tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12669850402902426632024-03-23T04:30:33.384-04:00ExChristian.NetEncouraging doubting, de-converting, deconstructing and former ChristiansDave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-10981400732289897472020-04-12T08:19:00.002-04:002020-04-12T08:23:56.208-04:00Filling the Void<i>By Whitney ~ </i><br />
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<span class="dropcap">L</span>eaving the church, my faith and my belief in the Christianity that was once the essence of my every understanding, has brought many freedoms to my life. It has afforded me the space to see people for who they are; not the sins they commit. It has opened my mind to new ideas; allowed me to question the unquestionable. In these almost five years of non adherence to religion, I have been able to build an ever evolving worldview piece by piece.<br />
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So much of that process has been filled with child like wonder as I begin to see life and all the things that inhabit it from a new, sometimes formerly forbidden, vantage point. The compassion and gentleness and awe that has been cultivated in my heart through hours of discussion with others and sometimes a glass (or two) of whiskey has surpassed the fears I once had when I first started on this uncharted path.<br />
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<span class="pullquote">I think I would be giving myself and my story a disservice if I said this new enlightenment hasn’t come at a cost... </span>But I think I would be giving myself and my story a disservice if I said this new enlightenment hasn’t come at a cost; hasn’t forced me to sometimes fill a void of emptiness that was once occupied by what I thought to be a very real and loving god. This last year has been filled with pain and questions and agonizing decisions. My sister lost her baby. My hopes of being the forever mother to my foster daughter crashed and burned and I still wear the scars, as I’m sure she does as well. My son continues to struggle with paralyzing anxiety and now a world pandemic threatens everything and everyone we know.<br />
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And now comes Easter, a once sacred day to me that I used to plan with intention and sacredness, and I would be lying if I said that now when I indulge in the bunny and the eggs and a celebration of “new life,” it doesn’t seem a little cheapened and shallow.<br />
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Those dark days and moments, the heavy hearts and unanswerable questions have put me in uncomfortable spots not only with myself but with others. I don’t know why this happened. I don’t have hope of this loss not hurting one day. I don’t know why bad things happen.<br />
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As a Christian “the void” is the scary place that atheists and the lost live in. But here’s what I’ve learned: Having a void and sometimes even living in the void is okay. And it’s not in everything and it’s not forever. My own sisters (who I admire greatly) fill their voids by clinging to their faith in god when the pain in blinding and the questions are unanswerable and I love that about them. But that’s no longer an option for me so I fill my void differently and varying by the situation. It’s not easy and there’s no one or thing to validate if I’m doing it the right way. This is both beautiful and terrifying. It’s sacrilegious to all I’ve ever known or been taught, but the freedom of not having the answers, of truly living each moment to the fullest because this is all there is- that fills me with the wonder and awe and gratitude to fill the void. It’s not a one stop answer and it’s messy. Yet here I am, living this unpredictable and often struggled life day by day, just like I used to. I still laugh and cry and celebrate Easter. Just differently. And that’s okay, and I’m okay. Actually, I’m more than okay.<br />
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Happy Easter and Peace.Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-80742923731699136152019-12-08T10:25:00.001-05:002019-12-08T10:26:44.066-05:00Coping With Religious Family Over the Holidays<i>By Marlene Winell ~ </i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span class="dropcap">A</span>t this time of year it’s hard to avoid dealing with the differences you have with your family. If you are a “reclaimer” (reclaiming your life after being religious) who has been raised in a religious household, holiday times can be very uncomfortable when other family members are still devout. Having worked through these issues with many clients, here are a few guidelines that might be helpful. <span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span id="more-2784" style="box-sizing: inherit; box-sizing: inherit;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I’ll start by suggesting you write in a journal, starting now and continuing through the holidays. This can help you sort through jumbled thoughts and emotions, stay on track with how you are trying to handle things, take care of yourself, and learn. There are exercises here to prompt your thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">In general, if you plan to be with family at this time, it helps a great deal to approach the holidays with a high level of consciousness. In other words, don’t just blindly go home for Christmas, hoping it will be fine. What do you really expect it might be like? This refers to both external factors and how you will feel. What experiences have you had so far with your family? What have you found to work or not work in getting along? Write something about this in your journal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Sometimes reclaimers simply avoid going home in order to avoid conflict. At times this is the only healthy course of action. But sometimes, by planning ahead, it can be possible to navigate around the land mines. The difference in this approach, compared to simply not showing up, is that you are acting out of reasoned choice and not out of fear or anger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">In the process of recovering from the harm done by religious indoctrination, most people reach a point at which they must weigh “coming out” as a nonbeliever because the tension of “integrity vs. intimacy” becomes too much. That is, the urge to be true to oneself becomes stronger than the need for approval required to stay close to family members. It does not need to happen right away, and can take a variety of forms. However, holiday time puts pressure on your relationships, and it could raise this question for you. If you haven’t already, spend some time thinking about whether this is the time to come out with family. It may or may not be. There are also degrees of being “out” and probably different family members to consider being more or less open with about your new thoughts and feelings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Here’s a basic plan for coping. There are external action items, as well as internal or mental techniques. You may notice a bonus here, which is that there are great lessons to learn that apply to your growth and recovery generally.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Clarify Intention.</span> As you think about what you want to do, realize that you do not have an obligation to spend holiday time with family. (What?) If you commit not to do anything out of guilt or obligation, this will make it easier to choose what amount of contact you want and what form it will take. You need to let your parents take responsibility for their own feelings, which are often the result of choices they have made in their own lives. It doesn’t mean you have to be unkind. You can certainly be empathic in your expression, such as, “I know you would like me to be home for Christmas and this is a surprise, and I’m sorry you feel disappointed. At the same time, spending it on my own this year is what I feel is best for me, and I’m hoping you will accept that.” You can also suggest alternative plans for what you think is workable – the number of days, phone contact instead, inviting them to your place, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">If this sounds like you being the grown-up, that’s right. Especially if you are in early stages of recovering from religion, you are learning about taking care of yourself. In the language I use for this, your Adult self is learning to take charge and care for your Child self. You are no longer considering yourself helpless, weak, stupid, or basically bad. You don’t need saving and you don’t need to outsource your needs for guidance and love to a god or church. This is great and freeing; it’s also a big responsibility. When you go visit your parents, your Adult absolutely needs to take good care of your Child. Otherwise, it is all too easy to regress to a childlike state and have problems fairly immediately.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Let me explain a bit more about this, because this is a powerful coping strategy. Your Adult is the part of you that can think rationally, have intention, and plan ahead. It’s also the part that can nurture and care for your Child self by advocating for your Child’s needs. So, before you even start on this visit, you, as an adult, can think about your Intention for this visit. Do you want it to be a jolly Christmas just like when you were a kid, with Santa and hot chocolate? Are you going to church on Christmas Eve? Why or why not? How will you handle it? Will you be discussing your beliefs? Do you want any religion at all? Why do you want to go? What are you hoping for that is actually possible? What are you willing to let go of that is not possible? Do you want to engage in debates? Will you be “coming out”? If you are asked about who you are now or what you believe, how will you answer?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise: </em>Write out your intentions for your visit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Self-care. </span> Now, as you know, the best of intentions don’t always work out. That’s why you feel nervous. In the self-care terminology I’m using, it’s your Child that’s scared, and it’s my opinion that your real obligation is to make sure that your Child feels safe, both before and during the visit. (This usage of “Child” refers to the natural, innocent, child-like, emotional aspect of you that requires love and care, and is vulnerable. It was not sinful at birth, and when healed from abusive indoctrination, can be happy and healthy.) This might mean taking breaks in order to self-soothe with some positive self-talk. Ultimately, it would include promising to simply leave if the situation became too uncomfortable. I always explain to my clients that as they are healing, the trust between Adult and Child needs to strengthen, so a good thing is to promise your Child that you will take her/him away if a situation gets bad or painful, just like you would a real child who was struggling.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Christmas is often a little tender for an inner child since there might be memories of good things, sadness over losses, or confusion at this time. If you spend a little time consulting your Child about what aspects of the holiday you still want to experience, what do you find? Making cookies? Writing cards to family and friends? Singing? Playing in the snow? Cutting paper snow flakes? If you want to avoid the commercialism of too much gift buying, are there substitutes you prefer? If you are not just a victim of the holiday, what might you accept or arrange for your little self to enjoy? Or what would you help others enjoy? For ideas about celebrating and reclaiming the Christmas holiday as a nonbeliever, go <a href="https://valerietarico.com/2012/12/11/twelve-christmas-traditions/"><span style="color: #003c32;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; touch-action: manipulation;">Here</span></span> </a>for an article by Valerie Tarico.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Imagining various scenarios, what do you think your options might be if you get overwhelmed by your relatives’ religious talk? Can you excuse yourself, take a break, change the subject, focus on something else? Do you need to bring anything along to help? A game or puzzle?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise:</em> Write a letter to your Inner Child from your Adult self, explaining how you will provide protection during the visit, and promising to leave if necessary. Describe the fun things that will be included. Talk about what you will do if you are getting triggered by too much religiosity. Make a list of options you will have ready.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Reframe the Religion. </span> Especially if your family is very devout and authoritarian about their beliefs, you need to have a way of thinking about their religion that is different from the way you did as a child. That may sound obvious because intellectually you have decided you don’t believe any more. However, when in the situation, you may respond emotionally, and even intensely. This is not because you have reverted to “believing” but because you can be triggered at a gut level to fear that it is true. Rethinking this belief system is a larger task of recovery that can take time and work, and is very important. For now, the challenge is to be in your old environment and not slip into being your old self or be intimidated by old forces. You can prepare by thinking about what this religion is – e.g., a belief system like many other ancient systems that has evolved to help people cope with what they don’t understand, a virus, a meme complex, etc. Anything but The Truth. Even if it feels true because everyone around you is treating it like the truth. Hundreds of years ago everyone believed the earth was flat, it looked flat, and it felt flat. But that wasn’t true either.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Thinking about the religion as the source of the conflict, difference, pain, and separation in your family (or at least part of it), may help you feel less direct anger or frustration with the people involved. As a virus, religion propagates by getting passed on to small children, and continues through generations. Essentially, your parents were infected and thus victims as well. They did not have these religious ideas at birth, and even now, they each have an inner child too (weird, huh?) You were fortunate to escape, and also to be congratulated for finding your way out! A holiday visit is probably not the time to go deep into family work, so I’m not suggesting you look for understanding each other, find forgiveness, or anything else that is complicated. However, just knowing that your family members did not invent this very pernicious system might help you relax and have a bit of compassion. It does mean that you did not suffer or that your issues will not ever be addressed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise:</em> Before you head for a family get-together, write about how you conceptualize your religion now, and review your reasons for leaving. How does it feel to view your relatives in the context of larger forces?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Communicate clearly with family. </span> After sorting through all your thoughts and feelings, you need to state clearly to your relatives your intentions for your time together. This is before you leave home. I suggest this be done simply and from the heart, and say more, not less. Include all of your feelings – your nervousness, your hesitation, your hopes, your fears, your love, your clarity about limits. It helps to write it down first, or rehearse it with someone. Here’s an example. You would alter it to suit you of course. I’ve written it as if a monologue, but it would be broken up to allow the other person to speak.</span></div>
<span class="pullquote" style="background-color: white;">A Journey Free Retreat weekend, led by Dr. Marlene Winell, provides a safe place to process experiences with the support of others who understand. The next retreat is January 17-20, 2020. <a href="https://journeyfree.org/retreats/">CLICK HERE</a> for more information.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">“Hi Mom, I’ve been trying to decide what to do about Christmas and this is hard for me to talk about. I’m a bit worried I don’t have the right words, so please be patient with me here. (deep breath). The last thing I want to do is upset you, and I know that you might have to get used to what’s happening with me. I’ve changed so much and not always comfortable being around family. . . I’m sure you went through a lot of growing up changes when you were my age too. . . . I hope you can understand. . . anyway I do want to see you guys and I want to have a nice time. I love you. I know you want to see me. . . I won’t be staying for a full week like usual; it’ll just be three days. . . I just need a bit of time for myself this year. . . yes, I can hear that you are disappointed, and I’m sorry about that. . . I do want to make the time we have together the best we can, and I have some suggestions about that. We always enjoy hikes in the woods so lets remember to do that, ok? And here’s something important – I’d like to keep our conversations to what we are doing in our regular lives, and of course chat about what we are doing together in the moment, like making your famous pecan pie, which I want to learn, by the way. I’d like to stay away from religion for now since I’m sorting that out for myself and I’m not comfortable discussing it. I know that this isn’t easy for you but I’m hoping you can accept it so that I can feel relaxed. . . I certainly don’t want to be avoiding you or avoiding a visit on Christmas. I just have to be honest, you know? Also, I won’t be going to church on Christmas Eve. But I’d love to babysit the grandkids and play games with them while you are out. Do you have any more ideas? Anything you’d like me to bring?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Naturally, you would be pausing to listen to let the other party speak and respond with empathy. That is, gently and with understanding rephrase what you have heard so they know that you are listening. At the end of the call, it’s okay to ask them to repeat back to you what you have said, e.g. “Could you do something for me before we finish? This is important to me and I’ll be much more relaxed if I feel sure I’ve communicated well. Could you please repeat back to me what you think I’m asking so I can know if I’ve been clear?” And of course, “Thank-you, I appreciate it,” etc.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise:</em> Write out what you want to say to your family when you discuss your holiday plans.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Support. </span> <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Have a buddy.</em> While you prepare for this visit, talk it over with someone who understands. This may be a fellow “reclaimer” or just a good friend. They can help by role-playing your phone conversation with family and also be there to listen to just your side of the conversation. This helps you to see yourself in part through their eyes rather than just through the eyes of the person on the other end of the call. During your family visit as well, it’s a good idea to arrange to have someone available to you to talk and get support. At a time of stress, you might well benefit from calling this friend.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Back-up plan.</em> If you know that the visit might not go well, and you might have to leave in order to take care of yourself, plan ahead for what you will do. Set up a clear plan for where you will go and what pleasant activities you have in mind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise: </em>Describe what you will do instead if your family visit ends early.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">During the Visit</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Maintain intention. </span> Bring along your journal and have your written intention handy to reread to remind yourself. You will probably need this. Most people find it challenging to stay “Adult” when certain situations call for it. Being with religious family is usually one of them. This is not to say your Child cannot play and hopefully there will be opportunity for that. But to stay safe, and feel like you are maintaining who you are now, rereading your intentions will help. You can add to the journaling of course, and you will notice developments. One of them will be to relate to family members with new awareness. You may have some new compassion for a cousin who seem stuck in the faith, for example. Or you may see how your mother obeys your father and represses her own expression. If your intention is “to spend some quality time with close family members and keep connected,” you can concentrate on that and not drift into debates.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Staying with your intentions may also include repeating yourself to others. What you said at the beginning before coming to the holiday gathering may need restating, to more than one person, and more than one time. If you aren’t afraid to do this, and express yourself with both compassion and assertiveness, your sense of self will begin to feel more self-defined and less vulnerable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Step Back. </span> <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Play anthropologist.</em> Once you have recognized that religion is a huge meme complex that takes on a power of its own, you can view people within that system from that perspective. Other reclaimers I’ve known have found it very useful to visit family and maintain some distance by pretending to have the viewpoint of an anthropologist. This attitude is nonjudgmental, curious, and unemotional. An anthropologist often takes the role of “participant observer” in order to gain access to a group, and learn about their customs. So you can watch everyone bow their heads, close their eyes and speak to an imaginary being, and find that very interesting without freaking out. They might all go off to celebrate the child of this imaginary being who was born thousands of years ago, and has somehow saved them. Fascinating. The songs are also quite amazing in the stories they tell.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise:</em> As a social scientist, describe in your journal what you are learning about this culture you are observing. Let yourself enjoy the quirky things you are noticing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Translate the words.</em> Now sometimes it can get more personal, and that when it’s more challenging. How do you feel when you are asked, “Where are you fellowshipping now?” We forget how arbitrary the Christian symbols and terms are in the vast array of mythological options. How about the Greek gods or Atlantis or Rama and Sita? What about Australian “little people,” Irish leprechauns, and faeries? You can diffuse the heavy loading of Christian language by translating words in your head. When your father asks you, “How’s your walk with the Lord?”, you can hear “How’s your walk with the leprechaun king?” and “When did you go to church last?” translates “When did you last dance with the faeries in the moonlight?” If they read the Bible together, you can see them in a cave poring over ancient leprechaun scriptures. Of course they believe all of it, and you won’t be able to convince them otherwise. More importantly, you don’t need to get scared, or even angry. When you reply, “That’s not really part of my life anymore,” you can do so calmly, as if you just don’t make treks into the forest to see fairies at midnight any longer.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise:</em> Describe what it is like to reinterpret Christian messages and respond accordingly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">It’s not all about you.</em> Much as these relationship issues may hurt, the truth is that it’s not personal. Religion itself causes separation between people, it causes dogmatism, and it makes it very difficult for people to listen, change, or learn. This religion your family has is much bigger than you. So if you do not take it personally, you will be much happier. Try to breathe and bring some equanimity to the situation, knowing that you have done nothing wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">Step Up. </span> <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Stay with your values.</em> Regardless of what is happening, do what you want to do because that is what you have decided. For example, if everyone wants to do more shopping, and you want some fun time with the children, choose that. Reclaim your holiday. Remember why you decided to make the visit. Do what brings you and others joy and meaning. <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Connect as humans.</em> That may sound funny but the truth is religious people develop dual personalities. One lives in a “spiritual” world of angels and demons and worries about sin and an afterlife. The other is an ordinary human being like you and me who likes to eat good food, needs love, watches movies, appreciates sunsets, hates traffic jams, and will help rescue a kitten. That person likes compliments, wants to feel needed, etc. There are personality differences, but basic human needs are the same and you can stick to this human level as you relate. In fact, I’ve found that many religious people actually appreciate being treated in a deeply genuine way. Like everyone else, they like to be heard, they want to matter, and they need to have their thoughts and feelings count. So the best way to get along, believe it or not, is to ignore their religion. Simply focus on the human side of life, and if they bring up religious things, bring it back to reality. If that doesn’t work, take a break, and/or repeat your intention like I describe in the beginning.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Let go of approval.</em> A leftover from religious training is to judge absolutely everything. This includes evaluating yourself, and being concerned about what other people think. Yet, you’ll find that it is extremely liberating to do what you consider the right thing to do simply because it fits with your identity and your integrity. We often want others to appreciate us when we do good things. And in this case, if you are working very hard to become the person you really want to be, it would be nice to get acceptance, if not approval. But if you let go of that you can get satisfaction from choosing to act in harmony with your new, self-chosen values regardless of others’ reaction. Then, if your family sees you and understands you, great. If not, you have done a marvelous thing by just being with them and being yourself. It also helps to not take yourself too seriously. Don’t forget to enjoy the lighter side of your connections with others.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bolder;">A word of caution and congratulations. </span> Don’t set yourself up to do everything well. You will do some things well and other things will go awry. If all went seamlessly, that would be weird. If you have to leave early, that is fine. Go to Plan B like you planned and enjoy yourself. Take care of your Child above all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">If there is a family blow-up, so be it. Everything is process. No matter what, you and everyone else will learn. Sometimes intense emotions just have to be expressed. Sometimes family crises just have to happen, just like forest fires are a natural part of a cycle. It’s no one’s fault. It certainly helps to hang on to your sense of humor. No matter what, you are on a journey, and you are growing and healing and reclaiming your life.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Writing exercise: </em>Don’t miss out on lessons learned. Write about what this was like for you and how you grew from the experience. In addition to the serious bits, include the funny parts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Dealing with your family during the holidays is a step in your journey. It takes courage to recover from religion so again, I congratulate you.</span></div>
Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-7116584889925201802019-04-20T07:43:00.000-04:002019-05-13T13:28:37.657-04:00The True Meaning of Easter! <b>Easter is a Pagan Holiday</b><br />
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This article was originally published on this site for Easter, 2003. ENJOY! <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Note: Illustrative images NSFW.</span></span><br />
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<span class="dropcap">R</span>eading from Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 1948, Volume 4, page 140, we find that Easter is the Greatest Festival of the Christian Church, which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ - which festival was named after the ancient Anglo Saxon Goddess of Spring!<br />
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<b>EASTER.</b> <br />
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<center><img src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/crucify.jpg" /></center><br />
The greatest festival of the Christian church commemorates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a movable feast, that is, it is not always held on the same date. The church council of Nicea (a.d. 325) decided that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox (March 21). Easter can come as early as March 22 or as late as April 25.<br />
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The name Easter comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre or Ostara, in whose honor an annual spring festival was held. Some of our Easter customs have come from this and other pre-Christian spring festivals. Others come from the Passover feast of the Jews, observed in memory of their deliverance from Egypt (see Passover). The word ''paschal,'' meaning ''pertaining to Easter,'' like the French word for Easter, Pâques, comes through the Latin from the Hebrew name of the Passover.<br />
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<img align="right" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/jes7.jpg" />Unger's Bible Dictionary, by Merrill F. Unger, 1957, page 283, goes on to corroborate this fact, saying:<br />
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Easter (Gr. pascha, from Heb. pesah), the Passover, and so translated in every passage excepting ''intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people'' (Acts 12:4). In the earlier English versions Easter had been frequently used as the translation of pascha. At the last revision Passover was substituted in all passages but this. <br />
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The word Easter is of Saxon origin, Eastra, the goddess of spring, in whose honor sacrifices were offered about Passover time each year. By the 8th century Anglo-Saxons had adopted the name to designate the celebration of Christ's resurrection.<br />
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It is a fully documented historical fact that the day which was chosen by the Christian Church to celebrate this resurrection, was a day which had been celebrated by pagans from antiquity! Yes, the only difference between these two celebrations, is the fact that its name was changed to veneer it with Christian Respectability! <br />
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It is simply no secret that EASTER originated with the WORSHIP OF A PAGAN GODDESS! This fact is presented almost every time one researches the word Easter. <br />
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Compton's Encyclopedia, 1956, Volume 4, says this about Easter: <br />
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''Many Easter customs come from the Old World...colored eggs and rabbits have come from pagan antiquity as symbols of new life...our name 'Easter' comes from 'Eostre', an ancient Anglo Saxon goddess, originally of the dawn. In pagan times an annual spring festival was held in her honor. Some Easter customs have come from this and other pre-christian spring festivals.'' <br />
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Reading about this Pre-Christian spring festival from Funk & Wagnall's Standard Reference Encyclopedia, 1962, Volume 8, page 2940, we learn:<br />
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<img align="left" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/Ishtar-3.jpg" />Although Easter is a Christian festival, it embodies traditions of an ancient time antedating the rise of Christianity. The origin of its name is lost in the dim past; some scholars believe it probably is derived from Eastre, Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility, to whom was dedicated Eastre monath, corresponding to April. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, and traditions associated with the festival survive in the familiar Easter bunny, symbol of the fertile rabbit, and in the equally familiar colored Easter eggs originally painted with gay hues to represent the sunlight of spring. <br />
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Such festivals, and the myths and legends which explain their origin, abounded in ancient religions. The Greek myth of the return of the earth-goddess Demeter from the underworld to the light of day, symbolizing the resurrection of life in the spring after the long hibernation of winter, had its counterpart, among many others, in the Latin legend of Ceres and Persephone. The Phrygians believed that their all-powerful deity went to sleep at the time of the winter solstice, and they performed ceremonies at the spring equinox to awaken him with music and dancing. The universality of such festivals and myths among ancient peoples has led some scholars to interpret the resurrection of Christ as a mystical and exalted variant of fertility myths.<br />
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The Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Symbols, Part 1, page 487 tells us more about this Spring Festival:<br />
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''It incorporates some of the ancient Spring Equinox ceremonies of sun worship in which there were phallic rites and spring fires, and in which the deity or offering to the deity was eaten...The festival is symbolized by an ascension Lily...a chick breaking its shell, the colors white and green, the egg, spring flowers, and the Rabbit. The name is related to Astarte, Ashtoreth, Eostre and Ishtar, goddess who visited and rose from the underworld. Easter yields 'Enduring Eos'... 'Enduring Dawn'.''<br />
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Part of this spring festival centered around Phallic Rites. Collier's Encyclopedia, 1980, Volume 9, page 622, tells us of the Babylonian Ishtar Festival Phallic Rites: <br />
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The Ishtar Festivals were symbolical of Ishtar as the goddess of love or generation. As the daughter of Sin, the moon god, she was the Mother Goddess who presided over child birth; and women, in her honor, sacrificed their virginity on the feast day or became temple prostitutes, their earnings being a source of revenue for the temple priests and servants.<br />
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We learn about these Temple Prostitutes from The Interpreter's Dictionary of The Bible, Volume 3, pages 933-934: <br />
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<a href="https://exchrist.ipower.com/ishtar_priestess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img align="left" border="0" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/ishtar_priestess.jpg" /></a>a. The roll of the sacred prostitute in the fertility cult. The prostitute who was an official of the cult in ancient Palestine and nearby lands of biblical times exercised an important function. This religion was predicated upon the belief that the processes of nature were controlled by the relations between gods and goddesses. Projecting their understanding of their own sexual activities, the worshipers of these deities, through the use of imitative magic, engaged in sexual intercourse with devotees of the shrine, in the belief that this would encourage the gods and goddesses to do likewise. Only by sexual relations among the deities could man's desire for increase in herds and fields, as well as in his own family, be realized. In Palestine the gods Baal and Asherah were especially prominent (see BAAL; ASHERAH; FERTILITY CULTS). These competed with Yahweh the God of Israel and, in some cases, may have produced hybrid Yahweh-Baal cults. Attached to the shrines of these cults were priests as well as prostitutes, both male and female. Their chief service was sexual in nature__the offering of their bodies for ritual purposes.<br />
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Sexual relations for ritual purposes was the ceremony for the Fertility Cults. The Interpreter's Dictionary, Volume 2, page 265 says:<br />
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<b>FERTILITY CULTS.</b><br />
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The oldest common feature of the religions of the ancient Near East was the worship of a great mother-goddess, the personification of fertility. Associated with her, usually as a consort, was a young god who died and came to life again, like the vegetation which quickly withers but blooms again. The manner of the young god's demise was variously conceived in the myths: he was slain by another god, by wild animals, by reapers, by self-emasculation, by burning, by drowning. In some variations of the theme, he simply absconded. His absence produced infertility of the earth, of man, and of beast. His consort mourned and searched for him. His return brought renewed fertility and rejoicing.<br />
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In Mesopotamia the divine couple appear as Ishtar and Tammuz, in Egypt as Isis and Osiris. Later in Asia Minor, the Magna Mater is Cybele and her young lover is Attis. In Syria in the second millennium b.c., as seen in the Ugaritic myths, the dying and rising god is Baal-Hadad, who is slain by Mot (Death) and mourned and avenged by his sister/consort, the violent virgin Anath. In the Ugaritic myths there is some confusion in the roles of the goddesses. The great mother-goddess Asherah, the wife of the senescent chief god El, seems on the way to becoming the consort of the rising young god Baal, with whom we find her associated in the O.T.Ashtarte also appears in the Ugaritic myths, but she has a minor and undistinguished role.<br />
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The O.T. furnishes abundant evidence as to the character of the religion of the land into which the Israelites came. Fertility rites were practiced at the numerous shrines which dotted the land, as well as at the major sanctuaries. The Israelites absorbed the Canaanite ways and learned to identify their god with Baal, whose rains brought fertility to the land. A characteristic feature of the fertility cult was sacral sexual intercourse by priests and priestesses and other specially consecrated persons, sacred prostitutes of both sexes, intended to emulate and stimulate the deities who bestowed fertility. The agricultural cult stressed the sacrifice or common meal in which the gods, priests, and people partook. Wine was consumed in great quantity in thanksgiving to Baal for the fertility of the vineyards. The wine also helped induce ecstatic frenzy, which was climaxed by self-laceration, and sometimes even by self-emasculation. Child-sacrifice was also a feature of the rites. It was not simply a cult of wine, women, and song, but a matter of life and death in which the dearest things of life, and life itself, were offered to ensure the ongoing of life.<br />
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<b>ISHTAR </b><br />
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<img align="right" height="374" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/ishtar1.gif" widht="236" /> (pronounced EASTER) of Assyria was worshiped in Pagan Antiquity during her spring festival! Collier's Encyclopedia, 1980, Volume 15, page 748, gives us this information: <br />
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Ishtar, goddess of love and war, the most important goddess of the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon. Her name in Sumerian is Inanna (lady of heaven). She was sister of the sun god Shamash and daughter of the moon god Sin. Ishtar was equated with the planet Venus. Her symbol was a star inscribed in a circle. As goddess of war, she was often represented sitting upon a lion. As goddess of physical love, she was patron of the temple prostitutes. She was also considered the merciful mother who intercedes with the gods on behalf of her worshipers. Throughout Mesopotamian history she was worshiped under various names in many cities; one of the chief centers of her cult was Uruk.<br />
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Astarte of Phoenicia was the offshoot of Ishtar of Assyria. To the Hebrews, this abomination was known as Ashtoreth__Ashtoroth. From Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 3, page 13, we read:<br />
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<b>ASHTAROTH </b><br />
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[Æ(terath] the plural of the Hebrew 'Ashto-reth, the Phoenician-Canaanite goddess Astarte, deity of fertility, reproduction, and war<br />
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. The use of the plural form probably indicates a general designation for the collective female deities of the Canaanites, just as the plural Baalim refer to the male deities.<br />
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Watson's Biblical and Archaeological Dictionary, 1833, tells us more about this mother goddess, Ashtaroth:<br />
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<img align="left" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/Ashtoreth.jpg" />ASHTAROTH, or ASTARTE, a goddess of the Zidonians. The word Ashtaroth properly signifies flocks of sheep, or goats; and sometimes the grove, or woods, because she was goddess of woods, and groves were her temples. In groves consecrated to her, such lasciviousness was committed as rendered her worship infamous. She was also called the queen of heaven; and sometimes her worship is said to be that of ''the host of heaven.'' She was certainly represented in the same manner as Isis, with cow's horns on her head, to denote the increase and decrease of the moon. Cicero calls her the fourth Venus of the Syrians. She is almost always joined with Baal, and is called a god, the scriptures having no particular word to express a goddess.<br />
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It is believed that the moon was adored in this idol. Her temples generally accompanied those of the sun; and while bloody sacrifices or human victims were offered to Baal, bread, liquors, and perfumes were presented to Astarte. For her, tables were prepared upon the flat terrace-roofs of houses, near gates, in porches, and at crossways, on the first day of every month; and this was called by the Greeks, Hecate's supper. Solomon, seduced by his foreign wives, introduced the worship of Ashtaroth into Israel; but Jezebel, daughter of the king of Tyre, and wife to Ahab, principally established her worship. She caused altars to be erected to this idol in every part of Israel; and at one time four hundred priests attended the worship of Ashtaroth, I Kings xviii. 7.<br />
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The Interpreter's Dictionary, Volume 3, page 975, tells us of Ishtar's role as The Queen of Heaven:<br />
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Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility, who was identified with the Venus Star and is actually entitled ''Mistress of Heaven'' in the Amarna tablets. The difficulty is that the Venus Star was regarded in Palestine as a male deity (see DAY STAR), though the cult of the goddess Ishtar may have been introduced from Mesopotamia under Manasseh. It is possible that Astarte, or ASHTORETH, the Canaanite fertility-goddess, whose cult was well established in Palestine, had preserved more traces of her astral character as the female counterpart of Athtar than the evidence of the O.T. or the Ras Shamra texts indicates. The title ''Queen of Heaven'' is applied in an Egyptian inscription from the Nineteenth Dynasty at Beth-shan to ''Antit,'' the Canaanite fertility-goddess Anat, who is termed ''Queen of Heaven and Mistress of the Gods.'' This is the most active goddess in the Ras Shamra Texts, but in Palestine her functions seem to have been taken over largely by Ashtoreth.<br />
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We find this information about Ashtoreth from The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1979, Volume 1, pages 319-320: <br />
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ASHTORETH ash'te-reth [Heb. 'astoret. pl. 'astarôt; Gk. Astarte]. A goddess of Canaan and Phoenicia whose name and cult were derived from Babylonia, where Ishtar represented the evening and morning stars and was accordingly androgynous in origin. Under Semitic influence, however, she became solely female, although retaining a trace of her original character by standing on equal footing with the male divinities. From Babylonia the worship of the goddess was carried to the Semites of the West, and in most instances the feminine suffix was attached to her name; where this was not the case the deity was regarded as a male. On the Moabite<br />
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Stone, for example, 'Ashtar is identified with Chemosh, and in the inscriptions of southern Arabia 'Athtar is a god. On the other hand, in the name Atargatis (2 Macc. 12:26), 'Atar, without the feminine suffix, is identified with the goddess 'Athah or 'Athi (Gk. Gatis). The cult of the Greek Aphrodite in Cyprus was borrowed from that of Ashtoreth; that the Greek name also is a modification of Ashtoreth is doubtful. It is maintained, however, that the vowels of Heb. 'astoret were borrowed from boset (''shame'') in order to indicate the abhorrence the Hebrew scribes felt toward paganism and idolatry.<br />
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In Babylonia and Assyria Ishtar was the goddess of love and war. An old Babylonian legend relates how the descent of Ishtar into Hades in search of her dead husband Tammuz was followed by the cessation of marriage and birth in both earth and heaven; and the temples of the goddess at Nineveh and Arbela, around which the two cities afterward grew, were dedicated to her as the goddess of war. As such she appeared to one of Ashurbanipal's seers and encouraged the Assyrian king to march against Elam. The other goddesses of Babylonia, who were little more than reflections of a god, tended to merge into Ishtar, who thus became a type of the female divinity, a personification of the productive principle in nature, and more especially the mother and creatress of mankind.<br />
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In Babylonia Ishtar was identified with Venus. Like Venus, Ishtar was the goddess of erotic love and fertility. Her chief seat of worship was Uruk (Erech), where prostitution was practiced in her name and she was served with immoral rites by bands of men and women. In Assyria, where the warlike side of the goddess was predominant, no such rites seem to have been practiced, and instead prophetesses to whom she delivered oracles were attached to her temples.<br />
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From various Egyptian sources it appears that Astarte or Ashtoreth was highly regarded in the Late Bronze Age.<br />
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Reading on pages 412-413 of Unger's Bible Dictionary, we find this information about Ashtoreth-Astarte: <br />
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Ash'toreth (ash'to-reth), Astarte, a Canaanite goddess. In south Arabic the name is found as 'Athtar (apparently from 'athara, to be fertile, to irrigate), a god identified with the planet Venus. The name is cognate with Babylonian Ishtar, the goddess of sensual love, maternity and fertility. Licentious worship was conducted in honor of her. As Asherah and Anat of Ras Shamra she was the patroness of war as well as sex and is sometimes identified with these goddesses. The Amarna Letters present Ashtoreth as Ashtartu. In the Ras Shamra Tablets are found both the masculine form 'Athtar and the feminine 'Athtart. Ashtoreth worship was early entrenched at Sidon (I Kings 11:5, 33; II Kings 23:13). Her polluting cult even presented a danger to early Israel (Judg. 2:13; 10:6). Solomon succumbed to her voluptuous worship (I Kings 11:5; II Kings 23:13). The peculiar vocalization Ashtoreth instead of the more primitive Ashtaroth is evidently a deliberate alteration by the Hebrews to express their abhorrence for her cult by giving her the vowels of their word for ''shame'' (bosheth). M. F. U.<br />
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The Interpreter's Dictionary, Volume 1, page 252 says:<br />
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The antipathy toward the Asherah on the part of the Hebrew leaders was due to the fact that the goddess and the cult object of the same name were associated with the fertility religion of a foreign people and as such involved a mythology and a cultus which were obnoxious to the champions of Yahweh.<br />
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Unger's Bible Dictionary, page 412, gives us this information about Asherah:<br />
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Asherah (a-she'ra), plural, Asherim, a pagan goddess, who is found in the Ras Shamra epic religious texts discovered at Ugarit in North Syria (1929-1937), as Asherat, ''Lady of the Sea'' and consort of El. She was the chief goddess of Tyre in the 15th century b.c. with the appellation Qudshu, ''holiness.'' In the Old Testament Asherah appears as a goddess by the side of Baal, whose consort she evidently came to be, at least among the Canaanites of the South. However, most Biblical references to the name point clearly to some cult object of wood, which might be worshiped or cut down and burned, and which was certainly the goddess' image (I Kings 15:13; II Kings 21:7). Her prophets are mentioned (I Kings l8:19) and the vessels used in her service referred to (II Kings 23:4). Her cult object, whatever it was, was utterly detestable to faithful worshipers of Yahweh (I Kings 15:13) and was set up on the high places beside the ''altars of incense'' (hammanim) and the stone pillars (masseboth). Indeed, the stone pillars seem to have represented the male god Baal (cf. Judg. 6:28), while the cult object of Ashera, probably a tree or pole, constituted a symbol of this goddess (See W. L. Reed's The Asherah in the Old Testament, Texas Christian University Press). But Asherah was only one manifestation of a chief goddess of Western Asia, regarded now as the wife, now as the sister of the principal Canaanite god El. Other names of this deity were Ashtoreth (Astarte) and Anath. Frequently represented as a nude woman bestride a lion with a lily in one hand and a serpent in the other, and styled Qudshu ''the Holiness,'' that is, ''the Holy One'' in a perverted moral sense, she was a divine courtesan. In the same sense the male prostitutes consecrated to the cult of the Qudshu and prostituting themselves to her honor were styled qedishim, ''sodomites'' (Deut. 23:18; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46). Characteristically Canaanite the lily symbolizes grace and sex appeal and the serpent fecundity (W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, 1942, pages 68-94). At Byblos (Biblical Gebal) on the Mediterranean, north of Sidon, a center dedicated to this goddess has been excavated. She and her colleagues specialized in sex and war and her shrines were temples of legalized vice. Her degraded cult offered a perpetual danger of pollution to Israel and must have sunk to sordid depths as lust and murder were glamorized in Canaanite religion.<br />
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On page 413 of Unger's Bible Dictionary, we have found that Astarte is the Greek name for the Hebrew Ashtoreth. From Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 3, page 97, we find that Astarte-Ashtaroth is merely the Semitic Ishtar__which we have already learned is pronounced Easter: <br />
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ASTARTE [aesta'rti], the Phoenician goddess of fertility and erotic love. The Greek name, ''Astarte'' was derived from Semitic, ''Ishtar,'' ''Ashtoreth.'' Astarte was regarded in Classical antiquity as a moon goddess, perhaps in confusion with some other Semitic deity. In accordance with the literary traditions of the Greco-Romans, Astarte was identified with Selene and Artemis, and more often with Aphrodite. Among the Canaanites, Astarte, like her peer Anath, performed a major function as goddess of fertility.<br />
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Egyptian iconography, however, portrayed Astarte in her role as a warlike goddess massacring mankind, young and old. She is represented on plaques (dated 1700-1100 b.c.) as naked, in striking contrast to the modestly garbed Egyptian goddesses. Edward J. Jurji<br />
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In Ephesus from primitive times, this MOTHER GODDESS had been called DIANA, who was worshiped as the Goddess of Virginity and Motherhood. She was said to represent the generative powers of nature, and so was pictured with many breasts. A tower shaped crown, symbolizing the Tower of Babylon, adorned her head: <br />
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Reading from Bible Manners And Customs, by James M. Freeman, 1972, page 451, we learn these facts about the Mother of all things:<br />
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<a href="https://exchrist.ipower.com/taga52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img align="right" border="0" height="240" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/taga52.jpg" width="320" /></a>''The circle round her head denotes the nimbus (sin circle) of her glory, the griffins inside of which express its brilliancy. In her breasts are the twelve signs of the zodiac, of which those seen in front are the ram, bull, twins, crab, and lion; they are divided by the hours. Her necklace is composed of acorns, the primeval food of man. Lions are on her arms to denote her power, and her hands are stretched out to show that she is ready to receive all who come to her. Her body is covered with various breasts and monsters, as sirens, sphinxes, and griffins, to show that she is the source of nature, the mother of all things. Her head, hands, and feet are of bronze while the rest of the statue is of alabaster to denote the ever-varying light and shade of the moon's figure... Like Rhea, she was crowned with turrets, to denote her dominion over terrestrial objects.''<br />
<a href="https://exchrist.ipower.com/tagata_8_600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img align="left" border="0" height="236" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/tagata_8_600.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<strong>The Japanese still celebrate fertility festivals. </strong><br />
The Tagata Fertility Festival involves the procession of a two-metre long, phallus-shaped wooden sculpture along the main street of the small farming town of Komaki. The festival, Hounen Matsuri, is an offering to the local Shinto deities in the hope of a bountiful harvest.<br />
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In the Tagata Shrine, deities are represented by phalluses of all shapes and sizes. This is due to an ancient Japanese belief that says Mother Earth must be impregnated by Father Heaven for things to grow and develop. <br />
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<a href="https://exchrist.ipower.com/matsuri_sake_set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img align="right" border="0" height="294" src="https://exchrist.ipower.com/matsuri_sake_set.jpg" width="320" /></a>Before the procession begins, barrels of sake (rice wine) are opened and distributed among the crowd. The Shinto priest then leads the procession, followed by colorful characters and local musicians playing ritual music on bamboo flutes. Next come the erect wooden phalli, carried vertically on a bar or litter by villagers hoping for a bumper crop. Women follow carrying wooden symbols wrapped in red paper. Sometimes pregnant women will ask the bearers to let them touch the tip of the phallus, which is supposed to bring a safe birth and good health for their baby. <br />
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The largest symbol of the lot is a 2.5 metre-long, 400kg penis which protrudes from both sides of a portable shrine. Sixty men (all aged 42, which is considered to be a vulnerable age in Shinto belief) work in alternating shifts shouting "hoh-sho hoh-sho", while running, stopping abruptly, or turning the shrine around in circles until eventually they reach the Tagata Shrine itself. Finally the phallus is carried into the shrine and offered to the gods amid great celebration. <br />
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Saki anyone? <br />
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Happy Easter!Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-77201952818338038152019-02-23T11:14:00.004-05:002019-04-08T11:21:07.742-04:00So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.<i>By Robert Conner ~ </i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJMpJUEMO3hhcpX144HDbwtJr7IhavGS_WMsB0bLWdsUqlCGo0L-0pXfgPg6PZJx78xaeRiVoQn3W0CDr6MDZfnp_EN3V4lYGdgVLjZ78gu2Mmy5I04fR70Tv33jtt_uaYJcdjWQC74E/s1600/Paul1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="467" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJMpJUEMO3hhcpX144HDbwtJr7IhavGS_WMsB0bLWdsUqlCGo0L-0pXfgPg6PZJx78xaeRiVoQn3W0CDr6MDZfnp_EN3V4lYGdgVLjZ78gu2Mmy5I04fR70Tv33jtt_uaYJcdjWQC74E/s320/Paul1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="dropcap">T</span>he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” (<a href="https://biblehub.com/2_corinthians/5-16.htm">2 Corinthians 5:16</a>) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (<a href="https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-4.htm">1 Corinthians 15:4</a>), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. <br />
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After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his letters—Paul didn’t immediately hie himself to Jerusalem to meet with Jesus’ family, or retrace Jesus’ steps, or sit at the feet of Jesus’ apostles. Au contraire, “I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.” (<a href="https://biblehub.com/galatians/1-17.htm">Galatians 1:17</a>) And when, after a number of years, Paul suddenly decided he’d been born to preach Jesus, he says in no uncertain terms, “ I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+1%3A11-12&version=NIV">Galatians 1:11-12</a>, NIV) In short, like other early Christian writers, Paul appears to have had casual relationship at best with historical details. <br />
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Here is Paul on the resurrection: <br />
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<blockquote>
“I passed on to you as of primary importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the Twelve, then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, the greater number of whom remain until now, but some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all he appeared even to me, as to one born before his time.” (<a href="https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-3.htm">1 Corinthians 15:3-8</a>) </blockquote>
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In Paul’s account there is no mention of an empty tomb, no women witnesses, and no Men in White. Instead, “more than five hundred brothers”—not mentioned in the gospels—see Jesus “at one time.” Apologists have cranked out a veritable mountain of verbiage attempting to paper over the several cracks in this narrative, but the opinion of George Riley summarizes the general conclusion of mainstream scholars: “a simple comparison of the Gospels and 1 Corinthians 15 shows that the two traditions cannot be reconciled.” (<a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1851681132" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="f7eefcf6616738d2cff2b7baa1a91559" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Resurrection Reconsidered" href="http://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Reconsidered-Gavin-DCosta/dp/1851681132/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=f7eefcf6616738d2cff2b7baa1a91559&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6759367" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Resurrection Reconsidered</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6759367" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=f7eefcf6616738d2cff2b7baa1a91559&_cb=1550937124383" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />, 89.) Even apologetic writers are forced to admit, “Paul’s list of appearances in 1 Corinthians and the resurrection narratives in the gospels are remarkably—and puzzlingly—ill-matched.” <a href="http://docplayer.net/25077933-The-women-at-the-tomb-the-credibility-of-their-story-richard-bauckham-the-laing-lecture-at-london-bible-college.html">(Richard Bauckham, The Laing Lecture at London Bible College, 2.) </a><br />
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The core of the 1 Corinthians passage—“that Christ died...that he was buried...that he was raised...that he appeared”—almost certainly derives from early Christian liturgy like a similar passage in <a href="https://biblehub.com/1_timothy/3-16.htm">1 Timothy 3:16,</a> falsely attributed to Paul: “Who was manifest in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on by the world, taken up in glory.”The phrasing of the text of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A3-8&version=NIV">1 Corinthians 15:3-8</a> raises several questions. First, did Paul even write it? <br />
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<span class="pullquote">There is no way to know if the texts in our copies of the New Testament are reliable representations of what the authors—whoever they were—originally wrote</span>Citing “tensions” between the passage and its context, Hans Conzelmann concluded, the “language is not Paul’s.” (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/int">Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 20 (1966), 22.</a>) The inconclusive debate over what, if any, part of the five hundred-witness story could be traced back to Paul raises the possibility that none of it was written by Paul and that it is instead an interpolation, a pious forgery inserted into a genuine letter to bolster belief in the resurrection. As Peter Kearney observes, the mention that “some have died” marks the letter as addressed to “a community moving toward an expectation of fulfillment, but already marked by death.” <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/nt/nt-overview.xml">(Novum Testamentum</a> 22 (1980), 282.) Indeed, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15&version=NIV">1 Corinthians 15</a> addresses what appears to be acute anxiety provoked by the death of believers who expected an imminent Parousia as a comparison with <a href="https://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/4-15.htm">1 Thessalonians 4:15-17</a> suggests. <br />
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Scholars have proposed as many as seven instances of interpolated text in 1 Corinthians—a forged passage inserted into a genuine letter or a marginal note included in the text due to careless copying. (Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, <a href="https://www.cuapress.org/journals/the-catholic-biblical-quarterly/">Catholic Biblical Quarterly</a> 43 (1981), 582-589.) Robert Price has identified a number of reasons for regarding the 1 Corinthians passage as suspicious: Paul’s dependence on “revelation” rather than “historical” sources, the absence of the five hundred witnesses in the gospels, and the speculative and unconvincing efforts by apologists to harmonize Paul’s account with the gospel material. (<a href="https://amzn.to/2BPR6Pr">The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave</a>, 69-104.) <br />
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In short, there is no way to know if the texts in our copies of the New Testament are reliable representations of what the authors—whoever they were—originally wrote. Eldon Epp, a respected textual scholar, calls the surviving form of the New Testament text the “interpretive text-form,” noting that “it was used in the life, worship, and teaching of the church” and therefore subject to “reformulations motivated by theological, liturgical, ideological, historical, stylistic, or other factors.” (<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/all-issues">Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999)</a>, 277.) Anyone who doubts this was the case can take a gospel parallel in hand and compare how Matthew and Luke alter Mark, adding, subtracting, and editing Mark’s text to suit their whim, even while preserving much of Mark’s original wording and timeline. <br />
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Textual scholars believe Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around 55 CE. Our first continuous-text manuscript that contains the passage in question is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_46">P46</a>, tentatively dated from the late 2nd to early 3rd century (175-225 CE)—there is no known original of any New Testament document or, for that matter, of any book of similar antiquity. So we have, at the very least, a century between the composition of 1 Corinthians and our first surviving copy of real significance. To claim, as apologists usually do, that the text in question is authentic and that it reliably reflects “what happened” is a convenient assumption, nothing more. <br />
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And that raises a second question: assuming Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, was he primarily making a historical claim or a theological claim? Samuel Brandon, in an article entitled “The Historical Element in Primitive Christianity,” concluded, “the Eucharist, as set forth by Paul, in effect lifts the historical event of the death of Jesus completely out of its setting in time and space and confers upon it that transcendent significance that characterizes...the various mystery cults.” (<i>Numen 2 (1955), 167</i>.) That Paul was writing theology, not history, is clear and the verdict of historian Robert Grant remains secure: “No word in this account [1 Corinthians 15:3-8] suggests that the appearances of Jesus were other than ‘spiritual’: it was not the ‘flesh and blood’ of Jesus which the witnesses saw...what [Paul] saw, and what he believes other Christians saw was the ‘spiritual body’ of Jesus.” <i>(Journal of Religion 28 (1948), 125</i>.)<br />
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Inconsistent and internally contradictory, the resurrection accounts are by turns hallucinatory and comically improbable, bearing all the marks of folklore and ad hoc invention. The original “witness” of the women at the tomb is by turns disbelieved and dismissed. An angel rolls away the stone blocking the entrance to the tomb, yet Jesus walks through locked doors. Jesus is palpable to the touch, yet suddenly appears and disappears. The disciples see Jesus, but mistake him for someone else, or see him and yet continue to doubt or react with fear. Jesus repeatedly foretells his resurrection, but the disciples have to be reminded of his prediction and when confronted with evidence, do not know what to make of it. If this potpourri of contradiction is really the sine qua non of Christian faith, we must ask, just how dumb are Jesus’ current disciples? <br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif, arial, verdana; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MLNuSG" style="color: #336699;">Amazon.com</a>.<br />
</b></i><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif, arial, verdana; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: <a href="http://tellectual.com/" style="color: #336699;">http://tellectual.com/</a>. </b></i>vvvDave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-7881089863138395872019-02-19T15:07:00.000-05:002019-11-25T07:55:41.191-05:00So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VI<i>By Robert Conner ~ </i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6X0H1Hk0X1T_AYsbCeDNMnFd4NfFSh-NQ3mEpJn1jSjDcf-UE1WBCHSK18m6QBv2x8JVt3XegEUgtXFm3Fo7kklFRhOkZLFBFExembEZI7tE86JkTJuDF4SoONwssT3Lqp15L4pgGCY/s1600/christianwomen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="1260" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6X0H1Hk0X1T_AYsbCeDNMnFd4NfFSh-NQ3mEpJn1jSjDcf-UE1WBCHSK18m6QBv2x8JVt3XegEUgtXFm3Fo7kklFRhOkZLFBFExembEZI7tE86JkTJuDF4SoONwssT3Lqp15L4pgGCY/s400/christianwomen.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="dropcap">B</span>esides being the first to comment on the ghost story quality of the post- resurrection accounts, the philosopher Celsus appears to have been the first to advance a psychological explanation for Jesus’ apparitions. Celsus, a conservative member of his society’s upper class, was particularly critical of the irrational, emotionally driven nature of Christian belief. <br />
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<blockquote>
“While [Jesus] was alive he did not help himself, but after death he rose again and showed the marks of his punishment and how his hands had been pierced. But who say this? A hysterical female, as you say, and perhaps some other one of those who were deluded by the same sorcery, who either dreamt in a certain state of mind and through wishful thinking had a hallucination due to some mistaken notion (an experience which has happened to thousands), or, which is more likely, wanted to impress the others by telling this fantastic tale, and so by this cock-and-bull story to provide a chance for other beggars.” (Henry Chadwick, <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0521295769" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="886cf871b00f714407a3bf9838cf6a2b" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Origen: Contra Celsum" href="http://www.amazon.com/Origen-Contra-Celsum-Chadwick/dp/0521295769/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=886cf871b00f714407a3bf9838cf6a2b&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1011316" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Origen: Contra Celsum</i></a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1011316" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=886cf871b00f714407a3bf9838cf6a2b&_cb=1550604993455" style="border: none; height: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 0px;" width="0" />, 109) </blockquote>
<br />
Historian Lane Fox notes the likelihood that “women were a clear majority” in the early church, and of the writing of pagan critics, observes, “It was a well- established theme...that strange teachings appealed to leisured women who had just enough culture to admire it and not enough education to exclude it.” (Robin Lane Fox, <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0141022957" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="f68b0f84d1c52f1884450c32be7cc97a" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Pagans and Christians" href="http://www.amazon.com/Pagans-Christians-Robin-Lane-Fox/dp/0141022957/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=f68b0f84d1c52f1884450c32be7cc97a&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_181158" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pagans and Christians</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_181158" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=f68b0f84d1c52f1884450c32be7cc97a&_cb=1550605354376" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>, 310). Classical scholar Catherine Kroeger approaches the issue from the point of view of “the socio-religious world of [Greco-Roman] women,” that addresses the social strata of Christian women specifically: “Neither is it surprising that women who lacked any sort of formal education flocked to the cults that were despised by the intellectuals.” (Catherine Kroeger, <i><a href="https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/30/30-1/30-1-pp025-038_JETS.pdf">Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society</a></i> 30 (1987), 25- 26, 28) <br />
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According to Luke, the male disciples who went to the tomb “did not see Jesus” (<a href="https://www.bible.com/bible/1/luk.24.24">Luke 24:24</a>). The tactile Jesus who later appears to them is an attempt to “counter the idea that the risen Jesus was some type of ghost or phantasm.” (Gregory Riley, <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1851681132" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="bc69e7d76481142cfbc36ec1a361c98e" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Resurrection Reconsidered" href="http://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Reconsidered-Gavin-DCosta/dp/1851681132/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=bc69e7d76481142cfbc36ec1a361c98e&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7030802" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Resurrection Reconsidered</i></a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_7030802" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=bc69e7d76481142cfbc36ec1a361c98e&_cb=1550605626951" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />, 53) So who or what, exactly, did the women see? From the standpoint of the wider culture, the lack of male witnesses and the ambiguous nature of Jesus’ manifestations became major points of weakness. Christian women “were expressly targeted as unreliable witnesses, possessed, fanatical, sexual libertines, domineering of or rebellious toward their husbands” (Wayne Kannaday, <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1589831012" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="08450ed9b71a502deed008c6749af697" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition" href="http://www.amazon.com/Apologetic-Discourse-Scribal-Tradition-Text-Critical/dp/1589831012/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=08450ed9b71a502deed008c6749af697&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_9745059" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_9745059" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=08450ed9b71a502deed008c6749af697&_cb=1550605647565" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>, 141) and by the end of the first century, Christian estimation of women was little better: “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+2%3A12&version=NIV">1 Timothy 2:12</a>) Younger women “get into the habit of being idle and gadding about from house to house. Not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not.” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+5%3A13&version=NIV">1 Timothy 5:13</a>) In Paul’s list of resurrection witnesses (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A3-8&version=NIV">1 Corinthians 15:3-8</a>), the women are notable for their absence.<br />
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<span class="pullquote">According to Luke, the male disciples who went to the tomb “did not see Jesus”</span> Celsus’ suggestion that at least some early “witnesses” were imagining the experience or actively hallucinating has modern support. Seeing or otherwise sensing the presence of the recently dead is surprisingly common. In one study fifty percent of widowers and forty-six percent of widows “reported hallucinatory experiences of their dead spouses in a clearly waking state” and in several instances another person shared the individual’s experience. (Haraldsson Erlendur, <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00MLMIFRA" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="63dcc269289c1942ced3582d0305f90b" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Omega: Journal of Death and Dying 19" href="http://www.amazon.com/Omega-Journal-Death-Robert-Kastenbaum/dp/B00MLMIFRA/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=63dcc269289c1942ced3582d0305f90b&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7153193" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Omega: Journal of Death and Dying 19</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_7153193" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=63dcc269289c1942ced3582d0305f90b&_cb=1550605684414" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> (1988-1989), 104, 111). In one study of modern “mystical” experiences that specifically addresses Jesus’ post-resurrection apparitions as examples of “after-death communication,” the survey found “2.5% involved multiple witnesses.” (Ken Vincent, <a href="https://iands.org/research/publications/journal-of-near-death-studies/831-jnds30.html"><i>Journal of Near-Death Studies 30</i></a> (2012), 142). <br />
<br />
While doing background research on <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1942897162" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="dd06dfb39317bbd3b7a359ea1833572e" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Apparitions of Jesus" href="http://www.amazon.com/Apparitions-Jesus-Resurrection-Ghost-Story/dp/1942897162/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=dd06dfb39317bbd3b7a359ea1833572e&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_2958845" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A<i>pparitions of Jesus</i></a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_2958845" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=dd06dfb39317bbd3b7a359ea1833572e&_cb=1550605804394" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />, I discovered there is an extensive and rapidly growing body of literature on the connections between religion and mental illness, delusional belief based on proximity to a religious site—commonly known as “Jerusalem syndrome”—and “visionary” experience as a symptom of temporal lobe micro-seizures without overt physical components such as facial tics or convulsions. Hallucinatory experience and delusions are predictably determined by culture and situation: evangelicals touring holy sites identify with John the Baptist or other biblical characters, Portuguese school girls see the Virgin Mary, British soldiers in the trenches see visions of Saint George, indigenous peoples see spirits compatible with their cultures, and the women at the tomb saw Men in White as well as Jesus. In short, hallucinations and delusions are downstream from previous cultural conditioning. <br />
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As previously noted, in the era in which Christianity appeared the majority accepted visions and the appearance of ghosts as real events, and lived in expectation of omens, prophetic dreams, and other close encounters of the supernatural kind. Like people of the present, they were primed for self- delusion. Given the mass of contradictions and the implausibility of the resurrection accounts, who bears the greater burden of proof, the apologist who claims the gospels record eyewitness history or the skeptic who points to similar “sightings” such as apparitions of the Virgin Mary? <br />
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In the final installment we’ll look at the earliest mention of the resurrection, the disputed passage in <a href="https://www.bible.com/bible/116/1CO.15.3-8.NLT">1 Corinthians 15:3-8</a>.<br />
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<hr />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif, arial, verdana; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MLNuSG" style="color: #336699;">Amazon.com</a>.<br />
Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: <a href="http://tellectual.com/" style="color: #336699;">http://tellectual.com/</a>. </b></i>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-23526809028888799172019-02-13T09:00:00.001-05:002020-04-10T09:09:05.289-04:00So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part V. <i>By Robert Conner ~</i><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9CNHTH/ref=as_li_ss_il?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&linkCode=li3&tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=52bdc0993d68cb871f79388d9a293b43&language=en_US" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B07D9CNHTH&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=exchrisnetenc-20&language=en_US" /></a><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="dropcap">B</span>ack in 2005, while researching material for a book on magic in the career of Jesus, I read Daniel Ogden’s sourcebook, </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0195385209" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="c4a3f0b01cf3d9595484783552610201" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds" href="http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Witchcraft-Ghosts-Greek-Worlds/dp/0195385209/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=c4a3f0b01cf3d9595484783552610201&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3881908" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3881908" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=c4a3f0b01cf3d9595484783552610201&_cb=1550065441996" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and recall being surprised at how closely the post mortem appearances of Jesus in the gospels of Luke and John match Greco- Roman ghost stories. My initial search of the available literature turned up nothing that specifically addressed the similarities, but convinced of the parallels, I included a chapter, “The Resurrection as Ghost Story,” in my book, </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1869928954" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="8b897d8008fde72dc731fd5e54a35777" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Jesus the Sorcerer: Exorcist and Prophet of the Apocalypse" href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Sorcerer-Robert-Conner/dp/1869928954/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=8b897d8008fde72dc731fd5e54a35777&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1234804" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jesus the Sorcerer: Exorcist and Prophet of the Apocalypse</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1234804" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=8b897d8008fde72dc731fd5e54a35777&_cb=1550065430600" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, released in 2006.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></span> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Why would elements from ghost stories end up in the gospels? What could possibly motivate the author of a gospel to compose a resurrection narrative that reads like a ghost story? It turns out there are a number of reasons. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">First of all, most people in the first century took the existence of ghosts for granted: “Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. ‘It’s a ghost!’ they said, and cried out in fear.” (Matthew 14:25-26) And, as we have seen, people of the era were far less critical readers than people of today; they accepted the fantastic at face value. In fact, they expected it. Even Jesus complained, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” (John 4:48) For many ancient listeners, sexing up a story with elements of the supernatural would have made it more credible, not less. Who wants to read a ho-hum Bible story in which nothing incredible happens? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span> <span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a broad consensus that the gospels are primarily based on oral tradition passed down for at least one or two generations. The gospel of Luke tends to support that view: “...passed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” (Luke 1:2) Given the passage of decades and the chaos of the First Jewish-Roman War, direct witnesses of any event of Jesus’ lifetime would likely have been few and far between. So we already have three plausible motives for including ghost story elements in the gospels—belief in the supernatural, eagerness to accept the fantastic, and institutional memory in the early Christian communities that was patchy or completely missing.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span> <span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The gospels don’t even pretend to be history as currently understood—the gospels are religious propaganda, not a PBS documentary about the life and times of Jesus from Nazareth. The gospels “have been written so you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” (John 20:31) How would we expect the authors to encourage that belief? We would expect them to use the cultural elements readily available to them, such as quoting freely and frequently from the Old Testament. Or borrowing supernatural elements accepted by the wider culture, like ghost stories, for example.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span> <span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last year I decided the topic of ghost belief in the New Testament deserved a book-length treatment, the first ever to the best of my knowledge, so after doing more extensive research, I wrote up the material, found a publisher, and </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1942897162" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="be4617556c5672804e68680e49b62494" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Apparitions of Jesus: The Resurrection as Ghost Story" href="http://www.amazon.com/Apparitions-Jesus-Resurrection-Ghost-Story/dp/1942897162/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=be4617556c5672804e68680e49b62494&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6175941" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apparitions of Jesus: The Resurrection as Ghost Story</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6175941" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=be4617556c5672804e68680e49b62494&_cb=1550065401196" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">appeared. But if I thought I was the first to notice the uncanny similarities between ghost stories and resurrection stories, it turns out I was off by at least 18 centuries. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span> <span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first writer to compare Jesus’ post resurrection appearances to spectral apparitions was a Greek philosopher and critic of Christianity named Celsus who wrote a lengthy work, </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Al</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ē</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ē</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">s Logos</span><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">True Doctrine</span><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, that refuted various aspects of the Christian cult. Apparently having noticed the phantasmal quality </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the resurrection accounts, Celsus says that Jesus appeared to his disciples “like a ghost hovering before their perception.” (</span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Contra Celsum</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, VII, 35)— Celsus’ vocabulary suggests something insubstantial drifting before one’s vision. As historian John Dominic Crossan would later remark, “apparitions of Jesus do not constitute resurrection. They constitute apparitions, no more and no less.” (</span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neotestamentica </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">37 (2003), 47). </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What features of the gospel narratives could have caused an informed second century critic to characterize Jesus’ post mortem manifestations as ghost stories? As it happens, there were several. Then as now, ghosts could appear and disappear suddenly: “[Jesus] became invisible to them.” (Luke 24:31) Lucian turns the sudden disappearance of a ghost to comic effect when the household dog frightens off Eucrates’ wife, returned from the grave to claim a golden sandal—“she vanished because of the barking.” (</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lover of Lies, 27) </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span pullquote="" style="color: black; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span pullquote="" style="color: black; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paradoxically, ghosts could also assume solid, tactile form, indistinguishable from the living.</span></span></span><br />
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</span> <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“While they were talking about these things, [Jesus] stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’ But they were alarmed and afraid, thinking they were seeing a spirit. He said to them, ‘Why are you terrified and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Touch me and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.’ And saying this, he showed them his hands and feet.</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">But even in their joy they did not believe him, and while they were wondering, he said to them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of fish and he took it and ate it in front of them.” (Luke 24:36-43) </span></span><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That ancient ghosts could appear from nowhere, eat, and then disappear is </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">conspicuously proven by the Phlegon’s tale of the ghost of Polykritos, a man who returns from the dead after the ill-omened birth of his hermaphroditic child.</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
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<blockquote>
“The people had clustered together and were arguing about the portent when the ghost took hold of the child, forced most of the men back, hastily tore the child limb from limb, and began to devour him...he consumed the entire body of the boy except for his head and then suddenly disappeared.” (William Hansen, </blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0859894258" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="862aaa8817cb5fc44535e4eae78aba03" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels" href="http://www.amazon.com/Phlegon-Tralles-Marvels-University-Exeter/dp/0859894258/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=862aaa8817cb5fc44535e4eae78aba03&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_8526070" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_8526070" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=862aaa8817cb5fc44535e4eae78aba03&_cb=1550065495110" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, 30-31, my translation.) </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</span><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone in the world, past and present, knows ghosts can pass through barriers that the living can’t breach, a recurring theme in ghost lore. Jesus’ appearances tend to occur at night or toward the evening (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:29; John 21:4), a time particularly associated with hauntings. Liminal times and places, doors, rivers, crossroads, dawn, dusk, as well as transitioning from sleep to the waking state, are suited to the manifestation of ghosts. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus’ nighttime manifestations in the gospel of John—“in the evening of the first day of the week” (John 20:19)—occur even though “the doors were locked” (John 20:19, 26) The Greek text of John uses the verb klei</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ō</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “to lock,” from kleis, “key,” to convey the astounding fact that “Jesus came and stood in their midst.” The ancients regarded doorways with a high degree of anxiety; the Romans had no less than three minor deities concerned with doors, Cardea, the goddess of hinges, Forculus, the god of the door itself, and Limentinus, the god of the threshold. A tomb itself is a doorway of sorts: “because of the presence of these spirits of the dead, the threshold, like the cross-roads, was a spot particularly adapted to the performance of magic rites, just as such rites were often performed on graves.” (Marbury Ogle, </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B009DI50OG" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="a2ca4fae88c1b2237e442fbf91b0d01c" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="American Journal of Philology" href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Journal-Philology-Volumes-1-10/dp/B009DI50OG/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=a2ca4fae88c1b2237e442fbf91b0d01c&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3804506" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">American Journal of Philology</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3804506" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=exchrisnetenc-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=a2ca4fae88c1b2237e442fbf91b0d01c&_cb=1550065475249" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">32 (1911), 270.) </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given our different cultural assumptions, westerners living in the 21</span><span style="vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">st </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">century read the New Testament much differently than Mediterranean peoples living in </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the 1</span><span style="vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">st </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">century. Appreciating how pagan contemporaries described early Christianity requires we step back into the mindset of their era, reading the gospel texts in the light of their expectations, not of ours. In the next installment we will find Celsus had another crucial insight that anticipated modern thinking on apparitions.</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
<i><b>Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MLNuSG">Amazon.com</a>.<br />
Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: <a href="http://tellectual.com/">http://tellectual.com/</a>. </b></i></span></span></span></span></span>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-88658327301471792162019-02-11T08:07:00.000-05:002019-11-25T07:55:41.195-05:00So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part IV<i>By Robert Conner ~ </i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgJho-BiZCOsJ5xajfEzu4rFKrRx3HyvsU7M60uzhh-Bo4odlb_F1wY0En92bwVmdwDMi0ybFB9gW9D6ZsTvHZxE8NcjLPjV8ln8T08TUYVujxdVHJg0I6lDRPO5QloaaGXDtOrH46Qw/s1600/romanguards.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="400" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgJho-BiZCOsJ5xajfEzu4rFKrRx3HyvsU7M60uzhh-Bo4odlb_F1wY0En92bwVmdwDMi0ybFB9gW9D6ZsTvHZxE8NcjLPjV8ln8T08TUYVujxdVHJg0I6lDRPO5QloaaGXDtOrH46Qw/s400/romanguards.png" width="400" /></a></div><span class="dropcap">I</span>n Matthew, ancient Christianity’s favorite gospel, the author abandons all pretense of historical reportage, crashes through the guardrail, and takes his readers off-roading through the untamed wilderness of the imagination. Who the author of this high-on-Jesus joy ride really was is unknown, but for convenience we’ll just follow tradition and call him “Matthew.” <br />
<br />
A preview of how crazy this is about to get is provided by Matthew’s reworking of Mark’s account of the women at the tomb—Matthew uses Mark as a primary source, quoting or paraphrasing around 95% of Mark. Here is Mark’s description of the women coming to the tomb: “They began saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?’” (Mark 16:3) <br />
<br />
Here’s Matthew’s answer to the women’s doorman dilemma: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>“Behold! A great earthquake occurred because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and approaching them, he rolled the stone away and sat on it. His appearance was like lightening and his clothing as white as snow.” (Matthew 28:12-13) <br />
Hot diggity dog—but in a totally spiritual way—no halfway measures for Brother Matthew! </blockquote><br />
Matthew’s moment of Jesus’ death is no less dramatic: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>“After crying out loudly once more, he gave up his spirit. And behold! The curtain in the Temple was torn in half from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised, and when they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and were seen by many.” (Matthew 27:50-53) </blockquote><br />
Did you catch that? Included among the seismic prodigies that accompanied Jesus’ final moments on Friday, the tombs opened up and “the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised” BUT they obligingly just hang out in their tombs until Sunday, “after his resurrection,” before walking into Jerusalem where they “were seen by many.” Oddly enough, this electrifying turn of events, complete with holy zombies, is unmentioned in the other gospels or in any histories of the era. <br />
<br />
If you have questions, that’s understandable. For starters, if a hoard of dead men walking proved Jesus had risen, why didn’t Jesus His Own Damn Self just show up in Jerusalem? What could have been more convincing than Jesus Himself back from the dead, clothed in glowing raiment, appearing to the Jewish and Roman leaders? After all, when the high priest asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One?” didn’t Jesus tell the court, “I am! And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven!” (Mark 14:61-62) Whatever happened to that I’ll-show- you-and-then-you’ll-be-sorry blow and jive from Jesus’ trial? <br />
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Somehow, even when Jesus Himself does appear, believers initially mistake him for someone else! Coming from the tomb, Mary Magdalene thinks he’s the gardener (John 20:14-15), Peter and his buddies don’t recognize him at first in Galilee (John 21:1-13), and the disciples on the road to Emmaus think he’s another traveler. (Luke 22:13-21) And when Jesus Himself appears on a hill in Galilee to give his eleven remaining apostles their mission to convert the world, we’re told, “when they saw him, they fell to their knees before him, but some doubted.” (Matthew 28:17) If you don’t think the “but some doubted” part still has Christian heads spinning like tops, just Google it—you’ll get around 20,000,000 hits, which seems like a lot of reassurance over something Christians are supposed to be absolutely sure about. <br />
<br />
By the time he wrote his moonbat gospel, Jewish opponents of the sect had apparently proposed the “stolen body hypothesis” to explain the resurrection, hence Matthew’s inclusion of this priceless narrative gem: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>“The next day, which is after Preparation, the high priests and Pharisees assembled before Pilate and they said, ‘Sir, we remember that fraudster said while still alive, “After three days I will be raised.” Therefore order the tomb be made secure for three days so his disciples won’t come and steal his body and tell the people he’s been raised from the dead. This final deception will be worse than the first.”</blockquote><br />
Pilate told them, “Take a guard and go make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they left and secured the tomb by sealing the stone and posting a guard. <br />
<br />
<blockquote>...While [the women] were on their way, some of the guard went to the city and reported everything that had happened to the high priests. After meeting with the elders, they hatched a plan to give the soldiers a sum of money, telling them, “Say his disciples came by night and stole him while we were sleeping and if this gets back to the governor, we’ll cover for you so you won’t have to worry.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were told and this story spread among the Jews up till now.” (Matthew 27:62-64; 28:11-15) </blockquote><br />
<span class="pullquote">If a hoard of dead men walking proved Jesus had risen, why didn’t Jesus His Own Damn Self just show up in Jerusalem? </span>There is a least one glaring problem with this narrative: Matthew has already established that the stone covering the entrance to the tomb was so heavy it required an angel to move it. So how did the soldiers manage to stay asleep while a gaggle of Galilean hillbillies broke into the tomb in the dead of night, removed seals from the stone, rolled it aside, and then made off with the corpse the soldiers were guarding, all without awakening a single soldier? <br />
<br />
A second problem that would have occurred to any literate reader in the Roman era concerns the identity of the soldiers. Although the Temple had a police force, the force described by Matthew was reportedly under the command of Pilate, the governor. The soldiers—the gospel uses stratiōtēs, the usual Greek term for “soldier”—form a picket, a guard placed around the tomb. The gospel uses a Greek loanword, koustōdia, from the Latin custodia, meaning in this context a military guard, and since the term is derived from Latin, logically a Roman military guard. <br />
<br />
Would a Roman military detachment really have reported back to Jewish priests? What fate would have awaited a Roman soldier who reported to his commander that he’d been asleep on watch? Recall that the Roman army practiced “decimation” as a punishment for insubordination or other failures of duty—his fellow soldiers killed every tenth man in a unit selected for the punishment of decimation. Given the stringent discipline of Roman forces, stationed in a hostile province, what are the odds a detachment of Roman soldiers would lie to their commanding officer, and by extension to the governor of the province, in return for a bribe, particularly if discovery would result in execution? <br />
<br />
Clearly, as Roman critics of Christianity were quick to point out, the gospels were written for the edification of pious yokels eager to be titillated by celestial fairy tales.<br />
<br />
In the next installment we’ll watch as the resurrection accounts literally become ghost stories. <br />
<br />
<hr><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif, Arial, verdana; font-size: 14px;"><b>Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MLNuSG" style="color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Amazon.com</a><br />
<br />
Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: <a href="http://tellectual.com/" style="color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">http://tellectual.com/</a>. </b></i><br />
<br />
Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-58174136358638435092019-02-08T10:07:00.000-05:002019-11-25T07:55:41.188-05:00So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part III<i>By Robert Conner ~ </i><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwOaZXT8eWPzMtwOJUXB8HOzxFEJxTrCOj9Ww89TD0NG4GMIVsd2a9awZcTga0aYbe3B_UcBB8lMsMR8EHX49snv2ZZmDURZi7t0AGxiBUUcVyNPmWR5Guc4zPvaq3EBoATY2eXOxKGlg/s1600/joearimathea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwOaZXT8eWPzMtwOJUXB8HOzxFEJxTrCOj9Ww89TD0NG4GMIVsd2a9awZcTga0aYbe3B_UcBB8lMsMR8EHX49snv2ZZmDURZi7t0AGxiBUUcVyNPmWR5Guc4zPvaq3EBoATY2eXOxKGlg/s320/joearimathea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="dropcap">T</span>he gospel of John describes what happened immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“Later, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a secret disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate if he might take Jesus’ body and Pilate consented, so he came and took his body. Nicodemus, who earlier had come to see Jesus by night, brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, around seventy- five pounds. Then they took Jesus’ body and wrapped it in linen cloth together with the spices, as is the Jewish burial custom. In the place he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish Preparation Day, and because the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.” (John 19:38- 42) </blockquote>
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About a half dozen features of this brief account are either improbable, flatly contradict the version of events in the other gospels, or raise even more questions. We might as well start with Joseph of Arimathea, who Mark describes as a respected bouleutēs, or “council member,” (Mark 15:43) an official of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court that condemned Jesus for “blasphemy” (Mark 14:64)—as most are aware, blasphemy is a religious crime, not a crime against the state, and Roman governors, least of all Pontius Pilate, had no interest in Jewish beliefs, much less in enforcing laws against blasphemy. Reading through the trial accounts, one notes that the charges become vague and at several points can’t be specified. <br />
<br />
In short, the accounts of Jesus’ arrest and “trial” before Pilate are an additional mass of contradictions and improbabilities; Mark has Judas indicate which man is Jesus by approaching him and kissing him, (Mark 14:44-45) whereas in John’s gospel, Jesus steps forward and identifies himself not once but three times while Judas simply stands by. (John 18:4- 8) Similarly, there is disagreement about where the disciples will meet Jesus after his resurrection: are they to go to Galilee, (Matthew 28:7, 10) or must they remain in Jerusalem? (Acts 1:4) <br />
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But I digress. According to Mark, the vote to condemn Jesus was unanimous as required by Jewish law: “they all judged him deserving of death.” (Mark 14:64) So did Joseph, a member in good standing of the court, vote to condemn Jesus despite being a secret disciple? And if, as John says, Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus’ corpse in linen on the Jewish day of Preparation, the day before Passover, then their contact with a dead body made them ceremonially unclean, unable to participate in the Passover celebration—“But some of them could not celebrate the Passover on that day because they were ceremonially unclean on account of a dead body.” (Numbers 9:6, NIV) For that matter, how likely is it that Joseph would enter the praetorium, Pilate’s judgment hall, to ask for Jesus’ body if contact with a Gentile would make him ceremonially unclean and disqualify him from celebrating a major Jewish festival? (John 18:28) If the gospel accounts are accurate, Joseph was doubly disqualified from celebrating Passover due to contact with a Gentile as well as a dead body. Is it plausible that a prominent Jewish figure would disregard an Old Testament command? “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.” (Exodus 12:14, NIV) <br />
<br />
John’s account introduces a further problem, a glaring calendar discrepancy. If Jesus was arrested, tried, and crucified before Passover began—the trial “was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon” (John19:14)—then it was impossible for Jesus to eat Passover with his disciples as described by Mark: “The disciples left, went to the city, and found everything just as Jesus had told them and they prepared the Passover meal.” (Mark 14:16) Jesus may have worked miracles, but he can’t have died the day before Passover and still managed to eat the Passover meal with his disciples, dead one day and alive the next. <br />
<br />
Scholars who have examined these accounts in light of Roman and Jewish law have identified additional issues: Rome “typically denied burial to victims of crucifixion” and “Rabbinic law specifies that criminals may not be buried in tombs.” (Jeffery Lowder, <i><a href="https://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/empty.html">Journal of Higher Criticism</a></i> 8 (2001), 254-255). For whatever it’s worth, despite evidence that many thousands were executed in Judea by crucifixion, archaeologists have unearthed a single example of a burial of a crucified man, a heel bone pierced by a nail, physical evidence that crucified individuals were typically denied burial rites and were tossed into mass graves or their bodies left hanging on the cross to rot and be devoured by carrion birds.<br />
<br />
Which brings us around again to the women who came to the tomb. Mark tells us that the women came to the tomb, now three days after Jesus’ death, “to anoint Jesus’ body.” (Mark 16:1) But according to John’s account, Jesus had already been embalmed and wrapped in linen in compliance with “Jewish burial custom.” (John 19:40) Recall that within a similar time frame, Lazarus’ body had started to stink. (John 11:39) So were the women going to unwrap Jesus’ decaying body and smear ointments on it? Jesus’ body was in the ground, in Palestine, in the springtime, not in a refrigerated morgue supervised by a medical examiner. <br />
<br />
Another discordant note is heard when comparing the story as Luke tells it with Matthew’s account. In Luke’s resurrection tale the Men in White have to remind the noodle-headed women of Jesus’ prediction: “Remember, as he said to you when he was in Galilee, the son of man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day be raised.” (Luke 24:6-7) Oddly enough, the “sinners” who crucified Jesus recalled his prediction without needing to be reminded by glowing Men in White: “Sir, we remember that fraudster said while still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb be made secure so that his disciples don’t come and steal him and tell the people he’s risen.” (Matthew 27:63-64)<br />
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At this point we might ask why the gospel accounts are so internally contradictory? In point of fact, there are several likely reasons. <br />
<br />
What if Jesus was merely a fictional character and the gospels nothing but fable with zero historical content? That theory—marginal and deservedly so in my opinion—has been around for at least a century. I explore the topic of “soft” versus “hard” mythicism in greater depth here: <br />
<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/333770632/Mythicism">https://www.scribd.com/document/333770632/Mythicism</a>.<br />
<br />
<span class="pullquote">At this point we might ask why the gospel accounts are so internally contradictory? In point of fact, there are several likely reasons. </span> Mythicism aside, there is a broad consensus within mainstream scholarship that the gospels were written decades after the death of Jesus, forty to seventy years after, and that they contain no direct eyewitness testimony. We know that several key figures in the New Testament, James the brother of Jesus, Peter, and Paul, were all dead before the first gospel was written. <br />
<br />
The average pew sitter may assume that following Jesus’ death, life in Palestine chugged along just as before, but that was not the case. Increasing unrest and confrontations with Roman authorities finally exploded into the First Jewish- Roman War (66-73 CE). Remarkable both for its savagery and for atrocities committed by both sides, the conflict began in Galilee and moved south toward Jerusalem, culminating in the total destruction of the city and its environs in 70 CE. By some estimates, over a million people died during the war, nearly 100,000 were taken captive, and many thousands more became refugees. The original community of Jesus’ disciples, like the Jewish sect of the Sadducees, was a likely casualty of the war, its members dead, scattered, or enslaved. Long story short, the erasure of the original community and its institutional memory is one reason proposed for the incoherence of the gospel accounts. <br />
<br />
In the next segment, we’ll see the resurrection story take a truly bizarre turn before heading even deeper into the Twilight Zone.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif, Arial, verdana; font-size: 14px;"><b>Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MLNuSG" style="color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Amazon.com</a><br /><br />Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: <a href="http://tellectual.com/" style="color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">http://tellectual.com/</a>. </b></i><br />
<br />Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-33273807912211943412019-02-05T08:02:00.000-05:002019-11-25T07:55:41.181-05:00So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part II. <i>By Robert Conner ~ </i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWRdF59Egsq5e7a565WIPl-V3T4TlGEcIGBCprMq06BNPgqkL4O8DYDS9LKSDAjjGnmlqccxCiZBtvDF5DDGL3mZZb_r4pLMZAmGrsOIQvQuMebAjra-JlvM06YWa1gmDO_dCBE_Vpquo/s1600/Women-at-Tomb2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWRdF59Egsq5e7a565WIPl-V3T4TlGEcIGBCprMq06BNPgqkL4O8DYDS9LKSDAjjGnmlqccxCiZBtvDF5DDGL3mZZb_r4pLMZAmGrsOIQvQuMebAjra-JlvM06YWa1gmDO_dCBE_Vpquo/s1600/Women-at-Tomb2.jpg" /></a></div>
<span class="dropcap">T</span>o hear Paul tell it, the resurrection isn’t just a big deal, it’s The Big Deal: “But if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching has no purpose and your faith is foolishness.” (1 Corinthians 15:14) Given the essential importance of Jesus’ resurrection, at the very least one would expect plenty of witnesses to the Most Important Miracle of all time—at least as many as witnessed the raising of Lazarus—as well as a coherent narrative of the events leading up to it. If you’re at all surprised to learn the New Testament includes neither, then obviously you haven’t been keeping up. <br />
<br />
First, there’s bad news and there’s even worse news. Let’s start with the worse news: according to the canonical gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John— no one actually sees Jesus rise from the dead. Cook on that for a minute. Despite repeated predictions that Jesus will rise from the dead after three days (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:32-34), not a single one of his apostles shows up to see it happen. Let’s hear that again just to be sure: No. One. Actually. Sees. Jesus. Leave. The. Tomb. <br />
<br />
If you think that’s already bad enough, brace yourself. When some of the women who followed Jesus finally got around to visiting the tomb and discovered it empty, Mark, the earliest gospel, tells us “And they left the tomb running, for they were trembling and beside themselves, and they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:8) And that’s how the first gospel account apparently left matters. For whatever reason, Mark chose to end his gospel this way, with no prior belief, stated or implied, that Jesus’ disciples would find he had risen from the dead.<br />
<br />
Now obviously Matthew, Luke, and John couldn’t let the story end that way but when they polished it up they just introduced more incoherence, contradiction and confusion. Let’s go back to the women who find the tomb empty. <br />
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<span class="pullquote">According to the canonical gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John— no one actually sees Jesus rise from the dead. </span>First recall that Jesus taught “plainly,” “openly”—the word Mark uses is parrēsia, which means “unambiguously” (Mark 8:32)—that he would rise from the dead after three days and when Peter tries to tell him that’s nonsense, Jesus rebukes Peter in the strongest possible terms, the famous “Get behind me, Satan!” logion (Matthew 16:23). So how did the female disciples not get the memo about the three-day resurrection? When John retells the story, the women propose a natural—not a supernatural—reason why Jesus’ body is missing: “They’ve taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they’ve put him.” (John 20:13) So in short, the iconic “empty tomb,” angels notwithstanding, is not proof Jesus has risen from the dead; according to the gospels of Mark and John it is instead a source of fear and confusion. <br />
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Much has been written about the women “witnessing” the resurrection, but according to the gospels the guys, who “have left everything” to follow Jesus (Mark 10:28), weren’t at all impressed. Indeed, the way Luke tells it, the remaining members of the Twelve Amigos were having none of it. In Luke’s account the women visit the tomb where two Men in White remind them of Jesus’ oft-repeated promise that he would rise from the dead. Here’s what follows: “After returning from the tomb they reported all these things to the Eleven and all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told the apostles these things. But their words seemed like nonsense to them and they didn’t believe the women. However Peter stood up and ran to the tomb, and stooping down, he saw only the linen binding cloth, and he left, wondering to himself what had happened.” (Luke 24:9-12) Peter, predictably, is still as thick as two short planks. <br />
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In the next installment we’ll have a look at some comically improbable elements in the gospel stories and after that we’ll see how the stories take a turn for the truly weird. For well over a century scholars who take the historical approach to the resurrection stories have pondered over their multiple contradictions, improbable scenarios, and inconcinnities. At this juncture, I propose you entertain an idea that might explain it: what if neither Jesus nor his disciples expected him to die? What if Jesus’ predictions of his death and resurrection are apologetic back formations designed to account for an unexpected event? Hold that thought. We’ll pursue that possibility in more depth a bit later. <br />
<br />
<hr />
<i><br />
<b>Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MLNuSG">Amazon.com</a><br />
<br />
Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: <a href="http://tellectual.com/">http://tellectual.com/</a>. <br />
<br />
</b></i>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-44767439747580477192019-02-04T12:02:00.002-05:002019-11-25T07:55:41.185-05:00So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part I<i>By Robert Conner ~ </i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmbB8vsj2OIv-CeW0OMmp88pN7EBArDMAfCgl8vhDpMtfaevQSNZmiaMApX7rWSuIX1cKxWb-dy7TCoLW3r0aaKKCT3CJcuZEGKlqaRLBZCdViBWkA3xhFG56N50WL4DrlbFrZkLerVw/s1600/jesus.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="229" data-original-width="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmbB8vsj2OIv-CeW0OMmp88pN7EBArDMAfCgl8vhDpMtfaevQSNZmiaMApX7rWSuIX1cKxWb-dy7TCoLW3r0aaKKCT3CJcuZEGKlqaRLBZCdViBWkA3xhFG56N50WL4DrlbFrZkLerVw/s1600/jesus.jpeg" /></a></div><span class="dropcap">A</span>ccording to Mark, generally regarded as the earliest surviving gospel, Jesus repeatedly foretells his humiliation, crucifixion, and resurrection.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">“He began to teach them that it was necessary for the son of man to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the high priests and the experts in the law and be killed and rise [from the dead] after three days.” (Mark 8:31)</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">“He taught his disciples, telling them, ‘The son of man is to be delivered into men’s hands and they will kill him and three days after being killed, he will rise.’” (Mark 9:31)</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">“He again began to say to the Twelve, ‘The son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and the experts in the law and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Romans. They will ridicule him and spit on him and flog and kill him and after three days he will rise.’” (Mark 10:32b-34)</blockquote><br />
According to the gospels, the apostles witness the very public resurrection of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the more private raising of Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:49-57), the dramatic resurrection of Lazarus after three days in the tomb (John 11:1-44), and the crowds that subsequently gathered hoping to see Lazarus who Jesus has raised from the dead (John 12:9). Before calling Lazarus forth from the grave, Jesus declares, “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25)<br />
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In spite of all this alleged first-hand, eyewitness experience, the apostles remain the Twelve Stooges, the dumbest yokels in all of yokeldom—they can’t understand what Jesus means by ‘rising from the dead’ (Mark 9:32) even after the Master calls them aside and Jesus explains it all (Mark 10:32).<br />
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Let’s take the Apostle Peter as an example of the disciples’ terminal stupidity. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-31), Peter witnesses Jesus’ glorious transfiguration (Mark 9:2), and Peter even walks with Jesus on water (Matthew 14:22-33). Peter sees Jesus multiply loaves and fishes to feed a multitude, casting out demons, calming a storm, healing the lame and blind, and Peter declares of Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16).<br />
<br />
So after the women—not the apostles—discover Jesus’ tomb is empty and Peter runs to the tomb to see it for himself (John 20:3-4), guess what Peter and his pals do next: “‘I'm going fishing,’” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “‘We'll go with you.’” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.” (John 21:3) As Jesus said of the long-anticipated coming of God’s Very Own Damn Messiah, “many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn't see it, and they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn't hear it.” (Matthew 13:17).<br />
<br />
This is only one of several mind-blowing non-sequiturs and absurd plot twists in the resurrection stories. In the next installment we’ll look at a couple more and propose an explanation.<br />
<br />
<hr><i><br />
<b>Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MLNuSG">Amazon.com</a><br />
<br />
Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: <a href="http://tellectual.com/">http://tellectual.com/</a>. <br />
<br />
</i></b>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-23994376207522523522018-02-03T13:48:00.000-05:002020-04-10T11:05:53.958-04:00The Bungled Resurrection<i>By John Draper ~</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgRsK19hSkCIQQcbFGtX4mDdMiX3JV1q0j8CGpRshzNtVlrE4hyphenhyphenrOZU6xUmpPm2o5vQTGIf1T9xJYublJimhuZN0ihCW6t1Z-RFllCcBIg1DUtHw25Ir1gEMnv-2_A88MAaqIfuuyukWM/s1600/resurrectionsnaff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1000" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgRsK19hSkCIQQcbFGtX4mDdMiX3JV1q0j8CGpRshzNtVlrE4hyphenhyphenrOZU6xUmpPm2o5vQTGIf1T9xJYublJimhuZN0ihCW6t1Z-RFllCcBIg1DUtHw25Ir1gEMnv-2_A88MAaqIfuuyukWM/s640/resurrectionsnaff.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span class="dropcap">T</span>he problem I have with the resurrection is not the resurrection itself—that is, the act of a physical body sparking back to life.<br />
<br />
First off, that does happen. People do “come back to life” after being pronounced dead—and everybody’s at a loss to explain it. But that doesn’t mean it’s a miracle. It just means we don’t understand the physical process—yet.<br />
<br />
But let’s say you insist on the resurrection being a classical miracle—that is, it never would have happened if God hadn’t monkeyed around with things. If God is God, I suppose that means He has the power to circumvent the laws of the universe.<br />
<br />
Either way, I have no problem with the act of the resurrection. It’s the way it was pulled off that bothers me. The creation of The Christian Church doesn’t look like a beautiful plan unfolded by an all-wise God but, rather, like something that was ad-libbed by humans—a real Keystone Cops affair with goofy goons running around, pants around their ankles, bumping into one another, clobbering each other over the noggin, and honking horns comically.<br />
<br />
Think about it. Wouldn’t Jesus have prepped his disciples for the resurrection—told them it was going to happen and what it meant? And it’s not just the resurrection. He would need to explain all the doctrine needed to run the church. For starters, Jesus’ divinity and the Trinity.<br />
<br />
However, we know that Jesus didn’t tell his disciples about the resurrection and its ramifications for this new church because of the ideological diversity we see when we look at the early church. Nobody could agree on who Jesus Christ was and why he died and why he rose again. I get a kick when modern-day Christians pine for “getting back to the first-century church.” I think, which one?<br />
<br />
Here’s what I think happened.<br />
<br />
Jesus was an amazing person who inspired a group of unschooled peasants so much that they would die for him (although they did all bolt after his crucifixion). Jesus went on and on about good triumphing over evil when the kingdom of God was christened. Jesus didn’t have in mind an armed insurrection. He envisioned that God would intervene as He had for the heroes of old—Moses, et al.<br />
<br />
The point is, the disciples were expecting miraculous occurrences. They were in a suggestable state.<br />
<br />
Then Jesus died, which devastated the disciples. They had been so sure that God had been behind Jesus! Then he stayed dead. In their grief, one or two of them—possibly just Peter—had a vision.<br />
<br />
Then those disciples—probably just Peter, who was the most grief-stricken—shared this experience with the rest of the gang. And the rest were all too willing to swallow it. God was behind the whole thing! He was going to triumph over evil after all! Pretty soon, a few of them—encouraged by Peter’s vision—had their own encounters with the risen Christ, perhaps in a dream. They were an uneducated, probably gullible, crowd that believed in a magical universe.<br />
<br />
These resurrection stories were told and retold and aggrandized—for example, Jesus walking through solid walls, people poking their fingers into his wounds. The stories just got more and more fantabulous. People rising from their graves after the resurrection and walking around among the, presumably, startled (and grossed-out) populace. Three hours of total darkness.<br />
<br />
<span class="pullquote"><br />
If God had really had resurrected Jesus, why wouldn’t He leave Him on earth? Wouldn’t He actually have done more good down here?</span>A perfect example of a made-up post-resurrection story: the ascension.<br />
<br />
If God had really had resurrected Jesus, why wouldn’t He leave Him on earth? Wouldn’t He actually have done more good down here? If Jesus wanted to set up a literal kingdom of God down here, that’s the best way to do it, seems to me. No absentee landlord business. And if what he really wanted to do was just set up the kingdom of God in people’s hearts, then that still would have been the best route. Just think how a pep talk from the flesh-and-blood Jesus would have bolstered the troops. Or think about the killer gospel sales presentation you could put together. The disciples work the crowd into a lather with promises of an “abundant life” and such until . . . here’s the guy we’ve been talking about! And Jesus appears from behind the curtains.<br />
<br />
I mean, the ascension is just so corny. God doesn‘t live “up in the clouds.” You can almost hear the slide whistle as Jesus ascends. The ascension is just the cockamamie story that was stitched together by flat-earthers to deal with the embarrassing fact that, yes, Jesus rose from the grave but, sorry, he’s not around—like Joseph Smith’s golden plates.<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Danger-God-Himself-John-Draper-ebook/dp/B017GCC9MQ/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1454719108&sr=1-1&keywords=a+danger+to+god+himself&linkCode=li3&tag=exchrisnetenc-20&linkId=c85d313d1f6dcf2527bdd32e04c882a7" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B017GCC9MQ&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=exchrisnetenc-20" /></a><br />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=exchrisnetenc-20&l=li3&o=1&a=B017GCC9MQ" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />In other words, they had to get rid of the body somehow.<br />
<br />
So began the slow—and utterly human—process of creating the Christian Story through improvisation and falsification. I defy anyone to look at this one-step-forward-two-steps-back aimless process and say God was in control. It was a masterwork of human bumbling.<br />
<br />
Which is par for the course. Every time there’s been a “move of God,” as Evangelical say, it can be explained through natural processes and human activity. Not that there isn’t a God.<br />
<br />
He’s just not one to monkey around.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://johndraperauthor.com/"><i>http://johndraperauthor.com</i></a><br />
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Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-71449340741475857212015-04-03T04:57:00.000-04:002020-04-10T11:11:07.027-04:00Taking Easter Seriously – Revised & Enhanced<i>By Matt Barsotti ~ </i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ1F7xT18MuTrxwKA5vhDeTv04Froz5pdRwXooOd-fFx2U2B1dFoWgixeuEFaDjN94tmpF7RLIZrzGI7-QWB-gVtq1_vZ26d3y_SWZjQz7kx0wfwf0MUmFm1WlXiZwUvBbRA8zTD_iByg/s1600/eastermonday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="381" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ1F7xT18MuTrxwKA5vhDeTv04Froz5pdRwXooOd-fFx2U2B1dFoWgixeuEFaDjN94tmpF7RLIZrzGI7-QWB-gVtq1_vZ26d3y_SWZjQz7kx0wfwf0MUmFm1WlXiZwUvBbRA8zTD_iByg/s320/eastermonday.jpg" width="76" /></a></div>
<span class="dropcap">I</span>t is that time of year again, and so I am reposting the popular “Taking Easter Seriously” infographic. This 2015 version includes slight enhancements and corrections to the prior version.<br />
<br />
Many Christians read the Easter stories year upon year, as I did for several decades, yet we never compare them in detail. As a consequence, we often do not realize that they are not telling the same story. There are indeed contradictions in the texts, but it is very important to move beyond “mere contradiction” — the issues with our gospels are far more extensive than that. Comparison against the historical record and assessing the gospels for trends of legend development are probably far more crucial. As with many non-believers, I left Christianity specifically because of the Bible, and because I considered and examined its content very seriously indeed.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it is time for more Christians to take the Bible and our Easter stories seriously.<br />
<br />
I am indebted to scholars like <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Bart D. Ehrman">Bart Ehrman</a>, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Borg" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Marcus Borg">Marcus Borg</a>, & <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Richard Carrier">Richard Carrier</a>, without whom I would no doubt continue in my own past failures to take Easter seriously. And as always, I look to improve the accuracy of my work wherever possible. Please reply with any factual errors found, and I will correct appropriately. Thanks.<br />
<br />
(C) Copyright 2015, <a href="http://jerichobrisance.com/">JerichoBrisance.com</a>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-48744705621167401302014-04-18T21:45:00.004-04:002019-04-09T10:54:03.821-04:00Update on "Good" Friday<i>By Marlene Winell ~ </i><br />
<br />
<span class="dropcap">T</span>his is not often a fun weekend for Reclaimers so I have a gift for you. Someone had to do it!<br />
<br />
With love and hugs, <br />
<br />
Marlene<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikuD-fvZwAYLp_CqlqHMrO9vlRtAbWzFhCTy8tryBAoeFlAkO5HVz2b-bEf6kyLg4tl3x6HTOBiQMZpU0-rjVJJL0E1UhJgGk7J_zqn00OOSm8WDk01HPWAKhDb00tP01X6wLZ8VkVIKw/s1600/Good+Friday+proclamation2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikuD-fvZwAYLp_CqlqHMrO9vlRtAbWzFhCTy8tryBAoeFlAkO5HVz2b-bEf6kyLg4tl3x6HTOBiQMZpU0-rjVJJL0E1UhJgGk7J_zqn00OOSm8WDk01HPWAKhDb00tP01X6wLZ8VkVIKw/s1600/Good+Friday+proclamation2.jpg" width="536" /></a></div>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-84910230858842950382014-04-18T13:58:00.003-04:002020-04-10T11:20:34.423-04:00Infographic: Taking Easter Seriously<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">By Brisancian ~ </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYlDUmjitLQ6faR3XZ3pEdndGQIYvagSNItHW6U7Su4eYo8PAETH7pbwGxseyrfVhUcp3Qv6IEnSCUPzh7CcIMKlbqlExevjuU2-j_tq1bA2St5DakC_8pqlIF6XohfFXI6dtPgMXXWI/s1600/jerichobrisance-easter-infographic-rev-040220152.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="381" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYlDUmjitLQ6faR3XZ3pEdndGQIYvagSNItHW6U7Su4eYo8PAETH7pbwGxseyrfVhUcp3Qv6IEnSCUPzh7CcIMKlbqlExevjuU2-j_tq1bA2St5DakC_8pqlIF6XohfFXI6dtPgMXXWI/s320/jerichobrisance-easter-infographic-rev-040220152.png" width="76" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="dropcap">M</span>any Christians read the Easter stories year upon year, as I did for several decades, yet we never compare them in detail. As a consequence, we often do not realize that they are not telling the same story. There are indeed contradictions in the texts, but it is very important to move beyond “mere contradiction” - the issues with our gospels are far more extensive than that. Comparison against the historical record and assessing the gospels for trends of legend development are probably far more crucial. As with many non-believers, I left Christianity specifically because of the Bible, and because I considered and examined its content very seriously indeed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Perhaps it is time for more Christians to take the Bible and our Easter stories seriously. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<i>References:</i><br />
<ul>
<li>Dennis, Lane T., ed. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1433502410/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1433502410&linkCode=as2&tag=exchrisnetenc-20">The ESV Study Bible</a><img alt="" border="0" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=exchrisnetenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1433502410" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1"></i>. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008.</li>
<li>Thomas, Robert L, and Stanley N. Gundry. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006063524X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=006063524X&linkCode=as2&tag=exchrisnetenc-20">A Harmony of the Gospels: New American Standard Edition</a><img alt="" border="0" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=exchrisnetenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=006063524X" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1"></i>, NASB. Harper Collins, 1978.</li>
<li>Ehrman, Bart D. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061173940/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061173940&linkCode=as2&tag=exchrisnetenc-20">Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)</a><img alt="" border="0" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=exchrisnetenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0061173940" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1"></i>. HarperOne, 2010.</li>
<li>Borg, Marcus J. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062082116/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0062082116&linkCode=as2&tag=exchrisnetenc-20">Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written</a><img alt="" border="0" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=exchrisnetenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0062082116" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1"></i>. HarperOne , 2012</li>
<li>Price, Robert M. (2012-02-07). <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578840171/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1578840171&linkCode=as2&tag=exchrisnetenc-20">The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems</a><img alt="" border="0" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=exchrisnetenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1578840171" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1"></i>. American Atheist Press.</li>
<li>Selected lectures by <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFAQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fchannel%2FUCgTHJb93koSgIXieStJD-Kw&ei=2m1RU6KrD4esyASXy4LoCA&usg=AFQjCNE3smeDU83zxiWZLDal8EwEwhZ3OA&sig2=gQuE8M6kjsqBhgla5Gq8kg&bvm=bv.65058239,d.aWw">Richard Carrier, YouTube</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Jesus">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Jesus</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_gospels">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_gospels</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible</a></li>
<li><a href="http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/Crucifixion.htm">http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/Crucifixion.htm</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/04/contradictions-in-the-resurrection-account-2/">http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/04/contradictions-in-the-resurrection-account-2/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nairaland.com/857842/crucifixion-jesus-contradictions-gospel-accounts">http://www.nairaland.com/857842/crucifixion-jesus-contradictions-gospel-accounts</a></li>
<li><a href="http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/passover_meal.html">http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/passover_meal.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/JudasBetrayal.htm">http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/JudasBetrayal.htm</a></li>
</ul>
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Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-10584503971016535752014-04-17T19:37:00.001-04:002015-06-06T10:24:27.484-04:00 Easter's Coming and Mom Thinks I'm Going to Hell<i>By Cindy G. Wynia ~ </i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLzIE4H5h_3V7duPtv9p9kJ_NJcLnTV2Xkj6qQTFVU8QSShmWTkeAYsaFJ8WoEUa-M_feriZLqCtzgkgmOnhSMglJ8Di_JJWO4Cz8wdaGKRXvdVn0SAEA7jP6rfNjyd6zSF5erk3NDFbE/s1600/zombiejesus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLzIE4H5h_3V7duPtv9p9kJ_NJcLnTV2Xkj6qQTFVU8QSShmWTkeAYsaFJ8WoEUa-M_feriZLqCtzgkgmOnhSMglJ8Di_JJWO4Cz8wdaGKRXvdVn0SAEA7jP6rfNjyd6zSF5erk3NDFbE/s1600/zombiejesus.jpg" height="320" width="203" /></a></div>
<span class="dropcap">N</span>ormally, I try my best to ignore <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Easter">Easter</a>, or Zombie Rabbi Day. This requires staying out of shops that have seasonal aisles piled high with sugar and chemical-laden treats and garish plastic crap from China that cause little children to have cataclysmic meltdowns when their parents don't buy the stuff. I also overlook the signs in neighbors' yards advertising their churches' annual come-to-Jesus "free" <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_hunt" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Egg hunt">Easter egg hunt</a> and proselytizing fest. And thick glossy sale ads in the Sunday paper exhorting us to buy a new set of clothes ('cause Jesus cares about what's on-trend for Spring!). And a myriad of other mostly small annoyances. Soon it will be over. Sigh of relief.<br />
<br />
But there's one irritation I can't ignore. She's 87 years old, has a heart condition, and she's my mother. Did I mention she's been a Christian all her life?<br />
<br />
When I was little she could force me to go to church. As a teen, I quickly put an end to that charade. When I was a young adult, I went through a crisis and went back to the church to try to find answers. (Another long story, told elsewhere.) Needless to say, church and Christianity were not the right answers and I completely disavowed them. My brother, who is about 2 years younger, also is not a Christian. Mom knows this about us and seldom tries to engage us because we can easily shut her down. Another fact about my mom - she's not the brightest tiara in the jewelry box.<br />
<br />
I know I need to treat her with respect. It's the right thing to do. However, in a recent phone conversation, she asked me how I was celebrating Easter. I told her my husband, daughter and I were not observing Easter at all. She protested, "But it's a religious holiday!" I calmly explained that people have different religions, and some have none at all. This only caused her to ramp up the indignation. She pulled the "I'm not long for this world" card, and then went on to say that she needed to have a serious talk with me and my brother about accepting Jesus Christ as our savior.<br />
<br />
<span class="pullquote">She pulled the "I'm not long for this world" card, and then went on to say that she needed to have a serious talk with me and my brother about accepting Jesus Christ as our savior.</span>I'm so glad that I hadn't just taken a sip of beer, because it would have come out my nose and that's unpleasant. I don't remember what my reply was - something along the lines that I was not interested and she shouldn't waste her time. Then we talked about other subjects and hung up.<br />
<br />
She's not done, and won't take "no" for an answer. This little old frail woman has been convinced her whole life to be utterly terrified of what will happen to her when she dies. By extension, she fears her children will also go to the Christian hell. No amount of explaining to her that it's a myth, that there's no such place, will make her let go. She doesn't have the intellectual capacity to fathom the true history behind the creation of religions. I could just lie and say, "Sure, Mom, Jesus is my huckleberry" so she'll leave me alone, but then she'll want to talk about Jesus all the time and I find this unacceptable for two reasons: 1) I want to be true to myself and 2) I am so sick of hearing about Jesus that I just want to go bite a tire.<br />
<br />
A friend who's dealt with the same thing suggested that I tell her religion is a very personal and private matter that I don't discuss. I'm not sure Mom will go for this. Recognizing boundaries has never been one of her strengths. My tactic up until now has been just to change the subject. But she's nearing the end of her life and I can tell "salvation" is becoming a more urgent matter to her. She will continue to press it and she knows exactly how to push my buttons.<br />
<br />
I want to be as kind to her as possible while she's dealing with mortality, but I also don't want to pretend to be something I'm not. Suggestions, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Apostasy">ex-Christian</a> friends?<br />
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
<img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=3e7b40f0-c31e-41ea-888c-7a8201a490c2" style="border: none; float: right;" /></div>
Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-1519189736103891982014-04-13T04:19:00.000-04:002020-04-08T09:45:55.716-04:00I Hate Easter<i>By summerbreeze ~ </i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxewsfcHSU1r0bfqx.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxewsfcHSU1r0bfqx.gif" height="166" width="320"></a></div><span class="dropcap">W</span>ell, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Easter">Easter</a> is soon upon us. It's my least favorite Holiday. In fact, I hate it. With it coming in March or April, and in our neck of the woods, that means the snow has mostly melted, and the ugly fast-food paper bags, cups, wrappers, french-fry holders, combos bags, empty cigarette packs, beer cans, one boot or one shoe laying by the road (it's always one...why is that?) plastic bags, and who knows what all, is right there to see and be appalled by.<br />
<br />
Then there's the mud, cloudy skies, and no flowers and no leaves. And if there IS snow, it's covered with dirt.<br />
<br />
What a perfect time of the year to celebrate the Lords' being risen !<br />
<br />
Don't mind me, I'm just in a bad mood thinking about Easter. We always "celebrate" it with my husband's sister. Or, better known as the christian ding-bat. She has always been a christian ever since I've known her. And she has been married six times. She and her 1st husband stole all the furniture in her parents house as her mom & dad lay in the hospital after a car accident. She had her first two kids taken away from her by the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Michigan">State of Michigan</a> because she was a horrid "mother." She never told her 3rd husband that the first two kids even existed (He found out after they'd been married a year -- all hell broke loose.) The <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Protective_Services" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Child Protective Services">Department of Social Services</a> had paid her at least one visit when she was "raising" the rest of the kids, and why nothing came of it is beyond me.<br />
<br />
She has a total of seven children by five different men... She is a <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudologia_fantastica" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Pseudologia fantastica">pathological liar</a>... and at our wedding, three of my husband's childhood friends requested not to be seated anywhere near her. Last Easter, when I was in the ladies room with her (at a restaurant), she hit me on top of my head so hard that I actually saw stars. The reason? I had said to her (in a pleasant mood ) that my husband sure did like to talk a lot. (Everyone knows it and laughs about it. Obviously not her.) My Husband has said that he doesn't want to tell me everything about her past, because then I would really hate her !<br />
<br />
<i>( too late )</i><br />
<br />
This "good christian" is against being Pro Choice ( which I find ironic), and she stands firm on all <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Christian fundamentalism">christian fundamentalist</a> issues.<br />
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It fits that we see her each Easter, with the Easter Story being a load of manure, and my christian Sister-In-Law's life being as hypocritical and sordid as you can get.<br />
<br />
But hey !...we can always look forward to biting the ears off chocolate bunnies, fighting over who gets the black jelly-beans and watching <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Peeps">Peeps</a> explode in the microwave !<br />
<br />
Thanks for letting me unload. I feel better already !<br />
<span class="pullquote"></span><br />
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="https://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=2fd511d5-cf24-4aee-a50c-d4adbfbc4725" style="border: none; float: right;"></div>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-39704212331965754522013-03-31T02:49:00.003-04:002019-04-09T10:57:07.390-04:00Rethinking the "Atonement": Whose Guilt?<i>By Marlene Winell ~ </i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu_f4g3eWQUowaHH1_Fi6MHt5ho73ccduIO4d-Vw712UzgHYdQgFk4tOOE19gO9UZ4RcbD9GfRvM00F0pFLdz_y_4VoXB2i6BWDr04Dzq3i11lqp9aYpau0qD5DClinFEAC95BnN-7So/s1600/crucifixion.matthias+grunewald.1515.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu_f4g3eWQUowaHH1_Fi6MHt5ho73ccduIO4d-Vw712UzgHYdQgFk4tOOE19gO9UZ4RcbD9GfRvM00F0pFLdz_y_4VoXB2i6BWDr04Dzq3i11lqp9aYpau0qD5DClinFEAC95BnN-7So/s320/crucifixion.matthias+grunewald.1515.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><span class="dropcap">O</span>n “<a class="zem_slink" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Good Friday">Good Friday</a>," I thought about how little was good about it. The atonement is a Christian doctrine that is both absurd and horrible. The cross is a symbol of execution and represents Christianity.<br />
<br />
Iconic images of our country’s major religion are violent and unjust: A powerful male outsider forcibly impregnates a young woman who is engaged to another, and she is compelled to have the baby despite any social consequences. <br />
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The ruler of the universe has his only son killed in a brutal and unjust manner, and this torture and death of an innocent is considered an act of love. The guilty ones, all the people for whom the son was a scapegoat, go free and never have to be responsible for any of their own wrong-doing. No attention is paid to anyone’s real behavior so that punishments would fit crimes, as they do in modern law. Instead everyone is considered deserving of death and eternal damnation; this includes all since no one is perfect. No one has any opportunity to stand trial, account for their own life, or make their own amends. <br />
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The ruler-god demands a blood payment. This is nonnegotiable despite being ruthless; forgiveness is not an option, despite the preaching by his son about forgiveness. State violence is used as an acceptable mechanism to administer torture and death, even though the legal process is flawed and unjust; it is the will of the ruler-god and there are no other measures of morality. Might is right. A demand for blood payment must be met. When it is done, the people must accept and be grateful. If not, they must be eternally punished. Justice is far more important than mercy, righteousness more important than love. The ruler-god decides what is just and what can be called love. <br />
<br />
The son is nothing in comparison with the father-ruler-god. His teachings of love and compassion and forgiveness drop away in the face of the crushing, obliterating horror that is the <a class="zem_slink" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Atonement in Christianity">Doctrine of the Atonement</a>. The image of a bloody, tortured son appealing to his powerful father who will not intervene to protect him is considered a beautiful sight in our culture. It is seen as a symbol of the ruler-god’s love for us instead of a supreme act of cruelty easily prevented. No other religion worships such torture, calling it love, and people in other lands wonder why our god would allow it to happen to his own son. <br />
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This is the mental imagery in the bedrock of our nation’s Christian culture. It may explain why so many Bible-believing American Christians seem so, uh, unchristian. If one’s moral compass is based on the Atonement, then it has been compromised. It is a morality devoid of rationality, modern legal precepts, and Jesus’ own teachings. It says “judge” rather than “judge not,” teaches punishment rather than forgiving “seven times seven,” and retribution, not loving one’s enemies. It’s really no wonder that the U.S. leads the world in incarceration rates, and perpetuates wars that claim a kind of justice that is recognizable to no one else. The country is addicted to power. Many are more attached to their guns than the safety of their children. It seems no amount of global or domestic suffering makes much difference. Could it possibly be related to the fact that the most primary icon in our cultural consciousness is a man obscenely tortured with God’s full approval, who then absurdly absolves us of our sins? <br />
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<span class="pullquote">God was crucified for all sin, including his own because it holds God responsible for creating evil in the first place.</span>Just consider what difference it might make to reject the primitive demands of an imagined tribal god. What if we took responsibility for ourselves and made our own decisions about justice and mercy? We would have to grow up, have some self-respect, and learn to listen to our own wise instincts. It would be a paradigm shift that just might save the world. <br />
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Here’s another thing to think about. The popular protestant understanding of Christ’s atonement as penal substitution is only one interpretation of the meaning of his death. There are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity">many,</a>, and they have changed through history and across Christian sects. The question raised by theologians is How does Jesus’ death bring salvation? <br />
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I came across one modern explanation I actually liked (if I had to choose). It says God was crucified for all sin, including his own because it holds God responsible for creating evil in the first place. It’s called shared atonement theory by <a class="zem_slink" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Jeremiah" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="David Jeremiah">David Jeremiah</a>, and described by Jamey Massengale in his book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B14T6A4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00B14T6A4&linkCode=as2&tag=exchrisnetenc-20">Renegade Gospel The Jesus Manifold</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=exchrisnetenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00B14T6A4" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />. The basic idea is that if “Jesus is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeomorphism" target="_blank">homeomorphic</a> to God, the logical consequence is that God died on the cross. The implications in atonement are two fold, 1. That our primary separation from God is that we make the argument of evil, (that there was no just cause for God to create evil which humans suffer from in this life, and may suffer for in the afterlife), therefore God is responsible for it, and is unjust; 2. That God had given a revealed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law" target="_blank">law</a> to the nation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel" target="_blank">Israel</a> called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah" title="Torah"></a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses" title="Moses">Moses</a> at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus" title="Exodus">Exodus</a>, that defines the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin" title="Sin">sin</a> and Evil, God was responsible for creating and then punishing men for, and is thereby unjust: God bearing the twofold guilt of both satisfies the cry for justice in Gods being <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucified" title="Crucified">crucified</a> and dying for the guilt of all sin.” (More <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity#cite_note-46">here</a>, including a mathematical formula for showing Jesus is God). <br />
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Of course all this would be meaningful and not just morally more acceptable if it worked. That is, if it made any difference in the world, or to any individuals. But looking at the state of the world, I don’t think the claims of the New Testament about conquering sin and death have been met yet. More accurate is Jesus’ statement about bringing a sword instead of peace. <br />
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But in the mythology that is Christianity, I still like the idea of God owning up to making a Very Big Mistake with allowing evil and therefore coming to die for it. <br />
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="https://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=990f3e50-5d32-4410-9beb-2a48fc5ec87f" style="border: none; float: right;" /></div>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-53768822153693374812013-03-30T12:56:00.000-04:002013-04-07T07:26:27.233-04:00Easter: Was the Risen Jesus Originally Female?<i>By Valerie Tarico ~ </i><br />
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<i>An interview with Dr. Tony Nugent, ordained minister, scholar of world religions, and symbologist. </i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://awaypoint.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ishtar.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ishtar--the goddess who became the resurrected Jesus?" class="size-medium wp-image-1462" height="300" src="http://awaypoint.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ishtar.jpg?w=181" width="181" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ishtar--the goddess who became <br />
the resurrected Jesus?</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="dropcap">M</span>any ancient religions, including early Hebrew and European pagan traditions, <a href="http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/ancient-mythic-origins-of-the-christmas-story/">evolved</a> in part out of star worship. Because so many traditions treated celestial events including the solstices and equinoxes as auspicious, it can be hard to tease out which holiday traditions originated where. But even Church authorities <a href="http://www.catholicity.com/encyclopedia/e/easter.html">acknowledge</a> that our Easter holiday was named after an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre">Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess</a> alternately known as Estre, Eostre, and Ostara.<br />
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Over time, religious traditions tend to merge and blend, which the Catholic church saw as an opportunity rather than a problem. Authorities advised early missionaries simply to retain local holidays and rituals and give them new meaning. A <a href="http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Easter_-_Easter_controversies/id/1348406">letter</a> from Pope Gregory I to St. Mellitus, credited with Christianizing England, suggested that it would be easiest to convert the heathen Anglo-Saxons this way.<br />
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In pre-Christian Europe, Lent, which originally <a href="http://www.catholicity.com/encyclopedia/l/lent.html">meant</a> no more than “spring,” culminated in a day or week celebrating the emergence of new life. A festival of Eostre is associated with the vernal equinox, which landed this year on March 20. The modern Easter holiday draws on both the Anglo-Saxon tradition and the biblical crucifixion <a href="http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/Crucifixion.htm">stories</a>, which tie the resurrection to the lunar calendar, Passover and Sabbath. Easter is now set for the first Sunday <i>after</i> the first full moon <i>after</i> the equinox. And yet, still today, we celebrate the holiday with ancient symbols of fertility: brightly colored eggs and a highly fertile, promiscuous animal, the <a href="http://www.diffen.com/difference/Hare_vs_Rabbit">hare</a> or rabbit.<br />
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But the roots of Easter in goddess worship go much deeper than the name and pagan symbols associated with the holiday. The very death and resurrection story itself may be an adapted and historicized version of a more ancient tale, one that involved a dying and rising goddess. What is that story?<br />
<br />
Dr. Tony Nugent, scholar of world religions and mythology. Dr. Nugent is a symbologist, an expert in ancient symbols. He taught at <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=47.61007,-122.319&spn=0.01,0.01&q=47.61007,-122.319%20(Seattle%20University)&t=h" rel="geolocation" target="_blank" title="Seattle University">Seattle University</a> for fifteen years in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and is a Presbyterian minister.<br />
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<b>Easter is coming. Some people are saying that the crucifixion and resurrection narratives simply retell the cycle of seasons, the death and return of the Sun. Others say that these stories are literal histories. But you say the reality is more complicated than either of these. You argue that the Easter stories - the death and resurrection of Jesus have very specific mythic origins.</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> I view the story of Christ in the Gospels of the New Testament as a powerful and spiritually wise sacred story. While the story is told as if it happened, it is a theologically and mythically constructed history. The conclusion of the story, the account of Christ's crucifixion, resurrection and ascension to heaven, has many layers. But at its core I would say it is an historicized version of a very ancient myth from Mesopotamia, the Cradle of Civilization, the land we today call Iraq.<br />
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<b>What does that mean?</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> Some stories speak to people in a deep spiritual way. These sacred stories are what are called "myths" in the field of religious studies. Despite our common usage, a myth traditionally is not just a false tale. Rather, it is a story that, at least at one point in time, had a very powerful spiritual resonance. The story of death and resurrection is one such story. In the Sumerian tradition, in which much of the Bible is rooted, the story is called, <a href="http://www.inanna.virtualave.net/tammuz.html"> "From the Great Above to the Great Below"</a> or "The Descent of Inanna." There is also a Babylonian version of the myth, which is called "The Descent of Ishtar," and she is known elsewhere as Astarte.<br />
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<b>Let's hear the story!</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> The Sumerian <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Inanna">goddess Inanna</a> is the personification of the planet Venus the "Queen of Heaven" and a major deity in the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Mesopotamia" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Religion in Mesopotamia">Sumerian pantheon</a>. A long, long time ago, before humans are even created, Inanna, takes a journey to the Underworld, a realm under the control of her sister Ereshkigal. Before heading out Inanna gives instructions to her assistant about rescuing her if she runs into trouble, which she does. In the underworld, she enters through seven gates, and her worldly attire is removed. "Naked and bowed low" she is judged, killed, and then hung on display.<br />
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<b>I can't help but notice that the number seven is a sacred, just like it will be later in the Bible.</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> Yes, the numbers three, seven, twelve are sacred throughout ancient Mesopotamian writings including the Hebrew Bible (seven days of creation, twelve tribes of Israel) and subsequently Christianity (three days in the tomb, twelve apostles, twelve days of Christmas). They have their roots in universal human perceptions of the movements of the heavens (e.g. twelve signs of the zodiac).<br />
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To return to the story, the result of Inanna's death is that the earth becomes sterile. Plants start drying up, and animals cease having sexual relations. Unless something is done all life on earth will end. After Inanna has been missing for three days her assistant goes to other gods for help. Finally one of them Enki, creates two creatures who carry the plant of life and water of life down to the Underworld, sprinkling them on Inanna and resurrecting her. She then prepares to return to the upper realm.<br />
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<b>So Inanna is the prototype for Jesus in the Easter story?</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> Not quite. She is part of the prototype. After Inanna gets out of the underworld we are introduced to her husband Dumuzi. When mythic stories get passed from one culture to the next, sometimes one character can split into two or two characters come together. In this case, the Jesus of the resurrection story blends parts of Inanna and Dimuzi.<br />
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<b>Ok, let's hear about Dumuzi.</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> The Underworld has a number of names, including "the Great Earth" and "the Great City", and it is also called the "Land of No Return." If, by extraordinary chance, someone is resurrected or escapes from there, a substitute must be provided. So when Inanna returns to the upper realm she searches for a substitute. She doesn't want to send anyone who has been missing her and mourning her down there, but she finds her husband Dumuzi on his throne and totally unconcerned about her being gone. She decides that he will be her substitute.<br />
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He protests vigorously and is helped to escape by his brother-in-law Utu, the Sun-god. But then a compromise is agreed upon, whereby Dumuzi will spend six months of every year in the Underworld, and for the other six months his devoted sister will substitute for him. Life and fertility thus return to the earth. And that's how the story ends.<br />
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<b>Six months up and six down. Now I am reminded of Persephone.</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> Yes, and many other dying and rising gods that represent the cycle of the seasons and the stars. In Christianity one way the story changes is that it is detached from this agricultural cycle. The dying happens just once.<br />
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<b>But this story of Inanna/Ishtar is the oldest, the prototype?</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> It is one of the earliest epic myths recorded. We know this story because it has been found inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets dug up from the sands of Iraq by archaeologists, and because linguists have deciphered the Sumerian language and provided translations in English. This was a popular myth, and so we have multiple copies of it, or of portions of it. The earliest tablets inscribed with this story date to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, and it is thought to have been originally formulated about 2100 BC, i.e., 4200 years ago.<br />
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<b>Lay it out for us. How do you see this being a prototype for the story of Christ's death and resurrection?</b><br />
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<span class="pullquote">The roots of Easter in goddess worship go much deeper than the name and pagan symbols associated with the holiday.</span><b>Nugent:</b> Let's start with the first part of the myth. Inanna and Jesus both travel to a big city, where they are arrested by soldiers, put on trial, convicted, sentenced to death, stripped of their clothes, tortured, hung up on a stake, and die. And then, after 3 days, they are resurrected from the dead. Now there are, to be sure, a number of significant differences between the stories. For one thing, one story is about a goddess and the other is about a divine man. But this is a specific pattern, a mythic template. When you are dealing with the question of whether these things actually happened, you have to deal with the fact that there is a mythic template here. It doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a real person, Jesus, who was crucified, but rather that, if there was, the story about it is structured and embellished in accordance with a pattern that was very ancient and widespread.<br />
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<b>So what about the 2nd part of the myth?</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> The 2nd part of the Inanna myth really focuses on her husband Dumuzi. Dumuzi is the prototype of the non-aggressive, non-heroic male; he cries easily; he is the opposite of the warrior-god in the ancient pantheon. The summer month which corresponds to our month of July is named after him in both the Babylonian and Hebrew calendars, and during this month each year his followers, mostly women, mourn his death. From this myth we are talking about, and from a few other references, we also know that he is resurrected. But unlike Jesus, who dies and is resurrected once, he is imagined to die and be resurrected over and over, each year. There are other major differences. However, there really are a lot of similarities between the personalities and the stories of Jesus and Dumuzi. They both are tortured and die violent deaths after being betrayed by a close friend, who accepts a bribe from his enemies. They both have a father who is a god and a mother who is human. Dumuzi's father, the god Enki, also has many similarities to Yahweh, the father of Jesus.<br />
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<b>Other than this gospel story, are there any other signs of Inanna's influence on Christianity or on Easter?</b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> There are a few points I would mention. Inanna becomes known outside of Mesopotamia by her Babylonian name, "Ishtar". She is a personification of Venus as an evening star, and there is also a male aspect of the deity who is usually the morning star. At the end of the Book of Revelation when Christ speaks to John he says, "I am the bright morning star." In ancient Canaan Ishtar is known as Astarte, and her counterparts in the Greek and Roman pantheons are known as Aphrodite and Venus. In the 4th Century, when Christians got around to identifying the exact site in Jerusalem where the empty tomb of Jesus had been located, they selected the spot where a temple of Aphrodite (Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna) stood. So they tore it down and built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest church in the Christian world.<br />
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Also, our holiday of Easter was traditionally called 'Pascha', and still is in many languages, named after the Jewish festival of 'Pesach' or Passover. In the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon world we have, however, come to name the holiday 'Easter'. This name may be a reflex of the goddess Ishtar. In the pagan spiritual traditions of Germany and England in the medieval period the goddess Easter, and who as a deity of rebirth became strongly associated with the season of springtime and ultimately gave her name to Christianity's main holy day.<br />
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<b>No rudeness intended, but how can you call yourself a Christian? Mark Driscoll, rising Evangelical star, told his Seattle congregation: "If the resurrection of Christ didn't literally happen, there is no reason for us to be here." </b><br />
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<b>Nugent:</b> Well, many Christian theologians see the crucifixion and resurrection as a spiritual story rather than a literal one--a story about hope beyond despair, redemption and new life. But they are not the ones who get the media attention. I consider myself to be a Christian in a spiritual sense, not in a doctrinal sense. This means my Christianity is defined by values, spiritual practices, and faith rather than belief in a specific set of doctrinal agreements. Before the 4th Century, when orthodoxy was established, Christianity was characterized by heterodoxy -- many different forms of belief.<br />
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If the resurrection of Christ didn't literally happen, that shouldn't have any bearing on whether life now is worth living or how we live. From my vantage point, where values and practices are the heart of Christianity, the contradiction lies in people like our recent president who think it's ok to practice torture and yet call themselves Christians. Who would Jesus waterboard? Christ's torture and execution remind us that we are called to put an end to such practices in human affairs. From the standpoint of my Christianity, right-wing evangelical fundamentalism is really the opposite of what Christ was about. Those who subscribe to an intolerant, arrogant, inhumane form of Christianity are following a religion that is literally antichrist.<br />
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<i>Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/exchrisnetenc-20/detail/0977392937">Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light</a> and <a href="http://www.theoracleinstitute.org/deas">Deas and Other Imaginings</a>, and the founder of <a href="http://www.wisdomcommons.org/">www.WisdomCommons.org</a>. Subscribe at <a href="http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/">Awaypoint.Wordpress.com</a>. </i><br />
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<b>More from Dr. Tony Nugent:</b><br />
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<a href="http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/ancient-mythic-origins-of-the-christmas-story/"><b>Ancient Mythic Origins of the Christmas Story </b> </a><br />
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<b><a href="http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/was-jesus-married-a-religion-scholar-decodes-the-clues/">Was Jesus Married? A Religion Scholar Decodes the Clues</a><br />
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<a href="http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/the-same-god-twelve-beliefs-mormons-might-not-want-you-to-know-about/">The Same God? Twelve Beliefs the Mormon Church Might Not Want You to Know About</a><br />
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</b><br />
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Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-48424666351379775842013-03-25T15:24:00.002-04:002013-04-04T18:06:22.448-04:00The Easter Fable, Part 4: How's that resurrection thing work again?<i>By God O Rama ~ </i><br />
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<span class="dropcap">I</span>f the Bible is vague, confusing, and contradictory about the details of the crucifixion and resurrection stories, it is even more puzzling when it comes to the nature of the resurrection itself.<br />
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We all want to live beyond the 70 or 80 years most of us are allotted on this earth. We all want to believe that there is something beyond this life. All religions offer some hope for the afterlife, whether it is the Greek concept of existence in the spiritual underworld or the Hindu teaching of reincarnation.<br />
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Christianity is unique in that it teaches that just as Jesus died and rose again in a body of flesh and bone, so the resurrection of believers will be like his own resurrection. Here's what Paul teaches in Romans:<br />
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"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [bring to life] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." (Romans 7:11)<br />
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First-Century Christians believed that if they died, they were going to be raised again. However, they were sure that Jesus was going to come back before they died a natural death. Paul the Apostle told them to comfort each other with the knowledge that Jesus was going to come back and awaken their fellow believers who had “fallen asleep,” and those who were still alive would be caught up together with them in the clouds to be with the Lord forever.<br />
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But as time went on and Jesus didn't return, Paul (or whoever was writing the epistles) had to revise the story a bit to comfort believers about Uncle Titus and Aunt Cleo, who had been “asleep” a very, very long time, and were rotting in their graves.<br />
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So Paul the Apostle writes in 2 Corinthians 5 that there was nothing to worry about, because those dead relatives weren't actually sleeping at all; they were already present with the Lord. He explains that there is a spiritual body which has been prepared for believers in heaven, to which they go and inhabit when they die.<br />
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Paul leads up to this particular conclusion by encouraging believers not to grow fainthearted, because “though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” Why were they growing fainthearted? Because Jesus didn't show up when he said he would, and people were seeing their fellow Christians kick the bucket just like everyone else. Paul then goes on to say that if “this tent” (meaning our earthly body) is dissolved, we have “a building of God” (a heavenly body), eternal in the heavens.<br />
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To remove any doubt about what he means, he goes on to say, “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,” and that if we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord, and if we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. (I Cor. 5:2-6)<br />
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Wow. That kind of changes things. Having a spiritual body prepared in the heavens for us eliminates the need for a resurrection altogether. I thought that the “good news” in a nutshell was that our sinful, corruptible bodies would be raised incorruptible just like Jesus' body was.<br />
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So now the question is, “If God could merely create new, perfect heavenly bodies for us to inhabit immediately after we die, then why would Jesus need to die on the cross, and then raise up his own body, in the first place?<br />
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The two descriptions of the resurrection don't match. In fact, the idea of a new body expressed in 2 Corinthians is not even a “resurrection.” It's the transfer of a soul from one body to another. How could the Holy Spirit allow there to be such a direct contradiction about the “blessed hope” of the Christian faith? It has to be one or the other.<br />
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Do those who die in the faith lie asleep in the grave until they are resurrected in a glorified, incorruptible human body of flesh and bone, or are they immediately transported into the presence of God to inhabit a body made of spiritual stuff awaiting them in the heavens? It can't be both, and yet the Bible whipsaws us back and forth between two irreconcilable concepts without so much as an attempt to reconcile the vast difference.<br />
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When Christians are faced with this kind of conflict, they invoke the “It's a mystery” clause, or the “God's ways are above our ways” clause, which, with the wave of a hand, eliminates the need to explain or understand anything. In fact, they say that to attempt to explain something so profound and so heavenly would be foolish for us ignorant, earthbound humans to try to do.<br />
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But it shouldn't be surprising that the Bible is confusing about the nature of the “resurrected” body of the believer when it isn't at all clear about the nature of the resurrected body of Jesus himself. From New Testament accounts, it's difficult to determine whether the risen Christ inhabited a real body or was just a phantom.<br />
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Once when Jesus appeared to the apostles, they were afraid, thinking he was a spirit. But he comforted them by eating, saying, “A spirit doesn't have flesh and bone as you see me have.” (Luke 24:39)<br />
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On another occasion, to prove he was real flesh and bone and not just a ghost, he encouraged the unbelieving Thomas to put his finger into the nail prints of his hands and thrust his hand into his side. After feeling these flesh wounds and being convinced, Thomas proclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:26-28)<br />
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There we have it. Proof positive that Jesus rose from the dead. Thomas felt his wounds. It was a real body of flesh and bone, and not an apparition. Or was it?<br />
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Here's the fly in the ointment of the resurrected body story, though. It turns out that the gospel of Mark tells us that on another occasion Jesus appeared to a group of men who were walking along the road. In the story, the men did not recognize him because it says “he appeared in a different form.” (Mark 16:12)<br />
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So, if Jesus is like a shape-shifter who can take on “another form” at will, what's the purpose of eating in front of the disciples, or forcing them to touch his wounds to prove that he has risen in a real human body? Taking on another form” would simply invalidate the proof you just gave that your body was real flesh and bone. It actually doesn't really exist at all. It only appears to be a real body. It's just an illusion, an elaborate hoax.<br />
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Indeed, there is also something very puzzling about the fact that every time the resurrected Jesus shows up, no one recognizes him, no matter how many times they've seen him before. Hmmm.<br />
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After the episode with Thomas, Jesus showed up on the shore a few days later while they were out fishing. Remarkably, the disciples didn't recognize him, even though they were close enough to hear him ask if they had caught any fish. (As a surfer, I can tell you that that isn't too far out in the water at all.) Which leads me to ask, Was there nothing that distinguished the risen Jesus from an ordinary human being? Was there nothing that would make him recognizable within shouting distance? Nothing at all?<br />
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One day the disciples are afraid they're seeing a spirit. Another day, he looks like a typical bystander on the beach. The idea that someone would ever forget the face or the form of his leader who had risen from the dead after seeing him up close at least three times, to me, is preposterous.<br />
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Website: <a href="http://www.godorama.com/">http://www.godorama.com</a><br />
<span class="pullquote"></span>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-6149781097695147592013-03-22T00:19:00.001-04:002013-03-27T04:51:40.838-04:00 The Easter Fable, Part 3: 'There were 2 angels...no, wait...one...I mean none...'<i> By God O Rama ~ </i><br />
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<span class="dropcap">T</span>he New Testament teaches that since Jesus was victorious over death, everyone who believes in him will be raised from the dead just as he was.<br />
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After years of hearing Easter sermons that <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Jesus" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Resurrection of Jesus">the resurrection of Jesus</a> was the critical event that all history had led up to, I decided one spring day in the early-1990s to do an in-depth study on the subject.<br />
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I started by comparing the gospel accounts of the resurrection. The Internet was in its infancy, and online Bibles hadn’t been invented yet, so I photocopied the relevant passages from <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew%2C_Mark%2C_Luke_and_John" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Matthew, Mark, Luke and John">Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John</a>, and pasted them side-by-side on a poster board. I was ready for God to reward my desire for spiritual understanding with exciting new revelations about that great day.<br />
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As I studied the four passages at once, I can’t fully describe what took place inside me. It was a revelation alright, but not the kind I had been hoping for. It was a realization that apparently nobody could get their story straight regarding what was supposed to have been the most significant day in the history of the universe. All the accounts had a vague similarity, but none of them was even remotely close to the others. There were irreconcilable differences regarding:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Who went to the tomb first</li>
<li>What time they arrived</li>
<li>How many angels were there</li>
<li>What the angels said</li>
<li>The reaction of the disciples upon hearing that Jesus had risen</li>
<li>Where the resurrected Jesus appeared first, and to whom he appeared</li>
<li>Jesus’ instructions to the disciples when he appeared to them</li>
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I got up from my desk and walked outside confused.<br />
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Evangelicals explain the inconsistencies in the four accounts of the resurrection as being what you would expect whenever there are multiple eye-witness accounts (http://bit.ly/16HEV0I) of any event. I would grant them that if we were talking about the notes of investigators interviewing eyewitnesses to a plane crash or a <a class="zem_slink" href="http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/en/car_accident" rel="rdf" target="_blank" title="Traffic collision">fender-bender</a>.<br />
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But the gospels don’t claim to be raw, unedited police reports about the life of Jesus. They claim to be infallible, inerrant records written by men who were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and who were recording for all humanity the resurrection, the very event upon which the Bible teaches the fate of the whole human race would be sealed for all eternity—and, furthermore, an event at which the purported author himself, Mr. H. Ghost, was supposed to have been present and active.<br />
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As such, it would seem to me that accounts told from different perspectives should have meshed effortlessly, like an event being recorded simultaneously by four different cameras. Maybe I would be able to see a little more or a little less detail from a different perspective, but it would still be quite obvious that, regardless of the camera angle, I was observing the same event.<br />
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Each successive gospel account of the resurrection should confirm the veracity of the previous one, perhaps adding detail or nuance, but should in no way conflict with or add confusion to the original version, thereby providing through collective affirmation a water-tight story that is complete and irrefutable.<br />
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But the four gospel accounts of the resurrection do not provide this type of cohesive story. What I found instead was that nearly every fact presented in successive versions of the story serve only to confuse rather than enlighten the reader. A complete list of contradictions and inconsistencies can be found here (http://bit.ly/zCgEeW).<br />
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I went back in the house, put my chart away, and decided that I would just have to “wait until I got to heaven” to get a clearer picture of the resurrection.<br />
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I would later learn that 19th-Century <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Law_School" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Harvard Law School">Harvard Law</a> Professor <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Greenleaf" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Simon Greenleaf">Simon Greenleaf</a> (http://bit.ly/SaDDod)had attempted to harmonize these four accounts of the resurrection in his book, The <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony_of_the_Evangelists" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Testimony of the Evangelists">Testimony of the Evangelists</a> (http://bit.ly/YEIHAp). I was not only unimpressed but also very disappointed to discover that in order to force the stories fit together, Greenleaf actually rearranged the order of the verses in Matthew Chapter 28.<br />
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This seemed completely disingenuous—what my wife would call a “tap-tap rule,” one that has been arbitrarily made up in the middle of the game by a kid who is losing—given the fact that every one of the gospels is told in a linear chronological fashion, starting with Jesus’ birth or the beginning of his ministry, and ending in his death and resurrection. (Also, you have to ask yourself, “Why would it be necessary for a Harvard law professor to argue God’s case for the resurrection anyway?)<br />
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The full weight of how significant this issue was did not occur to me at the time. For years, I had just pretended that it was no big deal. However, in this case, the significance of a flawed account is devastating, because if the New Testament “evidence” about the resurrection is not credible, there is no basis whatsoever for Christianity.<br />
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As the New Testament itself says, “But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain…. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (I Cor. 15:13-14, 18).<br />
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Website: <a href="http://www.godorama.com/">http://www.godorama.com</a> <br />
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Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-33243609008991554622013-03-20T06:01:00.000-04:002013-03-25T15:39:03.764-04:00Easter Fable, Part 2: Jesus was crucified when?<i>By God O Rama ~ </i><br />
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<span class="dropcap">I</span> was recently shocked to learn that Jesus was in two places at once on the day of his crucifixion.<br />
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How could that be? At the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sext" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Sext">sixth hour</a>, or noon, the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Gospel of John">Gospel of John</a> places him at <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabbatha" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Gabbatha">Gabbatha</a>, or The Pavement, where he was judged by <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_Pilate" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Pontius Pilate">Pontius Pilate</a>. It says at the sixth hour, Pilate brought him before the crowd that was gathered, and said, “Behold, your king!”<br />
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The other three gospels say that at that time, he had already been hanging on the cross for three hours, and darkness came over the land from the sixth to the ninth hours, or from noon to 3 p.m.!<br />
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If the authors of the gospels are writing “under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,” how did this glaring error take place? Either John is wrong, or the other three gospel writers are wrong.<br />
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Both cannot be right.<br />
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Those who believe in biblical inerrancy often make the argument (http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/matthew-mark/what-hour-was-jesus-crucified) that the time discrepancy arose from a difference in the way Romans kept time versus how Jews kept time.<br />
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They try to explain that John was writing to the Romans, who measured time like we do today, beginning at midnight. So, to Romans, the sixth hour would have been close to 6 a.m.<br />
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The only problem with that explanation is that historians say that throughout Babylonian and Roman times, the sixth hour always meant midday—never early morning.<br />
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Martial the poet (http://bit.ly/Wxiszk), who was born only seven years after Jesus died, said that in Rome, the work day started at the third hour, and the sixth hour was afternoon break time.<br />
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Gentiles in Rome didn't measure the daylight hours any differently than the Jews did. Starting the day at midnight didn't begin until the use of mechanical clocks (http://bit.ly/XQsAGn), which started hundreds of years after Christ. Before that, everyone in the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Western world">Western world</a> measured time the same way—beginning at dawn.<br />
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If the gospels claimed to be a mere historical record written by men, a discrepancy concerning the correct time of an event would be a minor problem. But these writings claim to be written under the guidance and inspiration of none other than God the Holy Spirit.<br />
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If the “Holy Spirit” really had been guiding those who wrote the gospels, wouldn’t he have known the time <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Crucifixion of Jesus">Jesus was crucified</a>, and had there been cultural differences in telling time, would he not have been able to correct them?<br />
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Everyone form my generation remembers exactly what they were doing the moment they heard that <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="John F. Kennedy">President John F. Kennedy</a> had been shot (Kennedy had been shot). That was the event that defined the postwar baby boom generation. And after watching the news all that day, no one would be confused about the time: 12:30 p.m., <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Time_Zone_%28North_America%29" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Central Time Zone (North America)">Central Standard Time</a>, at <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dealey_Plaza" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Dealey Plaza">Dealy Plaza</a> in Dallas, Texas. People tend to remember the details when someone murders their hero.<br />
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Website: <a href="http://godorama.com/">http://godorama.com</a><br />
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Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-51953602039390058002013-03-17T17:27:00.001-04:002013-03-23T19:54:43.208-04:00Easter Fable Part 1: Major holes in the Judas 'betrayal' story<i>By God O Rama ~ </i><br />
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<span class="dropcap">B</span>ecause of his supposed role in betraying Jesus, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Iscariot" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Judas Iscariot">Judas Iscariot</a> has been immortalized as the quintessential traitor.<br />
<br />
The story of Judas is repeated as one of the most dastardly betrayals ever to have taken place—one of the Twelve who sat at the feet of Jesus, eating and sleeping with him, and then at the very end, turning on him. Here's how the passage in the Gospel of Matthew reads:<br />
<br />
And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. (<a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Gospel of Matthew">Matthew 26:47</a>-50)<br />
<br />
One question that seems pertinent: Who would pay Judas money to point out Jesus, when everyone in town already knew who he was? As the gospel story goes, he had just ridden on a donkey through town while everyone yelled “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” He had spent the last three years preaching to people, healing them, even raising a few of them from the dead! Crowds flocked to see him everywhere he went, pressing to get close to him. If that were the case, then why couldn't this mob find Jesus themselves?<br />
<br />
Even his enemies, the Jewish leaders, knew who he was. They had Jesus under 24-hour surveillance in order to catch him doing something against their law, and they confronted him on a daily basis. If the gospel account is true, there isn't a person in Jerusalem who didn't know who Jesus was, where he hung out, or what he looked like. He even said himself that everything he did was out in the open.<br />
<br />
So weren't there even a few guys among the mob that the chief priest and elders had stirred up who knew Jesus by sight? And would a turncoat like Judas really betray the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_God" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Son of God">Son of God</a> with such melodramatic flair as to say, “Hail, Master!” and give him a kiss? It seems more likely that he would just hang back with the leader of the pack and say, “That's him—the one with the herringbone tunic.”<br />
<br />
The scene seems so contrived. Just as melodramatic is the way in which the remorseful Judas threw his money on the floor of the temple after he supposedly came to his senses and realized he'd betrayed an innocent person. After that, the gospel of Matthew says he went out and hung himself. On the other hand, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_the_Apostles" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Acts of the Apostles">the book of Acts</a> says that Judas cast himself into a field and his bowels gushed out, which is an obvious contradiction. But don't worry, the biblical literalists have a “logical” solution to this conflict. Judas apparently tied the rope to a tree and jumped off a cliff to hang himself, but when he jumped, the rope broke, and ker-splatt! His innards gushed out.<br />
<br />
Matthew's version, in fact, reveals another major gaffe—this one of monumental proportions, because it involves the author of the Bible (i.e., God) getting confused when referencing his own work. Check out this passage from Matthew 27:<br />
<br />
Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_pieces_of_silver" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Thirty pieces of silver">thirty pieces of silver</a> to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. (Matthew 27:3-10)<br />
<br />
Not only does the prophecy quoted here have nothing to do with Judas' betrayal (it's talking about a civil war that divided the single <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Israelites">nation of Israel</a> into the separate nations of Israel and Judah), but the passage is not in “Jeremy,” or Jeremiah, but it is found in the eleventh chapter of Zechariah!<br />
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And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Word_of_the_Lord" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="The Word of the Lord">the word of the LORD</a>. And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="History of ancient Israel and Judah">Judah and Israel</a>. (Zechariah 11:10-14)<br />
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So the tale of the Judas the traitor seems to have been written to fit a misquoted prophecy that wasn't even remotely related to the betrayal, perhaps because the Easter story needed a villain.<br />
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Website: <a href="http://www.godorama.com/">http://www.godorama.com</a><br />
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Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-46944829995062172902012-11-21T05:39:00.002-05:002013-03-17T17:32:15.836-04:00Christianity: A New Type of Myth - Part 5 (Finale)<i>By Michael Sherlock ~ </i><br />
<br />
<b>1. Function of Myth</b><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcvCkNDz19hb3hlFBpOldJhyZ8sim_wJ1a26rmQUbsCxhNBUQ-l6vLJ7BZIcOzuoY7ZU9Siykv025IqDNUAiTB_7TzbksdzudQq2P6mwL3-_sIAK4RHRJ27Cj-eEv2Io3h5l9qc83YDA/s1600/christ1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcvCkNDz19hb3hlFBpOldJhyZ8sim_wJ1a26rmQUbsCxhNBUQ-l6vLJ7BZIcOzuoY7ZU9Siykv025IqDNUAiTB_7TzbksdzudQq2P6mwL3-_sIAK4RHRJ27Cj-eEv2Io3h5l9qc83YDA/s320/christ1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gerard Seghers, Christ and the Penitents, 17th century</td></tr>
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<span class="dropcap">A</span>ccording to Professor Vandiver’s definition, a myth will often serve one or more of the following functions. In the professor’s words:<br />
<blockquote>
“Myths do many things. Among the most obvious functions that they fulfil is; myths often explain, justify, instruct, or warn.” <sup>(1)</sup></blockquote>
<br />
So, the various functions of myths are categorized as follows: <br />
<ol>
<li>Explanatory Myths</li>
<li>Warning Myths</li>
<li>Instructive Myths</li>
<li>Justification Myths <sup>(2)</sup></li>
</ol>
Professor Vandiver sums up these functions, saying:<br />
<blockquote>
“Explanatory myths are often called <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiology" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Etiology">etiological myths</a>. The word etiological comes from the Greek word ‘etion,’ which means ‘cause.’ Explanatory myths may explain why things are as they are, how certain events or entities came into being, why conditions in the world are the way they are….Another function that myths fulfil is to offer a justification for certain rites and social institutions…Myths that provide justification for social rites and institutions are very frequently called, charter myths. Myths may also instruct their audience in how their audience ought, or more frequently, ought not to behave. Myths very frequently instruct through presenting horrible warnings of what is likely to happen to people who transgress the boundaries of proper human behaviour.” <sup>(3)</sup></blockquote>
<b><br />
Christian Myth as Explanatory</b><br />
<br />
The Christian myth, notwithstanding the first few verses of the Gospel of “John” (see “John” 1:1-5) is not an etiological myth in its own right, yet it was built, both exoterically and later esoterically, upon a portion of the Hebrew etiological myth found in the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Genesis" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Book of Genesis">book of Genesis</a> (see Genesis 2 & 3).<br />
<br />
In the book of Genesis, we are told that the human condition, specifically relating to the existence of evil, sin, suffering and death, stems from Adam’s (man’s) “original sin.” The Old Testament does not expressly support the doctrine of original sin, that is, a sin which is universal and inherent, yet a few passages throughout the Old Testament, aside from those in Genesis 3, may be seen as implying it (see Jeremiah. 5:23; 17:9-10; Ezekiel. 36:26 and Isaiah. 29:13). Naturally, the doctrine of original sin implied from the story of the fall of man is an important etiological myth for Christians, as their entire foundation rests upon it.<br />
<br />
Jesus, we are told, was born the sinless son of Yahweh, the great savior and redeemer, sent by Yahweh to save and redeem his creation, in the face of a sinful existence, stemming from the initial fall of man, or so we are told! Thus, without the original Hebrew etiological myth found in Genesis, the Christ myth would make no sense. Why would we need a redeemer if we had not fallen? Thus, we are begged to believe that Jesus is the yin to Adam’s yang, and his virgin mother, Mary, the most blessed female (“Luke” 1:28) is the exemplary female, in place of Eve, the first woman to be cursed by Yahweh (Genesis 3:16). In the words of the second century church father, Irenaeus: <br />
<blockquote>
“As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel, and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_%28mother_of_Jesus%29" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Mary (mother of Jesus)">the Virgin Mary</a> became the advocate of the virgin Eve.<br />
<br />
Christ gathered all things into one, by gathering them into himself. He declared war against our enemy, crushed him who at the beginning had taken us captive in Adam, and trampled on his head, in accordance with God’s words to the serpent in Genesis: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall lie in wait for your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel.<br />
<br />
The one lying in wait for the serpent’s head is the one who was born in the likeness of Adam from the woman, the Virgin. This is the seed spoken of by Paul in the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Galatians" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Epistle to the Galatians">letter to the Galatians</a>: The law of works was in force until the seed should come to whom the- promise was made. <br />
<br />
He shows this even more clearly in the same letter when he says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. The enemy would not have been defeated fairly if his vanquisher had not been born of a woman, because it was through a woman that he had gained mastery over man in the beginning, and set himself up as man’s adversary.<br />
<br />
That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life.”<sup>(4)</sup></blockquote>
<br />
Theologians and church fathers like Irenaeus, have even gone so far as to attempt to tie Jesus directly into a part of the Hebrew’s Genesis myth, claiming that he was mentioned, albeit esoterically, by the author, “Moses,” a matter which carries insurmountable evidentiary problems. <br />
<br />
This alleged reference to Christ has been dubbed, ‘The Proto-Evangelium’ and is asserted to apply to the following passage in the book of Genesis:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15</blockquote>
<br />
The verse above relates to the talking snake in the magical Garden of Eden that tempted Eve, who in turn, tempted Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, thereby condemning our species to a life of misery and suffering, which Christians believe, Jesus came to redeem us from. So, we have the charter myth of the ‘<a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Man" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Fall of Man">Fall of Man</a>,’ which serves to explain the presence of suffering, hardship and ultimately human mortality and we have the Christian myth, later tied into that myth as a kind of promise, or ‘get out of jail (mortality) free card,’ attempting to offer hope in the face of this fallen state of affairs. This is one of the ways Christianity has attempted to further entrench itself within the etiological myth of the ancient Hebrews and at the same time, sell its belief-system to a frightened and credulous species.<br />
<br />
<b>Myths that Warn</b><br />
<blockquote>
When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened….Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Matthew 24:15-22/29</blockquote>
<br />
This is just one passage from a multitude within the canonical (official) texts, not to mention the various passages found in the apocryphal (non-official) literature, which forewarn its audience of the terror that awaits our species. I could run through all of the various canonical and non-canonical passages that demonstrate this function of the Christian myth, but I think most people are familiar with the Christian myth of the future Apocalypse and Armageddon. I think it would be more useful to investigate why these myths warn audiences. <br />
<br />
What function do such warnings really serve?<br />
<br />
Following the Apocalypse, many Christians believe that the final judgement will take place and those who believe in Christ, will be taken up into the clouds, to enjoy an eternal bliss in heaven. How anything eternal could remain blissful forever is beyond me, however, that is not the point to be addressed here. Non-believers, as opposed to believers, won’t be so lucky come the catastrophes that await us. They, according to both scripture and tradition, will be cast into the fiery pits of hell to suffer an eternal torment. Ah! So, if I want to come out of this impending doom in good shape, I should believe in Christ and submit to the Church, his body here on earth. If do not, I will be tortured by the all-loving god Yahweh, for an eternity without parole. I see! <br />
<br />
These warnings are a form of mind control, manipulating the audience via two common fears; the fear of the unknown and the fear of death. By employing these fears in conjunction with one another, the creators and administrators of these myths have had a high level of success in not only maintaining their flocks, but gaining new converts, who do not wish to gamble against such certain claims. It comes down to a simple carrot and stick incentive scheme. Join and follow us, believe as we believe and you will live forever in bliss. Refuse to submit to both us and our god, and you will die horribly and suffer an eternity of torment. Thus, the function of the warning in Christianity is to gain and maintain converts, it is that simple. The only problem is that Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and various other religions carry the very same Apocalyptic warning, leaving the open-minded and uncertain thinker, scratching their head and wondering whether or not they should just join them all and cover their bases, or simply pay their manipulation no mind!<br />
<b><br />
Charter Myths: Myths that Justify</b><br />
<br />
The Christian myth contains quite a few charter myths. These charter myths justify ecclesiastic (church) rites and ceremonies, as well as many social institutions as well. The Eucharist is one such ecclesiastic rite, which derives its legitimacy from traditional interpretations of the Christian myth, found in the Gospels.<br />
<br />
The Eucharist is a kind of symbolic cannibalism and vampirism, which symbolizes the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Jesus Christ. It acquires its legitimacy from both the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, but in truth it pre-dates even these sources and the Christian religion itself. <br />
<br />
One of the most popular religions of the Roman Empire, which preceded Christianity, was a religion known as Mithraism. This religion worshiped a demiurge (divine intercessor/god-man) called Mithras. Mithras was a sun-god <sup>(5)</sup>, whose ancient headquarters are buried directly beneath the very location where the Vatican sits today. <sup>(6)</sup> Long before the myth of the Lord’s Supper was invented by the mythographers of the Christian scriptures, this “pagan” religion was already practicing the same exact Eucharistic rite. Participants of this ancient religion believed in the transubstantiation (actual changing of the bread into flesh and wine into real blood) of the bread and wine. Initiates into this religion would eat the body of their earthly incarnated god-man, in the form of bread and drink his blood, symbolised by the sacred wine.<sup>(7)</sup><br />
<br />
In the Gospel of “John” Jesus is alleged to have said:<br />
<blockquote>
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.<br />
“John” 6:53-55</blockquote>
<br />
The Eucharist, or “Lord’s Supper” is also echoed in the earlier Gospels of “Mark,” “Matthew” and “Luke.” (see “Mark” 14:22-25, “Luke” 22:14-22 & “Matthew” 26:26-28). And further supported by Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (see Corinthians 11:23-26).<br />
<br />
From these various passages within these ancient texts can be found the justification for the Eucharist as a ceremony, demonstrating how charter myths form the constitution of certain rites and practices within a religion.<br />
<br />
The next charter myth contained within the Christian texts worthy of mention is the story of Christ declaring the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman (see “Matthew” 19:3-12, “Mark” 10:2-12, for example). This declaration has permeated not only the religion of Christianity, but the laws of western society as well. Such laws we are told and assured by other laws, underscore a legal and political system which is separate from the superstitious reach of the Church. So, how is it that the Church’s laws, which stem from its various charter myths, have become the law, even for those who do not believe in or follow the Christian belief-system? <br />
<br />
When I first moved to the ‘bible bashing’ state of Tasmania (a state of Australia) in the 1990’s, homosexuality was still a crime. It was illegal for a man, or a woman, to have sexual relations with another person of the same sex, the punishment for which was imprisonment. It is absurd when we consider that this law was built upon myth. As ridiculous as this situation is, the foundation of most societies’ laws and customs, are built upon myth, to some degree at least. There are still many states in the U.S that do not recognize gay marriage, and other western and Christianised countries still have not been able to surpass the tremendous pressure of this myth-based tradition, to allow consenting adults to formalize their love. <br />
<br />
The final charter myth of the Judeo-Christian religion I wish to discuss pertains to the laws prohibiting murder. Thou shalt not kill! Now, this particular law is one of my favourites and helps balance our argument a little, that is to say; some laws and customs derived from ancient myths are useful, but even this one is quite nuanced, not only today, but when it was allegedly first written. <br />
<br />
We are told that as soon as Moses returned from the top of Mt. Sinai, he relayed The Ten Commandments to the Israelites, one of which was, do not kill (see Exodus 20:13). This charter myth has been incorporated into the west via Christianity, but is certainly not unique to Judeo-Christian countries. This law’s somewhat flexible and pragmatic application reflects the tenuous nature of its application in the original charter myth of the Hebrews. We find in both the original story and its modern application, many exclusion clauses. Shortly after Moses exhorted “God’s” rule not to kill, he commanded:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. Exodus 32:27-28</blockquote>
<br />
Just as the case is today, with capital punishment, the laws of self-defence and provocation, military laws, the laws governing police conduct, etc.; the rule against killing is not so much an immutable principle established to preserve the sanctity of life in all circumstances, but rather, a pragmatic one, intended to protect the ruler’s power and his religion, or his ideology (means of control), as the case may be. <br />
<br />
<b>Myths that Instruct</b><br />
<br />
Even though many of the instructive aspects of the Christian myth are geared toward persuading people to suspend their rational faculties, switch off their minds and believe without evidence, I thought I might balance this article with a positive instructive myth from the Gospels.<br />
<br />
<b>The Parable of the Good Samaritan</b><br />
<br />
The author of the Gospel of “Luke,” or their source, constructed a dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, relating to the idea of loving one’s neighbour. According to the somewhat xenophobic Jews at the time, the concept of the ‘neighbour’ was a concept only extended to one’s immediate family, tribe and or nation. “Jesus,” by way of a platonic styled parable, extends the definition of this word ‘neighbour,’ to compassionately include anyone in need. When pressed by a certain Jewish leader, to explain his take on loving one’s neighbour, “Jesus” is said to have replied with the following parable:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, "Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend." Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."<br />
“Luke” 10:30-37</blockquote>
<br />
This is a beautiful instructive parable, teaching the audience, whose ears are more often in attention, at times when promises are made for their own salvation, to help the poor and the needy, to show mercy to those in need and to assist strangers. Of course, there are other beautiful parables and messages in the Gospels, yet unfortunately, they have often been ignored, rationalized, re-interpreted and perverted by power-mongers, to the detriment of their true instructive beauty. Also, we must recognize here that such sentiments and teachings found within the Christian Scriptures are not original to Christianity and in fact, date many centuries before. Nevertheless, this instructive myth is one of my favourites within the corpus of the Christian Canon. <br />
<br />
<b>2. Myths and the Supernatural</b><br />
<br />
On this final element in professor Vandiver’s definition of myth, she says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“Myths, very frequently involve gods and the supernatural. They do not have to involve gods and the supernatural, but they very frequently do.”<sup>(8)</sup></blockquote>
<br />
Unfortunately, Professor Vandiver hasn’t given us a definition of the term, ‘supernatural,’ possibly because it is a word commonly understood by most people. However, for the sake of prudence, we should begin by defining what exactly the word ‘supernatural’ means, and how such a definition might impact upon our understanding of what a myth is and ultimately, whether or not the Gospels fit the category of myth in this regard.<br />
<br />
One online dictionary defines the word supernatural in the following manner:<br />
<ol>
<li>of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.</li>
<li>of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity.</li>
<li>of a superlative degree; preternatural: a missile of supernatural speed. </li>
<li>of, pertaining to, or attributed to ghosts, goblins, or other unearthly beings; eerie; occult (hidden).(9)</li>
</ol>
<br />
And the Collins World English Dictionary defines it as:<br />
<blockquote>
1. Of or relating to things that cannot be explained according to natural laws<br />
<br />
2. Characteristic of or caused by or as if by a god; miraculous<br />
<br />
3. Of, involving, or ascribed to occult beings<br />
<br />
4. Exceeding the ordinary; abnormal<sup>(10)</sup></blockquote>
<br />
I think given most peoples’ familiarity with what we might all agree, constitutes a supernatural event, state, or being, I should draw upon the bolded aspects of the definitions above to give us a working definition for the purpose of this investigation.<br />
<br />
The word ‘supernatural’ relates to something above and beyond nature; generally, but not exclusively, related to a ‘god,’ which cannot be explained by natural laws, exceeding the ordinary and is also, miraculous.<br />
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If we define the word supernatural this way, we find many supernatural tales in the Gospels. <br />
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I think no one, at least no one in their right mind, will see as natural, the impregnation of a virgin by a ghost. Angels visiting people in their sleep, or a star which breaks its regular orbit to travel east to Jerusalem, stopping there for a while, then going on to Bethlehem, to signify the birth of a child who is a god and human hybrid. They might also be hard-pressed to find a natural explanation for this god-son walking on water, or stoping a storm with his words, let alone, instantly turning water into wine, a trick which we might assume, many liquor companies would have seized upon, if natural. The bringing to life a dead person, and many dead people, the death and resurrection of this god-man himself and his ascension into the clouds, etc.. I think it is pretty safe to say that, the stories in the Gospels contain many supernatural tales and even safer to say that, most people reading this article would be familiar with this fact. <br />
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What many people may not be familiar with is the fact that many of the supernatural tales from the Gospels are simply re-scripted myths, taken from earlier “pagan” religions. The divine announcement of the savior’s birth was a common motif, attached to the story of Alexander the Great’s birth, Pythagoras and a few others. The virgin-born earthly incarnated god-man, was also fairly common in much earlier Hellenistic myths, along with the death and resurrection of the god-man, first recorded amongst the ancient Egyptian texts regarding Osiris. The bringing of the dead back to life, utilized by the creators of the Hercules myth, a thousand plus years earlier, the healing of the sick, commonly associated with the healing god Asclepius, the turning of water into wine, written into the Osiris-Dionysius myth many centuries before “Jesus Christ,” and on and on it goes, until we are left with virtually nothing original in the supernatural accounts of Christ. In the second volume in the three volume series I have authored, entitled, ‘I Am Christ,’ I list these similarities with primary and ancient sources, along with the leading scholarship in the field of mythology and comparative mythology, to demonstrate the probability that the stories of Christ written in the Gospels are not merely myth, but second-hand myth.<br />
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So what do we, or should we make of these plagiarized, miraculous events, which defy the laws of nature and were hidden in obscurity and remoteness, from the majority of people of that day and everyone living today? <br />
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I think Thomas Paine put it best, when he said:<br />
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<blockquote>
All the tales of miracles with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.(11) Thomas Paine</blockquote>
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<b>Conclusion</b><br />
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In this series of articles I have attempted to apply one of the best working definitions of myth to the narratives which underscore the Christian religion. In so doing, I have demonstrated that the stories of Jesus Christ are just that, stories, which were set in the remote past and in a remote location and that these remote accounts changed over time. They were and still are, believed by Christians to represent true historical facts, to varying degrees and the tales serve the four primary functions of myth, set out by Professor Vandiver. Finally, they were built upon a supernatural theme and contain many accounts of miraculous and unnatural phenomena. The only reasonable conclusion one can draw from such evidence is that; the Christian religion was built upon myth, propagated by lies and believed by fools.<br />
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I would like to leave the reader with a few brief quotes from some of my favorite free-thinkers, pertaining to the mythical nature of Christianity, in order that the reader might draw inspiration from the words of the holiest and most righteous kind of human; the free one!<br />
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<b>Robert G. Ingersoll</b><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• If, then, there are mistakes, misconceptions, false theories, ignorant myths and blunders in the Bible, it must have been written by finite beings; that is to say, by ignorant and mistaken men.<br />
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• Voltaire approached the mythology of the Jews precisely as he did the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, or the mythology of the Chinese or the Iroquois Indians. There is nothing in this world too sacred to be investigated, to be understood. The philosopher does not hide. Secrecy is not the friend of truth. No man should be reverent at the expense of his reason. Nothing should be worshiped until the reason has been convinced that it is worthy of worship. Against all miracles, against all holy superstition, against sacred mistakes, he shot the arrows of ridicule.</blockquote>
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<b>John E. Remsburg</b><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• “The Jesus of the New Testament is a supernatural being. He is, like the Christ, a myth. He is the Christ myth.”<br />
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• “It was not "according to the Divine purpose" that Jesus was slain at the Passover, but it was according to a human invention that he is declared to have been slain at this time. These attempts to connect the crucifixion with the Passover afford the strongest proof that it is a myth.”</blockquote>
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<b>Joseph Wheless</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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• “It may surprise and maybe grieve many good and zealous Christians to know that all their pious observances, prayers, hymns, baptism, communion at the altar, redemption, salvation, the celebration of Christmas as the birth of their God in mid-winter, and of Easter, his resurrection as spring breaks, all, all, are pagan practices and myths, thousands of years antedating what they fondly think is their wonderful Jesus-religion.”<br />
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• The Gentiles believed already in virgin-born gods and in resurrections from the dead: the Myths of Attis, Adonis, Isis, and Tammuz were accepted articles of their Pagan Faiths. Fertile ground for a new Faith with little or nothing new or strange about its beliefs and dogmas. So to the Pagan Gentiles the Propagandists turned, and fortified their propaganda with marvellous tales of venerable "Prophecies" wonderfully fulfilled.</blockquote>
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<b>M.M Mangasarian</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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• The immediate companions of Jesus appear to be, on the other hand, as mythical as he is himself. Who was Matthew? Who was Mark? Who were John, Peter, Judas, and Mary? There is absolutely no evidence that they ever existed. They are not mentioned except in the New Testament books, which, as we shall see, are "supposed" copies of "supposed" originals. If Peter ever went to Rome with a new doctrine, how is it that no historian has taken note of him? If Paul visited Athens and preached from Mars Hill, how is it that there is no mention of him or of his strange Gospel in the Athenian chronicles? For all we know, both Peter and Paul may have really existed, but it is only a guess, as we have no means of ascertaining. The uncertainty about the apostles of Jesus is quite in keeping with the uncertainty about Jesus himself.</blockquote>
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<br />
<b>Gerald Massey</b><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• The Egyptians, who were the authors of the mysteries and mythical representation., did not pervert the meaning by an ignorant literalization of mystical matters, and had no fall of man to encounter in the fallacious Christian sense. Consequently they had no need of a redeemer from the effects of that which had never occurred. They did not rejoice over the death of their suffering saviour because his agony and shame and bloody sweat were falsely supposed to rescue them from the consequences of broken laws; on the contrary, they taught that everyone created his own karma here, and that the past deeds made the future fate.</blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">References</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. Professor Elizabeth Vandiver. Classical Mythology. Lecture 2: What is Myth? The Teaching Company. (2002).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. Ibid.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3. Ibid.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">4. Irenaeus. Against the Heresies. Book 2.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">5. Roger Beck. The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun. Oxford University Press. (2006). p. 5.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">6. <a href="http://www.world-archaeology.com/travel/vatican-cults-christianity-and-the-vatican/">http://www.world-archaeology.com/travel/vatican-cults-christianity-and-the-vatican/</a> ; <a href="http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/roma/romes-underground-treasures-show">http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/roma/romes-underground-treasures-show</a> ; <a href="http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Jesus_and_Mithra">http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Jesus_and_Mithra</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">7. J.M. Robertson. Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology. Watts and Co. (1911). p. 318; Paul J. Achtemeier. Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary. Harper Collins (1996). p. 723; Guy de la Bedoyere. The Romans for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons Ltd. (2006). p. 159.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">8. Professor Elizabeth Vandiver. Classical Mythology. Lecture 2: What is Myth? The Teaching Company. (2002).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">9. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/supernatural</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">10. Ibid.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">11. Joan Konner. The Atheist’s Bible. Harper Collins. (2009). p. 138.</span><br />
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<img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=c2a84f9b-a030-427a-8a98-2020bd602e4b" style="border: none; float: right;" /></div>
Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-29234354103249790232011-04-25T12:00:00.000-04:002013-03-17T17:32:15.821-04:00Easter this year<i>By PuffyMac ~ </i><br />
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<span class="dropcap">T</span>his Easter, since becoming a deist about a month ago, I'm feeling somewhat melancholy. I am thankful to have found this place that gives so much support and from people that really THINK, and care.<br />
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<div class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29886804@N04/3816359666" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="melencholy looks" height="160" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2433/3816359666_fecdebcdf5_m.jpg" style="border: medium none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="240" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="clear: both; float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 240px;">Image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29886804@N04/3816359666">Ali Gold</a> via Flickr</span></div>Now that I largely dismiss most of the teaching of Christianity, I guess I'm going to have to struggle through holidays such as Easter and Christmas. Where I once scoffed at the "C & E" churchgoers (we know what those are, right?), now I'm faced with having to make a choice to attend or not attend, and if I attend, how I wrestle with I'm hearing and seeing, in my own mind.<br />
<br />
<span class="pullquote">I guess I'm going to have to struggle through holidays such as Easter and Christmas.</span> I'm melancholy, because I see all these people with "blind faith", excited to be celebrating these holidays, and apparently finding real meaning in them. I wish I had that, both the belief (or the comfort of that belief) and that community with others. Now, I do realize that, just like me, there's a lot of them with real questions, that are afraid to investigate, or perhaps they're just going thru the motions. Some of them are really sweating going to hell for not doing this or doing that, or for doing that or doing this. Yes, even with the knowledge of what evangelicals term "Grace" - which they use to define that we don't have to DO anything, only to accept and worship Jesus. But no one really believes it.<br />
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Anyway, back to my point, I just really wanted to vent my feelings, as yesterday was Easter, and this one was really different for me than past ones. And while on one hand I feel a great weight has been taken off of me, on the other hand I do miss what I once had. Anyone else feel this? <br />
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=b5d41c41-def7-4f20-8e25-b86ea9369eb8" style="border: medium none; float: right;" /></div>Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-51158198530721906582011-04-24T05:26:00.000-04:002013-03-17T17:32:15.842-04:00Easter Morn<i>By Jody Milholland ~ </i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQ9y0cAzQ4bqJ3O_fodjn0IaXx5IV-Ow9Edj-rFGhOLyCpsdm1_4BORBL9Z0d1SNOpcclE2-q6I_N2kJmUfFehiVT-c9UUWoxIWnH6bq_Agdn_gojUFcLiXgFhYaVWn9LsyVlA6bVJ6XK/s1600/eastersunrise.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQ9y0cAzQ4bqJ3O_fodjn0IaXx5IV-Ow9Edj-rFGhOLyCpsdm1_4BORBL9Z0d1SNOpcclE2-q6I_N2kJmUfFehiVT-c9UUWoxIWnH6bq_Agdn_gojUFcLiXgFhYaVWn9LsyVlA6bVJ6XK/s320/eastersunrise.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span class="dropcap">A</span>ttending the Easter Sunrise service is one of my fondest easter childhood memories. (That and chocolate bunnies). At the time, I thought it was the "message" of the passion play that captured my heart and made me catch my breath. But, looking back, as an avowed agnostic, I think what gave me butterflies was watching the sunrise over the hill. Hearing the early morning bird calls, and the crisp April air stinging my nose.<br />
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Now, with Christianity a mere reflection in the mirror of my past, I am sure it was the serenity of being with the earth at that early morning hour, and with my mom that made it so special. Because now, I can say with true freedom and gladness that my religion-inspired guilt, shame and fear are buried. When I rolled away the rock of spiritual oppression and bondage, I emerged a new person. I was raised from the dead, resurrected in new life. The old is gone the new has come. I have welcomed the change, the metamorphosis of leaving behind superstitions and fears and welcoming the experience of living fully in the present. No longer with remorse for my past sins or fear of an impending dooms day, I embrace my life with enthusiasm.<br />
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Hallelujah, I have been set free!Dave Van Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08288914445803411893noreply@blogger.com0