jn_en_2019_12_05
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====== Birth of Jesus - History and Perception II ... ====== | ====== Birth of Jesus - History and Perception II ... ====== | ||
- | Wednesday, Dec 05, 2019. Talking about facts and history, we are discussing the | + | Thursday, Dec 05, 2019. Talking about facts and history, we are discussing the |
- | birth of Jesus. | + | birth of Jesus. There are many things to say here about the gospels and their way |
+ | to present the story. You might read the Christmas story following Luke, from Chapter 2. | ||
+ | Or you look into Matthew Chapters 1 and 2. | ||
+ | There are several events told in connection with the birth of Jesus. Also, | ||
+ | Matthew and Luke have a slightly different way to put the event into historical | ||
+ | context - Matthew referring to Herod the Great, Luke to Quirinius and the many | ||
+ | censuses, which the Roman emperor Augustus initiated during his lifetime. We | ||
+ | have discussed this already earlier. In any case, both Gospels name relatively | ||
+ | clear reference points which are well-known historical periods, with the | ||
+ | exception that Quirinius was governor in Palestine from 6-21 AD, before that | ||
+ | he held many positions between Northern Africa, Rome, modern Turkey and Syria, | ||
+ | which might have included Palestine, but that is not fully clear. He conducted | ||
+ | a census in 7 AD, but it is not known if this was the first census Luke refers | ||
+ | to. References to the Roman emperor Tiberius and to the governor Pilate fit | ||
+ | into the story completely, supporting a birth of Jesus about 6-4 BC. | ||
{{2017: | {{2017: | ||
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** Events around the birth of Jesus ... ** | ** Events around the birth of Jesus ... ** | ||
- | + | There are more events told about the birth of Jesus. We have already discussed | |
+ | the fact that he is born in very poor circumstances in a town which was | ||
+ | completely insignificant with respect to worldly and even spiritual standards. | ||
- | {{ 2017: | + | But there are the shepherds, to which an angel comes and tells them to |
+ | see the kid. We hear about heavenly praise on this particular occasion. | ||
+ | You could, of course, put these stories into a box of fairy tales. Today, | ||
+ | modern worldly theology has big difficulties to accept angels and supernatural | ||
+ | events. They are not acceptable as " | ||
+ | experiments. We would not be able to explain them with our understanding | ||
+ | of natural laws. They are not standard experience of humans today, at least not | ||
+ | in a way which we would be able to pin down to something we could investigate. | ||
- | ** | + | Science as it stands has no other choice than to classify the supernatural |
+ | elements of the story as perception or interpretation or later legends which | ||
+ | arose from oral communication of the early church. | ||
+ | My point here, as a scientist, is to fully understand the way science works | ||
+ | and has to work. We need to understand the strength of the scientific method. | ||
+ | We need to understand how science interacts with many of the biblical stories. | ||
+ | And we need to understand the limitations of the scientific approach. | ||
+ | Science will not accept that an angel appeared to the shepherds. It will | ||
+ | not be able to accept it, since it is based on the assumption that all events | ||
+ | can be understood by natural laws, which might include statistical laws today. | ||
+ | But an angel is neither a part of our natural world nor is it a statistical | ||
+ | phenomenon. | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{ 2017: | ||
+ | |||
+ | ** What happened? ... ** | ||
+ | |||
+ | Still, we need to ask: what happened around the birth of Jesus? Is it possible | ||
+ | that there were angels and the multitude of the heavenly host? | ||
+ | |||
+ | It is clear that science cannot explain it. It is also clear that science, as | ||
+ | it works, has not any tool or eye or approach to take supernatural events | ||
+ | into its lines of arguments. It can look at the outcome of some events. It | ||
+ | can investigate someone who is healed. But when the healing took place in | ||
+ | a supernatural way, it cannot say much about it. | ||
+ | |||
+ | We also need to understand that the approach of science, looking for natural | ||
+ | causes, has led to many inventions and a very far reaching understanding of | ||
+ | the natural world. We have learned so much about the atmosphere, about human | ||
+ | medical conditions, our body, biology, chemistry, physics, sociology, history | ||
+ | etc etc. It is good to have a mode of mind which tries to understand the | ||
+ | natural laws of a world which seems to be governed by such laws to a large | ||
+ | extent! | ||
+ | |||
+ | Still, we also need to understand that our understanding of this world is | ||
+ | still extremely limited. Often, we understand some parts of the processes. | ||
+ | We understand some laws. But we do not understand them completely, and we | ||
+ | do not understand the complete depth and breadth and complexity of events | ||
+ | and processes. Mathematics can do a lot, and has improved in an astonishing | ||
+ | way in the past 500 years. Yet, we still have deep difficulties to understand | ||
+ | intelligence, | ||
+ | system! | ||
+ | |||
+ | You might ask, if the spiritual world exists. It is an old question - and | ||
+ | our world is coming back to it. Esotericism is growing in a world longing | ||
+ | for more. The question of angels and heavenly hosts is linked to this spiritual | ||
+ | world, and to its interaction with the physical world as we know it. | ||
+ | |||
+ | If you ask me, I am very much convinced that the spiritual world exists. | ||
+ | There is matter, and there is spirit. God is spirit. And humans also have | ||
+ | their spirit, we are part of both worlds. The spiritual world exists and is | ||
+ | alife as it always was. This is the basis of my understanding - and from | ||
+ | this I can ask in what way the spiritual world interacts with the physical | ||
+ | world. I am also convinced that wonders are possible, that God has the | ||
+ | power and all possibilities to do what he wants at the interface between | ||
+ | our natural world, our spiritual world and our whole life, with all what | ||
+ | is in it. There is much to discuss and to discover here - stay patient | ||
+ | and let us go step by step. | ||
(Roland Potthast) | (Roland Potthast) | ||
jn_en_2019_12_05.1575528847.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/12/05 07:54 by potthast