Random thoughts on the Christ

For a simple enough message, Christianity seems open to a myriad interpretations. Here, some screeching nutter proves the New King James Bible is the work of Satanists, if not of Old Nick himself.

We giggle at such silliness, but don't we all encounter hairsplitters who will ignore the messages in the NT as suits them, insisting that in the Greek it said we should all eat goat on a Wednesday and hate our neighbour, because if you look at the list of definitions in the Oxford Dictionary of Ancient Greek, definition 21 of "love" has "eat goat" and definition 27 has "hate". Mind you, check this out -- no goateating going on in these guys' Bible.

This fiendish nonsense is reminiscent of the ancient Greeks themselves, who would work themselves into a stupor over the most bonkers ideas in one another's philosophy. Heraclitus said everything changed, Parmenides said nothing changed, Plato said everything seemed to change but nothing really did (okay, okay, he didn't, but he nearly did). They didn't tend to kill one another over it (although Socrates' persecutors included some of the sophists whom he'd made look foolish). But what is interesting about them is that there is the understanding that they said this and that, when really they said something other. From Plato's fascist republic to Aristotle's muddled, gentlemanly ethics (which informed Catholic morality with its curiously bourgeois distaste for the venal), they are mostly interesting for how incredibly difficult they made their world -- without ever striking upon the real complexity that it holds.

As a philosopher, Jesus, who like Socrates left no writings but is faithfully or not so faithfully, depending whom you read, reported by his peers, does not concern himself with cosmology or metaphysics. After all, he was talking for an audience who shared ideas in those areas -- I think it's reasonable to assume he was aiming his teachings solely at Jews and not at others whose idea of the world might differ.

So Jesus set out his message. It was pretty plain. Love God, love the people round you, don't chase the dollar, be true, be honest, be good. In brief, do nothing to shame yourself.

And take the bus.

posted by Dr Zen @ 7:51 am