“When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
Half this story is about the idiot SBC constituency. The other half is about top SBC officials who have somehow come to believe that the teachings of Jesus were anything but subversive to begin with.
You probably are just trying to be quippy but actually Jesus was quite subversive to established Jewish doctrine. You can see it in the parables.
One can see it in the Parable of the Woman called out for adultry. To deeply paraphrase with a shit condensed version : A bunch of Jewish scholarship - the folk who basically serve as biblical laywers - try and cast a woman in front of Jesus for judgement for her supposed flagrant overstepping of the rules with the prescribed punishment under Jewish law. This law is one of the actual commandment breakers and these community leaders demand Jesus judge her by their rule book. Jesus refuses. This is where we get the whole “he who is without sin cast the first stone” thing. Jewish law contained the punishment for adultry was not written by god, it was written by priests. Jesus does tell the woman not to do it again so God’s will is communicated so one could read this as a message to be wary of the laws of priests because they do not reflect the will of God. “Do not kill” and “do not covet” which means something closer to “be jealous of/desire” superceed those laws. It’s not on humans to take it upon themselves to render judgement. That is up to God.
This made the teachings of Jesus ridiculously unpopular amongst Jewish priests because they got a law for everything. One could look at the inclusion of Leviticus - a description of Jewish laws in the Christian Bible as a reminder that priests made those laws. They were unauthorized human expansions on the simple directives that came straight from the source.
One can see it in the Parable of the Woman called out for adultry.
3rd century forgery. Not found in early manuscripts of John or any other Christian works. Also not aligned with other things he said. Such as in Matthew where he talked about how he wasn’t subtracting from the law. Also doesn’t align with the incident with the “lepord” found in Mark, Luke, and Matthew. Where Jesus shows absolute respect for the legal authorities.
Jewish law contained the punishment for adultry was not written by god, it was written by priests.
I agree. God wrote nothing.
s not on humans to take it upon themselves to render judgement. That is up to God.
I thought we were talking about Jesus. Why are you bringing up Rabbi Hillel. You know the guy who said things like this, lived in that area, and died decades prior?
This made the teachings of Jesus ridiculously unpopular amongst Jewish priests because they got a law for everything. One could look at the inclusion of Leviticus -
So did Jesus. You don’t remember your Sermon on the Mount.
Other parables to look into were “The unjust judge”. But yeah. Jesus was about as anti authoritarian as you could get.
Proverbs and Leviticus.
Again, everything Biblical Jesus said was establishment.
I love how I cannot tell from this message whether you are a koolaid-drinking Christian Fascist or a Dawkins-huffing New Atheist. Both have a strong interest in this particular version of Jesus that you are pushing.
Most of us take it for granted that Jesus forgave the adulterer, and further, that only by his forgiveness can we enter the kingdom of heaven, according to contemporary vernacular Protestant American Christian Mythology. The Biblical Scholars like yourself - amateur or professional, earnest or polemical - will always debate like Talmudic rabbis about it, but we’re out here in the real world where people are alive and living their various gospel truths.
I love how I cannot tell from this message whether you are a koolaid-drinking Christian Fascist or a Dawkins-huffing New Atheist. Both have a strong interest in this particular version of Jesus that you are pushing.
Attack the argument and not the person.
Most of us take it for granted that Jesus forgave the adulterer
3rd century forgery.
and further, that only by his forgiveness can we enter the kingdom of heaven, according to contemporary vernacular Protestant American Christian Mythology.
And? There is an entire branch of Christian thought dedicated to figure out how to be saved. That source has just as much justification as Calvinism. Of course none of it is true, the only place we go when we die is the ground.
The Biblical Scholars like yourself - amateur or professional, earnest or polemical - will always debate like Talmudic rabbis about it,
I have discussed facts only.
but we’re out here in the real world where people are alive and living their various gospel truths.
So you are naked, barefoot, and demanding the rich to give up all their money?
Of course logic isn’t enough. Logic can tell you how to do something, but it can’t tell you why. In other words, logic can’t tell you why one outcome is better or worse than another. You need emotions for that.
indeed, an illustration of how one cannot derive an ‘ought’ from statements of what ‘is’ unless one incorporates some sort of conditional framework such as a desired outcome or consequence.
for instance, it can be perhaps framed as an if-then statement: IF one wishes to produce a specific result, THEN a certain action must be taken - but even then, WHY someone might wish to produce that result is still left undefined; and even when a number of those reasons can be listed, the act of actually engaging any of those reasons is still the exclusive domain of a sapient agency perceiving their own emotional state.
In the end, we’re all just doing what ‘feels right’; the logic, reason, and rationality around it are just there to focus and refine how our emotions resolve.
With a convoluted enough Rube Goldberg Machine of excuses and justifications, ANYTHING can be made to ‘feel’ like it will achieve the desired effects… just like how any good tool can become a weapon if grossly misused.
When the specific bit of fiction was added to the book of fiction seems entirely irrelevant when it is the compiled book, including the later bit of fiction, upon which modern people claim to be basing their moral philosophy. I don’t believe the vast majority are reaching that verse and going “oh well this was added late so let’s skip over this part.” “Legitimate” (feels a funny concept for this topic, tbh) or not, it is included in most modern Christian’s interpretation of Christ
The whole thing is allegorical fiction; debating which is most historically fictional is pointless when the vast majority only consider the thing as a whole, not individually. It isn’t that you’re not correct, it’s that your correctness is wholly irrelevant to how the Bible is consumed
Yes, I’m aware. Those people are even less likely to do the due diligence you seem to be requesting of examining the veracity of each book or passage. The salient point here remains - the Bible is being interpreted as a whole book, thus whether or not your specific passage passes the veracity test or not is fully irrelevant
Ah, but the proof that you mention that it was a 3rd century forgery was actually a 6th century forgery! You can always disprove something, but proving something is much harder if you don’t share the same base truths. But as Pilate said “What is truth?”… or was that a forgery as well?
Don’t really know. I’m aware such a depiction exists but precise details are moot, for what I care.
I think it revolves around the temple grounds being used as a market and/or being a place where moneylenders were present, thus, again, going against the teachings advising against greed and materialism.
There is a lot of argument about that incident in the “Jesus was not supernatural but he existed crowd”. A few main solutions:
It was understood that the next Messiah would build the 3rd temple, but you can’t exactly rebuild the temple if there is a temple. So he was trying to bring about the events.
Roman coinage was dicey for strict monotheistic people to use hence the need to change it before you entered. It was a sore point for the holier-than-now crowd. Oh you use forbidden currency normally but change it at the temple? Morality when it suits you.
The temple had a dual-aristorcracy structure. The outside was run by one and the inside by another. The outside was more politically acceptable to attack. It definitely wouldn’t have been the first time one of the other Jewish factions had gone after how the Temple was run. By attacking the outside one he could set himself up as the quite a few “restorers of the Temple”.
The passage where the man expels the people from the temple, accusing them of betraying the teachings seems very much subversive.
Please see: Jeremiah 7:9-15, Jeremiah 23:11-15, Isaiah 1:10-17, Isaiah 66:1-2, Isaiah 59:1-2, Isaiah 56:7-8, Amos 5:21-24, and of course Micah.
The Jewish theocratic state had divisions of power. At that time it was mostly Pharisees and Temple. If Jesus had existed, he would definitely been on Pharisees side. Biblical Jesus was at least. It’s a bit like claiming any political commentary is subversive. There is a difference between being willing to take pot shots at the other political team and being against established order. The references I gave are only the ones that have survived. Most likely there were quite a few authors being very critical of how the Temple was run.
Here is a single man going against status quo and establishment. If that is not a good exemple of subversion, there is none.
I thought you Bible literalists believe he had 12 apostles plus over 500 camp followers. Which is it?
Pharisees and Sadducees are, in very broad terms, like Democrats and Republicans today. Sadducees tended to be wealthy and conservative, while the Pharisees were more about the common folk. At least on paper. In practice, maybe not so much. Like the way a lot of modern leftists hate the Democratic party, historical Jesus could very easily have hated the Pharisees while aligning somewhat with their stated positions. That certainly comes through in the literary version of Jesus.
Saying he was the Messiah in and of itself was subversive to established thought.
They had a long long history of people making claims to kingship based on having a supposed message from God. Like Jeremiah which is clearly the story it was plagiarized from. Additionally, the narratives are contradictory on what exactly he said while interrogated. Which makes sense if you are just making it all up.
The Jews at the time thought the Messiah would come in clad in armor, sword in hand, on a white horse, come to slay their enemies.
Citation needed. Please use the Talmudic prophecies and the references of Josphius to back up your claim. There was a wide variety of different messiah prophecies in circulation at the time. Some of them yes we’re closer to warlike image you made, copying from the Maccabees and Samson. Others were much closer to Isaiah and Jeremiah. Just a guy going around preaching.
Instead he rolled up humbly on a donkey
Not according to Gospel of Matthew. In the Gospel of Matthew he was riding a horse and a donkey at the same time. The author of first Gospel liked to double stuff, made his lies easier to swallow I imagine. Or he just didn’t know Hebrew and Aramaic and misunderstood the last sentence repetitive structure of the poetry.
talking nonsense like “love each other, treat others kindly”
Like here?
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
-Matthew 10:34
Also all the nice stuff he said was from Hillel or Proverbs.
Wanna try again? Or just admit that he is a fictional character that con artists poured Jewish history and thought into.
The whole “camel through the eye of the needle” bit is likely as radical as it looks at first glance. It was tried to be explained away through the centuries as more rich Christians started to appear, such as by claiming it was a small doorway in the city wall that would be difficult to get a camel through.
These claims don’t appear to hold up. Meanwhile, there were sewing needles uncovered with a recognizable design to modern ones, and you ain’t getting a camel through it. The way we would plainly read it today seems correct: rich people aren’t getting into the Kingdom of God.
Pharisees lived on donations not via state funds. For him to tell a rich guy to give away all his money was basically him telling a rich guy to give himself all the money.
Christianity is syncretic - is that not inherently subversive of the source?
Oh I think I see what you mean. To one extent every religion is. No one starts from page 1. I am not quite seeing however what Biblical Jesus borrowed from Rome that the Jews of the area hadn’t already. Can you list some examples?
And in this way it created common ground regional cultures, but the direction of the syncretization was also that of Romanization - the new mythos served to legitimize the earthly authority of Rome (and their territorial claims) in a way the teachings of the Jewish tribes had not.
Really only discussing what Biblical Jesus is supposed to have said. He was clear that he was only there for the lost sheep of the Jews, not for the rest.
“When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
Half this story is about the idiot SBC constituency. The other half is about top SBC officials who have somehow come to believe that the teachings of Jesus were anything but subversive to begin with.
Can you cite an example of an idea that Biblical Jesus said that was subversive to established Jewish thought?
You probably are just trying to be quippy but actually Jesus was quite subversive to established Jewish doctrine. You can see it in the parables.
One can see it in the Parable of the Woman called out for adultry. To deeply paraphrase with a shit condensed version : A bunch of Jewish scholarship - the folk who basically serve as biblical laywers - try and cast a woman in front of Jesus for judgement for her supposed flagrant overstepping of the rules with the prescribed punishment under Jewish law. This law is one of the actual commandment breakers and these community leaders demand Jesus judge her by their rule book. Jesus refuses. This is where we get the whole “he who is without sin cast the first stone” thing. Jewish law contained the punishment for adultry was not written by god, it was written by priests. Jesus does tell the woman not to do it again so God’s will is communicated so one could read this as a message to be wary of the laws of priests because they do not reflect the will of God. “Do not kill” and “do not covet” which means something closer to “be jealous of/desire” superceed those laws. It’s not on humans to take it upon themselves to render judgement. That is up to God.
This made the teachings of Jesus ridiculously unpopular amongst Jewish priests because they got a law for everything. One could look at the inclusion of Leviticus - a description of Jewish laws in the Christian Bible as a reminder that priests made those laws. They were unauthorized human expansions on the simple directives that came straight from the source.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery
Other parables to look into were “The unjust judge”. But yeah. Jesus was about as anti authoritarian as you could get.
3rd century forgery. Not found in early manuscripts of John or any other Christian works. Also not aligned with other things he said. Such as in Matthew where he talked about how he wasn’t subtracting from the law. Also doesn’t align with the incident with the “lepord” found in Mark, Luke, and Matthew. Where Jesus shows absolute respect for the legal authorities.
I agree. God wrote nothing.
I thought we were talking about Jesus. Why are you bringing up Rabbi Hillel. You know the guy who said things like this, lived in that area, and died decades prior?
So did Jesus. You don’t remember your Sermon on the Mount.
Proverbs and Leviticus.
Again, everything Biblical Jesus said was establishment.
I love how I cannot tell from this message whether you are a koolaid-drinking Christian Fascist or a Dawkins-huffing New Atheist. Both have a strong interest in this particular version of Jesus that you are pushing.
Most of us take it for granted that Jesus forgave the adulterer, and further, that only by his forgiveness can we enter the kingdom of heaven, according to contemporary vernacular Protestant American Christian Mythology. The Biblical Scholars like yourself - amateur or professional, earnest or polemical - will always debate like Talmudic rabbis about it, but we’re out here in the real world where people are alive and living their various gospel truths.
Attack the argument and not the person.
3rd century forgery.
And? There is an entire branch of Christian thought dedicated to figure out how to be saved. That source has just as much justification as Calvinism. Of course none of it is true, the only place we go when we die is the ground.
I have discussed facts only.
So you are naked, barefoot, and demanding the rich to give up all their money?
Why are you acting like this.
I used to think logic was enough too.
Of course logic isn’t enough. Logic can tell you how to do something, but it can’t tell you why. In other words, logic can’t tell you why one outcome is better or worse than another. You need emotions for that.
indeed, an illustration of how one cannot derive an ‘ought’ from statements of what ‘is’ unless one incorporates some sort of conditional framework such as a desired outcome or consequence.
for instance, it can be perhaps framed as an if-then statement: IF one wishes to produce a specific result, THEN a certain action must be taken - but even then, WHY someone might wish to produce that result is still left undefined; and even when a number of those reasons can be listed, the act of actually engaging any of those reasons is still the exclusive domain of a sapient agency perceiving their own emotional state.
In the end, we’re all just doing what ‘feels right’; the logic, reason, and rationality around it are just there to focus and refine how our emotions resolve.
With a convoluted enough Rube Goldberg Machine of excuses and justifications, ANYTHING can be made to ‘feel’ like it will achieve the desired effects… just like how any good tool can become a weapon if grossly misused.
In that case I am happy that you are now considering evidence instead of symbol shifting games.
I advise you to consider empathy.
When the specific bit of fiction was added to the book of fiction seems entirely irrelevant when it is the compiled book, including the later bit of fiction, upon which modern people claim to be basing their moral philosophy. I don’t believe the vast majority are reaching that verse and going “oh well this was added late so let’s skip over this part.” “Legitimate” (feels a funny concept for this topic, tbh) or not, it is included in most modern Christian’s interpretation of Christ
I think it is important to note what the truth is of the situation.
If the Bible can have one fictional story in it, it can have two, if it can have two it can have three.
The whole thing is allegorical fiction; debating which is most historically fictional is pointless when the vast majority only consider the thing as a whole, not individually. It isn’t that you’re not correct, it’s that your correctness is wholly irrelevant to how the Bible is consumed
The Bible is not allegorical to the vast majority of believers.
Yes, I’m aware. Those people are even less likely to do the due diligence you seem to be requesting of examining the veracity of each book or passage. The salient point here remains - the Bible is being interpreted as a whole book, thus whether or not your specific passage passes the veracity test or not is fully irrelevant
Ah, but the proof that you mention that it was a 3rd century forgery was actually a 6th century forgery! You can always disprove something, but proving something is much harder if you don’t share the same base truths. But as Pilate said “What is truth?”… or was that a forgery as well?
It isn’t found in any of the earlier manuscripts and is not aligned with other actions and sayings that he said. All the gotchas wont change that.
The passage where the man expels the people from the temple, accusing them of betraying the teachings seems very much subversive.
Here is a single man going against status quo and establishment. If that is not a good exemple of subversion, there is none.
Wasn’t it because they were commercialising the temple as well? US mega churches could learn something from that.
Don’t really know. I’m aware such a depiction exists but precise details are moot, for what I care.
I think it revolves around the temple grounds being used as a market and/or being a place where moneylenders were present, thus, again, going against the teachings advising against greed and materialism.
oh how i fuckin WISH they’d ‘learn something’ alright. I wish they’d learn it HARD and BITTERLY.
There is a lot of argument about that incident in the “Jesus was not supernatural but he existed crowd”. A few main solutions:
It was understood that the next Messiah would build the 3rd temple, but you can’t exactly rebuild the temple if there is a temple. So he was trying to bring about the events.
Roman coinage was dicey for strict monotheistic people to use hence the need to change it before you entered. It was a sore point for the holier-than-now crowd. Oh you use forbidden currency normally but change it at the temple? Morality when it suits you.
The temple had a dual-aristorcracy structure. The outside was run by one and the inside by another. The outside was more politically acceptable to attack. It definitely wouldn’t have been the first time one of the other Jewish factions had gone after how the Temple was run. By attacking the outside one he could set himself up as the quite a few “restorers of the Temple”.
Please see: Jeremiah 7:9-15, Jeremiah 23:11-15, Isaiah 1:10-17, Isaiah 66:1-2, Isaiah 59:1-2, Isaiah 56:7-8, Amos 5:21-24, and of course Micah.
The Jewish theocratic state had divisions of power. At that time it was mostly Pharisees and Temple. If Jesus had existed, he would definitely been on Pharisees side. Biblical Jesus was at least. It’s a bit like claiming any political commentary is subversive. There is a difference between being willing to take pot shots at the other political team and being against established order. The references I gave are only the ones that have survived. Most likely there were quite a few authors being very critical of how the Temple was run.
I thought you Bible literalists believe he had 12 apostles plus over 500 camp followers. Which is it?
Pharisees and Sadducees are, in very broad terms, like Democrats and Republicans today. Sadducees tended to be wealthy and conservative, while the Pharisees were more about the common folk. At least on paper. In practice, maybe not so much. Like the way a lot of modern leftists hate the Democratic party, historical Jesus could very easily have hated the Pharisees while aligning somewhat with their stated positions. That certainly comes through in the literary version of Jesus.
Yeah I am going to reject this analogy right off the bat.
Also not sure why you are bringing the Sadducees into this. They were a rival sect not a political faction.
Political and religious faction was not that separated at the time. Or even now, for that matter.
You are allowed to back down from an argument btw.
No the analogy between Pharisees and Sadducees and DNC and GOP does not work.
You should maybe take your own advice on that one.
Saying he was the Messiah in and of itself was subversive to established thought.
The Jews at the time thought the Messiah would come in clad in armor, sword in hand, on a white horse, come to slay their enemies.
Instead he rolled up humbly on a donkey talking nonsense like “love each other, treat others kindly”
They had a long long history of people making claims to kingship based on having a supposed message from God. Like Jeremiah which is clearly the story it was plagiarized from. Additionally, the narratives are contradictory on what exactly he said while interrogated. Which makes sense if you are just making it all up.
Citation needed. Please use the Talmudic prophecies and the references of Josphius to back up your claim. There was a wide variety of different messiah prophecies in circulation at the time. Some of them yes we’re closer to warlike image you made, copying from the Maccabees and Samson. Others were much closer to Isaiah and Jeremiah. Just a guy going around preaching.
Not according to Gospel of Matthew. In the Gospel of Matthew he was riding a horse and a donkey at the same time. The author of first Gospel liked to double stuff, made his lies easier to swallow I imagine. Or he just didn’t know Hebrew and Aramaic and misunderstood the last sentence repetitive structure of the poetry.
Like here?
-Matthew 10:34
Also all the nice stuff he said was from Hillel or Proverbs.
Wanna try again? Or just admit that he is a fictional character that con artists poured Jewish history and thought into.
The whole “camel through the eye of the needle” bit is likely as radical as it looks at first glance. It was tried to be explained away through the centuries as more rich Christians started to appear, such as by claiming it was a small doorway in the city wall that would be difficult to get a camel through.
These claims don’t appear to hold up. Meanwhile, there were sewing needles uncovered with a recognizable design to modern ones, and you ain’t getting a camel through it. The way we would plainly read it today seems correct: rich people aren’t getting into the Kingdom of God.
Pharisees lived on donations not via state funds. For him to tell a rich guy to give away all his money was basically him telling a rich guy to give himself all the money.
Soliciting donations isn’t exactly subversive.
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Explain please. I don’t quite understand your question.
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Oh I think I see what you mean. To one extent every religion is. No one starts from page 1. I am not quite seeing however what Biblical Jesus borrowed from Rome that the Jews of the area hadn’t already. Can you list some examples?
Really only discussing what Biblical Jesus is supposed to have said. He was clear that he was only there for the lost sheep of the Jews, not for the rest.
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You seem to know what you are talking about, can you recommend a good starting book for the history for Christianity (or Islam)?
You make it sound very interesting.
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Try Constantine’s Sword by James Carroll. It’s not "hard’ history so it’s an easy read. I’m sure doomer can supply more in-depth sources.
So, you have never heard the Bible fable of why Jesus was crucified? Come on 😀
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Can you repeat back what I wrote? Thanks.
No
Best response. This guy has all the worst aspects of a biblical literalist and just seems like a bit of a dick
Saying directly next time, makes you look weak otherwise. Just free advice
You’re just as bad as a biblical literalist and you seem like kind of a dick
Still look weak.
Sorry your buddy Jesus never existed.
|Can you repeat back what I wrote? Thanks.