First, the discussion was whether the Resurrection (and by extension, the Incarnation) were real events (and Person) or parable.
Not quite. The discussion is whether or not the scriptural reports about the events are better understood as
just historical facts, or should be understood, interpreted, and applied like parables -- that is, their meanings involve more-than-historical and more-than-factual understandings.
Second, calling Biblical parables "shallow and insignificant" is your phrase, not mine.
What is your phrase for these fictional writings?
Third, if the Incarnation and Resurrection are just parables and not real events (and Person) that really happened, then, yes, I would say that all the parables in the Bible are indeed insignificant, because they then signify nothing because they have no ontological, historical antecedent or referent.
Again, the question is about the biblical
stories of the incarnation and resurrection. Do these stories contain meanings that go beyond the literal and factual?
The only difference is that my old agnostic self wonders at the intellectual dishonesty of claiming a Christian identity in continuity with the Church through history, when Borg or you seem to think it a matter of little consequence whether Christianity is founded on fiction or something that really happened.
Borg states and I agree that some things really happened. Jesus healed people. Jesus taught, often using parables. However, all that we have about what really happened are the people's memories of what happened -- memories that were written down some 35-60 years after the events actually happened. (It is argued that in oral societies, people remembered more accurately. Perhaps so, but what we have are still the records of the people's memories -- not a videotape of the historical events.) It's precisely because the resurrection really happened, and it was a life-changing event -- so it colored the way people remember things that happened before the event.
The version of Christian faith evinced by Borg and perhaps by yourself is not one that would get me out of bed on a Sunday morning, much less stake my life upon it or much less, experience as transformative. "I'd rather be a pagan than suckled on a creed outworn..."
Well, it's the Christian faith that caused such passion in Jesus that he gave his life for it. It's the Christian faith that the early believers were so passionate about that they were willing to die for it. It was not a doctrine just to believe, but a faith to be lived. It was following the Way of Jesus, not just believing something about Jesus. By saying that the gospels are the remembrances of early believers, we are also saying that these memories were so powerful that they were willing to stake their lives on them. They were persecuted and put to death because of them. These were not "wishful-thinking" memories, but stories they were convinced were true and powerful and that had changed their lives. Would that believers today had such convictions about the stories of Jesus that they were willing to suffer and die for them. If getting out of bed on Sunday morning is all that you expect Christianity to motivate you to do; it's a pretty pathetic belief.
