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American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem

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  • Originally posted by seanD View Post
    I don't give that much weight to the analysis and opinion of some anonymous person online actually questioning the competency of men who have spent their careers examining Jewish and Greek texts.
    I provided quotes from the works of the academics you cited as well as some other equally well qualified scholars.

    Originally posted by seanD View Post
    There's way too much here to address, but you pretty much lost me at that point.
    I appear to have given you credit for more academic ability than you actually possess.

    Originally posted by seanD View Post
    Jews addressing and scolding each other in the third person is nothing unusual. The Hebrew text (Old Testament) actually addresses them this way and even vilifies them with some of the most vicious accusations, even classifying them as whores.
    As far as I can recall the Hebrew bible does not have Jews calling their fellow Jews children of the devil who are liars like their father. Nor does the Hebrew bible suggest by its language that Jews crucified another Jew. Nor does the Hebrew bible have the Jews cursing themselves with another Jew's blood.

    However, I am prepared to be corrected on those points.
    "It ain't necessarily so
    The things that you're liable
    To read in the Bible
    It ain't necessarily so
    ."

    Sportin' Life
    Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
      As far as I can recall the Hebrew bible does not have Jews calling their fellow Jews children of the devil who are liars like their father. Nor does the Hebrew bible suggest by its language that Jews crucified another Jew. Nor does the Hebrew bible have the Jews cursing themselves with another Jew's blood.
      But they did kill other Jews for violating certain laws of God.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_the_Torah
      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
        I provided quotes from the works of the academics you cited as well as some other equally well qualified scholars.


        I appear to have given you credit for more academic ability than you actually possess.

        As far as I can recall the Hebrew bible does not have Jews calling their fellow Jews children of the devil who are liars like their father. Nor does the Hebrew bible suggest by its language that Jews crucified another Jew. Nor does the Hebrew bible have the Jews cursing themselves with another Jew's blood.

        However, I am prepared to be corrected on those points.
        No, you specifically offered your opinion with statements such as: "I would contend that both Charlesworth and Hengel appear to be engaging in an unwarranted degree of speculation possibly premised on their own personal religious preconceptions." Sorry, but I just don't find the opinion of some anonymous intellectual blowhard on the internet, of whom I know nothing about or what credentials they have, to be credible. If you want to offer specific counterpoints from other credible scholars, that's cool, but again this really isn't the section for that. And the fact you don't consider the scathing accusations against Jews and Israel in the Old testament on the same level as the accusations you bring up in the NT is either because you don't know about such accusations or you're just being disingenuous.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
          I'm not going to try to deal with this directly just now. There is a lot here and I'd like my points to at least come close to addressing your points effectively. But I have a question: Do you accept that Paul(formerly Saul) was in fact a Jewish rabbi that studied under a highly respected teacher of the law - traditionally Gamaliel,
          Paul never calls himself a "Jew". He may have been a Jew but he never refers to himself as one. In Romans 11.2 he states "I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin." He does not say "I am a Jew". Nor does Paul ever mention in his letters that he came from Tarsus even when he is at his most autobiographical or that he was a pupil of Gamaliel even when he is most concerned to stress his qualifications as a Pharisee.

          All that information is given to us by the author of Acts who puts the words into the mouth of Paul.

          Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
          and do you accept that Jesus and the Disciples were in fact Jewish men and women?
          Oh yes, pious and observant Jews. The Ebionites, a sect that was persecuted by the early Christians, may have had much more in common with those Jewish followers of the flesh and blood man behind the various Jesus' figures we are given in the gospels.
          "It ain't necessarily so
          The things that you're liable
          To read in the Bible
          It ain't necessarily so
          ."

          Sportin' Life
          Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

          Comment


          • Originally posted by seanD View Post
            No, you specifically offered your opinion with statements such as: "I would contend that both Charlesworth and Hengel appear to be engaging in an unwarranted degree of speculation possibly premised on their own personal religious preconceptions."
            And that is my opinion, premised on the known theological persuasion of both Charlesworth and Hengel.

            It is not surprising that their views will be predicated on their own religious preconceptions; just as are the opinions of N.T. Wright, William Lane Craig or any other academic who holds to an evangelical Christian viewpoint.

            Originally posted by seanD View Post
            If you want to offer specific counterpoints from other credible scholars, that's cool, but again this really isn't the section for that.
            Do you consider VanderKam, Vermes, and Chancy not to be credible scholars?

            Originally posted by seanD View Post
            And the fact you don't consider the scathing accusations against Jews and Israel in the Old testament on the same level as the accusations you bring up in the NT is either because you don't know about such accusations or you're just being disingenuous.
            I repeat, provide the Hebrew bible texts where: Jews accuse other Jews of being children of the devil who are liars like their father; Jews crucify other Jews; Jews curse themselves with the blood of a fellow Jew.
            "It ain't necessarily so
            The things that you're liable
            To read in the Bible
            It ain't necessarily so
            ."

            Sportin' Life
            Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
              Paul never calls himself a "Jew". He may have been a Jew but he never refers to himself as one. In Romans 11.2 he states "I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin." He does not say "I am a Jew". Nor does Paul ever mention in his letters that he came from Tarsus even when he is at his most autobiographical or that he was a pupil of Gamaliel even when he is most concerned to stress his qualifications as a Pharisee.

              All that information is given to us by the author of Acts who puts the words into the mouth of Paul.
              The author of Acts was Luke, the physician and companion of Paul. He was indeed a gentile convert, but well acquainted with Paul himself, and thus qualified to fill in some of the biographical information wrt Paul. BTW my point in asking these questions is not necessarily to argue with you specifically but just to get an idea of whether we have any common ground. We know that most of Paul's writings were well known and circulating in the church very early on from the writings of the early church fathers. Do you not suppose that if some massive adjustment in what he wrote or what his credentials were took place over time, we'd have some evidence in those early patristic writings in terms of clear conflicts with what they preserve and what was recorded later? And yet we do not.

              Oh yes, pious and observant Jews. The Ebionites, a sect that was persecuted by the early Christians, may have had much more in common with those Jewish followers of the flesh and blood man behind the various Jesus' figures we are given in the gospels.
              I doubt very much we can make the jump from someone wholly different from what is in the Gospels giving rise to what was recorded in the Gospels. Again, we have very early fragments of these books, and they do not differ in any significant way from what is records in the later complete copies of those manuscripts. I don't think you have a means to a very strong case that the actual Jesus taught anything significantly different from what is recorded in the Gospels themselves.
              My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

              If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

              This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

              Comment


              • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                The author of Acts was Luke, the physician and companion of Paul. He was indeed a gentile convert, but well acquainted with Paul himself, and thus qualified to fill in some of the biographical information wrt Paul.
                That is the Christian tradition. The fact is we have no idea who wrote the gospel of Luke or Acts although the two works are agreed to be by the same author.

                Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                BTW my point in asking these questions is not necessarily to argue with you specifically but just to get an idea of whether we have any common ground.
                That is reasonable.

                Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                We know that most of Paul's writings were well known and circulating in the church very early on from the writings of the early church fathers.
                There was no "church" in those early centuries. There were disparate groups of Christians who believed in often quite different things.

                Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                Do you not suppose that if some massive adjustment in what he wrote or what his credentials were took place over time, we'd have some evidence in those early patristic writings in terms of clear conflicts with what they preserve and what was recorded later? And yet we do not.
                Are you referring to Paul? We do not have any originals of his epistles either. However, I see no reason why his epistles should have been redacted or interpolated in any major way, although we now know that some of the epistles previously ascribed to Paul are now accepted to be Deutero-Pauline.

                We can see from reading those early ECFs that there were various different sects of Christians that certain individual ECFs railed against. Justin Martyr describes a sect [he gives no name] that persisted in observing Mosaic law and make that a requirement. Irenaeus refers to a heretical Judaizing sect as Ebionites.

                We know very little of such sects because they and their writings were destroyed by the early Church and what we do know comes from those other Christians who viewed them as heretics and/or Judaizers. Certainly a group that denied that Jesus was divine, but saw him as a holy man chosen by the Almighty to introduce the Kingdom of Heaven, a group that followed Jewish dietary and religious laws while also living an ascetic existence, would appear to have far more in common with an itinerant, pious, and ascetic first century Jewish holy man warning his fellow Jews to repent for the End of Days was at hand, than would other Christians who saw this Jew as some sort of anthropomorphic deity.
                "It ain't necessarily so
                The things that you're liable
                To read in the Bible
                It ain't necessarily so
                ."

                Sportin' Life
                Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                Comment


                • Originally posted by seer View Post
                  But they did kill other Jews for violating certain laws of God.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_the_Torah
                  And? That is not quite the same as the calumnies that are heaped on the Jews in various Christian texts.
                  "It ain't necessarily so
                  The things that you're liable
                  To read in the Bible
                  It ain't necessarily so
                  ."

                  Sportin' Life
                  Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                    And? That is not quite the same as the calumnies that are heaped on the Jews in various Christian texts.
                    But those "Christian texts" were largely (save Luke and Acts) written by Jews. And no where in those "Christian texts" are they called to harm other Jews. Unlike in the Old Testament where they actually put fellow Jews to death.
                    Last edited by seer; 09-16-2020, 06:47 AM.
                    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by seer View Post
                      But those "Christian texts" were largely (save Luke and Acts) written by Jews.
                      I have just had this out on this thread with SeanD. We do not know the identity or names of the anonymous authors of the four canonical gospels. The names of the four evangelists were added much later.

                      Originally posted by seer View Post
                      And no where in those "Christian texts" are they called to harm other Jews.
                      Unfortunately the earliest Christians interpreted those texts to denounce and revile, and on occasion harm, the Jews [the earliest recorded example being in the second century when a Christian mob, having heard the Easter sermon of Melito of Sardis, went out and murdered their Jewish neighbours].

                      The Christian church and its adherents continued to persecute, revile, and murder the Jewish people for upward of the next 1700 years.
                      "It ain't necessarily so
                      The things that you're liable
                      To read in the Bible
                      It ain't necessarily so
                      ."

                      Sportin' Life
                      Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                        I have just had this out on this thread with SeanD. We do not know the identity or names of the anonymous authors of the four canonical gospels. The names of the four evangelists were added much later.
                        Can you point out a complete manuscript of a gospel without the current author on it?

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                          I have just had this out on this thread with SeanD. We do not know the identity or names of the anonymous authors of the four canonical gospels. The names of the four evangelists were added much later.

                          Unfortunately the earliest Christians interpreted those texts to denounce and revile, and on occasion harm, the Jews [the earliest recorded example being in the second century when a Christian mob, having heard the Easter sermon of Melito of Sardis, went out and murdered their Jewish neighbours].

                          The Christian church and its adherents continued to persecute, revile, and murder the Jewish people for upward of the next 1700 years.
                          As I've noted previously, such actions against the Jewish people are 100% contrary to all Christian beliefs and teachings. People often act contrary to what they are taught is right, and unfortunately hatred of the jewish people somehow became entrenched in many Christian traditions. But that is the fault of the very nature Christ came to save us from, not faith in Christ Himself.

                          In Romans Paul makes the point that sin becomes its most utterly sinful self when it takes that which is in fact good and uses it to perpetuate evil. The history of the Christian church, and really all of mankind, is full of people that because of their own selfishness, greed, hatred, ego, etc distorted good things and used them to make evil things happen. It is the very nature of humanity, and the very real reason we need to be remade into a new creation, infused with the nature of Christ, truly changed from the inside out by the Spirit of God. It's what is needed, It's what Christ offers, but it is rarely fully realized.
                          Last edited by oxmixmudd; 09-16-2020, 10:58 AM.
                          My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                          If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                          This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                            I have just had this out on this thread with SeanD. We do not know the identity or names of the anonymous authors of the four canonical gospels. The names of the four evangelists were added much later.
                            The very fact that we don't have other contenders for their authorship and that the names associated with them have been accepted from the start is a good indication that while the authors don't name themselves in their works the original audience knew who they were. Plus the fact that two of them (Mark and Luke) are attributed to relatively unknowns (as compared to, say, the Apostles) is strong testimony in favor of that being who wrote them. If they were written by truly anonymous authors then the overwhelming tendency would be to assign them to major players as a way of increasing their gravitas. And as I said, there are no contradicting attributions. No very Early Church Father or other source quoting Luke but attributing it to someone else.

                            I'm always still in trouble again

                            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                              As I've noted previously, such actions against the Jewish people are 100% contrary to all Christian beliefs and teachings.
                              Is it?

                              Why do the four canonical gospels have the Jews [the people ὁ λαὸς ] demanding the death of Jesus? Why does Matthew 27.25 have the Jews calling a curse upon themselves and their children? Why does Acts 3.13 have Peter [apparently a Galilean Jewish artisan fisherman] referring to his fellow Jews as "You Israelites"? Why does that chapter continue at verse 14 with Peter denouncing his own people for rejecting "the Holy and Righteous One " and instead asking that "a murderer given to you"? Verse 15 then has Peter accusing his own people of killing "the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead".

                              While there were individual Christians in past centuries who did try and offer some protection to Jews in their midst, anti-Judaism was within Christianity from the beginning.

                              I am now going to make a rather contentious comment. In my opinion, much of the positive and affirmative attitude towards the Jews that is expressed by many Christians today seems to have arisen post 1945.
                              "It ain't necessarily so
                              The things that you're liable
                              To read in the Bible
                              It ain't necessarily so
                              ."

                              Sportin' Life
                              Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                                The very fact that we don't have other contenders for their authorship and that the names associated with them have been accepted from the start is a good indication that while the authors don't name themselves in their works the original audience knew who they were.
                                Well that is an opinion premised upon absolutely no historically attested evidence. These four canonical gospels were all written at different times, in different places, and for different communities.

                                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                                Plus the fact that two of them (Mark and Luke) are attributed to relatively unknowns (as compared to, say, the Apostles) is strong testimony in favor of that being who wrote them.
                                Once again that is an opinion premised upon absolutely no attested evidence.

                                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                                If they were written by truly anonymous authors then the overwhelming tendency would be to assign them to major players as a way of increasing their gravitas.
                                There were other gospels around you know, as well as other Acts.

                                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                                And as I said, there are no contradicting attributions. No very Early Church Father or other source quoting Luke but attributing it to someone else.
                                Pious tradition played its role.
                                "It ain't necessarily so
                                The things that you're liable
                                To read in the Bible
                                It ain't necessarily so
                                ."

                                Sportin' Life
                                Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                                Comment

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