![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mel Gibson said in September, of his rendition of Jesus, "I wanted to mess up one of his eyes, destroy it."
So, what other one-eyed, spear-pierced deity hanged from a tree for the betterment of humankind comes to mind? :-O
Anselm, who changed Christianity forever by promoting the Christology of substitution atonement, was an 11th Century Archbishop of Canterbury. That he might have been influenced by Anglo-Saxon myths about Wodan is not far-fetched. The theory was first taken up after him by others (Abelard and Bernard) who also hail from northern Europe.
Human sacrifice appears to have been a widespread practice in northern Europe. Even if it was despised by northern-European theologians, they would have considered it thinkable that a human being would have to die to appease God.
This idea does not seem to have really entered Christianity prior to the northern influence. As noted in the essay I linked to, it was hinted at by thinkers like Origen who thought that perhaps Jesus was an atonement ransom to Satan (not God) based on the passage in Matthew about having to pay the jailor before one can be freed. This has Gnostic overtones; for example, in the Cosmic Ascension described in the Gnostic literature, due has to be paid to each ruling archon in the form of tokens before one can proceed to the next aionic sphere.
The net effect of the vicarious atonement doctrine is dehumanization; the separation from God is described as a fundamental nature of human existence, a deep chasm that separates the "sinner" from God and which can only be bridged by God. Nothing the human can do is sufficient. The net effect of this is not love but fear. "Oh, I am not worthy! What if my belief fails me, I will be destroyed!"
Writings to Jewish Christians dealing with "the blood of Jesus" appear to be theological legalism intended to end Jewish reliance on blood sacrifice in the Temple. They argue, for example, that Jesus' one-time sacrifice was superior to the yearly sacrifices that had to be conducted; that Jesus entered not a 'copy' of God's presence (an insult to the asserted holiness of the Temple in Jerusalem) but entered heaven itself. Jesus, as a priest in the order of Melchizedek (who preceeded Aaron!) conducted a sacrifice of himself in the "heavenly temple." This was not done for atonement of sin but in consecration of the heavenly temple (the cosmos), in consecration of the new, superior covenant. Not, in other words, as ransom, but instead to imbue the "heavenly temple" and the new covenant with the substance of life.
( Hebrews 9:19-28 )
crossposting to my journal and crossposting to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
challenging_god
So, what other one-eyed, spear-pierced deity hanged from a tree for the betterment of humankind comes to mind? :-O
Anselm, who changed Christianity forever by promoting the Christology of substitution atonement, was an 11th Century Archbishop of Canterbury. That he might have been influenced by Anglo-Saxon myths about Wodan is not far-fetched. The theory was first taken up after him by others (Abelard and Bernard) who also hail from northern Europe.
Human sacrifice appears to have been a widespread practice in northern Europe. Even if it was despised by northern-European theologians, they would have considered it thinkable that a human being would have to die to appease God.
This idea does not seem to have really entered Christianity prior to the northern influence. As noted in the essay I linked to, it was hinted at by thinkers like Origen who thought that perhaps Jesus was an atonement ransom to Satan (not God) based on the passage in Matthew about having to pay the jailor before one can be freed. This has Gnostic overtones; for example, in the Cosmic Ascension described in the Gnostic literature, due has to be paid to each ruling archon in the form of tokens before one can proceed to the next aionic sphere.
The net effect of the vicarious atonement doctrine is dehumanization; the separation from God is described as a fundamental nature of human existence, a deep chasm that separates the "sinner" from God and which can only be bridged by God. Nothing the human can do is sufficient. The net effect of this is not love but fear. "Oh, I am not worthy! What if my belief fails me, I will be destroyed!"
Writings to Jewish Christians dealing with "the blood of Jesus" appear to be theological legalism intended to end Jewish reliance on blood sacrifice in the Temple. They argue, for example, that Jesus' one-time sacrifice was superior to the yearly sacrifices that had to be conducted; that Jesus entered not a 'copy' of God's presence (an insult to the asserted holiness of the Temple in Jerusalem) but entered heaven itself. Jesus, as a priest in the order of Melchizedek (who preceeded Aaron!) conducted a sacrifice of himself in the "heavenly temple." This was not done for atonement of sin but in consecration of the heavenly temple (the cosmos), in consecration of the new, superior covenant. Not, in other words, as ransom, but instead to imbue the "heavenly temple" and the new covenant with the substance of life.
( Hebrews 9:19-28 )
crossposting to my journal and crossposting to
challenging_god
