Born to a different world

An examination of the differences between the Biblical and Classical world view

 Recently a fellow Christian and I were talking about death and they said that no one had ever come back to tell us what it is like. I found myself expressing considerable surprise at this because the most central tenant of Christianity (and the one that some non-believers find most incredible) is that Jesus did come back from the dead (and after an awful death at that). Moreover, he talked to his friends, explained much and inspired the creation of our religion because this manifest resurrection left them in no doubt about the truth of his words. The reply I got was that no ordinary person had come back, only God!

 As it happens, this conversation took place as I was just starting to listen to the "Faith Comes By Hearing" tapes and they reminded me that Jesus and his Apostles were continually meeting the questions of those with different world views and beliefs. The Bible records that such people struggled to accept the truth of what was being said to them, even when faced with happenings, such as healing for those who were considered incurable and the dead coming back to life, for which they had no explanation themselves. At first the recipients of the message were mostly from a Jewish cultural background and thus, at least, might have been expected to understand the language and references. However, we also know that some of those who saw and spoke to Jesus were familiar with the culture of Greece and Rome and that the Gospel seems to have spread into the Classical World before it reached the rest of Europe.

 Although the Roman Empire included many religions there was a mythology of life that set Greece and Rome apart from the lands that they conquered. To them individuals were born, lived their human life (ruled by the Fates) and then, after death, went on either to the Underworld of Hades or, if they were specially blessed, the Over-world of the Gods of Olympus in a form that was like the one they had before death. In the fourth century after Christ, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire and it might be assumed that the earlier Official State explanation of life and death would have disappeared from that time. But, instead, it proved remarkably resilient. Even today, I suspect, there are many who believe that the Christian view is that we live one life on this Earth and then go to either the Underworld of the Devil or the Over-World of God in a shape that resembles the one that we had here. But this is not an accurate summary of the explanation that we received from Jesus neither is it truly representative of Biblical teaching.

It is Luke, traditionally believed to be a Greek Doctor, who gives us a picture closest to this Classical representation when he gives an account of the parable of the rich man and the beggar (Luke 17: 20 - 31). But even he also records Jesus as talking about evil spirits that enter and come out of peoples bodies (see especially Luke 11: 24 - 26), an image that can be found in Arabic literature and seems very Middle Eastern. In the Book of Revelation, John gives a vivid picture of the devil, death and Hades being thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20: 7 - 15). Thus, far from being the Master of the fiery Underworld, it is Satan's punishment.

During Biblical times, as today, the predominant world-view of the countries to the East of the Holy Land is that the spirit of man is eternal and that most souls are condemned to live many lives on this Earth before they can attain release. Thus people holding this view would believe that it was confirmed when Jesus said to Nicodemus that no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3: v.3). My own researches into the world of the Celts two thousand years ago have indicated that they too seem to have believed in the transmigration of souls. When the Gospel message first spread to these Islands, before the written Bible that we know, it seems to have been welcomed as the fulfilment of many of their own beliefs. These also included the sacrificial death made by the King for his people and the miraculous signs surrounding the birth of that King (consider the stories of Arthur, the once and future King!). It is argued by some that after the Council of Whitby (held in 664AD) the Roman tradition and the Classical world-view was imposed on the British Church and suppressed a finer understanding of the Christian message. Others would point out that the outcome of the Council of Nicaea (called by the Emperor Constantine in 325AD because, it is said, he was alarmed by the disunity caused by doctrinal disagreements) was the start of the imposition of the written world-view of the Latin West on the Church.

My own view is that all sides of the argument, both in the first millennium and now at the end of the second, are in danger of seeking an interpretation that is small enough to fit this world. When the Sadducees, who were said not to believe in resurrection, tried to prove their point by asking about the status after death of a woman who was the wife to seven brothers, they were thinking in just this way. Jesus tells them that the reality beyond death is very different because "they will be like the angels in heaven" (Mark 12: v. 25 also Matthew 22: 30 and Luke 20: 36). The final words in this exchange are to me most significant. Using the language of the classically trained Luke (in the NIV translation): "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive". Amen!

 Paul Newman, 1998

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