Best Bible for research?

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I am not sure that for critics like Spong, the latter is the central issue.

His views on Christology do put him at odds with it.

His views stated in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism are thoroughly subjectivist in their orientation. I probably made (another) typo somewhere, or something, but he doesn't seem to care about who Jesus presented himself as so much as just what Jesus means to us.

He certainly does seem to orientate towards the subjective in his views on Christology. His views on God and Christ's understanding of the subject matter are an unsupportable eisegesis of Christ's own radical self-understanding. This view can be found throughout 'Jesus for the Non-Religious'. Christ's own statements cannot be reconciled with this view... hence why Spong's Christology finds its place in the fringe of the discussion. JP Moreland wrote a very good article on where his theology is irreconcilable with the views of the disciples (I forget the name) NT Wright also wrote a good book on Christology that engages with Spong called 'Who was Jesus?'. You know your outside of the mainstream when even Rowan Williams thinks your a looney tune.

Just wanted to say thanks for some of the reference recommendations. I'll see what Bible editions are in my local library.

This may help:

http://www.breslov.com/bible/

It has fairly accurate translations in Massoretic, Hebrew, Aramaic, JPS, and Kaplan lined up side-by-side. I use JPS fairly often.

Ok, but in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Spong literally denies the relevance of the exegesis on the meaning of Jesus, arguing that we should not be bound to Paul's view or Mark's view but rather that we need to embrace the Jesus that we perceive in our own lives, and that Jesus has multiple faces, none of which being complete.

"The question is never, Who is Christ? as if there was some pure objective human capacity to capture truth for all time. The question is, Who is Christ for us?" (pg 229)

"Contrary to the unhistorical view of creedal fundamentalists and biblical literalists, there was never a moment when the Christ experience was captured to be normative for all time" (pg 229)

"Christ is indeed "the hero of a thousand faces" ... Christ has been and still is many things to many people. All of them are Christ and none of them is Christ" (pg 230)

"We do not envision God as a superhuman man who dwells beyond the sky. To talk of a Father God who has a divine-human son by a virgin woman is a mythology that that our generation would have never created and, obviously, could not use" (pg 234)

Now, maybe Spong has changed views over time, but I don't think he became MORE conservative, as the move that you are talking about is a move to become more conservative, even though from what I understand, Spong's message of post-theism and the need for Christianity to change has been relatively constant. As such, I still question whether the Lewis Trilemma is valid on Spong, and it certainly isn't valid for a lot of Spong's work.

This would be the subjective eisegesis I was talking about. He essentially denies, the concept of theism (something which the people of First Century Israel certainly held to) along with Christology. Rejecting, in total any objective ground for the discussion of the Jesus essentially does fall victim to the trilemma, since I do not think that it can be a proper exegesis that Christ intended for Spong's view to be the correct one and I don't think Spong even claims that it is. There is very little scriptural support for the pantheist views of Spong. So I do believe the trilemma applies. Now I am aware that NT Wright has dealt with the idea of the divinity of Christ, often interpreting it beyond, in his view, the choices of the trilemma (in his view it is formally unsound, Craig has the same view). However, I would hold the Spong's views do not escape it in the effective ways that other have. Essentially his claims are in total contradiction to scripture, he holds that God emerges from man, a view utterly irreconcilable with scripture.

Lewis on the subject:
'Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. I do not wonder. Here lies the deepest tap-root of Pantheism and of the objection to traditional imagery. It was hated not, at bottom, because it pictured Him as a man but because it pictured Him as king, or even as warrior. The Pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you. There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should flee away at His glance'

91, your argument is nonsense. Spong explicitly dismisses the relevance of exegesis for the idea of Christ as an ongoing phenomenon that people engage in. As such, an exegetical criticism doesn't cut it. Even further, his notion of the divine as a primitive framework no longer holding legitimacy does allow him to get past the strict trilemma, as it offers an option that allows Christ not to lie, be insane, or have to be God, in just saying that Christ imperfectly expressed a higher reality.

All of these comments on "scriptural support" don't actually engage your opponent AT ALL. They FAIL because your opponent has just dismissed the grounds you use for your criticism of him.

Lewis on the subject doesn't provide anything either. It's a statement, but it lacks intellectually coercive properties.

Hence my claim that he is engaging in a fallacy of suppressed evidence; it is also begging the question; see below.



This would be just epic question begging. His work in attempting to undermine the traditional view has been roundly criticized. He is just assuming that the other side is necessarily wrong and proceeding from there. Now you would be correct that if we used the Lewis Trilemma to test the logical consistency of his position, assuming his point, then it does not work. Since he is attempting to ground his view within the wider literature, there is just no good reason to allow him to beg the question like this. We are not testing the internal logical coherence of a conceptual position (like with the moral and ontological arguments); this is an attempt at wider contextualization and as such, assuming the point is not an acceptable defense. Now you might respond that his is an entirely subjective position and as such we are evaluating it, in such a case, assuming his position would be somewhat justifiable but Spong does not do that, he blatantly makes a statement about large swaths of academic discourse see his points 1-11. Hence NT Wright's accusation that he simply does not seem aware of what he is talking about.

An explicit structure denying the validity of X, isn't the fallacy of suppressed evidence. The fallacy of suppressed evidence is when X is relevant by your own framework, but you don't mention it.


The problem is that a subjective notion of the meaning of Christ *IS* a conceptual position given that he had explicitly rejected the question of history in many of the quotes I put forward. (And there are other quotes I didn't use with the same point)

So, given that your entire argument is premised on it NOT being a conceptual position, I don't have to go further if it is plainly a conceptual position that he put forward in the particular instance I referenced.

I can scarcely believe all the sweating and straining over a book of Bronze age fairy tales.

ruveyn

It's just par for the course, ruveyn. People sweat and strain over sh** all of the time.

Well it probably still has value.

and some fairy tales probably still have value to.

Wrong. The fallacy of suppressed evidence does not only apply exclusively to the internal logical consistency of a position. It involves the ignoring of evidence that counts against one's conclusion. This certainly applies to the position Spong takes in relation to Christology, my point all along.



You are not the one making the argument here. I put forward the contention that Spong's position in relation to Christology (manifest in rejection of historiography, theology and the concept of theism) commits the fallacy of suppressed evidence, it also blatantly begs the question and that it fell victim to the CS Lewis Trlemma. How you reference his work in defense of his claims has little bearing unless it has the ability to escape the evidence that I have put forward. You can reference selective points all you like and then analyse them in relation to my contention, but then you would be committing the fallacy of selective attention yourself.

I was going to write an argument, but I don't see the point. We're already at the point where no further arguing makes sense. I already posted explicit statements by Spong that disagree with the framework you put forward, and do so rather obviously. If these statements are correct, then you are in obvious error, and you have not recognized the error(nor would you ever given that once you've started down an argument, you are so crazy or dishonest, that you will literally deny the normal functioning of logic if it suits your needs). I have literally nothing more to say except to make corrections, and corrections are only good if you think the opponent is honest and/or not insane.