NomadicSky
Banned
What if Jesus wasn't thought of as the son of God by almost anyone...
Instead Jesus is thought of as the first reform Jew?
Instead Jesus is thought of as the first reform Jew?
temple B'nai Jesus
- Thread starter NomadicSky
- Start date
Reform Judaism is a phenomenon of the modern age. It was invented by Moses Mendelsonn in Germany as a way to adapt Jews to living in a Christian world. It's not something that would emerge in the stead of early Christianity. One could even argue that Reform Judaism is a somewhat Christianized form of Judaism. And, BTW, for all we know, early Christianity had nothing at all to do with the Jews. In the Gospels, the protagonist Jesus is indeed portrayed as being a Jew who becomes a god or a Messiah, but it could have been the other way around with the Christian hero evolving from a god (or some combination of them) and only later having his story conflated with the story of a hererodox Jew. The problem with discussing this as history is that there is no evidence for an historical Jesus, meaning a distinct individual in the first century of the common era in Judea who resembles the Jesus of the Christian Gospels. Therefore the idea of Jesus being a Jew who founded Christianity cannot be used as the premise for an historical discussion.Keenir said:
NomadicSky
Banned
I said
which I always have thought of him as I know he wasn't but in a way he was he wasn't for the old ways
Keenir
Banned
Cosmos said:
what??????????????
sounds like you're confusing "the story" with "how people interpret and write down the story".
Ah, so you follow one of the early heresies.
(not the Ebonites(sp)...they held that the Jewish practices should be kept)
um, drat, who was it? my mind went blank.
Marcion, that's it!
You know, every history thread has to make some assumptions to go on. For some reason, it's only the ones about Jesus where people go on rants about how this can't be discussed because Jesus really wasn't a Jew because I say so and 2,000 years of historical tradition are wrong (again, because I or someone with a degree says so).
NapoleonXIV
Banned
By every defininition I know of what makes one religion a sect of another Christianity is and always has been a sect of Judaism. We worship the same god and use the same Holy Writings, with the only difference being Christianity's are a little longer, we also generally each accept the other's teachings with additions in Christianity's case. We're much closer than Islam is to either one, yet Islam freely acknowledges itself a part of the same tradition. We are the same.
Only because we know perfectly well what the other unmentionables are, and generally leave them alone, Imajin. This is just the one that doesn't stay dead...
They key problem is that tikkun olam involves making other people better, without defining "better" as "more like me". Without that built-in tendency and ability to propagate, it's always going to be a minority religion within a larger body, so you need to specify what the majority is up to.
Although, if you can somehow make the collapse of Rome bad enough that the Jews are the only literate people left in Western Europe, you might have something.
They key problem is that tikkun olam involves making other people better, without defining "better" as "more like me". Without that built-in tendency and ability to propagate, it's always going to be a minority religion within a larger body, so you need to specify what the majority is up to.
Although, if you can somehow make the collapse of Rome bad enough that the Jews are the only literate people left in Western Europe, you might have something.
First of all, it's not only "the ones about Jesus where people go on rants". But 2,000 years of "historical tradition" does not automatically constitute history. I say simply that the burdon of proof is on the Christians before the existence of a first century CE historical figure corresponding to the Christian Jesus should be assumed as historical fact. Regarding the many centuries of tradition, we can say the same thing about Jesus as we can say about Moses, or the gods of Olympus, or the Canaanite pantheon: that they may indeed have a basis in one or more actual historical, human beings but if they do then we can't say when or under what conditions this person/people lived. What people often assume about Jesus is akin to what Euhemerus said about the Olympians being based not on gods but on actual, ancient human beings, whose were deified over the centuries as their stories were recounted. This is very different from a figure such as Julius Caesar, for whom there are numerous documents and references establishing that he was a distinct person living in a distinct time and place, or even a figure such as King Ahab, who is mentioned in writings contemporary with his time period and outside of the religion in whose scriptures he is a character.Imajin said:
Add to this the fact the Flavius Josephus' Jewish Antiquities was for centuries cited by Christians as evidence for non-Christian, first-hand documentation of Jesus' existence, when in fact the two times that Jesus is mentioned in this very long work have been shown to be fraudulant insertions, and one can conclude that early Christians (ie. the ones who altered Josephus' work) themselves realized that there was at least some doubt as to the existence of their religion's purported founder. Thus, in spite of 2,000 years of tradition, there is no reason to use the existence of a first century historical Jesus as an assumption in a discussion about history.
Nor is there reason for Christians to feel that they are being singled out. We could just as easily have a discussion about the historicity of Muhammad. I would consider the Muslim's resistance to archaeological excavation at, and even non-Muslims visiting, Mecca, to be an obstacle in the path of uncovering origins of Islam, unfortunately for the Christians, at the moment they are more vulnerable. We could talk about figures important to Judaism, but as a Jew I can tell you that most Jews really don't care whether Moses or Abraham actually existed, or whether they existed under conditions very different from what is portrayed in the Tanakh. Another thing unfortunate for Christians is that, unlike Moses, who if an actual figure would have lived in the Late Bronze Age (when much of the preserved writing is the work of pharaohs and kings boasting about their various military conquests), Jesus is purported to have lived in a time and place when we really would expect to have written evidence, and it's just not there.
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Why aren't you going against those who write Mesopotamian, Egyptian, or pretty much any pre-2000 (outside of maybe the Romans and Greeks) AHes, then? Let's face it- alot of history doesn't have that many sources to back it up. I don't see why the Bible shouldn't apply here. Dated back to within 150 years of Christ at worst, I believe the number is, and for the Letters of Paul probably earlier than that. But I again ask, why should the burden of proof be on me when you're the one claiming that the accepted history of the past millennia is false?
Keenir
Banned
Cosmos said:
You're right....the American Revolution is a myth. and Napoleon never existed either.
the Turks never came out of Asia -- they were in Europe all along...its the anti-Turkish elements in the EU that's trying to make us think othewise.
I've never heard of Euhemerus....ergo, Euhemerus never really existed. You're just using a fictional person to advance your view.
Oh dear, all of history is deemed a lie, just because some early Christians wanted to increase the visibility of their faith?????
Tell you what, you go dig up and deface Ayers Rock, and the Vatican, and then we'll talk.
so, that whole spiel about the Passover, the importance of Jacob and of Esau's brother.....we don't care about our history??
Imajin said:
Because when you study the Bible you find it is actually pretty clear that the writers of certain parts were motivated to write what they wrote and the way they wrote it on account of their particular political and economic circumstances. As one small example, consider the story of Aaron and the golden calves. Since it seems to have been written by Mushite priests with very specific objectives as to the monarchy of the Kingdom of Samaria and the Aaronid priesthood of the Kingdom of Judah, it is not such a stretch to conclude that it was not written to say that the events in the story actually happened. Rather it is a polemic parable.
And you're certainly right many of the other ancient traditions not being historical either. It is certainly no more historical that King Shar Aqun (Sargon) was placed in a basket in the river Euphrates as an infant than that Moses was placed in a basket in the Nile.
Your analogy is absurd. The American Revolution and the Turks were documented all around the world. Jesus was not.Keenir said:
Whether you or I have heard of a person has nothing to do with whether or not they existed. That's not how we decide if a figure is historical.Keenir said:
That's not what I wrote. I wrote that it shows that those early Christians lived in a world where apparently not everyone agreed that Jesus had actually existed. Otherwise, why would they have done to the trouble of altering documents?Keenir said:
Nachon! You might be interested to know that Avraham Yehoshua Heschel, an orthodox rabbinical scholar, held that the Torah was basically one big midrash. Also, in general in studying the texts, no rabbi would ever say you should accept most of it strictly on the basis of pshat. More often you are dealing with remez, symbolic meaning, and that BTW is something that fits in perfectly with modern, critical scholarship.Keenir said:
But we have no proof that they did it.
Or maybe it's the non-christians who did it, in an effort to wipe the Christ from history and memories, in hate or spite?
Or maybe it's the non-christians who did it, in an effort to wipe the Christ from history and memories, in hate or spite?
The Ubbergeek said:
Do you mean to suggest that non-Christians inserted the two sloppily written passages in an effort to frame Christians for falsifying documents? You are certainly welcome to believe that if you want, but you should know that the one who is usually blamed for tamporing with Josephus' work is Eusibius, the 4th century Christian leader, because he is notorius for telling Christians that it's OK to lie if it helps the cause of advancing Christianity - pious fraud is what some have called it. IMO, it does make him a reasonable candidate.
Keenir
Banned
Cosmos said:
Name one document from any of these civilizations that mentions the Turks:
* Mayans.
* Polynesians.
* Berbers.
the American Revolution was documented by parts of the world that (a) cared about such a thing, the positive and-or negative aspects of the revolution, and by (b) those parts that could document things.
If I've never heard of someone, how do I know they exist\existed ?
To increase the stature and importance of Jesus to the eyes of the world....remember, back then (and even up to the modern day), many things are dependent upon influence....ie, "if this famous writer says Jesus was a great man, then it must be true" which would get more converts.
"orthodox" being...Orthodox? or Reform? or other?
*is curious*
ah. interesting; many thanks.