Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Reena · 02-12-2006, 10:26 AM

Christians allege that Jesus taught unique and very progressive moral principles (love your neighbor, forgive, don't divorce your wife + lust after other women, help others), but what I am wondering is what others taught before Christ was born.

Do any of you know the moral ideas of Greek philosophers, of Buddhists and Hindus (before Christ, since after there is the possibility of influence)?

Thanks!

JoeWallack · 02-12-2006, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reena

Christians allege that Jesus taught unique and very progressive moral principles (love your neighbor, forgive, don't divorce your wife + lust after other women, help others), but what I am wondering is what others taught before Christ was born.

Do any of you know the moral ideas of Greek philosophers, of Buddhists and Hindus (before Christ, since after there is the possibility of influence)?

Thanks!

JW:
Most of the Gospel Jesus' primary teachings come from Pharasaic Judaism such as Belief in After-Life, Messiah, Unimportance of Sacrifices and Emphasis on Morals and Ethics. The Gospel depiction of Jesus vs. The Pharisees is an Anachronistic Projection based on what was happening in The Authors' Times after The Temple was destroyed. In the early first century a Historical Jesus' Natural enemy would have been the Sadduccees who didn't Believe in After-Life, Messiah, Unimportance of Sacrifices and Emphasis on Morals and Ethics, were the Upper class and collaborated with Rome. After the Temple was destroyed, so were The Sadduccees and Pharasaic Judaism defeated all competing Sects including the Christians who then went Schmad.

Having the Gospel Jesus present well known Pharasaic arguments to supposed Pharisees and than have The Pharisees act like they never heard of the argument is one of the more Comical parts of the Christian Bible. I suspect that if there was a Historical Jesus he would have done about as well against a learned Pharisee as Notsri did against The Drashi regarding Bethlehem (this is for you Noah).

In A Rabbinic Commentary On The New Testament Samuel Lachs gives the Pharasaic background for many of Jesus' supposed Sayings. The modern learned Pharisee, Rabbi Jacob Neusner, has criticized Lachs for claiming better parallels than what should be claimed, but just going by Lachs direct quotes one can still see many good parallels.

Messyanics such as Schmuelman! are going to claim that these parallels prove the Jewishness of Jesus but it's clear that the Christian Bible is presenting Jesus' related supposed sayings as original which of course they aren't.

Oh, and did I mention my Thread?:

Mark's View Of The Disciples

Joseph

Messianic Judaism. Verb. The Act of going through The Jewish Bible removing all Evidence that's not Jesus until there's Nothing left.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

jjramsey · 02-12-2006, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reena

Christians allege that Jesus taught unique and very progressive moral principles (love your neighbor, forgive, don't divorce your wife + lust after other women, help others), but what I am wondering is what others taught before Christ was born.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" is from Leviticus 19:18. While divorce was allowed under Mosaic law, Malachi 2:13-16 condemns leaving the wife of one's youth. Jesus is not teaching anything new here, nor does he appear to be trying to.

Actually, the whole premise "Christians allege that Jesus taught unique and very progressive moral principles" is flawed. I'm sure that some Christians have indeed taught that, but it is hardly central to Christianity.

sorompio · 02-12-2006, 11:37 AM

Is the Golden Rule original? Foolish or not, but original?
Buddah, Confucius, Epictetus... I guess there must be more.

From Carl Sagan:

Quote:

The most admired standard of behavior, in the West, at least, is the Golden Rule, attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. Everyone knows its formulation in the first-century Gospel of St. Matthew: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Almost no one follows it. When the Chinese philosopher Kung-Tzu (known as Confucius in the West) was asked in the fifth century B.C. his opinion of the Golden Rule, of repaying evil with kindness, he replied, "Then with what will you repay kindness?" Shall the poor woman who envies her neighbor's wealth give what little she has to the rich? Shall the masochist inflict pain on his neighbor? The Golden Rule takes no account of human differences. Are we really capable, after our cheek has been slapped, of turning the other cheek so it can be slapped? With a heartless adversary, isn't this just a guarantee of more suffering?

The Silver Rule is different: Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. It also can be found worldwide, including, a generation before Jesus, in the writings of Rabbi Hillel.

John Kesler · 02-12-2006, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reena

Christians allege that Jesus taught unique and very progressive moral principles (love your neighbor, forgive, don't divorce your wife + lust after other women, help others), but what I am wondering is what others taught before Christ was born.

Much of Jesus' teachings come from the OT and Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books. Here are but a few examples, in addition to those that J.J. Ramsey mentioned:

Quote:

Matthew 5:3
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Psalm 34:18
Yahweh is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.

Quote:

Matthew 5:5
5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Psalm 37:1
But the meek shall inherit the land...

Quote:

Matthew 5:34, 37
34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 37 Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

Sirach 23:9-10
9 Do not accustom your mouth to oaths, nor habitually utter the name of the Holy One;10 for as a servant who is constantly under scrutiny will not lack bruises, so also the person who always swears and utters the Name will never be cleansed from sin.

Quote:

Matthew 6:12
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Sirach 28:2
2 Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.

And of course the idea behind the famous "golden rule" was around before Jesus. One such example is Tobit 4:15:

Quote:

15 And what you hate, do not do to anyone...

No Robots · 02-12-2006, 11:59 AM

There is very little of substance that Christ says that can be said to be completely original. His originality lies in his formulations, in his pithiness, in the self-assured genius with which he cuts to the heart of the matter. And all of this is really about the uniqueness of himself as a person, as a man of unlimited creative insight. Like all geniuses, he made use of the insights of his predecessors and contemporaries, transforming them and making them his own.

While he shared many positions with the priestly/pharasaic/rabbinic authorities, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that he stood firmly in the mystical/prophetic stream of Judaism, and thus was fundamentally at odds with all religious authority.

triffidfood · 02-12-2006, 12:34 PM

I thought the following was quite interesting (so much so, I copied it onto a word doc when I read it, I also edited it down quite alot, check http://www.moshereiss.org/christiani.../03_hillel.htm for the source version) .. Anyway, I think this relates to your question, and it's also interesting because it's more-or-less contemporary to the supposed 'life' of Jesus:

Quote:

The most famous Pharisee who died in the second decade of the common era was Rabbi Hillel, the Elder, born approximately in 65 BCE in Babylon. As an young adult he went to Jerusalem to further his studies. [..]

Hillel had a major opponent within the ranks of the Pharisees Rabbi Shammai. They disagreed on almost every aspect of Jewish law. The Shammaites controlled the Sanhedrin after the death of Hillel until the destruction of the Temple. It is the Shammaites who [according to the mythology] disputed Jesus on the law and who with the priestly aristocracy – the Sadducees handed him over to the Romans. After the Temple’s destruction, the Sanhedrin was reorganized under …one of Hillel’s disciples. That movement over a long period of time became Rabbinic Judaism.

Hillel taught "love peace, seek peace, love mankind and thus lead them to the law." Hillel believed in reaching out to Gentiles. The Talmud writes ‘always be as gentle as Hillel and not as impatient as Shammai’

Hillel and Jesus had a great deal in common. Both attempted to humanize the Halakha of Judaism. Both believed that love of humanity was the key to Jewish life. In that sense both were leaders of renewal movements compared to the isolationists of the Qumran community, the political zealot movement and the legally stricter Shamaite movement. All were seeking to impact people to different definitions of holiness. 4

Hillel lived before Jesus and according to David Flusser influenced strongly ‘many facets of Jesus’ theological and ethical teachings. 5 This does not imply that Jesus was a student or disciple of Hillel; Hillel’s views were well known and one of the more acceptable Jewish views of Halakha particularly among the populace. […]

[On humility:]
Jesus ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart’ (Mt. 11:29).

Hillel: My humiliation is my exaltation, my exaltation is my humiliation; (Lev. Rabbah, Chap 1)

Jesus ‘Give us this day our daily bread’
Hillel ‘Give us each day our daily bread’ 9

Both Hillel and Jesus recognize the need to bring the Kingdom of Heaven onto earth through revival and repentance.

Jesus: ‘For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (Gal. 5:14; Rom. 13:8-10)

Hillel: ‘What is hateful to yourself do not do to another, that is the whole law’ (BT Shab. 31a)

Hillel said ‘Be of the disciples of Aaron, love peace and pursuing peace, loving mankind and drawing them to Torah’ (M. Abot 1:12)

Both Hillel statement "judge not your fellow man until you yourself come into his place" (M. Abot 2:5) and Jesus statement "do not judge, and you will not be judged" (Luke 6:37) are based on loving your neighbor. […]

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HILLEL AND JESUS

The century during which the Temple was destroyed was an age of eschatology. From the Christian Bible it appears Jesus accepted that the end of the world was near. From what we know about Hillel he was not overly influenced by eschatology. Many Jews were. According to Nahum Galtzer it is Hillel’s ‘silence on Messianism in a period in which it was a burning issue’ that is remarkable. A colleague of Hillel … was Menahem. Hillel and Menahem broke apart on the issue of Messianism, the latter leaving and becoming what some have thought of as an Essene Messiah [...]

Hillel’s view of Judaism won out in Rabbinic Judaism. He saw his teachings as contrasting the challenge of both Hellenism and the zealots of his day. Like Jesus he can be considered a pacifist. He liberalized the theology to make every day reality more compatible with societal conditions and with Roman and Greek life. The zealots and the apocalypts fought to the end – they developed a theology of martyrdom. Hillel’s disciple Johanan ben Zakai left the messianist's to their fate removed himself and his students from Jerusalem and began what became Rabbinic Judaism. After Rabbi Akiva’s mistaken belief in the Messiahship of Bar Kokhba failed Hillel’s view completely succeeded.

RUmike · 02-12-2006, 01:36 PM

We have two sources of the Golden Rule from Jesus: Q and Thomas. Q's formulation is positive, Thomas' negative. The negative formulation would have been familiar to both Jews and Christians of Jesus' day, so anyone could easily have put this on Jesus' lips or assumed that he taught it. But Q is unique in that it has the first known positive formulation of the rule. But was this invented by Jesus or the author of Q? This is uncertain. The Jesus Seminar voted Q's version "gray" (i.e. possible).

A few of Jesus' teachings are so radically unique, however, that historical Jesus scholars recognize these as coming from no one other than Jesus. Some of these include:

Love your enemies - not found in Jewish wisdom teaching, and not common human or Christian practice.
Turn the other cheek - a clever way of disarming a social superior from slapping you a second time. Has no parallel in antiquity.
When someone takes your coat, give him your shirt also - a clever way of shaming a creditor who is trying to take your coat.
Someone asks you to go 1 mile, go 2 - a clever way to shame an occupying soldier and putting him in debt to you.
The parable of the Good Samaritan - not just any Jew could create this parable. If told in a modern equivalent, the "hero" of the story would be a Nazi S.S. Officer.

countjulian · 02-12-2006, 01:42 PM

Yet there was great influence in what he said from Hellenistic philosophy, too, most specifically Stoicism and middle Platonism. As Celsus himself points out,

Quote:

16. This saying, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God," manifestly proceeded from Plato, and that Jesus perverted the words of the philosopher.

Probably referring to Plato's famous aphorism (disingenuously injected into Hoffman's text) "It is impossible for an exceptionally good man to be exceptionally rich." (Plato, Laws 743).

Heck, if you take out the Jewish backround, Jesus is nothing more than a Palestinian Cynic preacher (except he never whacked-off in public). Robert Price's Deconstructing Jesus does a good job of breaking down the Cynic/Stoic roots of all of Jesus's more sublime sayings, the theoretical Q document.

countjulian · 02-12-2006, 02:02 PM

Quote:

A few of Jesus' teachings are so radically unique, however, that historical Jesus scholars recognize these as coming from no one other than Jesus. Some of these include:

Not really. From Deconstructing Jesus (Price got his info from F. Gerald Downing's Christ and the Cynics

Quote:

Love your enemies - not found in Jewish wisdom teaching, and not common human or Christian practice.

Epictetus- "A rather nice part of being a Cynic comes from when you have to be beaten like an ass, and throughout the beating you have to love those who are beating you as though you were father or brother to them ."

Seneca- "Someone gets angry with you. Challenge him with kindness in return. Enmity tumbles away when one side lets it fall."

Quote:

When someone takes your coat, give him your shirt also - a clever way of shaming a creditor who is trying to take your coat.

Quote:

Turn the other cheek - a clever way of disarming a social superior from slapping you a second time. Has no parallel in antiquity.

Epictetus- If you're inclined to be quick tempered, practicing putting up with being abused, refusing to get cross at insults.You'll be able to go on from that to taking a slap and saying to yourself 'I seem to have run into a statue.'"

02-12-2006, 10:26 AM	#1
Reena Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 236	The uniqueness of Jesus' teachings? Christians allege that Jesus taught unique and very progressive moral principles (love your neighbor, forgive, don't divorce your wife + lust after other women, help others), but what I am wondering is what others taught before Christ was born. Do any of you know the moral ideas of Greek philosophers, of Buddhists and Hindus (before Christ, since after there is the possibility of influence)? Thanks!

02-12-2006, 01:36 PM	#8
RUmike Regular Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 491	We have two sources of the Golden Rule from Jesus: Q and Thomas. Q's formulation is positive, Thomas' negative. The negative formulation would have been familiar to both Jews and Christians of Jesus' day, so anyone could easily have put this on Jesus' lips or assumed that he taught it. But Q is unique in that it has the first known positive formulation of the rule. But was this invented by Jesus or the author of Q? This is uncertain. The Jesus Seminar voted Q's version "gray" (i.e. possible). A few of Jesus' teachings are so radically unique, however, that historical Jesus scholars recognize these as coming from no one other than Jesus. Some of these include: Love your enemies - not found in Jewish wisdom teaching, and not common human or Christian practice. Turn the other cheek - a clever way of disarming a social superior from slapping you a second time. Has no parallel in antiquity. When someone takes your coat, give him your shirt also - a clever way of shaming a creditor who is trying to take your coat. Someone asks you to go 1 mile, go 2 - a clever way to shame an occupying soldier and putting him in debt to you. The parable of the Good Samaritan - not just any Jew could create this parable. If told in a modern equivalent, the "hero" of the story would be a Nazi S.S. Officer.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

02-12-2006, 11:59 AM	#6
No Robots Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Edmonton Posts: 5,679	There is very little of substance that Christ says that can be said to be completely original. His originality lies in his formulations, in his pithiness, in the self-assured genius with which he cuts to the heart of the matter. And all of this is really about the uniqueness of himself as a person, as a man of unlimited creative insight. Like all geniuses, he made use of the insights of his predecessors and contemporaries, transforming them and making them his own. While he shared many positions with the priestly/pharasaic/rabbinic authorities, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that he stood firmly in the mystical/prophetic stream of Judaism, and thus was fundamentally at odds with all religious authority.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.