In another forum I was doing my rant about how the Christian religion originated with Paul, not with Jesus. I concluded that the small book of James, which the first “church fathers” found suspect, revealed what Christianity could have been had it not been usurped by Pauline theology.
Someone at the site introduced me to James D. Tabor’s “The Jesus Dynasty” (2006). Tabor, an archeologist, uses as reference his own field of research, the N.T. books, the Q source of the “gospels”, pseudepigraphic works such as the “Book of Enoch” and the “Gospel of Thomas”,
contemporary historians Josephus and Philo and writings of Clement of Alexandria and Jerome.
Tabor came to the same conclusion I espoused with one exception. He claims there is enough of eschatology in the Hebrew traditional witings to account for Paul’s otherworldly, visionary theology. It did not need Platonic idealism as a source. Paul, however, was an educated and traveled man. Surely, he was exposed to Greek philosophical traditions.
The questions are–Are there two Christianities? And was the real Christian tradition done in by Paul?
If you read Jesus words in context, you noticed that
the historical Jesus was a radical. He advocated having no property of any kind,
living for the moment take no notice of tomorrow, forsaking one’s parents and all
obligations in pursuit of god, loving one neighbors as you love yourself, if that isn’t radical
I don’t know what is,
It would be hard to create a religion with the words of an radical, so Paul
modified them, twisted them into something else. Jesus was a teacher
Paul was a system builder and build a system while Jesus was only teaching.
Kropotkin
There is Orthadox Christianity and Western Christianity and the Western Christianity is divided between Catholics and Protestants, and Protestantism is very divided, but that is a more recent event.
Christianity is combination of several religions and I believe this starts with Sumer, with Abraham coming from a Sumer city Ur, carrying with him Sumer mytholgy adjusted to fit the concept of one God. Egyptian theology is clearly mixed up in Christianity and Hellenism strongly influenced Chrisitianity. Also more eastern concepts are mixed in there
There are Hebrew incantations, to protect the deceased written inside Egyptian pyramids as they were consider the experts on such things. Qabalah is a mystical branch of Judism. And as said, I believe Judism begins with stories from Sumer and some think there could be a connection between the Jews/Hebrews and the Eygptian pharaoh who enforced the worship of one God. The Egyptian pharaoh, Akhenaten, who forced everyone to worship one God was so hated, his holy city was destroyed and buried and his name removed from all records. The spectulation is the people loyal to this worship of one God fled the hatred of this religion, and could have ended up in Ur, picking up the Sumerian stories, and “correcting” them to fit the idea of one God.
Every human ideology is generally eclectic at that size.
Each and every religion has a mix of other cultural ideas and histories within it.
Christianity is ****ed, when it pretends to be pure, perfect and exact.
Christians are confused common folk.
Paul and Constantine and Judas and so many other people ****ed everything up.
Later on popes and kings ****ed it even more.
People can’t even understand much of science, or the simpler and more basic workings of nature, so it’s way harder and far less likely for them to understand, know or have a personal relationship with “God”.
This kind of ideology is not even an applicable formula, because of how vague and unsubstantial these scrambled thoughts are. There is NO actual christianity. There are allot of ignorant, inexperienced, unsubstantial assumptions and feelings, in groups of people who don’t get along or agree, under one meaningless title or another.
If we had allot of chinese, african, arabic and indian people all migrate into america, does that mean they are all americans? What is an american, after that? It’s not just one religion, ideology, culture, race, it’s a big mush. Same with when christianity tries to convert all sorts of different kinds of people, eventually you’ve got a bunch of mush and you can only all agree on something that is not even specific. So they agree that there is something, somewhere, out there, which is invisible and has some kind of super qualities. Great…
It’s been possible for a person with no education, no brain, nothing, to become christian. Peasants had to have faith and follow some commandments. But that’s not a functional science at all. Instead that is conformity and obediance of a certain kind of slave. In the bible the followers of the idea are openly called slaves, refered to as slaves.
Someone tells you what God wants you to do. You try to do it.
That someone gets old and dies; some other buggers write things down.
Next step, follow the book. Obey the book.
If God talks to you through your moral conscience, and your moral conscience is based on the ethics, which are based on commandments, it means God’s essence and intentions are in the Word. God is authority. God is judge. God is the actual slavery : the actual commandments.
There’s not really a real christ-ian tradition.
Revolution can’t be traditional.
Tradition is the opposite of revolution.
Christianity is what some people tell you to do, or want you to do.
I had to look up “eschatology in the Hebrew” to know what that means and here is what wikipedia says:
Now we can argue to what degree Christianity agrees with this. It is the Christian bible, so I assume that means Christian agreement, but now, what about all the Christians? They aren’t Jews, so what qualities Christians for all these benefits? Paul said people could become Jews without circumcision and meeting other requirements of being a Jew, and I don’t see Christians desiring to return to sacfricing animals in the temple. How do Christians rationalize not conforming to Judism and still being God’s chosen people? Will they all start speaking Hebrew when the golden moment comes? May be they better prepare for that moment by studying Hebrew now?
The posts here are much better than I expected. Much to think about.
PK, I agree. Jesus was a rebel, a radical; but in the messianic tradition of the Jews. Paul was an ass-kisser. We should all be content in slavery. Marx was closer to what Jesus teaches about social oders than was Paul. The 13th chapter of “Corinthians” is, IMHO, the only Paul worth reading.
Athena, Of course, religion in the middle East was, and still is, an oleo of local and imported beliefs. So? What does this have to do with the Pauline usurpation of Jesus’ teachings and the early “church fathers’” preference for Paul over James or Thomas? Or Tabor’s attempts to see Jesus as immersed in Hebrew traditions, as a Jew, not a Christian. Elaine Pagels gives good read about 1st century religious controversies, as does Hans Jonas. You can do better than Wikipedia!
Dan, I think the word “Christianity” upsets you, as it does many, because of historical horrors connected with its advocates. All Tabor tried to do was suggest that there was a tradition based on the teachings of Jesus that was usurped by Pauline and others’ theological impositions on it. According to Tabor, the Jesus life and sayings were perpetuated by James and Jesus’ other brothers, not through Peter in some catholic (universal) succession of saints. Josephus and other sources attest to this. Tabor believes that putting Jesus back in his historical mileu could actually dissolve tensions between Jews, Christians and Muslems over the Pauline Jesus Is God assumption.
Athena,
Hopefully I am not coming across with intellectual snobbery. If I were still teaching and a student presented to me a beautifully written essay about Darwin; and if the primary source for the essay was “The Encyclopedia Britannica”, I’d give the student an A for presentation and an F for content. Check out how the Jesus movement was continued by Ebionites.
I do like the notion that Aknaten (Amenhotep IV) was probably the first monotheist. The ankh does resemble a cross. And there is theological speculation (Boethius, et.al.) that the cross represents the horizontal reach of human to human added to the vertical reach of a human to higher aspirtations, hence the longevity of the cross as a religious symbol.
The question here is whether or not Pauline Christianiy usurped the Jesus movement, led to the Greekizing of Jesus’ sayings and espoused otherworldliness at the expense of the reality of this world. Neitzsche attacks Pauline Christianity. He has nothing to say about the actual Jesus movement.
PK, Check out Richard Drinnon’s “The Sayings of Chairman Jesus”. I think you’d like it.
Paul catches a lot of flack here in ILP. Paulean Christianity was a dominant influence on the shape that the church took from his time on. But there is enough overlap between the teachings of Jesus and Paul to make the case against “two Christianities”.
If there’s two Christianities, where’s the other one? It seems to me that the people most concerned about this ‘Pauline’ influence are people who will only ever view Christianity from the position of the critic. The oldest existing traditions are as accepting of Paul’s (read, St. Paul’s) influence as are the newest.
Read Tabor’s book. It might change your mind about “oldest traditions”. Also the net is rife with critical essays on the “two” Christianities. Apparently, you are accepting the one espoused by the proscibing and banning church fathers. This is not a matter of criticism; it is a matter of bringing to light sources that show a lively debate about Jesus inthe 1st and 2nd centuries.
“Bringing to light?” No, it’s a matter of playing off ignorance. The oldest traditions have known about these ancient debates and discussed them in their commentaries for a couple thousand years now. It’s old news, and it’s settled issues. The only thing they have going for them is the prospect of titillating a modern mind to whom it is new. The modern Christian sits alone in a room with their Bible and decides what everything means. The devout ones go to a Church once in a while to get a matter or two cleared up. With absolutely no tradition behind them, it’s small wonder that the idea that there were such things as doctrinal controversies early on would get people’s panties in a bunch.
If the non-Paulines won the day, we’d all be sitting here having this exact same conversation, except you’d be lamenting about how the poor philosophically-educated Paul was shouted down when he tried to liberate Christianity from the legalism of the Ebionites (whom we’d just be calling “the proscribing and banning Church Fathers”).
sigh
I’m a Confucian (Communitarian) atheist living in America currently grappling with what the proper communitarian policy ought be in America. Until recently, I really thought that the Greco-Roman alternative was a viable one – I’m not talking about owing-a-cock-to-Asclepius sort of Greco-Romanism, but the sort of thought that gave rise to that particular line (not quite as good as “Either these curtains go or I do”, but while foppishness is awesome for quotes I’m not so sure a society ought be founded upon it).
sigh
But then I described something as a “Sysiphean task” to a neighbor of mine. Dude is a lawyer, highly educated, and had no idea what I was talking about. So I tried to lowball it, you know, “Sysiphus. The dude with the rock.” No good. I figured Red Bull made that reference safe, but it would appear that Red Bull shot too high in its assessment of the American public. I’ll let you mull over that one for a while. I have other examples that are equally depressing, admittedly, this is all anecdotal, but the sample is as wide as a single individual can experience in his short time alive.
So I am forced to accept that a Communitarian vision in America is necessarily Christian. If we accept that Communitarianism is fundamentally correct (admittedly, there is plenty of room for argument there, but I’m sold albeit because of my encumbered nature so wait, errr, shit), then the question we ought be asking ourselves is: what sort of Christianity? From my perspective, the answer to that question is: the more Hellenized, the better. At least for the average American. If the Korean fusion of Confucianism and Christianity caught on I wouldn’t mind at all, and if Confucianism were to win from there . . . well, I’d be so happy I’d beat my girlfriend senseless just because it had become socially acceptable. Errr, no, wait, that isn’t what I mean at all . . .
Xunz,
What are you talking about? The fact that many or even most so-called American christians have little understanding of their own religion makes christianity “necessarily communitarian”?
Of all possible groupings, christianity fractures community, it doesn’t bring people together. Wait - yes it does. It brings them together to squabble and fight over who has the right “path”, the right vision, the right rituals, the right dogma. Christianity, is a cardboard house in this country despite all its pretensions of representing the faith of the majority. Americans don’t have faith in religion, they have faith in faith. If Americans practiced christianity, then why are things the way they are? If I were looking for a unifying force of community, religion is the last place I’d look. Their track record is anything but unity.
Lacking an obvious means of separation between normative, accusative, and dative cases, work order in English is very important and cannot be swapped around.
As for Christian groups getting things done, one need look no further than the religio-populist wing of the Republican party. They have been an incredibly powerful force since the 80s. Right now a new crop of Christians is popping up in the political sphere and I think it would behoove us to try and reach out to them to make the organizing power of religion if not a leftist, then at least a centrist position. Look at Civil Rights and the Grange.
I think the largely untapped power of religion is to break through the whole leftist/rightist/centrist paradigm in the first place.
The “two Christianities” are represented in the one New Testament. They are two intrinsically human propensities. One is the vertical spiritual contemplative spiritual vector. The other is the humanistic horizontal vector. They have both been present in Christianity all along.
Throughout history, different individuals and groups have emphasized one or the other. The fact that they are both represented in the New Testament is a testament to one Christianity. Conflicts between these two propensities in religious history are expressions of the schismatic human condition.
I like that idea.
Anon,
I agree completely. There are plenty of people that are brought together by creed but have relatively few similarities from other socio-economic factors. That is why the RR’s populism works, because they tap into that market, by focusing on aspects that they feel ought be shared by everyone within the creed. As with anything else, the line between “uniting” and “creating” is pretty thin here, but the results are impressive. Look at how they managed to get Catholics (who traditionally voted more in-line with labor interests) to switch over because of wedge issues. It transcended the boundary, then reached in and grabbed them!
I wasn’t thinking of it with quite the negative spin, but you’re right.
Xunz,
While you’re right that the extreme right has power, the unity is only within a narrow band of interests. Three issues: Abortion, gay rights, and creationism. They were activated, not out of an attempt at unity, but out of a desire to defeat the secular devils. The RR play in politics is one of polarization, not unity. The RR can only succeed when fighting Satan and his minions. Step back and look at the big picture. There is nothing unifying about religion except in its own tiny picture. Look at the countries whose governments mix religion and secular. How many here would like to live under sharia law?