At John 18:37, 38 we find this interchange of words between Jesus and Pontius Pilate (which started when Jesus was on trial):
Pilate: ‘You aren’t a king, are you?’
Jesus: ‘You are saying that I’m a king. This is why I was born and why I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is on the side of truth listens to my voice.’
Pilate: ‘What is truth?’
What is truth?
IÂ’m in a room at 68 degrees Fahrenheit-thatÂ’s a fact.
I say “It’s cold in here,” which, for me, is the truth.
My co worker gets up from his chair sweating, walks right over to the thermostat, turns it down even more and says, “It’s too hot in here,” which, for him, is the truth.
And there we have it: one fact, two truths, all valid.
I’ve found-as a former Christian- former seminarian, son, grandson and great- grandson of ministers who has studied most of the world’s greater religious scriptures, and several different versions of the Bible-and I’m a person with a deep love and respect for the teachings of the rabbi Yeshua, “faith” (or lack thereof) notwithstanding--that all the religious scriptures of the world contain much beauty and truth,
Facts, however, areÂ…..well, up for discussion, if not often dubious.
Errors-in translation, interpretation and intent, are everywhere.
Starting with Genesis-the literal interpretation of the creation myth contained therein is pretty much a dark ages phenomena-early Hebrew commentary, and even some early Christian commentary (ala Augustine) pretty much make it apparent that prior to 1200 A.D. or so, the creation myth of Genesis was seen as allegory-thusly doing away with any scientific inconsistencies it contains, like, where CainÂ’s wife came from, or how long the days were before the sun was created, or how plants managed to survive before the sun was created-itÂ’s simply someoneÂ’s way of explaining the universeÂ’s existence, manÂ’s place in it and his evolving relationship with the Creator.
While some of the events and people of the Old Testament can be found to have some basis in factual event and people, the relationship of the stories to facts is open to debate. Thus, we have a city called Jericho that archaelogical evidence points to having fallen after a long siege, but no support at all for its demise as the target of supernatural sonic weaponry. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen that way, and it doesn’t mean it did. And, while we can be pretty sure that there was a great flood, and that at some point, somebody was on a boat with some animals, the story’s been told and retold in so many versions in the region that we can be fairly certain that his name didn’t become “Noah” until the Hebrews got a hold of the tale, and that the boat probably just had some livestock on it, and not two of every kind of beast on earth-in fact, since “the world” at the time was pretty much as far as one could walk in a couple of days, for most of the people of that region, at any rate, and since we know that the flood was pretty much confined to that region, the phrase “two of each kind of beast” takes on a radically different meaning to the literal interpretation so often imposed on the tale.
IÂ’m not even going to get into the whole New Testament thing in this kind of detail (several different potential debates there,starting with, say, Nazareth) except to point out that most accepted Biblical scholarship-and by that I mean academics in the field of religion, and not necessarily of the faith-have pretty thoroughly discredited every account or mention of Jesus ever held to be contemporaneous with the Gospels. JosephusÂ’ mention of him is generally accepted as a later addition by translators. The Gospels themselves-well, theyÂ’re full of beauty and truth, for those who can see it, but theyÂ’re also full of a lot of other stuff, and a lot of it is simply not historically reliable, but, speaking as a scientist, IÂ’ve pretty clearly demonstrated that just because somethingÂ’s not a fact, doesnÂ’t mean itÂ’s not true, and vice versa.
