Upon a second reading through Borg's first chapters I could not escape the urge to reflect on the current misinterpretations by many who claim to be christian. Borg addresses those who follow "rapture" theology, calling attention to the zero-credibility of the idea. These rapturists, in my opinion break a cardinal rule of reading and understanding the teachings of the bible, by taking it literally. Specifically, the most symbolyic and metaphorical book in the bible--the book of "Revelation".
From what i have learned through out my high school curriculum on the old and new testaments and research of my own. I come to understand that most of what was written in the bible is heavily laden with opinions and hidden agendas of the writers. I know that these writers worked to compile several oral traditions, into a text form that was tailored to fit a specific christian communites needs. They are full of symbols and language that are meant to help the target audience understand the message.
More than 1600 years after the final Canon of the Bible was introduced how can anyone hope to understand a single message or teaching from the bible without first understanding all the factors that surrounded its writing.
If any rapturist even bothered to begin a critical read to understand the messages and metaphorical meaning behind the text of any book of the Bible, ESPECIALLY Revelation. I am certain that the person would understand how a only a literal understanding of the Bible severely restricts the value of any meaning that can be gleaned from its pages.
Furthermore, writing this blog has prompted me to comment on how stunned I am that these rapturist have recieved such large attention from the media recently. I have discussed how nonsensical I beleive the whole idea is I won't beat a dead horse. what bothers me the most is that only a few groups of christians have bothers to make the statement of distancing themselves from the "out there" groups. I feel that Christian Scholars should make it a priority to help the media sift out these nonsense based belief systems so that the greater worlds may have a clearer view of the values and teachings of the old and new testament are.
I feel that it's a philosophy that should be applied to many religions, particularly Islam. Muslims fight against quite a bit a discrimination because many americans don't bother to sift out the facts that many of these so called terrorists are not followers of true Islam, infact many are like these rapturists they are a small splinter group that because of the shock value of their actions recieve media attention. Niether are a true representations of either religion.
As Borg, brings up however just because early christians where "closer" to the foundations of the religion, this does not mean that every interpretation they had was accurate either. In fact Borg draws attention to the many heresies surrounding the early churches attempts to identify whether Jesus was fully human, fully divine, or some combination of the the two. Official Church teaching tells us that he was indeed both. Borg identifies one of the larger heresies, known as "docetism" that pervaded many early christian commnunities. Docetism, identifies Jesus as God merely appearing to be human, not actually Human. this belief removed the sense of oneness with us that made Jesus's sacrifice so important to the foundations of Christianity.
Ultimately I think that education about the proper method to attemtpt an interpreetion of the Bible or any historical or religious text would greatly benifit socielty as a whole to avoid many misinterpretations.
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