Freethought & Rationalism Archive

avi · 12-29-2009, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

...Why did Jesus know this was going to happen, and so needed to institute a meal whereby the cult could obtain access to his body?
Presumably because Jesus knew the others would not be arrested....

Perhaps for the same reason that Achilles warned his colleagues not to attack Troy itself:

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Originally Posted by Iliad

While Hector was enjoying his successes against the Greeks, the latter sent an embassy to Achilles, requesting him to return to battle. Agamemnon offered many rewards in compensation for his initial insult (see 11). Achilles refused the offer but did say that he would reconsider if Hector ever reached the Greek ships. When Hector did so, Achilles's friend Patroclus (see 7) begged to be allowed to return to the fight. Achilles gave him permission, advising Patroclus not to attack the city of Troy itself. He also gave Patroclus his own suit of armour, so that the Trojans might think that Achilles had returned to the war. Patroclus resumed the fight, enjoyed some dazzling success (killing one of the leaders of the Trojan allies, Sarpedon from Lykia), but he was finally killed by Hector, with the help of Apollo.

neilgodfrey · 12-29-2009, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jane H

(Judas) I can't see the problem here. No miracles are being claimed.

Miracles have nothing to do with it. It's making sense of the plot and the unexplained role of Judas in it. By unexplained I mean the absence of motivation and necessity. The arguments I used for the invention of Judas are well known in the literature. I'm surprised anyone (Christians included -- apart from fundamentalists) thinks them controversial.

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Most of us have had the experience (more than once in my case), where you think you see someone famous, and it takes a lot of looking to establish whether it is or not. I remember watching an Edinburgh fringe play, and then seeing one of the cast members two weeks later in Birmingham. At least, I and the rest of my group think it probably was them. Even though we had plenty of time to look at them on both occasions, we're still not sure.

This common scenario is nothing like the portrayal of Jesus in Jerusalem in his final week. We're not talking about Jesus being one of a cast in a temple play who may or may not have been recognized in a crowd a fortnight later. One can scarcely imagine a more contrasting scenario from the one we are discussing in the gospel narratives. We're talking of crowds flocking to see and hear the person who had been welcomed as a coming king, who was a reputed miracle worker, who had cast out the money changers in the temple (in the gospels it is imagined as a small temple, comparable to a common pagan temple), who had cursed a fig tree, who was confounding the scribes and Pharisees with his daily contacts. We strive to catch a glimpse -- would not the impression burn in your mind? I still remember the smile and wave of the queen of england driving by when I was just a kid. Jesus didn't have to reintroduce himself each time he got up to speak in the temple.

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Jesus operated outside Jerusalem almost entirely until the end, and the random Jerusalem based mob were just making sure they got the right person.

Jesus was preaching in the temple daily. Where did the "random Jerusalem based mob" come from? John 18 speaks of an armed contingent of officers from the chief priests and Pharisees -- presumably temple police who report back to the chief priests.

Why not simply have their armed contingent take him any time he was leaving the temple and returning to the house in Bethany? Or simply take him any time they liked before or after Passover in Jerusalem itself? One gospel says that an armed contingent was sent to arrest him in the temple but they were simply too overwhelmed by his oratory to go through with the deed. Plausible?

If the crowds were really so potentially violent and massive that they threatened to overwhelm any armed force from arresting him, then we have to explain why they lacked such conviction at his trial.

The problem is the plot here, the narrative, simply does not logically hang together. The inconsistencies tell us that there is something else going on in the minds of the author/redactors.

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(Pilate) Compare with the golden shields in the Herodian palace incident. Having offended the Jews, who then threaten to tell Tiberius; as Philo records in Legatio- “So with all his vindictiveness and furious temper, he was in a difficult position, He had not the courage to take down what had been dedicated nor did he wish to do anything which would please his subjects”.

Exactly the same when he saw Jesus. Torn between a wish to snub the Jews, and the need to keep on the right side of Tiberius. The hand washing has in the intervening centuries acquired a perspective it didn't have at the time. No Roman felt the need to wash hands to remove impurity- but the Jews did. It wasn't a serious action, but a nasty “spoof”.

I don't see how this addresses Pilate "winding up the Jews". The hand-washing is only found in Matthew and is a clear piece of his anti-semitic version of the story. His "innocence" is set against the Jews calling down the blood of Jesus on their own heads. There is nothing historical here.

aa5874 · 12-29-2009, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neilgodfrey

I don't see how this addresses Pilate "winding up the Jews". The hand-washing is only found in Matthew and is a clear piece of his anti-semitic version of the story. His "innocence" is set against the Jews calling down the blood of Jesus on their own heads. There is nothing historical here.

The "hand-washing" is part of the out-of-context prophecies lifted from Psalms.

Psalms 73:13 -

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Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.

neilgodfrey · 12-29-2009, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jane H

Jesus operated outside Jerusalem almost entirely until the end, and the random Jerusalem based mob were just making sure they got the right person.

You are on the board of chief priests and you want to make sure your goons get the right person. Do you rely on the say-so of a member of the target's group, or do you follow standard operating procedures and have the target spied on and followed, or maybe even just send in your armed police with earplugs (you don't want them being overawed and coming back empty handed simply because they are so wowed by his oratory) to pick him up on the spot?

rhutchin · 12-29-2009, 06:01 PM

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Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

As we understand from the Bible, Judas was not needed to identify Jesus. People knew who Jesus was. Judas' role was to lead the temple police to Jesus when Jesus would not be surrounded by the crowds. This happened in the middle of the night, in the garden, with only His disciples around Him.

Matthew 26:48
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The one I kiss is the man; arrest him."

Given the darkness of night and flickering lights of torches, it was good to have Judas clearly identify the man they sought.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Why did Jesus know this was going to happen,...

He was, after all, God. Should we be surprised that He knew what was to happen?

John 18
3 Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, comes with lanterns and torches and weapons.
4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?

...and earlier...

Matthew 16
21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

and so needed to institute a meal whereby the cult could obtain access to his body?

Why should we think that Jesus needed to do such rather than that he had planned all this from the foundation of the world?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Presumably because Jesus knew the others would not be arrested....

He would have known that and much more.

ApostateAbe · 12-29-2009, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

My presumption is that the vast majority of cult leaders are and were conscious liars, and the probability of a cult leader being a conscious liar is compounded if the cult leader predicts the end of the world. It is a conclusion from intuition, I admit. I can't make sense of any other explanation. Your theory that Jesus was only trying to help society doesn't seem to fit so well. When he predicted the end of the world as he knew it, it wasn't an attempt to bring about social change. He predicted that God himself was going to bring about an apocalyptic calamity immediately, with the stars falling from heaven and the Son of Man leading a heavenly army to overthrow all of the powers on Earth.

Why do you presume they are liars? What did Lyndon LaRouche say that makes you think he is a lying about what he believes. Believing in an inevitable disaster that changes the world is a fairly common and rational belief that I don’t see requiring a liar to justify the belief. In times of great disaster people evolve ideologically and those who need to step up do, that’s all the apocalyptic stuff is saying to me.

I typed in Jesus social reformer and this came up from google arguing against Ehrman’s model of Jesus which I guess you are basing your model off since I think I remember you mentioning him before but I could be wrong. Either way I thought it was a pretty good paper to check out. Jesus seems obviously a social reformer IMO, he speaks of the last being first and has a queen rising up to judge man and says he is there to cast out the rulers of that world. The apocalyptic preacher isn’t a fully developed character in my mind it’s a quality of an individual not a complete description of what someone who believes in that kind of thing if you don’t address why he believes the end is near.

I was going to go through and see which of these actually apply to Jesus and wouldn’t apply to most religious groups.

Well no one at the time of his life seemed to understand Jesus and they all ran when it was time for him to die. Only a few disciples seemed committed to him at all in the end and he doesn’t get upset at their inability to stay faithful but uses prophecy of that inevitability to help give him credibility.

I think him predicting his betrayer and doing nothing and predicting peter’s denial and not judging would go against this. There wasn’t any reported backlash for the disciples that stopped walking with him in John 6:66

Every religious group is going to have something in the mind altering category. Religion itself is mind altering.

Again this comes with all groups but Jesus didn’t dictate that anyone did this in his group. There are no scenes of Jesus having the authority to dictate to people about what they could do, he’s just giving advice about the best way to live in his opinion.

This one is descriptive of the early Jesus group because it’s about a messiah claimant.

The group isn’t elitist under Jesus’ command but he does seem to show ethnic elitism, not cultish though.

This is the opposite of how Jesus got famous for submitting to the authority unto his death.

He didn’t preach breaking the law or encourage anyone to do anything that I think would be considered unethical except maybe stealing a donkey. The people he associated with may have seem unethical to others but he wasn’t encouraging reprehensible behavior unless you consider sacrificing your life to be.

Again the opposite. Jesus is known for the forgiveness he offered even to those who were killing him.

This doesn’t happen in the story. Peter goes back to his wife and Jesus even helps to heal Peter’s mother in law. All you have is taking the passage about martyring yourself and hating your parents out of context.

The group was preoccupied with spreading the message. I don’t know if there was a way to be a member in Jesus group. You just followed and hung out with him or went home.

No doesn’t seem preoccupied with making money and doesn’t try to make money off the idea of getting the rich to give up their money and in the end of John has a scene with a women basically burning money onto of his head to anoint him.

I can’t think of a passage that illustrates him requiring this but I can’t really think of a counter scene to it either, but there was a level of commitment to the cause that was expected… not the group though.

He was a promoter of going outside the group to promote the message… not so much for outside the ethnicity though.

This kind of thinking isn’t evident in the story presented of any of his disciples that I can think of.

So that’s one item in the list that Jesus’ group matches, (that wouldn’t be expected in most religious groups) and that is because it has to deal with him being the messiah. Most of the cult checklist seem to be describing things that Jesus’ group would have been the antithesis to.

Maybe you have a checklist for people with a messiah complex and can see if Jesus matches up a little more closely with that casting.
[/indent]

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All of these traits are designed to recruit and to keep the members part of the cult.
I was first introduced to cults with the Lyndon LaRouche group. He has also predicted the end of the existing world order, in the form of an economic catastrophe and social collapse, and his believers think that it is their responsibility to warn the world about it. I haven't kept up to date on the group--they may think that the predicted global calamity is beginning right now.
Early Christianity matches many of these items, evidenced by synoptic verses that Christians would rather leave out of their canon, such as the command by Jesus to hate your family. Such a thing could not have been said had Jesus not known what he was doing. Jesus was a follower of John the Baptist (that is the reason John baptized Jesus in the myth), and Jesus picked up the the techniques from him.

I’m not just seeing the cult leader deal in the Gospels. He’s not recruiting and controlling the members by taking psychological control over the people he is with. The people are following him in the story because they believe that someone is going to come save them and are wondering or already believe that Jesus may be that person. He died because the people’s growing belief threatened the security of the established religious authority.

People have found all kinds of different Jesuses in the gospels, and the social-reformer Jesus seems to be just another one of them. But the cult-leader Jesus may seem to be just another Jesus, so I should justify it.

As you remember, I do pay a good deal of respect to Bart Ehrman, but his Jesus model is not quite the cult-leader Jesus--it is the apocalyptic-prophet Jesus, which is a common type of cult leader (and I accept the model), but an apocalyptic prophet does not have to be a cult leader, and Ehrman himself never explicitly uses that model. To me, the cult-leader Jesus is sort of a supplement to the apocalyptic-prophet Jesus.

I developed my theory that Jesus was a cult leader after seeing that checklist of cult characteristics. I'll go through them one by one just as you did.

The important thing is NOT that it is merely possible to fit the evidence to a cult-leader Jesus, the same way it is possible to fit the evidence to a social-reformer Jesus or a wise-sage Jesus or revolutionary Jesus or a fictional Jesus or Cynic Jesus. The important thing is that there are essential pieces of evidence that are very difficult to any model but the cult-leader Jesus. For example, the social-reformer Jesus

The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

This is the most defining element of a cult, and it is certainly true of the Jesus in the earliest Christian traditions. The writing of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:2 says, "For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus." And Jesus repeatedly tells people to "follow me" in the gospels, sacrificing everything else including their family and all of their possessions (Luke 9:61-61, Mark 10:21).

Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

Jesus repeatedly encourages faith and discourages doubt, mostly in the context of miracle stories, but there is one especially striking passage that is difficult to explain if not for authoritarianism descriptive of cult leaders.

And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."

I'll continue this tomorrow. I may just make a new thread out of it.

The paper you found in a Google search is not interesting to me, sorry. The author cites only modern secondary sources, never the earliest sources (New Testament writings), which I suppose is expected of an undergraduate student taking an elective course on religion, but it is below even those standards.

Jane H · 12-30-2009, 03:47 AM

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Originally Posted by avi

I hope you realize that by employing this word, "God", i.e. "God's transcendent nature...", when the focus of the thread is discussing "Jesus", you are clarifying to us, that, in your mind, Jesus = God, i.e. that the two are relatively synonymous..

This is where you have misunderstood what I was saying, and why the rest of the post misses as an argument. It might be helpful to review what I said earlier.

Jane H · 12-30-2009, 03:50 AM

Neilgodfrey-

(Pilate) The point being that what Pilate did with respect to the Golden shields as recorded in Philo, he also did with respect to Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels. And again, the hand-washing cannot be explained by a genuine feeling of guilt, but as a calculated mimicking of Jewish practice.

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in the gospels it is imagined as a small temple, comparable to a common pagan temple

Hardly. Start with Mark 13...

(Judas)
I really think you're making too much out of too little here.

Once again, we have to stop thinking in C21 terms, and remember this is a different world operating in different ways. Also, you assume a level of organisation and planning which in the situation wasn't going to be there.

Jerusalem was not business as usual at Passover time. We're not talking about Christmas shopping busy, but vast, vast numbers of people from outside descending on the city. We also know that this was an occasion at which nationalistic fever reached an all time high, creating all sorts of massive security headaches for the authorities, who in any case had Passover arrangements to organise.

Remember, too, that the Jerusalem folk and the Galilee “yokels” were living in quite different worlds (think London/Yorkshire moors, but without the communication and in a different regional structure).

Now this Jesus character had made a reputation as a nuisance outside Jerusalem. Someone else's problem. When he arrived, he would have been unknown by sight to the Jerusalem folk. Then the cleansing of the Temple happened. The authorities tried to catch up with him over the next couple of days, but Jesus was hardly the only thing on their plate, and the couple of times they put something together there were hostile crowds. Remember again that, whereas the Gospel stories we are familiar with have Jesus as the star, at that time in the eyes of the authorities he was simply another minor revolutionary fool who just needed getting out of the way quickly.

So when someone from inside the organisation offers to provide an improvised quiet place and positive ID “you just provide the mob” (crowd-synoptics), it makes life simpler.

Remember the issues various people had identifying Peter- he remained able to slip away relatively incognito. That incident ticks all the historicity boxes.

The point needs stressing- Jesus was one of a number of the things the authorities had to deal with, and everything was very ad hoc. The Gospels make a lot more sense than some story invented which wouldn't have been missed if it hadn't been..

avi · 12-30-2009, 04:30 AM

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Originally Posted by Jane H

but vast, vast numbers of people from outside descending on the city.

So, Jane, is this the origin of the ever popular, annual trip to Mecca?

How do you achieve such confidence in your writing, Jane? Why are you so sure that "vast, vast numbers..." is an accurate representation of events in Palestine under Roman occupation? Do you suppose that the Roman military was so ineffectual at crowd control? They could build and maintain highways, throughout the empire, but, then they couldn't post a couple of soldiers to halt traffic moving along the roadway, contrary to the aim of the policy makers? (i.e. The roads leading into or out of any city were there to ensure smooth delivery of agricultural produce to the ships at harbor, waiting to transport the food to hungry Rome.)

Is there some evidence you could point to, to justify this optimism on your part, that "vast" quantities of outsiders were permitted to flood into Jerusalem on an annual basis? I cannot picture the Imperial Roman leadership being so hesitant to order the military to maintain order....

In those days, Jane, in my opinion, if one stepped out of line, one was either executed, or enslaved.

avi

avi · 12-30-2009, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jane H

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

I hope you realize that by employing this word, "God", i.e. "God's transcendent nature...", when the focus of the thread is discussing "Jesus", you are clarifying to us, that, in your mind, Jesus = God, i.e. that the two are relatively synonymous..

This is where you have misunderstood what I was saying, and why the rest of the post misses as an argument. It might be helpful to review what I said earlier.

a. I doubt that I misunderstood you.
b. I deny having failed to "review" what you wrote earlier, please follow your own prescription, and re-read 6229234 / #47.

You wish to differentiate Jesus from God, in an inscrutable fashion. I seek to expose the weakness of your notion, by explaining that Jesus cannot be both a fallible, ignorant human, as you have written, and an omniscient God, as the new testament demands.

avi

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