(no subject)
The other night I watched a show on the National Geographic Channel called The Secret Lives of Jesus, about the non-connonical gospels from the Nag Hammadi Library and other sources. It was a pretty good overview of some of the little known gospels, but I found the presentation and analysis sorely lacking.
My main complaint is that everyone they interviewed was obviously biased against these alternative gospels, but never gave any clear reason why they should be dismissed, or why their chosen gospels are any more relevant or accurate. Rather, they summarily dismissed them with two cheap tactics.
First, they characterized the writers of the non-cannonical gospels as intentionally re-writing the story of Jesus to support their own specific beliefs. Of course, they provided no evidence supporting this characterization, nor did they or the program dare to mention the (just as likely) possibility that the writers and editors of the canonical gospels, not to mention the council of Nicaea and the forger(s) of Paul's pastorals were doing exactly the same thing.
Second, in regards to every story, the interviewees repeated the mantra "There is no historical evidence for this." This of course begs the question, which the program failed to address, what historical evidence is there for the canonical gospels? Because if we're dismissing gospels based on a lack of supporting historical evidence, there goes Mathiew, Mark, Luke and John right out the window.
At one point, when the program mentioned a story that one of the alternative gospels shared with Luke, and asked whether this was evidence of the validity of this gospel, to which one of the interviewees answered that all it proved was that it was based on Luke. But it proves no such thing. There are two other equally likely possibilities, that Luke was based on this lost gospel, or that they were both based on some third source (could be real life events, an earlier undiscovered gospel, or a myth passed through oral tradition). But once again, the program failed to point out this faulty logic.
The prevailing question in The Secret Lives of Jesus was, "Are the non-canonical gospels historically accurate?" Aside from the fact that nobody has yet shown the canonical gospels to be historically accurate (and in fact, in some ways they contradict known history), it misses, in my opinion, the more important questions: "What is the significance (historical, cultural, spiritual) of the non-canonical gospels?" and "Why were some gospels included in the bible and others not?"
On the whole, I found The Secret Lives of Jesus to be a good overview or introduction to the topic, but much too biased and narrow minded in it's analysis.
My main complaint is that everyone they interviewed was obviously biased against these alternative gospels, but never gave any clear reason why they should be dismissed, or why their chosen gospels are any more relevant or accurate. Rather, they summarily dismissed them with two cheap tactics.
First, they characterized the writers of the non-cannonical gospels as intentionally re-writing the story of Jesus to support their own specific beliefs. Of course, they provided no evidence supporting this characterization, nor did they or the program dare to mention the (just as likely) possibility that the writers and editors of the canonical gospels, not to mention the council of Nicaea and the forger(s) of Paul's pastorals were doing exactly the same thing.
Second, in regards to every story, the interviewees repeated the mantra "There is no historical evidence for this." This of course begs the question, which the program failed to address, what historical evidence is there for the canonical gospels? Because if we're dismissing gospels based on a lack of supporting historical evidence, there goes Mathiew, Mark, Luke and John right out the window.
At one point, when the program mentioned a story that one of the alternative gospels shared with Luke, and asked whether this was evidence of the validity of this gospel, to which one of the interviewees answered that all it proved was that it was based on Luke. But it proves no such thing. There are two other equally likely possibilities, that Luke was based on this lost gospel, or that they were both based on some third source (could be real life events, an earlier undiscovered gospel, or a myth passed through oral tradition). But once again, the program failed to point out this faulty logic.
The prevailing question in The Secret Lives of Jesus was, "Are the non-canonical gospels historically accurate?" Aside from the fact that nobody has yet shown the canonical gospels to be historically accurate (and in fact, in some ways they contradict known history), it misses, in my opinion, the more important questions: "What is the significance (historical, cultural, spiritual) of the non-canonical gospels?" and "Why were some gospels included in the bible and others not?"
On the whole, I found The Secret Lives of Jesus to be a good overview or introduction to the topic, but much too biased and narrow minded in it's analysis.