spin

Talking about running a car on the whiff of an oil-rag, Vinnie.

If you had your way, you'd probably label most young men in Arab countries gay. The society segregates them from women and they spend all their sicial time in the company of other young men. Christ, Vinnie this is one gross retrojection of modern fuddy-duddy mentality onto an ancient past that we know very little about. What stimulated this crap? Have dreams about "secret mark"?

Oh, and look at Amos 2:16


spin

dantonac

Having spent many months in the middle east (Saudi Arabia) working with men from several arab nations I would agree with Spin that the culture is very accepting of a greater intimacy between men than western culture is.

Men kissing, holding hands or even sleeping together (sleeping, not screwing) is not indicative of their being gay.

HJ may very well have sought comfort with another man, but within that culture it doesn't increase the probability of being gay to the degree it would in western culture.

Vinnie

I shall refute your objections and all those offered elsewhere later tonight after my second shift or tomorrow.

For now, it will suffice to say that you have engaged in anachronism rather than me, spin, and I will demonstrate why.

Vinnie

spin

I have never claimed anything other than it appeared you were making value judgments without enough information and apparently based on the mores of modern society. I did not retroject Arab society onto the past, but gave it as an analogy parallel to the data you were judging Jesus by.

What you need to do before making such judgments is to reconstruct what can be known about gayness of the era, so that you might be able to place the figure of Jesus within it.

So, feel happy to refute, but refute on topic and don't attempt to create anachronisms when there is no opportunity.


spin

Attonitus

Perharps Earl Doherty commenting the arrest scene in his book-review of Price's 'The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man' refers to Vinnie?

"One scholar whose name escapes my memory built a case on this little enigma which postulated that Jesus was a homosexual, and this young man was somehow involved in such activities with him!

Price has a simple solution, and the only one I’ve seen that makes any sense. Like everything else in Mark’s passion story, it is a piece of midrash—completely gratuitous admittedly, since it does nothing to further the plot or support any editorial leaning. But it shows the extent of scriptural governance in the workings of the evangelists’ minds. Price suggests that Mark has read a verse in Amos 2:16 that he feels has prophetic significance: “In that day the strong man shall flee away naked.� He felt impelled to reflect it in his text, even though it served no purpose. Those who redacted Mark did not feel the same compulsion and simply cut it.

As for Judas, 'His role in Jesus’ arrest—a kiss on the cheek to identify the Master—makes little sense. It looks like Mark is simply coming up with something for him to do. Nor does any evangelist attempt to provide a motivation for the betrayal. Price points out that the scene often pointed to—the anointing at Bethany when bystanders complain about the waste of ointment on Jesus—does not identify the complainer as Judas, something Mark could easily have done. In fact, critical scholars have long recognized that Judas is likely a symbolic representation of the Jewish people, and the Jews have long suffered for that literary device. Matthew added to the force of the holocaust with his line “His suffering be on us and on our children,� something only he records, and which no respectable New Testament scholar today regards as anything but Matthew’s own invention'"

Vinnie

Wasn't that scholar Morton Smith himself?

Attonitus

Of course Vinnie, the Smith's thesis is your thesis in the post,

Regards,

Vinnie

Both spin and attonitus received mention in my update. They must be cool

I did a major update in light of some ojections. I changed nothing of the text but added an appendix of positive and negative comments and added another where I address 10 objections to my paper:

Appendix 4. First Responses to Counter Arguments Since Publication.

a. Male-male intimacy is common in non-western world.
b. Secret Mark is a forgery.
c. Jesus wasn't directly accused of this.
d. Told the sinners he dined with to leave their life of sin.
e. Spoke against Sodom.
f. The created order is male-female.
g. Midrash. The naked young man in Mark comes from Amos 2:16
h. The naked young man is Mark signing his narrative.
i. Most men at the time were straight, therefore Jesus was straight.
j. Response to D-2 Criticisms of my arguments.


Relevant to this thread is a, b, and g.

I shall cite the Midrash explanation for the naked young man in Mark:

Vinnie

Vinnie

Oh yeah, appendix three has select positive and negative comments.

Vinnie

Al Kafirun

I'm slow so forgive me, but where did that tradition come from? I've heard it before, but what are its origins? Anybody?