The Ancient Israelites WERE Dumb Enough To Take The Biblical Stories Literally

John Dominic Crossan says: "“My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”

I, on the other hand, say that the ancient Israelites were dumb enough to take the Bible stories literally -- which is nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn't make them any dumber than the ancient Greeks with Homer or the ancient Germanic tribes with tales of Odin and Thor -- and that a lot of people today are dumb enough to take John Dominic Crossan, not to mention John Shelby Spong, seriously.

I'm sorry, I'm not going for it at all. A smaller percentage of Christians and practicing Jews are taking the Bible literally now than thousands of years ago, not a greater percentage. I do not believe that symbolic intent on the part of the Biblical authors would have been completely misunderstood for 2000 years until the late 20th century when then likes of Crossan could suddenly set everyone straight again. I do not believe that Biblical literalism was a completely Gentile thing, and that the Christians were simply too out of touch with the Jews, or that the Jews were simply too polite, for the misunderstanding to have been pointed out for 2000 years.

Crossan and Spong and other modern theologians don't want to let go of the privileged position of the Bible and other early Christian writings, and put them in the perspective of being just myths among other myths. And further, they don't what to admit that people thousands of years ago were more primitive in their beliefs than people generally are today. And so, since there is nothing actually in Biblical texts to justify seeing them as standing apart from other ancient myths, nothing to justify the way the Christians destroyed so many other religions, and since there is nothing in any ancient myths to justify denying that they are primitive and cruel and crude, Crossan and his ilk make things up like complex symbolic layers of meaning, and insist that those thoroughly modern things -- postmodern, actually -- actually are there in the ancient texts.

There's no reason to be ashamed of ancient texts. We've have thousands of years to learn since the Iliad and Genesis were written. We've built upon ancient texts in many large and small ways. They're wonderful things when seen for what they really are, they deserve a place of honor in the history of our society. (Just, not nearly as central a place as the Bible had in the European Middle Ages with its Inquisition torturing and killing everyone who didn't honor it enough.) They don't need to be gussied up by any of this modern theological bullshit. Hesiod's description of Achilles' shield doesn't contain myriad layers of symbolic meaning. It's just a vivid description of a wicked-cool shield.

"Ve Haff Vays of Sreatening Your Tenure!"

John Dominic Crossanhas joined Bart Ehrmanin reminding us great unwashed types that the debate about Jesus' historical existence is over, and that the skeptics lost. In his latest screed for Huffington Post, Crossan refers in the first sentence to "the historical fact -- yes, fact -- that Pilate executed Jesus at Passover."

Are Ehrman and Crossan only talking to people like me who don't have PhD's, or are their pronouncements that this debate, which I can't find when it started within academia, although of course several prominent academics have been fired for trying to start it there -- Ah say Ah say are Ehrman and Crossan & Co only talking to us, or are their flat assertions that the debate is over thinly-veiled threats to their colleagues with PhD's and tenure or hopes of tenure, that trying to open the debate within mainstream academia will still, anno domini two thousand and frickin twelve, land the would-be opener quickly outside the mainstream where he or she will be ridiculed and compared to climate-change deniers? Richard Carrier thinks so. Carrier has a PhD, but he also has a big pair of brass balls, and if he cares about the tenure he's not going to get soon in a mainstream faculty, he hides it admirably well.

Not only do I not have a PhD, it's been at least fifteen years since I could remember what it had felt like to care about tenure, so Crossan and Ehrman aren't scaring me. I can very grudgingly understand that other people are cowardly pussies who always want to cover their asses. Hey, it's no secret. People are the way they are. But even cowards can gradually become embarrassed, and this shit is embarrassing. The claim that anybody who doesn't join in the chorus of "it's a fact, yes a fact that Jesus existed, there's no doubt among the educated and non-crazy" is like a climate-change denier is so desperately tired that people ought to be really embarrassed for not speaking up about it. Cowardliness vs this intense embarrassment. Eventually, surely, a few of the cowards will cease to be so cowardly. They'll trade job security for sleeping the sound sleep of the ballsy.

When meterologists and geologists are confronted by climate-change deniers, they don't refuse to discuss climate change, and they don't ask to see the deniers' credentials. They by Vishnu discuss climate change. They refer to data. Surely, by this year of two thousand and for crying out loud twelve, people like Ehrman and Crossan are beginning to make themselves irrelevant in intellectual debate, are beginning to more closely resemble televangelists in the public perception, by continuing to pretend that the question of Jesus' historical existence has been properly debated. Come out, all you people who know better! Trust me: having guts feels good. Point out that the emperors aren't wearing clothes.