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The Bible

Started by Smeraldina Rima, November 04, 2021, 09:23:49 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Noodle Lizard and All Surrogate posted in other threads about reading from the Bible recently and I thought I'd ask them both to say a bit more and other people might join in.

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 04, 2021, 05:55:22 PM
As for whether religion deserves respect, I don't know. At least as far as the Abrahamic religions go, I was like every other teenager who gleefully embraced The Four Horsemen in the 2000s, but my stance has certainly softened in my relative dotage, and I find myself feeling a bit more admiration towards the tradition and community aspects of it. Of course, everything that jarred with me about the dogmatic and oppressive influence on individuals/societies is still just as troubling, and I'm no closer to believing in any of the supernatural elements. I suppose I sort of wish Christianity actually was what its defenders claim it to be, but their "nice" interpretation of the Bible is just as inaccurate as the hateful, bigoted one. Having re-read the Gospels recently, I'm actually more inclined to believe the hateful are closer to emulating what's being prescribed there - the peace and love Jesus is clearly a much more modern invention, as the one in the scriptures is a right grumpy so-and-so. We all remember the Good Samaritan parable, but not so much the several instances of Jesus basically going "eurgh!" and holding his nose when a Canaanite asks for help. It was disappointing, to be honest, and while I think there are plenty of "good Christians", I suspect their interpretations of the Gospels may be the loosest.

I'd be interested to know more about yout impression of the non-peace and love grumpy Jesus, and what All Surrogate thought about that conflicting impression of Jesus, having recently read the whole Bible, and having mentioned preferring the quid pro quo God of the Old Testament.

Quote from: All Surrogate on September 18, 2021, 09:34:16 PM
The christian bible (Revised Standard Version). I'm about a third of the way through, in the middle of the second book of Chronicles. It's very repetitious, mostly dull, occasionally repulsive. I've a feeling that the more interesting and beautiful parts are coming up, the poetry and songs and such. Here's hoping, anyway.

Quote from: All Surrogate on October 18, 2021, 07:39:06 PM
Well, I've finished it. A strange book, well, really a collections of books; difficult to summarise. It's quite repetitious and dull (Numbers is ... well-named), and often repulsive (I can only say that the temple in Jerusalem must have stunk of blood and burning meat). The New Testament is inevitably messianic, which I disliked more than I thought I would. I think I might actually prefer the Old Testament, where god is much more quid pro quo. Plus it has the Song of Solomon, which all about sex. The wisdom books in general are the best part, I think: Ecclesiastes is great if you're in a bad mood. I quite liked Isaiah as well.

The Apocrypha is next.

I was also wondering if there was any particular reason you chose the Revised Standard Version as opposed to the King James or New King James, especially given what you indicated about why you were reading it.

And to both of you: what were the main reasons or motivations for reading it?

bakabaka

The old King James version does have some rather lovely language in it, far easier and more enjoyable to read than any of the modern versions. The standard one in the US is dreadful, written so that almost any interpretation can be taken from it. Though when someone asks if you have heard (or read) the word of God, they get very defensive if you ask "Which version?". I don't think many Christians know how many times it has been rewritten, regardless of the original editorial committee that had their way with it.

Favourite quote: "In Pricipio erat verbum verum" In the beginning was the right word (true word)" from the Book of Kells.

Favourite gospel: The Book of Jesus. Tells of Jesus' childhood, killing rabbis and other kids because he didn't like them (among other things).

My interest in the bible is mostly artistic. I've just finished copying all the carpet pages from the Book of Lindisfarne because I was bored.

Nice post. As far as I can tell, the main difference with the New King James is that, taking Ecclesiastes as an example, it changes words like 'abideth' to 'abides', and 'whirleth' to 'whirls' (which personally I don't mind either way) whereas in the Revised Standard Version those become 'remains' and 'round and round goes' [the wind] while lots of sentences are rearranged in a plainer way, which might be a good thing if you wanted to avoid literary echoes. Although, more confusingly, at 14 here, 'vexation of spirit' becomes 'grasping for the wind', which is closer to the revised standard 'striving after wind', so I suppose there are more changes like that.




1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
15 That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.




1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
3 What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun?
4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever.
5 The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose.
6 The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit.
7 All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again.
8 All things are full of labor; Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which it may be said, "See, this is new"? It has already been in ancient times before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.
12 I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
13 And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised.
14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
16 I communed with my heart, saying, "Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge."
17 And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.
18 For in much wisdom is much grief, And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.




1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains for ever.
5 The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south, and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said, "See, this is new"? It has been already, in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after.
12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.
13 And I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with.
14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.
16 I said to myself, "I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge."
17 And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.




I wouldn't mind seeing your copies of the carpet pages if you have any pictures.

touchingcloth

Some of the changes made in versions of the bible later than KJV do things like choosing better English translations of the original text, which might be the case with the "grasping for the wind" example.

There is a school of thought among the American fundamentalist right which holds that the KJV is the single most reliable version of the Bible, because of the divine inspiration received by the scholars and scribes who worked on it. As in, more accurate than the original Greek. A cynic might think they just don't have the chops and stamina to actually learn Greek like a proper divinity student might...

Glad to know that. I think any time before that I've read from the NKJV, I assumed it was just a modernised version of the same wording, unlike other newer versions which have conspicuously different and more contemporary translations.  But it's, er, somewhere in between.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on November 04, 2021, 09:23:49 PM
Noodle Lizard and All Surrogate posted in other threads about reading from the Bible recently and I thought I'd ask them both to say a bit more and other people might join in.

I'd be interested to know more about yout impression of the non-peace and love grumpy Jesus ...

And to both of you: what were the main reasons or motivations for reading it?

I re-read the Gospels earlier this year for the first time since adolescence (and, to be fair, it was probably my first time reading each of them all the way through). You can get through them all in an evening quite easily. I can't remember exactly what inspired me to do so, possibly listening to our very own DukeDeMondo's excellent podcast about Jesus films, which goes into a fair amount of detail about the differences between the Gospels.

I'm going to sound foolish if I try and remember precise lines or details, but I was a bit surprised by the overall tone of the Jesus in each of the Gospels (except perhaps John). He's very short-tempered, defensive and petty. If you're not already on board with the idea that he definitely was the Son of God, it's hard find much to admire about him as a literary character. He spends a lot of his time going around saying "I know God better than any of you, trust", and gets very cross whenever anyone asks for even the slightest bit of evidence for this. He also loses his temper with one of his own disciples for politely asking him to explain one of his more convoluted parables and basically calls him thick as pig shit. We remember the "love thy neighbor" adage, but the bit(s) where he orders his followers to abandon their families if they don't agree that he's the Messiah is less often remembered. For a more petty example, there's a bit where he tells some flute-players in a public space to fuck off.

I think Matthew is the worst for this, and that makes some sense given that was supposedly the one designed to convert the Jews to Christianity, perhaps by emulating the moany glumness of the Old Testament God. But I was surprised to not really find much at all of the Jesus we imagine nowadays in any of the Gospels. It'd be one thing if he was always supposed to be a sort of ... zealot, I suppose, but the picture we get in contemporary discourse is that (aside from being the Son of God) he was a sort of humble Mister Rogers figure walking around Judea being really nice to everybody. The line you hear is that he was put to death for simply telling us to love one another, but that's not the message you get from actually reading the Gospels - it's far closer to "love God properly, or else I'll throw a strop". Not someone I'd especially want to emulate, anyway. If anything, I struggle not to act like Christ.

Bit of a rushed answer, sorry, but I'm looking forward to chatting more about it. Fascinating stuff, no matter what you get out of it.

bgmnts

The only Bible thing I'd actually want to read is the gnostic gospel of Judas, as I consider Judas the true hero of the new testament.

Revelations has cool moments though.

timebug

The standard 'pub argument' thing for our gang generally went along the lines of someone asking' Do you believe in God'?
To which the reply was usually 'I dunno; you define who or what God is, and I will tell you my answer'.
Once when I was ill and had bugger all else to read, I picked up my Mothers Bible and read it all the way through. So sometimes when a random doorstepping Mormon/JW/Born again whatever asks 'Have you read the Bible?' I can confidently say 'Yes thanks......Have you?'

poodlefaker

I always think he sounds a bit chippy at the wedding at Cana (which is probably the passage from the Bible I've heard most in my life). I suppose being a single man in your 30s at a wedding with your mum feels a bit awks, especially when she starts nagging you to show everyone one of your miracles, but there's no need to call her Woman.

Mr Trumpet

An ex of mine had been quite a happy-clappy Christian type, but by the time I met her she'd pivoted to Dawkins-esque antipathy to it all. Apparently all it took was for her to finally sit down and read the Bible.

I have a Bible and a Quran on the bookshelf but both feel like a big mental investment so they remain unread.

Pranet

#10
I read it on and off starting about this time last year and finishing February this year.

I am not sure why. I think a large part of the reason, shamefully, is so I could say, oh yeah I've read the bible.

I read the King James as I wanted to read the version that most Protestant English speakers for the last 400 years would be familiar with, and therefore a large number of the writers I am likely to read.
 
To be honest this meant that I quite frequently had to look at a modern translation online to work out what was going on.

I, like  All Surrogate found it a lot of the time repetitious and dull and also really stupid. But it has its moments.

I liked the Jesus of the Gospels. He is a bit of a prick at times (don't think you've mentioned him atomising a fig tree for not having any figs out of season) but when I got to the new testament after books and books of prophets declaring damnation to Israel for forsaking the Law he comes across as relatable and refreshing.

It is Paul who the biggest prick in the new testament.

Despite finding it stupid and boring I am kind of fascinated by it and will continue to read about it I think.

An tSaoi

Revelation is great craic.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Pranet on November 05, 2021, 04:18:25 PM
Despite finding it stupid and boring I am kind of fascinated by it and will continue to read about it I think.

I found this book, Zealot by Reza Aslan, to be a pretty interesting read concerning the historicity of Jesus and the historical context for a lot of the New Testament. It raises a lot of the same points I made about how Jesus is presented by the modern church (a peaceful spiritual leader) versus what the Bible actually depicts him as (a hardline revolutionary).

Pranet

Thanks I'll take a look.

Dr Rock

The best gospel is Matthew, because it has zombies in it

'And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.They came out of the tombs after Jesus' resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (Matthew 27:50-53 NIV)'

bgmnts

You'd assume that would be mentioned in every single independent source wouldnt you? You'd think Roman or Jewish scholars would be like "FUCKING HELL THIS JESUS LAD MADE HOLY ZOMBIES".

Dr Rock

One would assume that, yes.

#17
Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 05, 2021, 02:40:48 AM
I re-read the Gospels earlier this year for the first time since adolescence (and, to be fair, it was probably my first time reading each of them all the way through). You can get through them all in an evening quite easily. I can't remember exactly what inspired me to do so, possibly listening to our very own DukeDeMondo's excellent podcast about Jesus films, which goes into a fair amount of detail about the differences between the Gospels.

I'm going to sound foolish if I try and remember precise lines or details, but I was a bit surprised by the overall tone of the Jesus in each of the Gospels (except perhaps John). He's very short-tempered, defensive and petty. If you're not already on board with the idea that he definitely was the Son of God, it's hard find much to admire about him as a literary character. He spends a lot of his time going around saying "I know God better than any of you, trust", and gets very cross whenever anyone asks for even the slightest bit of evidence for this. He also loses his temper with one of his own disciples for politely asking him to explain one of his more convoluted parables and basically calls him thick as pig shit. We remember the "love thy neighbor" adage, but the bit(s) where he orders his followers to abandon their families if they don't agree that he's the Messiah is less often remembered. For a more petty example, there's a bit where he tells some flute-players in a public space to fuck off.

I think Matthew is the worst for this, and that makes some sense given that was supposedly the one designed to convert the Jews to Christianity, perhaps by emulating the moany glumness of the Old Testament God. But I was surprised to not really find much at all of the Jesus we imagine nowadays in any of the Gospels. It'd be one thing if he was always supposed to be a sort of ... zealot, I suppose, but the picture we get in contemporary discourse is that (aside from being the Son of God) he was a sort of humble Mister Rogers figure walking around Judea being really nice to everybody. The line you hear is that he was put to death for simply telling us to love one another, but that's not the message you get from actually reading the Gospels - it's far closer to "love God properly, or else I'll throw a strop". Not someone I'd especially want to emulate, anyway. If anything, I struggle not to act like Christ.

Bit of a rushed answer, sorry, but I'm looking forward to chatting more about it. Fascinating stuff, no matter what you get out of it.

This was very funny to read. [I've edited out some very badly put and over personal stuff here] but thanks for pointing out that Matthew might have wanted to emulate some of the appeal of the Old Testament and for pointing out DukeDeMondo's podcast.

Enjoyed reading all the other posts.

JesusAndYourBush

If you weed out all the parables and rules and silly stuff the Old Testament is a pretty good history book.  Granted, the accuracy is debatable.  I preferred it to the New Testament.

One thing I noticed is the number 40 comes up a lot.  Everything seems to be measured as 40 days, 40 years, and it made me think that in the time it was written it was probably just shorthand for "a long time" when they didn't really know.

I got thinking that it might have even started out as a history book - a group of monks attempting to document world history (the world as they knew it) but along the way lost sight if what they'd started and added all the religious stuff.

Noodle Lizard

#19
Quote from: Dr Rock on November 05, 2021, 07:53:20 PM
The best gospel is Matthew, because it has zombies in it

'And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.They came out of the tombs after Jesus' resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (Matthew 27:50-53 NIV)'

As Christopher Hitchens pointed out, stuff like this and Lazarus etc. surely takes away some of the effect of Jesus's resurrection. "It seemed to have become something of a banality".

Edit: changed an embarrassing autocorrect

Mr Banlon

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 05, 2021, 02:40:48 AM
I re-read the Gospels earlier this year for the first time since adolescence (and, to be fair, it was probably my first time reading each of them all the way through). You can get through them all in an evening quite easily. I can't remember exactly what inspired me to do so, possibly listening to our very own DukeDeMondo's excellent podcast about Jesus films, which goes into a fair amount of detail about the differences between the Gospels.

I'm going to sound foolish if I try and remember precise lines or details, but I was a bit surprised by the overall tone of the Jesus in each of the Gospels (except perhaps John). He's very short-tempered, defensive and petty. If you're not already on board with the idea that he definitely was the Son of God, it's hard find much to admire about him as a literary character. He spends a lot of his time going around saying "I know God better than any of you, trust", and gets very cross whenever anyone asks for even the slightest bit of evidence for this. He also loses his temper with one of his own disciples for politely asking him to explain one of his more convoluted parables and basically calls him thick as pig shit. We remember the "love thy neighbor" adage, but the bit(s) where he orders his followers to abandon their families if they don't agree that he's the Messiah is less often remembered. For a more petty example, there's a bit where he tells some flute-players in a public space to fuck off.

I think Matthew is the worst for this, and that makes some sense given that was supposedly the one designed to convert the Jews to Christianity, perhaps by emulating the moany glumness of the Old Testament God. But I was surprised to not really find much at all of the Jesus we imagine nowadays in any of the Gospels. It'd be one thing if he was always supposed to be a sort of ... zealot, I suppose, but the picture we get in contemporary discourse is that (aside from being the Son of God) he was a sort of humble Mister Rogers figure walking around Judea being really nice to everybody. The line you hear is that he was put to death for simply telling us to love one another, but that's not the message you get from actually reading the Gospels - it's far closer to "love God properly, or else I'll throw a strop". Not someone I'd especially want to emulate, anyway. If anything, I struggle not to act like Christ.

Bit of a rushed answer, sorry, but I'm looking forward to chatting more about it. Fascinating stuff, no matter what you get out of it.

So more of a Jim Jones type than Mr Rogers ?
Always wondered why devout by-the-book Christians fall for people like Jones and Koresh.
"He must be the messiah. He's a right mardy know-all prick, and well up himself.  He's just like Jesus !"

jamiefairlie

Bart D. Ehrman has written some great books about the bible, Jesus and the early Christian church. He's big on how the Jewishness of the movement was subverted by Paul who basically attempted to hijack the leadership away from the "official" continuity Jesus movement led by James.

Something to remember about the gospels, none of the writers ever met Jesus personally, they were writing them decades after the events happened and based on oral stories passed around the community. 'Mark' is probably the oldest and most historically accurate, while 'John' is the youngest, probably some 40 years after Mark, and the most ideologically slanted. The letters of Paul pre-date them and are the earliest written 'Christian' documents in the Bible. Also, the now accepted content of the new testament was not decided until the 4th century, many alternatives existed as the main texts for many different Christian sects.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Mr Banlon on November 06, 2021, 04:26:09 AM
So more of a Jim Jones type than Mr Rogers ?
Always wondered why devout by-the-book Christians fall for people like Jones and Koresh.
"He must be the messiah. He's a right mardy know-all prick, and well up himself.  He's just like Jesus !"

It is odd, the accepted impression of the Old Testament being the fire and brimstone God, and the New Testament being the more happy-go-lucky one which told everyone to chill out. Jesus, if anything, was a fundamentalist, telling everyone they weren't following the scriptures hard enough (except when a Pharisee calls him and his mates out for prancing about eating corn on the Sabbath, and he basically just says "shut up, my dad's the boss" - even the faithful have to jump through some pretty mad hoops to justify this one).

QDRPHNC

Quote from: bgmnts on November 05, 2021, 07:03:45 AM
The only Bible thing I'd actually want to read is the gnostic gospel of Judas, as I consider Judas the true hero of the new testament.

Will take you about 5 minutes.

Noodle Lizard

I got very interested in the Coptic/non-canonical Gospels when I was a teenager. It was around the time the Da Vinci Code was all the rage, making that kind of stuff seem the stuff of myth and conspiracy that trickled right the way down to the heart of the Vatican. I imagined going on some Indiana Jones type adventure around the Middle East trying to get my hands on some of them. Then my English teacher mentioned you could buy The Dead Sea Scrolls at Waterstone's, and that kind of took the wind out of my sails.

I did go on to read the Gospels of Judas and Mary and possibly one or two others, and they're not quite as exciting as you'd think. It's weird how they feel a bit like fan fiction, even though they're as authentic as any other Gospel on paper.

All Surrogate

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on November 04, 2021, 09:23:49 PM
Noodle Lizard and All Surrogate posted in other threads about reading from the Bible recently and I thought I'd ask them both to say a bit more and other people might join in.

I'd be interested to know more about yout impression of the non-peace and love grumpy Jesus, and what All Surrogate thought about that conflicting impression of Jesus, having recently read the whole Bible, and having mentioned preferring the quid pro quo God of the Old Testament.

I was also wondering if there was any particular reason you chose the Revised Standard Version as opposed to the King James or New King James, especially given what you indicated about why you were reading it.

And to both of you: what were the main reasons or motivations for reading it?

First of all, I have a terrible memory, and it's a long read, so my recollections of it are likely to be faulty.

Reasons: bragging rights, the ability to increase the smugness of my atheism, genuine interest, a desire to broaden my reading.

Why the Revised Standard Version? It's the version I have to hand (bought a long time ago, for my Religious Education classes at school). I briefly checked up on its reputation, and it seemed fairly well-regarded, so went with it.

The quid pro quo of the old testament god is the (repeated) statement that if the jewish people abandon worship of god, and only god, then they'll be punished. The cycle is: Israel worships god; Israel falters in its faithfulness; god causes some kind of devastation to visit Israel; Israel repents; Israel recuperates. Of course I don't believe that is the actuality, but that's the message. And despite all the religous bullshittery, it's about the here-and-now, about life.

The new testament, in contrast, is all about death. The End, the Apocalypse looms over the everything. Importantly, the apocalypse is imminent, and there's no escape. That's the message of Jesus. He wasn't nice. His purpose was to spread fear, a fear and trembling in the face of a final reckoning just on the horizon. I can only agree with C. S. Lewis (not something I often do):

Quote from: C. S. Lewis, in 'Mere Christianity'I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Of course, in a certain sense, you can see the seeds of the messianism of the new testament in the promises of the old. How do you reconcile the divine covenant with the continued suffering of the devout and needy? A choice: reject the very conception of the covenant (god, religion, worship) and recognise the essential meaninglessness of the world, or ... cling to the covenant and obtain justice somehow, somewhere, sometime ... soon. Jesus, and the new testament as whole, demotes and derides the real world, and yearns for its destruction (or at least, complete transformation) in the apocalypse.

The apocalypse never came of course, and never will. But it's an appealing thought for some people, it seems (not me; I think that's why I preferred the old testament to the new). I'm currently reading the Qur'an, and that's driven by a similar desire to immanentise the eschaton. I'm not enjoying it much, and it could do with some serious editing.

chveik

#26
i feel like it's more interesting to analyse the parables one by one rather than to search for an unified idea of what Jesus was because then it tends to get a bit contradictory. it's quite obvious the hippie-ish vision is bollocks but at the same time i don't think you can describe all his actions as an intent to spread fear. mind you i'm possibly talking a load shite, it's been a long while since i've read the new testament and i would probably look at it in a very different way now. i do think it's a great read, can't really be arsed with the old one on the other hand, apart from the big hits like Job, Ecclesiastes

FredNurke

Absolutely bloody terrible reasoning there from Lewis (as many people have pointed out). He could be a ridiculous hectoring shit, and then throw you by writing something as astonishingly good as Till We Have Faces. A fascinating man.

Thanks for the succinct reply, All Surrogate. I shall look up what FredNurke alludes to. I started re-reading Matthew with all this in mind, but I am someone who tries to see the best in people, even Jesus.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on November 10, 2021, 02:25:15 AM
Thanks for the succinct reply, All Surrogate. I shall look up what FredNurke alludes to. I started re-reading Matthew with all this in mind, but I am someone who tries to see the best in people, even Jesus.

I'd be interested to hear what you make of it. I genuinely did go in wanting to find the Jesus we'd all heard about, I just didn't really see that on any of the pages.