#yiv4429079122 p{ margin:10px 0;padding:0;} #yiv4429079122 table{ border-collapse:collapse;} #yiv4429079122 h1, #yiv4429079122 h2, #yiv4429079122 h3, #yiv4429079122 h4, #yiv4429079122 h5, #yiv4429079122 h6{ display:block;margin:0;padding:0;} #yiv4429079122 img, #yiv4429079122 a img{ border:0;height:auto;outline:none;text-decoration:none;} #yiv4429079122 body, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122bodyTable, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122bodyCell{ min-height:100%;margin:0;padding:0;width:100%;} #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnPreviewText{ display:none !important;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122outlook a{ padding:0;} #yiv4429079122 img{ } #yiv4429079122 table{ } #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ReadMsgBody{ width:100%;} #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ExternalClass{ width:100%;} #yiv4429079122 p, #yiv4429079122 a, #yiv4429079122 li, #yiv4429079122 td, #yiv4429079122 blockquote{ } #yiv4429079122 a .filtered99999 , #yiv4429079122 a .filtered99999 { color:inherit;cursor:default;text-decoration:none;} #yiv4429079122 p, #yiv4429079122 a, #yiv4429079122 li, #yiv4429079122 td, #yiv4429079122 body, #yiv4429079122 table, #yiv4429079122 blockquote{ } #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ExternalClass, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ExternalClass p, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ExternalClass td, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ExternalClass div, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ExternalClass span, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122ExternalClass font{ line-height:100%;} #yiv4429079122 a .filtered99999 { color:inherit !important;text-decoration:none !important;font-size:inherit !important;font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;line-height:inherit !important;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122bodyCell{ padding:10px;} #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122templateContainer{ max-width:600px !important;border:5px solid #363232;} #yiv4429079122 a.yiv4429079122mcnButton{ display:block;} #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImage, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnRetinaImage{ vertical-align:bottom;} #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent{ } #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent img{ height:auto !important;} #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnDividerBlock{ !important;} #yiv4429079122 body, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122bodyTable{ } #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122bodyCell{ border-top:0;} #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122templateContainer{ border:5px solid #363232;} #yiv4429079122 h1{ color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:26px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;} #yiv4429079122 h2{ color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:22px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;} #yiv4429079122 h3{ color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:20px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;} #yiv4429079122 h4{ color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader{ background-color:#FAFAFA;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:9px;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ color:#656565;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent a, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p a{ color:#656565;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateHeader{ background-color:#FFFFFF;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:0;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateHeader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateHeader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateHeader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent a, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateHeader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p a{ color:#007C89;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateBody{ background-color:#FFFFFF;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:2px solid #EAEAEA;padding-top:0;padding-bottom:9px;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateBody .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateBody .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateBody .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent a, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateBody .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p a{ color:#007C89;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateFooter{ background-color:#FAFAFA;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:9px;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateFooter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateFooter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ color:#656565;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;line-height:150%;text-align:center;} #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateFooter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent a, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateFooter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p a{ color:#656565;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;} @media screen and (min-width:768px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122templateContainer{ width:600px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 body, #yiv4429079122 table, #yiv4429079122 td, #yiv4429079122 p, #yiv4429079122 a, #yiv4429079122 li, #yiv4429079122 blockquote{ } }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 body{ width:100% !important;min-width:100% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122bodyCell{ padding-top:10px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnRetinaImage{ max-width:100% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImage{ width:100% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCartContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionTopContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnRecContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionBottomContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnTextContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnBoxedTextContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageGroupContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionLeftTextContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionRightTextContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionLeftImageContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionRightImageContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardLeftTextContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardRightTextContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardLeftImageContentContainer, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardRightImageContentContainer{ max-width:100% !important;width:100% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnBoxedTextContentContainer{ min-width:100% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageGroupContent{ padding:9px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionLeftContentOuter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionRightContentOuter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent{ padding-top:9px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardTopImageContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionBottomContent:last-child .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionBottomImageContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionBlockInner .yiv4429079122mcnCaptionTopContent:last-child .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent{ padding-top:18px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardBottomImageContent{ padding-bottom:9px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageGroupBlockInner{ padding-top:0 !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageGroupBlockOuter{ padding-top:9px !important;padding-bottom:9px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnBoxedTextContentColumn{ padding-right:18px !important;padding-left:18px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardLeftImageContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnImageCardRightImageContent{ padding-right:18px !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;padding-left:18px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcpreview-image-uploader{ display:none !important;width:100% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 h1{ font-size:22px !important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 h2{ font-size:20px !important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 h3{ font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 h4{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 .yiv4429079122mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader{ display:block !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templatePreheader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateHeader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateHeader .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateBody .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateBody .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateFooter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent, #yiv4429079122 #yiv4429079122templateFooter .yiv4429079122mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } Joshua fit the battle of Jericho. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Joshua and “The Longest Day” | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. David M. Felten May 30, 2019 If people today know anything about the book of Joshua it’s likely to be just one story: “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho.” But Joshua asking God to “stop the sun in the sky” is probably a close second – and has clearly had a more dramatic influence on world history (and not in a good way).   Right after the Israelites have crossed the Jordan River and destroyed Jericho, they proceed West and destroy a city called Ai. Seeing the Israelites do what they always did (leveling the city and slaughtering all the people), the neighboring Canaanites took notice. Perceiving themselves to be next on the menu, the residents of Gibeon hatched a clever plan. They went to the Israelites and lied. They fawned over Joshua and said, “You are SO amazing and we are SO impressed with you! We’ve travelled from a distant land to make a security pact with you. If you’re in trouble, we’ll help you. If we’re in trouble, you help us. Deal?” Not knowing that Gibeon was just over the next hill, Joshua agrees.   As a result, the kings of five of Gibeon’s neighboring cities are not happy. Declaring the Gibeonites traitors, retribution is planned. The Gibeonites are surrounded and send word to Joshua: “We need help!” Joshua thinks, “What? Already?” and then realizes he’s been tricked. But a deal’s a deal, so he and his army march all night to attack before dawn. Facing the combined forces of the five kings from NATO (the North Amorite Treaty Organization) God tells Joshua not to worry and proceeds to “discomfort" the Amorites, throwing down giant hailstones that kill more Amorites than the Israelite army.   Then, in one of the more impressive Biblical show-stoppers, God acts on Joshua’s request to “stop the sun” so that Joshua could get even MORE killing done. You probably remember it from the title in your Children’s Bible: “Joshua and the Longest Day.” But is that title correct?   Here are some things to keep in mind as you read the story: - According to other Bible stories, it seems the Israelites preferred to fight at night. Darkness promotes confusion and keeps the enemy off-guard. - Note that the Israelites marched all night to attack before dawn (while it was still dark). - To escape, the Amorites ran to the West towards the Aijalon Valley. - Read Joshua’s request carefully: “Sun stand still over Gibeon and Moon stand still over Aijalon.” So, when Joshua makes his request of God, it’s first thing in the morning. The sun is in the East over Gibeon. Why would Joshua need to ask for more daylight when the day’s just beginning? Because he’s not asking for more daylight. He’s asking for more darkness.   Then consider that “the Lord threw down huge stones from heaven on [the Amorites] … and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones than the Israelites killed with the sword.” What kind of storm is big enough to hurl hailstones that kill more soldiers than the Israelites? One big enough to blot out the sun and create the darkness Joshua requested. The plot thickens when you look closely at the Hebrew. The Hebrew word translated as "stand still" does not, in fact, mean “stand still.” It literally means “to be silent, grow dumb” (see Strong’s Concordance #1826). In other words, Joshua is asking the sun to be “quieted” – to stop doing what the sun does, which is give light.   The “loss in translation” gets even more maddening when you find out that the Hebrew word translated as "go down" (as in “the sun didn’t go down”) is “bo,” as in “come in,” “enter,” or “to be introduced” (see See Strong’s Concordance #935) – exactly the opposite of “go down” as the King James Version translates it.   So, a story that has long been referred to in print and represented in art as “the longest day” should actually be “the shortest day,” the darkness of the previous night having been extended into what should have been daylight.   Why does any of this matter? Primarily because it’s just one more example of how the inertia of tradition and the paranoia of theological gatekeepers has crippled the reputation of the Bible in the minds of modern people. If this story ever crosses the mind of non-church-going people (never mind if it’s the “longest” or “shortest” day), it is undoubtedly ignored as just another fairy story that justifies their having dismissed the relevance of the Bible long ago. And it does come up:     Scientific Progress Goes “Boink” Perhaps the most infamous use of Joshua 10 was when it was cited by the Inquisition to condemn Galileo in 1633. Regardless of evidence to the contrary, the Church was dead-set on defending the Bible’s demonstrably inaccurate worldview that the sun revolved around the earth. Church leaders used Joshua’s “longest day” story as a proof text to condemn Galileo as a heretic.   Even now, there’s an urban legend going around the internet called “The Lost Day,” a man claims that he was present when computers were calculating satellite orbits and, low-and-behold, a missing day was discovered! “Ha! Those godless NASA scientists inadvertently ‘proved’ the Joshua story to be true. Computers don’t lie, y’know!” But the purveyors of this story lie. They lie online, in articles, in sermons, in conferences and it’s even appeared in a “classic” how-to book on how to be a good Christian. NASA has even put out press releases to try and put the kibosh on the story, but that only fires up the conspiracy theorists: “See! They’re hiding something!”   Never mind the evidence-based implications of what it would mean for the sun to appear to “stop” in the sky. The Earth, presently rotating at a speed of about 1100 miles per hour, would have to suddenly stop rotating. If that happened, inertia would cause everything on the surface, including the atmosphere, to still be in motion. Anything not anchored to bedrock: forests, cities, oceans, people, animals – everything – would suddenly hurtle away at 1100 mph. Now THAT should be in a movie!   Even the Times of Israel panders to Biblical literalists with a 2017 headline that read: “‘Joshua stopped the sun’ 3,224 years ago today, scientists say” -- yet another opportunity for thinking people to roll their eyes in amusement.   “But God can do anything” Another argument people make to defend the literal historicity of Joshua 10 is that “God can do anything.” If that’s really true, then God is a heartless and immoral ogre. Just a couple of words to think about: Holocaust. Cancer. Tsunami. Anyone who defends a God who selectively interferes with the laws of nature, manipulates such things as the law of gravity, and the orbit of the heavenly bodies in the sky – all to facilitate more nationalistic murder and mayhem – but stands idly by in the face of contemporary global crises, has got some pretty scary ethical and theological problems.     So why is this story even in the Bible? If you’re familiar with the diaries of Julius Caesar, you probably know that Caesar “padded” the story to play better in Rome. As with Caesar’s diaries, Joshua 10 is  “padded” military history and nationalistic propaganda created to glorify the heroes of old. Some scholars think it might be a mash-up of stories from a variety of sources, each reflecting distant memories of dramatic events: maybe a Connecticut Yankee-style well-timed eclipse, or the providential timing of a massive thunderstorm that coincided with a significant battle of some kind. In short, it’s a mythic folk tale chock-full of propaganda and outdated cosmologies. But as long as the reader is aware that they’re dealing with tribal, mythic, and pre-scientific world views, the story provides a glimpse into the cultural and political reality of the authors. It’s only when these stories’ very human origins are not taken into consideration that their prejudiced and antiquated ideas compromise humanity’s progress and paint the divine into an indefensible corner.   Does it make sense to refer to this story as the “longest day”? Nope. Did Joshua ask for more daylight? Nope. Bad translations and unscrupulous theological operatives have completely misrepresented this tale for their own purposes. Why does it even matter? Because scientific progress has been undermined and reputations ruined over its misuse.   In 1992, the Vatican finally issued a public decree announcing that the Catholic Church now believed that Galileo had been right. The earth actually does revolve around the sun. Then in 2000, 367 years after condemning him, the church issued a formal apology to Galileo. But Joshua 10? It’s still out there being misused as “proof” that “God can do anything”, and the Bible is literally and historically accurate (for example, apologists go to extraordinary lengths HERE, HERE, and HERE).   Back in the 1920’s Harry Emerson Fosdick warned, “If we don’t allow young people to use their brains, we’re going to lose a whole generation.” And since then, the church has indeed “lost” multiple generations. Going forward, we don’t have to just allow people to use their brains, we have to show them how to use their brains – especially when it comes to the Bible. It’s precisely stories like Joshua’s “longest day” that can be used to deprogram people and rehabilitate the Bible for its cultural and sociological value – along with acknowledging (and offering profuse apologies for) how the Bible has been misused over the centuries.   In the end, Joshua 10 is one of those stories that has been almost hopelessly misinterpreted over the millennia. Originally just a ham-handed propaganda piece to glorify and justify the brutal Israelite conquest of Canaan, it has been profoundly twisted to make scientific and theological points it was never intended to make. It should be included, along with all the obsolete Biblical proof texts defending slavery, homophobia, and the subjugation of women, as another case study in the promotion of critical thinking and the advancement of humanity beyond its primal, tribal roots.     Without throwing them in the dust-bin, it’s time to pull back the curtain on the original purpose and origin of these long-maligned and misused tales. They’re not history. They’re not science. And as long as we resist letting low-information Bible readers or literalists try and make these stories say what they were never meant to say, they offer us a glimpse into the mind-set of the imaginative and gifted propagandists who laid the foundation of Western civilization.   ~  Rev. David M. Felten Read online here About the AuthorRev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”. A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura have three children. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer   Q: By Barb I have months to live. I'm not too hooked into christian symbolism but I would like to communicate with a person. I get that Spong is saying that we find God in us. And as such, the eternal also resides in us. My questions are more basic: does it matter which religion you pick to express your beliefs? Is there a Hell? A: By Fred Plumer Dear Barb, I am sorry you are having these kinds of concerns as you approach your last days or months on earth. I have said for decades that it does not matter which religion you chose, but rather, to ask: "Does this religion open up the world to me more, or does it close it for me?" I know of no Biblical scholars who believe in the concept of hell or a place of punishment after we die. Nor do most progressive clergy feel that way. The idea that religion is about punishment is frankly very sick according to most people who are serious scholars of the Bible, or frankly any religion. I believe life is a wonderful gift; I am 78 years old and closing in on my own death. I have no fear and it is not because I was clergy for over twenty five years; but it is because I have lived a long and wonderful life. It has been a gift and a blessing. And though I am still a progressive Christian by birth, I love the Buddhist tradition and the Jewish one as well. I will feel very lucky if this is all there is. However, I have been doing some reading on Near Death Experiences. These happen when some people die, sometimes for minutes and sometimes for hours, but then come back and live again to talk about what they experienced. At the very least they seem to suggest that our death can be a positive thing, with the possibility of something afterwards. But the interesting thing is the consistency in the way the literally thousands of people have told the same story, even though their deaths have been so different. At any rate please do not worry about hell or a judging God. I assure you that those things have been set up over the years as a way to control the masses. The concepts are outdated and wrong. May you have a pleasant passing with out worries. Warmly, Fred Plumer Read and share online here About the Author In 1986 Rev. Plumer was called to the Irvine United Congregational Church in Irvine, CA to lead a UCC new start church, where he remained until he retired in 2004. The church became known throughout the denomination as one of the more exciting and progressive mid-size congregations in the nation. He served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC) for five years, and chaired the Commission for Church Development and Evangelism for three of those years. In 2006 Fred was elected President of ProgressiveChristianity.org (originally called The Center for Progressive Christianity – TCPC) when it’s founder Jim Adams retired. As a member of the Executive Council for TCPC he wrote The Study Guide for The 8 Points by which we define: Progressive Christianity. He has had several articles published on church development, building faith communities and redefining the purpose of the enlightened Christian Church. His book Drink from the Well is an anthology from speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications that define the progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Fourth Fundamental: Miracles and the Resurrection, Part III Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong August 15, 2007 In this series we first sought to identify the places in the Bible where miracles seem to appear in groups. There are only three: The Moses-Joshua cycle of stories, the Elijah-Elisha cycle and the Jesus-Apostles cycle. We then raised the question of whether there might be a connection between these three biblical collections. To destabilize the literal approach to the Bible, we noted that there is no evidence anywhere that we are able to locate that Jesus performed miracles until we come to the 8th decade writing of the earliest gospel, Mark. That means that it was at least forty years after the crucifixion before miracle stories appeared in the Jesus tradition. Next we examined the Moses miracle stories, which had to do with the power to change the world of nature. We then pointed out the many similarities between the nature miracles ascribed to Jesus and the nature miracles ascribed to Moses, concluding that these narratives may have been a deliberate attempt to interpret Jesus by magnifying Moses stories and retelling them about Jesus. A new pathway into the interpretive process is thus opened. Today we take the second step by looking at the cycle of miracle stories told about Elijah and Elisha. Here once again we find primarily accounts in which nature is manipulated to serve the needs of Israel, making them strongly reminiscent of Moses stories. Elijah and Elisha call down fire from heaven on their enemies, cause both rainfall and drought and both expand the food supply to prevent starvation. One healing story, however, does make its way into this cycle, the account of Naaman, the Syrian being cleansed of his leprosy by washing in the Jordan River. This is the first time that a personal healing miracle is recorded in the biblical story. It would be almost a century later before healing stories came to be a part of the thinking in the Jewish world, but when that happened it was not as miracles that happened in the here and now, but as signs that would accompany the coming of the anticipated Kingdom of God at the last day. That is, healing episodes entered the Jewish mindset on a regular basis only when they were associated with the end of the world or eschatology. This idea makes its first appearance in the Hebrew Scriptures in the writing of the prophet Isaiah who lived in the eighth century BCE about a hundred years after Elijah-Elisha. At that time the Assyrians were the dominant power in the Middle East. They had built a mighty army with horse drawn iron carriages providing history’s first “panzer divisions!” Their ruler Sennacherib was both a great military leader and a fearful tyrant. The Assyrians swept over all competition in the area. The opposing tribes fell one after another. In 721, after a pitiful attempt at resistance, the Northern Kingdom of Israel became one more victim of Assyrian power. Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom fell, the king was executed and the people were marched off into captivity never to be heard of again. They simply disappeared into the DNA of the Middle East and became known as the “ten lost tribes of Israel.” The little kingdom of Judah seeing the hopelessness of their situation and, in large measure under the influence of Isaiah the prophet, accepted vassal status instead of resisting. Isaiah seems to have been of a royal family and he clearly served as an advisor to several kings much like Bernard Baruch of a generation ago who served several presidents from Roosevelt to Eisenhower or in our time David Gergen who served Presidents Nixon, Ford, Bush and Clinton. With half of the Jewish nation gone forever, and the other half now an Assyrian puppet with no realistic hope of ever being independent again, the people of Israel no longer seemed to expect God’s vindication inside history. Now they began to dream about the end of the world when the Kingdom of God would dawn. Isaiah, in the 35th chapter of his book, spelled out the signs that would announce the coming of the Kingdom of God. You will know that the Kingdom of God has arrived when the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap and the mute sing, he wrote. It was a powerful image and it became part of Jewish messianic thinking, later becoming one of the ways through which the gospel writers interpreted Jesus of Nazareth. To understand how this passage from Isaiah shaped the gospel story is insightful. In both the gospels of Matthew and Luke, we are told that John the Baptist, who was in prison, began to despair that he might perish before the Kingdom, about which he had preached, actually arrived. As these gospels tell that story, Jesus was the object of the Baptist’s hopes and now perhaps he was also the cause of his despair. So they portray John the Baptist as sending messengers to Jesus with a simple question, “Are you the one who should come (i.e. the messiah) or do we look for another?” These gospels say that Jesus did not answer that question directly. Rather he told the messengers to return to John and tell him what they saw and heard. Then Jesus quoted directly and specifically from Isaiah 35. That is, Jesus claimed that the signs of the Kingdom’s arrival were present in him: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the mute sing. Then Jesus was said to have added two other details to Isaiah’s list that reflected quite specifically Christian values, “The dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” The synoptic gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke depict Jesus as being surrounded by and even causing these signs of the Kingdom. There were the stories of the blind man from Bethsaida, whose blindness was healed in stages, and of Blind Bartimaus, the son of Timaus, who received his sight. There were stories about Jesus restoring hearing to the deaf, about Jesus loosing the tongue of the mute so that they could speak and stories about Jesus making the lame, the paralytic and the withered capable of walking. The point of this brief analysis is to suggest that the miracle stories that involve healing might well not be accounts of remembered supernatural deeds that Jesus did at all. It suggests that by treating them as literal stories we have badly misinterpreted the gospel writers’ intentions. The more probable explanation of the healing miracles is that when the gospel writers began to interpret Jesus as the messiah who came to inaugurate the Kingdom of God, they wrapped these signs of the Kingdom around his memory. The Jewish audiences for whom the gospels were originally written would have recognized the words of Isaiah that lay behind these narratives. If these stories were added to the tradition by these gospel writers as a way to identify him with the expected messiah, it would be easy to understand why there were no miracle stories in any earlier source, Paul, Q or Thomas, the only three sources that anyone suggests might have been prior to earlier the gospels. If you have journeyed with me this far, one final thing needs to be done. We must look deeply and critically at these miracle stories and ask what kind of blindness or deafness it was that Jesus actually cured? Is it the physical blindness or deafness of those whose eyes do not see or whose ears do not hear? Or is it the spiritual blindness of those who have eyes to see but see not, those who have ears to hear and hear not? Is Jesus talking about sight or insight, hearing or understanding? To focus this question look, for example, at the story of the blind man from Bethsaida, whose seeing is cured in stages. A close reading of Mark’s context makes us wonder whether Mark actually intended this to be a miracle story. I see it, rather, as a parable about the life of Peter. Please be aware that Peter hailed from Bethsaida, and that Mark’s gospel has, prior to this story, just told us that at Caesarea Philippi Peter had identified Jesus with the expected messiah, by naming him ‘the Christ.’ As that story continued, however, Jesus began to explain that the messianic role, which he was claiming, had to be lived out through the pathway of suffering and death. That was a concept Peter was not willing to accept and so Peter said: “No, No, Jesus that is not what messiah will be,” revealing that he did not really see. His sight had to be restored in stages. Indeed the gospels are clear that Peter was destined both to deny Jesus and forsake him before he would see. So my conclusion is that Peter was the blind man from Bethsaida. This would mean that it was a very different kind of blindness about which Jesus was concerned. It may also have been a very different kind of deafness, crippled status and an inability to speak the truth that was the real meaning of the miracles. Are miracles understood as supernatural interventions necessary to the Christ story? I clearly do not think so. Paul apparently did not think so. The world we live in today does not operate on the basis of miracles. Ours is an ordered world, not a chaotic world. There is, however, a force that is driving this world toward life, wholeness and, dare I say, toward God? God is the love that heals, that expands, that binds up our wounds, that sets us free to be. This is the God we meet in Jesus. That is why the disciples of Jesus who composed the first gospels claimed for him the role of messiah and then added to his life story healings, that were first introduced in the Elisha cycle and then later portrayed as the signs that Isaiah said would mark the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. We misread them as literal events, rather than what they are, interpretive signs. Do miracles happen today? Do prayers get answered by an intervening deity in miraculous ways? Something deep in us yearns to believe that, but such ideas have lost their credibility in our world. What has not lost credibility is that the God, who is the source of all our life, infuses life with the power to transcend our limits. The God who is the Source of love expands our capacity to love and thus to become more human, more loving, more whole. God who is the ground of being gives us the courage to be all that we can be. This is the God that people claimed they saw in Jesus. When we experience this God we do see, we do hear, our lameness gives way to wholeness and our tongues are loosed to speak of truth far beyond its normal limits. Others might call this a miracle. I call it entering the experience of God, which is the same thing as entering the fullness of your humanity. ~  John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements | | | A Virtual Journey of Mastery™ 9 Steps to fully experience the Awakened Master you are. Summer Journey – July 2 – September 3, 2019 In a select group of Awakened Masters, you experience a powerful 9-step process to: * Identify and align with your life’s purpose * Achieve the goals most important to you * Liberate yourself from limitations  READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |