Intriguing exercise - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

kerry · #10 12-19-2011, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JollyRoger

One of my humanities professors back in college made a compelling case that Paul was the founder of modern capitalism. Paul was not interested in the teachings of Christ, he was interested in selling a product. He was the founder of salesmanship, and the first pioneer of advertising. Selling his product successfully kept him financially secure and popular, and gave him more and more power. His letters were nothing more than his sales brochures. And look at what he built - in modern times, he would have been known as a "multi-level marketer", he sold Christianity like Amway - now that you're completely sold on my product, you need to be a salesman for it too. At it's heart, modern Christian evangelicalism is simply an Amway game.

He definitely was the model religious entrepeneur. A Jewish savior seems unlikely to have had much appeal in the far flung reaches of the Roman empire, so ignoring Jesus' Jewishness was a shrewd move, even if he knew of it. So that makes me think that the whole 'Son of Man' theme in the gospel of Mark, may be an attempt to construct a hero who is not a Jewish messiah but a savior for the human race instead of just for Jews. This would then give need for the writing of more Jewish gospels to support the Christianity-as-a-sect-of-Judaism group.