John the Baptist & Early Christianity

[Will Due]

6 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Will, I don’t see disharmony, I see a preachy over generalization from you, not a counter. 8 bits posted a well thought out counter to your post.

 

 

No matter what I say, it's always preachy.  

We're discussing religion!!!

 

 

6 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Any thoughts on that? 
 

 

 

Absolutely. 

I'll be getting to it as soon as I get free. Right now, work work work. 

 

 

[Will Due]

16 hours ago, eight bits said:

Of the two, Paul is much more secure historically, and he tells us what he did. It wasn't that.

Gospel Jesus gives his followers experiences of himself (except the second part of the transfiguration where Peter, James and John have a similar "voice from on high" experience as Jesus had at his baptism - and even then, what the voice talks about is Jesus).

I don't think the actual religion of Paul survived as an organized entity for more than a generation or two after Paul died (early 60's CE more or less). In part, I hold that belief because Paul's churches were fragile because they lacked structure. Distinction within the group was conferred by "gifts of the spirit" (what magical feats can you perform?), rather than orderly progression through a graduated system based on meritorious service.

Anybody in the group could become the leader of a faction at any time, overnight. (Obviously, since that's Paul's own leadership backstory, too.) The only hard constraint is the tautological one: a leader needs followers (followership thus comes to be called discernment, whose ravings did how many people take seriously?).

Another part of why I hold the belief is the curious document called 1 Clement. It is a letter from the Church of Rome as a corporation to the Corinthian church, written some time around the turn of the Second Century (maybe one or possibly a few decades later than that). We don't know the details of what prompted the letter, but the gist is that Rome is insisting that Corinth cease resisting a clerical personnel decision favored by Rome. An orderly command structure is being imposed. Moreover, the church of Rome invokes the authority of Paul against the church of Corinth to accomplish this imposition.

Rome had no claim on Paul's authority. He may have died there (or not), but Rome wasn't one of his churches, unlike Corinth which was a church he planted personally. Rome had quite a pair of balls, then (literally, since the personnel decision had something to do with gender).

In sum, Paul's lack of governance structure meant that his churches had always been vulnerable to hijacking by anybody who claimed to have had a vision. What seems to have ended the autonomy of his Corinthian church within two generations is that a competing church, a church not founded by Paul nor otherwise "Paulist," simply muscled in and imposed its notions of governance onto the leadership vacuum that Paul's death had left in Corinth. The new bosses offered no vision, but they had an organization chart.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, Will, but blaming Paul for the decline of mysticism ("direct experience") within the early Christian movement doesn't easily fit the evidence. Slotting in a historical Jesus as a promoter of mysticism isn't helpful, either. First, because we know nothing about "the historical Jesus," not even whether he was a real person. Second, because the only "officially documented" Jesus, the Gospel one, is all about himself, not about his followers' mystical union with anybody else.

 

Ok 8 so you've outlined the evidence. Thank you.

From the perspective you've arrived at there is a lot that can be speculated. That's for sure.There are definitely things there that point to something that's true. If not what one would expect.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from your standpoint though, nothing there, is proof of God's existence. Therefore those who wrote about their religious experiences or the experiences of others, are mere stories with fictional characters, all used for the purpose of manipulating gullible people to enrich themselves at worst, or something else not quite so bad. Do I have it right so far?

That's a valid position to hold btw. You look at what the ancient religious writings say and if you take them at face value your head will spin. You have to believe God is one very bad guy. A monster even. It goes on and on. Blood sacrifice. Eternal damnation. Hellfire. Terrible. Tyrannical. 

 

But not with Jesus.

 

Yeah yeah, he too (according to some of those who wrote about him) said certain things that go along the same lines of the horrible things accredited to God.

But how can anyone be sure that when men wrote those things in ancient times that they didn't mistakenly contaminate their narratives with their own fundamentally base ideas? Personal ideas that are just dead wrong, that had nothing to do with reality?

When I examine the scriptural evidence I see that the story about Jesus stands out. No other founder of a major religion is identified as a divine person. A member of deity himself.

He is described as an ordinary man. Rather average. Yet those who followed him eventually referred to him as the Son of God unbidden. The creator himself even.

That didn't happen with Moses. That didn't happen with Muhammad. That didn't happen with anyone else who started a major religion. Except for Jesus.

Again, if Jesus really is deity, then the actual record of exactly who he is, exactly what he said, exactly what he did and why he did it would surely end up existing in our world don't ya think? 

That way, if you've got quite a pair, you can find out something that ought to be found out. 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by Will Due

[+Sherapy]

2 hours ago, Will Due said:

 

No matter what I say, it's always preachy.  

We're discussing religion!!!

 

 

 

Absolutely. 

I'll be getting to it as soon as I get free. Right now, work work work. 

 

 

Okay, good to hear.

[eight bits]

8 hours ago, Will Due said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but from your standpoint though, nothing there, is proof of God's existence.

No, there's nothing there that is proof (or disproof) of G_d's existence. That's not the question which that evidence addresses. What did Paul say happened in his churches? What happened in one of his major churches after he died? Those are the questions pursued with hopes of understanding the historical Paul's religion as best we now can.

8 hours ago, Will Due said:

Therefore those who wrote about their religious experiences or the experiences of others, are mere stories with fictional characters, all used for the purpose of manipulating gullible people to enrich themselves at worst, or something else not quite so bad. Do I have it right so far?

Well, mere is a mighty word. These are stories. Whether Jesus is an entirely fictional character is at present unknown. The purposes of the stories are harder to tease out. Paul didn't tell many stories about an earthly Jesus in the surviving letters. The Jesus he had personal experience with was a glorious spectre of some kind. I don't see much reason to doubt Paul's essential sincerity, but it would be naive to overlook that a recurring subject in his letters is money. One entire letter, Philemon, concerns his negotiating with a slave owner for the rent-free use of the slave who'd run away. Paul was a visionary, but he was also a man of this world.

Manipulate is also a mighty word. There is no question that Paul writes to persuade. Are his first readers gullible? Apparently both Paul and some of his competitors could work miracles ("signs of an apostle") themselves, and developed similar capacities in some of their followers ("gifts of the spirit"). We've already discussed that not only Paul, but also some of his followers, underwent personal religious experiences, first-hand.

Different times, different cultures ... it really isn't my place to judge them as "gullible." High-quality uncertain reasoning is difficult, even more so in the 1st Century than in the 21st. I disagree with their conclusions about their experiences; I can live without making pronouncements about their personal qualities.

8 hours ago, Will Due said:

You have to believe God is one very bad guy. A monster even. It goes on and on. Blood sacrifice. Eternal damnation. Hellfire. Terrible. Tyrannical. 

But not with Jesus.

Actually, the Bible is a big place, and as with the Christians, there was a great deal of sincerely pious Jewish religious literature that didn't make the Jewish canon, despite being widely read in the ancient world.

Gospel Jesus didn't pull the imago dei of a kindly paternal divinity out of his butt. That, too, is in the Hebrew Bible.

But when you're reading the Gospels, don't lose the plot. Jesus thoroughly accepts that his kindly father demands one last blood sacrifice. Well, not quite last, since Gospel Jesus foresees without objection the bloody death of his followers for his preaching's sake, followed by a final cataclysm of horrendous proportions. If this Jesus has a distinction, then it is that that "Old Testament" thirst for blood is OK with him; Dad's a swell guy anyway.

8 hours ago, Will Due said:

But how can anyone be sure that when men wrote those things in ancient times that they didn't mistakenly contaminate their narratives with their own fundamentally base ideas? Personal ideas that are just dead wrong, that had nothing to do with reality?

Don't look at me. I think Mark made most of it up, maybe all of it, dramatizing situations discussed by Paul and salting in some recollections of "current events" or recent ones, like John the Baptist's ministry and colorful figures like Jesus ben Ananus. The other three canonical Gospels follow Mark's lead.

8 hours ago, Will Due said:

That didn't happen with Moses. That didn't happen with Muhammad. That didn't happen with anyone else who started a major religion. Except for Jesus.

Romulus started a big city, and it happened with him. Fast forward, same city, Julius Caesar laid the foundations for an empire that survived him by about 1500 years. He's descended from Venus, is proclaimed a god in his own right when he dies, and his successors are worshipped as gods while still living.

You're right, though. If you want to found a religion, the better strategy is to be the emissary of the divinity, rather than the divinity him/her/itself. That way, you don't have to perform as much magic.

8 hours ago, Will Due said:

Again, if Jesus really is deity, then the actual record of exactly who he is, exactly what he said, exactly what he did and why he did it would surely end up existing in our world don't ya think? 

Yes. I'd also expect it to have ended up existing in my ancestors' world, not just 2000 years ago, but much, much earlier than that.

And if there was some reason why it couldn't have shown up earlier than 2000 years ago (the ever-popular "the world wasn't ready for it," the religious version of the untestable-woo-mantra, "it doesn't work that way"), then when it did finally show up, I'd have expected it to be written down then and there, and to be transmitted flawlessly ever since. That didn't happen either, though.

And that writing down would be on stone tablets, not papyrus (the cheaper, usually ephemeral writing material), a technology reputedly familiar to the divinity in question. And this time, let's not break them or lose the second copy, either.

(The Epic of Gilgamesh was written in baked clay and stone centuries before Jesus' time. Versions vary, but it's a few tens of thousands of words long. Mark is about 11,000 words in Koine; throw in the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7, and you're still around 15,000 words. The project was doable, by ordinary humans, never mind by the creator of the Universe.)

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by eight bits

[Habitat]

1 hour ago, eight bits said:

But when you're reading the Gospels, don't lose the plot. Jesus thoroughly accepts that his kindly father demands one last blood sacrifice.

Where do we read this ?

[Will Due]

5 hours ago, eight bits said:

No, there's nothing there that is proof (or disproof) of G_d's existence. That's not the question which that evidence addresses. What did Paul say happened in his churches? What happened in one of his major churches after he died? Those are the questions pursued with hopes of understanding the historical Paul's religion as best we now can.

Well, mere is a mighty word. These are stories. Whether Jesus is an entirely fictional character is at present unknown. The purposes of the stories are harder to tease out. Paul didn't tell many stories about an earthly Jesus in the surviving letters. The Jesus he had personal experience with was a glorious spectre of some kind. I don't see much reason to doubt Paul's essential sincerity, but it would be naive to overlook that a recurring subject in his letters is money. One entire letter, Philemon, concerns his negotiating with a slave owner for the rent-free use of the slave who'd run away. Paul was a visionary, but he was also a man of this world.

Manipulate is also a mighty word. There is no question that Paul writes to persuade. Are his first readers gullible? Apparently both Paul and some of his competitors could work miracles ("signs of an apostle") themselves, and developed similar capacities in some of their followers ("gifts of the spirit"). We've already discussed that not only Paul, but also some of his followers, underwent personal religious experiences, first-hand.

Different times, different cultures ... it really isn't my place to judge them as "gullible." High-quality uncertain reasoning is difficult, even more so in the 1st Century than in the 21st. I disagree with their conclusions about their experiences; I can live without making pronouncements about their personal qualities.

Actually, the Bible is a big place, and as with the Christians, there was a great deal of sincerely pious Jewish religious literature that didn't make the Jewish canon, despite being widely read in the ancient world.

Gospel Jesus didn't pull the imago dei of a kindly paternal divinity out of his butt. That, too, is in the Hebrew Bible.

But when you're reading the Gospels, don't lose the plot. Jesus thoroughly accepts that his kindly father demands one last blood sacrifice. Well, not quite last, since Gospel Jesus foresees without objection the bloody death of his followers for his preaching's sake, followed by a final cataclysm of horrendous proportions. If this Jesus has a distinction, then it is that that "Old Testament" thirst for blood is OK with him; Dad's a swell guy anyway.

Don't look at me. I think Mark made most of it up, maybe all of it, dramatizing situations discussed by Paul and salting in some recollections of "current events" or recent ones, like John the Baptist's ministry and colorful figures like Jesus ben Ananus. The other three canonical Gospels follow Mark's lead.

Romulus started a big city, and it happened with him. Fast forward, same city, Julius Caesar laid the foundations for an empire that survived him by about 1500 years. He's descended from Venus, is proclaimed a god in his own right when he dies, and his successors are worshipped as gods while still living.

You're right, though. If you want to found a religion, the better strategy is to be the emissary of the divinity, rather than the divinity him/her/itself. That way, you don't have to perform as much magic.

Yes. I'd also expect it to have ended up existing in my ancestors' world, not just 2000 years ago, but much, much earlier than that.

And if there was some reason why it couldn't have shown up earlier than 2000 years ago (the ever-popular "the world wasn't ready for it," the religious version of the untestable-woo-mantra, "it doesn't work that way"), then when it did finally show up, I'd have expected it to be written down then and there, and to be transmitted flawlessly ever since. That didn't happen either, though.

And that writing down would be on stone tablets, not papyrus (the cheaper, usually ephemeral writing material), a technology reputedly familiar to the divinity in question. And this time, let's not break them or lose the second copy, either.

(The Epic of Gilgamesh was written in baked clay and stone centuries before Jesus' time. Versions vary, but it's a few tens of thousands of words long. Mark is about 11,000 words in Koine; throw in the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7, and you're still around 15,000 words. The project was doable, by ordinary humans, never mind by the creator of the Universe.)

 

 

Yes the project was doable.

Doable in our lifetime when the modern printing process pretty much guarantees that the text of a book remains inviolate and therefore, for all intents and purposes, carved in stone. Never mind the nature of the internet where this guarantee is greatly enlarged. 

So why ignore this project?

 

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by Will Due

[eight bits]

9 hours ago, Habitat said:

Where do we read this ?

Mark 14:36

He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Please remove this cup from me. However, not what I desire, but what you desire.”

The significance of the cup imagery was explained several verses earlier (14:23-24)

He took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave to them. They all drank of it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many.

For the meaning of blood in the initiation of a covenant as a reference to blood sacrifice, please see Exodus 24:4-8.

6 hours ago, Will Due said:

So why ignore this project?

I am not ignoring it; I am discussing it with one of its initiates and promoters, yourself.

My turn. We know adequate technology existed 2000 years ago to transmit verbatim and preserve indefinitely any message Jesus wished to bring, and that this technology had been available many centuries before then. OK, corporate told Jesus to wait and so he finally came 2000 years ago, and he brought his message with him then. But he didn't use the available technology. Why did he and the sponsors of his message ignore that project?

 

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by eight bits

[Habitat]

2 hours ago, eight bits said:

Why did he and the sponsors of his message ignore that project?

How do you explain that ?

[Will Due]

3 hours ago, Habitat said:

How do you explain that ?

 

If the creator of the universe wanted to provide an inviolate copy of what he could write himself on paper or carve in stone to anyone who sought a copy 2000 or more years ago (unlike what @eight bits is suggesting) no technologies existed that could get that project done. Books were rare and only copied with great difficulty, not to mention stone or clay tablets which were anything but serviceable.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Will Due

[Davros of Skaro]

@eight bits

Be careful! 

If Will activates your In-dwelling Thought Adjuster, you'll go around sounding just like him.

[SHaYap]

16 hours ago, eight bits said:

My turn. We know adequate technology existed 2000 years ago to transmit verbatim and preserve indefinitely any message Jesus wished to bring, and that this technology had been available many centuries before then. OK, corporate told Jesus to wait and so he finally came 2000 years ago, and he brought his message with him then. But he didn't use the available technology. Why did he and the sponsors of his message ignore that project?

Let's cut the chase and get right to the song and dance... 

Quote

 

[00.03:30]

Would've been more accurate if Jesus was darker and less blondish though... 

~

[Will Due]

 

2000 or more years ago, how many of the common people had access to religious books or stone tablets? Those were things jealously guarded by priests were they not? Common people were not allowed to touch them.

In fact some were even kept in the "Holy of Holies". A place you'd immediately be put to death if you dared enter, unless you were the high priest. 

But these same high priests hypocritically would see to it to murder anyone like Jesus who dared to speak to the people words of life from God not yet written in a book.

Today, something very much like that, is still going on.

You're not confused about any of that are you?

 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Will Due

[+joc]

20 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

2000 or more years ago, how many of the common people had access to religious books or stone tablets. Those were things jealously guarded by priests were they not? Common people were not allowed to touch them.

In fact some were even kept in the "Holy of Holies". A place you'd immediately be put to death if you dared enter, unless you were the high priest. 

But these same high priests hypocritically would see to it to murder anyone like Jesus who dared to speak to the people words of life from God not yet written in a book.

Today, something very much like that, is still going on.

You're not confused about any of that are you?

 

 

Yeah...the one's controlling the Narrative control the Narrative.  Who has controlled the Narrative from the beginning?  The Catholic Church.  Who controls the Narrative controls the people who believe the narrative.

It's all a crock Will....the sad thing is...you...and most people...will never ever be able to recognize the truth...because you think what you believe IS the truth.  It's really sad.

[Will Due]

10 minutes ago, joc said:

most people...will never ever be able to recognize the truth...

 

By far, most people recognize the truth joc. 

Even you. 

 

Why fight it?

 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Will Due

[+joc]

2 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

By far, most people recognize the truth joc. 

Even you. 

 

 

Let me test that theory:

The Lie:   Jesus' mama was a virgin...the Spirit of God impregnated her.  Jesus was half God half Man.

The Truth:   Jesus' mama got preggo and didn't want to be stoned to death.  Fortunately her friend Joseph married her and she survived.

And that is IF any of the story about Jesus was actually true.  

The truth is Will:  There is no entity called God.  There is no Jesus waiting for the right time to return.  There is no heaven and there is no hell.  All religion...even your twisted UB narrative is all fiction.  It's all a lie.  It's all about controlling other people and their money.  It always has been.  That is the truth.  

You are wrong...most people will never recognize the truth...you don't want to see it because you NEED your own version of reality to make sense of your otherwise totally screwed up life....that's typical of most people because all families....all....families...have their own unique dysfunctional qualities.  

Truth   vs    Fiction

[Will Due]

6 minutes ago, joc said:

most people will never recognize the truth...

 

The truth is, most people will ALWAYS recognize the truth. 

Even you. 

 

Why fight the truth joc? 

 

Why be at war with the truth? 

 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Will Due

[+joc]

1 minute ago, Will Due said:

 

The truth is, most people will ALWAYS recognize the truth. 

Even you. 

 

Why fight the truth joc? 

 

 

It's impossible for you to carry on an intelligent conversation. 

[Will Due]

13 minutes ago, joc said:

It's impossible for you to carry on an intelligent conversation. 

 

With a person at war with the truth? It certainly is joc.

I don't get you joc. I know you're a Trump supporter. He's fighting for the truth. You're not at war with him are you?

Joseph impregnated Mary.

Jesus didn't die for your sins. (He was murdered by those at war with the truth.)

Jesus is the creator of the universe and he came here to show us what and who God really is. 

 

Recognize what's false but try not to fight the truth joc. Ok?

 

 

[+joc]

26 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

With a person at war with the truth? It certainly is joc.

I don't get you joc. I know you're a Trump supporter. He's fighting for the truth. You're not at war with him are you?

Joseph impregnated Mary.

Jesus didn't die for your sins. (He was murdered by those at war with the truth.)

Jesus is the creator of the universe and he came here to show us what and who God really is. 

 

Recognize what's false but try not to fight the truth joc. Ok?

 

 

Goodbye Will

[Will Due]

3 minutes ago, joc said:

Goodbye Will

 

Later joc.

 

 

[eight bits]

18 hours ago, Will Due said:

2000 or more years ago, how many of the common people had access to religious books or stone tablets?

The method of dissemination of texts was that literate people would read aloud to assemblies of their fellows. I wasn't suggesting that the stone tablets would circulate, but rather that they would serve as archival originals for transcription. The transcribed copies could then circulate, as Jjewish, Christian and pagan literature actually did circulate in those times.

Further, stone rubbing technology may be as old as the Second Century (in China, for Confucian material recorded on stone). That would allow de facto originals to be distributed to libraries, for use as local and regional transcription masters.

There is no earthly reason why, if Jesus was a real person 2000 years ago with any distinctive message, you and I couldn't be looking at his very words as recorded at the time of his visit earthside. If further, he was the product of an advanced civilization, then he must have chosen not to use techniques available to him for that purpose.

18 hours ago, Will Due said:

Those were things jealously guarded by priests were they not? Common people were not allowed to touch them.

What priests did you have in mind? The Jewish Temple's monopoly governed sacrificial rites. The priesthood had no say in the circulation of Jewish literature, and there was no canon (beyond Torah) for them to "regulate" anyway, until after the Temple was destroyed.

As was mentioned in an earlier post, there was a widedpread synagogue system in place in late Second Temple Judaism. "Common people" thus had access to the contents of literature, as audience members at public readings (e.g. weekly and holiday synagogue services) if they were interested.

18 hours ago, Will Due said:

But these same high priests hypocritically would see to it to murder anyone like Jesus who dared to speak to the people words of life from God not yet written in a book.

Even in the Gospels, it's vague why the Temple officials wanted Jesus dead. We do have some foundation for believing that a generation after Pilate, Temple officials turned another Jesus (ben Ananus) over to Roman law enforcement for preaching that the end of Jerusalem and the Temple was near. The Romans beat him badly, but didn't kill him. Maybe something similar happened under Pilate; and maybe Pilate had less patience with troublemakers than his successor.

The ben Ananus incident is a warning that we oughtn't infer what somebody was saying from the premise that powerful people were displeased with their saying it. Ben Ananus was no threat to anybody but himself, but was severely punished anyway.

(It is interesting that Mark's Jesus did say in unsecured public surroundings that the Temple would be utterly destroyed, and that the first charge made against him at Jesus' Jewish trial also involved his having said that the Temple would be destroyed. That'd be enough to get him arrested and turned over to be corecively questionned by the Romans; it was enough for the later Jesus. Then it'd be up to the Romans whether Jesus was killed or not. A roll of the dice at best, and completely uninformative about any religious innovations in his teaching.)

[Batanat]

On 11/10/2019 at 3:28 PM, eight bits said:

If Batanat rejoins us, then perhaps she'll weigh in on whether the characterization is true of Moses.

Regarding Moses: he's hardly a mystic or even an introspective character. On the contrary, his experiences with the divine are almost exclusively forced upon him, and sometimes even aggressively (e.g., the infamously bizarre foreskin incident). At Mt. Sinai, the masses were explicitly excluded from the divine revelation: Moses was to go up to the mountain alone, and a perimeter was established beyond which the Israelites could not trespass without being executed on the spot. Hardly "G-d is within you". Moses' relationship with G-d was essentially that of an (often unwilling) tool: as a mouthpiece for the divine word and authority, and as a conduit for divine magics. Moses does not meditate or look inward or even seek out the divine, G-d simply selects him and makes him do his bidding; he's not given a choice. Moses doesn't even want the job, he does it because he must; and when he begins to get fed up with it and lash out, G-d decides to ultimately dispose of him and pick a replacement. Moses' personal experiences with G-d are not sought after, they're inescapable. 

On 11/10/2019 at 3:28 PM, eight bits said:

As to Paul, judging from his Corinthian and Galatian letters, his churches were happening places where the congregation cultivated its members' own direct experiences. His churches sound somewhat like the modern personally-oriented Protestant churches that Tanya Luhrmann studied ("Vineyard" churches). Evidently at least some pre-Pauline churches ran along similar lines (those "five hundred" who saw a vision of the risen Jesus together at the same time did so before Paul had his visionary conversion).

Yeah Paul's churches sound not unlike Vajrayana, developing initiates' experiences through rituals and direct teaching and other practices (music/chants, symbols/fables, etc.). The cultic and esoteric structure seems designed for that very direct approach to spirituality: leaders teach new initiates and train them to become new leaders to teach future initiates, etc. But they seemed not to believe that anyone could do it. The belief in Somatics vs. Pneumatics meant that some simply couldn't ever be taught: whether they were too enslaved by their worldly attachments, were resistant to the teachings themselves, or were unable to understand them at all, some people were believed to be essentially destined not to achieve enlightenment.  

Aside: the "five hundred brethren" are interesting, because I think it's very likely that Paul didn't mean to say that (if indeed the passage isn't an interpolation in the first place). The words for "500" and "Pentecost" are very similar in Greek, and it's plausible that either A.) Paul meant Penecost instead of 500, B.) the author of Acts misread Paul and wrote the story of the ascension at Penecost accordingly, or C.) a later interpolator added in the lines about the 500/Penecost based on Acts and not the other way around.  

On 11/10/2019 at 3:28 PM, eight bits said:

Especially relevant for this thread is his analysis of baptism as a kind of sharing of Jesus' passion (see, for example, Romans 6:3-5). Similarly, his analysis of the eucharistic service emphasizes personal participation in a self-conscious group re-enactment of another part of the passion story (1 Corinthians 11:17ff.).

I mentioned early in the thread that I think there may have been some other re-enactments of the passion as well, perhaps even a simulated death and resurrection (in addition to the tamer, more symbolic baptism ceremony). The eucharist as Paul relates it is very interesting. Paul says he "received from the Lord" the knowledge of the eucharist and handed it down to the Corinthian community. Moreover, he says that it was a ritual that could be practiced only by the "worthy": indeed he relates that there were those who became sick and died after partaking of it in some improper manner. This would seem to be not simply some peachy banquet: it was dangerous. I suspect that what they were serving wasn't just ordinary wine and bread. Use of things like wormwood-wine (primitive absinthe) and ergot or mushrooms seem very likely in the early cult: these are potentially poisonous substances, it's no wonder that some initiates may have been killed, and their deaths rationalized as being their own fault. Though it's interesting: one wonders why Paul, so obsessed with escaping the mortal sphere, would see these deaths as the result of impiety rather than a kind of Jonestown-esque ascension of the victims' souls. Was Paul aware of the risks posed by their ritual substances, and simply inventing a magic explanation to keep initiates from getting cold feet? "Oh you needn't worry as long as you have faith and purify yourself properly beforehand: those people who died just weren't holy enough."

[Batanat]

On 11/12/2019 at 5:10 PM, Will Due said:

 

Ok 8 so you've outlined the evidence. Thank you.

From the perspective you've arrived at there is a lot that can be speculated. That's for sure.There are definitely things there that point to something that's true. If not what one would expect.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from your standpoint though, nothing there, is proof of God's existence. Therefore those who wrote about their religious experiences or the experiences of others, are mere stories with fictional characters, all used for the purpose of manipulating gullible people to enrich themselves at worst, or something else not quite so bad. Do I have it right so far?

That's a valid position to hold btw. You look at what the ancient religious writings say and if you take them at face value your head will spin. You have to believe God is one very bad guy. A monster even. It goes on and on. Blood sacrifice. Eternal damnation. Hellfire. Terrible. Tyrannical. 

I mean, rather depends on the god. Asherah sounds like she was a pretty nice one: no blood, just pastries and clothes for offerings. 

The hellfire and damnation thing doesn't really appear in the Tanakh at all. The Israelite afterlife (insofar as it could even be called an afterlife, since at least some of the time it was clearly meant more metaphorically/poetically than literally), Sheol, wasn't a place of fire, it was usually described as either a desert canyon or a swamp hidden in caverns below the earth. A tomb was just an artificial cave: and caves were where the dead resided. Then again, the dead could also be divine; in the Tanakh some honored dead are even called gods, and are prayed to and invoked through channeling and fetishes made of their mummified body parts for purposes of divination and blessings.

As for G-d being a bad guy: sure, but in the same way that a volcanic eruption is bad. Remember, gods were usually the forces of nature back then. When an earthquake or storm hits, it's because the gods are angry. Ancient people attributed agency and personality and reason to such events, but often they were simply deadly acts of nature. Even having a brutal, temperamental god was preferable to considering that all the chaos and horror of their world were simply accidents. Gods aren't wholly beyond human control, they can be bargained with and appeased and petitioned (even if it doesn't work). A force of nature is truly beyond anyone's control, and that's quite scary. Even the most bloodthirsty of gods isn't as scary as chaos, because at least you can try to get on the war god's good side; chaos is indiscriminate. That's actually part of why Mot/Mawet (the Levantine god of death) wasn't really worshiped in the way other gods were. It was recognized that no one can bargain with or earn the favor of Death; it will take you no matter what you do. 

The lake of fire and eternal damnation is very Egyptian. The idea was probably known to ancient Israelites, but wasn't really incorporated into Jewish thinking until early Roman times (where, obviously, Christianity also picked it up). There was a site in ancient Jerusalem called Tophet in the Gehinnom/Gehenna (Hinnom Valley) where there were tombs of dead royalty and a child cemetery; there were shrines to the cult of the dead kings there, and apparently some kind of bed of hot coals and fire which children were made to cross or pass over as a rite of some sort (perhaps as a pre-Bar Mitzvah coming-of-age ritual). This was later (after the rite was discontinued) misinterpreted as having been a child sacrifice by burning, and the site came to be associated with unholiness and death and flame. Burial and preservation of remains was the mode of funerary practice in Jewish culture: burning was considered a total destruction of not only the body but a torture or death of the spirit as well (the concept of the "second death" which appears in the NT is first attested in the Targumim, referring to the immortal fires of Gehinnom). Basically, it was believed that the soul of those who were burned rather than buried would suffer in the flame forever, and never be put to rest. This was embellished in the Rabbinic era, where we hear of the spirits of enemies of Israel scorched forever in boiling sewage (there's a legend also saying that Gehinnom was turned into a garbage dump where the city's refuse was burned, though it's unclear if this was ever actually the case or not). 

It's worth noting that the Tenth Roman Legion, during its occupation of Jerusalem, used Gehinnom as the site of cremation of their dead; which was regarded as deeply unholy by Jews, and likely contributed greatly to the valley's association with fiery spiritual destruction.  

 

[SHaYap]

24 minutes ago, Batanat said:

It's worth noting that the Tenth Roman Legion, during its occupation of Jerusalem, used Gehinnom as the site of cremation of their dead; which was regarded as deeply unholy by Jews, and likely contributed greatly to the valley's association with fiery spiritual destruction.

The one thing a pal of mine cracks me up all the time when something like this is brought up is he'd say that the one thing the Romans had a head start over every other civilization is "dirty politics"

~

[Batanat]

On 11/12/2019 at 5:10 PM, Will Due said:

 

But not with Jesus.

Yeah yeah, he too (according to some of those who wrote about him) said certain things that go along the same lines of the horrible things accredited to God.

But how can anyone be sure that when men wrote those things in ancient times that they didn't mistakenly contaminate their narratives with their own fundamentally base ideas? Personal ideas that are just dead wrong, that had nothing to do with reality?

That seems like special pleading to me. "But not with Jesus... unless you count those things, which you probably shouldn't (because reasons, I guess)". 

On 11/12/2019 at 5:10 PM, Will Due said:

When I examine the scriptural evidence I see that the story about Jesus stands out. No other founder of a major religion is identified as a divine person. A member of deity himself.

Depends what you define as a "major religion". Even early Christians themselves didn't claim that their story was unique: on the contrary, the Patristics tried to use comparisons to Greco-Roman gods to prove that Jesus wasn't anything too different from what already existed. Dionysus' cult was massive. Even Simon Magus was said to be the son of G-d, or an incarnation of the divine. Jesus only appears to stand alone now because Christians didn't tolerate competitors for long once they rose to power. The other Jesus-like figures that were once major were pushed out of the running.

On 11/12/2019 at 5:10 PM, Will Due said:

He is described as an ordinary man. Rather average. Yet those who followed him eventually referred to him as the Son of God unbidden. The creator himself even.

How exactly is he described as "average" and "ordinary"? Sure, magic was a real thing to these people and hence someone being capable of it was essentially mundane, but it usually wasn't average joes who exorcised demons or healed the leprous or raised the dead, it was someone with abnormal ability. Sorcery may have been a recognized skill, but it generally took real talent for someone to be a full-fledged sorcerer for a living.

On 11/12/2019 at 5:10 PM, Will Due said:

That didn't happen with Moses. That didn't happen with Muhammad. That didn't happen with anyone else who started a major religion. Except for Jesus.

I mean, Judaism doesn't really have a "founder", per se. Moses gets picked out as the starting point sometimes because he supposedly introduced the Law, though historically this is extremely dubious. Some trace it back instead to Abraham, who's pretty damn mythic in his stories, and was probably originally a god before being humanized in the Torah. Some trace things back to Adam: and as I mentioned earlier in the thread, he too was originally a god (and indeed early Christians saw him as G-d's firstborn son, and Jesus essentially as a reincarnation/remaking of Adam). You're right that Moses in the Torah isn't a divine figure, however he sort of acquires divinity in the same way that figures like Enoch, Samuel, and Elijah underwent the transformation of apotheosis. Even the NT reflects this, with Moses and Elijah appearing beside Jesus at the transfiguration, implicitly casting them as angelic/divine beings. I already discussed earlier how Metatron was believed to be the ascended form of Enoch; Metatron was referred to in Jewish literature as the "second power in Heaven" or "lesser YHWH". Even the prophet Samuel was referred to as Elohim when his spirit was conjured by the witch: indicating that in death the soul of the prophet acquired divinity, despite residing in Sheol rather than in Heaven. 

And Jesus' divinity is somewhat fluid in the early materials. A lot of the NT can be read as adoptionist: that Jesus began as a mortal man but acquired divinity either at his baptism or at his death, being adopted as the son of G-d. This isn't a whole lot different from the idea of prophets or other honored figures ascending to godhood. They acted as conduits of the divine, so the result is that they become divine: their bodies are sort of "irradiated" with holiness. Indeed Moses is a fairly vivid picture of this idea, since upon his descent from Sinai he visibly shone (and indeed the word used for the rays of light he emitted is also the word for horns: horns were a symbol of power, and the crowns of gods were horned, implying that Moses was in a way crowned as divine via sheer exposure to the theophany).   

On 11/12/2019 at 5:10 PM, Will Due said:

Again, if Jesus really is deity, then the actual record of exactly who he is, exactly what he said, exactly what he did and why he did it would surely end up existing in our world don't ya think? 

Again, that's a pretty colossal "if". And more ifs than just the one you used, actually. Why should I assume that if there's a deity that there should therefore be an accurate record of it somewhere? Could an infinite deity even describe itself in a way that finite beings would understand? Could the divine ever be even halfway approximated in mortal language? Why should a written record be considered remotely adequate for such a being? Could such an entity not simply make itself known at any time, to anyone and everyone, without having to rely on such a needlessly primitive tool as written or spoken language? If a deity (or deities) do exist, and have at some point approached or incarnated into our midst, then surely they might think of a more foolproof way of documenting themselves than leaving a bunch of puny bipedal primates to do it. A god could make a monument or a video that could never be concealed or destroyed, and could never be misunderstood. An omnipotent deity could do anything, by definition. I suppose it'd be different for a non-omnipotent deity, but even then, one would think that a literal god could still come up with something better than us mere humans. And if not, then in what sense is it a god? Since even we mortals have come up with ways of preserving and transmitting information better than what was done with the NT.