Talk About The "Passion"

Let's talk about various types of religion.
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Rspaight
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Postby Rspaight » Thu Mar 04, 2004 8:55 am

Weird. It works fine for me. Maybe I've got some sort of cookie or something that makes it work. Here's the content:

Mel Gibson says his wife could be going to hell

By Jeannette Walls with Ashley Pearson
MSNBC
Updated: 12:35 p.m. ET Feb. 10, 2004

Mel Gibson has come under fire for being hard on Jews in his film “The Passion of the Christ” — but apparently, he feels that Protestants are also doomed to damnation. In fact, it looks like Gibson, a conservative Catholic, believes that his Episcopalian wife could be going to hell.

Gibson was interviewed by the Herald Sun in Australia, and the reporter asked the star if Protestants are denied eternal salvation. “There is no salvation for those outside the Church,” Gibson replied. “I believe it.”

He elaborated: “Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.”

Gibson also said in the interview that he was nearly suicidal before he made his controversial film. “I got to a very desperate place. Very desperate. Kind of jump-out-of-a-window kind of desperate,” he said in the interview. “And I didn’t want to hang around here, but I didn’t want to check out. The other side was kind of scary. And I don’t like heights, anyway. But when you get to that point where you don’t want to live, and you don’t want to die, it’s a desperate, horrible place to be. And I just hit my knees. And I had to use ‘The Passion of the Christ’ to heal my wounds.”

Gibson’s rep wasn’t available for comment.
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Postby balthazar » Fri Mar 05, 2004 9:42 am

Plus, the earliest surviving New Testament is from the 4th century. That's a lot of time for things to get edited, changed, re-arranged, etc.


In one of the many listservs I've subscribed to, a recent post reminded me that while the oldest complete New Testament is from the 4th century, manuscripts of complete or fragmented indivdual books have been dated to the 1st century, sometime between 70 and 100 A.D. (or C.E.), putting the creation of some of the earliest manuscripts within the lifetimes of most of the Apostles.

Also, many of these early manuscripts are written in Aramaic. There is a project currently being run by a group in Texas supporting Aramaic and not Greek origins for the New Testament, and they are in the process of publishing a complete Bible from Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts exclusively. The published a copy of the New Testament from these sources a couple of years ago.
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Postby lukpac » Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:31 pm

balthazar wrote:In one of the many listservs I've subscribed to, a recent post reminded me that while the oldest complete New Testament is from the 4th century, manuscripts of complete or fragmented indivdual books have been dated to the 1st century, sometime between 70 and 100 A.D. (or C.E.), putting the creation of some of the earliest manuscripts within the lifetimes of most of the Apostles.


Within the lifetimes, yes, but that's still quite a long period between Jesus' death and the writing of the manuscripts.
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Postby balthazar » Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:37 pm

Within the lifetimes, yes, but that's still quite a long period between Jesus' death and the writing of the manuscripts.


That's assuming said manuscripts are "first editions." There may have been older versions that would have been more contemporary.
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Postby Rspaight » Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:13 pm

I'd always thought that the the so-called "Q" source was actually written around 50-60 AD, or 20-odd years after 33 AD. (The Paul letters were probably written around the same time.) Luke, Mark, and Matthew were apparently derived in part from this source, while John seems largely independent.

When those four books were written is a matter of some debate, with guesses ranging from almost immediately after "Q" to closer to 80-100 AD. The key question seems to be whether they date from before or after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

This is an interesting side note in relation to the current discussion -- I've seen it theorized that the pro-Pilate slant of some of the Gospels (and Gibson's movie) was a result of them being written around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the atrocities of Nero, and therefore trying to avoid more Roman persecution by presenting them in a good light at the expense of the Jews. That sounds to me like a load of poppycock, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Ryan
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Postby Patrick M » Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:44 pm

Rspaight wrote:I'd always thought that the the so-called "Q" source was actually written around 50-60 AD, or 20-odd years after 33 AD. (The Paul letters were probably written around the same time.) Luke, Mark, and Matthew were apparently derived in part from this source, while John seems largely independent.

I thought "Q" was mostly a source for Matthew and Luke, not so much Mark. After all, that is how they came up with the "Q" theory, right? Because Matthew and Luke are apparently based on Mark, but there are two stories and a number of sayings that appear in Matthew and Luke, but not Mark.

When those four books were written is a matter of some debate, with guesses ranging from almost immediately after "Q" to closer to 80-100 AD.

Ehrman places Mark 10-15 years after Q, and Matthew and Luke 10-15 years after that. He places John at 90-95 CE.

This is an interesting side note in relation to the current discussion -- I've seen it theorized that the pro-Pilate slant of some of the Gospels (and Gibson's movie) was a result of them being written around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the atrocities of Nero, and therefore trying to avoid more Roman persecution by presenting them in a good light at the expense of the Jews. That sounds to me like a load of poppycock, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Oddly enough, was having a conversation about that very subject last night and the person I was speaking with seems to believe that this is how it went down.

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Postby Rspaight » Fri Mar 05, 2004 10:25 pm

Patrick M wrote:I thought "Q" was mostly a source for Matthew and Luke, not so much Mark. After all, that is how they came up with the "Q" theory, right? Because Matthew and Luke are apparently based on Mark, but there are two stories and a number of sayings that appear in Matthew and Luke, but not Mark.


That's probably right. It's been a while since I thought about this stuff.

Let's see -- Burton Mack sez in Gospel of Q:

No modern historian ever imagined that a saying gospel had once existed, so no one went looking for it. Scholars discovered it inadvertently while poring over the gospels of the New Testament, wondering which had been written first. As they set the gospels side by side for comparison, they noticed two kinds of correpondence. One correspondence was that the story line in Matthew and Luke agreed only when it followed the gospel of Mark. This finding meant that Mark was the earliest narrative gospel and the source for the plot used by Matthew and Luke. But the other correspondence was also of interest. Matthew and Luke contained a large quantity of sayings material not found in Mark and much of this material was identical. This correspondence meant that Matthew and Luke had used a second written document in addition to the gospel of Mark. Scholars called this document Q as a shorthand for Quelle, which means "source" in German, for they first thought of it only as the common source for the saying in the gospels of Matthew and Luke...


Yep, you're right.

Oddly enough, was having a conversation about that very subject last night and the person I was speaking with seems to believe that this is how it went down.


I guess I find it hard to believe because I'm under the impression that the Christians were getting violently persecuted already, and it was mostly an underground movement at that point anyway. Why would they self-censor when they really didn't have much more to lose? (I'm likely woefully ignorant here, though, just like I was on the origins of Mark.)

Ryan
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Postby balthazar » Mon Mar 08, 2004 9:41 am

I guess I find it hard to believe because I'm under the impression that the Christians were getting violently persecuted already, and it was mostly an underground movement at that point anyway. Why would they self-censor when they really didn't have much more to lose? (I'm likely woefully ignorant here, though, just like I was on the origins of Mark.)


After some reflection, this really could go either way.

The Hebrew alphabet has no numbers, so it uses the letters instead. When you write the number 666 in Hebrew (as in the book of Revelation), you use the same letters you would use to write the name Nero in Hebrew.

I don't recall exactly when Revelation would have been written, though I do seem to remember it was after Nero was emperor.

So was the Beast of Revelation really Nero, or just a happy coincidence? Did they really believe they could dupe the Romans into thinking that 666 spelling Nero was just a coincidence, or were they bolder than that? Were they trying to avoid further persecution, or throwing caution to the wind?
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Postby Xenu » Mon Mar 08, 2004 4:01 pm

Rspaight wrote:I guess I find it hard to believe because I'm under the impression that the Christians were getting violently persecuted already, and it was mostly an underground movement at that point anyway. Why would they self-censor when they really didn't have much more to lose? (I'm likely woefully ignorant here, though, just like I was on the origins of Mark.)
Ryan


That isn't quite true, oddly enough. The "legendary" Christian persecution is largely an advent of the Catholic church, and has been questionable as fact for some time now (starting with Gibson, I think, who's the first historian to look at the actual social issues of the time). Christians *were* persecuted, but it wasn't like the Romans went looking for people to torment. They didn't care! Christianity was a sect, but not necessarily an important one.

Early Christians, however, weren't exactly quiet about their faith. Jesus had just been around, after all; most believed that he would be coming back any time now, and heck, THIS world certainly didn't matter! They had a deep contempt for the aristocracy, and...well, basically anybody who seemed content in this particular material sphere.

Accordingly, there was a sickening rush to martyrdom. The stuff relating to Perpetua gives the best accounts of this phenomenon, I think. Basically, the early Christians thought nothing about making examples of themselves--they were going to a better place, after all--and were almost eager to get themselves killed. The Romans happily obliged. There's some awful stuff, like a companion of Perpetua whining about how, because she's pregnant, her glorious martyrdom might have to wait a few weeks.

At around the same time, early Christians made it their business to be as politically irritating as possible, decrying their persecution while exhaling in the same breath their conviction that the entire Roman state was going to hell. Tertullian is the best example of this, as his apology reads as follows: "You're horrible and hypocritical. Why do you persecute us so? Our god is cooler than your god; in fact, your gods don't exist; you should be lucky they don't, because you don't obey them, but if they did our god would totally kick their asses; stop being so fucking nasty to us; you're lucky we can't fight back, because we'd totally topple your government; quit torturing us!"

History is fun.

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Postby Rspaight » Mon Mar 08, 2004 4:44 pm

balthazar wrote:So was the Beast of Revelation really Nero, or just a happy coincidence? Did they really believe they could dupe the Romans into thinking that 666 spelling Nero was just a coincidence, or were they bolder than that? Were they trying to avoid further persecution, or throwing caution to the wind?


Of course, that's assuming the Mark of the Beast was 666 and not 616... :)

At around the same time, early Christians made it their business to be as politically irritating as possible, decrying their persecution while exhaling in the same breath their conviction that the entire Roman state was going to hell.


Which is sorta my point. Why would they go to the trouble of spinning Pilate into a nice guy and the Jews into devils if they truly didn't care who knew they hated Rome?

The best argument I've heard *for* the "make nice with the Romans" theory is that the Romans were the biggest crop of potential converts.

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Postby Patrick M » Mon May 17, 2004 9:34 pm

Quoting stuff from two months ago...

balthazar wrote:In one of the many listservs I've subscribed to, a recent post reminded me that while the oldest complete New Testament is from the 4th century, manuscripts of complete or fragmented indivdual books have been dated to the 1st century, sometime between 70 and 100 A.D. (or C.E.), putting the creation of some of the earliest manuscripts within the lifetimes of most of the Apostles.

Do you have more information on this? IIRC, the earliest date I've seen on anything is 125 C.E. Is the research you've mentioned here the same stuff covered in:

Eyewitness to Jesus
The Jesus Papyrus

Also, many of these early manuscripts are written in Aramaic. There is a project currently being run by a group in Texas supporting Aramaic and not Greek origins for the New Testament, and they are in the process of publishing a complete Bible from Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts exclusively. The published a copy of the New Testament from these sources a couple of years ago.

I thought the Gospels were written in Greek originally. Do you have more info on this project? A link, perhaps?

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Hebrew New Testament

Postby balthazar » Tue May 18, 2004 9:00 am

I thought the Gospels were written in Greek originally. Do you have more info on this project? A link, perhaps?


Here's a link for you:

http://www.hebraicrootsversion.com/

The project is run by Dr. James S. Trimm, of the Texas-based Society for the Advancement of Nazarene Judaism (SANJ) (http://www.nazarene.net/).

The project originally started as the Semitic New Testament Project (SNTP). The premise is that while it is accepted that the Old Testament is almost entirely Semitic in origin, it's common belief that the New Testament is primarily Greek in origin. Using recent research and findings, Dr. Trimm suggests a Semitic origin for the New Testament. He uses Aramaic and Hebrew manuscripts of New Testament books now believed to predate the Greek manuscripts.

He also attempts to "correct" translation issues, such as ancient Aramaic idioms that didn't translate well to the Greek, as well as other grammatical and mechanical issues. He also uses Hebrew names, e.g., Matthew is Mattitiyahu and Genesis is called Bereshit. He also makes use of the sacred names; thus "God" is "Elohim," "Lord" is "Adonai," "LORD" is "YHVH," etc.
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Postby Patrick M » Fri Jun 04, 2004 2:27 pm

Rspaight wrote:Gibson was interviewed by the Herald Sun in Australia, and the reporter asked the star if Protestants are denied eternal salvation. “There is no salvation for those outside the Church,” Gibson replied. “I believe it.”


He's wrong:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0082/0082_01.asp

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Postby Rspaight » Fri Jun 04, 2004 3:07 pm

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Postby Patrick M » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:40 pm

The Passion Of The Liberal
March 3, 2004

IN THE DOZENS and dozens of panic-stricken articles the New York Times has run on Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," the unavoidable conclusion is that liberals haven't the vaguest idea what Christianity is. The Times may have loopy ideas about a lot of things, but at least when they write about gay bathhouses and abortion clinics, you get the sense they know what they're talking about.

But Christianity just doesn't ring a bell. The religion that has transformed Western civilization for two millennia is a blank slate for liberals. Their closest reference point is "conservative Christians," meaning people you're not supposed to hire. And these are the people who carp about George Bush's alleged lack of "intellectual curiosity."

The most amazing complaint, championed by the Times and repeated by all the know-nothing secularists on television, is that Gibson insisted on "rubbing our faces in the grisly reality of Jesus' death." The Times was irked that Gibson "relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours" – at the expense of showing us the Happy Jesus. Yes, Gibson's movie is crying out for a car chase, a sex scene or maybe a wise-cracking orangutan.

The Times ought to send one of its crack investigative reporters to St. Patrick's Cathedral at 3 p.m. on Good Friday before leaping to the conclusion that "The Passion" is Gibson's idiosyncratic take on Christianity. In a standard ritual, Christians routinely eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus Christ, aka "the Lamb of God." The really serious Catholics do that blood- and flesh-eating thing every day, the sickos. The Times has just discovered the tip of a 2,000-year-old iceberg.

But the loony-left is testy with Gibson for spending so much time on Jesus' suffering and death while giving "short shrift to Jesus' ministry and ideas" – as another Times reviewer put it. According to liberals, the message of Jesus, which somehow Gibson missed, is something along the lines of "be nice to people" (which to them means "raise taxes on the productive").

You don't need a religion like Christianity, which is a rather large and complex endeavor, in order to flag that message. All you need is a moron driving around in a Volvo with a bumper sticker that says "be nice to people." Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity (as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of "kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed"). But to call it the "message" of Jesus requires ... well, the brain of Maureen Dowd.

In fact, Jesus' distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it. That is the reason He is called "Christ the Redeemer" rather than "Christ the Moron Driving Around in a Volvo With a 'Be Nice to People' Bumper Sticker on It."

The other complaint from the know-nothing crowd is that "The Passion" will inspire anti-Semitic violence. If nothing else comes out of this movie, at least we finally have liberals on record opposing anti-Semitic violence. Perhaps they should broach that topic with their Muslim friends.

One Times review of "The Passion" said: "To be a Christian is to face the responsibility for one's own most treasured sacred texts being used to justify the deaths of innocents." At best, this is like blaming Jodie Foster for the shooting of Ronald Reagan. But the reviewer somberly warned that a Christian should "not take the risk that one's life or work might contribute to the continuation of a horror." So the only thing Christians can do is shut up about their religion. (And no more Jodie Foster movies!)

By contrast, in the weeks after 9-11, the Times was rushing to assure its readers that "prominent Islamic scholars and theologians in the West say unequivocally that nothing in Islam countenances the Sept. 11 actions." (That's if you set aside Muhammad's many specific instructions to kill non-believers whenever possible.) Times columnists repeatedly extolled "the great majority of peaceful Muslims." Only a religion with millions of practitioners trying to kill Americans and Jews is axiomatically described as "peaceful" by liberals.

As I understand it, the dangerous religion is the one whose messiah instructs: "[I]f one strikes thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" and "Love your enemies ... do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you." The peaceful religion instructs: "Slay the enemy where you find him." (Surah 9:92).

Imitating the ostrich-like posture of certain German Jews who ignored the growing danger during Hitler's rise to power, today's liberals are deliberately blind to the real threats of violence that surround us. Their narcissistic self-image requires absolute solicitude toward angry savages plotting acts of terrorism. The only people who scare them are the ones who worship a Jew.