Clivedurdle

Xianity isn't a subject for developmental psychology is it? Children's stories for adults?

mountainman

It may have had 2 stages. A grub-like cacoon phase where it lived underground and the subsequent "Butterfly" stage when a revolution happened and miraculously a ROman Emperor got hold of the NT and the "Emergent Christian Phenomenom" and finally registered the cult with the Roman senate in a pious manner. After this point, it was legal to be religious.

Clivedurdle

http://www.kidfish.bc.ca/dragonfly_cycle.htm

I wonder if a more complex lifecycle like the tapeworm may be appropriate.

DCHindley

Yeah, I looked at it here, but I am not aware of any scholarly research into whether they have any impact on Jesus studies.

All I can note is that Aesop's fable of the little fishies not dancing when they should have might underlie Matt 11:17 = Luke 7:32, and that the Greek historian Herodatus placed it into Cyrus the Great's mouth (who was a "christ") in the context of a political power play he played against the Lydians.

I honestly have to wonder whether Jesus originally may also have used it in a political sense, which Matt/Luke preserve in a garbled manner recast in order to make it seem innoculous.

DCH

Clivedurdle

Hmm - very fishy - 153 of them!

Clivedurdle

Are we looking at in the Gospels a Greek Jewish series of documents, possibly with many allusions to Greek stories and thinking that have been missed?

Logos, 153, cynic morality, dancing to pipes......

How many more are actually Greek referents? Why?

mountainman

The dominant religious culture since at least Alexander was Greek.
Rome did not destroy the Greek culture and religion in 55 BCE.
Rome embraced the Greek language and the Greek culture.
Every emperor until the appearance of you-know-who sponsored the Greek religious traditions.
Every emperor minted coinage with their head on the Heads,
and on the tails was patronage to Greek gods until u-no-who.

The NT was written in Greek in order to convert the Roman empire
from Hellenism to Christianity. This was done at the point of a
sword.

Greek referents were for the Greek audience at publication time.

Clivedurdle

Has anyone listed them and asked why they might be there?

I'm only looking for patterns....

mountainman

The Catholic Imagination of JRR Tolkien



There are some "interesting" articles here:

•The Presence of Christ in The Lord of the Rings, by Peter Kreeft. Excerpted from his new book The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview behind The Lord of the Rings (or via: amazon.co.uk) (Ignatius Press, 2005).

and other aticles such as...

•The Passion According to Tolkien, by Sean McGrath. Originally appeared in the magazine Desert Call: Contemplative Christianity and Vital Culture, published by the Spiritual Life Institute.

•Sacramental Imagination: Catholicism anchored Tolkien's life and suffused his writings, by Thomas Howard. Christian History Sept. 29, 2003.

•J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth. Bradley Birzer on the Religious Symbolism Behind "Lord of the Rings". Zenit.org. August 29, 2003.

Clivedurdle

From first link above.

Actually, the whole idea of son of god come to save us through a resurrection is also truer than real life....

Comparing the writer of the Gospel of Mark with Tolkien leads to an interesting candidate - Seneca.

Maybe we are looking at great literature and stories.