spamandham

I stopped reading when I saw this:

This is the typical drivel Biblical historians with less than 15 minutes of training in sociology trod out.

If you start with the very simple assumption that Christianity did not have magic orgins, then social models tell us it spread first among reasonably well off urban dwellers, since that's how new cults begin. This would also explain the emphasis on written texts. Poor farmers and laborers do not need written texts, and are almost never on the leading edge of new theologies.

So if there was a historical Jesus, he almost certainly was not the poor wandering preacher son of a carpenter.

maryhelena

Clear and simple logic............

It truly beats me that the historical camp - and sometimes the mythicist camp - are so wrapped up with the whole gospel story line about the crucified carpenter's son. Paul, whoever he was, clearly realized how great a stumbling block this whole crucified carpenter's son story was going to be in preventing people from seeing clearly - but hey, after all, perhaps that was part of the intent........outer mysteries and inner mysteries.....

maryhelena

I would imagine that the Jews felt hard done by - especially as the years go by and the whole blood libel scenario began to appear.

As to the whole theology of early Christianity - who knows for sure - its all interpretation as to what the NT words signify. Something I generally don't care to get too involved with - it often gets down to bible punching anyway. Theology, spirituality, its open house as far as I can see - each to his own......

As to what Paul was supposedly doing prior to 70 CE - I doubt very much at all! Early Christians, to my way of thinking, would have kept things pretty much to themselves prior to that event. For the life of me I can't imagine the gospel Jesus openly preaching the downfall of the Jerusalem temple while in Jerusalem - methinks he would have found more than a stone or two coming his way!

The early Christians were probably an elite intellectual group - hence not up to miscalculating the mood of the moment. As the situation on the ground changed - then a more open exchange of ideas probably took place - which could only begin after 70 CE.

Toto

I don't think that you have a coherent point. I don't believe in a fascist Jesus (try Mel Gibson for that). I don't think it makes much sense to speak of Jesus as either sexist or for equality for women.

The quote from the Gospel of Thomas is as valid as the quotes from the gospels - that is, not reliable at all. But it reflects the beliefs of the time, beliefs that were so commoplace that they were unchallenged. Women could become equals - if they became men. (We have to assume that there is some sort of symbolic meaning here.)

You can go through the gospels and put together a case for the Jesus depicted there as pro-woman, but I don't think there is a case for equality as we understand it today. And his pro-women sentiments are just in regard to women as followers. Gospel Jesus accepted slavery, and seems to have accepted the social and political arrangements of the time.

Elijah

Do you see Jesus as a social/political reformer or as supporter of a fascist society?

Why doesn’t it make sense to speak/consider if Jesus was a sexist or friendly with the ladies?
Yea the verse was reflective of the time but it was challenged by Jesus there.

Women becoming equals by becoming men spiritually is what feminism is; it’s not trying to make men more feminine. It’s women trying not to be submissive to men and trying to do the same work, with the same demeanor and authority as the men do. The quote you provided could be used as a feminist slogan. Which I appreciate since I don’t think if I would have put it forward as evidence it would have been accepted as credible.
Don’t you think you could find something of him saying something about a woman’s place if he was a sexist? Or do you think that they just edited out anything he said that was disparaging to the women? If you can’t find anything like that don’t you think that should be taken as evidence he didn’t think anything like that? Why is the sexist thinking attributed to Peter instead of Jesus?

If he wasn’t for equality “as we understand it today” what was he for then and how do you support that position? What pro women sentiments are you talking about as being directed to only his female followers?

I don’t consider Jesus to have accepted the social political arrangement, I consider him to have sacrificed his life to try and change it. Even if you don’t believe in the actual man you should still try to understand it from as a kind of political reformation movement done with a spiritual king instead of an earthly one.

fatpie42

Yes, but it's not symbolic of socialism or feminism, is it?

The fact that Jesus taught people does nothing to push forward the view that he was socialist or feminist. It's not a service to the people unless it benefits them.

Please note that I am not saying that he is opposed to what socialists or feminists want to achieve. I am merely saying that he cannot be claimed to be one himself.

And I suppose he didn't walk on water, turn water into wine, or shine with a bright light at any point in his life either. Heck why not suggest that he was never literally born and never literally died while we are at it? I'm not saying that we should take every part of the Bible literally, but you either accept the loaves and fishes story as literally true or you are back once again in the situation where Jesus had no food of his own to give to anyone. Even within the loaves and fishes story it is admitted that Jesus was taking those loaves and fishes from someone else.

Jesus had no posessions and he relied on charity. He had no food of his own to give. Therefore he cannot have served people by giving them food (except where he gives them someone else's food).

Yes, but you could say that about ALL the healings. On that basis, we might quite easily suggest that all of the healings were legendary. How does this help the idea that Jesus was a socialist. If you make all the stories where Jesus serves anyone purely symbolic, surely that makes the gospel writers the socialists or feminists and not Jesus at all?

Yes, but that is affirming the consequent. Jesus had female followers does not entail that he was a feminist. The argument only works the other way around: If Jesus' message helped women, he would have attracted more female followers as a result. In either case, this is still not enough to show that Jesus was a feminist. Someone can have a message which appeals to women without actually being a feminist themselves.

Nietzsche's work gained a large number of female admirers because his ideas on the function of power in society appealed to them. Women suffer from the power-drives of patriarchal society and Nietzsche's writings dealt with this issue of power-drives very well. However, Nietzsche himself was a misogynist. Nietzsche could not be described as a feminist even though his ideas benefitted women.

Sounds pretty accurate. I knew already that Hitler wasn't a feminist. That's why I used him as an example. However, my point was that Hitler had female followers. The point being that Jesus having female followers isn't enough to assert that he was a feminist.

Indeed, but that doesn't make Sarah Palin a feminist does it?

There are a lot of assumptions here and it's all based around presuming that Jesus was a historical person.

Admittedly, the choice to make Pontius Pilate out as being disinclined towards crucifying Jesus is undoubtedly political and it is most likely that Pilate never even went to Jerusalem to give the order of execution. However, this doesn't prove that there existed a Jesus who was anti-authority. It simply shows that our only accounts of Jesus are wholly unreliable.

In order to suggest that Jesus was a feminist and anti-authority I need to first know which parts of the original story are reliable. With no other sources on which to base our assumptions, this can only be a matter of pure guesswork and that inevitably means that people end up proposing the Jesus who appeals most to them.

The idea of a feminist and socialist Jesus is appealing, but he isn't found in the accounts we have available to us.

No. In fact Christianity did the exact opposite didn't it? The message was adopted by the Romans and actually led to the persecution of those who would not adopt the new religion. Helena reveals the location of Jesus' crucifixion over 200 years after the supposed time of the event and 'lo and behold' it just so happens to be in the current location of a major pagan temple, which she has knocked down.

The history of Christianity has been racist, anti-semitic, and highly patriarchal. If Jesus' sacrifice was supposed to be achieving something other than the metaphysical salvation that evangelicals like to preach to us and if that achievement was supposed to be socialist or feminist in character, it was a colossal failure.

Socialist and feminist aims have been much better served by the Enlightenment than by Christianity. There can be no doubt about this.

Okay, I perhaps should have read this before writing my previous few paragraphs. Nevertheless, I'd just like to suggest that perhaps Christianity has caused enough trouble already. It seems very odd to me to take the 'twisted and unrepresentative' account of Jesus and try to squeeze a socialist and feminist Jesus out of it.

That is an interesting interpretation of the Jesus narrative, but it's not really Biblical, is it? The birth narrative (which is most likely a later addition) is where Mary hears what will happen to her later on. She isn't told what will happen to Jesus as far as we can tell. In one gospel it is even Joseph and not Mary at all who receives the message. In any case this whole section is most likely an addition later on to boost the idea that Jesus was special. It's absence from Mark, for example, is a good reason to assert this.

For the rest of gospel story Mary is mentioned very little. When she is, we tend to be told about Jesus explaining how he doesn't need his parents any more because his real parent is God.

I am not going to dismiss the view that "Jesus was not Spartacus" simply because Pope Benedict said it. That would be an ad hominem dismissal. The fact is that none of the evidence points to a Jesus who acted like Spartacus. He didn't lead a rebellion, he just died. Even if I were to suppose that he had any socialist leanings, these were very quickly abandoned. It seems like a bit of a pipe dream to suppose that message was there in the first place.

On the point about the women, I have already pointed out that the presence of female followers doesn't make Jesus a feminist - even if his message benefits them. It's worth noting actually that there were a large number of early Christian converts who were women and they did so, oddly enough, because of the focus on virginity. By opening a monastery, suddenly women no longer had the obligation to provide children for a husband. They had higher status precisely because they did not have sex. While this seems oppressive today, at the time it would have been somewhat liberating. Of course, it also continues the obsession with virginity, a concept which has undoubtedly suppressed women for centuries. So in the end it seems that it was a mixed blessing. The women who opened the monasteries would tend to be rich widows who did so rather than marrying another husband who would then take ownership of the lands. As such, this allowed women to be respected land owners. However, Jesus never asked for the building of monasteries so he cannot be given credit for the benefits it provided.

We cannot judge Jesus to be a feminist without an example of something he said which promoted feminist ideals. Similarly we cannot judge Jesus to be historical without an account which is not mythical, symbolic and compiled by Christians decades after the initial events.

fatpie42

He just told you that this is a false dichotomy. Just because someone does not say sexist things doesn't instantly make them a champion of feminism. Similarly just because someone is not a supporter of facism (which, to be pedantic, is impossible since 'facism' was the name for Italian nationalism anyway) does not make them a social/political reformer!

Surely this is obvious?

fatpie42

I have a few small niggling doubts which I thought you might be able to address. Since the stories of Jesus began as pericopes before being formed into gospel narratives, doesn't that make it more likely that the original pericopes come from stories amongst the poor? Naturally the more skilful writers who come up with the gospels would be urban dwellers, but does that necessarily rule out the origins of the individual stories amongst the poor?

I feel like I'm missing something important here and would appreciate it if you could fill in the gaps.

It's occurring to me that the main events of the gospel happen in Jerusalem and the more minor stories about healings may well be claimed to have taken place in smaller locations amongst the poor simply because no one seemed to have actually seen them amongst the urban dwellers (who would presumably be the target audience). Would that make sense?

Solo

I think exactly the contrary and I am happy to report that I do have more than 15 minutes training in sociology.

If Jesus was a wandering preacher and a country carpenter's son then the lack of contemporary written record of him by himself or his closest associates is almost self-explanatory. If his career was cut short by a fatal run-in with the authorities, and the traditions about him were transplanted and scattered in a Greek-speaking urban milieu, then you would expect a variety of intellectual opinions to arise about him very early on, and these to prevail over the simple-minded accounts supplied by those who travelled with him. You would also expect that the intellectuals in the urban environment in composing their gospel treatises generations later would attempt to recreate, out of the fragmentary traditions available to them, the rustic idiom of Jesus to bolster the feel of authenticity of the narratives.

Jiri

fatpie42

The lack of contemporary written record of Jesus is also self-explanatory if Jesus was never a historical person in the first place. Like you say, the writers may have constructed the rustic idiom of Jesus. They may also have decided that many stories must have taken place amongst the poor in small villages in order to explain why they could find no evidence of them within the urban setting.