A Religious Rant
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The piece was originally intended as a short rant in the forum "The Failure of Christianity...", but such a complex subject naturally got way out of hand, so I've posted it as an article.
Here we go,mind the step
The fragility of the New Testament stories has exercised scholars almost from the time the ink had dried, and poses problems on historial, geographic, social, political and religious grounds. The political has hardly been mentioned in the forum so far, but is a major factor in any discussion on the New Testament.
Until recent time, writers of controversial subjects concealed details of their teachings by use of ingenious literary devices. The exigencies of the perilous time demanded that their teachings should be transmitted to their followers in a way that would not bring their enemies down upon them. It therefore follows that the "literal" details of these teachings are as misleading as the pseudo renderings of such arcane treatises.
One puzzling aspect of the Jesus story is the extraordinarily liberal attitude he showed to his Roman enemies, the most hated of his own people. (And they were his people otherwise the priest of the Temple would have had no involvement in the matter. It would have been a purely secular Roman affair) The supposed rioting and public involvement strikes a distinctly discordant note. Was it a deliberate attempt to mislead both Rome and the Temple. Their attention diverted from politically damning evidence. A deadly serious and extremely damgerous attempt to transmit something which his followers dared not permit to fall into the hands of the authorities.
Although in the article "The Failure of Christianity..." the author dismisses the Torah almost as an irrelevance. it was the Holy Book upon which sacred oaths of the day would have been sworn. Binding in ways not easily understood today. Jesus' association with the Iscari cannot be dismissed easily or lightly, for their history is long and inextricably linked with the society and politics of the times.
The dubieties of the New Testament texts are seen by many as reason for believing in its divine inspiration.
Personally I find that to be flawed logic.
Here we go,mind the step
The fragility of the New Testament stories has exercised scholars almost from the time the ink had dried, and poses problems on historial, geographic, social, political and religious grounds. The political has hardly been mentioned in the forum so far, but is a major factor in any discussion on the New Testament.
Until recent time, writers of controversial subjects concealed details of their teachings by use of ingenious literary devices. The exigencies of the perilous time demanded that their teachings should be transmitted to their followers in a way that would not bring their enemies down upon them. It therefore follows that the "literal" details of these teachings are as misleading as the pseudo renderings of such arcane treatises.
One puzzling aspect of the Jesus story is the extraordinarily liberal attitude he showed to his Roman enemies, the most hated of his own people. (And they were his people otherwise the priest of the Temple would have had no involvement in the matter. It would have been a purely secular Roman affair) The supposed rioting and public involvement strikes a distinctly discordant note. Was it a deliberate attempt to mislead both Rome and the Temple. Their attention diverted from politically damning evidence. A deadly serious and extremely damgerous attempt to transmit something which his followers dared not permit to fall into the hands of the authorities.
Although in the article "The Failure of Christianity..." the author dismisses the Torah almost as an irrelevance. it was the Holy Book upon which sacred oaths of the day would have been sworn. Binding in ways not easily understood today. Jesus' association with the Iscari cannot be dismissed easily or lightly, for their history is long and inextricably linked with the society and politics of the times.
The dubieties of the New Testament texts are seen by many as reason for believing in its divine inspiration.
Personally I find that to be flawed logic.
