What do we make of this statement by Alfred Korzybski? He said that “Man’s achievements rest on the use of symbols. For this reason, we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life. And those who rule the symbols rule us.”
Certainly this is true beyond the current reliance of our country on fiat, or imaginary money symbols. We are as a nation experiencing the ability of people with specialized knowledge to manipulate virtual accounts in such a way as to effect our physical lives. Even a superficial study of the FRS and banking reveals this to be easily discernible.
But of far more importance is who controls the symbols to which we attribute power over the destiny of experience of our immortal soul. I wonder, who even thinks of the scope of considerations involved in conveying ideas through several languages over two thousand years? Even just from person to person here and now, have we been perfectly understood in every one of our communications to someone else, or vice versa? Those ancient communications also lack tone of voice and body language, two factors from which we derive actually by far the majority of our face-to-face communications. We all know how awry the intent of an e-mail can go.
So, we start with a medium that is already devoid of vital factors. Add to that, what we do have is not in the original tongue. That tongue had it’s own specific cultural concepts and contexts. For instance, we now know that “camel” in the famous needle story is more properly translated “rope” or that “ravens” in the story of Elijah is better translated “the inhabitants of Oreb.” Even St. Jerome thought so.
And then we have the known and perhaps unknown levels of meaning commonly used by teachers at the time of Jesus. He himself taught in parables which had levels of interpretation, and even though some of that is known, He yet took His core group aside for private teaching: Mark 4 33,34. Since He was around publicly for one to three years,depending which Gospel you go by, one would imagine, with His level of understanding, He was constantly talking when “in the midst” I know I would have had a few questions, if I was privileged to be around and wasn’t one of the vastly greater number of scoffers. Of the few statements of His we do have, almost half can be traced or attributed to another source as at least a quote from the body of His own learning. The Bible is a thick book, but how much of it can be legitimately “red lettered?”
Next, we wonder, when we consider that ten people witness an event we have often more than that number of versions of it from the various perspectives, intelligences, and observational acumens of those witnesses. And as if the Apostles themselves were thought highly of in their ability to understand. Look, for instance, at the difference in tone and weight between John and the synoptic Gospels, and the other dissimilarities in those. And that is only four people who were “close” out of hundreds or thousands. The Gospels, as well, were public statement, not the private understandings of whatever authors. If you have written anything the length of a Gospel, you have an idea of what’s involved.
Then there is the idea of translation. What does this mean: FRXMPLGDSNWHRCLDBNDRSTDBYSMNTBNSTDGDSNWHR*? That is how Hebrew was written. NO vowels, punctuation, or capitalization. Have you already deciphered it? If yes, then consider that both Latin and Greek of the time were grammatically different from Aramaic. That means that, as the Romans said, “IDEM NON IDEM” or “The same in one language is not the same as that in another.” Wise folk, the Romans,
Then consider that about CE 170, Dionysius of complained that his own writings were being altered by others, but took solace in that the same was happening with the Gospels. And even Eusebius admitted that in his history of the Church he omitted all the things that would discredit the Church and her rulers and magnified those things that would exalt her. This licentious approach to writing was common at the time, and its “ends justifies the means” approach apparently lasted at least until the inquisition.
Remember, as well, that during this time Christians in their kindness to the future generations were burning libraries of incalculable wealths of knowledge in order to promote the faith. They were not alone int his, as the burning of the library of Alexandria attests, but the Christians had already taken care of the Serapaeum collection there. Indeed, many scholars suspect that these burnings took place because the pagan wirtings were so nearly identical to the Gospels.
On, then, to the canonization of the “current” version(s) of the Bible and ideas surrounding collections. The Wow! factor of the contents of the Gospel of Thomas was not even available to the Church fathers at the time of the decisions that standardized the texts in the book. Had they indeed been guided by the Holy Spirit, would they not have intuited the existence of other pertinent texts? I don’t know. Have you yourself read the history of the first three hundred years of the Church from a scholarly standpoint? I’m not even saying one ought agree with any particulars, but is it not necessary to have all the possibilities out on the table?
Again, back to language. Neither Greek, Latin, nor English carry any equivalent of the sense of the word “I” as used in the teaching languages of the Middle and Far East. This puts on the table a very serious question about the actual nature of the Identity statements attributed to Jesus.
And on it goes, with many, many questions not ordinarily considers by the ordinary person in the pew. So really, who wrote the Gospels is perhaps less of an important question than who translated them, according to what, and how then were they attributed their alleged meanings?
Code:
*For example, "God is now here" could be understood by someone to be instead "God is nowhere"
