Up until fairly recent times, the vast majority of the world was illiterate. Even today, some data suggests that over fifty percent of the world’s population is illiterate. So for moderns today, reading and writing are simply things we take for granted, especially in the western world. But if we go back in antiquity to say the first century AD, to the world that Saint Paul dwelt in—those numbers were even greater as only small portions of society could read and write. Many people could write their names and do basic things such as write a bill of sale, but to compose a letter such as Galatians or Romans took the special skills of a scribe.
What’s exceedingly interesting as well, even though many of the ancients couldn’t read and write—they loved receiving letters from friends and family. Now someone might ask, if they couldn’t read or write, then why would they look forward to receiving mail? The answer is, they would find a family member or someone in the community as a reader for them. And many times, these letters were brief containing 80-100 words that began with a short greeting, a quick hello, and how they were doing. Naturally the sender would eagerly wait in anticipation for a response from the person receiving the mail—so this process went back and forth. Somewhat like Saint Paul’s letters to the Corinthian Church. Initially, the Church wrote to Saint Paul and he responded back with a letter (which is now lost) and when the Church was confused about some points he made in that letter, they in turn wrote back to him which prompted Paul to write what we now call 1 Corinthians and so on. While writing simple letters such as 2 & 3 John from the New Testament contain similar features of letters from antiquity, to compose something like Romans or Galatians took the great skills of an amanuensis or professional scribe. And when the person seeking to write a letter such as Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, we know that it was not written by Saint Paul. In fact, the scribe of the letter (Tertius) identifies himself and sort of says, hi to the audience in Rome—perhaps because he knew some of the people there. The same is true for Saint Paul’s letter to the Churches of Galatia. At the end of the letter Saint Paul signs off, or signs it, by telling the Church, “See what large letters I use when I write with my own hand.” (Gal. 6:11). Writing a small greeting at the end of a letter was likened to signing a letter in modern times. So for all of Saint Paul’s letters, he did not write any with his own hand, rather he dictated them to a scribe. Now scribes, especially well-trained scribes, were capable of doing many things. Some scribes were trained in shorthand, meaning they could listen to the author speak at conversational speed and keep up with him. However, in many cases certain scribes were not trained in shorthand, so they listened for each and every word as the author dictated very slowly to them—naturally this also dictated the style of the scribe as well. Another fascinating feature regarding this is that scholars who have studied Saint Paul’s letters, have discovered areas where these methods are actually seen (I’ll touch on that in a moment). But scribes would also make recommendations or suggestions to an author such as Saint Paul as to what he should say or how he should phrase something. The setting for the writing of a letter was also much different than you or I might imagine. As I type out this blog, it’s relatively quiet and I’m typing exactly what comes to my mind. But when Saint Paul prepared for his letters, he was, as I already stated, speaking out loud to a scribe what he wanted to say as others in the room listened (Silas and Timothy) perhaps making suggestions. A good example of this from one of Saint Paul’s letters to the Corinthians when he says that he baptized only a few of the Corinthians while he was in Corinth, but suddenly he says, “and the household of Stephanas” (1 Cor. 16:17) as if Stephanas was in the room reminding Saint Paul as he dictated to the scribe. After the letter was dictated, a copy was made for the sender (Saint Paul) to review before being sent to the addressees. Saint Paul would then look at the final copy checking it over for errors or areas he might perhaps want to change; and if he wasn’t satisfied, he would have the scribe make corrections. When he was satisfied with the letter, he would sign off on it and have it delivered via a courier or someone that was present when the letter was dictated who possessed full knowledge of what questions may arise as the letter was being read and how to answer them Romans is particularly fascinating. This letter was dictated and written by Tertius the scribe while a certain lady who was likely in the room with Saint Paul, Phoebe. Here we have a woman delivering perhaps one of Saint Paul’s most intense and longest letters. But Phoebe was not only delivering it to the house churches in Rome, she also read it aloud, answered questions and clarified points that surly came up as the letter was read. Some other letters Saint Paul sent where the deliverer is known are: Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon which were delivered and read by a man named, Tychicus. The New Testament is permeated with many subtle hints regarding who wrote the letters and who delivered them. Saint Paul was the example I choose to use because letter wise, he had the most material. Many questions arise when this subject of dictation is brought up, namely, if Saint Paul was guided by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t "actually" write the letter, then who was inspired, Saint Paul or the scribe? Also, while Saint Paul verbally spoke the words and the scribe may have missed some of them, or thought he heard one thing but wasn’t sure and he just kept writing, is that an inspired text? Does this challenge the doctrine of inspiration? Let’s remember, Saint Paul would always look over the content of the letter, sign off on it, seal it and then send it—meaning when it left his hands and was dispatched, that became the inspired text.
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Within the gospel accounts, we read about the authority of Jesus and how He exercised that authority. In the gospel of Saint Mark, some of the Scribes and teachers of the Law were astonished by the way He taught, “For He taught them as one who had authority, and not as the Scribes.” (Mark 1:22). And Jesus would also say things such as, “You have heard it said, but I say to you.” (Matt. 5:27-28). Unlike the teachers of Jesus’s day who would quote rabbi so and so to strengthen their claim; Jesus acted on His own authority. This was a very unique key feature in Jesus’s ministry and also in that epic of time in that it demonstrated His authority over man and even others interpretations of the Word of God--the Old Testament (Matt. 5-7). Naturally, if you didn’t know who Jesus was at that point in time, you would likely have challenged His authority much like people do today when someone from the Catholic faith uses authority or the weight of the Church to determine if something is within the pale of orthodoxy.
Today, like then, some people are put off by the notion of authority, ‘who do you think you are to tell me.’ You see, we live in an age where almost everything is challenged; and with the rise of individualism in the twentieth century, there has been what is known as sort of an anti-authoritarian view regarding authority. But the irony of it all is, we form beliefs and submit to authority based on what people tell us every single day, and we use what they say (if they’re reputable) as a source of authority. Let me give you a super simple example of what I mean. If you are at work in an office surrounded by cubicles and a coworker comes over and tells you its pouring rain outside. Well, you’ll probably take him at his word and not go running to a window to check unless the guy lies about everything. So, in a simplistic way, this would be a form of authority on the basis that you have adopted a belief about something he said. This person like a teacher is telling you something you didn’t previously know, but now you do. And this is true with almost every single aspect of our lives, we believe what someone tells us or what we have been taught by them on the basis of authority. If you went to public school, or even home school, you were taught things by a teacher, and then you went home and told your parents or friends what you learned because you trusted your teacher as an authority based on their credentials. The point here is, if we lived without authority or in a constant state of skepticism, our lives would be miserable. But authority gets more complex, especially in an advanced civilized society like our own. Let’s use the United States of America as an example. When the nation began, government was much smaller, and not much authority was exercised over people, but as the nation grew, so too did authority. Of course as growth took place, there were Mayors, Governors, Congressman, Senators, and so on—with the President acting as the highest office of authority. The same is true and has been true in Christianity. As you read through the New Testament, you can see the formation of a governing body or authority developing right from the start. In the gospels, Jesus formed a unique community or a Church, and as the leader of the Church He exercised authority and teaching over the Apostles and those that followed Him. But Jesus shared this unique authority with His closest followers, even during His earthly ministry giving them authority to do certain things, “And He called to Him His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and infirmity.” (Matt. 10:1). Jesus continues, “He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.” (Luke 10:16) That’s a lot of authority. Later in the gospels, Jesus gives Saint Peter the authority to govern His Church. In the famous passage of Matthew 16, Jesus gave Saint Peter the ability to “bind or loose” (Matt. 16:19). A few passages later Jesus shared this privilege with the other Apostles. (Matt. 18:18). So very early on within the newly founded Church there was authority bestowed upon Jesus’s followers. But did it end there? No. When Saint Paul had to resolve specific problems within the Church, he did so by authority. You can see this authority being exercised in the churches he founded. Saint Paul also says, “God has appointed in the Church first Apostles, second prophets and third teachers.” (1 Cor. 12:28). Even the writer of Hebrews says, “obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give an account.” (Heb. 13:17). Clearly there is authority given to those that knew Christ and were entrusted with furthering the gospel and the Church. When the last of the original Apostles passed from life to death to life, their role of teaching and exercising authority didn’t end, rather the baton was passed from them to bishops, as bishops are those that succeeded the Apostles. Now I could ramble on about the perfectly documented succession of those that proceeded the Apostles and Saint Peter as an unbroken chain of succession in both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, but I want to place my focus on authority and where it resides. Many modern Protestant Christians echo the words of Martin Luther, in that every person should have access to the Word of God and be able to read it, thus coming to an understanding of its basic meaning (the main and plain things). However, as much of an advocate as I am for people having access to the Word of God, this plan or idea backfired. Even in Luther’s day, different denominations, foreign beliefs and competing churches were springing up everywhere. Alistar McGrath, a Protestant Christian theologian and others, are at least honest enough to confess how problematic this is. However, McGrath seems to believe that a Pope or authority is still not necessary. McGrath views the Protestant church as a movement that sort of builds on a consensus of beliefs and comes together in agreement about them--this is a very democratic way of thinking about this. But how could you take 40,000 plus denominations of Protestantism and get them to agree? It would be like our current President, Donald J Trump and Bernie Sanders and all the other Democrats coming together in unanimous agreement. That is how wide and divided the Protestant church is when it comes to agreement without an authority. Jesus said, “I pray that they (the Church) will be one, just as you and I are one…” (John 17:21). How exactly is this verse or teaching being applied in the Protestant Church today? Within Protestant sects, there is division on abortion, women pastors, homosexuality, music, modes of worship, same-sex marriage and on and on. There was a Protestant Anglican named John Henry Newman, who later in life became a Catholic, and one of the main reasons was, for Newman, the Protestant Church lacked a voice. For Newman, at the end of the day, he said there needed to be a living voice (authority) that can determine things when the Church is divided. In closing, many Protestants despise these words, ‘tradition’ and ‘authority’. Although Protestants practice tradition and authority in every aspect of their lives without even knowing it from, the happy birthday song to what their denomination believes. Maybe next time I’m at a birthday party, I could stop everyone in the middle of singing happy birthday and ask them why they sing that and where they got that song from? Most people would look at me strangely and say, it’s our tradition—that’s why! Well, the Church has tradition too, and it is a tradition that is thoroughly anchored in Scripture. Some might say fine, maybe your traditions are found in Scripture, but don’t act like some authority over me—I don’t need the Church to tell me what the final authority is—I have the Bible. Well, if I could liken that type of thinking to the sports realm. The authority of the Church and papacy would be likened to an umpire or referee. Most people don’t always like the referee or the umpire, but they respect the umpire as an authority. And people also recognize that without the umpire, or a living voice, the game would simply devolve into bickering and chaos. We need someone to call a strike a strike or a ball a ball. It's not an authority that is domineering or oppressive, but referring authority. So if you love the game and you want the game to continue, you have a sense of reverence for that umpire or authority. Answering my friend Thomas Paine. . .This exchange is obviously fictional, however, almost the entirety of the dialogue from Thomas Paine are direct quotations either from his books or letters, in which I respond. As you may or may not know, Paine played a critical role in starting the Revolution against England for America's freedom. He was also one of the masterminds behind the Deceleration of Independence, and in the draft Paine proposed that slavery be abolished (ultimately it was removed). He is also the person who coined the term 'The United States of America' and many, many more great things. So he is an individual that I hold great respect for, although he was also very controversial. This is part one of several dialogues with Paine regarding organized religion, Jesus Christ, the holy writings of the Bible and Deism.
Thomas Paine: “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. However, I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I don’t mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine.” Nick: Well Thomas, it seems to me like you have put much thought into the idea or concept of organized religion and have somewhat of a distaste for them. You know, there are several things you said which I would affirm and believe, namely the existence of one God and not a pantheon of them. Secondly, the openness you have to allowing for other beliefs to exist outside of your own; while allowing them to exercise the same rights as you (a.k.a. tolerance. Something we seem to have lost in the 21st century). I would also agree that there have been many examples throughout human history where religion has gained a foothold in government and in turn used government as a means of coercion to convert or else—both Christians and Muslims are guilty of this. Lastly, I would add that while these belief systems (including your own) all make truth claims; you know as well as I know that they can all be wrong, but they cannot all be right. I mean, is it possible that you may be incorrect with regards to your beliefs like these other belief systems and all of them are just a human invention? Thomas Paine: Of course, there is a chance I am wrong, but here’s my problem with organized religion. “Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special revelation from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians have their Jesus Christ, their Apostles and Saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. . . and each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.” Here’s why. “No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if He pleases. But admitting for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is a revelation to that person only. . . It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him, and though he might find himself incumbent to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe in it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.” Nick: Well stated, Thomas. To be sure I understand you correctly, are you saying that you don’t believe the Bible or any other holy book to be true on the basis that they was written by individual men who said God spoke to them and then later copied it down; or even in some cases, perhaps many, the original revelator did not even pen what was told to him by God, rather someone else did? Thomas Paine: That’s exactly what I’m saying. For example, “When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tablets of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it other than him telling them so. When I am told the Quran is written in heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former.” I should also add, “Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so.” Concerning “Jesus Christ, He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that He preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius and many others, it has not been exceeded. Nick: But Thomas, you just stated that the information contained from many of these sources is not trustworthy because as you know, Jesus never wrote anything, and all we have are biographies (the gospels) of Him from those who claimed to know Him. In your book, ‘The Age of Reason’ you stated that, “. . .the authors (of the gospels) is impossible for us to know, as it is for us to be assured that the books in which the account is related were written by the person whose names they bear.” Yet, you say Jesus was a moral teacher of great magnitude, but our only sources are works that you deem as corrupt and not factual. Also, do you believe that all information from secondhand sources is unreliable on the basis of lack of witnesses or having not been written by the individuals themselves? If that is the case then we can’t really believe the great historians of antiquity like: Cornelius Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, Gaius Tranquillus Suetonius, Livy, Philo and countless others. Thomas Paine: No, that’s not exactly what I meant. I do believe we can extract factual information from many of these authors, however, I do not believe that the miraculous events which they describe are true on the basis that they break the laws of the Almighty’s firm law—dead people do bot rise from the grave and miracles do not happen, and no good evidence is given. “. . .a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it (the resurrection), and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection; and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I; and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.” Nick: I agree, it is pretty audacious for someone to come along claiming special revelation from God, and to write down what they said was revealed to them from God, and say, this is the emphatic revelation of God. The Turks (Muslims) do have what they call the Quran which states that the information contained in it is direct revelation from heaven by Allah himself. And I agree with you that that would be pretty hard for anyone to prove or disprove, and I believe that’s where your assessment of individual revelation would be true--especially in this case. And I don’t doubt that in the future many more men and women will do the same thing in hopes of starting a new movement or cult. But biblical revelation is a bit different (at least the gospels)—let me explain. Clearly you are aware of the four gospels contained in the New Testament as you had a very conservative Christian upbringing as a Quaker. But what makes these documents unique is the fact that we have more than one account, plus we have multiple attestation—kind of like a group of witnesses. Now you know as well as I do, that if they all stated the same thing, they would have been guilty of collusion and we wouldn’t pay any attention to them. And you did point out in your great work, “The Age of Reason” we have this so-called synoptic problem or one writer copying from another—and there is some truth to your claim. But we have made great advances in our understanding of the sources and material that each gospel writer used, and while Saint Mark almost certainly penned his gospel first, and the others (Matthew and Luke) followed and possessed a copy of it using great portions of it, they did, however, also have other material from other sources. For example, in Saint Luke’s prologue he says, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” So here we have an individual who was a contemporary of the Apostles and many others that had access to vital information about Jesus stating what these people saw and heard. So while yes, up to 90 percent of Marks gospel is found in Matthew (some verses are verbatim) and somewhere around 77 percent of Luke’s gospel is found in Mark, they also had unique material not found in Mark. So if they copied from Mark, where did this other material come from? For example, Matthew gives us a birth narrative while Mark does not. Also, Luke has very unique material in his gospel not found in Mark or Matthew. Think about the parable of the good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, Zacchaeus and many others. And we know that while both Matthew and Luke contain birth narratives, they didn’t copy from one another because their birth narratives differ as do their genealogies. So I would agree with you if Mark alone came along and said, this is what God revealed to me and this alone is our only written account, I would be suspicious too and find portions of it difficult to believe. Fortunately, that’s simply not the case as we have multiple attestation to critical events that historians agree as being factual. But most importantly, when we discuss the miracle of Jesus’s physical resurrection from the dead (which you reject), we have overwhelming evidence for this; so much so that volumes and volumes of work have been penned on this. Now this isn’t isolated revelation either, because we have many independent eyewitness accounts for this. In fact, some of the most powerful and persuasive evidence for the resurrection fits into what scholar’s call, ‘the criterion of embarrassment’. These are events you wouldn’t include in your writing if you were making up a story and trying to sell it, or at least a later editor or someone from the Church would have erased and fixed these embarrassing features. So women, as you know, were first to arrive finding the tomb empty. This was extremely embarrassing for the young Church because women weren’t even able to testify in a court of law. So if you were starting a new movement, you would never have women as you primary witnesses for a pivotal event. Even in the second century, the skeptic Celsus while debating Origen said, see we can’t trust the resurrection account because it was women that discovered the empty tomb. Now, if I were making up a story and wanted people to buy what I was selling, I wouldn’t have questionable people as my primary witnesses, rather I would have my top person(s)—maybe Peter, James or John as my primary witnesses. Again, I would be very skeptical if we only possessed one account of this event, but the fact is we have many witnesses and stories of people that were skeptical—even hostile, who met the risen Jesus and changed. Secondly, you mentioned that only eight or nine witnesses saw the risen Jesus, but Saint Paul writing a mere 20-25 years after the event to the Church of Corinth, states that over 500 people witnessed the risen Jesus and some were still alive to be cross-examined. Lastly, and this is just scratching the surface of evidence. Why wouldn’t these Jewish men whose leader was just killed follow the tradition of almost all Jews of the day, in that on the last day, God would resurrect everyone from the dead—including Jesus? Or why not just say Jesus is reigning in heaven? Or why didn’t they copy the other typical small messianic groups that when their leader was killed either their next of kin was the new leader or the movement died? Thomas, as a friend who agrees with you that reason is vital, we simply can’t discount the Christian faith as false on the basis that we live in a different epic of time where we do not possess direct access to the events as they unfolded. The Bible does not tell us to check our brains at the door and just have faith because someone received a revelation. Instead the Bible challenges us to test its claims at every level of intellect and reason, and in the end make an informed decision. Because if the claims are true and Jesus did indeed physically rise from the dead, then we must follow His precepts as delivered to us in these documents we have. Thomas Paine: Those are indeed some persuasive arguments, and there is much more we will discuss at a later time. But I do have a previous engagement with President Washington that I must attend to, as The Marquis De Lafayette had originally given me the Key of the Bastille to deliver to President Washington, however, I was unable to fulfill that, so a gentleman from the Carolinas did and I am going to be sure it arrived safely. Good day, Nick. |
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