Digging the Process......
Digging the Process......
A new book,
Silencing the Skeptics: Gospel Contradictions Resolved; the Ultimate Open Challenge to Bart Ehrman, claims an unprecedented Biblical methodology of resolving Gospel contradictions. The book has issued a direct public challenge for Mr. Ehrman to read and respond to what is presented. On his blog, Ehrman has responded to the book's release. He was apparently, at first, under the impression that it was of malicious intentions. Very interestingly, the conversation in the subsequent blog replies features an explanation of the book's true intentions. The link to the blog discussion is below, and below that is the 2 minute trailer for the mysterious book. This is something to keep an eye on, to say the least!
https://ehrmanblog.org/a-new-attack-on-my-views/
[video]https://ehrmanblog.org/a-new-attack-on-my-views/[/video]
The authors views are described in his own post to Bart Ehrman's blog, and such a 'metaphysical' explanation of apparent contradictions or paradoxes in the gospel accounts is par for the course with the unusual allegorical or gnostic insights held by us more 'metaphysically' inclined esotericists
- add on to this that such an insistence if so held to 'divinely orchestrated contradictions' in the written word, could be no less analogous to the belief in 'biblical inerrancy', so that while it might have some merit, it fails on other grounds by its own interpretational model and assumptions. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but 'wet' happens.
Also, I might add I recall this very author may have been a member here (my memory could be confused and mistaken), and I have had some correspondence with him in the past concerning religious issues in discussion, so that we agreed on some points and have variances on others. His book and anonymity appear to be rather harmless in any case, and as a kindle person, finding good little bargain on religious readings on Amazon presents a tiny temptation at the moment, but its just a fizzle at the moment
That I see more of Jesus teachings being contained in books and channeled works outside the NT, and possibly elsewhere is no surprise to veterans here who know anything of my path, but I grant its always changing, because such is the nature of life, ever unfolding, evolving, expanding. Any paradox could be resolved by some synthesis of spiritual insight or meaning, depending on how you define terms or contextualize the total stratum of any given proposition. On that note, I've been a subscriber of Ehrman's blog in the past, albiet just a months sampling, to which I did not continue due to other studies. To Ehrman's credit goes his own well thought out and scholarly approach to the evolution and production of 'Chiristianity', so his books speak for themselves, faith protests aside.
These days, while a gnostic at heart, and ever a mystic, the venue of agnostic skepticism also has its place in some areas, so like a detective and researcher, I consider all points of view, and angles involved, and let the chips fall where they may, and those 'chips' may be 're-arranged' or 'cashed in' in different ways along life's path. Beyond also this journey being a venture in 'creative writing' to which some microwave theologians deem too much to read, all information is subject to 'interpretation' and further translation as it is 'processed'. In this case '
Process Theology' (with a 'New Thought' spin) offers a fresh nuance to some religious conundrums, so next time someone asks you how life is, just tell them you're "in process"
