What if Judas didn't do it?

[Belacqua]

So, how does this happen? How does Judas sell his good friend, this good guy named Jesus, who goes around and spends his time bringing people to life, casts out demons, heals the sick and also Jesus is god.

You are asking the questions that the text invites you to ask. So that's a start. 

Since you're aware that people are adept at justifying bad behavior, it shouldn't be difficult to accept that a person could justify this action as well. People have been offering explanations for Judas's decision for close to two millennia, so you could read some of those, I guess. None is definitive, but as a myth intended to prompt discussions about ethics none needs to be definitive. 

How often in world religions do you have this kind of situation?

And more importantly, how big a moron is Judas?

I don't know why it would be important that the same situation appears in other religions. There are similarities and differences among all of them. 

And I think everyone agrees that Judas made a stupid choice. 

The unwise behavior of the protagonists actually constitutes a main reason why we read Proust or Dostoevsky or Iris Murdoch

I haven’t read it. Tell me about it.

Have you read any serious fiction? I suspect that a lack of awareness about fiction may be a significant factor in how some people criticize the Bible. If you assume that all texts should express simple empirical truths the way science books or history books do, then you will be entirely unequipped to deal with the Bible. 

It's not really reasonable for me to tell you about Proust or Dostoevsky or Iris Murdoch novels in a post on a discussion site. The methods and structure of fiction is a big topic. One of the reasons that European literature is so rich is that biblical hermeneutics developed so many ideas about methods of expression.

You think the Bible stories’ goal is to just read it and to learn about yourself?

That is one of the main purposes of the Bible, yes. Though since the whole thing is a collection of texts by various authors written for various reasons, it's far from being the only purpose.

But in reading a story about what Job or David or Jesus does, it absolutely should prompt the reader to ponder what he would have done in similar circumstances. One of the main functions of Christianity is to address questions like "how should one live?" or "what are my responsibilities to others?" Since no single book can write down a rule for all the infinite situations that people may find themselves in, Bible stories are meant to prompt reflection and deepen ethical thought. Would you have stoned the woman taken in adultery? Why doesn't Jesus? What does this tell you about dealing with people today? 

Yes, we keep running into this.
If anyone wants to declare themselves as non literalists, they can.
I have no problem with that.
I would just ask other questions. You can ask me other questions.

Right, you keep running into this because the majority of educated Christians in history have been very comfortable with non-literal readings.  

Neo-Scholastic and John 6IX are comfortable with non-literal readings, for at least some of the Bible. Which Christians on this forum demand nothing but literalism?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Belacqua

Right, you keep running into this because the majority of educated Christians in history have been very comfortable with non-literal readings. 

Pity it's not the majority of Christians.

Boru

[Goosebump]

How does Brahma factor into the bible? Is he God or Jesus? Then where is Vishnu? The holy spirit? How do you see the Hindu gods, which likely have more followers on earth than the gods of Abram, as a Christian? If it is a god of numbers, yours is likely loosing. Why shouldn't we believe the Hindus instead?

[Ferrocyanide]

So, how does this happen? How does Judas sell his good friend, this good guy named Jesus, who goes around and spends his time bringing people to life, casts out demons, heals the sick and also Jesus is god.

You are asking the questions that the text invites you to ask. So that's a start. 

Since you're aware that people are adept at justifying bad behavior, it shouldn't be difficult to accept that a person could justify this action as well. People have been offering explanations for Judas's decision for close to two millennia, so you could read some of those, I guess. None is definitive, but as a myth intended to prompt discussions about ethics none needs to be definitive.

If you think that the NT is just made up stories (all of it), then fine. If you think the goal is to just have ethical discussions, then fine.
You just used the word myth, which I assume means “fake story”.
If your conclusion is a myth, if you think that it is just a story for the sake of having a discussion, then I think you have a wonderful view of it.
You have previously said that you don’t believe in the jewish god and it looks like, you are not in the category of a worshiper.

I was treating it as a factual story bc believers think of it as factual.
If it is all facts, then it needs to make sense.

And I think everyone agrees that Judas made a stupid choice.

I doubt that there are any christians who would say that Judas made an intelligent choice.
I was talking about how unrealistic this portion of the story is.

My conclusion is that the Judas story doesn’t make sense and it indicates that the story is fake.
It isn’t just this part of the story, but the entire set that has problems.

I don't know why it would be important that the same situation appears in other religions. There are similarities and differences among all of them.

And I think everyone agrees that Judas made a stupid choice.

Different religions talk about the behavior of gods, what they do, the behavior of humans and what they do.

I am curious how many religions have a character that betrays a god and gets the god killed for a few dollars.

Have you read any serious fiction?

No, I don’t have time for that but if you have an important point to make, you can quote a section of text and make your point.

That is one of the main purposes of the Bible, yes.

That is certainly possible. The goal is to tell the reader why they exist, what their purpose in life is, how to live in jewish society and the rules of jewish society is decided by the jewish god.

Does the Bible tell women who they are?

Right, you keep running into this because the majority of educated Christians in history have been very comfortable with non-literal readings.

Neo-Scholastic and John 6IX are comfortable with non-literal readings, for at least some of the Bible. Which Christians on this forum demand nothing but literalism?

If someone is a christian, then he believes in some portions of the story are factual and so, they have a literal reading of the text, right?
Or are they christian and also they believe 100% of the entire Bible is a set of fake stories?
Maybe they believe that Jesus is not the son of god, that Jesus is not god. Maybe they believe that Jesus didn’t exist or maybe he is just an ordinary human and never did magic.

I don’t know what exactly Neo-Scholastic and John 6IX believe. That is what I want to find out.

Which Christians on this forum demand nothing but literalism?

Which christians believe that the entire Bible is myth?

People have been offering explanations for Judas's decision for close to two millennia, so you could read some of those

I bet they do. A lot of christians have a hard time with the Bible since the story doesn’t make sense.
Some of them even dump the OT god because he is such a jerk and pretend that Jesus is the true god.

Whether they are literalists or non-literalists, I do not know, but they take their god and these stories very seriously.

[John 6IX Breezy]

I don’t know what exactly Neo-Scholastic and John 6IX believe. That is what I want to find out.

My views may not fall neatly into the literalist or non-literalist camp, but it all depends on where you draw the line. I did a quick search to see what the Adventist church falls under, and the first result said we have a historical/grammatical interpretation of the Bible in general. That seems to mean literalist in the traditional sense, not the fundamentalist sense.

I approach the Bible as narrative—and I don't think many Adventists would disagree with this. This is simply the mode of communication that the Bible undertakes. Where this perhaps becomes more interesting is when you explore the nature of narrative and borrow some insights from the cognitive sciences. For example, one of my favorite papers out there is The Narrative Construction of Reality by the psychologist Jerome Bruner.

Here is a great quote from that paper:

"Unlike the constructions generated by logical and scientific procedures that can be weeded out by falsification, narrative constructions can only achieve 'verisimilitude.' Narratives, then, are a version of reality whose acceptability is governed by convention and 'narrative necessity' rather than by empirical verification and logical requiredness, although ironically we have no compunction about calling stories true or false."

That word, verisimilitude, is perhaps the most important word I can use to describe the Bible. In other word, narrative isn't exactly true or false, but rather "truthlike."

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don’t know what exactly Neo-Scholastic and John 6IX believe. That is what I want to find out.

My views may not fall neatly into the literalist or non-literalist camp, but it all depends on where you draw the line. I did a quick search to see what the Adventist church falls under, and the first result said we have a historical/grammatical interpretation of the Bible in general. That seems to mean literalist in the traditional sense, not the fundamentalist sense.

I approach the Bible as narrative—and I don't think many Adventists would disagree with this. This is simply the mode of communication that the Bible undertakes. Where this perhaps becomes more interesting is when you explore the nature of narrative and borrow some insights from the cognitive sciences. For example, one of my favorite papers out there is The Narrative Construction of Reality by the psychologist Jerome Bruner.

Here is a great quote from that paper:

"Unlike the constructions generated by logical and scientific procedures that can be weeded out by falsification, narrative constructions can only achieve 'verisimilitude.' Narratives, then, are a version of reality whose acceptability is governed by convention and 'narrative necessity' rather than by empirical verification and logical requiredness, although ironically we have no compunction about calling stories true or false."

That word, verisimilitude, is perhaps the most important word I can use to describe the Bible. In other word, narrative isn't exactly true or false, but rather "truthlike."

I’m happy to agree that the Bible is truthlike, in much the same way that a tribute band is ‘not the real thing, but an incredible simulation’.

‘Truthiness’ might be closer, I think.

Boru

[John 6IX Breezy]

To clarify, narrative ≠ fiction. As the title of the paper suggests, there's a possibility that narrative not only represents reality, but may also constitute it. In the most radical sense, narrative is as real as reality gets.

It's one thing to say the Bible is narrative, and another to say it is fiction. My thesis deals with the former.

[arewethereyet]

Narrative isn't true or false?

Truthlike is just the opposite of the coin where you find lielike.

[Belacqua]

Which christians believe that the entire Bible is myth?

I understand that in conversation, calling something a myth can mean that it's not true. ("Russian influence cost Hillary the election!" "No, that's a myth.") 

In literature, in Bible hermeneutics, the word has a different meaning. 

A myth is any narrative that functions as a myth. It may have accurate historical elements, or none.

For example, among a lot of post-Dawkins Internet atheists, the stories of Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Hypatia, and the Library of Alexandria function as myths. The stories contain elements of truth. They refer to real people. But they are myths because they are repeated in order to make ethical and ideological points. Often they are embroidered to the point of being fictional, or trivial elements are emphasized in order to make events have a meaning which would have astonished people who were present at the time. I've heard people say that Galileo was tortured, that Bruno was executed for rejecting geocentrism, that Hypatia was something like a modern scientist, that the Library of Alexandria was a repository of scientific information burned by Christians who hate science. All of these things are wrong, but help to emphasize the meanings that certain atheists want to convey. 

So the stories in the Bible may contain more or less historical truth and still be myths. The authors of the Bible use the stories to convey ethical and spiritual messages. That is their purpose -- not accurate journalistic reporting. 

To answer your question, I'd say that all Christians believe that Bible stories are myths. Because the stories are not simply an account of events, but narratives intended to convey important messages. They may also be true as history (or not) and Christians will vary on how much they take to be true in this way. Some Christians insist that to be meaningful a given event in the Bible must also have happened historically, and some don't.

[The Grand Nudger]

The non literal interpretation of the judas narrative is that it's later romanized antisemitism, instead of a story about a guy.