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Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, feminist blogger, has chosen to resign from the presidential campaign of John Edwards after being embattled (by certain right-wing zealots) for several weeks. The final straw, in the eyes of the Catholic League's head, Bill Donohue, was this comment in her review of the movie Children of Men:

The Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super-patriarchal, where god is viewed as so powerful he can impregnate without befouling himself by touching a woman, and women are nothing but vessels.

This apparently qualifies as a "vulgar" and "intolerant" anti-Christian comment. To say that critique is intolerant shows an utter misunderstanding of the concept of intolerance, which seems, from the perspective of people like Bill Donohue, to mean, "any act or utterance which offends our oh-so-delicate sensibilities."

The right has tirelessly labored to misappropriate the idea of intolerance, so that people think it refers not to efforts to counter structural power imbalance in our society, but to improve the niceness of language. By focusing on language they hope to take the focus off of actual oppression.

There is absolutely no measure whatsoever by which Christians are oppressed in this country. Keep that in mind. Christians run this country; they utterly dominate the public discourse, the cultural institutions, the laws, the mores, the standards of decency. Isolated instances of anti-Christian discrimination (which do occur) do not constitute institutional or state-sponsored oppression, exploitation, or disenfranchisement of Christians.

So, in order to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of misappropriating the idea of intolerance, they have to make people think that saying mean things (or things you claim are mean) in your blog is the equivalent of a pogrom, or a gay-bashing, or a clinic-bombing.  It is insulting to anyone who is working to end real intolerance in the face of violence and numerous other obstacles.

All that said, i also happen to think Amanda is absolutely right about the Christian idea of the virgin birth.

The gospels' authors must have felt some pressure to distance themselves from Pagans, who depicted divine impregnation of mortal women in a sexual way. In fact, Mary herself had to have been immaculately conceived, so that she would not bear the stain of Adam's sin -- because, apparently, sex itself befouls and stains your soul.

Amanda's comment about women only being a vessel applies too, because this was a widely-held belief about pregnancy in the ancient world: women were only a vessel through which men brought children into existence. This desire to cut women out of the picture is the very essence of misogyny. This view is most obvious in the account of the Gospel of John, whose author claimed that Jesus existed long before Mary did, making Mary's womb nothing more than a tunnel through which he passed into this world.
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For a couple of weeks now, i've been thinking about the Parable of the Vineyard Workers. This is one of the more bizarre parables, and that's saying quite a lot as many of them are quite odd.

the parable )

Those who say the primary or sole focus of Jesus' message was "saving souls" say this teaches us about getting into heaven. If you are born again while young and do good your whole life, you'll get the same reward as someone who converts on their deathbed after a life of wickedness and iniquity. This is because God is "merciful." Don't forget that the twisted assumption behind this is that God doesn't care about how good we might or might not be, just whether or not we have "accepted Jesus" (whatever that actually means).

Let us say that the above interpretation is correct. Even if so, this parable is hardly a ringing endorsement of the doctrine, because in that case at least a third of the parable is given to considering that maybe it's not fair for someone to "toil" all their lives (as if living an ethical life is necessarily drudgery) and get the same heavenly reward as someone who comes along at the last minute and converts right before they die.

Essentially, we are supposed to accept that god tells do-gooders, "Suckers! Gotcha!"

But all of this strikes me as an excuse to overlook the parable for what it is on its face: an examination of the way wage labor works. What we see here is that the person who pays the wage has the opportunity to set the terms, to give favor or not as they see fit; and that those who are forced to work for wages have very little input into the way they are paid -- creating opportunities for exploitation. The landowner is hiding behind "the tyranny of the contract" to exploit the day laborers who worked for him all day, under the guise of generosity towards the later laborers.

Labor for wage is a good thing to question, because in an empire, jobs which relate directly to the business of empire tend to earn the highest wages. Look at our present-day American empire and see how many positions of prestige and wealth are ethically bankrupt and involve directly increasing American power or profiting from disparity with developing nations. Note, too, that many of the most important jobs in human society -- bearing and caring for children, teaching, maintaining house, day-to-day caretaking of sick relatives -- pay almost no wages at all. Wage labor is a system designed to push people into working for the perpetuation of empire.

If the hypothesis i've offered in the past is correct, and Jesus wanted his followers to turn on, tune in, and drop out of the monstrous imperial machine, then the second view of the parable makes a lot of sense. Jesus would have wanted his followers to examine the true nature of wage labor.

John Dominic Crossan demonstrated in his complex anthropological investigation of Galilee at the time of Jesus (detailed in The Birth of Christianity) that a considerable upheaval was going on in which many peasants were driven from their land so that rich Roman developers could build large villas and other pet projects. Displaced peasants have a much lowered standard of living and are forced to take up crafting or day labor -- which Crossan pointed out added a dimension of significance to the fact of Jesus' career as a carpenter: he was a displaced peasant.

Property ownership is the key to power in a human society. Any class of unpropertied renters are kept in a state of perpetual debt to them. This is particularly hard to swallow when many of the unpropertied renters once owned their own land.

This is why throughout human history, mass displacement of peasants -- usually from families which had owned their land for generations -- is one of the primary causes of armed rebellion.

Christianity, which may have had its roots as a pacifist and egalitarian response to lower-class unrest, was over the generations misappropriated by the Roman upper-class and became a primarily "spiritual" movement, with all vestiges of its former radicalism painted over and spliced out. It became dominated by the heirarchical edifice of the church and became eventually a gear in the imperial machine. The "spiritual" interpretation of this parable, as an instruction on god's endorsement of the moral unfairness of deathbed conversions leading to eternal reward in heaven, is revealed as not simply being nonsense, but a deliberate burial of radicalism beneath a memetic morass.
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Saw Superman Returns with [livejournal.com profile] cowgrrl last night. I'll give it 2 1/2 stars out of four. The movie was engineered to feel very much like a direct sequel to the first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeve. It was too long. Special effects were good, acting was passable. The action scenes were the most engaging parts of the movie.

So, about that plot. mildly spoilerish analysis and poll )
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"That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."
-- attributed to Rabbi Hillel


I've argued before that Jesus and Paul were representative of a movement within Judaism to reframe the idea of "Law" away from reliance on literalistic reading of scripture and closer to what Isaiah said would be "the Law written on our hearts." I offered more evidence of that here.

Now i want to frame this thought in terms of deontological vs. utilitarian ethics which i brought up the other day. In that post i argued that the deontological approach to ethics is more prone to moral absolutism, and i hinted that it is also more prone to be used in support of an oppressive or exploitative status quo. (The latter is a point i intend to develop in considerable detail at some point...)

The parable of the good samaritan is a good starting point. Read it again, right now.

Read more... )

Is it fair to say that Jesus' interpretation of the Law is utilitarian? That's a bit of a simplification, but i'm going to argue that yes, it is.

On the face of it, we might be inclined to think that Jesus' ethics are deontological, because he does believe that the Law comes from God and therefore has no room for negotiation. BUT, he does not seem to think that the term "the Law" refers to a written document, or a laundry-list of do's and don't's.

Instead he has in mind a spiritual kind of Law, one that guides us to do the right thing every time. As he demonstrated in the Parable of the Good Samaritan and in numerous other parables and episodes (like the Episode of the Accused Adulteress), the written Law does not do that. The written Law allows for hypocrisy, and it is towards hypocrites to whom he deals the most scorn: those who use the Law, who use ritual and showy piety, to put on the appearance of being righteous when, in fact, they are supporters of a corrupt, exploitative, oppressive status quo.

Jesus' goal is for people to be perfect "like the Heavenly Father," which strongly suggests a continuing process of self-improvement and self-examination. His underlying goal seems to be maximizing the love and compassion in the world -- which sounds remarkably utilitarian.

Yet, he does not actually discard the written Law, he merely applies it judiciously.
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My first homework assignment for Prof. Koester was to write 1-2 pages on Matthew 5-7, with some emphasis on how it reflected the Christians’ conviction that they were the heirs to the tradition of Israel.

Read more... )
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The Fundamentalists teach that salvation depends solely on belief in Jesus Christ (and, consequently, acceptance of their social and political values). They base this on a narrow reading of some passages in scripture:

Read more... )

So, they claim, believe in Jesus and pray to the Lord and that's all it takes to be saved. They promote this view of "easy salvation" because it allows them to feel secure that they will go to heaven when they die, even though they support politicians who are actively hostile to efforts to aid the poor, end exploitation, and counter prejudicial injustice, things which Jesus seemed to think were pretty important.

Jesus was very clear that it is not enough simply to call him "Lord," but one must also "do the will of the Father who is in heaven." That will was expressed in Matthew 25:31-46 and elsewhere.

[Matthew 7:21] "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
[22] "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'
[23] "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'"

Read more... )
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For a while i've been pondering how to reconcile these passages.

[Matthew 10:34] "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

[Matthew 26:52] "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

Well, strictly speaking, they are not contradictory; it's possible that Jesus wanted us all to die (since this what he states is the consequence of taking up the sword in accord with his "wishes" in the first passage). (I suggest this only to be tongue-in-cheek, but every once in a while the suggestion has been seriously offered that early death brings the devout Christian to heaven sooner...)

But the first passage does not "gel" very well at all with the general pacifist thrust of Jesus' message. Is it an anomaly? Or was it a metaphor? Maybe he was quoting a saying that meant something differently 2000 years ago? Or is the first passage just spurilous?

One thought is that it represents change over time in Jesus' thoughts with regard to armed rebellion. One might detect some increase in angry radicalism, from the Sermon on the Mount (love thy enemies) to the cursing of the fig tree, to the attack on the moneychangers, to the Seven Woes... only to rethink the idea of violence at the last minute when the soldiers finally came for him.
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I now think this was a significant matter of contention in the early Church.

1. Jesus defended John the Baptist against the accusation by his detractors that he was malakos, or "soft/effeminate." Rather than denying the charge, Jesus argues that the real issue was the fact that John was not working as a "palace prostitute."

2. On top of that there is this mysterious passage in Matthew:

[Matthew 19:11] But He said to them, "Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given.
[12] "For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it."

This occurs just after a discussion about marriage, in which Jesus contradicted the law of Moses. So the traditional interpretation is that "eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs" refers to people who choose not to marry and remain celibate. If that is what Jesus meant, then he should have said that. As it happens, at the time of Jesus there was a class of eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs -- the gallae.

However, could they have been said to make themselves eunuchs "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven"? That really depends on what the phrase basileia tou ouranou means.

Some Christians -- those who wrote the Gospel of Matthew at least -- put far more stock on what one did and how one lived, than on what one believed. The author of John's Gospel took a different view of course; these opposing views appear to give us the axis of a debate within the early church about precisely what it means to be Christian. Matthew's Gospel posits the greatest commandments (love God and love your neighbor) and doing the will of the Father as the primary criteria; feeding the hungry, healing the sick, comforting the distressed; and non-violent rebellion against the hegemonic kyriarchal order. Many of the people drawn to the early movement were people disenfranchised from society. Faith is never mentioned as a prerequisite for being in the basileia tou ouranou; rather it is cast as something which Christians are to nurture.

It is no accident that Matthew preferred to use the "secular" phrase "kingdom of heaven" over the "religious" phrase "kingdom of God" (basileia tou theou) found in the other gospels.

By these criteria, the mendicant and sometimes oppressed gallae would have fit quite well the profile of those deemed welcome to enter the basileia tou ouranou. But even Jesus admitted that this was a contentious idea that not everyone could accept. But "he who is able to accept this, let him accept it."

3. Paul, like John, represented a wing of the movement that did not want to accept the inclusion of people like the gallae into the Christian movement. I've cast the passage in I Corinthians about "veiled men and unveiled women" as indication of the debate in the early church about the use of ecstatic practices and the non-trivial association thereof with gallae and other forms of transgenderism. Ecstasy, along with all forms of mysticism, has tended to draw the suspicions of the religious elite, which historically has sought to define and enforce a monopoly on religious services. Mystics of any sort can come along at any time and sway the faithful with their vivid spiritual proclamations, even without going through the "proper" channels of the monopoly.

4. As indication that this debate went on for some time, there was the controversy over the Montanist movement, at the heart of which were two female prophets (one of whom had a vision of Christ as a woman in a shiny garment) and a converted galla, who had been a priestess of Cybele. The Montanists, like the Corinthians, also used ecstatic, esoteric visionary rituals to make the presence of the divine imminent.

5. This debate within the Christian movement might be a reflection of an earlier debate within Judaism. The qedeshim were described as gender-deviant priestesses of a Canaanite cult, probably similar in nature to the cults of Ishtar and later Cybele. The language of the Old Testament is often that of a beleagured orthodoxy and resembles the language of present-day conservative Christianity in that regard, with frequent references to the wavering and unfaith of the population. This tone suggests that the ancient scriptures were written to represent one view of many in a pluralistic society. The qedeshim were thus rivals, and their heirs in Roman society (the gallae) would have been seen as such by a reactionary hegemonic regime hearkening to the ancient scriptures for its authority.
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'Hell is full of good intenions or desires.' -- Bernard of Clairvaux, Apothegm

Think of it as the way in which homophobia hurts ministers and priests.

No matter how good your intentions are or how pure and loving your heart, if you quote from the Bible about the wrongness of homosexuality, you are, whether you intend so or not, contributing to the environment of fear under which queer people live.

Here's what it looks like from my perspective. Every day, I restrict and restrain my gender expression in myriad ways, big and small, because I am afraid. I'm afraid I might lose my job, and I'm afraid I will be violently victimized. I'm afraid I'll be laughed at and won't be able to do business. On several occasions I've witnessed verbal harrassment by Christians, and every time I read something like this or this or this, that fear is intensified.

So, if you are someone who supports the idea that it is sinful to be queer, I am automatically afraid of you. It's not relevent whether or not you do anything to encourage that fear or even if you try to reassure me -- that fear is still there. I cannot afford to distinguish you from the people who picket schools and funerals, because you might turn out to be the oddball whacko who thinks God told you to stab me.

I am not telling you to ignore God's word. I am asking you to consider that there exists an ethical dilemma not easily solved by appeal to moral absolutes. If you want to be a bridge to Christ for people who been expelled from homes, families, churches, and jobs, you will not accomplish that by contributing to our fear.

Here's a thought on this. The key to solving the dilemma was given by Jesus in what he said were the two greatest commandments, and in the litmus test of good fruit vs. bad fruit. What action will uphold your love for all people, and bear good fruit?

Meditate on this:

[Luke 18:9] To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
[10] "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
[11] The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
[12] I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
[13] But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
[14] I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

The counsel of Jesus here is that one cannot gain assurance of righteousness in God's eyes by clinging to the letter of moral law. It seems like a sure-fire way to stay righteous, but if it results in bad fruits, then "the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brings death" (Romans 7:10)

In the episode of the accused adulteress (John 8:1-11), Jesus again stood against those who clung to the letter of the moral code to prove their righteousness at the cost of another. If Jesus were a moral absolutist, he would have had no choice but to agree with the woman's accusers. On the issue at hand, the Law of Moses is clear. However, his response -- to point out the men's hypocrisy -- was counter to the letter of the moral law, but still represents a satisfactory resolution to the moral dilemma based on the two greatest commandment and the good/bad fruit litmus test. I like to think that Jesus also did so because he knew that from the dawn of history, women have been persecuted for their sexuality and have lived in fear of being publically punished or executed for having sex. From his perspective, protecting her gave the best hope of reaching her soul and assuaging her fears.

But if the idea of supporting efforts against homophobia makes you worried that we don't know the Bible says homosexuality is bad, don't worry. It's safe to say we've all heard.
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The discussion to my last post got me to thinking about the accusation of immorality. It is an easy one to make, as those who make it can usually claim scripture and tradition on their side; and it is one that is always faced by anyone who challenges tradition.

Socrates was executed for "corrupting youth."

Jesus and his disciples were accused of breaking the Sabbath code and the rules of cleanliness. Jesus was executed for blasphemy.

Someone who challenges authority and tradition may be acting on behalf of the perennial truth, or she may just be a prideful rebel. How can you know? I argued that we can know by the comparing the "fruits" of authority against the "fruits" of the challenge. But either way, it is pratically a sure thing that the challenger will be accused of spreading immorality or living an immoral life.

Forty years ago, many religious authorities said of interracial marriage that it was "abominable," "evil," "distasteful," "a calamity;" they said that it would "pollute" America and "contaminate traditional marriage." Today we curl our lip at such rhetoric, because we know, from the perspective of forty years of hindsight, that there have been no bad fruits of interracial marriage, but there were many bad fruits from racism.

It may be difficult for someone opposed to homosexuality to see their view in a similar light -- inclined instead to say "but that's different." I would challenge them to consider the civil rights struggles of the past 150 years and examine how many times civil rights proponents were accused of spreading immorality or abomination or pollution. Any bad fruits there are from homosexuality are surely outweighed by the bad fruits of homophobia. I am convinced that forty years from now, people will look back on homophobic rhetoric and curl their lips.

If they are of the religious persuasion, I would also challenge them to consider the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector:

[Luke 18:9] To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
[10] "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
[11] The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
[12] I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
[13] "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
[14] "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Edit. In anticipation of the objection that homosexuality is described as immoral in scripture, I would point out that many at the time felt that scripture, tradition, and even nature spoke plainly against women's suffrage, or the abolition of slavery, or interracial marriage. How could someone at the time have known these scriptural interpretations were wrong? I assert that they would have known if they had applied the "good fruit/bad fruit" litmus test -- which I argue also applies in the case of homosexuality.
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In my last post yesterday, I don't think I articulated my thought well enough.

If there exists a divine presence, I believe that divinity wants humans to foster understanding and compassion. (If not, what good is it?) I believe that the most enduring religious movements have this at the core of their message.

To the point, I believe that this is the core of Jesus' message. There are many examples to illustrate this, but this point was made explicit when Jesus said the two greatest commandments in the law are to love God with all of one's heart, mind, and spirit, and to love one's neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22:34-40). He said these were the greatest commandments upon which all of the other commandments hang. Therefore it seems to me that all other commandments were meant to be seen as secondary to this concern.

If we take this to be the core of Jesus' teachings, then it creates a litmus test whereby we can test the validity of any doctrinal element or interpretation in the tradition.

I am not concerned with exploring how any one point of doctrine can be twisted to serve a purpose; rather, I am concerned with the effect of a doctrine when taken to heart as it is stated. Sure, there have been those who argued that killing a blasphemer was an act of love; but I do not see this as taking "love thine enemy" to heart. No one is fooled by that kind of cynical, self-serving mutilation of a religious teaching.

When Jesus said this, I believe that he was giving us a way of seeing through the cloud of claims to righteousness:

[Matthew 7:15] Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
[16] By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
[17] Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
[18] A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
[19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
[20] Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
[21] Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
[22] Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
[23] Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

This was directed as a warning against those who claim to bear religious righteousness, but who bring forth "bad fruit."

How does this cash out? That was demonstrated in John 8:1-11. As the Pharisees told Jesus, the Law of Moses demanded that a woman caught in the act of adultery was to be stoned to death. Technically speaking, they were right; that is what the Law of Moses demanded. If Jesus was, like many of his followers today are, a staunch upholder of religious law no matter who gets hurt, he would have told them yes, she must be stoned. Instead he challenged them, quite possibly putting himself in danger, because he understood that the crowd of Pharisees was bearing bad fruit.

When I say the end result of a doctrine (or its interpretation) can put the validity of the doctrine itself into question, I may be going beyond what Jesus meant to say. However, I think Paul meant to amplify this point:

[Romans 7:4] So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
[5] For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
[6] But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

On the face of it, Paul's argument in Romans, chapter 7 doesn't make sense until we ask, "What kind of sinful passions could Paul mean, that are roused by the law of Moses?" The entire thrust of this book's argument, though, is that we cannot rely on religious codes to ensure that we are acting from righteousness. Paul clearly believed that doing so was a trap that causes us to act inhumanely.

Instead of looking into books, then, the key is to judge a teaching or an idea or an action by the guidance of Spirit, in light of its effects on people -- whether it is good fruit or bad.

Sometimes Paul moralized, but where he did, he moralized not by arguing from what was written in the law of Moses, but from the conviction that he thought nature and real life would show certain things to be "inexpedient." In any case, Paul's argument about the newness of Spirit versus the oldness of the written code is not compatible with the use to which many modern Christians put his words, as justification for the perpetuation of oppression.

Edit. I have revised this post to reflect that what may be questionable is not necessarily a point of doctrine itself, but any particular interpretation thereof. Problems to which I point may stem more from interpretation than from doctrine itself, and it is helpful to keep that distinction in mind here.
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Virtually everything that Jesus says about the Old Testament law is geared towards encouraging a spiritual, rather than literal, interpretation.

Indeed, in the Gospel of John the idea of interpreting Jesus' words literally is mocked. For example, in John 3 a member of the Sanhedrin (who we can assume is reasonably well-educated and intelligent) is shown having trouble understanding that Jesus is using "born again" as a metaphor.

In several cases, his emphasis is on how people are harmed by the strict literalistic interpretation of the law. In the argument over picking wheat on the Sabbath, he even demonstrates how David, the pinnacle of Jewish identity, bent the Sabbath rules to keep from starving. He then cites the prophet Hosea, who wrote that God 'desires mercy, not sacrifice.' His message is that the Sabbath rules were never meant to be used to keep people from doing what they must do to live.

In his comments about divorce, he asserts that it is something which Moses put in the law, not God. This alone demonstrates that he does not believe that the scripture is the literal and infallible word of God.

When his disciples are criticized for eating without washing their hands, he argues that it is far worse for people to spread evil teachings than to eat with unwashed hands. He then cites Isaiah (another prophet) to accuse the Pharisees of promoting teachings which are not those of God but "rules taught by men."

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus illustrates how a priest or Levite would be required to walk past a man beaten and left for dead by the roadside, in order to preserve his "ritual purity." Jesus used the image of a Samaritan to make his point, because Samaritans were held with disdain by the people of Judea or Galilee. The Samaritan, though he might be unclean or apostate in the Judean mindset, is more of a 'loving neighbor' than the priest or Levite. This is not simply agitation against the priestly class (though it is that too) but an indictment of the mindset that puts scripture over human suffering.

I have in the past argued that Jesus was a member of a contemporary "liberal" rabbinical tradition (exemplified by Rabbi Hillel). This view sees God's Law as an eternal spiritual fountain of divine guidance, and the written law as but one instance of it. So Jesus' goal was to see past the written code to the spiritual laws underneath.

Previously I said that I thought that perhaps Jesus was being sarcastic when he said that "not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law," but now I believe it is more correct to suggest that he meant instead the spiritual law. He says this in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, which suggested in myriad ways that written law does not go far enough because rote adherence to it does not necessarily make one a better person.
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While Jesus had many words of condemnation for different types of people, it occurred to me today that Jesus is rarely critical or harsh to anyone who is actually in his presence. For example, he is critical of "scribes and Pharisees," the rich, the Sadducees, and so on, when speaking of them abstractly. But it is truly unusual for him to be shown having a harsh word for someone in his presence. Often the people in his presence include those who would have been shunned by most.

Even when he addresses aloud the sins of people around him, his tone is matter-of-fact, as if he is not very concerned with their imperfections or transgressions. The only people who see his wrath directly are the moneychangers in the temple. Next to that, the sharpest rebuke was directed at "the Jews" in John 8, accusing them of being the children of the Devil (a passage which some scholars believe was added later). (Edit. But even then, it was not a criticism leveled at specific people for doing a specific thing.) To the adulteress he says merely, "Now go, and don't do it anymore." A Pharisee who asks him about paying taxes to Caesar is asked, "Why do you test me?"

Many people who grew up as Christians can tell you about fear and guilt which was instilled in them regarding their least transgressions. But it seems to me that Jesus was far less concerned with the transgressions of ordinary people than he was with oppression and exploitation. By far his strongest criticisms were saved for people who were rich, or those who were espousing certain religious codes which contributed to social stratification.

For example, the parable of the Good Samaritan was meant as a dig at the priests and Levites, who would walk past a man left for dead by robbers in a ditch in order to preserve their precious ritual cleanliness.

If we read the words of Jesus as if he were focused primarily on social or cultural evils, and less on individual transgressions, the meaning of his ministry looks very different. If he truly meant for people to walk around in a cloud of fear about their transgressions, he would have spoken directly to people in a much more critical way. Instead, he 'suffered' the presence of people who would have been shunned by most (tax collectors and prostitutes and so on), and was not shown being critical of them. It is sometimes implied that these people were accepted by Jesus because they had "reformed" and changed their sinful ways, but this is nowhere stated, and if it were important to the Christian message, I think it would have been.
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Beliefnet has an article on the debate brewing over the "real" star of Bethlehem. With the presumption that this was a reference to an astrological event, astronomers and astrologers have searched the records and astrophysical models for it.

Michael Molnar says the event in question was an occultation of the planet Jupiter by the moon in 6 BC.

"It was something very subtle, only something an astrologer would have seen as important," he said.

The occultation happened in Aries, which ancient astrologers thought ruled the fate of several Near East kingdoms--including Judea, which was struggling under the yoke of Roman rule. Hence, Molnar concludes, the wise men would have read the birth of a new Jewish ruler, perhaps even the long-prophesied Messiah, in this configuration of heavenly bodies.


Mark Kidger, though, believes it was a supernova visible for 70 days, recorded by the Chinese in 5 BC.

As sign followed sign, culminating in the appearance of a "new star," they struck out for Jerusalem, site of Herod's court.

According to Chinese records, the 5 B.C. nova appeared low in the eastern sky in the constellation Aquila and lasted 70 days. If the Magi arrived in Jerusalem two months after they set out, Kidger said, the new position of the Earth would have made the nova appear to hover in the south over Bethlehem--where Herod directed them.


However, I think they're both wrong. At first I was inclined to think that the event refered to an astrological configuration ("we saw his star" could be taken that way), but the gospel account describes a hovering star that literally leads the magi, like a floating lantern, to the house where Jesus had been born:

[Matthew 2:1] After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem
[2] and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."
[3] When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
...
[9] After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.
[10] When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
[11] On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
[12] And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

EDIT: The obvious interpretation of all this occurs to me now after pondering this for a few hours. It seems likely to me that this account is a redaction designed specifically to discount the idea that Jesus' birth was preceeded by astrological portent.
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The Letter of Ptolemy to Flora, preserved word-for-word by Epiphanius in his tome Against Heresies, describes the Valentinian position regarding the Law of Moses. In the early church, this text was popular as an "introductory pamphlet" to Valentinian teaching; the positions given herein, and the supporting exegesis, are sophisticated and reasonable. In this examination I am going to use Layton's translation as offered in The Gnostic Scriptures.

The Law established by Moses, my dear sister Flora, has in the past been misunderstood by many people, for they were not closely acquainted with the one who established it or with its commandments. I think you will see this at once if you study their discordant opinions on this topic.

For some say that this law has been ordained by God the Father; while others, following the opposite course, stoutly contend that it has been established by the adversary, the pernicious devil; and so the latter school attributes the craftsmanship of the world to the devil, saying that he is "father and maker of the universe."


Ptolemy instead lays out a position that differs with both the mainstream Christian interpretation of the Law of Moses as coming from God, and with the "Sethian" Gnostic position that the Law of Moses was produced by the devil.

Read more... )

While this represents a legalistic and exegetical argument, like all of the Valentinian literature there is an undertone of "deconstruction" which hints at even deeper levels of self-deconstruction. To understand the fullest meaning of the analysis given in this text, it must be applied to the text itself. If the Law of Moses is understood as an "instance" of divine justice, then every religious instruction must itself have the same limitations -- if there is any divine element at all in the teaching, it is covered over by human interpolation and human lack of understanding.

The Valentinians understood Yahweh to be the Lord of the Jews, but not, in probable accord with Deuteronomy 32, the supreme Father or Root of All. In this way we can analyze in Valentinian teaching a hint that the Lord is taken to be perhaps the collective "higher self" or "angel" of the nation of the Jews. Its wisdom is thus the lower wisdom of the human race, not the divine wisdom which can only be learned by gnosis (acquaintance with the Root of All).

Much of the Valentinian literature in this way contains implicit warnings (discernable only to initiates) against allowing Christianity to become yet another legalistic "Law of Moses" representing the work of another Lord, another "collective higher self" offering distilled human -- not divine -- wisdom. Many later Gnostics, in their criticisms of the church, implied that this is in fact what happened.

crossposting to my journal and crossposting to [livejournal.com profile] gnosticism and crossposting to [livejournal.com profile] cp_circle
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If you think that compassion implies softness, there's no way I can describe compassion to you, absolutely no way, because compassion can be very hard. Compassion can be very rude, compassion can jolt you, compassion can roll up its sleeves and operate on you. Compassion is all kinds of things. Compassion can be very soft, but there's no way of knowing that. It's only when you become love -- in other words, when you have dropped your illusions and attachments -- that you will "know." from Anthony De Mello, Awareness.


I define compassion as the sense of being fully aware of the inherent dignity and value of every human being. It's not always an easy thing. But it doesn't always necessarily mean wanting to hug every person you meet, too; there are times when the best course of action involves confrontation, resistance, or even violence.

Compassion is the key to the best course of action in every case. Therefore it is essential in ethical education.

Unconditional compassion is the key that unlocks much of the perennial truth within the world's religions. Unconditional compassion removes the conceptual blockages we may have in contemplating or perceiving the interconnectness of life and spirit.

Unconditional compassion is a much harder road than compassion; think of it as the "high road." 'Compassion' merely asks us to be human to one another; unconditional compassion demands love in all circumstances. Krishna taught Arjuna about compassion while standing in a chariot on a battlefield, even while explaining why the battle had to proceed. Paul and Socrates, like Krishna, taught primarily from the standpoint of compassion. But Lao Tzu, Buddha, and Jesus, among others, taught unconditional compassion.

Those who wish to embody the Tao should embrace all things. To embrace all things means first that one holds no anger or resistance toward any idea or thing, living or dead, formed or formless. Acceptance is the very essence of the Tao. To embrace all things means also that one rids oneself of any concept of separation; male and female, self and other, life and death. Division is contrary to the nature of the Tao. Foregoing antagonism and separation, one enters in the harmonious oneness of all things. -- Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching 2

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even gentiles do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. -- Jesus, Matthew 5:43-48


Edit: There is some tension here. What makes this tricky is that while unconditional compassion may be the centerpiece of religious perception, it does not necessarily give the best ethical guidance. It may offer the most spiritual way to perceive the world, but it is not always the best guide to action. Injustice, for example, should not be accepted, it should be opposed. Therefore I take "unconditional compassion" to be a guide to one's inner life; it allows one to cultivate inner stillness; but it is not a guide for living, for interacting with the cosmos.
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This has come up twice in the last two days; once in an email from an LJ user ([livejournal.com profile] anosognosia) and also in a link to this page ("The Fallacy in the Theory of Predestination and Divine Election") by [livejournal.com profile] angelicbbw.

Predestination and elect-elitism is one of the primary issues that drove me away from Christianity, and so it is a matter I have spent a lot of time examining. Some of this is old ground for me, some of it is realization that finally sank in this morning.

Read more... )
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Earlier this morning I wrote this as an extended answer to a post in [livejournal.com profile] challenging_god and wanted to recorded it here for posterity and reference.

Read more... )

To put this in perspective. At the time of Jesus there was a movement, represented by figures such as Rabbi Hillel, to interpret "Torah" to mean not so much the physical manifestation of the Law in words on paper, but rather the process whereby divine guidance comes to humankind and the cosmos.

To describe this using the helpful language of programming, this would make the written Torah an instance of class "divine guidance and governance." How else could Hillel have claimed to teach the Torah in the time he could stand on one foot ("That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbor; the rest is commentary")? The written Torah contains the key elements that defined Jewish identity and Jewish religious practice. Hillel's summary of Torah doesn't reflect that at all; instead it reflects a teaching that has arisen in all cultures in all times and places.

Hillel is not the only rabbi to have argued along these lines; similar thought was expressed by Akiva and other influential rabbis of the period.

My argument, then, is that Jesus was a rabbi of this tradition -- and so was Paul.

Read more... )
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I made a comment about this yesterday in [livejournal.com profile] challenging_god and realized I haven't done a systematic treatment of this passage.

Following are logia 5, 6, and 14 from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (Nag Hammadi II-2)

(5) Jesus said, "Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest."

(6) His disciples questioned him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet shall we observe?"
Jesus said, "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered."

(14) Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and walk about in the districts, if they receive you, eat what they will set before you, and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but that which issues from your mouth - it is that which will defile you."

(Thomas O. Lambdin translation)


My instincts tell me that the text has been corrupted here in recopying and translation, and that what we have as logion 14 was originally intended as an answer to the question posed in the first part of logion 6 because it gives a point-by-point answer to the question. The answer to 6 looks like an interpolation, part of which was taken from logion 5. I don't want to entirely discard the answer portion of 6, though.

My proposed reconstruction would look like this:

His disciples questioned him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet shall we observe?"

Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and walk about in the districts, if they receive you, eat what they will set before you, and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but that which issues from your mouth - it is that which will defile you."


Whether Jesus said this or whether someone put these words in his mouth, I think the underlying message is this: the disciples were asking Jesus to lay out a set of religious practices like those with which they were familiar -- fasts, prayers, and alms. In that context the response is seen to suggest that doing such things as religious observances is what Jesus wants to warn the disciples away from.

Taken a bit further, the way the Gnostics would have read this, it suggests that what Jesus offers is freedom from religious orthodoxy. I read this to mean that he did not want his followers to be "observant Jews" or "observant Christians," thinking that ritual practice will bring understanding or salvation -- but instead to be open-minded mystics -- "passers-by" (as in logion 42).

This relates also to comments in some of the Gnostic texts regarding disrobing; in logion 37 Jesus is quoted as telling his disciples "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid." (I commented on this a while ago.) Here I read "garment" as a reference to religious doctrine, which the Gnostics wanted people to cast aside in favor of gnosis.

I think too that this was intended as an answer to the Gospel of Matthew. This gospel, as is well-known, was intended to defend Jewish observance within Christianity. My reconstructed passage has an obvious intended parallel to the first part of Matthew, chapter 6, wherein Jesus told his followers not to give alms with fanfare as the hypocrites did, or to fast publically as a show of religious piety. "They have their reward," he said of public religious display -- which reward is not a spiritual benefit but simply the social status that goes with the appearance of piety. The authors of GTh wanted to highlight the way they read this passage as a criticism of religious observance not for the sake of personal spiritual growth but solely for social status.

I think too this is what Paul meant when he wrote that "By dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code" (Romans 7:6)

crossposting to [livejournal.com profile] cp_circle

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