Quibus Videtur
By Steven J. Grisafi, PhD.
I find certain arguments unacceptable. They are of the class for which there can be no evidence based upon fact. When I expressed my doubts regarding the Resurrection, the pretty elder spokeswoman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith asked me: So where do you put your faith? I could only reply that I do not know. While, I may disagree with the interpretation all Christian faiths give to a reading of Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, this does not imply that I reject the existence of a Deity. The issue then becomes a matter of community.
Virtually all of the Roman emperors were obsessed with their mortality. All aspired to be raised to the heavens to reside amongst the gods. I presume that Constantine the Great was no different in this regard. The Primitive Christians frightened the superstitious Romans with their willing insistence to the killed. Roman magistrates were perplexed by this behavior asking the Primitive Christians if there were not enough ropes or cliffs with which to take their own lives. That all of the Christian faiths have falsely accepted a distorted reading of the New Testament is patently clear. The Romans had a word for God. But the concept of a Messiah was alien to them. The Romans conquered as far as the Legions were willing to march. The concept of a Hero who would rescue his people from subjugation was alien to them. They had no word for the Greek word Christos, meaning the “Anointed One”. Hence, Saint Jerome improvised to translate Christos as the Son of Man. He could very well have written Son of God in Latin. But he didn’t.
I have attended mass in both Protestant and Catholic churches. My observation is that the attendants pay little or no attention to the meaning of the words they hear. I confronted a Presbyterian Pastor when I heard in his sermon his Deacon invert words from a reading of the Old Testament such that its meaning was completely changed. The Pastor agreed with me that the inversion of the word order changed the meaning of the reading. The inverted word reading gave the Deity a more friendly and loving character than the true reading gave. Parishioners are unconcerned about the altered meanings given to the ancient texts because it is the community of the faithful that they seek and not the faith itself. I understand this completely and only wish that I could ignore the workings of my precision oriented engineer’s mind. I can’t accept the delusion.
I know that there could be myriad replies to a most simple question which lay at the core of my inability to believe the Resurrection. All of them would have no basis in fact. Yet, knowing that the question would only provoke myriad existentialist speculations, still I ask: Why didn’t the Resurrected Jesus confront Pontius Pilate? Had he done so the world would have changed instantly.