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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Anti-Literalist Response to Boskovich
Message-ID: <6279@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Jun-85 12:35:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.6279
Posted: Tue Jun  4 12:35:33 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 11:31:43 EDT
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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In large part, I have to agree with Tim's criticism of the Boskovich
manifesto.

[And now a brief pause while the world ends.]

The gospels are not written as history, and playing "four out of five
ancient manuscripts" is a foolish road to "truth".  Lumping Josh McDowell
with C. S. Lewis surely distorts the latter's writings, since Lewis was an
Anglican and (from the testimony of his writings) held the view that
scripture was not to be uniformly taken literally.

On the other hand, [you knew there was a qualification coming, didn't you]
Tim implies incorrectly that the authority for the ressurection comes out of
the Gospels alone, in the following passage:

>  "What about the 500 people Jesus appeared to?"  What 500 people?  One,
>  count him, one person who was already converted, and who wanted to convert
>  others, wrote down this story, that Jesus had appeared before 500 people.

The principal testimony is that passed down through the church; in
particular, the Catholic, Eastern, Lutheran and Anglican churches express
this sacramentally in the apostolic succession.  There is a unbroken chain
of laying on of hands from (say) the Episcopal bishop of Washington all the
way back to the apostles.  The gospels also provide a witness, but they are
written for believers, to explain and define.

Interestingly enough, many Christians do not "disbelieve" in the Buddha--
myself included.  Many of us drink at the wells of Buddhism and Taoism,
although I think that trying to "merge" East and West is wrong.  While
Buddhism and Christianity arrive at many similar ideas about the nature of
the world, the cosmologies of each are diametrically opposed; Christianity
is as doggedly insistent on the reality of the world as Buddhism is on its
illusory nature.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

   "Let Jakim with the Satyr, bless God in the Dance."   C. Swift