Freethought & Rationalism Archive

No Robots · 10-04-2007, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Spinoza was not in a position to know anything about the characteristics of ancient Hebrews.

Spinoza’s method
Although a particular system of philosophy inspired and underpins the whole of the Theological-Political Treatise, it does so in most of the chapters unobtrusively and frequently in a hidden fashion. While his revolutionary metaphysics, epistemology and moral philosophy subtly infuse every part and aspect of his argumentation, the tools which Spinoza more conspicuously brings to his task are exegetical, philological and historical. In fact, it is the latter features rather than the underlying philosophy to which scholars chiefly call attention when discussing this particular text. Spinoza’s hermeneutical methodology constitutes a historically rather decisive step forward in the evolution not just of Bible criticism as such but of hermeneutics more generally, for he contends that reconstructing the historical context and especially the belief system of a given era is always the essential first and most important step to a correct understanding of any text. In this respect his approach was starkly different from that of traditional exegetes of Scripture and from Renaissance text criticism as a whole (as well as from that of our contemporary postmodernist criticism).--Jonathan Israel, "Introduction," Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise

Sarai · 10-04-2007, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

...Attacks on pharisees for hypocrasy and the account of the arrest, trial and crucifixion aren't "anti-Jewish" if they are fairly accurate accounts of what actually happened. The disciples were Jewish, and Jesus said he came for the Jews, not the Gentiles in GMark, so I'm curious what you consider to be evidence of anti-Jew sentiments.

Hi Ted.

I really can't respond to this if I'm expected to presume that the gospel account is accurate, which--obviously--I do not believe. Otherwise, I'd be happy to accomodate you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

I'm glad someone else acknowledges the anti Jewish tone of parts of the Gospels and the Pauline letters...Like you I think the authors of the gospels knew a lot about Judaism, but in an imprefect way that suggests they were outsiders who had studied it, perhaps through Greek translation only...

These gentile outsiders, it seems to me, came to feel that they understood God's will better than the Jewish people themselves, and revised their self-definition so that they became God's chosen people in the place of natural born Jews, who they felt had proven themselves inadequate to the task.

Hi DCH--And thank you for your kind welcome!

I'm very glad to know that I'm not the only one who has noticed this. Your hypothesis makes sense to me. Certainly the Jewish people were causing a great deal of turmoil in that area throughout the first century and well into the second with the Bar Kochba Rebellion. Probably not the best group to align yourself with at the time if you had any interest in keeping your head! It would in fact make a great deal of sense to distance yourself as far as possible, even going so far as to cast aspersions onto the Jews in an attempt to differentiate yourself from them. Denigrating Jews would be one way to try (not necessarily succeed--as we know!) to ingratiate yourself with the powers-that-be, namely Rome.

Quote:

The Pauline letters, however, pose a different problem. I identify an original author who was not a Christian, who advocated closer associations between Jews and gentile god-fearers...

I find Paul quite the strange one! :devil3: I take your comment to mean that you don't think he was a Christian, as in a member of the "proto-Christian" community that arose soon after Jesus' death but before the Jewish War? I agree with you there. He seems pretty familiar with the Jewish laws, traditions, etc., but feels they should be eliminated.

Quote:

"Christ" meant something altogether different to this/these redactor(s) of the Paulines than it may have to the authors of the gospels, who just wanted to explain why someone who was executed as an unauthorized claimant to Jewish kingship was not really a subversive, but a misunderstood teacher of wisdom.

I agree with you whole-heartedly on this. I find his theology radically different from Jewish theology or that of the synoptics. In fact, in reading the synoptics there have been times I've run across passages that sounded for all the world like Paul (or someone who thought like him) went back to the original and stuck it in willy-nilly. What I find curious about Paul is that he had to know that the theology he expounded was abhorrent to Jews. Jews were a very fractured people at the time, but even so, there were commonalities and Paul almost seemed to target the few spots of common ground that were shared.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

But where is the anti-Jewish slant in Paul or Mark?

Hi Spin. OK, since you're the second to ask this, I'll go ahead with it. I'm not going to list each occurrence because it would take pages and pages, not to mention an inordinate amount of time. But here are 2 links that address NT anti-Semitism from the Jewish perspective.

http://www.messiahtruth.com/anti.html#_ftnref4

http://www.jdstone.org/cr/files/anti...stament_1.html

Quote:

This was an era in which there were Jewish groups at odds with other Jewish groups, very fractious, with Sadducees against Pharisees, when much of the damage in Jerusalem during the Jewish war being Jew against Jew. That was the time for Jew to be negative about Jew.

Yes, the Jews were fractured at that time. Still, you don't see Hillel's followers indicting all Jewry when they bash Shammai's followers. You don't see Zealots indicting all Jews when they attack Herodian Jews. They called each other terrible names and made horrible accusations against each other, but they didn't use the general unmodified term "Jew" in their attacks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

...(Paul) then tried to re-write Judaism by discarding the mosaic laws.

...I just can't get around the "elephant-in-the room". This being the absolute personality re-write for God between the old and new testaments.

Hi Dog-on--I'm with you complete on both these points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

I see no reason to believe that Paul wasn't being honest when he calls himself a Pharisee, a Jew under the law.

Well, for one thing he admits to lying in I Cor. 9:19, in fact paraphrasing somewhat he says in this speech about being all things to all people, that when he is with Jews, he is as a Jew. He doesn't actually say he is a Jew or a Pharisee. He says all sorts of similar things, like being of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew amongst the Hebrews, circumcised on the 8th day, a Pharisee as to the law, etc., but never a Jew.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

You have compounded the problem. The authors of the NT are unknown, it cannot be verified if these so-called authors used ghost writers or if they read the Septuagint in combination with the writings of Josephus or Philo and then fabricated a Christ.

I totally agree with you. It almost seems like the author of Acts might well have had a copy of Josephus sitting in front of him!

WHOOO--finally got to the end of the thread! Watch, there'll be a dozen more posts as soon as this one goes up!

Sarai

Clivedurdle · 10-05-2007, 02:16 AM

Quote:

As for the “Blood curse” (Matthew 27:25), oceans of ink have been expended by bible scholars Christian and Jewish - starting two centuries ago, to demonstrate that this self-curse and curse on the children of Israel could never have been uttered. Despite this, rivers of Jewish blood have been spilled by a blind and unbending fanaticism that persisted, and still persists, in perpetuating the fiction that the self-curse was actually voiced. Since the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestant sects consider every word in the New Testament to be the “Word of God,” Matthew 27:25 is a dogma of the church.

They care because they know that Adolf Hitler’s mendacious claim: “I believe that I am today acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator; by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord…” has Matthew 27:25 at its base. (A. Hitler, MEIN KAMPF, pg. 65; cf. E.H. Flannery, op. cit. pg. 2 1 0).

Harenberg continues: “It was Rudolf Bultmann who stated in 1921, with the help of the form critical method which he had developed, that this curse was never spoken” (c.f R. Bultrnann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, Harper, 1963, pg. 282).

The French historian Charles Guignebert wrote in 1935 about Matthew 27:25 directly, and of other passages of the same ilk in the New Testament, as follows: “Few of the sayings of the Gospels have done more harm than these, and yet they are only the invention of a redactor”. (C. Guignebert, Jesus, op. cit., pg. 470) Hitler used Jesus’ name quite glibly to justify his unspeakable crimes.

It was the evangelist Matthew, not a redactor, who “invented” verse 27:25, but no matter, the damage is the same regardless of who the ‘inventor’ really was. The pity of it is that all anti-Semitic monsters use (and have used) the “poison” that is found in Christianity’s Holy Book as propaganda to further their nefarious ends. Hitler was but one of many.

A million of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were children.

What happens if we seriously look at the proposition that the New Testament is not Jewish?

dog-on · 10-05-2007, 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

If one seriously studied the Septuagint (sp?), could one develop a certain knowledge of Judaism from it? Would one also betray his source of such knowledge when certain interpretations fell more in-line with this Greek translation than from the Hebrew original from which it was derived?

Just think of the virgin birth, Isa 7:14.

spin

According to Epiphanius, referencing the Ebionites:

Quote:

“They declare that Paul was raised in a pagan household. He went up to Jerusalem and when he had spent some time there, was seized with passion to marry the daughter of the high priest; and this was the reason he became a proselyte (Jew) and went through the Jewish ritual of circumcision. But when the lady rejected him, he flew into a rage and wrote against circumcision and against the Sabbath and the Jewish Law”

(Pamarion 30.16.6)

Explains his lack of Hebrew skills, unless you find evidence of such in his writings.

Contrary to the afore mentioned passage, I do think the idea of Paul being circumcised is suspect.

This passage leads me to believe that Paul's pee-pee was still in it's natural, untrimmed state:

Quote:

4This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.

we have; make us; we did

The over-all disdain shown toward the creator and his law, which is evident in Galatians, leads me to the view that the author was more than likely not a Jew.

dog-on · 10-05-2007, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Quote:

As for the “Blood curse” (Matthew 27:25), oceans of ink have been expended by bible scholars Christian and Jewish - starting two centuries ago, to demonstrate that this self-curse and curse on the children of Israel could never have been uttered. Despite this, rivers of Jewish blood have been spilled by a blind and unbending fanaticism that persisted, and still persists, in perpetuating the fiction that the self-curse was actually voiced. Since the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestant sects consider every word in the New Testament to be the “Word of God,” Matthew 27:25 is a dogma of the church.

They care because they know that Adolf Hitler’s mendacious claim: “I believe that I am today acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator; by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord…” has Matthew 27:25 at its base. (A. Hitler, MEIN KAMPF, pg. 65; cf. E.H. Flannery, op. cit. pg. 2 1 0).

Harenberg continues: “It was Rudolf Bultmann who stated in 1921, with the help of the form critical method which he had developed, that this curse was never spoken” (c.f R. Bultrnann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, Harper, 1963, pg. 282).

The French historian Charles Guignebert wrote in 1935 about Matthew 27:25 directly, and of other passages of the same ilk in the New Testament, as follows: “Few of the sayings of the Gospels have done more harm than these, and yet they are only the invention of a redactor”. (C. Guignebert, Jesus, op. cit., pg. 470) Hitler used Jesus’ name quite glibly to justify his unspeakable crimes.

It was the evangelist Matthew, not a redactor, who “invented” verse 27:25, but no matter, the damage is the same regardless of who the ‘inventor’ really was. The pity of it is that all anti-Semitic monsters use (and have used) the “poison” that is found in Christianity’s Holy Book as propaganda to further their nefarious ends. Hitler was but one of many.

A million of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were children.

What happens if we seriously look at the proposition that the New Testament is not Jewish?

I actually see no other way to look at it. Some person/group thought they found a hidden message/mystery while studying the Septuagint. By chance, this message fit very nicely into existing non-Jewish belief structures.

This person/group were not Jews...

Clivedurdle · 10-05-2007, 02:25 AM

Quote:

But when the lady rejected him

Unrequited love one of the roots of Auschwitz?

dog-on · 10-05-2007, 02:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Quote:

But when the lady rejected him

Unrequited love one of the roots of Auschwitz?

...or a Jewish art critic...

Clivedurdle · 10-05-2007, 02:32 AM

Quote:

The Middle Ages, for the Jew at least, begin with the advent to power of Constantine the Great (306-337). He was the first Roman emperor to issue laws which radically limited the rights of Jews as citizens of the Roman Empire, a privilege conferred upon them by Caracalla in 212. As Christianity grew in power in the Roman Empire it influenced the emperors to limit further the civil and political rights of the Jews. Most of the imperial laws that deal with the Jews since the days of Constantine are found in the Latin Codex Theodosianius (438) and in the Latin and Greek code of Justinian (534). Both of these monumental works are therefore very important, for they enable us to trace the history of the progressive deterioration of Jewish rights.

The real significance of Roman law for the Jew and his history is that it exerted a profound influence on subsequent Christian and even Muslim legislation. The second-class status of citizenship of the Jew, as crystallized in the Justinian code, was thus entrenched in the medieval world, and under the influence of the Church the disabilities imposed upon him received religious sanction and relegated him even to lower levels.

In our first selection - laws of Constantine the Great - Judaism is denied the opportunity of remaining a missionary religion because of the prohibition to make proselytes.

The laws of Constantius (337-361), the second selection, forbid intermarriage between Jewish men and Christian women. A generation later, in 388, all marriages between Jews and Christians were forbidden. Constantius also did away with the right of Jews to possess slaves. This prohibition to trade in and to keep slaves at a time when slave labor was common was not merely an attempt to arrest conversion to Judaism; it was also a blow at the economic life of the Jew. It put him at a disadvantage with his Christian competitor to whom this economic privilege was assured.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewis...-romanlaw.html

Just thought I would check Constantine's views on Judaism and how Eusebius might have interpreted these views in constructing and editing the New Testament

mountainman · 10-05-2007, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewis...-romanlaw.html

Just thought I would check Constantine's views on Judaism and how Eusebius might have interpreted these views in constructing and editing the New Testament

Constantine's views were anti-Judaic and anti-Hellenic.
Constantine's views were intolerantly pro-Christian.
He enforced his views with the sword and with fire.
He was in any other terms a malevolent despot.
Eusebius was his minister for propaganda.
No more. No less.

Constantine's intolerant views eventually resulted
in the complete destruction of the great libraries
and the great "Hellenic"/"Graeco-Roman" temples
of antiquity, between 325 and 400 CE, and the
onslaught of the dark ages.

Clivedurdle · 10-05-2007, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Constantine's views were anti-Judaic and anti-Hellenic.
Constantine's views were intolerantly pro-Christian.

Why?

Which version of xianity?

If he explicitly worshipped sol invictus and passed the edict of Milan - about religious freedom - how is he anti "pagan"?

Back to my OP, it does look like something very strange happened when someone brought together the ideas of Christ and Messiah.

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