No Sermon, No Mount
 

  

Harry T. Cook
By Harry T. Cook
9/12/14

 

 

The professional atheist Sam Harris appears to have come in from the cold -- but only a little bit. In his new book, Waking Up, he tells of traveling to Israel-Palestine and walking where he thinks Jesus walked. At one point, he tells of gazing upon "the mount where Jesus is believed to have preached his most famous sermon." Believed by whom?

 

I, too, am an atheist but only in the sense that I am not a theist.* What I am, should anyone care to know, is an agnostic for the simple reason that I do not know enough to be a theist, though I wish I did and could.

 

It is a frequent failing of such popular authors as Harris, somewhat of an expert in his own field, to tread uninformed upon the territory of other experts or, in my case, aspirant experts. It is clear from Harris' remark about Jesus' "sermon" that he -- Harris, that is -- could not pass a 100-level course in the English Bible, much less an introductory survey of the Greek New Testament.

 

Someone needs to tell Harris that there was no sermon on any mount.

 

Whence, then, those familiar sayings that appear in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew? The Vulgate identifies those passages as Sermo in monte, the English Bible as the Sermon on the Mount. That assumption is made on the basis of Matthew 5:1-2, which reads: "When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he went up the mountain ... Then he began to speak, and taught them [the disciples] saying ..."

 

Then follow what are commonly known as "the Beatitudes," after the Latin Beati: "blessed." The original Greek is μακαριος: "happy" or "happy like the gods."

 

Much of two centuries' worth of biblical scholarship has demonstrated that those three chapters' worth of utterances attributed to a Jesus had their origins in disparate sayings that had circulated since perhaps as early as the 50s CE.

 

"That" Jesus is a figure difficult to pin down. There is little extra-biblical attestation to the existence of such a person as variously depicted in the 20 or so gospel or gospel-like documents known at this time to exist.

 

John Dominic Crossan, a master scholar in our field, has helped us see Jesus as a construct -- a type that was known to exist in the first century, viz. the peripatetic sage who would be the first-century version of today's pundit or public intellectual. The only way to engage people at any economic level in those days was to go to where they were, get their attention (as in standing on a soapbox) and talk to them in brief aphoristic and memorable statements that today we call "sound bites."

How many such itinerant commentators plied the Palestinian trade routes and their tributaries during the first century can only be guessed at. The evidence for their existence is the compilations of sayings such figures would have spoken and that would have been remembered -- not necessarily with a lot of accuracy and not without a tweak here and there -- by those who resonated with their wisdom.

A fundamental hypothesis of New Testament studies is that those sayings became parts of oral traditions and were eventually put down in writing and found their way into a couple of the canonical gospels (Matthew and Luke). But even prior to those two was a gospel known of as early as the third century CE and doubtless before. This was the Gospel of Thomas, a Coptic manuscript first discovered in 1945 but perhaps compiled in Greek as early as 40-50 CE.

Thomas is composed of 114 sayings, all attributed to a "living Jesus," but which reveal a Jesus differently disposed than the ones depicted in the more familiar gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. He is by turns mysterious, contradictory, grouchy even.

I find it mighty strange that Harris -- a brittle atheist, so sure of himself on philosophical grounds and so utterly certain that the gods and the religions dedicated to their worship are hooey -- could fall for the Sunday school version of Jesus.

Harris' delight in walking where he thinks Jesus walked is close to the treacle of the god-awful hymn "I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked."

I walked today where Jesus walked,
In days of long ago.
I wandered down each path He knew,
With reverent step and slow.

Those little lanes, they have not changed,
A sweet peace fills the air.
I walked today where Jesus walked,
And felt His presence there.

I would pay a lot of money to hear Sam Harris sing that song. Meanwhile, I acknowledge his work in trying to convert the world to his version of atheism, but a scholar of the New Testament he is not.

 

* Theism is one of a number of philosophies of religion -- two other major ones being deism and pantheism. The theist is characterized by the belief that the deity in question is an objective reality with which one can communicate through the medium known as prayer and thereby bargain with said deity. For example, see Genesis 18: 23-33 -- Abraham's colloquy with Yahweh over the imminent destruction of Sodom because of its sin of inhospitality. See also Luke 22:42 -- Luke's depiction of Jesus' plea to have the cup of sacrifice taken from his lips unless it is God's will that he drink it. (Remember Socrates?)

Copyright 2014 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 


Readers Write
Re essay of 9/2/14 A Climate of Resentment

 

Morris Daly, Indianapolis, Indiana:

Religion and resentment is right! I live in a part of the country where that stuff goes down all the time. If we had more libraries and less churches, we'd be a lot better off.

 

Nicholas S. Molinari, Brick, New Jersey:

Thank you for A Climate of Resentment. Virtually every paragraph resonates with my many un-worded ideas, compound-thoughts, scattered notes on scraps of paper, all yearning for articulation. At last, that articulation has been exquisitely offered in your essay. Your comments on H.L. Mencken are especially powerful. Jupiter and his 186 co-equal Omnipotents were indeed imagined into existence. Many of his divine ilk have already perished with the demise of their last imaginers. Many other Omnipotents stubbornly persist, much to the detriment and destruction of humanity or large segments thereof. Which brings me to John Lennon's Imagine, and a thought experiment. What if some world authority were to call a convention to imagine peace and harmony among human beings? The price of a ticket would be a temporary -- at least -- polite repudiation of the attendee's god and religion and the violence caused by those conflicting religions. The convention would begin with the singing of Imagine. Presentations would follow the outline of the song. Workshops composed of people of different religious orientations and a variety of gods would follow the presentations for discussion. Summaries of the workshops would be presented to all attendees. After the convention concludes with the singing of Imagine, all attendees will be permitted the choice of girding themselves once again with the religious armor they had left at the entrance, or to leave that cruel and bloodthirsty armor as junk for recycling.

 

Gloria McNett, Juneau, Alaska:

I write from the land of Sarah Palin who has ridden to fame on resentment -- hers and others. We have been stuck with her for a long time. I wonder if she can still see Russia from her kitchen window?

 

William Stromberg, Austin, Texas:

This city where I am living temporarily is about the only place in this socially inept state where you can draw a breath of fresh air. In other Texas cities I've been, you can smell the resentment you talked about everywhere. It stinks to high heaven.

 

Delores Franklin, Columbus, Ohio:

Liberals have their own kind of resentment. So do unions, It is what has driven the welfare state and this country into the fiscal ditch. So be careful about who you accuse of resentment. Your article sounded pretty resentful to me.

 

Geoff Gilbert, Galien, Michigan:
There's no way I could articulate it anywhere near as clearly as you do, but I couldn't agree with you more.

John Bennison, Walnut Creek, California:
You ask if one can die of resentment? Absolutely. From the French resentir ("to feel again, and again, and again), it can eat you alive. One can also die from resentment, as with the rage-filled resentment of others; as a result of the real or perceived wrongs done to them. That seems to be the common backstory to the multiple violent conflicts around the world. I recently had forwarded to me an anonymous chain email condemning Obama for cancelling the long-standing Presidential Prayer Breakfast, but then agreeing to pray with Muslims. The epistle attempted to rally American Christians who were "millions strong" to "take back America." But in the end, the harsh fact human resentment is fueled by religious-tainted sectarian fanaticism seems to be more a matter of convenience. Left to our own human devices, we are perfectly capable of doing ourselves in on our own, without our gods, dead or alive.

Tracey Martin, Southfield, Michigan: 
Splendid addition to the literature vivisecting all gods. Particularly the current deities kept moist in mentality by the desiccated imaginations of their fearful adherents. They too belong in Mencken's "graveyard of the gods," their still open "mounds" not "watered" by "lingering mourners" but drenched in the blood of victims demanded in their names. Their "puissance" maintained not by benevolence but by bullets. "Resented" by those of us promoting the reasoned rhetoric of rationale instead of rabid, unreflective reaction.

 

Douglas Chestnut, Spring Lake, Michigan:

You've just got to stop writing stuff like this [AClimate of Resentment]. It's making evangelicals' heads explode. And ruining their wallpaper.

 

Hannah Provence Donigan, Commerce Twp., Michigan:

"Let me count the ways" as well as the times I have voiced, debated, argued the words you wrote in this latest essay! Hopefully, one day people will recognize the parallels/ similarities among all human beings. In addition we will learn the dangers of extremists who adhere to any belief system.

 

Robert Rosenfeld, West Bloomfield, Michigan:

Excellent review in this week's essay. I also received an email article today from a writer in Jerusalem regarding the "numbers" and length of this "Climate of Resentment." We certainly look forward to a modern solution to a very old problem.

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

You are right. Theism is "dogma unfiltered by reason." We are largely unaware of the cultural bias that has shaped our thinking, including belief in God. I chuckled at your comment, "deities come and go, precisely because they are inventions of human imagination." Religions are, if nothing else, a tribute to human invention. We can look at the cardinal covered with lace or the buddhist monk in his saffron robes and smile. Jefferson and the Enlightenment opened the door to reason but we preferred to remain in the comfort of dogmatic beliefs and inherited rituals. This becomes truly dangerous when those beliefs set us in conflict with one another, at home and abroad. 

 

Robert Causley, Roseville, Michigan:

Excellent essay on a continuing theme: how well the various groups can build walls and create conflicts. When one looks at our current lack of progress and indeed our march (a forced one) backwards it is easy to see what is happening.I remember well the times as a young man the melting pot theory and how we would all work together to teach new immigrants English. We then with a common thread and a common language made progress. Each group had its support and a way to maintain the culture of that particular way of life but the main stream was just that a main focus. We must start a truly open debate and stop the battles on the street. Looting is not protest and shooting is not a method to enforce rules. We can do this but it will take a true and unbiased look at how truly free individuals can live alongside each other.  

What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at revharrytcook@aol.com.