more on stories (not history) as the source of faith

Just over a month ago, I found and blogged about a Thomas Römer quote that I had been trying to hunt down for quite some time. I’m continuing to listen to Römer’s lectures, and in the one I’m currently listening to, he revisits the idea from before. As before, I don’t want to miss the chance to write it down for future reference, and I figure a blog post is as good an opportunity as any to do so.

So, here it is! First in the original French:

Alors, on pourra faire tout un cours sur le problème de l’historicité de Moïse, parce que ça continue à occuper beaucoup. Je sais pas si c’est toujours des questions aussi importantes que ça, parce que c’est la même question que pour le problème du Jésus historique. Jésus, a-t-il vécu ou non ? Probablement, mais c’est pas ça, ce qui est important. Après, pour la naissance du christianisme, le christianisme s’est pas constituée à partir du Jésus historique. À la limite, si Jésus n’avait pas vécu, ça aurait rien changé pour le christianisme parce que le christianisme se constituait à partir des écrits de Paul, auxquels on a rajouté les ensuite les évangiles, et Paul ne raconte rien sur Jésus. Idem, le judaïsme ne s’est pas construit sur le Moïse historique. Si Moïse n’a pas existé, ça changera rien du tout pour le judaïsme. Le judaïsme s’est construit à partir de la Torah, c’est-à-dire à partir des récits sur Moïse qu’on a interprété, qu’on a commenté. La question du Moïse historique, elle est tout à fait licite, mais elle bouleverse ni le judaïsme, ni le christianisme si on va répondre par le négatif.

Here’s my rough English translation:

So, we could have an entire course on the problem of the historical Moses, because it continues to concern many. I don’t know if these questions are as important as that, because it’s the same question as for the problem of the historical Jesus. Jesus, did he live or no? Probably, but it’s not that that’s important. For the birth of Christianity, Christianity didn’t build itself on the historical Jesus. We might say that that if Jesus hadn’t lived, it wouldn’t have changed anything for Christanity because Christianity built itself on the writings of Paul, to which the gospels were later added, and Paul says nothing about Jesus. Likewise, Judaism isn’t built on the historical Moses. If Moses hadn’t existed, that would change nothing at all for Judaism. Judaism built itself on the Torah, that is, on writings about Moses that were interpreted and commented. The question of the historical Moses is warranted, but it doesn’t overturn either Judaism or Christianity if we respond in the negative.

I’ve said most of what I need to say about why I find this passage important in my last post, so I’ll just keep this here as an addendum—and something for me to turn back to later.

• macro
• Communities
• Thomas Römer
• Collège de France
• historicity
• Mormonism
• non-literal
• Christianity
• Judaism

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