constructed quite a set of them yourself regarding Jesus, churches, the history of the Bible, and the control factor in teaching.
First, you can teach people ideas and values, but that does not mean that you control the people. They might or might not accept what you teach. By the concept of control that you expressed, every author who writes a book, every teacher in a classroom, and every person who interacts with another person is controlling people.
Mosaic laws were followed rather strictly and rigidly by some leading Judeans at the time. They tried to micro manage people's actions and behavior. Summing up the laws as being based on love, as Jesus did, is one way to loosen the micro management control on people and give the laws meaning and value in people's lives for them to develop their own guidelines on the social rules.
That's what laws are, social rules of behavior to have some order in society. Tribal societies, especially ones that are not literate, establish social laws through religious beliefs and customs. At the time of Jesus, even literate societies that had developed into civilizations retained a religious basis or justification for most of their laws. That was true in ancient Israel and later Judea, as well as in the Roman, Greek, and Persian empires. Religious and secular life and laws were seamlessly interwoven. Rome gave official recognition to Jewish laws and exempted them from Roman religious sacrificial laws so long as they maintained peace in Judea and paid the required tribute to Rome.
So to accuse Jesus of "controlling people" through his teachings is moot to the point of being silly. He was interpreting the laws that the Jewish people lived by, which were founded in their history, first as a tribal people, then as the nation of Israel, and later as the remnant of Israel known as Judea under Rome. There was no constitution then with a first amendment separating the secular and the religious laws and other aspects of life. They were one and the same.
Of course we don't know the exact words of Jesus. But social scientists - secular cultural and literary historians -who specialize in ancient documents, languages, and records have pretty well established that a common source of the sayings of Jesus existed and circulated among his earliest followers and was the basis for the written material that became the books of the Christian Bible. It is called Quelle, or more simply, Q. (Jokes aside, no relation to the modern Q of MAGAs)
No, they do not have a copy of this Q document. They have reconstructed it from multiple sources outside of the Christian Gospels as well as from those Gospels. It's somewhat like linguists can reconstruct the proto linguistic forms of modern languages by tracing their relationships to each other within a language family from tracing their root forms. There are many records, or Gospels, outside of the 4 in the Christian Bible. They overlap in several common areas from before there was a formally established "Christian Church." People were sharing the SAYINGS long before anyone addressed the idea of writing about the LIFE and death of Jesus and not just his sayings. Christianity as we know it did not suddenly appear during the life of Jesus. It evolved over decades and centuries.
The stories told about Jesus' life and miracles are par for the time period about other people, too, e.g. Roman emperors being divine and performing miracles. Those types of legends evolved after the life and execution of Jesus as a means of setting him apart from other people as someone special. That's hardly the same as your claim that the story of feeding a crowd with a few fish means that Jesus collected money and kept it for himself while giving crumbs to the people.
Yes, Jesus was a rabbi with a following. There were several Jewish sects or religious movements at the time of Jesus. Some were Messianic, each with their own view of what the Messiah would be like. Others rejected Messianism. The Jesus followers were Messianic and their views of a Messiah changed with time, especially after his execution. Jesus is Greek for the Jewish name Joshua. Christ is Greek for the Jewish word Messiah, which simply means "annointed one." An annointed one could be a king, a prophet, or a warrior. So Jesus' early followers believed that he was the anticipated Messiah. Messianic fervor was rampant in the time of Jesus among people who longed for delivery from Roman rule. To most people, the Messiah was the one who would lead the Jewish people in independence from Rome and restoration of the Kingdom of Israel (aka Kingdom of God), by divine intervention, or in a military battle, or by being declared King with the people following him in rebellion against Rome.
But it seems to me that Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef (aka Jesus Christ) was teaching a spiritual Kingdom of God, as a religious reformer rather than a literal political kingdom. This is also the image or impression from his teachings in Gospels outside of the Christian canon and from the various early Christian sects prior to Constantine.
The word "Christian" meant something very different among the early followers of Jesus after his execution. They were still a Jewish sect then, not a separate religion yet. Calling them Christian simply meant "Messianic Jews," or followers of a Messiah.
Jesus was an itinerant rabbi without a home base or synagogue. Synagogues then were basically community centers for studying, discussing, and interpreting the Torah and prophets. They involved prayers and preaching, but the sacred center of worship for Jews was the Temple in Jerusalem, run by several priests who were divided into a hierarchy. If you want to accuse someone of taking money from the public to benefit themselves and control the people, that's where to look, not to an itinerant rabbi from rural Galilee.
For some reason, anti religionists are very focused on money, often without knowing anything about how various denominations and individual congregations actually operate financially. The grifters are generally the mega churches whose pastors have TV programs, theme parks, private yachts and planes, etc. Or, they are Evangelical pastors in smaller churches doing the same thing on a smaller scale. I can't speak for all churches, only the ones that I am familiar with - Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Salvation Army.
The first 3 have church councils (known by various terms) who are responsible, along with the pastor (priest for Episcopians) for running the church. They are chosen by the congregation and are not paid. Depending on the denomination, actual paid employees are the pastor, organist/music director, a financial director, and a secretary. For the ones that run a day care center, there is the paid director and teachers. Their incomes come from church members. In some churches, the financial director is an elected, unpaid treasurer.
Financial directors/treasurers publish yearly financial reports that break down what was received in donations and fund raising activities and how it was spent. Nobody is "duped" into giving to charity only to have it grabbed up by paid employees. There are published budgets so the congregation knows what is going where and what the salaries of employees are. The churches have committees for various service activities (volunteer committee members) whose activities are budgeted for. Sometimes for special projects, they have fund raising dinners, auctions, or simply requests to the congregation for an extra donation. Those committees give out donations to secular schools for secular books and other materials, to homeless shelters, to suicide prevention centers, to mental health organizations, to soup kitchens, and many other charitable causes. The committee members vote on how to distribute the funds that they have and submit their vote to the financial director for approval and dispersal. My father was both a council member and a financial committee member, both of which were unpaid volunteer positions, for many years in one denomination. I have been a charity committee member in another denomination.
The 3 mainline denominations mentioned above also have immigrant and refugee programs at the national level. Same rules apply for publishing their budgets. I have been involved in their activities, too. Their funds come from the congregations through special yearly fund drives in some of the churches, plus designated envelopes in the pews to donate at any time. With their funds, they operate shelters at the border for asylum seekers, providing them with clothing, food, medical care, and a place to live for a few days or weeks until they are approved to go to a sponsor. Then the churches provide transportation to wherever in the US the sponsor is. While the asylum seekers are at the church shelters, they receive free legal help in navigating the asylum and immigration paperwork and court system.
The legal help comes from immigration lawyers who volunteer some time out of their schedules. The cooking, laundry, sorting of donations (mostly clothing) is done by volunteers from around the country who give two weeks at a time or more if able. Money donations go to pay for toiletries, food, utilities to pay for the nonstop laundry, rent if the building is not owned by the church, and for a supervisor to run the shelter and organize volunteers. Also for toys and books for children at the shelter and for any medical care that is necessary.
Hardly a get rich quick scam.
The Salvation Army provides shelters for victims of domestic violence, legal advocacy for them, and food and clothing for them. They also provide clothing, food, gas, and medical vouchers for people in need of them after a screening process to weed out freeloaders who can pay for themselves. Their money comes from members of the congregation, from their second hand stores, and from their Christmas fund drives at stores and businesses where volunteer bell ringers collect donations.
Several churches also have weekly food pantry donation boxes with lists of needed items to provide enough variety for full meals. Some churches disperse the donations directly to people who need it. Others donate it to a central community food kitchen or pantry.
Hardly a bunch of grifters. The donations and asylum aid are available to anyone regardless of beliefs or non belief, with no strings attached, no requirements to attend services or convert.
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