Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following Scriptures:

Acts 5:1-11

"But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things."

Regarding "And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things," fear of what, not giving enough money to the church? Did God kill Ananias and Sapphira? If so, why? If for lying, that would have been quite odd since Paul criticized the Corinthians for doing things that even the Gentiles did not do, but he still called them brothers. It is much too much of a conincidence that out of all of the possible examples of telling lies, the writer of the book of Acts chose an example where the church had a monetary vested interest.

The Bible is good at scaring some people. Consider the following Scriptures:

Mark 14:21 says "The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born."

Revelation 9:1-6 say "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Revelation 14:9-11 say "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

Sheshbazzar

The henchmen of "The Gawd Father" set up shop and got themselves into the "protection" business, to "protect" the "membership" from having some real "bad" things happen to them.
But "membership" wasn't free, not by a long shot, as it required the turning over of everything that was owned, to The Gawd Father's "business associates".

When Pete and his gang of young thugs detected that Ananias and Sapphira had tried to hold out against their demands, they decided to make an example out of them, so that all the others would hear about it and would learn to "fear", and to pay up whatever amount of "protection money" they demanded, and learn not to fuck with The Gawd Father's boys.
How amazing is it that both Ananias and his wife should have something really "bad" happen to them right while they were attending a "business meeting" with Pete and the boys?
The moral of the story is obvious; Capice? everyone capice? We "collect", you PAY, Capice?

FireBrandon

I have never noticed that before. Hmm...Interesting. Tithing today is still a massive subject of preaching. It seems to be a favorite subject among preachers. Oh, if all the money spent on church buildings and theologians had been given to create business and educational opportunities for the poor, uneducated, and starving masses of the earth!!!!! Then would be heaven on earth, peace and goodwill towards men.

FireBrandon

Sheshbazzar

That wasn't "tithing" or "free will offerings", that was outright extortion plain and simple.

aa5874

But what bothers me about this story is that it was complete fiction, it is unheard of that some unknown being can kill people if they lie about the purchase or selling of property.

So how was this story canonised, who canonised Acts? Who really buried the couple? Acts is just packed with lies. No converts could have witnessed the death of the couple as stated in Acts.

Did any real converts ever read Acts before it was canonised? I don't think so.

Sheshbazzar

Just another story calculated by the religious authorities, to put "The Fear of Gawd" into the flock, and of course terrorise them into giving more.
And you can bet your bottom dollar, that if it was based upon any real event in the early church, that it wasn't an invisible incorporeal Being that did the killing.
Religion has always had its Divine "agents", of flesh and blood to carry out the dirty deeds.

lpetrich

I remember someone once commenting that that story is rather Stalinist -- Ananias and Sapphira were pesky kulaks who refused to give up all of their property.

jaymack2

I was raised Catholic, but I don't ever remember this story being read in church. No wonder -- it's like the story about Jesus killing the fig tree because it didn't have any fruit for him to snack on (even though it wasn't the season for figs). You don't hear preachers talking about these, um, problematic stories in the Bible. I looked up Ananias and Sapphira in my New Testament, and there's a footnote that says, basically, "The point of the story is not that they were killed for not turning all their money over to the community; it is that they were punished for lying to God (by not revealing that they had kept some of the money for themselves)." An obvious bit of soft-pedaling of this cruel story. And what if they did lie, and keep some of the money for themselves? It was THEIR property that they sold, so shouldn't they have a right to keep a little of the profits for themselves if they wanted to? Why would God kill them because they kept a little of their own money? It's obvious to me that this story was told to strongarm the early Christians into turning over all their money to the community. If that was done today in the name of the Scientologists or Hare Krishnas, people would accuse them of cult tactics, of scaring or brainwashing their members into forking over their life's savings to a cult. Well, what do you call what happened to Ananias and Sapphira?

Roland

The really distressing part of this story is the role Saint Peter plays in it. He asks the same question of Sapphira, the answer to which he knows has already resulted in her husband's death and will likely result in hers if she gives the same answer. He doesn't even think to warn her ahead of time. He's a real sweetheart, that Peter.

Huon

The author of Acts want us to believe that the death of Ananias and Sapphira was a miracle. But an evil-minded guy could say this :

Peter (Saint Peter, oh, sorry !) had a big hammer in his hand when Ananias and Sapphira died "miraculously". And the young men who buried hurriedly Ananias and Sapphira were the body-guards of Peter. It seems that Peter kept the money of the sect, partly for the organisation, partly for himself and his body-guards.

But what happened after these murders ? What could do the parents and the friends of Ananias and Sapphira ? From their names, it seems that Ananias and Sapphira were Jews, Simon-Peter was another Jew. The Roman justice was (probably) not concerned by a crime where the authors and the victims were Jews. They were not Roman citizens.

An evil-minded guy could remember that the circumstances of the death of Peter are not very well known, despite the rather late story of the crucifixion (cruci-fiction?) upside down (Tertullian, "Liber de praescriptione haereticorum" Prescriptions about heretics, Chapter 36, written about 200 CE).
Possibly the parents and friends of Ananias and Sapphira played a role in the death of Peter ?

Who succeded Peter as bishop in Rome ? There are two traditions.
Irenaeus, Jerome, Eusebius of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, the Liberian Catalogue, and the Liber Pontificalis, say that Linus was the second Bishop of Rome, succeeding Saint Peter and succeeded by Anacletus.
Tertullian says that Peter was succeeded by Clement I, the author of Clement's letter to the Corinthian church.

From these different traditions, is it possible to conclude that Linus and Anacletus were not recognised by a fraction of the Roman Christians ?