Separation of church and YOUR FACE

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The problem is that Josephus has been pretty throughly discredited as a source for anything on Jesus (the dude from the gospels) the stuff in his writings, according to most experts, was added later. In fact, as it stands now, there appear to be no non gospel writings from the period that confirm Jesus ever existed, let alone what his political and social leanings were.

So we can really only use the biblical texts to discuss the biblical Jesus (which has its own set of contradictions). Within that context, Jesus was purely a spiritual leader. At one point the Jews wanted to make him king, but he escaped. The biblical Jesus was not a political revolutionary.

Again, the Gospel According to Judas.  Google it up, it reads like Kerry Thornley on a bad trip.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

KVJ is a terrible, terrible translation.

You can see hints of it here and there. The attack on the temple. Some of his comments (Matthew 10:35, for example: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword!"). A lot of other things in the bible don't make sense unless you put them in their historical context (again, seriously misruled colony with a lot of agitation against the Romans with an eventual successful rebellion).
I haven't sat down to read them, but the Dead Sea Scrolls are also contemporary with Jesus (or just about, as I think they might be a little bit later than him) and reveal more of this same line of thought.

Actually, it all makes sense just counting his grudge against the Pharisees.  He's always talking smack about them (check out the book of Luke, chapters 11-12 for some fun shit talking), never about the Romans.

And I don't particularly trust any translation.  None of them - not one - are based on first hand accounts.  The Gospel according to Judas apparently is, but it reads like Battlestar Galactica on bad acid.

Of course never about the Romans. They'd just crushed the hell out of Palestine for rebelling and were feeling particularly antisemitict. If I were a Christian at the time and I wanted to survive some angry Romans, I'd strip as much anti-Roman sentiment out of my religion as possible.

Which is understandable - it's not like you're ever going to get a totally 100% accurate translation anyway, but accuracy to the original text is relatively new. KVJ is especially bad, though. Talk Phoxxy about it.

Well, sure.  But the fact remains that he talked shit about the Pharisees all day long in every translation, and never once about the secular authority of either Rome or Herod.  His beef was with the priesthood, because he felt that they were perverting the word of God.

MANG:  Conservative?  HA!  Read the book of Luke sometime.  Jesus was a screeching liberal.

In fact, IMO, the book of Luke redeems the whole message, morally if not historically.

[Juana Go?]

Sure, he hated the Pharisees. They were Roman lackeys. But, seriously, to survive they needed to strip as much as they could of anti-Roman sentiment from the oral history. Which they did.

The problem is that Josephus has been pretty throughly discredited as a source for anything on Jesus (the dude from the gospels) the stuff in his writings, according to most experts, was added later. In fact, as it stands now, there appear to be no non gospel writings from the period that confirm Jesus ever existed, let alone what his political and social leanings were.

So we can really only use the biblical texts to discuss the biblical Jesus (which has its own set of contradictions). Within that context, Jesus was purely a spiritual leader. At one point the Jews wanted to make him king, but he escaped. The biblical Jesus was not a political revolutionary.

I just did a check and I am absolutely not seeing that, Rat. If it was something most experts were saying, about a million articles would be popping and and I've not seen so much as one.

Regardless, there are other contemporary texts to discuss the social and political context of the era though, among them the Dead Sea Scrolls. Like I said, they back up the social and political context, and you can't discount them at the very least in that regard.

[Cain]

All wrong.

Jesus was a mushroom.

[Mangrove]

Could Jesus' shit talking about the Pharisees be considered an indirect critique of the Romans? The Jews of the day knew that the Temple & the people that ran it were entirely in the pocket of the Romans.  It's why you have the Sadducees - learned scholars outside of Temple Inc. Which apparently, is how the institution of the Rabbi came to be. You can't trust the Temple priests to give you spiritual advice or intelligent commentary on Judaism, so you instead seek counsel from a group of unpaid, devout scholars who like to debate scriptural issues.

[But I don't know....I'm by no means an expert on these things and it's been a long time since I've studied anything about this period. Just a thought.]



PS. Not read the Gospel of Judas, though I do think I either have that in my library somewhere or have a commentary on it that I have not got 'round to. I've not read Luke in any detail. In fact, I got more interested in reading books about the Bible as opposed to reading the thing itself. I was raised in an almost entirely religious-free environment for which I am extremely thankful. My parent's apathy (especially my mother's absolute rejection of Catholicism) meant that very little Jesus ever got hardwired into us as kids. By the time I was in my teens I knew far more about Buddhism (by choice) than I ever knew about Christianity.

 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Sure, he hated the Pharisees. They were Roman lackeys.

That would be "Herod".  The Romans took no hand in local religions at that time (with the exception of any religion that employed human sacrifice, which they exterminated on sight).

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Could Jesus' shit talking about the Pharisees be considered an indirect critique of the Romans? The Jews of the day knew that the Temple & the people that ran it were entirely in the pocket of the Romans. 

Again, you seem to be conflating the Jewish king with the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were of course political, being a priesthood, but their only dealings with the Romans seemed to be "keep things nice & quiet so the Romans won't get their hooks in the temple treasury".

[Mangrove]

All wrong.

Jesus was a mushroom.

You sure? I had it on good authority from the [ahem] 'historians' quoted by Dan Brown that Jesus was, in fact, an Egyptian trained Sex Magician.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Templar_Revelation

[Mangrove]

Could Jesus' shit talking about the Pharisees be considered an indirect critique of the Romans? The Jews of the day knew that the Temple & the people that ran it were entirely in the pocket of the Romans. 

Again, you seem to be conflating the Jewish king with the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were of course political, being a priesthood, but their only dealings with the Romans seemed to be "keep things nice & quiet so the Romans won't get their hooks in the temple treasury".

Fair enough. I didn't appreciate the distinction there.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

PS. Not read the Gospel of Judas, though I do think I either have that in my library somewhere or have a commentary on it that I have not got 'round to.

Look it up online.  Seriously, it's a must-read.  If it was readable.  Stars fighting each other in the sky, etc.

I've not read Luke in any detail.

It's worth reading.  It's the sort of thing that attracted the poor into the church in the early days.

Sort of like Revelation, which is NOTHING like it's portrayed to be by the religious nuts.  It's more a promise that people will, at some point, get precisely what they deserve.

For example, look up revelation 11:18 sometime.  The republicans don't like that verse much.

[LMNO, PhD (life continues)]

Incidentally, the Book of Judas firmly supports TGRR's "Malevolent Deity" theory.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Could Jesus' shit talking about the Pharisees be considered an indirect critique of the Romans? The Jews of the day knew that the Temple & the people that ran it were entirely in the pocket of the Romans. 

Again, you seem to be conflating the Jewish king with the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were of course political, being a priesthood, but their only dealings with the Romans seemed to be "keep things nice & quiet so the Romans won't get their hooks in the temple treasury".

Fair enough. I didn't appreciate the distinction there.

Herod was the Jewish king, by the whim of the Roman Emperor (or his appointed governor).  He was directly responsible to Rome, which took a very strong hand in his affairs.  He was nominally a part of the priesthood, but in name only.

The actual functioning priesthood itself was mostly left alone, because the Romans were pragmatic enough (usually) to realize that allowing local religions to flourish caused less problems.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Incidentally, the Book of Judas firmly supports TGRR's "Malevolent Deity" theory.

Not really.  It supports the idea that Judas was in on the whole thing from the beginning, though, and that God definitely has a vengeful side to him, even after Jesus.

[Cain]

JEWISH POLITICS AT THE TIME OF JESUS:

Pharisees - hate Sadducees.  Hate the Hasmonean dynasty supported by them, asked Romans to abolish it.

Romans - abolished it, put Herod in charge. 

Sadducees  - hate Herod, so he uses the Pharisees to bolster his power base.

[Mangrove]

PS. Not read the Gospel of Judas, though I do think I either have that in my library somewhere or have a commentary on it that I have not got 'round to.

Look it up online.  Seriously, it's a must-read.  If it was readable.  Stars fighting each other in the sky, etc.

I've not read Luke in any detail.

It's worth reading.  It's the sort of thing that attracted the poor into the church in the early days.

Sort of like Revelation, which is NOTHING like it's portrayed to be by the religious nuts.  It's more a promise that people will, at some point, get precisely what they deserve.

For example, look up revelation 11:18 sometime.  The republicans don't like that verse much.

Aha. Thanks for the tips Rog. I just checked my books...I actually have 'Beyond Belief' by Elaine Pagels which is actually about the Gospel of Thomas and not of Judas.

I would ask Mrs Mang about the Bible for, once upon a very long time ago, she was a Baptist and she knows the book far better than I. Though, my attempt to discuss Revelation with in the past was short lived.

Me: So, when you were in the church, what did you think of Revelation?
Mrs Mang: TL/DR....thought it was scary, freaked me out and didn't read it.