Koyaanisqatsi

Ok, since most have been preoccupied with the closing of the PD forum , let's take this in reverse, as it should be.

Let's cull the OT prophecies already provided and start from there tabla first century rasa to see what a fiction author around the time of 70 C.E. would create as an anti-Jewish cult, shall we?

You can play along. Imagine you are a first century Roman author charged with the responsibility of creating an anti-Jewish story about Jews killing their own messiah. That's your job. And, of course, make sure to include pro-Roman sentiments wherever you can.

Start with the source material of the OT already provided and proceed from a completely unfamiliar, diametrically opposed frame of reference. You're a Roman, after all, and these are conquered desert "savages." Oh, that's good. They're savages, like we thought the native American Indians were. Show your work...

Ok. We have a leper, basically, only without the disease. Someone hated by everyone in the area; scorned even by men. A Jew that not even Jews can stand. This is the lowest of the lowest among the Jews; a worm. Check for references to a "worm" or "worms."

He's a fool who only "delights" in his belief that the Jewish god exists. As for the people populating this fiction, they are all evidently sure that this man is an idiot and they pay him no attention whatsoever, beside actively hating him. They believe in their god, but laugh at this worm's conviction that their god would ever save him.

NOTE TO SELF: This strengthens hatred for the Jews in general. This guy's misunderstood and they don't see his greatness. The one true believer. Excellent. Everyone around him doesn't see his greatness, for he is the lowest of the lowly Jews. Make hero same.

Ok, ok. Um, he's at his end. Our Jewish hero is at his end. He's a hated, shunned man whose soul is dead. His compassion is gone; melted like the wax it has become. He seeks something? What is his "arc?" Shunned nobody is actually the most important somebody among them. Good.

He is done. "They" have destroyed him. "They" being the Jews. Yes. Good. Work with this. The Jews have drained his strength and laid him in the dust of death. Buried alive? No, "dust of death" is metaphorical. Cross reference "dust of death" against other writings.

Hmmm. Dogs have surrounded him. A band of evil men, out of the shadows, perhaps, "encircle" him and pierce his hands and feet. He's mugged on his way home, but he was drunk and didn't know where he was going? No. Dogs. Dogs. Dogs have surrounded him. Metaphor! That'll work. Not real dogs as described here, but metaphorical dogs. Then what are the evil men? Ok, come back to the dogs later. "They have pierced my hands and my feet." Well, that sounds like what we do with crucifixion, but the Jews don't do that, we do. What do they do? That's the key. How do they kill their own?

[after a short research break]

Ok, they stone people to death and hang them from a tree. NOTE: nothing about dogs. So, ok, let's keep it with a band of evil men (the Jews) surround him and the stab his hands and feet? Why not? That's what it says, so stick with that until something else comes up. They're savages, after all. They kill their own kind!

Besides, with crucifixion there's a whole trial and he'd have to be convicted of a Roman crime, not a Jewish crime. Come back to this.

He's been beaten and pierced and laid in the dust of death in the desert by a band of Jews who sicked their dogs on him. Yes, a begger. The lowest Jew of them all, a worm, scorned and beaten and stabbed and left to die in the dust by a group of evil Jews. Good, ok. That covers the lot so far...

Jesus, they take the poor dumb leper's clothes after sicking their dogs on him and stabbing his hands and feet...stab his hands and feet....pierce them....so he can't get away or defend himself! Yes! Of course. They make sure he can't defend himself or run away and then they not only leave him in the dust to die of exposure in the desert, but they fight each other over his clothes!

These are the most despicable Jews ever! This is perfect. Jews treating another Jew this way? A poor, despised worm of a man rendered helpless by a group of his own people, just because he dares to believe that their god would save a wretch like him? He's a suffering servant of his Lord. Ooh, cross reference that.

Oooh! Great! "Pierced" again. Ok. So we have two references to him being stabbed. See if there are any dogs in this passage.

Hmmm. Ok. "Crushed" works and I like how the shift happens here and it references being pierced, so that works nicely. So the punishment that the evil band of Jews inflicted upon our stabbed and defenseless hero (due to his pathetic social status) causes "guilt." Recall multiple passages in re: guilt.

And his wounds that were inflicted by them actually heal them. Great! What they do unto the least of them, so do they heal themselves. No, wait, that doesn't work. Come back to this and expand.

Ooooh! Sheep! That's great! They love sheep and understand sheep and they're all basically smelly fucking shepherds, so that could be something to work in. Sheep and shepherds. Sheep are low and they get stabbed (well, sheared before they get stabbed). Too much of a strech?

"All" equals "one." Brilliant. Their god laid everything on this one leper that everyone despised and pierced and left for dead, naked in the dust of the desert.

This is good.

Covered that...

Oooh. That's no good. He's got to say something at some point. Something significant. I mean, he is their messiah. Ignore this. It doesn't have to all match, just most of it.

Ok, problem. He wasn't led, he was cornered by dogs and an evil band of Jews.

That doesn't work at all! Shit. Ok, he was silent when he was being stab...pierced, right? At least according to their own fucking scripture, so, I guess this will work for the before, but he's got to say something remarkable or memorable just before he dies, so, make a note to spin this.

Oh crap. A trial, where he's oppressed even more than he already is and convicted and taken away? But he was left to die in the dust. No, wait, die as the dust. Ok. Ok.

He wasn't cornered by the dogs of an evil band of Jews; the dogs are the San Hedrin's henchmen and they didn't necessarily have to pierce his hands and feet, just bind them. That will work. That could be spun by some group of believers whose entire existence is to "apologize" for all the glaring contradictions, inconsistencies and outright blatant mistakes.

We're talking about ignorant Jewish peasants here, for Caesar's sake! And aren't the San Hedrin the ruling class of the Jewish people? They have their own rules; I know, I've been researching them religiously.

That's a little joke. Ahem.

Ok, so the evil band of men who corner our hero (jesus, I should come up with a name) are actually the San Hedrin and they are the ones who order this poor, pathetic, hated worm of a man to be brought before them because he's.....uh.....he's.....hated, yes, but also, his wounds heal them, so they have to inflict those wounds. Irony. They order our hero before them because he is a sheep that....um.....Oh! He's a sheep that claims to be a shepherd! Yes! He's not the pathetic leper of Psalm 22, he's the heroic sheep who is also a shepherd, unbeknownst to anyone that despised and scorned and sicked their dogs on him.

The Jews are the dogs! The Jews are the dogs and the evil band and the San Hedrin who judge him. Judge him. For what? He doesn't speak.

He has to speak. See? He has to speak. We just have to forget about the repeated declarations that he never speaks. What does he say? He's brought before the San Hedrin like the leper that he is and he says....?

What would piss them off? Blasphemy is the only thing I can find in the research material. The claim that he is God.

No, wait! Wow. Holy shit. What? That's great. He claims that he is God. He is Jehovah. Not just a messenger, but the real thing; the burning bush only now it's an actual man. No, that's too much. No Jew would buy that. He's the son of Jehovah. Aren't we all? The son of a god and the Jews got it wrong, but they stone him to death....no! They stone him severely, but not quite to death (he has to suffer and since there aren't any dogs...). They beat him and mock him and judge him guilty of sort of blaspheming....

Come back to this. Not quite there yet.

He can't have kids. He's a fucking worm; despised among all men. Oh, wait. It doesn't say anything about any women. But who would love such a pathetic man? A whore! Yes. A whore. Work this in.

Ok. He was burried with criminals and the rich Jews we slaughtered first when we invaded to take their riches for our own. And he never lied.

Well, that's no problem since he never opened his mouth. Ok, keep with that. He was a mute the whole time. Makes it easier and it all fits. A mute who was cornered by the Jewish mafia and tried by the San Hedrin for blasphemy in some way. That explains the beating and the suffering and the insurance he wouldn't attack them or run. He's a worm, after all, remember that; a worm that everyone hates and is tried by the San Hedrin for a Jewish crime!

He is their messiah! The irony is beautiful! They kill the lowest Jew among them never realizing that he's their messiah! Perfect.




I could go on, but I think "you" see my point, yes? No need to reference the Romans at all in any significant portion of the fiction. It is the San Hedrin who try and convict and kill their own savior. Just as Paul and Mark try to conclude, but fail due to the fact that it is the Romans who try and kill their savior.

The Romans who kill Jesus; the enemies of the Jews. Contrary to anything prophesied by the Jewish prophets.

RED DAVE

I think the term among engineers is: retrofitting – constructing an object from already existing data.

RED DAVE

Koyaanisqatsi

Well, it was more like, "This is why it is highly unlikely that the entire story was just made up out of whole cloth based on OT prophecy, since OT prophecy does not organically/logically lend itself to a Jewish messiah being crucified by the Romans and since it's all made up and not based on any real event, the author is free to create any story he wants from the available OT material so why would Romans and crucifixion ever enter into his mind if it's a story about Jews killing their own savior?"

spamandham

Where do you get the idea that writers of fiction include only what is required in their stories? The idea that a writer of fiction is restricted to only writing what is required is... not very well thought out IMHO.

Have you never written a short story?

spamandham

If this is what you think is the proposed scenario, I can see why you find it hard to accept. There are a few FJ positions I'm aware of, and the one you suggest is not one of them, but perhaps someone holds it?

1. The author of the gospel story was a Jewish mystic. Jesus is symbolic of the Jewish people, and the rest of the story is all symbolism as well. The author was strongly influenced by pagan ideas, and so some of that shows up as well.

2. The author was straddling the fence between Judaism and paganism and attempted to set popular pagan ideas to the tune of Jewish scriptures to syncretize the two.

3. The author was writing a fictional story who's intended audience was Hellenized Jews, and so compose an epic along the lines of the Homer, borrowing from Jewish scripture, pagan ideas, and even some historical characters thrown in to make the story compelling.

4. Christianity was a deliberate attempt by Rome to syncretize paganism with Judaism to unite an empire divided along religious lines.

I can see some merit in each of these, but I find the first most compelling, since it fits in with the mystical (not mythical) christ concept Paul wrote about.

spamandham

I don't believe a literary analysis that started from the assumption this is a work of pure fiction, would conclude that the primary theme of the story is Jews killing their own savior. That's merely a device, I think, to build up to the primary theme, which IMHO is, 'the beginning of a new era', but I'm not a literary scholar, so maybe I'm off on that.

Koyaanisqatsi

I don't even know how to begin to dismantle that strawman. You have completely misunderstood my point.

And you thinking that was my argument is even less well thought out.

Many. I'm a professional writer. What's more, I've also been a speech writer and "spin doctor" for a Senate candidate here in New York. So I have some idea what it takes to write socio-political propaganda with an agenda, which is very different than writing a short story.

We're talking about a first century Roman writing anti-Judaism propaganda in order to discredit or outright destroy second and third generation Jews from holding any allegiance to either their indoctrinated dogma, or their fathers' and grandfathers' spiritual and cultural teachers and leaders, the San Hedrin, during a time of mounting, deadly, insurrectionist revolt against one of (if not) the mightiest Empire the Western world has ever known, not about some daydreaming artist trying to think up an O'Henry story for a couple drachmas before Shule.

We're also talking about arguably the single most devastating bit of propaganda to have ever been written about an entire group of people that has historically resulted in centuries of derision, hatred, torture, murder and repeated attempts of genocide against the "Christ Killers." Which was evidently its agenda.

Which, again, makes it all the more implausible that it was entirely fictional considering the lengths both Paul and Mark, especially, go to in order to shift the blame for killing Jesus off the Romans and onto the Jews, who were the original target. If it were just all made up, then why is the one who is making it up write himself a preposterous trial sequence where the Romans are the ones who kill Jesus, that he has to then spend so much effort at torturing in order to try and shift a blame that he is creating out of whole cloth?

He's tabla rasa. All he's got to do is research OT messianic prophecy and create a Jewish messiah that the Jews know to be such and then kill him anyway. He doesn't have to shift the blame he created off of anybody; he can just blame the Jews directly, which is the entire purpose as to why he is writing the propaganda in the first place; to blame the Jews for killing their own savior.

:huh:

If it were all fiction, then Mark writes himself into a corner with the Pilate trial sequence. Remember, he has already written a trial sequence with the San Hedrin. He doesn't need another trial sequence with the Romans, particularly since there is no Roman crime that his character has committed and as a Roman, the author would know this. Indeed, it is abundantly clear that Mark does know this, as his ridiculous apologetics (his "spin") proves. So, either Mark (and Paul) are the stupidest smartest men to have created a religion before, or there was an actual insurrectionist radical Rabbi named Yeshua that was captured, tried and convicted (apparently publicly) of sedition against Rome by the Romans, and Pilate sentenced him to be tortured, mocked and crucified to death for all to see what happens to "terrorists" against Roman rule. Now that sounds like the Pilate history records.

Given that, it all makes perfect, chronological sense that a Roman propaganda campaign was begun around thirty years after the execution that resulted in turning the leader of a "freedom fighter/terrorist" insurrectionist movement into a deified martyr in the area. A martyr whose mythology had to be dealt with, apparently, by the revision of history to try and turn it all around.

We're talking about the Romans for chrissakes. They invented such Machiavelian/Rovian/Nixonian/Jeffersonian/Insertonian "dirty tricks" and they sure as shit thought of the average Jew (hell, anyone in their conquered lands, if not just outside their marbled vomitoriums) the way we would think of...well....sheep.

And that's why I think that my scenario represents the most likely (if unprovable) explanation/historical context.

ETA: And btw, I'm not just posting all of this to convince anyone, so much as I am to get people to start forgetting about any religious cult bullshit and start removing the layers upon layers of bullsh...deity to see how these preposterous Paul Bunyon stories get started in the first place. And, considering that this is the granddaddy of all Paul Bunyon stories in the Western world and has historically resulted in the untold misery of so many billions of people throughout the centuries, well, I don't know; I thought it might be important to point to what seems to me to be a rather obvious and simple explanation for all the hype.

If you want to worship someone, then worship a person--a man or a woman--who accepts and embraces that their life may well be sacrificed in a brutal fight for the freedom of others from an oppressive, dictatorial rule. To deny that such a person--a real, live, breathing man and not any kind of god--as Yeshua probably existed is to deny that such a person as Ghandi existed and personally, I think that's the greatest shame in all of this sham.

Contrary to Paul and Mark (ironically) the Romans were the bad guys. The Jews were the good guys. And that's the point; that's the story that isn't being told; that's the story that Paul and Mark (et al) have successfully quelled for millenia to this day. The victors have rewritten the history (as they always do) and we're left to arguing about the least important part of the story, just as Paul and Mark (et al) no doubt intended for us to do. And they succeeded from two thousand years ago.

Imagine how history would have been radically different if the story told those two thousand years ago was of a freedom fighting man who gave his life to fight against the tyrany of his oppressors and through that example gave us all a way to be free, regardless of his religious beliefs. That's the red herring on a bagel with a schmear.

Ultimately, the real story of Yeshua has nothing to do with deity or religion or radical vs. orthodox beliefs, or old vs. new covenants with a god; it's about a guy who said, "No. You can't do the things you're doing to us. We aren't slaves."

So, naturally, the slave masters came up with a way to make them theological slaves. Interesting that so few bought it, but here we are arguing against it. One might even argue that "Jews" are the original atheists.

They tend to congregate with one another and exchange endless discussions of what religion really is and how it can be practically applied, if at all, creating their own sense of purpose from a purposeless environment. And so far as I know, there's never been a progrom instigated by Jews to convert or die. Nor any intention or desire to mount such a progrom.

From what I've experienced and known as a Gentile/Atheist/One-time-christian-cult member, Jews just want to be left the fuck alone and if history is any judge, that seems to be the prevailing sentiment for as long as their religion has guided them. Are there those among them who wish to aggrandize themselves and be prominent in contradiction to that gross generalization?

Of course. And to say "them" is to commit the very crime I'm accusing others of. We're all people and we all just want to fuck and eat and love and live our fucking lives. But for "some" reason, Jews in particular just aren't allowed that leisure, even though, by and large, "they" are arguably the ones most entitled to it. Yes, "entitled."

And why is that? Because the ROMANS KILLED JESUS. Himself, just a man who stood up and said, "Fuck you, you fucks, I'm not going to let you rape our women and jail our brothers and enslave my family. You Americ....you Romans think you own the whole fucking world."

That's a man worthy of some kind of respect, if not actual worship. That's a man I wouldn't necesarily follow, but at least would understand when others that do say "he is the way." Hell, anyone in this country who would actually take to the streets and risk sacrificing their lives in such a way and for such a cause has my vote. You want to fight against the people who are oppressing all of us, knowing full well it's your death sentence to do so? You can't get any more "American" than that.

Well, not so much these days, of course.

Just a crazy re-revisionist thought.

spamandham

It may be a strawman, but not an intentional one. Over and over you keep harping on the point that the crucifixion is not required. If the story is fictional, so what if the crucifixion is not required?

I don't know where you're getting this from. Why do you make this assumption?

Koyaanisqatsi

If it were meant as the beginning of a new era, then you're talking about "Romans for Jews." You're talking about a story written by Romans to Romans in order to convert them to a revision of Judaism; in essence a "reformed" Judaism.

Who would write such a fiction in the first century C.E. (or any century) and why? It can't be "the Jews," since they are the ones who ultimately get blamed by the characters for killing their own messiah.

Koyaanisqatsi

Fair enough.

I just spelled all of that out for you. We're not talking about a Kurt Vonnegut short story; we're talking about Roman anti-Judaism propaganda.

It's not an assumption. Both Paul and Mark, especially, go to great lengths to shift the blame for Jesus' death off of the Romans and onto "the Jews." Why would they do that if it's all a work a fiction? IOW, why have the Romans kill Jesus only to then have to employ such tortured self-revision to make it seem as if it were the Jews who forced Pilate to kill Jesus, when you can just scrub the whole damn thing and write whatever sequence you damn well please?

Let's put into short story format. You have an idea for a short story that's about Jews killing their own messiah. Why would non-Jews be at all involved in that short story, let alone be so ultimately involved that they are the ones who actually kill him, when you are the one making the whole damn thing up from the start? Why would you set yourself up for tortured, nonsensical, illogical apologetics to conclude your story, when you are the one who can make the whole thing up without having to...

Why write what you could just erase, or simply tear up? Is that clear enough? Or was Mark just a first draft and he hadn't proofread it the next day and that became canon?

ETA: Let's start with what's wrong with the actual piece we know today as Mark and count the literary holes.

1. The San Hedrin held a trial and found Jesus guilty, but for some reason do not stone him (as they tried twice prior) and hang him from a tree for blasphemy, thereby fulfilling at least one OT messianic prophecy to a literary "T," allegedly because they are afraid the Passover festival crowd will turn on them and, presumably, kill them for their actions;
2. They instead cowardly seek to force their enemy--Pilate--to convict Jesus of a Roman crime that everyone involved must have known was not a Roman crime at all (Jewish blasphemy) and instead try to convince Pilate that Jesus claimed to be the "King of the Jews" in violation, supposedly, of Caesar's decree that no citizen shall have any King but Caesar;
3. Pilate not only reveals the San Hedrin's tacit treachery publicly two days later, but he repeatedly states and publicly declares that Jesus not only had committed no crime (that would include the alleged crime of claiming to be a "King" as was presented to him previously), but that he is innocent of all charges and a free man;
4. Pilate then announces the ritual that never happened to release any criminal (no matter what his crime) just because the Jews say so;
5. Then the San Hedrin, who so feared the festival crowd two days prior when they undertook this doomed collusion with their enemy, now inexplicably have no problem at all standing among the same festival crowd--exposed as the traitors and collusionists that they supposedly were--in order to whip the crowd into a murderous, frightful frenzy to force Pilate into doing the one thing they were so terrified of doing themselves, that Pilate supposedly does something not only contrary to his nature and rule, but contrary to all common sense and orders a man he has thrice declared innocent of all charges to the most heinous death sentence he has at his disposal;
6. In the span of a mysterious elipse, Pilate turns from being the staunchest advocate of Jesus' innocence, to his executioner; completely bypassing a lesser, more fitting sentence, let alone doing what he already decreed would be done, which was to set Jesus free, though in the bargain, he sets a convicted murderer seditionist named Barrabus free in Jesus' stead, even though Jesus was never a convicted criminal in any sense in order to meet the standards for the Passover ritural of freeing a convicted criminal that could not possibly have ever happened in the first place;
7. Pilate asks the crowd if Jesus is their "King" (thereby allegedly convicting him of a Roman crime) even though Jesus had told him during the trial he was not and Pilate had already concluded and publicly ruled that he was not and the crowd all say, "We have no King but Caesar," so no one considers Jesus to be a King, let alone the "King Of All Jews;"
8. In spite of these facts, the Roman soldiers in charge of torturing and ultimately killing this innocent man incongruously go against everything their leader and his own people have declared and they mock Jesus for being the "King Of The Jews;"
9. The Romans torture him and taunt him and place a crown of thorns on a man they know to be innocent and even fight each other over the stately robes that they themselve put upon him to mock him;
10. Upon his death, one of the Roman soldiers says, "He truly was the son of Man" (or some such Jewish nonsense that no Roman soldier could or would have ever said) and they leave the body, or are bribed to leave the body in the care of a Jew.

From there we have conflicting accounts of how Roman guards are posted at the tomb because they wanted to dissuade any rumors that he "resurrected," but we have no apologetic as to why the Roman guards stationed at his crucifixion would allow someone to take him down from his cross, let alone the idea that the same guards wouldn't be the ones who accompany the body to the tomb in order to stand guard there as well.

And then, of course, the guards just magically dissapear as Jesus magically....well, Mark doesn't say he appears. Mark just says that some women inexplicably go to the tomb three days later and on the Sabbath (contrary to Jewish funereal practice as well as basic Jewish Sabbath practice for the times) and they find the tomb open and a "young man" sitting inside who tells them that Jesus has risen! Not that he's resurrected, necessarily (a word well known in all of the languages of the time), just that he is risen and is evidently puttering around downtown.

Fin.

Now, again, why write all of that convoluted nonsense if it were all just a work of fiction in the first place and your intent was to state a case that the Jews killed their own savior when you could just do the exact same thing only end it logically and consistently with the trial befor the San Hedrin?