From: awhenan@physics.adelaide.edu.au (Ashley Whenan)
Newsgroups: aus.religion
Subject: Re: Superstar?
Keywords: humanism
Date: 27 Jul 92 11:10:01 GMT

kerr@redgum.ucnv.edu.au (r.kerr) writes:

>You're describing a paraphrased version of the Bible.  They do exist,
>the J.B. Phillips version for instance, but nobody takes them
>seriously.

Yes, I was referring more to the "popularised" version of the bible, rather
than the "traditional" version.  

However, how can you say that no-one takes them seriously?  More importantly,
how can you say they are invalid.  Upon what grounds?  Certainly not upon the
aargument of numbers.  If one did that, then wouldn't Buddhism be more
important than each individual version of christianity?  I would be genuinely
curious how one can justify the rejection of particular manifestations of the
gospel.  I mean, it would quickly degenerate into a case of "Chocolate Ice
Cream is better than strawberry flavoured Ice Cream", wouldn't it.

>>The interpretation made in Jesus Christ Super Star is just as valid as
>>any other version.

>You can't compare them at all.  The New International Version or The New
>American Standard Version are scholarly translations of contemporary
>documents that claim to be eyewitness accounts.  JCSS is a fanciful
>piece of theatrical invention.

>>If you claim that your bible is the real story, then you are no less secular
>>than the writers of JCSS.  For that matter, how can one ever criticise the
>>working of M.Scorcese's film "The Last Temptation of Christ" on the grounds
>>of secularism or dare I say it, heresy.

>Well... given that both of those works are technically secular and
>heretical I have no problem with saying that they are.

Have you read anything by Nikos Katanzakis (spelling)?   On what grounds are
his works secular?  What constitutes "technically" secular?    

>I don't think that either should be supressed, but if we're going to
>discuss their relevance to the Bible we at least ought to recognise that
>the biblical accounts are the primary source and that they are corruptions
>of that source.  Let's at least get that much right.

A long while back, there were a group of ecclesiastic's who took a vote on
whether the church should worship our lord as "The father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost" or simply "The father".   Yet surely, no one today would question
the usage of the "corruption" of the christian word.  It is a syntatic
technicality, but surely it illustrates that it is impossible to classify the
actual words used as corruptions of the text.  So once again, the basis for
your statement rest upon the premise that there is a universally accepted
source, which clearly there isn't.

I would further like to add something which I read a few days back.  There was
a solution to the problem of the ordination of women priests.  All that had to
be done, was that at a place agreed by both parties, the archbishop of
Melbourne would simply toss a coin.  God would clearly not allow such a
momentous decision to fall to chance, so would interfere and fix the result. 
This would be in no way heretic, since the work of the church is to serve god,
and so it is merely his will that is being carried out.  This is not testing
faith since there is no way divine intervention can be proved.

Kind Regards,
	    A.