Stranger things

 

Credit: Kaido Einama 

In a previous blog post, I pointed out that if the supernatural is real, Christianity might - at least in principle - be true. So why don´t I believe in Christianity, at least not as usually understood? 

One of several reasons are the contradictions between the Gospels. John clearly contradicts the synoptics. But the synoptics also contradict each other. Paul gives us a fifth version, James a sixth, and extra-canonical sources don´t always agree with the canon. For instance, Ignatius. How strange is the supernatural reality *exactly* if it can take seven different forms at the same time? That is, in the same actual historical event? That seems highly unlikely, at least on a relatively literal reading of the Bible. 

But perhaps this is mostly a Protestant problem, since Protestants want the Bible to be a perfect divine revelation. So from such a perspective, the fact that God didn´t see fit to supernaturally preserve one, is clearly something of a conundrum. Why did the Holy Ghost canonize a number of entirely different and indeed contradictory stories, both in terms of the events described, and in terms of their theology? 

A Catholic might perhaps respond that there is a unbroken oral tradition alongside the written one, and that the Teaching Authority of the Church has it. But there is no evidence for this either. Rather, the post-Biblical traditions we do have access to (the one put to writing) are even more contradictory than the Biblical stories. 

But what about the liturgy? As far as we know, the rites at church services are also subject to frequent change. The sacraments? I suppose with some ingenuity, you could find all or most of the sacraments in the NT, but how do you know which Church has the right ones? The Church has split many times, Church leaders often preached a message regarded as "heresy" by later generations, and so on. 

None of this means that the Gospels are completely fake. Maybe something very, very strange did happen in "Palestine" about 2000 years ago. The early Christians then tried to come to grips with what had happened. And later generations tried to grasp *their* stories. Each one described the events after their understanding. "Sometimes, I saw him as a child, sometimes as an old man". If there is any "true" message, it might be esoteric and mystical, known only to a few initiates hiding in the desert...