The only people Jesus was ever violent towards were the moneychangers in the temple.

[Odin2005]

Something lost on the PTB, apparently.

[WinkyDink]

1. AND He was understanding of sexual "transgressions." "Let he who is......."

[socialist_n_TN]

2. What would Jesus do?

Whip a moneychanger's ass, that's what!

[bluestateguy]

3. I don't know what PTB stands for

but your point is well taken.

He was no fan of rampant commercialization and go-go runaway capitalism.

[varkam]

6. Powers That Be?

That's my take, anyway.

[Trajan]

4. Gutsy ....

Most of these threads degrade into theological debates (arguments) .... They get pretty ugly ....

This one will do so as well .... why ?

Because scripture is contradictory about 'Jesus' and 'violence' .... expect bits of scripture to be wielded like cudgels ....

I had to look up 'PTB' to see you mean 'Powers That Be' .... and yes, I would agree with you ... The notions of Christ as a harbinger or 'love' and 'caring' seems lost on the 'PTB' ...

But the dichotomy remains ... Your post has two angles ....

Good luck ...

[Annata4Peace]

5. What Jesus?

You'd be hard pressed to prove 'Jesus' existed.

[Incitatus]

15. Jesus existed. It's in the Bible.

:sarcasm:

[Raine]

19. Jesus the man most likely existed and his teachings

of tolerance etc are very good. Jesus as God depends on what your belief is.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. There is no corroborrating evidence of his historical existence outside the Bible.

http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm

[buddysmellgood]

69. Interesting. How do I know that you are real? I guess it doesn't matter

since it's the ideas you present that have impact.

[Warren DeMontague]

71. That's a different argument.

I mean, we can play the "I could be a head in a jar dreaming all this" game, but if we want to discuss commonly accepted, historical reality, we start from some simple ground rules. Like, I think it's safe to say that Hitler had an objective historical existence. There is a ton of corroborating, independent evidence. Further back, let's say Thomas Jefferson... or William The Conqueror. Or Julius Caesar. These people had wide ranging impacts during their lives that are widely reported from a variety of sources.

King Arthur? Maybe, not so much.

Like I said, I think "The Jesus Puzzle" makes a compelling case. A good read.

[Odin2005]

21. I'm an Atheist, I think he was just a man, not the "son of God"

[RagAss]

I think he was trying to tell us we were all sons of God...that's why they killed him.

Can't be having direct connections with God on this earth...need to go through men with funny looking hats on !

[Cetacea]

95. +1

Agreed.

[roguevalley]

22. I am a Christian and I believe he's just a man too.

[WinkyDink]

61. "Christian" by definition includes a belief in the Resurrection.

Could be Jewish up to and including Good Friday; but Christian only if you still believe on Easter Sunday.

[JackRiddler]

75. Christian does NOT include a belief in literal resurrection.

You are a Christian if you make the teachings of the Christ as given in the Gospels your philosophy and moral guide in life. You do not have to believe that Christ existed, or that there was an immaculate conception, resurrection, transubstantiation or an afterlife. You do not have to be born again.

You are a Christian if you love your neighbor as yourself and share what you have with those in need. It's not about your imagined personal relationship with the deity, it is about your daily behavior. Also, it's probably not enough to believe in the rightness of the teachings, you have to actually live by them.

You can be a Christian and an atheist. You can be a Christian without ever going to church.

Furthermore, you can believe in all the magic stuff and yet not be a Christian, because you are hoarding and hating.

In the Bible, for example, the devil believes in Christ (and even attempts to recruit him), and yet the devil is NOT a Christian.

A Christian follows the teachings of Christ, even if Christ is a fictional character.

.

(Compare to: Marxist; you might be one if you accept his case that there is a tendency for the rate of profit to fall in the long run; even if you think Karl Marx was fictional!)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

80. Jesus said lots of hateful, cruel stuff too. You are wrong

Is that not in your bible? Do you follow the hateful teachings of Jesus too?

"I come not in peace but with a sword, I have come to set the mother in law against the daughter in law" etc., cursing a fig tree for not fruiting OUT OF SEASON, condoning mass murder, condemning people to hell because they don't like his preaching, on and on.

He got angry at lots of other people besides the money changers. And there is no independent proof of his existence outside the Bible. All the Gospels were written long after he died.

I took some religion courses at a Presbyterian university that were very deep and scholarly. I learned about the pre-exile, post-exile history, destruction of the temple, First Covenant, Second Covenant, J, E,D and P writings, etc. Serious scholarship and not doctrine.


------------
Examples of hateful words of Jesus from just one of the Gospels:

MARK

Jesus explains why he speaks in parables: to confuse people so they will go to hell. 4:11-12

Jesus sends devils into 2000 pigs, causing them to jump off a cliff and be drowned in the sea. When the people hear about it, they beg Jesus to leave. 5:12-13

Any city that doesn't "receive" the followers of Jesus will be destroyed in a manner even more savage than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. 6:11

Jesus criticizes the Jews for not killing their disobedient children as required by Old Testament law. (See Ex.21:15, Lev.20:9, Dt.21:18-21) 7:9-10

If you're ashamed of Jesus, he'll be ashamed of you. (And you'll go straight to hell.) 8:38

Jesus tells us to cut off our hands and feet, and pluck out our eyes to avoid going to hell. 9:43-49

Jesus says that those that believe and are baptized will be saved, while those who don't will be damned. 16:16
----------------------------------------------

Christianity is impossible because the bible is a messy hodgepodge put together by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea to consolidate his political power and make everyone submit to his authority.

You must believe in Original Sin and Substitutionary Atonement to be a Christian.

Original sin is an evil doctrine based on a fairy tale called the story of Adam and Eve. I have too much self-esteem now to be a Christian. I used to take that abusive and depressing original sin crap seriously, from preachers who were busy making all the people out in the congregation feel bad just because they are breathing. That was my mistake. Nobody needs to be told they are inherently evil, especially when they are little kids. That is abusive and soul-crushing.

Most of us are stumbling through life doing the best we can without much guidance. We get enough flak and criticism from parents and teachers. We don't need to get depressed on Sunday morning. Substitutionary atonement is a needless solution to an imaginary problem.


If you want to know why most Americans are depressed and engage in addictive behaviors, including being hyper-religious read HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU by John Bradshaw, Ph.D.
He used to be a Jesuit priest and left and got a Ph.D. in psychology. He points out that millions of people indulge in addicative and compulsive behaviors because they are filled with shame and guilt because of religious indoctrination.


I have no idea why you are making ridiculous statements like "You can be a Christian and an atheist".

Those are contradictory. Atheists do not believe in God or gods. Technically, it could be said as "I see no evidence that there is a god."

:wtf:

[roguevalley]

84. actually, these are the memories of a man that had died years

before anything was written down and managed into a messiah by paul who hated the jews and hated James and the Jerusalem church. No one who ever wrote a word knew him and all the supernatural stuff was memories made larger than life a century after his death. To make Mary a virgin would have been blasphemy. Most of what Paul taught was blasphemy and his bitching about it are in his letters. He hated the Jerusalem church which knew Jesus and taught his message in its purest form. Read the letters. His bitching about them and the rest is comical. Now. It wasn't then.

[JackRiddler]

88. You may be mistaken. I am not a Christian.

Nor does my post imply that I must be. I don't believe in the literal existence of any faith-based entities, which should make it obvious what label should be applied to me, if you insist on one.

My post is about what the essence of Christianity would be, if the modern mostly-Pharisees who call themselves that were actually interested in being Christian, rather than in demanding allegiance to their creeds. They would follow the teachings of the Christ in their daily lives. You have your menu of contradictions to work with, but the main doctrine of the mythical Christ character as presented in the Gospels is clearly that people should love their neighbors (a doctrine that can split families, as in the passage you quote) and that they should share what they have and care for the least among them. Behavior is given precedence over doctrinal belief and church hierarchy.

While that definition can be contested, also based on the Gospels (if one gives the stubbornly literalist reading of each word that you insist upon, for example), what Constantine and Nicea made of the Christian churches and early movements was most definitively no longer Christian. They coopted a movement that was causing troubles and enshrined a new brainwash for the slaves and plebs of the Roman Empire, little more.

If I were to act on those percepts with the teachings of Christ (clearly, the hero character in a myth) as my primary moral guide, I should be a Christian even if I didn't buy all the magic stuff. I certainly wouldn't care about the denial of that status by those stuck in pre-modern views of the physical world as the seven-day creation of some man-god, or those following the modern inventions of the "born-again" doctrines. If I wanted to be a Christian, the last people I'd let stop me would be the members of the 1001 competing churches that brand themselves as such.

.

[BillyJack]

89. You're scary

seriously.

:scared:

[Cetacea]

96. Metaphors + original Aramic meanings

+ Occums Razor. Jesus was about as violent as Buddha.

[roguevalley]

83. no it doesn't. Jesus talked about gifts of the spirit and a

resurrection of the spirit. You don't have to believe in literal resurrection to be a Christian. Paul made up all the stuff I can't swallow or his ideas as metaphor have been trashed by literalists. I don't believe in the ressurection. But I am a Christian. I live the life as best I can that the master taught.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

86. I said original sin and substitutionary atonement.

Not resurrection. Although that is part of substitutionary atonement.

If you want to know how ridiculous heaven is, read LETTERS FROM THE EARTH by Mark Twain.

Pointing out that most people can't sing or play a harp.

[roguevalley]

91. actually, I find the idea of an afterlife more reasonable than

oblivion after death.

And since most church dogma can be dated well after the death of the master, then its all just manmade idealogy. what jesus taught was straightforward and good. I can believe him without hocus pocus and doing so makes me more of a Christian in many ways than those who believe all of it. Most of what passes for religious practice he would have condemned as blasphemy.

[Odin2005]

94. The doctrine of Original Sin was an invention of St. Augustine.

It is not a doctrine held by the eastern churches.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

98. So? St. Augustine invented it.

I'm talking about whatever they hold as doctrine now and preach from the pulpit.

No wonder millions of people are chronically depressed when their preacher (who probably knows a lot less about Christianity than i do and I am not a christian) tells them they are worthless pieces of shit just because they walk around and breathe, and believe the fairy tale of a couple of "fruit-munching simpletons" that never happened. They also use Adam and Eve, and Paul's woman hating to condemn women to be submissive and suffer pain in childbirth.

I will not let some grumpy old white guy tell me what to do, because my goals as a female just might be different from being a domestic doormat. I went to college for twelve years and have three degrees, including a doctorate in law. I'm sure those old grumpy bastard preachers would be upset at my educational accomplishments.

I wish more people had the courage to get up and walk out. I got up and walked out because I grew a spine and some self-respect, finally.

:bounce: :bounce:

[Warren DeMontague]

23. There is some solid research that argues "he" never existed at all.

That early Christianity was an amalgam of several different threads, and the story of a historical Jesus was only filled in retroactively between 100-200 AD.

http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm

[pnwmom]

27. That is an argument some make, but it's not held by

mainstream researchers.

[Warren DeMontague]

46. Really? Which 'mainstream researchers'? Got a link? More to the point, which mainstream researchers

are actually doing research into this-- research involving corroborating historical evidence of the existence of Jesus, outside the Bible?

Seriously. I'd like to know who they are, and read their work. I'd like to read their thought out, persuasive arguments that this guy existed, based upon actual historical evidence from the time that, again, isn't the Bible.

Because as far as I know, there is none. Zip. Zilch. No Jewish Records, no Roman Records. Nada.

I've posted a link, the information it contains is fascinating- I sure wasn't aware of it- the book is even better.

So, please. I'd like to know which mainstream researchers disagree and what their arguments are. :shrug:

[roguevalley]

85. Read Eisenmann

[white_wolf]

32. Most scholars accept that a man Jesus of Nazerth did exist.

Whether he was the Son of God is open to debate.

[Odin2005]

45. I agree.

I think there was a wandering Jewish holy man most likely with the name Yeshua wandering around Palestine at the time who was executed because he pissed of the official priesthood. The whole mythology of the virgin birth and the resurrection were added later when his teachings got mixed up with other religious currents in the region, especially because that time was the peak in the belief in an immanent Jewish messiah. During the first 200 years CE there was a HUGE burst in the development of religious beliefs all over the middle east.

[Warren DeMontague]

48. Based on what?

I mean, I know it's accepted by many people, on faith if you will, that this guy existed~ but there is no corroborating evidence in Roman records OR in Jewish records. Isn't that a little odd?

[Poboy]

54. I want to see Jesus' long form Birth Cert.!

[Warren DeMontague]

65. If people want to talk about him having an objective, historical existence

I think it's legitimate to ask, where is the evidence? There isn't any.

And, if you read the Jesus Puzzle material, they make a very good case for the contrary position.

[Dogtown]

90. HA!

Point well made.

:applause:

[rustydog]

72. There are millions of people who existed and no record is available

to prove they walked the earth. This doesn't intend to justify Jesus' existence, but a lack of records does not prove he did not exist either.

[Warren DeMontague]

73. No, but there are biblical events that could have been independently corroborated

The romans kept records, and so did the Jewish authorities. According to the Bible, "Jesus" created quite a stir.

[white_wolf]

50. Here is a quote from the Roman historian Tacitus.

"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite punishments on a class hated for their disgraceful acts, called Chrestians by the populace. Christ, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty (i.e., Crucifixion) during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular." Here is the Wikipedia link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ

[provis99]

55. The Tacitus excerpt is a well-known forgery.

Perhaps the most well-known forgery in Christendom.

[Warren DeMontague]

66. Naaaah, nobody would forge or fake anything.

Would they?

[white_wolf]

67. Damn you, Wikipedia.

Thanks for the correction. Though, I think the Shroud of Turin is a bigger forgery.

[Warren DeMontague]

70. FWIW, until I read "The Jesus Puzzle", my opinion was the same as many here;

i.e. actual, historical guy, preacher/rabbi, transformative leader... just not "God"...

But the argument that the historical life was a retroactively written fiction is a fairly compelling one.

[Warren DeMontague]

49. Which scholars are those?

Seriously. I'd like to read their arguments, and find out what historical evidence they base that 'acceptance' on.

[snooper2]

92. Jesus was a carpenter who told some funny stories...

Some people ended up taking it to far :)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. An attitude he might have picked up in the Middle East perhaps. It's awful funny

that the most renowned, famous, revered, respected, man in history has 95% of his life on earth missing from the history books.

[BOG PERSON]

8. people forget

in the book of matthew, jesus said he came not to bring peace, but to bring swords, to slice up our enemies with.

[Pharaoh]

9. Well he did lay waste to a fig tree once

but it had it coming :party:

[jmowreader]

12. He also told his mother to go fuck herself

Yea, my brothers and sisters, turn thee now to the Book of John, Chapter 2, Verses 1:11...

And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.

And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.

And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.

I don't know about y'all, but my mother would have slapped the dogshit out of me for lipping off to her like that.

[KoKo]

10. We "Christians" are a a disadvantage until we can Vanquish the RW who Interprets the Teachings

for their Own Political Agenda.

I still await the DAY of a NEW Christian/Muslim/Buddist Transmorph...where we can get some consensus about "whats Moral in Societies...and a CODE of ETHICS..that can be agreed on "across our religions" that will end these WARS and WALL STREET transgressions and over-reach and MONEY for the WEALTHY and not for the POOR.

I'm waiting.....

[dkf]

11. Well you can always eschew borrowing if that floats your boat.

Beats me how anyone buys a house or car though.

[AlabamaLibrul]

38. Obviously those of us who can't get credit continue to get hand-me-downs

the car driven for the past 20 years, the house lived in by dozens before.

And it's not an option, either.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. eschew?

gezundheit.

[Brickbat]

13. When I was in CCD, I remember when the nun told us that Mary was the only person who had never

sinned. So of course, being 8, we're all, "Nuh-uh, what about Jesus?" and the nun told us that Jesus committed the sin of anger against the moneychangers. And I remember being confused that righteous anger was a sin.

[jody]

14. And Jesus was betrayed by Judas, keeper of the purse. Even God incarnate couldn't trust them.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. ......Who is 'them'?

Purse-keepers? :shrug:

[Capitalocracy]

36. *eyes wife suspiciously*

hmm...

[ZombieHorde]

16. Technically, according to the story, Jesus was violent against the moneychanger's stuff,

and not the actual people.

I would rather someone attack my car than me.

[L0oniX]

17. That's correct. He drove out the animals but did not harm the people.

[Initech]

18. God is all knowing, all powerful, yet he just cant handle money!!! - George Carlin

[sarge43]

20. He didn't much care for hypocrites and liers

He probably wouldn't vote Republican.

[BOG PERSON]

28. jesus wouldn't vote

he would be all like "representative democracy? what is this bullshit?! i'm the king of kings!"

[Capitalocracy]

35. that, and if a Republican happens to be in charge at his polling place...

they'll see the name Jesus and check his ID reeeeally carefully

[sarge43]

58. Well, he was homeless, so automatic fail. n/t

[pnwmom]

26. Absolutely. n/t

[trotsky]

29. Well I suppose if you don't count threatening people with eternal torment as being violent,

yeah, that would be right.

[Capitalocracy]

30. Did Jesus talk about hell?

Not challenging you so much as asking out of ignorance...

[white_wolf]

33. He did a few times, but Jews don't believe in hell.

Which leads me to wonder if the idea of Hell wasn't added later as a threat to keep the people in line. You have to understand that prior the Council of Nicaea in the 300s there was no one cannon of scripture. The Catholic church choose what books would be in the Bible, Christan Doctrine was developed a lot during those early councils. The Catholic Church often cites the Early Church Fathers, who wrote before Christianity was legalized, as support for their claim that the Catholic Church is the on true church, and I'll admit it has a lot more in common with cathodic teaching than protestant, but even during the Early Church days there was no consensus on beliefs or scripture.

[Capitalocracy]

34. My understanding is that it was...

I'm not 100% sure about this and I'm no scholar on the subject, but my understanding is that the concept of hell was basically just the absence of the divine presence of god, which was seen as bad and therefore sort of a form of suffering by itself. Then they started integrating actual punishment... some bishop had a dream where angels (NOT "demons", but angels) dressed in red with horns prodded people with tridents in a lake of fire... doing god's work and punishing them. That's the origin of the modern vision of hell, but at some point those angels got replaced by demons and the devil. Remember, in Dante's Inferno, the devil is in chains in hell, suffering more than anyone else. But more modern theology has let him loose, making him just as powerful as god and lending the kind of us versus them, torture and kill out of love mindset to religion that led to the Inquisition, witch trials, and a lot of the modern problems we have today with religion.

Jesus was pretty much a hippie, preaching the creation of a non-violent alternative to the corrupt local government and the occupying empire.

[eridani]

51. There are three good arguments that Jesus was a woman

She fed a huge crowd on short notice when there was very little food.
She kept trying to explain things to a bunch of men who just didn't get it.
Even after She died, She had to get up after three days because there was still more work to do.

[truedelphi]

52. Thanks for the laugh.

There is a another tale about how if the Wise Men had been Wise Women, that boasts a similar conclusion.

[eridani]

56. Yes--that one's pretty good. They would have stopped and asked for directions

--gotten there on time, helped to deliver the baby, cleaned up and put down fresh straw, brought practical gifts and made a casserole.

[trotsky]

60. Yeah, quite a bit actually.

Fire that won't be quenched, etc. But just as conservatives try to avoid the passages about compassion and love, so too do liberals have their own parts they like to ignore.

[bvar22]

31. Money Changers in The Temple...

the Old World version of Wall Street Banks.



Who will STAND and FIGHT for THIS American Majority?

[flvegan]

37. Wasn't Jesus an Essene?

:popcorn:

[COLGATE4]

39. Most scholars seem to agree that he was not an Essene n/t

[flvegan]

41. Thank Christ those scholars were there. n/t

[WinkyDink]

63. So, do you scorn all historical research, because the scholars mostly "weren't there"?

[Odin2005]

42. I think John the Baptist was the Essene.

Baptism was an Essene thing at the time.

[Warren DeMontague]

43. Dr. Bronner claimed to be an Essene.

Not sure what that has to do with anything, but dude made some good soap.

[truedelphi]

53. Soap - With One - Universal

Outer as in Inner.

Those were some really cool soap labels as well. (back when "cool" meant "fly".)

[flvegan]

47. So Jesus of Nazareth couldn't have been an Essene?

[Mnemosyne]

64. He was Gnostic. n/t

[JDPriestly]

40. The moneychangers were what we call bankers and brokers -- the

folks on Wall Street -- of their time.

[Enthusiast]

57. It isn't lost on the PTB.

They just don't it spread around. Since they control the media it won't be spread around. TV evangelists certainly aren't going to mention it.

[eShirl]

59. additionally, Jesus commanded that people should pay their taxes

that's what the "render unto Caesar" part was about

[JackRiddler]

76. Actually, it sounds more like he said they shouldn't use Roman money at all.

That also would be consistent with the expulsion of the money-changers.

Which would be something very different from not paying Roman taxes, and even more challenging to the Roman state.

Whereas your interpretation doesn't challenge the Roman state, so... why'd they crucify him?

[WinkyDink]

62. You know, the "true history" isn't the real point of the OP.

[JackRiddler]

77. Funny how rarely people get that.

[Odin2005]

81. You got it, thanks!

:hi:

[Johonny]

97. Yeah but there are a lot of fictional books of Jesus in the Bible

In Mark Jesus certainly gets mad and angry at times, in Luke he rarely shows any emotion. Each bible writer had different theological points to make. Thus as many people are pointing out blank statements of Jesus needs to be put in context of what you are talking about. In the Bible Jesus is depicted several different ways.

[Uncle Joe]

68. One thing is for sure, had there been separation of church and state, there would've been no grounds

to crucify Jesus.

Thanks for the thread, Odin.

[On the Road]

74. If Jesus Had Lived,

I do wonder if he would have led a violent revolution, or at least supported one.

Certainly imagery like the Son of Man coming on the clouds suggests military-style vengeance. Jesus had a lot more angry and vengeful sayings than beatitudes.

A lot of Jesus' methods were common to revolutionaries of the day. Keeping the message peaceful, diverting anger from the Roman political authorities to the Jewish religious authorities, working in the countryside to gather popular support, talking of a future kingdom in generalities.

Jesus said that it impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jesusalem. But the Old Testament prophets were rarely killed, and almost never killed in Jerusalem. He may have referring been to revolutionaries like Judas of Galilee, who was from Jesus' area and whose revolution was about the time of Jesus' birth.

Possibly what Jesus was doing in Jerusalem was trying to get himself arrested, believing either that there would be an uprising or that God would intervene. His cry of "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," taken at face value, suggests he was expecting a different result.

I know that's a stretch for most believers and nonbelievers alike. Just trying to understand Jesus in his historical context.

[Odin2005]

82. I always thought the opposite, that Jesus was critical of the Zealot militants.

His whole message, it seems to me, was "My kingdom is not of this world". Translated into modern sensibilities, I think he was saying that violent rebellion against Rome was futile and that the "kingdom of God" is something that exists inside one's heart, not as a political entity, a conception he got, I would guess, from the Essenes via John the Baptist.

The apocalyptic stuff was tacked on by some of his disciples, ones that still had Zealot sympathies, thus leading to the split between the Gnostic and non-Gnostic Christian sects.

[On the Road]

99. That is Certainly the Way the Gospels Read

and I think most people who study them feel like you do. The question is how well the gospels reflect Jesus' life and words.

Why might Jesus be misquoted in the Gospels? Because the movement was split and most of what came down to us was written by the sect which survived the Romans rather than the one closest to Jesus.

It's commonplace for scholars to say that Paul started a new religion based on his own inspiration rather than Jesus. It's odd that few of them really follow that thought through.

Paul's epistles are constantly arguing against opponents of the movement. What's not immediately clear, however, is how much of this is directed against Jesus' brother. Salvation by faith alone, circumcision, festivals, table fellowship with Gentiles, long hair, vegetarianism -- once you begin to look for them, they appear all over the place.

Paul uses Old Testament scripture in, shall we say, extremely creative ways, many of which reverse the meaning of the original text -- for example, Moses' face being veiled to hide the fading glory of the law. Theological arguments after Paul often applied tendentious logic to unrelated scripture. Religious documents fabricated quotes, actions, and large amounts of biographical data. There are no reasons other than tradition and faith in the text to think that these didn't apply to the Gospels. And proposing revolt meant instant death, so any social criticism had to be internally directed against other Jews.

I personally think it is more instructive to look at the writings of most closely related to Jesus, namely the letter of James and Jude, and possibly Revelation. James has the same gentle, picturesque, didactic quality of a lot of Jesus' stories, but also has savage criticisms of the rich ('weep and howl...for the miseries that are coming upon you') and presumably Paul ('you foolish man...'). Jude is even more severe, with a radiant but stern moralism ('they are clouds without water...twice dead...'). These books are compatible with, but do not advocate, revolt. The Book of Revelation, however, has a full-blown militarism that probably resulted from the destruction of Jerusalem. (Otherwise why is there a need for a new Jerusalem?)

I really don't know Jesus' attitude toward violence. John the Baptist (Jesus' original mentor) and James were both avowedly pacifists, yet their rhetoric and methods fit perfectly with the many Jewish revolutionaries of the time, and John was executed like Jesus and James for political sedition. The 'Essenes', for that matter, were supposedly pacifist, but 'John the Essene' fought in the revolt. The occupation may have appeared so powerful that it was really a moot issue, and that passive resistance was the only viable avenue without a miracle of some kind. Jesus may have been anticipating a miracle that would deliver Judea and Galilee from the Romans -- the question is whether he expected to play a military role in that.

That's a long answer and I don't know if it makes sense. It's not at all the standard way of looking at it. There are no ways to prove any particular point other best fit, and that depends a lot of what set of facts you start off with.

BTW, since you mentioned gnosticism, I found a really good http://firstnewtestament.netfirms.com/first_nt_early_cx_christ.htm">site written by Jewish/Christian gnostics. Don't agree with their point of view, but it really opened up an area that I never understood very well.

[n2doc]

78. What, this isn't Jesus?

Looks pretty ready to toss that bird aside and start mowing them down!

[snooper2]

93. No, he lives in DC - looking for a date (Irish need not apply)

http://www.datejesus.com/date/

:rofl:

Relationship Short-term, Long-term
Body Type Athletic
Height 6' 3"
Age 29
Weight 195 lbs.
Hair Color Blonde
Ethnicity European-American
Employment Full-Time
Education College Degree
Marital Status Single
Has Children? No
Wants Children? Yes
Smokes? No
Drinks? Socially


Description Golden-haired, blue-eyed Jesus seeks loving young woman (22-30), preferably of recent Norse-Germanic heritage, who wishes to live in the spirit of the eternal. Innocence, or rebirth into innocence, and a desire to transcend the material mendacity of this world are essential! I offer a pure and spiritual existence of life's essence, free of fear, free of despair. I will reveal the bliss, power, and endless rewards of faith and belief.

plenty more :)

[yellowcanine]

79. Not actual violence. He upset some tables and used a whip to chase some animals.

And told the dove sellers to "get out of here."

Where is the violence? More like something Greenpeace would do to stop whale killing, imo.



"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the Temple, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said: 'Get out of here.' (John 2:13-16)


Note that it doesn't even say he hit the animals, just "drove them." You don't have to actually hit animals to drive them with a whip. Waving it and snapping it will do just fine.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

87. I am shocked at the blanket statements some Christian DUers make.

Like "Jesus was a nice guy, kind and sweet". I wonder what Bible they are reading. Not the same ones I have: New English Bible, Revised English Bible and King James.

The above OP said something false, Jesus was insulting and hateful to a lot of people, including his mother, and a fig tree.

They ignore ALL THE EVIL MASS MURDERING SANCTIONING STUFF that Jesus allegedly said.

Large chunks of both the OT and NT that are full of a mass murdering god, a Jesus that condones the murder of innocents, like killing your disobedient child, etc. on and on.

Christians have to ignore many chapters of bad stuff Jesus allegedly said. But the book is a mess, edited, made up, borrowed from older religions that also had gods born of a virgin on Dec. 25th, with supernovas in the sky when they were born, and they performed miracles. WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

These gods are named Apollo, Osiris and Mithra, among many others.