Well... when that word is "wife", no matter the context... Yeah. Ask any married man!
Was Jesus married?
- Thread starter granfire
- Start date
Well... when that word is "wife", no matter the context... Yeah. Ask any married man!
punisher73
Senior Master
Well... when that word is "wife", no matter the context... Yeah. Ask any married man!
When a man is wrong and he keeps quiet, he shows he is wise.
When a man is right and he keeps quiet, he shows he is married.
Jesus wasn't Catholic...:lol:....in fact, there was no such thing as "Catholic." :lfao:
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Has anyone read Joe Atwill's work? What if Christianity was entirely manufactured by the Romans? Does this question of whether Jesus was married make a difference then?
How many angels fit on the head of a pin?
How many angels fit on the head of a pin?
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granfire
Sr. Grandmaster
Paulus was an undercover plant to divert the growing movement into something different, less unifying?
I think that was raised as question in the book about the Qumran scrolls I read, not sure who wrote it.
Something like 'he came out of nowhere, then has a huge welcome parade and whoosh, he is gone, disappears into history'
Meh.
Speculations like Atwill's feed upon themselves-through the veil of 2000 years, and limited history, you could make case for any sort of conspiracy around the events portrayed in the Gospels-and the Gnostic Gospels-that you want:
What if Jesus was an alien? :lol:
What if Jesus were twins?
What if Jesus didn't rise from the dead?
Atwill's a good writer and pretty fair scholar-he's an excellent chess player, which makes him paranoid by nature. Frankly, he's got an anti-Christianity agenda, I think. What people like him-and most Christians- fail to take into account is that "Christianity" isn't something that happened immediately after the "death and resurrection." It was a movement that took centuries to become what we call it. No matter the original events, the formation of the Gospels, the acceptance of "Christianity" by Constantine, etc., etc., etc., took place in an environment of syncretism-the Jews of the time were Hellenized, the doctrine spread among all sorts of Gentiles, numerous "Gospels" were written and disseminated, and various differing foreign beliefs were added and taken away. The whole thing was stirred and simmered, then edited by various councils to become "Christianity." Thus it is that the feast of Christ's resurrection-the highest holy day of the Christian calendar, is called Easter, for Oestre, the pagan goddess of the spring equinox, etc., etc., etc.-these things are not all "Roman inventions," anymore than Christianity is-though, in some respects, when we speak of the institution of "the Church" as it exists today, Atwill is right-it is a Roman invention.
The events of the "deat and resurrection," though? I'm betting on aliens....:lfao:
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granfire
Sr. Grandmaster
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
It's been a while since I read it, but to sum it up, Atwill suggests that the gospels are actually an allegory created by Roman writers to lampoon a Jewish rebellion decades after the supposed life of Jesus. Jesus is a fictional character that is supposed to speak to a group of rebel Jews who believe that the Messiah will return and deliver them from Roman rule. After, the "gospels" were used, along with all kinds of other portions of writing, to form a State Religion for the Roman Empire. Atwill acknowledges that the nature of the Bible is Roman Political propaganda and suggests that the Council of Nicaea simply recycled old Roman Propaganda to create Roman Catholicism.
As far as simply being "anti-christian" goes as a criticism, I'm pretty sure that's uniformly recognized as fallacious. However, I know his writing appeals to ME because I'm a non-believer and hold the opinion that all religions are human inventions. I think it's a fitting explanation, government creates propaganda to control people and then reuses the propaganda to create more institutions of control.
Same with the Jewish and Buddhist padres. Of course, it helps they have chaplain assistants ready and willing to do violence on their behalf!
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granfire
Sr. Grandmaster
I've got both editions of his book-they were worth reading, and imaginative, and there's some good work done there in terms of the Gospels as literature. Insofar as "the Bible," being "Roman propaganda," well, which parts? As far as the "Old Testament" goes, as others have posted, they're completely Hebraic, and not at all "Roman propaganda." Not even possible. As far as the Gospels go, well.......which parts? :lol: (I'll readily acknowledge that the Nativity story and Pilate's conflict represent a sort of Roman propagana, or apologia, along with a few other notable examples, but what of it? They were added to appeal to the Gentiles-that is to say, a Roman audience)
Atwills thesis rests upon what he sees as a stylistic thread in the Gospels that he traces to Josephus Flavius. WHile some similarities (in the Greek, anyway) can be found, they are almost entirely attributable to the writing style of the time and region, and not at all to being from the same person. In point of fact, with the exception of the account of Jesus's execution, Josephus's writings are almost entirely a product of the first century A.D. The execution, or Testimonium Flavianum, is a later addition, and it is this upon which a great deal of Atwill's thesis relies. Moreover, the Gospels as we know them are a fourth century product-based, partly, on texts that survived from the 1st century, but not at all cometmporaneous with Josephus.
In short, Atwill's thesis is that the egg laid the chicken. :lfao:
No, it's not. He has an agenda. Simply look at his blog.One of his principle collaborations was on dating the Dead Sea Scrolls, with Robert Eisenmann, who has soundly praised Atwill's book. Interestingly, Eisenmann falls into that category of Biblical scholar whose entire raison d'etre, in terms of New Testament scholarship, is to disprove or diminish the existence and importance of the "hisorical Jesus." I can remember being very excited about his James, the Brother of Jesus, fifteen years ago, only to have a somewhat mixed reaction to reading it-a remarkable piece of scholarship, but clearly bent upon supporting the author's foredrawn conclusions, to deprecate the New Testament, rather than really explore the Dead Sea scrolls and early Christianity-and in a turgid and circular manner, at that.
In addition, Atwill's Flavian plan-to surpress rebellion? Didn't go so well, did it? Seem to recall Rome destroying Jerusalem in 70 A>D., and Josephus writing about it, and the seige at Masada, right? So, the basic premise of his thesis is somewhat loony-the Romans were confounded by the Jews' monotheism and refusal to pay homage to graven images like "good Roman citizens" as it was, they certainly wouldn't have made any attempts to interfere in Jewish religious life, especially with the concessions already made in that regard-especially since they were collecting taxes from the Sanhedrin on a regular basis.....
All religions are human inventions. :lol: Doesn't mean he's not out to lunch-it's especially difficult dealing with such a slim corpus of writing and events that allegedly took place over 2000 years ago, and especially easy to make a theory that "fits." Jesus as Mithras? Sure. Jesus as Osiris? Why not? Jesus as Apollo? Makes sense to me. Jesus as Caesar? I wouldn't be the first to say so.
Nah. You gotta remember that Constantine ruled from Byzantium. "The Church" as we know it was an Eastern creation at first.
I suppose, though, that it's almost as fitting an explanation as aliens....:lfao:
I honestly don't know enough about this to have a clear idea what to think. I guess the reason that I'm bringing up Atwill's work at all is to talk about the idea that Jesus may not have existed at all, therefore how important is the question as to whether or not he was married? Perhaps it's important in the same way that other works of fiction are important? If Jesus had a wife, the narrative certainly changes, but if Jesus never existed, then whether or not he had a wife is less of an issue.
What I'm wondering is where all of this fragmentary work that describes Jesus' life came from? How did the aliens hide the Dead Sea Scrolls in those caves?
What I'm wondering is where all of this fragmentary work that describes Jesus' life came from? How did the aliens hide the Dead Sea Scrolls in those caves?
My point is that if Jesus had a wife, the narrative doesn't change at all, and that it's likely that the "historical Jesus," if in fact there was such a person, had a wife.
Whether or not he existed is another question altogether.
It's in the Bible, dude. They convinced those poor shepherds, in fields where they lay, that they were angels, and had them do it for them.........:lfao:
It does seem like something Constantine would do, too.
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I hadn't heard of this theory, but who knows?
We only have one Jewish ( who also does prisons and universities!) and one Buddhist padre and they don't deploy, the same with the Hindu one. Our Christian ones are quite happy though to look after everyone, and without trying to convert which always impresses me. True gentlemen.
We have a good chunk of Jewish chaplains over here. And two Buddhists. I met the Buddhist ones in Iraq.
Our Christian chaplains run the gamut on proselytism, though none of them are supposed to do it.
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I apologize for the thread drift, but some contradictions are too much for the mind to comprehend. Carry on.
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Bud...den Rule/five_precepts_the_buddhist_golde.htm
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