An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part I

One of the criticisms of the Bible that is tossed about is that there's no proof that any of it happened, or that there's no contemporaneous confirmation of its contents. One of the most attention getting statements that I have read in recent years is there are indeed historical documents regarding the life of Jesus Christ — the four gospels. To those of us with a non-religious orientation that statement sounds ridiculous. Of course they're not historical documents, they're religious texts! The people who wrote them had an agenda! Yes, both of those statements are true, the gospels are religious texts and they were written by people with an agenda. We've all heard the saying "History is written by the victors", which is just a different way of saying that history is written by people with an agenda — always. 

Over the last few years I listened to a few history-themed podcasts — the history of Rome, of Byzantium, of the successive Persian Empires. In each of them I was struck by how often the only information that we have about an event was written decades or generations after the event took place. How there are often gaps in lists of rulers that can only be filled in by speculation. How the only contemporaneous documentation of an era has been long lost and all we have are fragments by historians quoting earlier historians. While there are exceptions, for the most part ancient historians were employed by their rulers to make them look good, or to make the ruler's opponents look bad. Or it was a citizen of the winning side wanting to paint his people in glory. Or maybe it was the losing side trying to depict their people as something other than abject losers. Yes. They had an agenda.  

The writers of the Gospels had an agenda too, which doesn't make them any better or worse than any other writings from that time period. The first of the surviving Gospels, "Mark" was most likely written around 70 C.E., i.e, around 40 years after Jesus' ministry. This gap in time is brought up a lot to disparage the authenticity of the Gospels, but it was not unusual, especially since it is likely Jesus' early followers were illiterate or at least not educated enough to put together a narrative like you see in any of the Gospels. It's also apparent that, since they believed that God would be imminently intervening in human events, there was no reason to write anything down for future generations that they didn't think would exist. So a written account during or immediately following Jesus' life would not be expected. The utter lack of any originals of the Gospels or even the epistles, or even any copies dating any earlier than hundreds of years after Jesus' life is also cited as problematic, yet you'd be hard pressed to find an original edition of any of the classical writings, or any writings that have as many extant manuscripts as does the Bible. (The number of manuscripts on the other hand doesn't prove anything other than people valued them enough to make lots of copies)

Historians will examine any historical document to determine, not only its authenticity, but to discover any biases that the author had; they also have a number of ways to test the reliability of the claims made in any history, any ancient biography. Unless one is of the opinion that The Bible is the "revealed Word of God", inspired by God Himself, it makes sense to subject The Bible to the same scrutiny that any other historical document would be. 

For most people, however, The Bible is an either-or proposition. Either it's God's Word delivered via prophets of God to His people, or it's a book of fables with no truth in it whatsoever. (Of course there are intermediate positions — some believers admit that some passages in The Bible may be metaphorical while some disbelievers accept that there's some decent morals and ethics in it.) 

In this series I take the position that there is good reason to accept that there was an historical Jesus that the New Testament was based upon, but that not only are there contradictions regarding him among the different books, but that Jesus wasn't who most people think he was. I'll be touching on the milieu in which Jesus lived, the Jewish scriptures that he was taught, contradictions between how the Gospels differ from the message of Paul in his epistles, how how it all morphed into "The Church". 

And off we go!

Go to Part II

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Conclusion

No one wakes up in the morning, and after a shower and that first cup of coffee, decides that they’re going to join a cult. No one approached by someone with an engaging smile and an encyclopedic knowledge of the bible thinks “Cool! A cult! Just what I’ve been looking for!” Yet, every day in America, people join up with ...cults. 

From "So, You Want to Join a Cult  Part I"

I have documented my time in a cult through 41 blog posts, with an additional 13 outlining cult tactics and strategies for recruiting, retaining and controlling people. If you have read through the series, one of the themes that you may have picked up on is how ordinary it all seemed, how banal. I wasn't holed up in a "compound", prohibited from leaving; there weren't any mass suicides; we weren't immediately identifiable by our bizarre clothing. We certainly didn't think we were in a cult when we were, in fact, in a cult.  No one who is in a cult thinks that they're in a cult. Most people believe that they would never be taken in by a cult, that they're too smart. They're wrong.

Part of why I wrote this series was to show how easily someone could get caught up in a cult. Cult members aren't stupid. Cult members aren't brainwashed. Cult members see something in the cult that appeals to them. They make a decision every day that what they are getting out of the cult is worth what they are giving to the cult. For many, it becomes the sunk cost fallacy, i.e. they feel that they can't leave after investing so much time and energy, for others, they're ashamed to admit that they were wrong. One way or another the goals and priorities of the cult become their goals and priorities. They refuse to consider evidence that they're wrong. Opposition to the cult is viewed as foolish, deranged, evil. 

Some of you who have stuck with me through this whole series have made the connection between what I experienced in a religious cult and the political cult that millions of Americans have embraced. People who looked down their noses at those poor, deluded, fools at Waco, or in Guyana, have walked open eyed into devotion to a man who stands for everything that they just a few years ago would have been against. They don't believe they're in a cult, but no one who is in a cult thinks they're in a cult. 

My years in the way have made me a skeptic. Not only of charismatic leaders and pat answers to complicated questions, but to anything or anyone who claims to have The Answers. I hope I have inspired some skepticism in a few of you. 

Start at the beginning: Part I

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part LIII - Stupid People Often Assume Everyone Is As Stupid As They Are

An aspect of cults that is at times overlooked is that there isn't always a clear dividing line between those who are fooled and those who are doing the fooling. Even at the very top levels, there's often some question whether the cult leaders believe their own press clippings. Was a con always being run, or did the leader little by little come to really believe they were the anointed one? 

In any cult, there has to be intermediaries between the top dog and the flock that is being fleeced. Between 1970-1980 the Way Corps program graduated hundreds of field leaders. I was never privy to the qualifications that were looked for in leadership, but like in the business world, I saw many "leaders" who exhibited no leadership qualities whatsoever. If I had to guess at the prerequisites for being given a leadership assignments, I'd say that loyalty to the organization and the top leader, including obedience, were the primary criteria. There were also exercises within the Corps training that served to weed people out. L.E.A.D. was one of them. 

The initials (if I remember correctly) stood for Leadership, Education, Adventure, Direction. The participants had to hitchhike in pairs from the Way Corps headquarters in Emporia, Kansas to Tinney, New Mexico with only ten dollars in their pockets and still have ten dollars when they arrived. Their time in Tinney involved a number of outdoors tasks and ended with hitchhiking back to Emporia. For some reason rappelling down a cliffside, surviving alone in the forest for 24 hours and thumbing rides were crucial skills needed to lead God's people. The other apparent stumbling block was money. There was tuition to be paid for the two years of training "in residence", i.e. at one of The Way's properties. In my observation every Way Corps rejectee of my acquaintance was sent home over money — or the lack thereof. 

For a "Biblical Research" organization, many leaders had an abysmal lack of understanding of the Biblical texts. I was aware of several who were functionally illiterate. With few exceptions their "teachings" in home fellowship meetings were nothing more than rehashing what they had heard promulgated from headquarters. Sometimes the Way middle managers, the Way Corps branch and limb coordinators, were dumber than the rank and file membership. They would deliver information that was so obvious as if it were secrets that only the elect could understand. I remember one year Fred, our local leader telling us all, with a look of utter seriousness on his face, that Christ wasn't Jesus' last name. I imagine that there were people in the world that thought that Christ was his family name; Jesus Christ, son of Joseph Christ and Mary Christ, but I felt insulted that he thought I need to be told that. Somebody higher up was dumb enough to believe that Christ was Jesus' last name, and the assumption was that everyone was dumb enough to think that. 

I remember sitting through a class at Way headquarters taught by Way President Craig Martindale. He went off on a long tangent about an Old Testament tribe called the Kenites. His rant assumed that, due to the similarity in the name to Cain, the son of Adam and Eve who murdered his brother Abel, that their evil ways were due to their ancestry. I remember sitting their thinking that according to the Bible, Cain didn't have any descendants at that time — they all drowned in the flood. I looked up the names later and saw that although similar in English, they were not the same in Hebrew. Another teaching that I recall vividly was based on the teacher confusing the Greek word aleitheia (truth) with athleo (to contend or struggle), which was further confused by the insistence within Way leadership that athleo must imply an athletic allegory throughout the epistles. 

Cults are based on the assumption that knowledge derived from outside the cult is tainted. Only that which originates from within is legitimate. It doesn't matter whether or not the inner knowledge is fact-based or not. In fact, ignorance of what the experts are saying is required. My own exit from The Way began with my own questioning of what was being taught. Anyone who dares to point out errors is dangerous. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part LIV