Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 09-12-2006, 02:46 PM

More like Smith was gay and made Jesus gay, and Smith felt oppressed and wanted to get back at his oppressor:

Was Jesus Gay? from Salon

Quote:

The next scholar I interviewed was Dr. Walter Wink, a member of the esteemed research contingent "The Jesus Seminar." His 11 books express his political concerns. For example, in "The Powers" trilogy he examines social institutions and the evil and good they perform.

Wink also discredited Morton Smith's fragment, describing him as "a closeted gay -- due to his time period -- who became a bitter atheist. There's speculation that 'Secret Mark' was his way of getting revenge on the church."

When queried about Christ's passion and lust, Wink proposed that "Jesus might have been like Ralph Nader, an individual with relentless drive who sublimated all his sexual desires because he was totally preoccupied with the Kingdom of Heaven."

It began to dawn on me: Closeted Morton sees Jesus sleeping with youths, activist Walter regards him as Naderesque, contemplative Birgen embraces a celibate Messiah -- is Jesus just a mirror where we glimpse our idealized self?

jgibson000 · 09-12-2006, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yuri Kuchinsky

Strange that this individual still wishes to remain anonymous... Should we interpret this as a sign of uncertainty?

Or perhaps even as a sign of a guilty conscience?

Should we interpret your refusal to submit your "book" on the PGH to a standard academic publishing house and your "publishing" it instead through an obscure vanity press (that did not and would not let scholars know of the "book's" existence or advertise it in, or send it for review to, the scholarly NT journals) as an acknowledgement on your part of how bad and academically worthless your "book" is?

Jeffrey Gibson

Yuri Kuchinsky · 09-12-2006, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

More like Smith was gay and made Jesus gay

So he did the whole thing because he was gay? Talking about stereotyping...

And yet, all this can be easily reversed, of course. Since it was widely known among his colleagues that he was gay, he would have never dared to "discover" a manuscript such as this -- too obvious!

After all, as we learn from Carlson, the homosexuals were terribly oppressed at that time...

Yuri.

Toto · 09-12-2006, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yuri Kuchinsky

So he did the whole thing because he was gay? Talking about stereotyping...

And yet, all this can be easily reversed, of course. Since it was widely known among his colleagues that he was gay, he would have never dared to "discover" a manuscript such as this -- too obvious!

Walter Wink said it, I didn't.

Quote:

After all, as we learn from Carlson, the homosexuals were terribly oppressed at that time...

Yuri.

I don't know your age. Those were strange times, in a lot of ways. Homosexuality and atheism were common but were not discussed in public. Those who kept well hidden in the closet did not suffer material persecution, but you can't say that everything was rosy - look at Alan Turing's case. The Gay Liberation Movement has had to work very hard to get this society to the point where you can wonder about the oppression of homosexuals.

S.C.Carlson · 09-12-2006, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

But it seemed that Talmudic scholars also disputed the idea that salt could lose its savor:

Smith's commentary quotes this same passage and goes on to remark:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morton Smith, Clement, p. 19

Billerbeck, on Mt. 5.13b, saw a slur on the story of the virgin birth in reference to a she-mule's giving birth (a possibility which is also dismissed as absurd in the sentence just preceding the quotation). This may be correct, but even so the exchanges quoted may reflect either the popular saying, or polemic against the Christian one, or both.

Stephen

Solo · 09-12-2006, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yuri Kuchinsky

It's really quite irrelevant for Carlson to bring up the social conditions of homosexuals in the 1950s. "Smith felt oppressed, and therefore he wanted to make Jesus into a gay." This really sounds bizarre, and it sure is.

Cheers,
Yuri.

Hi Yuri,

Unfortunately, Carlson does not understand the subtle difference between making a hypothesis and proving it. The suspicion itself does not strike me as hyperbolic as the "Morton Salt" thing; he has grounds of sorts in that Smith speculated that part of the "Jesus Baptism" was a physical, in not too many words a sexual, contact. I guess that would be the way to read it for someone who was gay. But there is still a mile to go from there to a focused motive which would make Smith actually forge the text and deceive the world by presenting it as torn out of a gospel.

Now, Carlson apparently believes that the generalized oppression of homosexuals in 1950's is enough as evidence to sustain his mantra,

Smith had the smarts - Smith had the opportunity - Smith had the motive.

Smith raged against the establishment. He also had a great sense of humour. So to revenge himself on the establishment, he created a hoax with self-identifying clues to get caught (by the establishment) and destroy his own academic reputation. It's not Smith's fault that noone as smart as Stephen Carlson

showed up while he was alive to figure it all out and grant him his wish.

Makes perfect sense.

Carlson's friends believe it. His publisher believes it. Ergo it must be true.

Jiri

andrewcriddle · 09-13-2006, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

..as far as you know, no one other than the disputed Theodore used it in the same context. Correct ? That is a premise.

On that premise, you exclude the possibility that someone could have thought of it that way in the Greco-Latin antiquity. Correct ?

On that premise and the logical operation above you then declare the Theodore's saying on salt to be non-Clementine, and non-antiquity.

Is there anything either you or I have missed ?

I accept the possibility. I do not think this is in itself a conclusive argument for a non-Clementine non-antique origin. On the other hand Clement is prima-facie alluding to a proverb as commonly understood in the community, and hence the absence of any parallels from the Ancient Greek-Latin world becomes unusually significant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

..
I think we have two issues here.

One: I responded with the link to the 'nigari' site when you offered that the semantic context of 'mixing' could not have occured cognitively before 19th century, and the way you wrote it I made it out to mean, before the age of analytical chemistry. I showed you that separating of non-halite elements from brine is not dependent on such science - generally. So, I think our goal-posts have moved.

Two: the idea that something is mixed with salt that makes it lose its flavour does not assume any process of separation, or any other specific salt-making technology. All it does assume is the existence of something that is purported to be salt but does not taste (quite) like salt, and intuition that something then was mixed with salt, made by analogy. Again, whether this analogy is correct or not, is irrelevant. People could have imagined all sorts of things, to explain how the taste of salt changed from one supply to another. The only thing that needs to be established to refute the claim that the Theodore saying did not originate in antiquity, is the likelihood of differential salt quality and/or contamination detectable by taste, existing in that era. Is this an unsound proposition ?

Jiri

I agree that modern analytical chemistry is not required; what IMO is required is a process of salt purification that does not seem to have existed in the ancient Greek-Latin world.

The ancient world was aware that salt produced from some sources didn't taste nice (there is IIUC a reference in Pliny's Natural History to this). It is possible that some individuals saw this (correctly) as a matter of contamination, but this is a/ hypothetical and b/ a long long way from the sort of cultural consensus normally involved as the background to proverbial allusions.

The idea of salt being spoiled by mixing with contaminants seems obvious and taken for granted to us but does not apparently occur in Greek-Latin antiquity. This is why it is IMO a good example of a a certain type of anachronism, something that only becomes seen as a problem when explicitly pointed out.

Andrew Criddle

Solo · 09-13-2006, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

On Salt: From tectonics's (FWIW) review of Steve Allen on the Bible:

Quote:

Of a particularly humorous bent, and proof that Allen's research priorities were off-kilter...He notes Matthew 5:13 -- "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" Allen found this puzzling, so he wrote to various salt companies and asked them whether salt ever lost its flavor. They assured him that it didn't, so Allen put down Jesus here for a dumbbell error. Well, of course, it's Allen's time to waste if he wants to, but rather than writing to salt companies he should have picked up a commentary or a Greek concordance. The word here is moraino, meaning "to become insipid; fig. to make (pass. act) as a simpleton:--become fool, make foolish, lose savour". In the context of this verse, it refers to believers being the "salt" of the world. Now believers themselves won't lose their "saltiness" except in one way - by becoming like the world. Hence, if Allen wanted to know how salt "loses" its savor, the answer is by contamination. (I have also been advised, but have not been able to confirm, that Dead Sea salt, unlike our modern, refined table salt, does lose its flavor.

Just in case anyone wonders why:

Chemical Composition: Magnesium Chloride (MgCl2) 33.3% 31.0 - 35.0
Potassium Chloride (KCl) 24.3% 20.0 - 28.0 (also tastes salty !!!)
Sodium Chloride (NaCl) 5.5% 3.0 - 8.0 !!! (Compare sea brine ~76%!!! of mineral content)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) 0.2% 0.1 - 0.5
Bromide (Br-) 0.5% 0.3 - 0.6
Sulphates (SO4) 0.15% 0.05 - 0.2
Insolubles
0.03% 0 - 0.3
Water of Crystallization
36.4% 32.0 - 40.0

http://www.saltworks.us/shop/product.asp?idProduct=6

It's unlikely that Dead Sea Salt was harvested for food consumption in antiquity. It has been traditionally used as bath salt. But accidents happen, especially when the crystalline substances look alike.

Quote:

But it seemed that Talmudic scholars also disputed the idea that salt could lose its savor:

Quote:
Oft repeated in the Talmud is the pun made on Matthew 5:13:

How do you salt the salt that lost its savour?
[answer] With the offal of a mule. But does a mule have an offal (since it is incapable of giving birth)?
[Answer] And does salt lose its savour?

In any case, the Biblical version of this says "if the salt shall lose its savour" - and there is evidence that this was not a normal occurance - but the disputed passages says "as the saying goes, even the salt loses its savor." Is there such a saying? Is the Biblical saying a bit of linguistic punning?

Interesting. The Talmud Tractate of of Bekhorot actually recognizes the saying of Mt 5:13 as having rabbinic provenance:

A reference to salt as a preservative is made in the proverb: "Shake the salt off meat, and you may throw the latter to dogs" (Niddah 31a); that is to say, without salt meat is good for nothing. "When salt becomes corrupt with what is it salted?" (Bek. 8b). "The salt of money is charity" (Ket. 66b). The term "salted" is applied to a man in the sense of "quick-minded" (Ḳid. 29b).

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/vi...id=94&letter=S

Jiri

Solo · 09-13-2006, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

The ancient world was aware that salt produced from some sources didn't taste nice (there is IIUC a reference in Pliny's Natural History to this). It is possible that some individuals saw this (correctly) as a matter of contamination, but this is a/ hypothetical and b/ a long long way from the sort of cultural consensus normally involved as the background to proverbial allusions.
Andrew Criddle

Please refer to the Talmud reference in the post above.

Regards,
Jiri

Yuri Kuchinsky · 09-13-2006, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Walter Wink said it, I didn't.

I don't know your age. Those were strange times, in a lot of ways. Homosexuality and atheism were common but were not discussed in public. Those who kept well hidden in the closet did not suffer material persecution, but you can't say that everything was rosy - look at Alan Turing's case. The Gay Liberation Movement has had to work very hard to get this society to the point where you can wonder about the oppression of homosexuals.

Actually, you're just adding more weight to what I already said, so I'll say it again...

Since it was widely known among his colleagues that Smith was gay (and since life was so hard for gays in those days), it stands to reason that he would have never dared to "discover" a manuscript such as this -- too obvious!

And so, Carlson is wrong to bring this whole matter into consideration.

Yuri.

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