Elijah

It’s symbolic of the male authority/lord submitting to those beneath him and that is the message he is trying to spread there. It’s not necessarily meant to lead to socialism more like anarchy. Trying to rid the world of its rulers by turning them into servants of the people instead of their masters. There is no way to free women as long as the male authority is in charge.
I don’t know why socialism came into this. Creating social change doesn’t necessarily mean you are a socialist. The it’s not a service unless it benefits someone is incorrect you can try to help the people or a person and fail and cause more harm than intended or get nothing done you intended. Doctors for example.
That’s disappointing. So you don’t think he opposed it, you just don’t want him known as a supporter of the rights of people? Why? Don’t you think it would benefit society for Jesus to be placed on the side of supporting the people instead of allowing him to be used by the rulers to oppress the people? Or is the antitheist deconversion plan more important than that and the best way to get people off Christ is to portray him as unsupportive and apathetic to the struggle of those in need? I just don’t see any reason or benefit to trying to paint/interpret Jesus that way.
I don’t know enough about the situation to know who’s food it was. And seems kind of silly to debate on it. I don’t believe in a magical Jesus because I have never seen any evidence of magic. I don’t believe in a mythical Jesus because I have never seen any evidence of a mythical origin nor do I want to attempt to rewrite the early church history from a mythical perspective.
All the healing could have been legendary. It doesn’t do anything to Jesus being a part of social change (not a socialist). If you want to make him out to be supporting whatever political ideal you imagine you should try to present it and the support it because I don’t even know what you are arguing for. Arguing against something is easy just be difficult to convince but can you present and support an alternative.?
Sure, it’s not meant to prove it one way or the other it’s just meant to be part of the evidence. They could have been following a sexist because another part of his message appealed to the women. It’s up to you to choose, what you consider the most likely scenario, unless you want to do the sitting on the fence deal that seems so common around here.

Nietzsche would be a better example than Hitler because his situation is greatly different than that of Jesus’. How many female followers did Nietzsche have with him?
I don’t know if he personally had followers or there were women who were a part of the political party he had authority in and women who were fans of the ideas in his book.
I think that there would be a large demographic of women who think that she is and probably and equal percentage who don’t just because of the party she works with. My feminist S/O behind me said she is and doesn’t even like her. “She runs a state and her husband fishes… feminist”
This doesn’t need to digress into another myth debate or it’s all been tampered with. We are going to have to work with the evidence we have, sorry. The sexist/fascist is found there or do you see a third kind so I don’t do a false dichotomy? (Which is the same option Toto has) Or is it fence sitting time?
I think you’re talking about the history of Rome/Babylon which was that way long before they took on Christianity. You can’t look at the empire controlling the world and blame the cross they use to motivate the people. The rulers will use whatever the people believe in or fear to get what they want. Same thing with the religious authority that use his name and the faith people have in him to prosper and control. It is the religious authority that is to blame, not the guy who died 2000 years ago, or his message.

I think Christianity would be the one best served with some enlightenment and that would be beneficial to the struggle. As long as Jesus is understood irrationally then he is of no use to the people. If Jesus was seen as the reformer then hopefully the people who believe in him would help with that reform instead of waiting for a magic man to come from the sky.
I think you have difficulty separating Christianity from the empire that took it on as it’s faith. It doesn’t seem like I’m trying to squeeze a reformer out of Jesus to me. It seems more like that isn’t what you want to believe about him because you want to keep a low opinion of him. Because you haven’t presented any alternative much less supported it.
Just a feminist perspective on the gospel and yes super interpretive. She doesn’t walk him up there. Like all good men you do what the women tell you without being asked.

Ideological rebellion with a leader that can’t be killed. It isn’t meant to be a regular messiah rebellion. The pope has reason to not support his position but you have no reason to go along with him.
That’s a pretty sweeping statement about why the women were converting to Christianity. How do you support that?
The quote Toto provided from Thomas could be taken as a feminist ideal. And what’s your verdict on the queen of the south? What’s he trying to say there?

fatpie42

So if he thinks that spitting in people's eyes will cure their blindness (actual Biblical miracle) then he's doing them a service by doing so?

I don't want to think of him as a supporter of socialism or feminism because there's no evidence to support it. It would be nice to think that Socrates supported women's rights too, but just because something is a nice idea doesn't make it true.

I don't think it makes any difference which side Jesus is placed on. I live in a secular society where Jesus' views make no difference to my government's policies. If your government makes its policies on the basis of "what Jesus would do" then I can only say that I feel very very sorry for you. Nevertheless, I don't see why I should accept some perfect fantasy 'social reformer' image of Jesus just so your government respects women and the impoverished. Especially not on a "Biblical Criticism and History" forum.

I am not trying to paint/interpret Jesus any particular way. I am simply pointing out that you need to provide evidence for your assertions. So long as there is no evidence of socialism or feminism from the Jesus in the New Testament, I have no reason to accept the assertion that he supported socialism or feminism. It's really that simple.

I think you've got things a bit mixed up here. The presence of all that magic which you don't believe in within the Bible is just one of the reasons why we describe it as a 'mythical account'. The New Testament is often using symbolism rather than reporting events. That means that it is not really a reliable account of history. Another account like that might be, say, the Iliad. The character of Achilles might well be a historical person, but that is not what is described within the tale. The character within the Iliad is mythical. I don't have to rewrite history in order to describe Achilles as mythical and I don't have to rewrite history to describe Jesus as mythical for similar reasons. What is missing, however, is the evidence that either of them were historical or what kind of people those historical figures would be.

It seems to me that "rewriting history from a mythical perspective" is precisely what you are doing. Your so-called 'historical' Jesus is a myth. He represents ideals which appeal to you, but yet you have no historical grounding for your claims about him. You have no evidence for your historical Jesus, but simply an ideal. As such, ironically, your historical Jesus is itself a mythical Jesus.

Nietzsche didn't really have any followers (male or female) while he was alive and he actually discourages people from being his 'follower'. However, my point was that a lot of women were inspired by his writings even though they contain misogyny, because they contained a message which was liberating to women. Nevertheless, that liberating message did not make Nietzsche any less misogynistic.

Of course, if Jesus was only a myth, he technically didn't have any female followers while he was alive either...

Yes, because denying women's reproductive rights is just so liberating. (Ok, I'm leaving aside the Sarah Palin thing now because it's clearly not going to be a productive discussion.)

I don't actually know what any of that paragraph meant. The grammar seems a little weird.

Um... no. Helena was definitely doing all this when Rome took on Christianity as the state religion.

In the case of Christianity during and after Constantine's rule, there was active persecution of pagans in order to encourage them to convert. (Minor correction. Don't mean to be pedantic.)

What message? The one in the New Testament or the one you've decided he 'probably' had? The Jesus in the New Testament isn't a feminist or socialist. Feel free to prove me wrong. I would be happy to be proven wrong, but a dogmatic assertion will not do the trick. Jesus 'serving' people (especially through non-existent 'symbolic' miracles or by feeding people with someone else's food) is not enough.

I have to provide an alternative? Someone is a feminist and socialist until it is proven that they aren't?

Heck, okay Beowulf was a socialist and feminist. Prove me wrong.

Are you seriously suggesting that Mary told Jesus to get arrested and crucified?

Oh, what's the pope's reason then? I have lots of reasons to dislike the pope, but disregarding Jesus' message is not one that springs to mind.

Okay, I think I may have accidentally suggested that they converted because of the monastic system and no, I cannot back that up. Nevertheless, I stick by the fact that the benefits of becoming a nun is one of the few positive benefits for women I can think of as coming out of Christianity. Within Christianity 'virgins' were considered especially important and, if they became nuns, they would not be socially obligated to get married.

I got this information from Hanne Blank's "Virgin: An Untouched History (or via: amazon.co.uk)". I can thoroughly recommend it.

"I myself shall lead her, so that I shall make her male, so that she may become a living spirit such as you males. For every woman who will make herself a male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Are you kidding me? Women can gain equal status by "becoming men"? You think that is feminist? :huh:

Well, as you know I hadn't heard of it before. Wikipedia (heck, if you don't know anything, it's not a bad place to start) has the following interpretation:

The gentile population would most certainly be seen as inferior, so it's not the best thing for women's lib really. I think I need to look more into the Queen of Sheba though ("Queen of the south" was another name for her).

Toto

:banghead:

Jesus was not a social reformer in the modern sense. The Jesus of the gospels seems to have thought that the existing corrupt society would be exterminated in a coming conflagration, to be replaced with the Kingdom of God.

Much later Christians, trying to make sense of Christianity and why their Christian societies were so messed up in spite of their beliefs, decided that they needed to engage in social reform to be worthy of the Kingdom of God. But the idea of social engineering, of gradual improvements, of any improvement before the End of the World, is a modern idea that does make any sense in the first century.

And "sexist" or "friendly with the ladies" are not mutually exclusive, and not the only choices.

If you ever run into a militant feminist, I would advise you to avoid describing feminism as women becoming men. Just a little friendly advice.

No. Fish generally do not comment on the water around them.

Jesus lived in a hierarchical society. That's just the way it was. He is never depicted as talking about equality - only that the mightiest might be brought down and the lowliest raised up in a reversal of roles.

No one attributes sexist thinking to Peter. (In fact, we don't know much about what Peter thought at all.) I think you mean Paul? People attribute sexist thinking to Paul because of the clear words in epistles that are attributed to him, perhaps falsely.

It would really help if you did some background reading instead of just going off on things that you don't seem to know anything about.

Toto

Women would have been attracted to Christianity for the same reason that they are attracted to any religious group. In ancient Rome, Rodney Stark hypothesizes that the social aspects of Christianity, and its generally pro-natalist polices, were attractive to women.

But the social policies of Christianity were not that different from other religions of the era. Religion was a social outlet for women. Christianity might have had some small advantage over other possible religious choices, but not because it advocated equality either in the church or in society at large.

spamandham

We don't know that's the case. The story may have preceded the religion, the two may have evolved at the same time, or the cult may have begun as some vague ideas that were later hashed out and written down. There are historical examples to draw on for all of these scenarios.

No. Why would it? Unless we think there's something magical about Christianity, it's valid to assume it started the way most other cults do...which is with a charismatic leader who is reasonably well off convincing his friends and family of his new ideas first.

Dirt farmers don't have the time, energy, or education needed to create a new religion.

It's not impossible, it's just highly out of the ordinary. A more normal social model needs to fail before it becomes reasonable to consider that which is unlikely.

spamandham

Good, then you know how cults start. What is your basis for rejecting the norm in this case?

There's no need to explain the lack of such documents. If they once existed and are now lost, that's perfectly understandable. If they never existed at all, that's also perfectly understandable.

In neither case does the lack of such documents undermine the idea that Christianity had normal cult beginnings.

Solo

Yes, it's possible. But if Jesus was invented say in Jerusalem, what function would the rustic idiom have within the context of the belief of the inventors ?

I don't follow your reasoning here. You are supposing that Jesus was invented, so it would follow that placing him historically hither or thither would have been a choice of the author(s). The 'urban sertting' where the writing took place could have been temporally and geographically and linguistically removed from Jesus' presumed haunts so there would be no issue with the readers going to look for 'evidence'. Or, are you saying there were no poor, needy, people in the cities who could have been targetted for charity ? Surely, the writers would have felt more at home describing and creating urban sounding legends and parables.

Jiri

Solo

You will just have to tell us how cults start and under what norms. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Get real, s&h ! You just concluded on the basis of the urban origin of the texts that Jesus was not a wandering preacher and a son of a carpenter.

What I am saying to you is that you have no basis on which to make such a jump. The historical Jesus could have been ported into an urban setting and made use of for all sorts of purposes by the literati especially if he was killed by an occupying power and/or its collaborators. And this quite apart from considerations whether he was a self-conscious revolutionary, a peasant sage or a misguided soul fighting his own private devils in public places.

Jiri

fatpie42

No more so than Dionysos.

No, that would only be the case if the author was the originator of the story. In the case of the gospels the authors are only compiling existing stories, forming them into a narrative and adding parts they think must be missing (i.e. any prophecies they believe to have been fulfilled need to be included on top of the stories they are compiling). When they come across an amazing story, but yet no one seems to have the specific details they are looking for, it makes sense to suggest it must have taken place somewhere rural where the news wouldn't spread so easily.

No, I'm saying that within a city one might expect it to be more well-known if a preacher had been going around performing amazing miracles. So if the story seems to be more a matter of gossip and they are lacking details of where it took place, they might easily supposed that it happened somewhere rural.


Except that they believed the pericopes upon which they were writing their narratives were about a real person.

fatpie42

Put it this way: Was Krishna just 'invented'? If not, was he most likely based on a real person? Do you think stories about Krishna protecting a town from flood by sheltering them under a mountain balanced on his little finger tell us anything about any supposed historical figure upon which Krishna might be based?

Now consider some other figures: Dionysos, Herakles, Achilles, Eostre, Odin, Rama.

How do these figures come to develop cults surrounding them? Why should we treat the stories which arise about Jesus any differently?

No they didn't. They said that the claim that Jesus was a wandering preacher who spent most of their time amongst the poor doesn't make sense when all the records of his life appear to have circulated in urban areas.

I myself questioned this since it seems to me that the writers of the gospels were basing their accounts on the stories circulating elsewhere and so the original stories, it seemed to me, might well originate from the poor. None of this argument, however, has anything to do with an actual historical figure, and we have no evidence that there ever was such a person.