The Christian Bible, the Hebrew Scripture, The Muslim Koran Essay

The Christian Bible, the Hebrew Scripture, The Muslim Koran: Words are Not Important, Our Actions Are Matt 13:3 "He told them many things in parables. 13:10 "Why do you talk to them in parables?" That's the crucial question: Did God, should God, have intended direct and final communication with us? If so, Jesus certainly failed his mission. There is little evidence that Jesus' appearance cleared anything up or gave us God directly. Wittgenstein, who wanted our language to be clear, knows well enough that neither the Hebrew nor the Christian God's words could fall within his constructed linguistic net. They would always come from outside, from "the mystical." Thus, where our clarified language is concerned, "never the twain shall meet." Then, was Jesus really a proto-Wittgenstein? Did he use parables as an obscure vehicle for speech which alone might bridge the gap for us between our languages and the mystical always outside of it? The Christian Bible, the Hebrew Scripture, The Muslim Koran - or any religion's sacred texts for that matter, will remain controversial but still important avenues for divine communication. Somehow all religious faith lies locked up in non-direct discourse. How, then, can we claim to "hear the word of God or gods," as many claim to do? Well, in the first place, we know that we will never all hear exactly the same sacred speech, interpret it in unison, or respond to it in the same way. For all that our enlightened scholars of sacred texts may provide—and there probably are more misreadings of a text than can be recognized—the Modern-Enlightenment goal to clear up all variant interpretations of a text will fail, due to the impossibility of confining living gods to our attempted literal interp... ...nce. "I created through my word; I communicate spiritually through inspired words; but the creation of the universe and your world could only be accomplished by the release of power and love as directed by my word. However, now words can be just as deceptive as insightful, and so I judge much more by the acts of love—or of evil—released on others by your words of love or hate. At the end of time, you may also judge me, not so much by words, since there comes a time beyond which words are not decisive or effective. Judge me, then, not by the words heard from any religious seer or prophet, no matter if they have been crucial in guiding you in the path of righteousness, but by my powerful acts that will recast the world, bring evil under final control, and so grant new life to the deserving who have held the faith and tried to act as instructed." Thus saith the Lord