From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Fri Sep 09 2005 - 17:36:32 BST
[gav said]
> i prefer the gospel of thomas since it simply records
> jesus' own words, and thomas was his best and closest
> disciple. oh and the emerging church cut it out of the
> bible in the 2nd century ad. i wonder why?.......
[Sam corrects]
That's highly debatable, and a bit of a modern conceit. If you're interested
in
exploring it, have a look at this (if you're in a hurry scroll down to 'the
new
myth of christian origins' as I think that is what you are articulating):
http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k5/features/davincicode.asp
[Case replies]
Interesting article Sam! The Da Vinci Code is very entertaining and valuable
to the extent that it gets people interested the subject. It is fiction
based on wild speculation but that's what makes it fun. As for the "myths"
this isn't really MoQ but here is my perspective:
MYTH #1: There were dozens if not hundreds of other documents about Jesus.
It is true that most of these documents date from the second, even third
centuries and are almost unreadablly bizarre. In the gospel of Mary for
example young Jesus gets in trouble for making birds out of clay by the
river and turning them into real birds on the Sabbath. In one of them he
gets in trouble for blasting to death some playmates for ridiculing him then
resurrects them so he can get out of detention. However, at least a core of
the Gospel of Thomas seems to derive from an earlier time than the other
extracanonical "gospels'. Thomas is a "sayings" Gospel ala Q and before its
discovery one argument against Q was that was we had no example of a gospel
made only of sayings. But piled in layers on top of its core, Thomas is full
of mystical rambling that are clearly of later origin. The point is that
none of the gospels are first hand accounts. The Myth is that they are
eyewitness accounts. The church would be much better off to admit this than
to continue pretending.
MYTH #2: The four Gospels in the New Testament were later products aimed at
divinizing Jesus and claiming power and prestige for the church. They were
selected, for these reasons, at the time of Constantine in the fourth
century, and the multiple alternative voices were ruthlessly suppressed.
You can almost peg a biblical scholar's point of view by how they date the
Gospels. Very few serious scholars would date any of the gospels before 70
AD. The reason for this is that THE most important event in Christian
history was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. From that tragedy both
Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism were born. The earliest books of the New
Testament are the authentic letters of Paul and date from the 50s. The
earliest Gospel is Mark. There actually is no resurrection in Mark. It ends
with the empty tomb. The bit about snake handling is an obvious addition and
does not appear in some manuscripts. Mark's Jesus is very human. Luke and
Matthew are obviously dependant on Mark. Pick up any harmony of the gospels
with parallel gospel versions laid side by side and the dependence is
obvious. John appears to be later and while it is not without merit, it is
from John that most of the more obnoxious aspects of modern Christianity
derive. The 'I am' statements clearly do not originate from Jesus. In the
synoptics nearly every time Jesus does a miracle he asks people to keep
quiet about it. In John he can hardly cross the street without angels
singing.
While canonical lists, close to what we have today, circulate in the second
century; it was not until the council of Nicaea that this was "settled". It
is also clear that the settlement was of necessity to the liking of the
Emperor Constantine and that what we have today is the Emperor's Christ.
Look up Constantine in Eusebius's The History of the Church. You have to
turn to Josephus for find a comparable example of ass kissing disguised as
history.
"Myth #3: Therefore, Jesus himself wasn't at all like the four canonical
Gospels describe him. He didn't think he was God's son, or that we would die
for the sins of the world; he didn't come to found a new religion. He was a
human being pure and simple, who gave some wonderful moral and spiritual
teaching, that's all. Oh, and he may well have been married, perhaps even
with a child on the way, when his career was cut short by death."
This is indeed a picture one can derive from the Synoptic gospels where;
when asked (I paraphrase a bit here), "Good Master, what must I do to enter
the Kingdom of God?" Jesus replies "Why callest thou me good? There is none
good but the Father." Throughout the synoptics Jesus clearly refers to God
as his father (Abba) although Daddy is probably a better translation. This
suggests that Jesus did see himself in close personal relationship to God.
But he also says that his followers are Children of God. Even Paul with all
his Gnostic and mystery language saw Jesus as the first fruit of the
resurrection not necessary as different from other believers. As for his
personal life, almost anything said on the subject is speculation. It is
clear however that Christmas stories aside Jesus was raised and was regarded
by his neighbors as a bastard child.
"MYTH #4: Therefore: Christianity as we know it is based on a mistake.
Mainstream Christianity is sexist, especially anti-women and anti-sex
itself. It has aimed at, and in some places achieved, considerable social
power and prestige, enabling it to be politically quietist and conformist."
Some evidence for this position comes from Paul's writings. Paul, rather
like Stella in "Street Car Name Desire", occasionally depended on "the
kindness of strangers" some of them were women. Jesus had woman disciples.
Later writers needed to correct some of these "mistakes" and hence we have
the "pastoral epistles" Timothy, and the like, where you find most of the
talk about women subjecting themselves to their husbands and sitting in the
back of the church.
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