stephan huller

You are imposing modern historical sensibilities on ancient people. I can honestly say that I have had dealings with people from Africa who (a) were convinced that corn had magical power to make them work better (b) that relatives or neighbors back in Africa were casting spells to prevent them from being successful and (c) that AIDS was an evil spirit that would not affect their unsafe sexual practices because they washed their privates with soap or because they consulted a medicine man. People in different cultures think differently. Lesson to remember when dealing with antiquity.

stephan huller

Another demonstration which clearly shows how east African mores were a continuation of ancient practices witnessed in the Roman Empire. Homosexuality (= kiswahili 'shoga') is a term reserved for the male receiving the sex from a man. The one having sex or penetrating other males is not considered homosexual. He is common referred to as a 'basha' (= player) and admired for his ability to penetrate any creature at any time no matter how far removed from a human female. This is a sign of virility and greatly praised in their culture. Seriously.

stephan huller

I don't view myself as an anthropologist but you have to get into the heads of ancient people in order to make sense of the past. Being familiar with living ancient cultures wherever they exist is a good way of doing just that. Assuming that people were always just the same as us leads to the mistaken assumption that most ancient people were intellectually capable of high level of critical reasoning skills. Continuing the Kenyan analogy, another significant cultural difference is that east Africans like big asses on woman. They have a term for this gari kubwa which literally means 'big car' (gari like most Swahili words are a corruption of another language in this case the English 'car' cmp. money = peysa, mesa = table from contact with Portuguese; there are a great number of Arabic words too kitab etc.) When you are standing around with these guys a woman you and I wouldn't take a second look at becomes a complete distraction especially if her hind portions are as big as a car or van http://www.kenyanlist.com/kls-listing-show.php?id=51268

archibald

This is all very interesting stephan, and it is undoubtedly true that one should try as best one can to adjust one's mindset appropriately, but, I'm wondering what this has to do with thinking that when people of any culture tell/told or wrote stories about a famous or important religious figure, that they don't/didn't tend to believe that the figure ever existed, especially when the stories do not appear to relate to the dim and distant past? One wonders why they bothered to become genuine followers and didn't just start a book club on wednesday evenings to discuss the latest fiction. Or the evening of whatever they called Wednesday.

stephan huller

What's more important than eating and getting laid for most people? Maybe breathing, having good health. But's about it but you don't start talking about these things until you're in your 70s

archibald

You appear to have accidentally ingested some hallucinogenic mushrooms.

stephan huller

There is no joke here. People can pretend to believe in God. You can't be a little pregnant. You can't lie about whether or not you got an erection. Sexual truth in many ways is more truthful than professions of faith

stephan huller

But that's my whole point with the sexual analogy here. In traditional cultures sexual arousal is the yardstick for truth. Arousal is a mystical experience literally controlling and possessing the subject. When we start hearing about 'the Holy Spirit' moving the ancient Christian 'prophets' or early descriptions of their 'love feast' or speak about the holy 'bridal chamber' it's all sexual in nature because they thought differently than we do. They were 'moved' by the truth in the same way this guy getting a lap dance has been led to the conclusion that he wants the woman on top of him. http://www.kenyanlist.com/kls-listing-show.php?id=51268

tanya

What I have trouble understanding, Stephan, is how you can criticize someone, me or anyone else, for introducing an idea contradicting your thought, on a topic in harmony with the thread OP, and yet, here, in this thread, you start writing about utter garbage, having absolutely no relationship to Biblical studies.

The word gadfly comes to mind.

I posed a dozen serious questions, deserving a response, in your thread on the paraclete, and you ignored those questions, belittling my replies, and insulting my submissions (many of which, may well have been too elementary, too childish for someone with your lofty set of linguistic accomplishments, but, they were at least ON TOPIC, unlike these couple of mindless replies from you, here on this thread.....)

If you have nothing to contribute in terms of offering an explanation about the rationale for the seeming overlap of the synoptic gospels, it may be more useful to abstain from responding, rather than posting essentially scatalogical drivel.

I agree with the notion, previously suggested, that it is surprising that there is not MORE overlap in the Gospels. What does the word, Gospel mean? If not absolutely, it at least conveys the notion, however modified, that the Gospels are, relatively, thought to have been both uniform, and unchanging.

That myth has clearly been disproved by scrutiny of the various ancient manuscripts, in our possession.

Toto

What's a poor moderator to do?

Stephen's link may or may not qualify as pornographic, but viewer discretion is definitely advised.