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Tue, 04 Apr 2006

Jesus could have walked on ice, says Florida State Researcher

Trying to explain miracles by reference to natural processes is pointless. Pardon the pun, but it's mything the point of the tale entirely...

Of course, he's in good company: those who attempt to take the Bible as literal truth are in the same camp. And this, in my humble opinion, is the greatest weakness shown by modern evangelical Christianity: an insistence on literalism where analogy and metaphor (or dare I say it: mythology) would do a far better job.

Jesus did not have to literally walk across the Sea of Galilee - the point of the story was that the belief he represents would make the believer safe from the storms he will face in life. It doesn't have to be literal to be "true".

Look at our tale of the Mead of Poetry. I could write up a piece that claimed Odin, rather than changing shape into a snake, could've followed a tunnel made by a rather large one into Suttung's hall, and then could have been carried aloft by a surviving pterodactyl (as opposed to the mythinc "eagle")! Plausible? Barely. But worse, it would deprive the tale of a great deal of it's meaning, by reducing metaphor to a question of fact.

Following this path means that rather than concentrating on discerning the meaning of the myth, we'll get locked into a debate on the survival of dinosaurs... or the possibility of floating ice sheets on a lake in a desert.

Which is not, as far as I can tell, the goal of any religion.

A large, somewhat rare piece of floating ice in the Sea of Galilee may explain one of the signature events in Christian theology,...

(link) [CNET News.com]

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On 4/5/2006 12:06:01
Inanna wrote

Well said.

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