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Intriguing exercise
To test out something I came across last night, I read, in chronological order, the epistles of St. Paul. It's true, none of those letters show any acquaintance with the teachings of Jesus, his travels, his history or his parables. Jesus appears as a dying and resurrecting god with the exception of the last supper which is obviously an existing ritual when Paul writes about it. It seems clear that Paul must not have read any of the materials that ended up in the gospels. Why didn't I figure this out decades ago? I think I must have been misled by the canonical order.
Give it a try someone, it's an enlightening exercise. Whoever the historical Jesus was, his life and teachings seem completely irrelevant to St. Paul. What matter is his death and resurrection. Not much else except the last supper. Makes a person wonder why the gospels were written if all the churches Paul started got by without them.
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1977 300d 70k--sold 08 1985 300TD 185k+ 1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03 1985 409d 65k--sold 06 1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car 1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11 1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper 1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4 1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13 |
#2
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Read them again.
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For the Saved, this world is the worst it will ever get. For the unSaved, this world is the best it will ever get. Clk's Ebay Stuff BUY SOMETHING NOW!!! |
#3
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If he reads them again CLK man, he'll come to the same conclusion. Paul was writing well before the fairy tales about Jesus were concocted to make him fit the old testament prophesies. You should read them and back up your reading with some research about when the individual gospels were written and by whom. There is a clear progression from the earliest to the latest. He goes from an essentially human historical figure to a magical son of God who went around performing parlor tricks in the later gospels. Your belief in the christ should not be challenged by such a study. Rather, you might come to see him as a real, human, man of god whose essential goodness has been clouded by centuries of childish magical thinking.
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You're a daisy if you do. __________________________________ 84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold 04 Honda Element AWD 1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler 1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4 1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting |
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It is somewhat of a puzzle. Paul was very successful creating a non-Jewish version of Christianity with no gospels, no miracles, not teachings, no history, just the resurrected lord. So why did the Gospels come about? Were they written by authors with different views than Paul's as an alternative? Were they written to create a figure consistent with Paul's risen Lord? At one time in my life I gave a fair amount of attention to the question of 'Who was the historical Jesus? When I was thinking about that, it never crossed my mind that the religion had begun and expanded with no historical Jesus at all. That expansion does make sense if it is based on a mystical experience of the risen Christ, but it doesn't explain why the Jesus of the gospels needed to be created? Just for background effect?
It probably reinforces Dennis McDonald's argument that the earliest gospel (Mark) was written on the model of an Homeric epic, following the life of the hero. If the person who created the religion had no knowledge of the person who had died and resurrected to save them, something would need to be developed to reinforce the salvation story.
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1977 300d 70k--sold 08 1985 300TD 185k+ 1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03 1985 409d 65k--sold 06 1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car 1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11 1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper 1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4 1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13 Last edited by kerry; 12-18-2011 at 10:22 PM. |
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I can't even imagine being bored enough to do that.
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You're a daisy if you do. __________________________________ 84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold 04 Honda Element AWD 1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler 1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4 1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting |
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1977 300d 70k--sold 08 1985 300TD 185k+ 1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03 1985 409d 65k--sold 06 1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car 1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11 1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper 1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4 1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13 |
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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.
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1977 300d 70k--sold 08 1985 300TD 185k+ 1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03 1985 409d 65k--sold 06 1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car 1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11 1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper 1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4 1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13 |
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Just re-read Mark. It clearly is a gentile/anti-Jewish gospel. It starts out with John the Baptist the Jewish pre-cursor to Jesus who gets killed halfway thru. Jesus first miracle is in the synagogue in Capernaum where a demon cries out that Jesus is come to destroy them. The next story, he violates the Sabbath rules. Then there's a story about a prophet not being accepted in his home town. Then the Pharisees get on Jesus and his disciples case for not following Jewish rules. Jesus travels to Jerusalem where he is rejected, (notice Jesus was not born in Bethlehem in this gospel--but in Nazareth, far further north) and says that the temple will be torn down. It has the apocalytpical message of Jesus returning to rule the whole world and his death occurs because the chief priests do not want him to be king of the jews. After his resurrection, Jesus does not appear in Jerusalem but in Galilee, again to the north. It ends with Jesus saying go in all the world to preach the gospel.
It is clearly a text written to reinforce Paul's efforts to take this Jewish sect into the larger Roman empire as a non-jewish religion with Jesus as the god who rules the whole world.
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1977 300d 70k--sold 08 1985 300TD 185k+ 1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03 1985 409d 65k--sold 06 1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car 1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11 1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper 1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4 1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13 |
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