Tom Sawyer

Is he the Catholic Church's first pedophilia victim?

sotto voce

Not necessarily the first.

Tom Sawyer

Well, those two guys are clearly fighting over him and one has himself a large dildo. Not only do you not get a whole lot of street cred by being the second priest to rape a child, but one doesn't generally commission artwork to commemorate jumping onto the middle of a bandwagon.

Something special is clearly going on here and the start of a new tradition in the Church would be worth memorializing.

stephan huller

Jastrow (p. 893) traces Honi to the Gk Onias both of which are short forms of N'hunia. There is a variant N'hunion (= Onias). The name appears fairly common among the Tannaim

Hen means "favor, mercy, kindness, graciousness" which derived from hanan. Another variant is Hananiah (Gk Anianus).

sotto voce

An old tradition of Roman soldiers who followed Mithra, and took catamites on their campaigns. All that changed was the decor.

What is notable, and perhaps relevant in the production of this sculpture, is that the pope of the imperium was at first heralded as 'Vicar of Peter' and then, more potently, as 'Vicar of Christ'. So there may be some symbolism in the departure of Peter, and the domineering, threatening expression of Christ. Whether this is intended as self-parody, as threat to the plebeians, or their complaint, is hard to tell. Maybe that's deliberate.

Tom Sawyer

Shit. Did the Christians not put anything original into their religion? One would think that institutionalized child rape would be something that you'd want to avoid stealing when looking around for a bunch of stuff to slap together to make up a new faith.

sotto voce

I think leaving children alone probably came as an unprecedented novelty to many Romans, patricians as well as soldiery. But then Romans thought nothing of leaving unwanted babies on the council rubbish tip.

But the idea was to slap Christian paint, or whitewash, on the same old earthiness.

tanya

Hi Sotto voce;

I know that you are serious minded, devout, and inclined towards intellectual discovery!! Good. Great, actually.

But, can you not see a huge problem with what you have written here?

Let me rewrite it, with emphasis:

Really?

Are you certain of this?

I write, this, in astonishment, because, to me, YHWH is omnipotent, having no need for a "son", or an alternative face, "logos", to present to his "chosen people", the Jews. Do you not comprehend that you seek here, to delimit the power of the omnipotent deity, Jesus?
How can anyone, any human, DEFINE a deity, in terms of purely human actions (crucifixion, in this case)?

An omnipotent deity has no need for ANY human action, whether it be simple crucifixion, or setting off a nuclear bomb, killing millions. Not only is human power completely insignificant in disturbing the power of the deity, but, since the deity is also omniscient, as well, then, he/she/it knows AHEAD OF TIME, exactly what will transpire, and when. That omniscience rules out any attempt by mere humans, including you, sotto voce, to dictate what or how, the deity shall, or must, behave.

There is no need to glorify the crucifixion of Jesus. If there had been such a Jew, named Jesus, and he had been executed by the Romans, or the Jews, or the two groups working ensemble, this pernicious activity neither enhanced, nor diminished, the power of YHWH. Nor was this activity something that YHWH would not have known all about, decades before the crucifixion happened.

I am sorry sotto voce, but I cannot share this thought of yours. Your usual brilliance is a tad off the mark here, in my opinion. The crucifixion of Jesus, whether performed by the Romans alone, or with the connivance of the Jews, to silence a critic, had little effect on human civilization. The subsequent horrors, persecutions, executions, rapes, pillages, and murders, committed by and for Christian congregations, far and wide, were based, not on the crucifixion of Jesus, but on the failure to accept as accurate, the events purported to have taken place, AFTER the crucifixion. Had Jesus been beheaded, instead, do you imagine the results would have been any different? Nope. Dead is dead. Whether he died for our sins, crucified, or beheaded, the theological point remains the same. Zombies return to planet Earth, following death, humans do not.

stephan huller

Isn't it amazing the way these discussions degenerate in predictable ways ...

sotto voce

The biblical thinking is that those who have faith become adopted 'sons' and 'daughters' of deity, who must therefore become 'father'. But they cannot become adopted, in the biblical view, without atonement, and the crucifixion. That necessitated incarnation, testing and willingness to die. Jesus, in other words.

The Holy Spirit, according to the Bible, tells the world about Jesus. Without Jesus, there would be nothing to tell. So Jesus is primary to Christian theology. He is not the first person of a trinity, but he is the reason that there is a Bible at all.