outhouse

Oppressed Financially.

http://rexweyler.com/the-jesus-sayin...e-of-the-land/

Galilean farming communities in the first century lived on the edge of starvation, taxed into absolute poverty by three levels of government: the temple in Jerusalem, Herodian overlords, and the Roman state. Poverty, malnutrition, and unchecked infections led to pandemics of blindness and leprosy. The peasants clung to scarce promises of salvation from itinerant healers, redeemers, messiahs, and rebels. Josephus tells of multitudes following messiahs to the desert, only to be rounded up and slaughtered by Roman soldiers

Toto

This is your authority?

In all his credentials, I don't see anything that gives any credibility to his conclusions.

outhouse

Sorry, this is common knowledge for anyone who has done their homwork.


Here is some Hendricks


http://www.philosophy-religion.org/t...endricks06.pdf

The rest of the people of Israel were poor, many to the point of destitution. The rabbinic writings tell
of bands of homeless poor roaming the countryside, so desperate that when the poor tithe was distributed they
sometimes stampeded like cattle. Matthew's Gospel tells of standing pools of unemployed village workers so
desperate for a day's wage that they accepted work without even asking how much they would be paid. (Mt 20:1-
16) Poverty was so widespread that the Gospel of Luke portrays Mary as giving thanks to God that one of the
acts of salvation by the messiah she carried in her womb would be to "fill the hungry with good things." (Lk
1:53) The second-century rabbi's sad observation, “The daughters of Israel are comely, but poverty makes them
repulsive,” could easily have been written with the Israel of Jesus' day in mind.

outhouse

Nope, just a post mined for content.



Of course while going through other sources looking for some Reed and Crossan.

Toto

Do you know how often "common knowledge" is wrong in this field? Between Christian believers, gnostic seers, neo-Marxist reinterpreters, it's amazing how people just find a reason to believe what they want to believe. OK, maybe it's not amazing. It's a pretty common phenomenon.


Hm... a book called "The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted" by Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. (or via: amazon.co.uk). Sounds like objective scholarship. I can sympathize with the political objectives, but . . .

Adam

WHAT!!!
It just reads "of the Roman Empire" (thus explaining the Latinisms), nothing about being written by Romans or even God-fearers. But we all know you'll never admit you were wrong. The same article cites "the author's use of varied sources", making you doubly out-of-bounds in your criticisms of my postings.

outhouse

I admit im wrong, all the time, apologize to if im overly zealous in my attempt as well.

Gladly admit If I feel scholarships are split on certain topics.

But in this case, im definately not.


We have Roman authors possibly in Syria, writing a legend using many Roman metaphors and directly competing against Roman Emporers with the Jesus charactor.

Speaking in front of large crowds like the sermon on the mount, is almost a impossibility in Galilee, yet Romans did this all the time, so they place their Jesus doing this.

The star in the sky at birth, was previously used by Augustus I believe on coins, and in later works [not Gmark] used this to help build a peasants divinity as it did with the Emporer.

Son of God used by Roman Emporers also used in these gospels to build divinity.

Making Pilate inoccent of murder was also playing to the Roman audience.

Barrabas, fiction as well.


This was not a Jewish piece, it was directly against Judaism, and my opinion because God-Fearers took so much heat from Jews while worshipping in synagogues, but most important, because they wanted a movement not percecuted as bad as Judaism was after the fall of the temple.

outhouse

Its not "wrong" for those that have a full picture and take a general overview without getting into to many details.

Biggest mistake in scholarships, and I think you will agree, is when they attribute to much historicity.

As far as the evolution of Christianity, is was very wide and dynamic with more different movements pushed away with the mainstream movement that would become orthodoxy. Gnostic is a very vague term, a umbrella term so to speak for many differnt sects that died out.



But we dont confuse faith, for history. The real problem in this case, is the truth is ugly and most spend their lives avoiding it. A large group of unbiased trained individuals now provide us with educated opinions. I will take those over untrained guesses from ignorance.

outhouse

I needed to expand on this for your benifit.

This was a very wide movement, very very diverse, and many different sects existed with many different beliefs early on while this movement progressed.

The same way different educated perceptions exist in this forum, they did as well in the first century. And exactly like this forum, everyone thinks they have the only perfect opinion on the subject. Less those following a vague general overview.

Nothing here fits in a neat little box Adam. And when it comes to the gospels we are left with, these are only what became orthodox after a long process. They did not become othodox because they mirrored the truth or resembled the real history. They just spoke to more people that fed off what was handed to them. The gospels are only one winning version of what happened.

And in this case, to the victors went the spoil's. Its obviously Roman antijewish literature. We have a roman citizen Paul telling us he took his non-jewish movement, straight to non-jews, the god-fearers as his primary target.

These Roman gentiles who had been worshipping Judaism for generations ever so influenced by Pauls work, compiled multiple sources redacted to fit the Roman version popular in the empire, making Jews the enemy from the get go.

The movement failed in Judaism early on.

Toto

What does this mean? Is "wrong" the same as incorrect?

I don't know if I agree with this - I don't know what you are talking about.


Why do you think they are unbiased?