel, but it was suppressed/banned because it didn't align with the political agenda of the church. Check out Megan Watterston's work to learn more about this.
I don’t claim to be a scholar (see above where I credited another’s work) but, respectfully, I don’t buy it that they just didn’t know about her manuscript. The church worked hard over centuries to delegitimize MM, it’s not a great leap to believe they purposefully suppressed her gospel.
Well… yes. There were lots of things written at that time that didn’t make it into New Testament canon. The New Testament was basically a collection of letters etc. that various church leaders (Tertullian foremost among them) felt would be useful for reading in church (most Christians at the time couldn’t read).
This process began about 300 years after Jesus left this world, and took about a hundred years to “gel” into a generally agreed-upon list.
There was no conspiracy to “suppress” the so-called “lost books” - they were simply manuscripts that, in most cases, the Fathers never knew existed. An exception was the writings of the Gnostics, who were early heretics.
Great article! You really did an excellent job of it. Did I inspire you to write it or was it just a coincidence? If I did inspire you, I'm happy to have inspired such an excellent article. 😃
Or maybe it was just Substack’s algorithm connecting people whenever they coincidentally write about the same topic or area of interest with similar timing. Either way, it's good. I like it. 👍🏻
Cody - we could go back and forth on evidence all day but I want you to know, for whatever its worth, I'm deeply sorry for the manipulation and evil you grew up in. I have also been in highly manipulative environments and relationships that claim to "love Jesus" or be "Christian". And it's truly terrible that some of the deepest pain we can endure are from people that claim to love Jesus. There's a reason Jesus says what He says in Matt 7:21-23 (2 Greek words for the English word "know". One refers to knowledge and the other refers to relationship). There's lots more I could say but we can always chat more in the DM's. But all that to say, again, I am deeply sorry for the pain caused by other Christians and I know God hates that too
So, I’m Roman Catholic, so all this stuff, for the most part was in the footnotes of my Bible. Still, the Bible was written by the Holy Spirt, through it’s authors and editors.
You don’t realize how subversive the Bible is until you realize it is banned in just about every totalitarian regime.
In addition to the other feedback you've been given, I would simply add that the Torah and Gospels are not the entirety of the Bible, nor even the whole Old or New Testament. I think you're trying to imply transitively that what's true for part is therefore true of all, but I don't think it's going to go well.
Because you’ve clearly put the time in, a couple other things with the four Gospels of New Testament just to think about:
Mark is the most event based. It’s about what Jesus said and did. It also spends the most time on John the Baptist, but it kinda bashes him. Also notice that Mark isn’t very kind on Jesus’ family. And, most importantly, there’s no concrete mention of Immaculate Conception.
Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy back to David through Joseph… which is weird because there IS the claim of Immaculate Conception, so… Also, as you said, Jesus’ big miracles, sayings, et.al. are the same.
Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy back to David through Mary. So the DNA’s there, except that’s not how it was done back in the day. (On that note, Luke is the least misogynistic of the Gospels.) Also all miracles are same.
John is a superhero story. Also all miracles are same.
There’s believed to be something called the “Q Document.” It’s basically a master list of Jesus Greatest Hits. It’s thought that this is partly evidenced by the fact that when The Gospel of Thomas was found as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the story was different, Jesus was different, but the miracles and many of the sayings were the same.
This was well worth my time. Well put together, Cody. Succinct. I appreciate the way you brought it back around to the issue of seeing through others' attempts to control us and maneuvers we can try for practicing self-trust. After being raised in a dogmatic authoritarian sect whose leaders took the Bible literally and who believed it to be the inerrant word of God (which they knew the only correct and salvation-ensuring interpretation of), I am learning how to do something that they told me was dangerous and disgusting: trust myself.
Hebrew didn't exist, but Aramaic did. As a Jew, I was never taught Moses wrote the Torah. The Torah was written long before Jesus died, and Judaism was observed long before him. Please do not lump in Judaism as part of your Christian view or history - it's not our history or perspective; and is completely irrelevant to us.
"Different names for God used consistently in different sections"
There is a reason for different names for God. Maybe if you researched about Judaism, you would understand why. I am unsure how this is a valid point to disregard the Torah. Me saying this doesn't mean I believe the Torah is an emblem of "true" events. But what it does show is how most Christians misinterpret the Torah because they cannot read Hebrew or understand Jewish philosophy. "Yahweh" is the "official" name for God, that is so sacred no Jew is supposed to say/write; hence our other names for God that we are allowed to use to avoid blasphemy.
The Torah could very well be written by many people and many, if not most, Jews agree. This idea that it isn't seems to be more of a Christian perspective. There are many discrepancies, which many scholars and Rabbis debate in detail. Regardless, we handle it with care and dignity, discussing it with an intellectual approach, as opposed to viewing the Torah as an inarguable, absolute source of truth. I would appreciate Judaism being treated with an EMIC view rather than universalistic, etic view. Judaism - is not merely a religion - it is a people; an indigenous ethnogroup. If you wish to speak about Judaism, come attend a Shabbat, speak to a Rabbi, and engage with the Jewish community rather than speaking for us when you have hardly any clue about what we believe. Ultimately, the concept of Judeo-Christianity is out of place and illogical since our philosophies, symbolism, and practices are so very different. The only thing we share is that Christianity stems from Judaism, and that we have monotheism. We don't view the Torah or even God the same way usually. I don't know a single Jew that views God as a human man from the sky, rather I've seen most Jews consider God to be a more pantheist entity - another reason for our many names of God; because God is the unknown. One of the reasons we say "HaShem", the name, is because there is no one name that can fully embody the concept of the unknown.
Yes, Rabbis argue with other Rabbis. Jews are taught to debate, this is part of our culture; not an indication of a lack of consensus or lack of relevance. And even if some of those stories as you claim were fabricated, does their teachings provide any less importance? It seems again you're coming from an etic view, rather than emic here - a big fallacy in your argument. The Western view seeks to define properties or concepts in their essential, absolute, or concrete form. Jewish school of thought does not define things this way, therefore we do not see concepts in our various books the same way as Western/Europeans. You cannot understand our views by inserting yours to decipher them. One thing I do agree with you on is that many things may have been written with a political agenda, because all things that are written cannot be divorced from it as humans are political beings.
I grew up rigidly Southern Baptist, which believes the Bible is both infallible and inerrant. They also tend to believe in literal interpretations of scripture. However... in my extensive experience, there was very little "biblical" about any of the churches I attended. Most church-goers only cracked their Bibles open once a week on Sundays, to "follow along" with the preacher, who read off maybe 1-2 cherry-picked lines of scripture before launching into a 1-2 hour fire-and-brimstone rant that had little to do with the lines he read. I noticed an interesting dynamic, though. The infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible were somehow attributed to what the preacher was saying, too. People acted as if what the preacher claimed was divine or righteous, even if he went far beyond scripture. This resulted in groups of so-called Christians forming their beliefs around the opinions of their preacher more than the actual Bible.
Grew up in the same denomination and I affirm your experience as mine as well. These are also the people who have united for 47 in a way they wouldn’t for a music minister who plays too many songs with guitar 😂😬
Mary Magdalene, who actually was close with Jesus, wrote a gospel, but it was suppressed/banned because it didn't align with the political agenda of the church. Check out Megan Watterston's work to learn more about this.
I don’t claim to be a scholar (see above where I credited another’s work) but, respectfully, I don’t buy it that they just didn’t know about her manuscript. The church worked hard over centuries to delegitimize MM, it’s not a great leap to believe they purposefully suppressed her gospel.
Well… yes. There were lots of things written at that time that didn’t make it into New Testament canon. The New Testament was basically a collection of letters etc. that various church leaders (Tertullian foremost among them) felt would be useful for reading in church (most Christians at the time couldn’t read).
This process began about 300 years after Jesus left this world, and took about a hundred years to “gel” into a generally agreed-upon list.
There was no conspiracy to “suppress” the so-called “lost books” - they were simply manuscripts that, in most cases, the Fathers never knew existed. An exception was the writings of the Gnostics, who were early heretics.
Great article! You really did an excellent job of it. Did I inspire you to write it or was it just a coincidence? If I did inspire you, I'm happy to have inspired such an excellent article. 😃
Or maybe it was just Substack’s algorithm connecting people whenever they coincidentally write about the same topic or area of interest with similar timing. Either way, it's good. I like it. 👍🏻
The Unauthorized Version- Truth and fiction in the Bible by Robin Lane Fox is also worth a read.
I accidentally joined a cult in my early 20s. I left 13 years later but the indoctrination and fear linger. This helps.
'Tis one reason why I'm a heretic, and happy.
Cody - we could go back and forth on evidence all day but I want you to know, for whatever its worth, I'm deeply sorry for the manipulation and evil you grew up in. I have also been in highly manipulative environments and relationships that claim to "love Jesus" or be "Christian". And it's truly terrible that some of the deepest pain we can endure are from people that claim to love Jesus. There's a reason Jesus says what He says in Matt 7:21-23 (2 Greek words for the English word "know". One refers to knowledge and the other refers to relationship). There's lots more I could say but we can always chat more in the DM's. But all that to say, again, I am deeply sorry for the pain caused by other Christians and I know God hates that too
Well said.
Read the book “Misquoting Jesus” that will illuminate a thing or two.
So, I’m Roman Catholic, so all this stuff, for the most part was in the footnotes of my Bible. Still, the Bible was written by the Holy Spirt, through it’s authors and editors.
You don’t realize how subversive the Bible is until you realize it is banned in just about every totalitarian regime.
Well, yeah, a god encouraging the murder of male children and the rape of female children during war -- that is very subversive and immoral.
In addition to the other feedback you've been given, I would simply add that the Torah and Gospels are not the entirety of the Bible, nor even the whole Old or New Testament. I think you're trying to imply transitively that what's true for part is therefore true of all, but I don't think it's going to go well.
Check out 'the Bible for Grown-ups' by Simon Liveday.
Because you’ve clearly put the time in, a couple other things with the four Gospels of New Testament just to think about:
Mark is the most event based. It’s about what Jesus said and did. It also spends the most time on John the Baptist, but it kinda bashes him. Also notice that Mark isn’t very kind on Jesus’ family. And, most importantly, there’s no concrete mention of Immaculate Conception.
Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy back to David through Joseph… which is weird because there IS the claim of Immaculate Conception, so… Also, as you said, Jesus’ big miracles, sayings, et.al. are the same.
Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy back to David through Mary. So the DNA’s there, except that’s not how it was done back in the day. (On that note, Luke is the least misogynistic of the Gospels.) Also all miracles are same.
John is a superhero story. Also all miracles are same.
There’s believed to be something called the “Q Document.” It’s basically a master list of Jesus Greatest Hits. It’s thought that this is partly evidenced by the fact that when The Gospel of Thomas was found as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the story was different, Jesus was different, but the miracles and many of the sayings were the same.
This was well worth my time. Well put together, Cody. Succinct. I appreciate the way you brought it back around to the issue of seeing through others' attempts to control us and maneuvers we can try for practicing self-trust. After being raised in a dogmatic authoritarian sect whose leaders took the Bible literally and who believed it to be the inerrant word of God (which they knew the only correct and salvation-ensuring interpretation of), I am learning how to do something that they told me was dangerous and disgusting: trust myself.
Hebrew didn't exist, but Aramaic did. As a Jew, I was never taught Moses wrote the Torah. The Torah was written long before Jesus died, and Judaism was observed long before him. Please do not lump in Judaism as part of your Christian view or history - it's not our history or perspective; and is completely irrelevant to us.
"Different names for God used consistently in different sections"
There is a reason for different names for God. Maybe if you researched about Judaism, you would understand why. I am unsure how this is a valid point to disregard the Torah. Me saying this doesn't mean I believe the Torah is an emblem of "true" events. But what it does show is how most Christians misinterpret the Torah because they cannot read Hebrew or understand Jewish philosophy. "Yahweh" is the "official" name for God, that is so sacred no Jew is supposed to say/write; hence our other names for God that we are allowed to use to avoid blasphemy.
The Torah could very well be written by many people and many, if not most, Jews agree. This idea that it isn't seems to be more of a Christian perspective. There are many discrepancies, which many scholars and Rabbis debate in detail. Regardless, we handle it with care and dignity, discussing it with an intellectual approach, as opposed to viewing the Torah as an inarguable, absolute source of truth. I would appreciate Judaism being treated with an EMIC view rather than universalistic, etic view. Judaism - is not merely a religion - it is a people; an indigenous ethnogroup. If you wish to speak about Judaism, come attend a Shabbat, speak to a Rabbi, and engage with the Jewish community rather than speaking for us when you have hardly any clue about what we believe. Ultimately, the concept of Judeo-Christianity is out of place and illogical since our philosophies, symbolism, and practices are so very different. The only thing we share is that Christianity stems from Judaism, and that we have monotheism. We don't view the Torah or even God the same way usually. I don't know a single Jew that views God as a human man from the sky, rather I've seen most Jews consider God to be a more pantheist entity - another reason for our many names of God; because God is the unknown. One of the reasons we say "HaShem", the name, is because there is no one name that can fully embody the concept of the unknown.
Yes, Rabbis argue with other Rabbis. Jews are taught to debate, this is part of our culture; not an indication of a lack of consensus or lack of relevance. And even if some of those stories as you claim were fabricated, does their teachings provide any less importance? It seems again you're coming from an etic view, rather than emic here - a big fallacy in your argument. The Western view seeks to define properties or concepts in their essential, absolute, or concrete form. Jewish school of thought does not define things this way, therefore we do not see concepts in our various books the same way as Western/Europeans. You cannot understand our views by inserting yours to decipher them. One thing I do agree with you on is that many things may have been written with a political agenda, because all things that are written cannot be divorced from it as humans are political beings.
THIS! Thank you for articulating everything I wanted to say—better than I could. You hit the nail on the head and then some.