Jesus was a communist
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Tim Kilgallon wrote:You talk of the Q source and say it should be examined in its own context. I'm not an early Christian scholar, but I was under the impression that the Q source was hypothetical and was first put forward in the 19th Century. If that is correct, how can we examine it?
It is hypothetical and every now and then it's existence is challenged (most recently by Mark Goodacre), but since the synoptic problem was formulated it's been consistently, for about 150 years, weathered he storm, the Q source has been examined to death and the synoptic problem has, so it's not 100% sure (nothing is in history) but it's solid enough that one can do scholarship assuming it. there have been many reconstructions, John Klopenborg's is one that is often used, but most of them are more or less the same with a few variations here and there, but he core has been more or less established.
Vin wrote:Nor am I an eary christian scholar but if :'Jesus was a communist? ' What is a communist? "We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."Marxi don't call Jesus a communist (my interviewer does, but I think that's more for shock value) I say that he early Christians practiced communism based on Jesus' Jubilee theology.
Dave B wrote:Yes re Q it is pretty shit Tim. I suppose it is about matching stuff up in the gospel material and back tracking it to an original hypothetical document. Roman is a bit of a non tota scriptua document on this, So my little Christian on libcom became a redactionist, He decided he wanted to dump the gospel of John for its deviant Platonism; ; which is the best in my opinion. He is a bit of an old fashioned 4thcentury orthododox Christian when it comes to that kind of thing. He got quite upset by the women caught in adultery in John 8 which as I pointed to him was highly seditious in its political content. Although as new testament scholars have realised it was in fact probably pulled out of Luke as a bit too dangerous and slotted back into the more leftwing John Identified as Lukan as with his habit of using classic Greek future pluperfects mixed with split infinitives etc. It is a bit like seeing a Jayne Austen passage slotted into in a Phillip K Dick story apparently. Eusibius, who isn’t reliable, seems to suggest that there was some original ‘Georgdy’ type version of Matthew that people couldn’t work out properly. Not having vowels in badly spelt/written lumpen Hebrew wouldn’t help.Dave, I've gone over this with you before, sola and tota scripture are theological concepts NOT historical, I love the gospel of John as a theological document, but it is not a reliable source for the historical Jesus (at least not for the most part), yes I am a redactionist because that's how you do historical scholarship, we aren't doing theology here, if you want to talk theology that's fine, but that's a difficult subject than historical reconstructions. john 8 being an interpolation has nothing to do with its message, it has to do with textual criticism, the UBS and nestle alaand critical text have it as an interpolation, for a good reason, it was not in the earliest manuscripts of John and only appears in late Byzantine manuscripts. Nothing to do with its message, it's textual criticism.Yes, some New Testament scholars have theorized the story was based on a story in Luke, but that's besides the point. Whether it happened historically or not is anyone's guess, although given its late appearance I would argue probably not, at least not how It appears in its final form.
Why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did not exist?In no way does it affect historical materialism or Marxism or the Socialist Party of Great Britain as would be the position if the existence of God was accepted.No matter how implausible, no matter how improbable, no matter how unlikely, it is not impossible that some person existed, a Jewish preacher, one of many that existed in this era and that stories sprung up around him and that later after his death, people began to create myths and legends about him being the messiah, the redeemer, and even an actual god who offered false hope to a people, Jews at first, then to a wider population on the instigation of a follower, Paul. For political reasons, it was adopted as a state religion and all rivals and challengers which could have undermined its credibility and legitimacy were repressed and suppressed. Do we need to deny that the Teacher of Righteousness was real? Or accept that perhaps there was such a person since it makes better sense of our reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher_of_RighteousnessAgain i also ask, why is there such a determination to distance ourselves from a religious/social movement that called for common ownership even if a minority current as was the case of the Diggers in the Levellers, so embedded over the centuries that repeated attempts have been made to deny and discredit such a presence of thought within Christianity? Shouldn't we be applauding that history and bringing it to the attention of more people, especially those who think Christian Original Sin invalidates our case.
Marcos wrote:You are going to find many journals, textbooks, and historical websites , which are going to tell you that josephus did mention Jesus but the real historical evidences show that he didn't. There is not any serious historian who has proven the existence of Jesus. Only the charlatans have tried to do it and the only evidence that they have is the Bible which is not reliable source of informationThat's actually not the case at all, the scholarship majority opinion is that part of the testamonium is original and part of it is an interpolation. One reason is that part of it is something which no christian would write, and part of it is something only a Christian would write, and if you take away the latter it reads just like what Josephus would have said about Jesus, also when James is mentioned again as "James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ" the assumption is Jesus the so-called Christ is already mentioned.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did not exist?By the same token, why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did exist? We hardly need to resort to mythological figures in order to bolster our case for socialism/communism.
Quote:In no way does it affect historical materialism or Marxism or the Socialist Party of Great Britain as would be the position if the existence of God was accepted.Actually, it does. Isn't this character supposedly the Messiah, the Christ, and regarded by many as the worldly manifestation of God?
https://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443 heres a popular book on why there are zero mythecists in serious historical scholarship of early Christianity/second temple Judaism. its clear to me that many of the mythecists here are just profoundly ignorant on how historical scholarship is done. A few points: are the NT documents biased and problematic? Yeah, but so is every document in history, that doesn't mean that a historian will discard it as a source, that would be simply lazy and stupid, what you do is examine the source critically. Also for a minor figure (at least when he was alive) we would expect very very little evidence, and Jesus was a very minor figure; yet there are many many pieces of evidence for him, and just because a text was canonized later doesn't make it any more or less a historical source.
gnome wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:Why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did not exist?By the same token, why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did exist? We hardly need to resort to mythological figures in order to bolster our case for socialism/communism.
Quote:In no way does it affect historical materialism or Marxism or the Socialist Party of Great Britain as would be the position if the existence of God was accepted.Actually, it does. Isn't this character supposedly the Messiah, the Christ, and regarded by many as the worldly manifestation of God?
i didn't know the study of history was only important if it helped some political cause.whether people consider this guy the Christ/messiah or even God in the flesh has absolutely 0 bearing on his historicity (which is beyond dispute in historical scholarship).
Quote:why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did exist?Because we are increasingly seen not as an impossiblist party but simply a contrarian one.You are denying 100% something that you do not know is true or not and refusing to accept the possibility, no matter how remote, that it may have happened although like lots of events conclusive prove is missing and lacking. That is unscientific. You are leaving no exit door for you to say you were wrong if subsequently some evidence does appear that confirms such a person – a human being not a God – did exist.( http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-40556985 )We have in fact resorted to repeating a slogan Omnia Sunt Communia yet there is no record of Thomas Muntzer of having actually preached this but a hearsay claim made that he said it during torture.We attended a commemoration festival of a man and movement that was insignificant, so much so that it was overlooked by a researcher of the calibre of Karl Marx. Yet we seem to inflate the importance and take advantage of it for propaganda purposes If there was a genuine social movement for common ownership at the beginning of Christianity, then do you say we ignore this development and do not add it to the armoury of our store of knowledge that we are the last link in a long chain going back to the communism of the hunter-gatherers and that expressed itself in various ways over the ages.Nor is Christianity the only source of this demonstration of social relationship based on cooperative sharing. We have Buddhist Dhammic socialism. Even Islam possesses a tradition of socialism although it is more about an equitable distribution of wealth. Whereas we have Hinduism that lacks any socialist foundations.
Hmmmm..the fact that mouse took on a life of its own and posted so many repeated posts would make anyone other than a rationalist suspect some sort of supernatural intervention
alanjjohnstone wrote:Hmmmm..the fact that mouse took on a life of its own and posted so many repeated posts would make anyone other than a rationalist suspect some sort of supernatural interventionhmmmm, if a supreme being did want to provide support for their existence perhaps feeding the millions of starving children in the world, or some other such miracle would be more credible than"the miracle of the pessimistic Sotsman's mouse".I suppose based on this "miracle" you could come to the conclusion that there is a god, but unfortunately he's a fuckwit!
The Great Architect in the sky surely must be a Scotsman (or an Irishman)…who else turns water into wine. Isn't whisk(e)y the water of life, after all?And what does the Geordie God offer…Lindisfarne mead and Brown ale
alanjjohnstone wrote:The Great Architect in the sky surely must be a Scotsman (or an Irishman)…who else turns water into wine. Isn't whisk(e)y the water of life, after all?And what does the Geordie God offer…Lindisfarne mead and Brown aleThey have found a lot of empty wines bottles in the Roman catacombs which means that the Christians were heavy drinkers, and they had a good time. The Roman Catholic church might say that they were celebrating the Eucharist. It is known that Pageant religion practiced orgy
alanjjohnstone wrote:The Great Architect in the sky surely must be a Scotsman (or an Irishman)…who else turns water into wine. Isn't whisk(e)y the water of life, after all?And what does the Geordie God offer…Lindisfarne mead and Brown aleThe people of Jaw-dee do have a messiah. He was known to perform great miracles at the temple of the people (St James' Park), and he was known to the true believers as "Kee Gan"I quote from the Book of She ra Chapter One, verse number 9" and lo did a great saviour come from the south to take his place amongst the people of Jaw-dee, and they did know him as Kee gan.When the people saw Kee gan they proclaimed him as the Messiah and they looked upon his perm of curls and saw that it was good.And the tales of his miraculous deeds did travel far from the land of Jaw-dee even unto the darkness of the Land of Mackum and when the tribe that is known as Mackum beheld the miracles that Kee-gan performed, there was great gnashing of teeth (well the one or two they had left) and lo they did rent their vestments of red and white and did cry unto themselves the incantation "aye wa in thashitenoo".Unto this day the tribe of Jaw dee will shake their fists of vengeance at the cruel fat tyrant known as Ash Lee and cry out for the return of Kee gan, and consume the holy bread of stotty cake and with the sacred drink of broon perform the ritual of " gerritdoonyaneck" even unto the tenth bottle. So sayeth the lord
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