Kurt Flasch

Kurt Flasch has just authored a book about the various transformations and re-inventions of the devil in Christian Europe. This is like a more elaborated text than this account of "why I am not a Christian". What seems to offend him most is that the Bible and Christian religion is not consistent and constant. A religion he could believe in would be similar to Wittgenstein's numbered hierarchical sentences. The Bible and Christian theology is different, a mess, a heap of ideas that have not stood the test of time but have been kept and re-interpreted. Instead of correcting an obviously wrong reference in Matthew, the Catholic Church went to great length in finding a "dog ate my homework" reason for the error that naturally offends any thinking person but especially a stickler like Flasch.

The book is filled with example after example what the Bible (and its interpreters, especially Augustin) got wrong and how these errors were preserved in the many layers in the Bible. Thus, we can identify the evolution from a natural fire god of the burning bush to the jealous god of the Jews to the Manichean Don Camillo and Peppone after Christ's prophecy of the impending end of the world did not come to pass.

Flasch ends with a "Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse" approach for his personal life, which still makes me wonder why he spent all that energy in examining the minute details of Christianity. What made him grapple with demons for decades when it must have been obvious that it would be futile? I prefer his biography of the devil.… (mehr)