Jeffrey Gibson

One more observation on the above. According to a different Oppenheimer (Janet), in the Victorian age it was the elites -- the well-educated upper and middle classes (which if there had been a middle class in the ancient world, would have been regarded as among the elites, I think) -- and not the non elites or a minority of "silly" sorts among the elites, who embraced and defended as rational and scientific a number of the beliefs you imply they deemed irrational and looked askance at. She shows this by noting not only the great number of articles devoted to spiritualism in the popular Victorian periodicals, but the fact that "most of the rich supply of documentation on the spiritualist movement is written by and about the upper and middle classes" Further, she observes that the "higher the class, the more fiercely did it [spiritualism] rage through it." See her The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

If she is right in this, you might want to re-think your comparison and brush up on your knowledge of 19th century Britain social, religious, and scientific history.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

[QUOTE=Magdlyn;4945845]Seems? Was it or wasn't it? Or did these invasions and conquests unify it on key concepts? Do you know? Or are you working again from unverified suppositions?

We can?

New definition of "divine" messiah? What was the old definition? And where do you find anyone asserting that the Messiah would be scapegoat, let alone a humilated scapegoat god? Could you provide some evidence for this?

Jeffrey

Magdlyn

Mainstream what? Science or mainstream Xtianity? Conclusions about what?

I think we have a culture gap perhaps. Are you a native Australian? I'm talking about US American Bible Belt types. Some of which are in my extended family.

Are you talking about people you meet in Aus, or those that come here thinking they're going to show us how miracles have been studied by scientists and shown to be unexplainable, for example?

I'm talking about people who don't even have the intellectual capacity (either b/c of low IQ, or being "dumbed down" by their micro-culture and by fear tactics) to even post about religion on a board like this.

Magdlyn

From evidence I have read, ie: texts and commentaries on the cultural milieu, I have formed that opinion. That is what "seems" means in that sentence. No, I don't see a unified "Judaism." I see an oppressed and fractured people, scattered already even before the sack of Jerusalem.



Sure we can. From the time of the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions on down. As shown in the Prophets, Daniel, the Maccabees and the NT canon.


According to Jewish thought as shown a bit later, the mosiach was supposed to be a human being, not a god. And he was not supposed to be killed, he was supposed to rule on earth. Cyrus of Persia is an early example. Judas Maccabeus another. Altho, of course, they ultimately let down the Judaeans as well...

Don't be silly.

Jeffrey Gibson

Would please be kind enough to tell me what these "texts and commentaries on the cultural milieu" are?

As one who was to rule on earth forever? Is that what Isaiah 44:24, 28; 45:1, 5 asserts of him?

Where in any Jewish text, canonical or non canonical, is Judas proclaimed as Messiah? And where do we find the "new" definition of the Messiah as "divine" (what ever that means) occurring?. Specific texts, please. And a specific definition of "divine" as well, please.

I am absolutely serious. Please show me Jewish texts in which the Messiah is portrayed in terms of, asserted to be, or thought to be, the biblical scapegoat of Lev. 16:8,10,26 and Yahweh.

Jeffrey

Magdlyn

Some that come to mind are books by Robert Price, Hyam Maccoby, Elaine Pagels, Karen Armstrong, Raphael Patai, and the Oxford Annotated Bible, others. Seems I just answered this question the other day...


Um, maybe, maybe not. It's a bunch of superstitious hogwash, and then as now, it's controversial. Price points out that there was controversy back then that mosiach even needed to be Davidic.

No, old bean, it does not.

The idea of mosiach obviously grew over time. Cyrus was called the annointed. Later thought made mosiach out to be a man who would gather all of Jewry back to the homeland and usher in a time of peace. Jesus did not do this, obviously.

He was a deliverer. He brought peace and self rule to Judah. I believe he was annointed. I'd have to look that up.

Oh, no. I was referring to Christian texts. Sorry for the confusion.

Jeffrey Gibson

Please give me those, then.

Jeffrey

Magdlyn

You're boring me now, sorry. You want Christian texts that show

specifically? Because surely you are familiar with

1Peter 2:24

Revelation 1:5

Hebrews 9:22

Romans 5:8-9

Jeffrey Gibson

Yes I am. But the problem for your claim is that none of these texts present Jesus as the Levitical scapegoat -- which BTW, is not a sacrifice and whose blood is not shed anywhere, let alone in the temple, in the Day of Atonement ceremony of which it was a part, and whose death was not thought in any way to be healing or atoning -- let alone as the Levitical scapegoat and Yahweh.

And the theme of "dying for us/enemies/others/our sins" in Romans 5 is not drawn from any Temple cult idea, let alone from the Day of Atonement ritual. Rather, as Sam K. Williams (Jesus Death as Saving Event [Scholars Press]), David Seeley (The Noble Death[Sheffield]), Martin Hengel (The Atonement [SCM]), Robert Jewett (in his Hermenia Commentary on Romans[Fortress]), Stephen Finlan (The Background and Contents of Paul's Cultic Atonement Metaphors[Brill]; and Problems with Atonement: The Origins Of, and Controversy About, The Atonement Doctrine {Liturgical Pres] - the relevant section of which is online here and I (in my Paul's "Dying" Formula: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Its Import and Significance" in Celebrating Romans: Template for Pauline Theology[Eerdmans] - part of which is here) have shown, it's drawn from, and is part of a polemic against, the Greco-Roman topos of the Noble Death. See also Daniel Glenn' Powers' "Summary of Paul's Understanding and Usage of 'Dying for" Formula" in his Salvation Through Participation: An Examination of the Notion of the Believer's Corporate Unity with Christ in Early Christian Soteriology

I am afraid your (mistaken) preconceptions about what the NT says about Jesus are getting the better of you here, and you are reading into NT texts things that are not there.

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle

Now I am very confused.

So Paul's depiction of Christ's death is about noble deaths? But it is a death on a cross - so are we looking at parody?

Are you arguing that the roots of this religion are not really mystery religions, nor Judaic beliefs, but a very sophisticated philosophical argument about what exactly?

And later on loads of different accretions were added?

Are you arguing that Paul is a product of a Greek philosophical school - in Tarsus - with judaic and gnostic leanings (Pagels)?

Is it reasonable to understand Christ died for us as representational, as some form of democracy?