jgibson000

Even granting that the Galatians are Celts (rather than those who were descended from Celts) and held on to Celtic mythology (something for which you've not offered a shred of evidence), how does the fact that Paul writes to a group with a certain ethnicity show that Christianity was influenced by, and imbued with the beliefs of, that group? Doesn't Galatians indicate that just the opposite happened?

And if you think not -- if you think that Paul was influenced by, and assimilated "Celtic" beliefs, please show me where this is evident in Galatians?

It isn't me continually talking about water, spirits, women healed, clay, blood and a myriad of other lesbian ideas -- it is Christianity! Ergo, Christianity is rooted in, and simply a guise for Lesbianism.

It isn't me continually talking about water, spirits, possession, spitting, healings, revelations and manifestations of spirit power and a myriad of other 19th century Spiritualist and Revivalist ideas -- it is Christianity. Ergo Christianity is rooted in, and arises out of, 19th century Spiritualism and Revivalism.

Yep that works. And in doing so, it proves too much.

Depends how one defines "themes".

But even more importantly: even if we grant that all of these items are indeed "themes" in the NT and early Christianity (clay? spitting? water into blood???), you haven't yet established in any way, shape, or form -- as you need to do to even begin to approach making your "case" --

(a) that the way these "themes" are thought about by any, let alone all, NT writers and members of the early Jesus movement (your "Christianity") is in the exact same way that "alchemists" thought about them, let alone

(b) that these "themes" were 1st century "alchemist's themes" or

(c) that there were "alchemists" in the first century,

(d) that Judaism was aware of them, and

(d) that all 1st century "alchemists" used all of these themes and were of one mind on what they represented.

Until you do, your claims seem to me to be as much uninformed new age nonsense as they are utterly grounded in petitio principii.

So might I have some scholarly and reputable evidence that shows that what you assume to be the case is actually true? And by scholarly evidence I do not mean URLs to, or quotations from, credulous and execrable web sites that are written by new age charlatans.

JG

John Kesler

Because Judaizers had "bewitched" them into thinking that they had to do "the works of the law" (3:1-2). Read chapter 3, then read all of chapter 4, including verse 21 which speaks of those "who desire to be subject to the law." Paul's argument in 4:9-10 is that allowing oneself to be subject to the law is akin to the pagan bondage the Galatians had left for Christianity.

Vorkosigan

I think Toto is right here, Don. You're using the letter of Doherty to defeat the spirit of Doherty. It won't fly.

In Taiwan, I live in a polytheistic society where texts do not define terms and locations, and where mystery religions are common, where shamans and mediums guide possession by the spirit world on the part of ordinary people, where socially marginalized people become socially acceptable through possession and self-flagellation, where demons, spirits, and fate interact and rule, and where people are simultaneously believing and skeptical, atheist and theist. I grok exactly what Doherty is talking about.

You're raised in, and believe in, and more importantly, think by, a text-based religion where the answers are not experienced but looked up in a verse whose interpretation is centrally controlled and legitimated by its link to a text. Polytheisms do not work that way. They emphasize religion-as-experience. They have innumerable gods and spirits who operate on many planes of reality at once. To ask "where" is to presuppose a worldview where people can clearly identify to each other the physical location of their inner spiritual experience, a concept that would be null data to a pagan but is natural to a Christian, whose authoritarian religion stresses the internalization of external social controls in shaping the religious experience to make sure the product is sufficiently standardized across a large number of human beings. Christianity is primarily concerned with issues of replication and legitimation -- these are not issues for a polytheist, whose flexible, rich religious experience orders his relationship to society and the social order. Early Christianity was thus anti-social in a very literal way.

So when you press Doherty, of course you'll find him wrong, much like the American who comes to Taiwan and doesn't eat anything because everyone knows you don't serve sugared beans over ice as a dessert or roast duck's blood cakes in BBQ sauce. These people don't know how to eat! And those pagans don't know how to have a religion! I meet Americans here who enthusiastically tell me that Taiwanese don't have a real religion -- doesn't have a book, you know! That's you, Don, discussing Greek polytheism. Don't you know it starts with a clearly defined here and there where everything occurs in nice neat packages? Without that, it's just superstition.

Do you seriously think that when Paul and his cohorts had the visions of Jesus that they all had the same experience? That they could clearly locate the paths of the comings and goings of the spirit? That they sat around discussing how many heavens Jesus had descended through? That their concern was defining the experience? In polytheistic societies spiritual possession is a card played by the colonized, the marginalized, the powerless, to repossess a portion of their lost social power and gain status and authority, to right wrongs done to them and theirs, and thank the gods for whatever luck or service they have had from them. Polytheistic thinkers do not view the issues you raise as serious problems -- your religious experience is yours, mine is mine, and let's meet at the temple where we will interact with local politicians, local organized crime, and local business to participate in and reaffirm and realign the social order.

Doherty, I think, understands this, but, because he is raised on religious texts and producing a text about texts and appealing to text-readers whose legitimate ideas are text-determined, he's hopelessly handicapped. I don't think he really bellyfeels what polytheists are like, so he has trouble expressing this understanding. But he at least understands they don't think like text-based religionists.

So go ahead. Whack Doherty for this. You'll find he is easily eviscerated on this point. But essentially you're a blind man disparaging color to another blind man.

As for me, Doherty's perception that Paul's Jesus did not die on earth perfectly explains everything in Paul and perfectly fits polytheistic religion as I understand it. To ask "where" that Jesus died is irrelevent to the issue of the fact that he didn't die on earth. He died, instead, in the hearts of every early Christian who experienced the indwelling of the spirit of Jesus.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

No, that they act in many different realms all at once. Confucianists don't have gods -- at least not ideally. Chinese Folk religionists do, though.

I attended a talk by anthropologist Avron Boretz which I wrote about on my blog. Here's one paragraph from it:

• Someone asked - since Chinese religious practice is so mixed, how can it be best described? "That's a question I started out with too," answered Avron, "but I've come to a very different take on that, which is - that question should never be asked." Most Chinese are not members of sectarian groups that are exclusivist, Avron explained, although such sects exist. Religion is very diffused into their daily lives, and daily life is sort of infused with religion. "This is a western question," Jerome added, in support of Avron. The kind of exclusive definitions westerners are used to do not exist in Taiwan. "It follows the same logic of the young men in the temple who treat it as a surrogate family," Avron said. "A lot of the people who attend the temples have made an oath of devotion to a deity. And they call that deity their 'big brother' or their 'father'. Devotees of Matsu call themselves 'Matsu's children.' Matsu is mother. It's all done in terms of fictive kinship." But this devotion is not sectarian or faith based - it doesn't require the rejection of other faiths.

The full text of my report is online here

Bottom line: Christian westerners don't get how to think about or talk about polytheism. That includes atheists raised in the west. Freeing oneself of the "there must be an answer!" bias is one of the hardest tricks to manage.

And you might reflect on Paul's comments about the Brother of the Lord in Galatians in light of Boretz's comments on fictive kinship and Matsu.....

GakuseiDon

I grew up watching "The Twilight Zone" and "Xena Warrior Princess". I also understand what Doherty is talking about, especially since that is the language that he is using ("dimensions", "spiritual realms").

But it isn't a question of understanding what Doherty is talking about. It's a question of what evidence is there to support Doherty's view about the beliefs of the average pagans in the first place?

Peter Kirby understood my point, so I know that I can't be expressing myself too badly. I'm amazed that neither you, Toto nor rlogan see the problem that I'm highlighting -- whether or not there is data to support Doherty's view of "the average pagan's" beliefs. (Since I can easily find passages where the pagans placed the activities of their gods on earth, it would appear that the evidence we do have is against him). Surely the question of whether it makes sense or not is secondary to that consideration.

Again, irrelevant to my point. This is what Doherty is claiming (my emphasis):

For the average pagan, the bulk of the workings of the universe went on in the vast unseen spiritual realm (the "genuine" part of the universe) which began at the lowest level of the "air" and extended ever upward through the various layers of heaven. Here a savior god like Mithras could slay a bull, and Attis could be castrated.

Now, before we go any further with whether it makes sense or not -- do you think that the above statement by Doherty represents the world view of pagans at that time? If so, what is the evidence for it?

I'm not interested in Paul at this point. I want to concentrate on the pagan side. If we can rule out that the pagans had this belief, then I think Doherty's theory falls apart. But that is an argument for another day.

GakuseiDon

Very interesting! I lived in Japan for 4 years, and Beijing for 1 year, and was very interested in some Eastern philosophies at one stage, esp Taoism. But it still seems pretty repressed in mainland China. I've always heard that Taiwan carried on with ancient traditions, passed on by those who came from the mainland over the last few centuries. I guess that what Avron is describing are customs originally from the mainland, and not from the Taiwanese aboriginals?

Peter Kirby

Don, I think you have put your finger on something that is essential, not just to Doherty's thesis, but to our understanding of antiquity and religion generally.

But I just don't know that you've found the best way to interpret the evidence, because I don't know that you've rightly defined what is contained by `the evidence'. Here I find Michael Turton to be quite eloquent. I think that we need to start with the anthropology of religion, with the various models for workings of religion that exist, for the various workings of religion that exist, and then proceed by analogy to try to understand what the workings of religion were in the eastern Mediterranean of the first century.

I think this would be a better approach.

--
Peter Kirby

rlogan

I thought Vork did a pretty fine job of articulating what I don't have the patience for, Gak.

rlogan

I was going to write this to Gak, but erased it. Since you are carrying the flag further up the hill...

A scientist can observe behaviour from the outside and describe it in a way the participants themselves are unaware of.

One of the most basic observations in economics is that consumers allocate income such that the marginal utility of the last dollar spent on each good is the same.

But not one person in a thousand is aware of that. They operate at the level of "I'm tired of chicken so tonight I'm having hamburger".

So even in concrete situations of daily living the "average man" is not capable of articulating a coherent model of his behaviour.

It is worse in religion where uncertainty and irrationality are rampant. By worse, I mean having the "average man" explain to you the interaction of his gods and the empirical world analytically. People get angry when you try to pry logically at their religious pseudo-world because it is much more comfortable to have vagueness than it is to have the sharp edges of contradictions.

The scientist, again, looking from the outside models the baseball pitcher as adjusting for the accelleration of gravity at 16t^2. The pitcher is just throwing the f**king ball as far as he is concerned.

So people can be modeled "as if" they are obeying gravity, maximizing utility, or having some of their "world" in objective reality and some in mumbo-jumbo land - and this model can capture their behaviour perfectly whether they are cognizant of this more rigorous analytical description or not.

In part I think there is some confusion here regarding how the observer vs the participant views what he is doing, and we need to bear that in mind. That is where Vork's observation about central religious questions never occurring or even making sense to people. They are not operating at that level.

Peter Kirby

"Since you are carrying the flag further up the hill..."

What is that expression?

--
Peter Kirby