Part 8
Non-Tract: http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/jesus.php.
The first sentence of the "caveat" is false. There are many cases in the non-tract where the words, and certainly the deeds of Jesus, were not taken at "face value", unless "face value" means quoting only half of a verse, or attributing actions to him that the text does not. Still, the sentence points to one of the root causes of the distortions presented in the non-tract. Many of Jesus' words and deeds should not be treated "flatly". They were never meant to be. Jesus was a teacher. He used parables, metaphors, and other figurative language to make his points. The Gospel writers, in turn, were not constructing news reports. They were not disinterested parties, but it is a fallacy to assert that bias creates inaccuracy. They had a purpose: to show people that Jesus was the Son of God, the promised Messiah. They used common literary devices of their time to help fulfill that purpose. Even news reports contain many sentences that are not intended to stand completely by themselves. How much more, then, do the Gospel verses require interpretation in light of the surrounding narrative, with all its biographical, cultural, and rhetorical flavor? One of my favorite quotes concerning the study of the Bible is, "A text without a context is a pretext." The non-tract is full of pretexts.
I'm not a big fan of the Jesus Seminar, but I find myself in the odd position of having to correct this distortion of their work. While individual Seminarians may forcefully state their opinions, the Seminar does not "conclude" that the vast majority of the Gospel text is "not authentic". As a group, they vote to reach a consensus on the probability of authenticity. Approximately 15% of Jesus' sayings in the Gospels are deemed "red", meaning the Seminarians find it highly likely that Jesus actually said them. Then there are "pink" and "gray" portions that have some probability of being authentic. Even much of the "black" presumably has a tiny bit of reliability behind it. Actually, there are portions of the Gospels on which there is no vote and that are not even eligible for discussion. The Seminar refuses to consider any miracle, fulfillment of prophecy, or claim of divinity. Anything with supernatural overtones is rejected at the outset. Given that, it is not surprising that much of the rest is cast in doubt, depending as it does on Jesus' divine identity. However, this is a methodological constraint and not a process by which they have reached a reasoned conclusion on these matters. The Jesus Seminar is a source of "controversy", but they are very much in the category of roaring mice, representing an extremely small percentage of biblical scholarship and whose greatest success is in self-promotion. To present their activities as support, and to present them inaccurately, speaks volumes about the weakness of the non-tract's position.
As a matter of definition, "inerrant and inspired" does not mean "flatly and literally interpreted from the King James Version". Nor does it mean that there are no errors in the text we have today. The doctrine only refers to the original manuscripts, none of which are available to us. I freely admit that there are many Christians, even entire denominations, that misinterpret many of the verses in the same way they are misinterpreted in the non-tract. Complete accuracy and certainty are not attainable, but we can proceed with a high degree of confidence, especially when we apply a version of the "Golden Rule" to the process. We should be as diligent in rooting out the true meaning of a text as we would want others to be in attempting to understand our own writings. That's a difficult enough task when the writer and the reader share the same language and cultural background. It requires a certain amount of extra effort when trying to interpret a 20th Century English translation of a 1st Century Greek text meticulously reconstructed from a body of over 20,000 manuscripts. It borders on the ridiculous when limiting oneself to isolated verses (or half-verses!) from a 17th Century English translation of a 16th Century Greek text constructed from a few 12th Century manuscripts and partially translated from a 4th Century Latin text based on earlier Latin translations of even earlier Greek texts. There are many things to admire about the King James Version, and the great majority of the errors in the non-tract are version-independent, but it's a bad starting point for an argument for what a certain verse actually means, whether one is a Bible-believer or not.
The final paragraph makes two major points, both of which are false. The first, that nothing has been taken out of context, has been dealt with in the previous sections. Practically all of the cited verses had to be taken out of their contexts in order to fit them to the presented arguments. The second point, that no one has explained any of this, is also false, though it may not have been at the time the statement was written. This series got its start as a lengthy e-mail sent to the Freedom From Religion Foundation back in February of 2001. At the time, I found it difficult to believe that no complainant had gone into detail as to the problems in the non-tract, but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. There was no response to that e-mail. I created this set of pages and e-mailed them again. The author responded, and you can see the result in the addendum. I have made some changes to these pages since then. These changes reflect a somewhat deeper level of research and emphasize that I'm not just "commenting" on the non-tract, but refuting nearly every assertion in it. I will e-mail them again. I hope that this caveat section will be updated, at least, to remove the last claim. I even entertain the possibility that, in the interests of honest discussion, they will include a pointer to these pages to serve as a rebuttal to the non-tract. The most satisfying outcome, however, would be for them to recognize the harm the non-tract does to their own position and reputation, and consequently remove the document from circulation.