Inaccuracies Make Life Beautiful
I was reading about a series of Buddhist writings which were recently discovered (cause reading about Buddhist scrolls is what a cool guy like me does on a Saturday night). The books were placed in clay jars about 2,000 years ago and hidden away in caves. Taliban members found them sometime around 1997 and since they had no use for the "rubbish" sold the writings as junk to a British archeologist. Scholars called it the Gandhari Canon.
Does that ring a bell? It probably should since the Jewish/Christian Dead Sea Scrolls were found in a very similar way in 1947.
Similar to what was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, experts began sifting through the early writings in hopes of figuring out which current Buddhist teachings were the "real" ones. What they found was unbelievable and yet at the same time so obviously predictable it really shouldn't take a PhD to figure out. They found the early writing had little bits of all the current Buddhist sects. Just like the Dead Sea Scrolls pointed to specifics from the Torah, the Bible, and multiple other books which never ended in either book but were nonetheless "inspired" writings.
So what did this all mean and "why are you wasting my time with this religious writing Jose?" Well, in my humble opinion, there are so many differences because all these things were written down by humans. Ever play that game in 1st Grade where you tell the very first kid a sentence and they whisper it to the kid behind them and then then next and then the next? What happens when the last kid says the sentence? Its completely different than the original. In the case of many, actually almost all of the writings, the people who wrote the books weren't even around when the people they're writing about were living. The Christian church didn't write down a single word for over 90 years and nothing of real significance until almost 200 years after Jesus' death. Buddha's followers didn't write anything down for at least 300 years. Some Jewish writings weren't put to paper for over 500 years after their subjects had passed. Even the Muslim Quran wasn't started for well over 50 years after Mohammed's death. To complicate things even more, some subjects were written about by various authors who heard the story from different people who claimed the stories came back from original disciples or followers. That too presents a problem.
You ever seen a car accident? I hope you haven't but if you have, your version of the accident is almost 100% guaranteed going to be a different version than a person five feet from you. Are either of you lying? No. You are each telling the police what you saw exactly how you remember it. And yet the police could end up with what are seemingly two completely different stories. We see things not as they are, but as we interpret them through our "life filter." We interpret everything we see that way. And no two people have the same exact life experiences so each of our filters is the different.
Thus when you read about Jesus' life or a specific experience he had as told by John or Matthew or Mark and each has a different twist to it, should we then gather two of them lied? Of course not. I believe all these writings, all of them were written with the greatest of faith and the best recollections of either what the individuals saw themselves or were told by those who were recognized as knowing a true oral history. But in the end, all of our "books" of worship are filled with innacuracies.
Sadly, those innacuracies are the kinds of things that divide us because we all want to be "right". The Protestant thinks the Catholic is antiquated, the Jew thinks they're both wrong in praying to nothing more than a prophet. The Buddhists who are seekers of the truth and of awakening regularly bicker about dogmas and doctrines, about whether the Buddha went to this town or spoke on the shores of this river. Muslims do the same, bitter rivalries between Shiite and Sunni's about the meaning of the words in the manmade book they subscribe to.
My personal view is all these innacuracies are just humans being humans. In my opinion there is no one to blame. For me, all these wonderful men taught such beautiful messages of love and hope. Of how to treat each other and how to live decent lives. And we muck it up with petty differences about insignificant details. I don't care if Buddha spoke about seeking truth and balance on some river in India or some forest in Pakistan. I care he spoke about seeking truth and balance. I don't care if Jesus was in Arimathea or Jerusalem when he told his Apostles the story of the Good Samaritan which spoke to tolerance and love towards all people regardless of what clan or color, religion or gender. I care he told them the story and I am lucky enough to have heard it.
There is so much to gleen from these books of inspiration. So many great lessons for living well and living "right". If we can only get past our own "humanity" to see that innacuracies make us who we are; innaccuracies make life beautiful. If we look past the petty things which keep us all separated by intellectual barriers we will find the beauty, insight and wisdom the past can teach us all.
Does that ring a bell? It probably should since the Jewish/Christian Dead Sea Scrolls were found in a very similar way in 1947.
Similar to what was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, experts began sifting through the early writings in hopes of figuring out which current Buddhist teachings were the "real" ones. What they found was unbelievable and yet at the same time so obviously predictable it really shouldn't take a PhD to figure out. They found the early writing had little bits of all the current Buddhist sects. Just like the Dead Sea Scrolls pointed to specifics from the Torah, the Bible, and multiple other books which never ended in either book but were nonetheless "inspired" writings.
So what did this all mean and "why are you wasting my time with this religious writing Jose?" Well, in my humble opinion, there are so many differences because all these things were written down by humans. Ever play that game in 1st Grade where you tell the very first kid a sentence and they whisper it to the kid behind them and then then next and then the next? What happens when the last kid says the sentence? Its completely different than the original. In the case of many, actually almost all of the writings, the people who wrote the books weren't even around when the people they're writing about were living. The Christian church didn't write down a single word for over 90 years and nothing of real significance until almost 200 years after Jesus' death. Buddha's followers didn't write anything down for at least 300 years. Some Jewish writings weren't put to paper for over 500 years after their subjects had passed. Even the Muslim Quran wasn't started for well over 50 years after Mohammed's death. To complicate things even more, some subjects were written about by various authors who heard the story from different people who claimed the stories came back from original disciples or followers. That too presents a problem.
You ever seen a car accident? I hope you haven't but if you have, your version of the accident is almost 100% guaranteed going to be a different version than a person five feet from you. Are either of you lying? No. You are each telling the police what you saw exactly how you remember it. And yet the police could end up with what are seemingly two completely different stories. We see things not as they are, but as we interpret them through our "life filter." We interpret everything we see that way. And no two people have the same exact life experiences so each of our filters is the different.
Thus when you read about Jesus' life or a specific experience he had as told by John or Matthew or Mark and each has a different twist to it, should we then gather two of them lied? Of course not. I believe all these writings, all of them were written with the greatest of faith and the best recollections of either what the individuals saw themselves or were told by those who were recognized as knowing a true oral history. But in the end, all of our "books" of worship are filled with innacuracies.
Sadly, those innacuracies are the kinds of things that divide us because we all want to be "right". The Protestant thinks the Catholic is antiquated, the Jew thinks they're both wrong in praying to nothing more than a prophet. The Buddhists who are seekers of the truth and of awakening regularly bicker about dogmas and doctrines, about whether the Buddha went to this town or spoke on the shores of this river. Muslims do the same, bitter rivalries between Shiite and Sunni's about the meaning of the words in the manmade book they subscribe to.
My personal view is all these innacuracies are just humans being humans. In my opinion there is no one to blame. For me, all these wonderful men taught such beautiful messages of love and hope. Of how to treat each other and how to live decent lives. And we muck it up with petty differences about insignificant details. I don't care if Buddha spoke about seeking truth and balance on some river in India or some forest in Pakistan. I care he spoke about seeking truth and balance. I don't care if Jesus was in Arimathea or Jerusalem when he told his Apostles the story of the Good Samaritan which spoke to tolerance and love towards all people regardless of what clan or color, religion or gender. I care he told them the story and I am lucky enough to have heard it.
There is so much to gleen from these books of inspiration. So many great lessons for living well and living "right". If we can only get past our own "humanity" to see that innacuracies make us who we are; innaccuracies make life beautiful. If we look past the petty things which keep us all separated by intellectual barriers we will find the beauty, insight and wisdom the past can teach us all.
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