I find it pretty cool how the spread of Christianity can be tracked so finely that a 50 update in earliest arrival time is exciting!
I started listening to a podcast called "the history of the early church" to learn a bit more about that but unfortunately I think the target audience was Christians interested in theology rather than nerds interested in history. Recommendations for books etc are welcome!
I think the more interesting developments occurred after the fall of the western Roman empire. The eastern empire (Constantinople) had frequent arguments and disputes with the west over nearly everything, including Christianity. The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church, which was changed forever in 1200 when the largest Christian city in the world (Constantinople) was destroyed. The destruction took two years, and most of the writings, art and treasure of the richest city in the world was either destroyed, stolen, or lost.
> The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church...
Is that really so odd? Doesn't "catholic" mean something like "universal," and I think it would be very odd for one faction of a split organization to cede that kind of title to its rival faction.
I might be misunderstanding your point, but I kinda feel it should be followed up with a kind of "Did you know, Western European, that these two different things are actually similar in this way you didn't know about?"
It’s frequently explained to mean “universal” but my growing understanding of it is that it means that the wholeness of the faith exists at the local level, meaning that it does not have a dependency on some remote administrator in order to provide the Sacraments, etc.
This became an important point for the survival of Orthodoxy during the Arian crisis.
Christians make a distinction between churches and the church. The former is the physical building or even denominations like Lutherans or Roman Catholics. The latter is the group of people that are part of Christianity, across time and denominations. The Universal Church refers to the latter.
Galatians 1:2 "…the churches of Galatia…" vs Colossians 1:24 "…for the sake of his body, that is, the church…"
Your interpretation is correct - every single one of us was redeemed at the Cross. Essentially, Jesus came here to correct a kind of mistake.
God laid down laws and then people laid down further laws and eventually all the people, even those living by the law, were guilty of having committed sin - breaking the established laws of God and that crime meant their souls would be claimed by Satan, as being people "of the world" - but mostly the sins we committed we were led to commit. Most of humanity was guilty of only ignorance "Forgive them Father, for they kno not what they do" and yet by the terms of the law, the ignorant were also guilty of sin and all souls with sin would be redeemed by the one to whom God granted authority here...
So, Satan thought he won bc he beat God on a technicality, by confusing us so that even if we follow the law, we will not be saved by it, as it it not the true law. So, God choose option C and forgave all the sins - all of them, no picking and choosing and left in their place only one law, so that it couldn't easily be perverted as the previous teachings, as ALL PREVIOUS TEACHINGS had been. As Christianity has now. This act of God required his son, someone closer to him than us or angels, to die bc of sin but without cause as he had none.
CS Lewis does a fine job with this mythos in the Chronicles of Narnia - the older deeper magic that has authority over all other magics.
The whole thing, the crucification, was a trap set by God so that Satan would kill Jesus - to save us all from being Satan's property and it worked, we were/are saved, rn - it's already done and over.
Now we just have come home and it doesn't matter how bad we are - the prodigal son speaks to those of us with such concerns.
God, Jesus and anyone claiming to follow them ought to universally love everyone and anyone by default and without reason, expectations or cause - without exception and without judgement.
Some we see that weak and take advantage - let them do so, help even - turn the other cheek. As Mother Theresa said so eloquently, " Helping hurts - help anyway" - that is our calling.
To me God is like the Watsky song Sloppy Seconds - he'll take us regardless of anything we've done and he will love us as fucked up as we are at our worse amd loves us no more when we are at our best bc his love is without conditions.
That is the story of the crucification and how one man, preaching universal love, executed for that at the age of 33, is still spoken of 2500 years later.
We owe him for that - he expects nothing in return from us. All he wants is that we do what we know we ought to, that we not do what we kno we shouldn't or what we hate to do and to love each other as we love ourselves.
That sounds like a light yoke to me - these other people speaking for him rn, they all have such a heavy yoke of rules and morals and ethics and tradition and that's all wrong.
Then why can’t I wear my tie dye shirt at most churches?
I’ve completely fallen out of the church and Christianity. I do believe in a force that exists and acts and behaves as we described God as I grew up, which is in us and all things and all around us throughout all of creation, but I do not believe that that is God. I just call that the Universe now.
Wastky concerts are more my church than anywhere else in the world. I feel connected and holy in his crowds. I wear my clothes until they’re threadbare because of that song.
When I analyze my life now, I recognize it as what Jesus commanded us to do, but none none none of what I have motivated myself to do has been motivated by Christianity or God‘s calling.
Watsky broke me free from the Christian church, but he shaped my behavior to be more Christian than it ever would’ve been then when I was in and a part of Christianity and taking my teachings from the Bible.
Did the fact that Christians from Western Europe looted Constantinople in 1200 play a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church, or were there already deep theological and political divides?
The pope who sent the schism message delegation died before it reached Constantinople. And the patriarch of Constantinople at the time, also died before his reply made it back to Rome.
> a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church
From their point of view, the West abandoned the true (i.e. orthodox) faith.
Also, it's hard to argue that the Eastern Christians changed more than Western ones. For example, since the 12th century the pope has forbidden priest marriage. There is some debate in the Catholic Church about allowing this again. If that is implemented, it would simply be a reversion to what the Orthodox Church has always done.
Catholic means universal, so both present themselves as the original and true church, with the head either in Rome or Constantinople/Pentarchy. The actual break of communion comes from 1054 but really began much earlier.
Even in protestant churches like the Presbyterians and the Methodists you will hear references to the "Catholic Church" where it refers to the universal church that is inclusive all all believers regardless of denomination. For example in shows up in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed.
Both churches have always identified themselves as "Catholic", or universal in the Greek language (katholikos). Orthodox Churches still use the creed in every service, where they say "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church".
Also, it's not like the Roman Catholics claim to be heterodox or something, they also claim that their faith is "orthodox".
In the 1180s the Empire was governed by a French princess (regent for her son) and her late husband was very pro-western/latin. The relations between the Catholic crusader states and the Byzantine empire were also very good and Italian merchants controlled most of its economy.
Then.. an anti-western emperor came to power had all the Latins/Italians in Constantinople massacred (>10% of the population) and things went pretty much downhill from there. It was very rapid, though. There were of course disagreements before the late 12th century but both sides generally acknowledged that they were part of the same Christian word/universal empire (even if they didn't quite agree who was in charge).
1054, in fact, but the 1204 ransacking of Constantinople certainly didn't help with how the "Franks" (because that's how the Catholics were mostly called) were seen by the Christian-Orthodox (if it matters I'm a Christian-Orthodox myself).
I was reading a travelogue written by a Russian monk (? not sure, either a monk or a wealthy boyar predisposed to the Holy stuff) who was visiting Constantinople sometimes in the early 1300s, so a century after the whole tragedy, and he was still describing how destroyed the city looked because of the Franks and what big of a tragedy that was.
If you read Wikipedia, there was the Massacre of the "Latins" in Constantinople in 1182. That almost certainly made it easy to make it a revenge play for the Venetians and associates.
What I find most interesting is the Romans were unbeatable in battle, even the Byzantines. However, maintaining a large military presence was expensive and politically difficult to manage. So they used annual mercenaries from the north for the usual frontier squabbles, and the main army did the heavy lifting. It fell apart when there was a major conflict, and didn't help that the army held the city hostage demanding more money. So everyone was corrupt it would seem. Also there were the persistence of rumors of knights that may have kept most of the treasure for themselves and headed off to Cyprus. The Knights Templar were insanely wealthy given the times and cost of resources to mount expeditions.
They were, though? Adrianople, Yarmoud, Manzikert, Myriokephalon etc. it's just that the empire was extremely resilient and was generally able to recover from disasters which would have led to the collapse of most other states.
I think Hannibal is owed some credit for marching elephants over the alps - I believe Rome razed and erased Carthage on their 3rd or 4th try? No matter really, it wasn't their 1st.
By 1200 the Romans had been beaten in battle many times. Their loss at Manzikert to the Turks in 1071 severely weakened the empire, and they never really recovered from it.
It's funny how the Battle of Manzikert went from being an obscure battle only a handful of scholars cared about to a major topic in popular consciousness.
It's actually not quite so clear cut. 1053/1054 was when mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople happened, but (as the schism itself is evidence of) Constantinople did not speak for the entire church, and other eastern sees continued communion with Rome for quite some time afterward.
It really wasn't obvious at the time, though and it took at least 100 years or more for the split to become permanent.
e.g. There is currently a schism between the Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church which technically is not that different. Does that mean that the Russian Church is no longer Orthodox?
The Catholic church also consider itself to be Orthodox, just like the Orthodox Church is Catholic. Technically both are still the same same church (e.g. relative to Protestant churches) they just can't agree who is in charge.
The "Great Schism" wasn't even that great at the time, there were plenty of schisms that proceeded it, it just happened to be the last one and nobody really knew what it mean for the next few hundred years.
I'd be very careful what you let others tell you about Early Christianity - almost exclusively they will explain to you how whatever belief they have now came out of it and compare the two and determine today we have truth...
Early was earlier tho - the people that twist our recent revelations about the content of the testaments to support the perverted teaching today are literally twisting the closest text in existence to Jesus himself, to "explain" (pervert) a statement Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas - a text predating all Gospels, may actually be perverting words truly spoke by Jesus, which is "leading astray" the truth that has come out from the millenia - as he said it would...
Not one sentence of this have I heard someone speak or have I read on someone's page.
I am not sure what do you mean by your hint. Stating that the Gospel of Thomas predates all other Gospels is not a view that is shared by many scientists.
Well, it actually is commonly accepted either as the "Q Text" - or as possibly the "Q" text. The "Q" text is the single document long speculated to be the primary source for the 4 Gospels in the Bible, and that was before we had the Gospel of Thomas as we do now - nothing at all to do with a conspiracy theory that shares the letter.
Anyways, I've also read the Gospel of Thomas - it most certainly predates the other Gospels.
If it doesn't, the others have been so edited and changed over time that they've been rendered more likely to be a copy than an original work.
It's also fantastic and Jesus himself says things the Church doesn't want you to believe - hence why a book comprised exclusively of the sayings of Jesus Christ (many of which are in the other Gospels) isn't in the Bible, bc THAT Jesus preached a different Christianity than the one we have. Weird...
It's one of my favorite texts in general. Super easy read... perhaps think for yourself?
I mean fr, scientist made up dark matter and dark energy bc by their own realization, their maths didn't work - so they invent an invisible thing to make their maths work and it now turns out, the maths did work, if the universe was simply older than they accounted - they obviously didn't consider that or I would kno all about how embarrassingly stupid they have been to avoid looking somewhere they have "decided" the answer already. They just pulled it out their ass - it's in textbooks, I doubt it exists at all but the people with papers on it will keep on as "a theory" until they die, solely out of pride.
That's just my one example of today. You as capable as almost every other person - let's discuss when you've read it.
I’d recommend “2,000 Years of Christ's Power” by Nick Needham. I am not sure where it falls on your theology/history spectrum but it has some of both. I enjoyed the audiobook of Volume 1 immensely.
For me it did a great job describing the context in which the church began, the major figures throughout the early church, and the spread, schisms, and events that helped shape the church in its formative years.
I think one of the oldest historical mentions of Jesus is by Josephus [1][2]. There is, however, scholarly discussion about whether parts of his references to Jesus were altered by later Christian scribes [3].
The traditional view held by Christians is that the Gospel of Matthew was written within 10 years of Jesus' death. Modern scholars (often atheists) do not believe it though.
Do you have a source for this? I've never heard anyone claim that they written so early. For Catholics at least, I think it's a point that the Church and some Tradition are older than the Gospels, i.e. that the Gospels are written by the Church, for the Church (not the other way around)
Catholics traditionally held Matthew was written shortly after Jesus' death (there is some debate about the actual date). Many modern Catholics, accept the modern scholarship nowadays though. There are traditions created prior to the gospels regardless of the dating. I would also mention the Bible explicitly states there are non-written traditions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
Irenaeus said "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church."
There is some debate on Peter's death, but it is usually placed in 64-68 AD. Paul died either 64 or 65 ad. This is prior to when modern scholars state.
I don't have a quote, but Eusebius said he thought it was written about 12 years after Jesus' death.
There are plenty of other early Christians who took the position that the gospels were prior to 70 AD, but I am on my phone and don't want to try to find them. I was looking for a Catholic one that I previously saw that said it was 5 years, but couldn't find it.
As far as I can tell, every prominent Christian until the 1800s thought they were earlier than modern scholars say.
The reason I am using the 70 AD date is because of the temple being destroyed then. One of the arguments modern scholars use is that Jesus prophesized that the temple was going to be destroyed. Since God does not exist, Jesus could not have known that and as such it had to be written after 70 ad.
Someone already said The Rest is History, but one of the presenters of that podcast Tom Holland (not the actor) has also written extensively about the history of the catholic church in Millennium and Dominion. Highly recommended.
Not read Millennium, but Dominion is brilliant. its not just the history of the church, it explains how the West came to be what it is and the influence of Christianity.
It is also a useful corrective to the Western tendency to see its values and attitudes as universal, even where they are a product of a particular history and culture.
Second the recommendation on Millennium, just note that for some stupid reason the US publisher decided to retitle the book "The Forge of Christendom". So if you're in the US you won't find it under its real title.
Data over dogma is a pretty good podcast about Christianity and Judaism. It's mostly about taking Bible stories and putting them into their historic context with the best evidence we have.
It's not about converting, just covering the history.
Produced by a Mormon whose dissertation was supervised by an atheist Professor of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion. This may be a data point in favor of the trustworthiness of the podcast, or it may be an argument against, depending on your own personal point of view.
I can't speak for the particular material referenced, but ... good faith is a lot to ask for in religious meta-literature. So often I see arguments based on the following:
* Start by assuming all the weird stuff didn't actually happen. We all know that fiction is stranger than truth.
* Next, assume it's impossible to foretell the future (in particular, "people who hate each other will start a war" can obviously only have been written after the fact), so clearly the author lied about the date they wrote it. Also, assume that nobody ever updated the grammar (due to linguistic drift) while copying it, and that the oldest surviving copy.
* Finally, assume that all previous translations were made by utter imbeciles and reject the wording they used, even if that means picking words that mean something completely unrelated to the original. You can always just assume that the words were a typo or something, and not a blatant reference to other books on the same topic.
The most basic sign of rigorous scholarship is saying "well, maybe" a lot, with just an occasional "but definitely not that".
I can say with certainty that it is not impossible to predict the future. We can scientifically do so - advertising is a form of future prediction.
All things that exist have a cause and a consequence - nothing is unknowable if we could simply see a the data, everything could be explained exactly.
The future without is easier bc ppl are almost exactly the same based regardless of culture, ethnicity, religion or class and collectively we have been simply repeating the same mistakes, in cyclical pattern, for our entire history.
Everything has done before and everything will be done again - different eras tho, same humanity broken in the identical ways living the sames lives leading to the same mistakes and then forgetting all that and doing it again.
I gave one episode a listen and can now say it's not what you described. They conveyed actual scholarship but kept it light-hearted. Religious fundamentalists might not like it because it doesn't start from the assumption that the canonical Bible is inerrant, but for anyone who wants to learn about the Bible from an open-minded viewpoint, I think it's worth a listen.
I had a long drive where I listened to The Great Courses, which had a set on early Christianity. I think the professor was from Notre Dame. The early church was wrestling with polytheism (is the OT god seemed really different from the NT god) and it eventually had to get resolved by the Council at Nicaea at Constantine's behest.
I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism. Maybe that's my bias nestled in Christian circles of not using that word, in favour of something more like "the nature of the triune Godhead", etc.
Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism (Whether or not any of these flirt with polytheism is up for debate.)
Meanwhile, the Catholic church's own profusion of saints whom you are supposed to beseech for specific blessings is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
As an Atheist (formally Orthodox), I think I can adjudicate this.
The problem with the First Council of Nicaea was that it was decided wrong. The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing. There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again. All the new nations who have been introduced to this aspect of Christianity find it bizarre.
If the decision would have been more along the lines of Islam (i.e. Jesus is super holy, but not God) then it would have been easier to maintain unity. In fact, Islam's adoption of a form of Arianism is one of the reasons it replaced Christianity so quickly in North Africa and the Middle East. (Well, that and the sword.)
> The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing.
I imagine it would be. But that's not what the council of Nicaea decided, nor what Christians believe.
It's further developed in the Athanasian creed that the Trinity is understood as one God (homoousios - same substance), but three persons. Whether or not the philosophy of consubstantiation is that useful to modern believers is another issue; attempts to reformulate the doctrine (like "there are three gods, but only one god") usually end in heterodoxy, or at least misunderstanding.
> There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again.
I don't have the numbers on hand, but I recently read that a remarkable number of US Evangelicals regard each member of the Trinity as an autonomous entity. This might invite you to scoff at sola scriptura, but I can't imagine the numbers being better for other denominations.
It's a strange thought: how many, maybe most devotees are actually heretics, especially when you consider more remote cultures. I've been looking for fiction that explores this idea. I think Black Robe touches upon it, but I haven't seen it in two decades and could be misremembering.
> Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses
In some ways the (English) word "God" has become 'overloaded' over time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque - to this day the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church disagree on whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son.
Yeah but most lay people from either branch couldn't tell you the practical consequences of this. It's widely known & considered important because it's a remaining theological justification for the schism, not the other way around.
An interesting take on the dilemma between the two 'sides':
> You see the problem. If you include the filioque, you fight the Arians in the West while inadvertently supporting the Sabellians in the East. But if you exclude it, you fight the Sabellians while inadvertently supporting the Arians. At its heart, the filioque is really a linguistic debate, not a theological one.
I don't know either. To me (an orthodox christian) the filioque seems like a post hoc justification for a schism that was already well underway if not inevitable. By 1054 what became the two churches had already clearly differentiated religious traditions, local saints, and liturgical practices with very little interchange between them, not to mention language, governance, and secular culture.
I have heard some fairly convincing (to a lay person) discussion between orthodox and catholic scholars that the filioque is potentially resolvable as a linguistic problem yes. But it's not worth really pursuing without a solution for the bigger issue of papal primacy. I don't know anyone who claims to have a viable path to reconciliation there. Plus, you know, the thousand years of mutual distrust and enmity.
Ok - I'm not saying that I believe Jesus was born of a virgin and placed within the womb by an angel, I mean maybe, but very very likely Jesus was a man, Joseph was his father or his Mother for away with the biggest lie ever to cover her adultery - obviously either of those things that actually have and do happen are more likely than something that never has, save this one time... maybe.
Jesus said he was the Son of God bc WE - HUMANITY is in fact that. It's not an actual parent child relationship but 2500 years ago Jesus had nothing in his pocket to explain better than the family analogy.
The actual OG basis of almost all religious teachings in almost every religion is that WE are in fact God, living as human, experiencing his creation first hand, as US.
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and didn't lie even if not true the way we believe it to be. It was also prolly a great way to get attention as he had a Father, ppl must have spoke of that.
Consider the analogy: the difference between two programs is one line of source, and most end users couldn’t tell you the practical consequences of that change.
The Orthodox allege that the Filioque amounts to a demotion of the Holy Spirit. Comparing the liturgies, disciplines and general character of the two churches, it’s difficult to feel totally confident that they don’t have a point.
From the Father, as all things are, but the Son directs it thereafter.
The Holy Spirit is like the force - it's behind all things, like lines of code behind a web page - but more specifically it's similar to a background process within a system that allows for all actions on the page to exist, by their causes, their consequences and the ensuing causes and consequences and so on forever and since the start of time.
The Holy Spirit is similar to fate but unlike fate we have ability to dictate and direct our reality - like in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" this is the force within reality that delivers what we expect and believe will be.
This is what pushes us along
- individually and collectively, that which is behind evolution and behind the miracle rain dance is the same thing.
Faith that moves mountains is merely the most known example of the ability attained by our true understanding of the Holy Spirit - it allows us to access all the powers and forces and laws and systems of this reality and utilize them to our benefit and ends. One who knows and has faith has higher authority than all worldly authorities and can bend them to utilize them to attain whatever desires.
If one needs the Queen of England to write a letter, that person must only believe - enough to kno for certain, that she has already done so and it will be so.
Expectation is part of asking when we have desires of God - ask and expect to receive - expect more, ask less. Asking is less important than expecting - faith is part belief, for example a belief that you can ask God - the other part is expecting God to deliver as he said he would...
Again, this is a rant but this conversation hopefully adds to your spiritual progression faster than the teachings I'm reading professed here will allow any of you.
I have faith that those with hears will hear and act accordingly, there are no limits - only consequences.
In a taxonomy of religious belief the communion of saints is much closer to ancestor veneration than it is polytheism. If you're going to see anything in christianity as potentially polytheistic it's the triune god come on.
I think, in a technical sense, you're right. But the difference between ancestor veneration (especially semi-legendary ancestor veneration) and veneration of a pantheon of lower-tier dieties is practically nonexistent. Its a distinction without difference.
Nobody hesitates to call Shintoism polytheistic, and its core practices, to an outsider, seem strikingly similar to how a Christian, especially a Roman Catholic, interacts with the saints.
I don't disagree really. I do think there are in-this-context significant differences between how individual saints are interacted with. A personal or family patron saint tends much more towards looking like ancestor veneration, compared to eg mary who in practice takes a role that would in other religions be filled by a deity of femininity/motherhood/nurturing/etc.
But overall in any case I think it's sometimes valuable to think of christianity this way and sometimes not. It is a syncretic religion so of course it has regional variations and contradictory remnants of absorbed practices. IIRC some of the specific saint traditions, like icons in the home, predate christianity in the mediterranean.
But on the other hand there are practices and relationships common in true polytheistic religions that you don't see in christianity at all. If taking the saints as minor deities, you don't find sects exalting one of them exclusively, nor do you see individual christians "defect" from one saint to another for personal advantage. There's no theology of competition or opposition between the saints to base such practices on at all. So there are limits to the usefulness of this perspective too.
The shintoism example is interesting, I'll need to look more into it. I had considered it polytheistic but now that I think about it I haven't read shinto writings on the subject so I don't know if most shinto practitioners experience it that way. Outside perspectives aren't completely invalid of course but they aren't as interesting to me as how believers experience their own religions.
God is in 3 parts that comprise a whole in their sum.
Legislative, Executive, Judicial = Govt of US
Strike 1, 2 and 3 = an out
Mind, Body, soul = A person
I could list hundreds of these examples.
3=1 is a rule found all over reality. The easiest way to create something that will exist for awhile, as it has a sound foundation, is build the foundation in 3 parts that make the whole.
Almost all dichotomies have a hidden third aspect. The fight is over how obvious it was at the time - the church was scared people may discover the secret way to create like the divine, so they convoluted it until they couldn't understand it uniformly anymore.
> is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
I don't really think so. We're supposed to pray with Mary to God and everyone recognizes that all of creation came through Christ, not Mary or any other saint.
Indeed, I'm not trying to argue that the tradition of Catholic saints doesn't obey an absolute hierarchy. I'm referring to practices that are specific to the domains of various patron saints, such as placing medals of Saint Christopher in your car for protection (him being the patron saint of transporters and travelers, as well as athletics, bachelors, surfing, storms, epilepsy, gardeners, and toothache). One of the reasons that Protestants objected to saintly veneration was precisely because they felt it took focus away from Jesus.
Even if the Catholic church might technically be not polytheistic, it is hard to argue that the cult of saints didn't replace the ancient Roman lares in the day to day cult. Yes, saints are supposed to intercede to provide favors and protection, but the practical effects [1] are the same. Religious syncretism is very well attested.
As Mary asked Jesus to perform the miracle at the wedding at Cana, for the said of her friend, we too are called to pray to ask Mary to intercede for us for our intentions.
Yes, with "saint" I wasn't even trying to invoke a discussion involving Mary at all, because in practice she's so far above the saints that to equate them feels like heresy (and might literally be heresy in some contexts; hyperdulia vs. dulia and all). In practice the absolute adulation of Mary is such that she nearly feels like the fourth member of the trinity.
We can have separate interpretations of how things play out in practice, anything I list is free to be dismissed as anecdotal. But when I think of famous Christian art, I think of art that depicts Mary (and baby Jesus, yes, but the artists deliberately chose not to depict a scene of Jesus without Mary); there's so many of these that it became its own genre (which is literally named after Mary, not Jesus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art) . And when I think of famous Christian cathedrals, I think of the Notre Dame, among the other zillion "Our Lady Of"s that are named after Mary. And when I think of people pointing out modern miracles I think of weeping statues of Mary or people finding Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich; this once again has its own entire genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_apparition . And in Catholic parts of the US at least, IME you're more likely to see a Bathtub Mary outside of a house than a cross: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_Madonna . And when I think of the most important prayers, I think of exactly two: the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
I was taught as a child, and this was Protestant with a clear anti-Catholic bias, that:
* Catholics prayed _to_ Mary (eg asking to intercede on your behalf);
* This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
I'm guessing you're Catholic from your response; would you mind explaining to this somewhat lost person how Catholics view these two topics please? (I've never heard a good explanation, and even praying "with" Mary is new to me.) I admire Catholicism and wish I felt more trust in it, which is something that comes from childhood indoctrination, I know. Things stick into adulthood even when you're consciously aware of their root. So I'm keen to hear countering views :)
>This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
Catholics believe that people in heaven are not dead, and can hear your prayers for intercession (this is the case with most protestants too). Jesus said, after all, that he is the God of the living not the God of the dead[1], and that those in heaven will be reborn in a new and everlasting life. Catholics further believe that the saints in heaven can pray on your behalf and are, in fact, excited to do so, and possibly better at it than anyone on earth.
I’d be careful describing a belief to “most” Protestants. Many, many Protestants don’t believe any soul will enter Heaven until the last judgement.
Many more believe that only God (and Jesus if they don’t believe they are the same) can exist in heaven and the promise of Christianity is to make Earth like Heaven. Some of those groups believe that prayers to the dead, including to Mary or the saints, is therefore forbidden or an overt act of devil worship or paganism.
Even more controversial is the idea that the dead can intercede on your earthly behalf. That would be seen as pretty outside the view of many very mainline Protestant denominations.
The dead are dead - they cannot hear those prayers. God may be able to but if he hears our laments to our lost loved ones, even if we ask them to help us, I cannot conceive how he could anything but pity us, he loves us after all.
People punish - Jesus loves. That's a super easy way to see the lies from the truth
1. Prayer means several things - "I then prayed my friend that he would accompany me on my trip to Italy" does not mean that you worshiped your friend. Mary (and all the saints) are prayed to in that intercessory way, not in the worshipful way that we pray to God. The man at the Beautiful Gate asked Peter for charity and Peter gave him the ability to walk, not by his own power by by the power of Jesus (Acts 3:2-6). And again intercessory prayer as an important part of the life of the Church is well-attested - e. g., St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:5 says "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men". Finally, why the focus on Mary above all other saints? "Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me" says Elizabeth "filled with the Holy Spirit" and before that "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" says Gabriel bringing God's message to Mary. And what does Mary say in response? "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior" and "I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said". When trying to draw closer to Christ, who would you want with you on your journey more than she who was called to be His mother? And who among all mankind would be more eager to have you come to the throne than she for whom "the Almighty has done [great things for]"?
2. "In fact, [God has not forbidden contact with the dead], because he at times has given it — for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. " Via https://www.catholic.com/tract/praying-to-the-saints
> I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism.
See:
> Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus Christ into the world as the savior was the true Supreme Being, different and opposed to the malevolent Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament.[2][3][5]
I find myself agreeing with a lot of these “gnostic” interpretations tbh. When you read stuff like Numbers 14, God just comes off as a total asshole lol
Although the whole theology they cooked up around the “true god” reads like bad fan fiction usually.
For those curious about the trinity what it is and why it is important to Christian faith I highly recommend Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves [1]
"...what kind of God could outstrip the attractions of all other things? Could any unitary, single-person god do so? Hardly, or at least not for long. Single-person gods must, by definition, have spent eternity in absolute solitude. Before creation, having no other persons with whom they could commune, they must have been entirely alone.
Love for others, then, cannot go very deep in them if they can go for eternity without it. And so, not being essentially loving, such gods are inevitably less than lovely. They may demand our worship, but they cannot win our hearts. They must be served with gritted teeth.
How wonderfully different it is with the triune God. In John 17:24, Jesus speaks of how the Father loved Him even before the creation of the world. That is the triune, living God: a Father, whose very being has eternally been about loving His Son, pouring out the Spirit of love and life on Him. Here is a God who is love, who is so full of life and blessing that for eternity He has been overflowing with it..."
This is something best between you and God - let kno others tell you what this is, it is perhaps the most powerful thing ever revealed to us.
3 that equal 1.
It's a fundamental rule found everywhere - there is a softer voice within that will speak to of it but you have to ask it to tell you and then have ears to hear it.
While I agree that many of us are headed from different parts of the city or countryside, if we are Christians or seekers we are all headed to the same destination. So while our satnav path may look different, there are inevitably similar experiences along the way from which we can learn. Beyond that if you are a Christian you believe the Word will apply to all of those situations. Those who study the word can therefore offer insight. I believe this also includes truths like the trinity. So in those sense I would say no it's no purely internal. That being said yes, faith is head knowledge acting in anticipation from the heart as a relationship between you and God.
"It's a fundamental rule found everywhere - there is a softer voice within that will speak to of it but you have to ask it to tell you and then have ears to hear it."
But without experience and until you learn to discern the softer voice you must test it against scripture, to know whose it is.
this seems like a sideways retelling of the "Gospels of Thomas" stories.. this is a nuanced topic and shrouded by history.. Suffice it to say that intellectuals and pious people knew very well the cults of Apollo, astrology of High Priests, nature worship, Egyptian deism, goddess worship, and pantheonism while the Christian scriptures were solidifying as a social blueprint.
My favorite find in the last few months is the youtube channel "esoterica" - here's his video on the origins of yaweh as a storm god https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKst8zeh-U
He recommends books and primary sources for every episode and they vary from interesting more pubscience type stuff to incredibly expensive and deep academic sources out of print.
The gentleman who runs it is very obviously jewish in practice but only uses that to inform his historical context instead of override it, its very refreshing as someone who is an atheist.
I've been reading a lot about the early church for about a year and really enjoying it. I'm an atheist but I'm also a history nerd so it's been truly fascinating. Here are some that I've enjoyed:
- The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels; I read this one so casually that I don't have a good summary due to poor memory.
- The Passover Plot by Hugh J Schonfield; author contends that Jesus believed that he was the prophesied Messiah and engineered his arrest and crucifixion out of sheer genius and clever actions. Fantastic read.
- Jesus the Jew by Géza Vermes; author sees Jesus as a sincere apocalyptic preacher who believed he was the Messiah.
- From Jesus to Christ by Paula Fredriksen; author looks at how Jesus went from the Jewish Messiah to the head of a major religion.
- Becoming God by Bart Ehrman (you can find him doing interesting interviews or debates on YouTube); same as the one directly above.
- The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty; author contends that Jesus was not a historical figure, but rather another heavenly figure understood to have been crucified in the firmament between heaven and earth. I'm really impressed by the argument so far. I'm not quite finished with this one.
That's exactly what Jesus did and every prophet that has been before him also.
Each prophet sows the seeds for the next within their teachings - each prophet knows how their teachings will become perverted over time, each knows the end of the end of their religion before they start it but they start it anyways bc of the seeds - they can't unseen the fruits borne of them, to them it's plain how people areiving incorrectly and obvious as to what is important and why - it is up to each prophet to determine how to do this in their time and place, speaking to the hearts of the people at that time.
Then they only must pull a Muadib to transform their society - only those with great conviction and faith can do it bc it's quite likely that after a point the prophet also believes themselves to be "real" (they always were of course - if not they would not have had the ears to hear the truth behind what the last prophet said) -
A person playing prophet bc they have the ability to, believing that they are fact a prophet, and having true faith in what they teach - like John the Baptist, they will attain powers they had not - they will attain thru their faith alone not a divine intervention or blessing and not for certain reasons or with limit, it isn't necessary to need something to miracle it so, wanting alone is enough.
All prophets faked it til they made it - every one of can do exactly as they have, it only requires right belief, that we can.
Anyways I'm ranting what I should really just make into another Testament - it will be much, much shorter if I ever do.
> The Passover Plot by Hugh J Schonfield; author contends that Jesus believed that he was the prophesied Messiah and engineered his arrest and crucifixion out of sheer genius and clever actions. Fantastic read.
Orchestrating the destruction of the Jewish temple (and thus most Jewish religious practices) at the hands of the Roman Empire after his own death would have been quite the feat
Last thing - the Jews revolted against Rome 3 times - they were spared twice and the third time Jews and Jerusalem ceased to exist bc they should not have done that.
Elaine Pagels is the one who got publication credit for the lost Gospels of Thomas.. that was discussed across the globe in literate circles. That book you mention by her is new to me
(1995). The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-679-40140-7
A lecture series by The Teaching Company called "The New Testament" taught by Bart Ehrman is an enjoyable academic introduction to the history of Early Christianity.
I also recommend another lecture series called "From Jesus to Christianity" by The Modern Scholar taught by Thomas F. Madden.
I know it's been a long time, but alongside the horsemen of atheism and reading the actual bible, The Teaching Company is where I got so much of my education.
Speaking of history podcasts, I've gone through Mike Duncan's Rome and Revolutions, the Fall of Civilizations, Dan Carlin's Hardcore Histories... any suggestions for more like this? I noticed there is a Byzantium history series that seemed interesting.
The History of English podcast is worth a listen. It's about the development of the English language, so it covers a lot of history and prehistory, and also linguistics. The presenter Kevin Stroud has a deep passion for the subject matter. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to repeat himself and over-explain simple examples so the effect can be somewhat soporific.
Assuming you want more Long form, narrative style historical podcasts. History of the Germans, The French History Podcast, and The History of England are all very good in depth podcasts. I also enjoy the History of The Crusades, which is good, narrative and similar to Revolutions following various crusades.
Thanks for the recommendation, however, I really disliked the presenters tone and language. I love the topic, but he came across as too bubbly and informal - "but anyways, whatever!", etc.
Thought pointedly not a podcast, the YouTube channel Historia Civilis was my go to thing to fall asleep to for a while. The simple animation style and depth I found very soothing.
The excellent podcast The Rest is History has a vaguely connected series of episodes on the Roman Empire and its fall that includes a lot of discussion about the evolution of Christianity. The newest cycle, "Warlords of the West" (3 episodes on the emergence of the Frankish kingdom following the fall of the Roman Empire, a fascinating period not often talked about) and "Charlemagne" (3-part episode just on Charlemagne, who did more than any other Medieval figure ensured the spread of Christianity) have excellent about the political and religious forces that spread Christianity through Europe.
If you want a non-religious take on the history of Abrahamic religions, a recent episode 393 of the podcast by Sam Harriss, where he interviews historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, should be an interesting listen.
I mean, wouldn't you find it strange if historians from the year 4000 believed the sexual revolution of 1968 happened in 2018? Quite a discrepancy "only" 50 years
Speaking as a participant in a number of somewhat "modern" Christian traditions, I think one factor is that we have changed quite a lot and then some strands of the faith have decided to go back into the past and seek what we lost from the early days. One example being certain rock'n'roll churches where people stick their hands up in the air while singing and praying: I heard one pastor defend this as being "this is not a new form of prayer, this is what Jewish people were doing hundreds/thousands of years ago and now we're bringing it back". (See the rather-ancient Book of Exodus, for example. No electric guitars or drum kits there[0], but Moses is definitely described as holding his hands up in prayer, sometimes with the help of Joshua when his arms got tired).
[0] though I'm afraid to admit there is at least one actual tambourine...
Thing is, Christianity is (should be? idk) based on the teachings of Jesus which separated from Judaism; on prayer and worship, the New Testament has teachings like:
> Matthew 6:5-14
> 5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
That is, he teaches a humble, private, and not-showy way of praying, as opposed to the Jews of their time. But this is causing tension and schisms in Christian churches everywhere. I grew up in a fairly conservative one - grey suits, quiet / low energy services, nothing too outlandish. But family of mine ended up in more Evangelical churches, with live music and the like. Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent in their cathedrals, and while I can appreciate them for their architecture and atmosphere and the like, I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
> I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
Hmm, but in the Exodus, the ark of the covenant was glided in gold with cherubs on the four corners. Same with the Jewish Temple, it was probably decked out in marble. Unlike Protestants, Catholicism have arts, choral music and statues and architecture not because they are "worshipping it" but because these things are supposed to direct the mind upwards towards God.
I think the Catholic Mass is the ancient form of worship by the early Church. There's multiple references to the Real Presence in the Eucharist in New Testament (ie. the road to Eramus and the breaking of bread, and in John 6:53*) and the Sanctus is still in the Eucharistic Prayer, and besides, its an obvious break with the Jews who did burnt offerings in the Temple.
John 6:53–58, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
The Old Testament can't be used to counter Jesus - Jesus is the counter to the Old Testament. He is the reason it's "Old" - humility, loving all without conditions, forgivenes, turning the other cheek - The Greatest Commandment, none of them are ignored or "misinterpreted" in any justified way, even if that way is quoting scripture from Exodus.
That's a very unusual context for me, in my tradition (reformed Presbyterian) we definitely don't view things that we way in general, the God of the old testament is the God of the new and Jesus didn't wholesale make the old testament invalid, only the parts of the law that he had already satisfied. (Eg no need for more animal sacrifices, we've already sacrificed enough via Jesus) (Notably, the moral law and parts of the ceremonial law are still valid)
It is interesting to think about why it's ok to differ from the old temple. Granted of course some of it is cultural differences, we're not the same people and it's 1000s of years later, and perhaps it was different because we're not the theocratic state of ancient Israel.
But something for me to think about why this component is no longer needed (my church is very classic boring protestant architecture)
“All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.”
The reason the ceremonial law is abrogated is because it pointed forward to Christ who was to come. But since Christ has come, retaining the ceremonial law is tantamount to denying Christ (see full text of WCF 19.3 and book of Hebrews).
If you were thinking of the link between baptism and circumcision, remember that God gave the covenant promise and sign to Abraham 430 years before Moses (Gen 17, Gal 3:17), so circumcision predates the law.
All the law was ended by Jesus and replaced by The Greatest Commandment, as it is the only law that we need.
To follow every law within the Bible except that one is to fail to follow Jesus - to follow only that law and none of the others is fine by him according to his own words.
Speaking any law as higher than the law laid down by the Son of God himself is denying Christ.
Exactly right. One way to know the Sabbath is moral rather than ceremonial is the Sabbath was established in Genesis 2:1-3. That means the Sabbath pre-dates the Law, and even pre-dates sin. So Adam and Eve would have kept the Sabbath before the Fall, and so would have all their posterity if they had never fallen.
As confirmation of that idea, Exodus 20:11 states that the reason God gives the fourth commandment is because the Sabbath is a creation ordinance, and by implication is therefore moral.
Adam and Eve had no conception of the Sabbath - they never worked or labored for anything prior to leaving the garden. God walked and talked with them daily, whenever apparently - what need for their to be to recognize that which is accessible and available all the days.
What purpose would a God have at all for the life inside his creations to set aside 1/7 of their time "for him" anyways?
You are a believer I take it - did he not split the veil?
Why do you think you can pick and chose what he invalidates and what he doesn't? He left one - ONE rule with two parts, it's very simple, even children have the ability to understand.
Every Christian I speak always says something like this - "a common misconception" " not my understanding" "according to the church fathers" - so many quite not Jesus at to counter me quoting Jesus, the man who is the basis of all your beliefs.
He did not say we could make exceptions, in fact, to use the OT as appropriate - to support Jesus and his teachings, the rule/divine laws that we were given, of which there was only 10 was VERY CLEAR about our taking liberties with interpretation.
Thou Shall Not Judge. No exceptions for this one either - this morally, ethically, legally, socially, none.
Next time you read the Bible - Jesus was frustrated as fuck with the "Church" of his time - he very strongly disliked them as much as a man that claims to be the Son of God can.
He said we are the church - US, the believers, not a building, not a congregation, not a fellowship - US.
He said that in an attempt to prevent the church from becoming as it is now - nothing remotely like him or his teachings, beliefs or values.
The shape of the modern church frustrates me to no end.
I consider myself a believer, but every time I look at a Christian organization I find their foundational document to be "The Book of Common Prayer" or some other 16th century nonsense.
Do we really need to have each member give 10% of their income so we can pay one guy upwards of six figures to give a 30-minute motivational speech once a week? That was probably useful when he was the only person that knew how to read, but today I find that the kind of person who takes that job is completely detached from the lives of ordinary people who go to work for a living.
The attitude many believers treat non-believers with is also appalling. The baseline I've seen is "you should be friends with non-believers because you can convert them". The worst I've seen is borderline xenophobia and encouraging to only consume media from approved christian-aligned sources. My younger sister attended a christian high school, and the student that spoke at her graduation gave a speech I can only describe as "we must retake the culture from our enemies, deus vult". I was appalled, but many of the adults in attendance ate it up. I don't remember Jesus warning people about enemies. I do remember him warning people about being curt towards their neighbors. Do modern christians not know what a Samaritan means?
The alignment of politics with evangelicalism has been awful, and I'm not looking forward to where it will lead.
A Samaritan was essentially the enemy of the Jew which is what makes the story so poignant.
As for how to interact with non believers, Paul talks about this in his letters to the Romans and the church in Corinth.
1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV
[14] The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 5:11-13 NIV
[11] But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. [12] What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? [13] God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you"
Romans 8:7-8 NIV
[7] The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. [8] Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
The reason Christians are encouraged to bring the gospel to non believers is commonly referred to as the great commission. However this should be given and not forced .
Luke 9:5 NIV
[5] If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”
2 Timothy 2:24-26 NIV
[24] And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. [25] Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, [26] and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Even so, Christians should expect to be hated
John 15:18-19 NIV
[18] “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. [19] If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
> The reason Christians are encouraged to bring the gospel to non believers is commonly referred to as the great commission. However this should be given and not forced .
I'm familiar, but it's tangential to what I'm saying. I'm referring to the belief that you should only engage with non-believers because it represents a recruitment opportunity. It's not a belief that I see preached (often), but it's definitely one that I see people practice. The view that relationships with non-believers is inherently adversarial is one that I don't appreciate.
The context above that verse is important. It's not that Christians shouldn't associate with non believers, but avoid believers "brothers and sisters" that are basically fake.
1 Corinthians 5:9-10 NIV
[9] I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— [10] not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
The pastors and priests I know do much more than 30 minutes of work a week. In addition to the sermon, they provide counseling, perform weddings, funerals, attend each if not leading, visit the sick and homebound, attend to church business, help coordinate activities, help solve conflicts, represent the church, do Bible studies during the week, help with children's programs and so on.
I don't think I would have the stomach to deal with the types of things they deal with. The amount of suffering and grief alone would be hard.
There are definitely sects that take the job much more seriously than others. I personally have known too many that basically end up coordinating a group of volunteer assistant pastors and deacons to nearly all of the work. Frequent month-long vacations as well (they're called "sabbaticles" because it sounds biblical).
They also frequently run into some moral scandal (plagiarism, adultery, theft), plead for forgiveness (because reporting them to the denomination heads would leave them jobless), and then move states to repeat the playbook elsewhere.
Some of the kindest, most thoughtful people I've met were pastors too, though, so I won't say that the entire profession is evil. The monetary and social status incentives that the position grants also attracts some of the worst people, though.
Yeah, that is sad. The biggest mistake I think is made in modern Christianity is forgetting that all fall short and that somehow Christians are somehow better humans than others.
Well yeah, opulent temples are in line with Jewish traditions but the other poster is suggesting that's not in line with the teaching of the new testament specifically?
Not necessarily but like much interpretations differ. An old retired pastor friend once described the story of Mary anointing Christ with the expensive oil and being chastised by Judas as a “waste” with Jesus correcting Judas (John 12). He expressed that story as possibly symbolic of how we should regard Christ as the glorious king of kings and despite His servant humility, He is still deserving of the finest we have including opulence in His houses of worship.
We had this conversation while I was struggling as a member of the church over a remodel of our sanctuary and what I felt were excessive expenses that were more for beauty than function. Essentially “a waste”. I asked his opinion
Always kind of thought provoking when an octogenarian pastor makes you realize that you identified with Judas’s attitude.
It does seem like an odd attitude for a messiah who commands his followers to give up their entire identity for a life of extreme poverty and charity - who took a whip to the moneychangers in the temple and denounced the rich as unworthy of heaven - to insist on opulence and luxury for himself. I think Judas had a point.
It's bc it's added later to justify this bs - that's why it's Judas being corrected bc the person making the addition or changes already knew he was the bad guy.
Judas - the Betrayer who trades his divine friend with like tons of followers and influence for silver pieces, 30 of them I think, Judas speaks to materialism as unnecessary and Jesus corrects him as "well for me and my Dad, expensive is appropriate" - the guy who gets to town and is all like, "where the tax collectors and prostitutes be at?" They were the most controversial figures in that society...
Today, were Jesus to show up today, already having been born to some woman immaculately a fews back, he wouldn't step foot into a Church with his name on it - you'd be far more likely to find him hanging out with Trans people, homeless - he tended to have a thing for broken people, something about improving them and whatnot.
No more or less than any story from that time period. What is in the Bible is literal, historical, metaphorical, philosophical…etc. So could it be true? Sure. Could it be an illustrative fiction? Sure. Could it be false or mistranslated? Sure. Could the message require a contemporary contextual understanding that we don’t have in 2024? Sure.
> Today, were Jesus to show up today, already having been born to some woman immaculately a fews back, he wouldn't step foot into a Church with his name on it
It’s always funny to me when someone (anyone…from any side or spectrum of the theological debate) seems so confident that they know how “Jesus today” would behave, when apparently from the accounts written near to when he was present on the earth even his closest disciples and friends who were with him at the time were often surprised by his behavior. To make the claim that He would shun His houses today doesn’t seem to be rooted in the historical understanding about Him that we do we have. He apparently wasn’t too happy with what was happening in the Temple at that time, but still set foot in it, if only to make a point.
> you'd be far more likely to find him hanging out with Trans people, homeless - he tended to have a thing for broken people, something about improving them and whatnot
Back then He sought out the rich, the poor, the right, the wrong, the clean and unclean, the nobility, the nobodies, the religious, the Jews, the gentiles—basically all folks of all types that were milling about in Judea in that time period. Would that somehow be different in 2024 and He would just gravitate to marginalized people? Doesn’t seem to be in character with what He did then.
As somebody outside of religions (thank you both parents, probably the greatest gift one can give to one's kids - freedom of faith and self determination, something almost impossible as adult if indoctrinated young), these kind of discussions are funny to me.
Why? They are present in every corner of the world, every religion. And all you need is to take few steps back and stop taking everything literally, trying to find some universal life guidance in bronze age texts. Not that its not there completely, some things are universal, but so are half the self-help books for example or literally any other serious text. Frank Herbert's Dune series is way more appealing and worthy to me for example and truths in it way more universal, yet I am not basing my whole life and morals on it, nor do I feel the need to push it on rest of the world.
Those were stories, no moral value greater than old greek (or persian, hindu etc.) tales which always had some strong message beyond story on the surface. Stories made up by men, hundreds of years after christ, which were retold probably 20x before somebody wrote them down (and then 20x translated between various slangs, languages and targeted meanings). Current bible has little to do with original story, its simply not technically possible for complex stories to be preserved 100% for hundreds of years by just retelling them.
You realize that say sunni vs shia muslims are, when reduced to few words, a conflict between which member of the family was the truest believer and whose words are more important, while having 0 reference to actually decide so? Yet conflicts between those are numerous and victims of those in hundreds of millions.
Every time I see people desperately looking for specific truths, there is some deeper underlying problem and inability/unwillingness to decide something rather trivial for oneself. Like which sort of music should be happening where - what the heck does this have to do with actual faith in your god(s)? Do you also consult religious text when picking up Sunday sweater color? Deities are not that petty, not even in those bronze age tales, its just showing human flaws and fears.
that's all brave and probably well intentioned, but there is another side to it. The Bible was specifically "a single agreed upon text" so that groups of people in real life could stop fighting about theology points, big and small. It still exists today. "The Bible is the Truth" end of statement. It is not because you personally cannot find new meaning in non-Bible things.. it is specifically to get groups of people "on the same page" .. that phrase is used today. The written nature of it also tends toward stability.
Perhaps in an unsatisfying way to an adolescent, the answer is there already, and you personally find your place in the order that is established by your ancestors and lead you life. Mostly the whole exercise is opposite of adolescent exploration. IMHO this is neither bad nor good. It is boring and meant to be boring, to prevent deadly conflict, wasted efforts, petty differences etc.
Based on this boring interpretation, Christians went on to build massive, mighty buildings, large civilized empires and vast written knowledge available to literate citizens. Those things did not have to happen at all. The triumph is that they did happen. In modern times we mostly dont even regard these things, since they are "obvious."
Please note that I am not saying this is the only one True Path at all, just describing things.
Not disagreeing per se, but what you write about as the goal was not achieved, far from it just look around and look at history. Its probably due to human flaws rather than anything else but that doesn't matter at the end. Look at all the sects of christianity, they can't agree on even basic things. There used to be wars killing tens of millions between those sects.
Again, human flaws, but that's the whole point - we can't escape them, no 'absolute truth' fixing anything. And that 'absolute truth' doesn't stand test of time, or should we be really killing gays on spot and also brides that aren't virgins?
Christianity doesn't throw away its hebrew origins (old testament) - which is properly schizophrenic experience to have those 2 books next to each other and attempting to say you believe in both. Its a fatal flaw of christianity that it wasn't started from scratch - basic secondary school logic will fail it very easily since those are really 2 distinct religions. Because you basically believe in 2 gods, 2 versions of events, 2 distinct set of morals which can't be merged together. You can't claim its fine to be psychotic petty mass murderer and preach love and forgiveness for everybody at the same time, thats just desperate self-lie to maintain unmaintainable. I see folks doing it all the time just to be clear, but its always a desperate house of cards and they very quickly shy away from any deeper discussion in fear of questioning a pillar of their existence.
Which goes back to first sentences of my previous post - thankful to my parents they didn't do this to me. I am doing the same to my kids, they can decide what they want in their adulthood, not a second earlier.
> probably the greatest gift one can give to one's kids - freedom of faith and self determination, something almost impossible as adult if indoctrinated young
This really isn't possible to give someone. Your cultural upbringing will flavor your core beliefs, whether religiously or non-religiously
Not sure I understand. My father is catholic. Mother is protestant/evangelical. Both decided in their adulthood to stop practicing it and not push a single speck of it in me, consciously, without caring 'what others will say'. They didn't push me into some religious schools (unlike my wife who has rest of her life to deal with maybe well-meant but massive trauma of strict religious upbringing, psychologists can only help so much). My parents literally defined my cultural upbringing, more than anybody/anything else combined.
Anybody strong enough can do that, but lets be honest here, most people are not that strong and rather will go the path of least friction and most comfort and not the best long term path.
As said, I am eternally thankful to them for this since when looking back I clearly see choices they've made.
While your reference talks about prayer which is distinct from worship, I think that the instructions around prayer and worship are related. However, I dont think the message is to be reserved, but instead be honest. I understand this verse to mean don't be fake, God knows your heart. Be real. Here are a few examples that reinforce why I think this.
When talking to the Samaritan woman at the well Jesus talks about worship being true and of the spirit.
John 4:23-24 NIV
[23] Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
A reminder to forgive and seek forgiveness from those you have wronged (as reinforced in Matthew 6:14-15, Leviticus 19:18, Proverbs 17:9 ) before asking for forgiveness and before worshipping God:
Matthew 5:23-24 NIV
[23] “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, [24] leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
Showing that fake worship means little:
Matthew 15 8:9 (NIV) quoting Isaiah 29:13
[8] “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [9] They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ ”
> Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent in their cathedrals, and while I can appreciate them for their architecture and atmosphere and the like, I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc,
I think it depends on the motivation. If it is to elevate people's minds it is fine, if it is to show wealth and power it is not.
> especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
The church does actually use a lot of its income for the poor. It mostly does this in third world countries so its not evident in rich countries. Its not that long ago (20 or 30 years) that the church was the largest operator of AIDS clinics in the world - mostly in Africa where the need was great but the money was lacking. The same is true of other large Christian churches. They also tend to follow the rules of doing good quietly so they do not do PR to let everyone know what they are doing like secular philanthropists.
Its something you can verify. Some bits of the Catholic church (I recall finding a Vatican statement of income and expenditure a while back) make accounts public, and I think many other churches must do too.
It's a catastrophe, not just esthetically but spiritually as well. It has nothing to do with austerity or wealth. Some of the churches no longer seek to express holiness ("having been set aside for God") and support the numinous and eternal nature of the divine liturgy that takes place in them.
One of the most breathtaking pictures I've ever seen in this regard is of Mass in a German church completely destroyed during WW2.
Exactly. Sacred architecture flows necessarily from essence (what church is) through substance (can't be accident or easy-to-vary) into form (matter receiving truth). Regrettably, accidents get commonly confused for substance like mistaking material poverty for spiritual authenticity, or adorning for corruption. Poor churches in middle ages still had a golden chalice (for literal God), cruciform layout (or other hard-to-vary forms in orthodox churches), eastern orientation, and an elevated altar. Why would a church built in A.D. 2024 have less?
No. You are wrong. No fine stuff necessary for Jesus or his Dad.
Does God need an altar to be elevated? Who does that altar actually elevate exactly? Who most benefits from the splendor and opulence?
We cannot create anything so nice that it would be more than a 4 year olds drawing for the fridge - God created all things but is super impressed by Gold chalice, sees that as a show of sincerity rather than action and belief and faith - uh huh, sure he does - you kno what they say about rich people at the gates of heaven right??
Yes. You are right. "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." It would not be good to create religious beauty to "impress" God in a boastful way. All that is good in creation exists in God in supereminent fashion.
But we don't do things to impress God in that sense. By supernatural grace our broken spirit begins to heal and we become like God, from the inside out, in a way appropriate to our finite created nature. From grace comes our (sometimes clumsy...) imitation of Jesus and, why not, a taste for sacred art and beauty. By grace all of creation will be transformed.
Since you ask: what is elevated on the Catholic (and Orthodox) altars is the Son, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It does not come from us, we did nothing to deserve it, and yet it was given to us so we can offer it to God. As the Lamb is elevated and we look up to it, we desire to add what little is in us. One expression of this desire is to have everything involved, from the building to the sacred vessels, express the sanctity of what is taking place. It may be clumsy, it may be mixed up with impure motives and false piety. Who knows, it may really have been a bit much at times. But in itself, it is good and appropriate. It does not exclude other expressions of grace. In fact, to suppress it completely strikes me as joyless, misanthropic, deeply unbiblical and likewise potentially mixed up with impure motives and false piety.
What I think is wrong in your reply, is that you seem to confuse the art and golden vessels found in churches (which is a growing heritage serving public and religious purposes) with privately owned wealth and a life dedicated to self-indulgence (like the rich man from Lazarus).
Finally, as a father I am always happy with the drawings of my kids, especially if I know that they really put effort in it. It is amazing to see that these little human beings I helped to come into existence have such creativity in and of themselves. Would this same joy not exist in our Heavenly Father in a supereminent way?
There's loads of artisans that can expertly sculpt/carve marble, wood, etc. It's just if you want to hire someone (or a team of people) to create such things it could cost more than the building itself.
Much cheaper to adorn your church with mass-manufactured statues made from molds and they give you that same air of creepiness for a tenth or 100th the price :thumbsup:.
Yeah... and it's for God and the King that he so divinely ordained rule over all of us bc that is how that was, the church and the palace had all the money and they supported each other for thousands of years
That's because Yahweh was a sky god and lived high up in the clouds. So raising your hands, standing on mountain tops, etc, reduces your distance to him. Raising your hands while praying doesn't make as much sense anymore since Heaven is a metaphysical concept and not a place in the skies.
Are you asking about the scriptural basis from ancient times that they use to justify their modern practices? (i.e. the immediate topic at hand) Or are you looking for theological and/or scientific opinions on whether the claims they make are true, for at least some meaning of the word “true”?
There is nothing in the Bible that describes the practice they promote. Sure, there is a claim that people who are filled with the Holy Spirit will not die if bitten by snakes, but no description of it being used as a ritual practice and you could claim it contradicts “do not put the Lord God to the test”.
I have no idea if there is extra-biblical evidence for people doing that in early churches, and whether those churches were considered orthodox or heretical at the time, or perhaps the 1st century equivalent of “we don’t know yet, we’re just trying stuff out to see what works”.
Im going to cite (slightly shorten) Wikipedia. I have no competency to understand the sources and fact check but I though it’s quite interesting.
> In the 2nd century the Ophites reportedly handled snakes during their services, and also worshipped the serpent.
> The Ophites […] were a Christian Gnostic sect.
> Gnosticism […] is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.
Seems very reasonable sects to me but it’s understandable "authorities of religious institutions" didn’t like it.
Indeed extra biblical gospel from Luke and Mark:
> Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
> And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
IMHO Gospels are comparable with the Bible as a source of history.
Gnosticism is a bit of a catchall - the Ophites were a sect or branch and not by any means the standard - it's difficult to say there is an established "Standard Gnostic Theology" as there really isn't, there are some common deviations from modern Christianity that rendered them more similar thru a modern lens than they may be, tho they are some common Gnostic themes, like self awareness but snake charming isn't one.
That said, snakes have been widely deified thru out history by various cultures and beliefs.
Prior to Christianity the god Tiamet would have been widely known and had been so for hundreds of years. It is common practice for a religion to take the previous god and render them the "bad guy" in their new religion - that could also have been done to the Ophites as the Gnostics were essentially erased by the Church and what little remains the establishment said about them has been rendered sus by what we have found recently of OG Gnostic texts.
You have to realize, by 400 - saying someone handles snakes during their church service was a kin to saying they are a satanic cult.
That said - Gnostics would handle snakes if they wanted or needed to and they would be fine bc that is the faith they preached, a faith of action. Step onto the water - you will not sink of you do and have faith already, no more is needed in the moment, no assistance from Priest or higher power.
Christianity adopted the faith of Paul - the apostle not chosen by Christ, and became people that wait in their beliefs, faithfully waiting for God.
yes agree and .. there are branches of Christianity across the world that did not lose the connection to warfare. There are plenty of people who fight fiercely (in real life) that espouse Christ deeply.. a current Japan martial arts cage fighting champion from Brazil dedicated his whole victory speech to Christ recently, for example.
We are not supposed to do what we kno kno is bad - nothing is set in set in stone anymore, that's the Greatest Commandment actually, God saying you kno well enough to do this on your own without these rules I etched into stone for you, just follow this one rule and you will be fine - as if all of did follow the greatest Commandment we would remake this work out the broken thing it is now and into the Kingdom of Heaven - bc that was very clearly stated to be WITHIN US.
God will only bring his house down after we fix the place up a little bit, WE must save ourselves this time.
It's not wrong to violently beat up a man in a ring for money if that money has agreed to it - I don't think it's ideal per say, so it will come with consequences and over time, if it isn't what God wants us doing, those consequences will become very costly. That's how all of this works - we can do whatever's we want but we will face the consequences and there will always be them, eventually we will learn that even tho we can do anything we want, we shouldn't, we should just follow that Greatest Commandment - that truly is the easiest thing to do.
Tbh if you think about it at all, the whole idea of mortal, unforgivable, hellfire worthy sin - it all falls down when you consider that God made this reality and is there y responsible for all that he allows to occur within it, the exact same way if I make a violent sexual game for kids, its my fault, not the children for playing it.
Thou shall not judge. BC we can't - we don't have any ideas what is worthy of judgement or not and we can't fr our current point of view.
>I'll never be able to read about us digitally unrolling fragile scrolls without it seemingly like otherworldly sci-fi technology.
I similarly had my mind blown reading an article last week, about how sports & game card collectors are now having their packs CT scanned so they can identify what cards are inside (and the value of the pack) while keeping them sealed.
There's very similar, but perhaps much more challenging project for digitally unrolling the Herculaneum papyri[1], which is set up as an open machine learning competition[2].
Isn't any translation a product of the language norms of the translator, as opposed to a pure translation?
I know when I read Spanish, I have to mentally convert the order of words to what makes sense in English (for example, "Thanksgiving" in Spanish would be "Day of Action of Thanks" if translated directly).
Yes, with the caveat that with religious texts there are certain conventions that get conserved even across languages. For example, The Book of John starts off "In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." However, the term being translated here as "Word" (λόγος- logos) could easily be translated a number of different ways, and the technically literal meaning of "word" was already falling out of favor by the time John was written. The word could be "Logic" or "reason" or "The underlying principle that governs the order of the universe" but early Latin translators chose to translate this term as "Verbe" and so future translations followed suit.
This is just one example. There are other instances where a word is a loanword from Greek or Latin because it is an early technical term. For example "sanctification" is taken directly from a Latin technical term that is translated that way because of how early Latin translators chose to translate the Greek.
I wonder if this is what radicals like Gerrard Winstanley had in mind when developing the English Reformation as chance for social reform as well? This quote for example suggests he was I think:
>In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Man, the lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds, and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another.
There's 3 part Radio 4 series from a while ago on the King James Version, with one of the 45 minute episodes focussed on the translation of the work:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x3x68
Thanks for helping to flesh out the technical side of the discussion while I’m over here getting hung up on the theology :-) this is what makes HN still (occasionally) great.
The article mentions "18-line Latin text" but I was unable to recognize any word on the scroll (took Latin in high school) even something obvious like deus.
>> Although I realized fairly early on that the New Testament Letter to the Philippians is quoted at the end, I still spent a long time puzzling over the text, which is written in quite a crude form of Latin. I consulted specialist literature and databases and, finally, made some suggestions for how it might be interpreted.
>> The inscription begins with the Trisagion, the threefold cry of “Holy” [based on Isaiah 6:3], which remains part of the liturgy of the Eucharist to this day. In this case, however, it’s written in Greek [“agios, agios, agios”] but in Latin script.
It's super cool to see the digital unraveling of scrolls become more accessible. It's also amazing that we can still read the text of something that is nearly 2000 years old.
One thing I don't understand is the picture of the scroll though. I don't see how they were able to figure out the letters? They don't look like an alphabet to me
The article said Latin, but I don't know what script that is. It looks like it was written right-to-left so maybe it's Latin written in Hebrew script? I'm not even sure if that was a thing.
Don't have any reasonable good links available but over here, further East (present-day Romania and then the Roman province of Dacia) there was a strong presence of Oriental/Siro-Palmyrian deities like Mithras, Dea Syria or Belus. There's this (non-academic) page [1] in Romanian which you can use Google translate on in order to get a better hang of it.
> I found that interesting too, and curious about what it implies for how people thought about religion at the time
Religion is an invention of the rennaisance. People at the time would have just perceived what we see as "religion" as worldview, much like people today typically believe in a fusion of economic theories.
That's fascinating but makes sense. any places to go learn more about this you recommend? googling things like invention of religion don't really lead anything on this specific topic
yes i second this. just a bit clarification. not as "the concept of religion" as we call it today would have been an invention. it existed since humanity. rather that religion is something besides or independent of the everyday life ← this is a modern invention. today people say "you can be of any religion" and still do the same civil life as everyone else, go to school, to the grocery, watch TV, participate in the economy system: religion is "something like a hobby", a coloring to your everyday life, like a "community flair" of some people does not eat this-or-that on this-or-that day or cutting their hair in a specific manner, etc.
it just happened when common welfare got high enough that people did not need to worry about keeping "old customs" to keep the community and themself *aligned with the created order*. consequentially the rationale for "old customs" gets blurred and forgotten and mostly becomes "superstition". so people more and more trusting themself in the hands of industry and tech they themself created as a protection around themself instead of the tangible instruments of ageless wisdom gathered along the ages, which they swipe instead in the box of "religion" and move on.
thus economy + industry and tech become the new religion itself.
Fascinating from both a technological and theological/ecclesiological perspective. I'll be sure to pass this on to some of my faith-filled friends who now live south of the Alps but have roots in the same region.
> inhumation burials — a practice uncommon in other Roman cemeteries in Frankfurt
To save others looking it up: "inhumation burial" seems to be a technical term in the field for what we simply call "burial", i.e. digging a grave and then covering the person with dirt and/or rocks. I'm not an expert, but given that this became the primary method of disposal in Christian culture (and still is, in many traditions who believe that cremation prevents the body being resurrected), one could infer that this is an indicator of Here Be Christians.
If you know even a smidgeon of theology, it's not technically possible to define (mainstream) Christian faith without any reference to Jewish beliefs. Jesus was, of course, himself raised a Jew, as were both Saints Peter & Paul, although the latter was also a Roman citizen who wrote in Greek, and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
It does seem a reasonable claim that nothing in this text contains elements of Judaism that were not already or subsequently incorporated into what became Christianity (though I'm pretty sure at this point it didn't yet have a name other than "The Way". I could be wrong there.)
However, just for fun:
- "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
- Of course they don't use the name Yahweh when talking about the God/Lord of the World, of whom Jesus is claimed to be the Son. Neither does the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, produced for use by Greek-speaking Jews a few hundred years before Christ). But they are most definitely talking about the same God.
- I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent, on the grounds that the Name itself is too holy to be spoken or to risk being destroyed if the manuscript gets damaged or, you know, buried in the ground to decay with a dead person. But that could also be a factor.
Unfortunately they don't provide a transcription of the Latin text into modern characters so there's no opportunity right now to go nuts on that but it would be interesting to see what specific Latin words were used compared with translations of the Septuagint, and the original Greek and Hebrew texts themselves.
My wife is Messianic Jewish, where the primary intent is to restore Jewish traditions and beliefs while still believing in Jesus/Yeshua ("Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation; the westernized version of the name would more accurately be "Joshua"). Personally my beliefs lie elsewhere, but it's still unfortunate that "denomination" is still such a tiny minority, given its desire to be a purer form of the religion.
Jesus isn't a mispronunciation of Yeshua, it's a transliteration. Initially the Hebrew/Aramaic ישוע was transliterated to the Greek Ἰησοῦς which is essentially a phonetic transliteration with the ending changed to the Greek masculine singular.
That was then transliterated to the Latin Iesus with basically the same deal ie phonetic with an ending change.
And that morphed into Jesus, probably about the 16th century, when the swash 'I' became a 'j' sound.
> more accurately be "Joshua"
It wouldn't really be more accurate; it would just be a transliteration through a different route. The most that can be said is that there are fewer hops.
It would still likely have most of the sounds wrong, esp if Jesus' name was originally pronounced in Galilean Aramaic. As I understand it that wouldn't have pronounced the final 'a' like an 'a' but more like a glottal stop. But that's right on the edge of my knowledge so I could have made the last bit up.
Every religion makes truth claims. Many of those truth claims contradict each other. It's incumbent upon us to do the research, put the claims to the test and come to the most reasonable conclusion as to what is true.
Not necessarily, they consider themselves right / proper or just prefer it over other flavours though (example being the many branches of Protestantism where each branch has a slightly different take on how things should be done, but it's not like they're at odds with each other per se)
Protestants all find their differences of opinion a big enough deal that they'll break up over it. They're not fighting wars I've doctrinal differences any more, but who in Christendom is these days?
Goodness, where to start… I don’t have time to read your link so I’ll only reply to what you wrote from my own direct personal experience:
- many Protestant groups, while not fighting wars of physical violence, still harbour very unchristian hate in their hearts towards other Protestant sects and (usually) towards all Catholics, whom they consider to be idol worshippers led astray by Satan himself (sadly many Catholics also still feel the same about all Protestants and many other Catholics who don’t play the right music, wear the right vestments or worship in the right language and or precise form of words.)
- on the other hand, many, many Protestants and Catholics are also working to resolve or otherwise sideline those “debatable things” and “foolish controversies” that St Paul advised the churches not to quarrel about (he didn’t say what, specifically, but then this is supposed to be a faith based on love and grace rather than legalism). I’ve been to large events where Catholics and Protestants are worshipping, witnessing and praying joyfully together and seeking to find the similarities and not the differences, without compromising on the fundamentals of what it means to follow Jesus. And these kinds of movements are growing around the world year upon year and also working together to fight social injustice, inequality and poverty
— hopefully soon, more of our Orthodox brothers and sisters will get on board with this, but there are glimmers of hope in that direction too, as long as nobody says the word “Filioque” ;-)
Ah yes, I had a chance to read it while walking down the street. I know that joke, reminds me of the one my dad used to delight in telling, which ends with “I must be the luckiest Arab in Belfast”.
Funnily enough the exact one that you posted is these days repeated by many churches somewhere during the Alpha Course, which after pausing for laughs is identified as an example of exactly not what you are being invited to believe.
I have a lot of respect for Messianic Jews; they're struggle is real. I wish more Jews knew just how Jewish the story of Jesus actually is. As far as Christians are concerned, Jesus is the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies in the old testament. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:18)
That said, there is arguably no simpler or purer form of Christianity than simply having faith in and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Don’t confuse culture and gradual inculturation with purity of religion and validity of liturgy.
In the age of the Messiah the faithful are truly drawn “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”. If your wife would go to any (decent) Catholic or Orthodox church, and learns to "read" the building and the liturgy of Holy Mass, maybe she could recognize the contours of the “pure” or “more Jewish" religion she is yearning for. She could go to modern or more traditional Latin/Greek/Ukrainian/Syriac/Ethiopian/... rites and in the plurality of all those different cultures and temperaments recognize over and over again the exact same elements and basic plan, organically evolved yet meticulously preserved in a chain of unbroken sacramental obedience.
Entering the church building she’d gradually walk from the holy water near the entrance, through the “outer courtyard” for the lay people, to the sanctuary with the sacrificial altar, golden vessels and incense, elevated and separated by altar rail or curtain. Behind is the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies containing the Real Presence, indicated by a lit candle. And if she was to e.g. carefully analyse the words of the Eucharistic prayers in all these different rites and languages, she would find over and over again the same underlying structure, complete with the Haggadah.
But language and cultural differences aside, there must be fundamental differences as well. It is Christ Himself who took the prescribed liturgy of the ancient Passover meal and gave it its full and final meaning by substituting Himself, in the presence of the apostles, for the merely symbolic lamb. It is through Christ that the Trinity is fully revealed.
How then could e.g. the exact same holidays have been retained? For instance, why would you celebrate Shavuot, if with Pentecost the Holy Spirit directly descended on the Church? Another example: the Lord's Day is not "Sabbath on the wrong day". Sabbath laws do not apply to those under the New Covenant. Beyond the most excellent idea of dedicating an entire day to the Lord with plenty of obligatory prayer, rest, food and family/community time, the Christian Sunday is simply not the Sabbath. On Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection, which occurred on the first day of a new week (the supernatural "eighth day", beyond the natural fullness of the old week).
The priest in this age is also no longer a Levite. To properly offer this sacrifice, he is now sacramentally ordained by proper religious authorities “in the Order of Melchizedek”, reminiscent of the royal priesthood of David and the priesthood of Adam and the firstborns. And where the old liturgy was a sign of divine grace, the liturgy of our age is an effective cause of divine grace. If the priest obeys the liturgy that has been prescribed for his own rite and his own day, no amount of personal corruption can take away the sanctity of his work. This also means that there is no fundamental need for wars in the Holy Land or for "conquering" the Temple Mount by force. The Temple is already being built. Every time the faithful, after having been sacramentally cleansed of mortal sin through baptism or confession, participate in the Lord’s sacrifice by eating the body and drinking the blood of the Lamb, they themselves will inevitably become more and more the dwelling place of the Lord within the material creation.
Only because of your own cultural background / upbringing where Josh was a pretty normal and non-reverent name, like how people like me one day realise there's a whole culture of people out there where Jesus is still a common and popular first name, instead of something reserved for a religious figure.
I live in one of those cultures and have several coworkers named Jesus. But some names have different associations. It is like "Todd, The Necromancer!" Vs "Evelyn the sorceress". Jesus is a serious and competent embedded c++ programmer. Josh is a goofy guy in accounting.
The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.
There are essentially two completely different movements claiming the name of "Messianic Judaism." The first are people who are Jewish- culturally, ethnically, and even religiously, who have converted to Christianity and believe that all other Jews should do the same. There is a small pocket of Messianic Jews of this definition in my hometown, so this is the version I was most familiar with.
It wasn't until later that I learned that there is a second, much more popular movement under the name of Messianic Judaism which are people who are not ethnically or culturally Jewish who have determined that Christianity should return to its Jewish roots. These people have no historical connections to Judaism and usually grew up within a Christian cultural context. There is a lot of overlap with the "Hebrew Roots" movement that you mentioned, and in my opinion there isn't a real distinction between the two.
Myself I feel kind of biased but I view the first kind as more "legitimate" since Judaism, isn't merely a religion, it's a living, breathing culture and it is super weird for someone to just roll up and claim it without having any connection to anyone who was doing it before. It's like if I decided I was going to be Indian and started wearing stereotypical Indian traditional dress and eating only curry because I think that's what Indians eat, without having any actual Indians in my movement.
I agree that ethnic Jews with Christian religious beliefs is a legitimate concept. But I would rather call them Messianic Jews (or just Christian Jews) rather than adherents of "Messianic Judaism." To say that "Judaism" can include Jesus erases the Jewish religion by leaving it without a name, conveniently benefiting the dominant Christian religion. (And Messianic Jews who are not Jews should be called something else entirely.)
Presumably that's a reference to the GP describing "Messianic Jewish". (or rather, Messianic Judaism)
> It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a sect of Christianity,[2][3] including by all major groups within mainstream Judaism, since Jews consider belief in Jesus as the Messiah and divine in the form of God the Son (and the doctrine of the Trinity in general) to be among the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. It is also generally considered a Christian sect by scholars and other Christian groups.
So are they claiming that Messianic Jews are not actually Jews? Because they implied that people were falsely taking the title Jew if I understood them correctly. That would be the first time I've ever heard that particular assertion.
Yes and that was what I was saying (sorry it wasn't clear).
What it means to be a Jew is complicated. Jews form an ethnicity of interconnected people with a range of beliefs and practices (it is, definitionally, not whether one is religiously adherent to Judaism). To me, one could in principle be religiously Christian and also ethnically Jewish (that's an unusual view among Jews), but to do that requires having an actual connection to the Jewish ethnicity (e.g. if one was raised ethnically Jewish and maintains a Jewish identity). My impression is that "Messianic Jews" are religiously and ethnically Christian who are importing Jewish practices into their otherwise non-Jewish identity. If OP's wife was born Jewish or converted prior becoming a "Messianic Jew," I would stand corrected.
If I, a very white person, start singing songs from Back churches, that doesn't make me Black. I wouldn't face the real-world struggles against racism of Black people, for example, and I think that's a useful hint when thinking about who is and isn't a member of a minority group like Jews. Likewise, acting out Jewish practices doesn't necessarily make one a Jew, and as one example it doesn't subject one to the sorts of anti-Semitism faced by Jews. I'm not saying facing anti-Semitism a necessary or sufficient condition for being a Jew, but if not that, then there must be something else that connects one to the Jewish ethnicity --- the interconnected people who believe they are Jews --- other than just by saying so.
So I'm confused--are you saying that Israel thinks Messianic Jews are not Jews because they abandoned their faith or something like that, OR are you saying that Israel doesn't let Messianic Jews to be citizens because sometimes non-Jews convert to become Messianic Jews?
Israel basically sees them as evangelizing Christians in disguise. They don’t consider them Jewish because they both proselytize and worship Christ as the Messiah. Both of those things are offensive to the traditional tenets of Judaism.
It sounds like a variation of a - not so much that they abandoned their faith, per-se, but that the faith they espouse as being Jewish is not acceptably ‘in the same room’ as other Jewish faith.
It would be somewhat like saying you were a Messianic Christian because you believed that Mohammed was a later prophet. There is a word for that kind of religion, and it isn’t Christianity.
> I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent,
That taboo already existed even before the New Testament was written. The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Old Testament, was written around 260 BC and uses this convention, translating the Lord's name as "kyrios"- "Lord." The authors of the New Testament itself extensively quote this translation, and firmly established this convention within Christianity as well, especially because most Christian converts wouldn't know Hebrew or be expected to learn Hebrew to hear (remember that literacy rates were very low in this era compared to now) Jewish scriptures in their own languages.
Speaking of literacy, I notice that the Latin of this inscription is very messy. I don't know much Latin myself, but the handwriting is terrible, to the point where I wonder if the maker of this scroll was only semi-literate.
The examples on that page are way cleaner and easier to read than the scroll inscription. The letters in the scroll are not written consistently, and even the size of the letters changes dramatically as the inscription goes on.
Seems very possible when you consider that this is before the Roman Aristocracy decided to muscle in on the action and take over the church. Many of the original disciples and apostles were semi-literate working class types from the north country (see “nothing good could ever come from Nazareth”) and Paul, the one who wrote the most (but even then likely dictated a lot of it) was a late addition to the team. Sure he recruited a bunch of possibly “middle class” tradesmen and business owners to set up churches in their homes (Priscilla and Aquila, famously) but it was still mostly an underground movement among the slave and worker classes before Constantine decided he could put it to his own use.
> and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
Just wondering what is the "plenty of extra-biblical evidence"?
Good point, I didn’t fact check that part, I probably mixed up hazy memories of some other incidents I read about in the Didache and other early church writings. Wikipedia says there’s no evidence outside of Luke’s and Paul’s own words (Acts and Galatians respectively) and since Luke was hanging out with Paul for a lot of that time (see all the times Acts switches between “he” and “we”) we could be skating on thin ice as far as actual textual evidence goes. Good spot, thanks for calling me out.
> "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
Could you expand on that? Is there any specific reference to the book of Isaiah, and is "holy" (AGIOS in the Latin of the scroll) a good translation of the Hebrew word?
Agios- direct transliteration from the Greek "'άγιος" which is the exact term used in Isaiah 6:3 in the popular Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. If not a "good" translation, it's certainly an old one, being the word Christians and Jews in that part of the world would have been familiar with in the Book of Isaiah for hundreds of years before this amulet was made.
yes i second this. whoever states "it not a good translation", define what "good" is supposed to be, what is your standard?
I believe LXX is written by those who actually lived the faith and are closer to the story. MT on the other hand is penned down by those who had a strong incentive against the Christians.
> the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent
Perhaps, but in this Latin inscription we have Jesus being referred to as "IHS XP" - a Greek(!) abbreviation of Jesus Christ, so not avoiding his name altogether.
Disposing of the dead via burning or burial was an evolution means to protect your community from epidemics. Ancient generations didn't know about the of details of viruses and bacterium. All they learned through out the years was, _if you remove the dead there is a better chance of the community staying healthy_.
Religion latched onto which ever means of disposing of their dead the locals already performed. No different than how religion took over local customs and traditions to help bring in more people into their fold.
Communities that didn't properly dispose of their dead would of experience a net-positive when pushed to follow a religious which their funeral tradition helps prevent epidemics. Those people would most likely of uplifted the religion when they though divine intervention reduced their epidemics. In reality, it was as laws of physics reducing the propagation of contagions.
Fun fact, disposal via vulture consumption is another good means to contain contagions. Their digestive system is like battery acid and kills mostly everything. Natures evolutionary animal that assists with preventing epidemics. A natural wake.
The local pre-Christian burial custom was burning, but other cultures in far-off places still buried their dead. So while Christianity isn't exclusive in its use of burial, it was supplanting religious customs that did not include burial throughout northern Europe.
> There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure
It's fair to say that there is general consensus amongst Biblical scholars that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. Calling it a scientific consensus is a bit of a stretch though. As far as I'm aware there's zero scientific evidence for His existence. Just that the surviving textual evidence makes little sense if He didn't.
I've always heard it as there's enough textual/historical evidence for Jesus (Josephus, etc) that if we didn't count that as proof of his historical existence that would raise the bar high enough to remove hundreds of other historical figures.
He can't have lived in the Roman Empire, because those are words written in English, a language that didn't exist back then.
What's that? You meant, he lived within the bounds of the region that we call one thing, but would have been something else contemporaneously, but both refer to the same geographical location? Great, we agree he lived in Turkey.
One of the more interesting pieces of evidence in the Bible.
The Roman census that required every family go back to their hometown did not happen (why would it?). Romans kept very good records of censuses and such an event would be well covered.
So why does the Bible have this story? The best guess is that Jesus was well known to have come from Nazareth. Yet the older messianic texts say the Messiah would be from Bethlehem. The gospel author undoubtedly was trying to square that circle to make sure the prophecy was fulfilled. Something they'd not need to do if Jesus wasn't real. The author had to explain to people who had grandparents who knew him as being from Nazareth why that still jives with older prophecies.
Before you tie yourself in this knot it might be useful just to look and see if there was a Roman census in that time period:
"When I administered my thirteenth consulate (2 B.C.E.), the senate and Equestrian order and Roman people all called me father of the country, and voted that the same be inscribed in the vestibule of my temple"[0]
That Rome did censuses and kept detailed records of the censuses is not in dispute. The thing that never happened is people making long trips to the ancestral lands.
The entire point of a census is to get an accurate population count for reasons of taxation and public spending. People uprooting to go to grandpa's home to be counted messes with that count. It's counter productive. Rome would never have required this and in fact would have tried to restrict travel during the census because they wanted an accurate population count.
The much more likely explanation is the author of Luke needed Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, which was problematic because Jesus was well known to be from Nazareth.
That doesn't describe a census or anything like it. There is absolutely no evidence there was a census covering the Roman empire let alone the whole world (as actually stated in gLuke).
However, there was a census of Judea ordered by Quirinius when Herod Archelaus was kicked out in 6AD. And that makes sense because, prior to that time, Judea was a client state so Rome would not have directly taxed it. Once it became a province, it would be subject to direct taxation and, hence, would have needed a census to determine the taxable population.
So, by far the most likely scenario is that the author of gLuke was referring to this census but got his facts a bit wrong. He made way bigger whoppers than that one.
There's little evidence for a lot of the big claims (such as a global flood). However, there's quite a bit of evidence for people, places, and some of the events.
The bible is a collection of writings by multiple authors over almost a millennium. How accurate it is depends entirely on who is writing about what.
That's not "evidence". The bible mentions Babylon and Babylon existed, but the bible mentioning Babylon is no evidence of Babylon's existence. In this sentence, I'm mentioning the Sun, and it exists, but I provide no evidence whatsoever.
I may have misinterpreted what you are saying. When I read this
> there is no evidence of anything in the Bible
I interpreted it as you saying "Nothing in the bible has corroborating evidence". Not "the bible is not evidence for anything".
The bible mentions the sun and we have corroborating evidence that the sun does indeed exist. The bible's mention of the sun alone isn't evidence for it's existence.
That said, the bible does provide some soft evidence. Like I mentioned, the fact that Jesus probably existed isn't in that the bible says he existed, but rather the fact that the bible makes errors in his history likely to cover up well known facts about him at the time.
An example of 2 figures that likely didn't exist in the bible are Moses and Abraham.
why hold a specific set of writings to a different standard than other books from the same area and timeframe? all texts hold a non-zero evidential value regardless to how people treat those texts outside of academic processes. you don´t take them at face value of course but neither other texts.
> why hold a specific set of writings to a different standard than other books from the same area and timeframe?
I don't? I know more about the bible than other writings at the time just because of upbringing/curiosity but I don't particularly hold it in high regard.
> all texts hold a non-zero evidential value regardless to how people treat those texts outside of academic processes. you don´t take them at face value of course but neither other texts.
I agree. How strong the evidence for a writing will is will be based on corroborating evidence and other writings.
I can't even begin to tell you how hard I unexpectedly laughed at your comment denoting a perceived lack of respect using an extremely commonly accepted scientific dating measurement. Nothing negative noted about any other piece, just a single cherry picked highlight to allow you to demonstrate socially acceptable puritan outrage when given the chance, even on something as insignificant as following common scientific processes. Very culturally relevant. Thanks for the entertainment!
I find it pretty cool how the spread of Christianity can be tracked so finely that a 50 update in earliest arrival time is exciting!
I started listening to a podcast called "the history of the early church" to learn a bit more about that but unfortunately I think the target audience was Christians interested in theology rather than nerds interested in history. Recommendations for books etc are welcome!
I think the more interesting developments occurred after the fall of the western Roman empire. The eastern empire (Constantinople) had frequent arguments and disputes with the west over nearly everything, including Christianity. The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church, which was changed forever in 1200 when the largest Christian city in the world (Constantinople) was destroyed. The destruction took two years, and most of the writings, art and treasure of the richest city in the world was either destroyed, stolen, or lost.
> The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church...
Is that really so odd? Doesn't "catholic" mean something like "universal," and I think it would be very odd for one faction of a split organization to cede that kind of title to its rival faction.
I might be misunderstanding your point, but I kinda feel it should be followed up with a kind of "Did you know, Western European, that these two different things are actually similar in this way you didn't know about?"
It’s frequently explained to mean “universal” but my growing understanding of it is that it means that the wholeness of the faith exists at the local level, meaning that it does not have a dependency on some remote administrator in order to provide the Sacraments, etc.
This became an important point for the survival of Orthodoxy during the Arian crisis.
> "catholic" mean something like "universal,"
Christians make a distinction between churches and the church. The former is the physical building or even denominations like Lutherans or Roman Catholics. The latter is the group of people that are part of Christianity, across time and denominations. The Universal Church refers to the latter.
Galatians 1:2 "…the churches of Galatia…" vs Colossians 1:24 "…for the sake of his body, that is, the church…"
I would interpret that as all of redeemed humanity, not just all Christians.
Your interpretation is correct - every single one of us was redeemed at the Cross. Essentially, Jesus came here to correct a kind of mistake.
God laid down laws and then people laid down further laws and eventually all the people, even those living by the law, were guilty of having committed sin - breaking the established laws of God and that crime meant their souls would be claimed by Satan, as being people "of the world" - but mostly the sins we committed we were led to commit. Most of humanity was guilty of only ignorance "Forgive them Father, for they kno not what they do" and yet by the terms of the law, the ignorant were also guilty of sin and all souls with sin would be redeemed by the one to whom God granted authority here...
So, Satan thought he won bc he beat God on a technicality, by confusing us so that even if we follow the law, we will not be saved by it, as it it not the true law. So, God choose option C and forgave all the sins - all of them, no picking and choosing and left in their place only one law, so that it couldn't easily be perverted as the previous teachings, as ALL PREVIOUS TEACHINGS had been. As Christianity has now. This act of God required his son, someone closer to him than us or angels, to die bc of sin but without cause as he had none.
CS Lewis does a fine job with this mythos in the Chronicles of Narnia - the older deeper magic that has authority over all other magics.
The whole thing, the crucification, was a trap set by God so that Satan would kill Jesus - to save us all from being Satan's property and it worked, we were/are saved, rn - it's already done and over.
Now we just have come home and it doesn't matter how bad we are - the prodigal son speaks to those of us with such concerns.
God, Jesus and anyone claiming to follow them ought to universally love everyone and anyone by default and without reason, expectations or cause - without exception and without judgement.
Some we see that weak and take advantage - let them do so, help even - turn the other cheek. As Mother Theresa said so eloquently, " Helping hurts - help anyway" - that is our calling.
To me God is like the Watsky song Sloppy Seconds - he'll take us regardless of anything we've done and he will love us as fucked up as we are at our worse amd loves us no more when we are at our best bc his love is without conditions.
That is the story of the crucification and how one man, preaching universal love, executed for that at the age of 33, is still spoken of 2500 years later.
We owe him for that - he expects nothing in return from us. All he wants is that we do what we know we ought to, that we not do what we kno we shouldn't or what we hate to do and to love each other as we love ourselves.
That sounds like a light yoke to me - these other people speaking for him rn, they all have such a heavy yoke of rules and morals and ethics and tradition and that's all wrong.
Then why can’t I wear my tie dye shirt at most churches?
I’ve completely fallen out of the church and Christianity. I do believe in a force that exists and acts and behaves as we described God as I grew up, which is in us and all things and all around us throughout all of creation, but I do not believe that that is God. I just call that the Universe now.
Wastky concerts are more my church than anywhere else in the world. I feel connected and holy in his crowds. I wear my clothes until they’re threadbare because of that song.
When I analyze my life now, I recognize it as what Jesus commanded us to do, but none none none of what I have motivated myself to do has been motivated by Christianity or God‘s calling.
Watsky broke me free from the Christian church, but he shaped my behavior to be more Christian than it ever would’ve been then when I was in and a part of Christianity and taking my teachings from the Bible.
Religion as banal courtroom drama.
roman catholicism, eastern orthodoxy, and anglicanism are all catholic (the latter is also reform).
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In fact the very word catholic derives from the Greek words kata and holos
Additionally, it's part of the credo:
> [We believe] in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."
In Latin:
> Et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Marks_of_the_Church
Catholic just means universal.
Did the fact that Christians from Western Europe looted Constantinople in 1200 play a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church, or were there already deep theological and political divides?
The pope who sent the schism message delegation died before it reached Constantinople. And the patriarch of Constantinople at the time, also died before his reply made it back to Rome.
What a terrible century for texting.
> a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church
From their point of view, the West abandoned the true (i.e. orthodox) faith.
Also, it's hard to argue that the Eastern Christians changed more than Western ones. For example, since the 12th century the pope has forbidden priest marriage. There is some debate in the Catholic Church about allowing this again. If that is implemented, it would simply be a reversion to what the Orthodox Church has always done.
Catholic means universal, so both present themselves as the original and true church, with the head either in Rome or Constantinople/Pentarchy. The actual break of communion comes from 1054 but really began much earlier.
Even in protestant churches like the Presbyterians and the Methodists you will hear references to the "Catholic Church" where it refers to the universal church that is inclusive all all believers regardless of denomination. For example in shows up in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed.
Both churches have always identified themselves as "Catholic", or universal in the Greek language (katholikos). Orthodox Churches still use the creed in every service, where they say "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church".
Also, it's not like the Roman Catholics claim to be heterodox or something, they also claim that their faith is "orthodox".
In the 1180s the Empire was governed by a French princess (regent for her son) and her late husband was very pro-western/latin. The relations between the Catholic crusader states and the Byzantine empire were also very good and Italian merchants controlled most of its economy.
Then.. an anti-western emperor came to power had all the Latins/Italians in Constantinople massacred (>10% of the population) and things went pretty much downhill from there. It was very rapid, though. There were of course disagreements before the late 12th century but both sides generally acknowledged that they were part of the same Christian word/universal empire (even if they didn't quite agree who was in charge).
The schism was in 1053
1054, in fact, but the 1204 ransacking of Constantinople certainly didn't help with how the "Franks" (because that's how the Catholics were mostly called) were seen by the Christian-Orthodox (if it matters I'm a Christian-Orthodox myself).
I was reading a travelogue written by a Russian monk (? not sure, either a monk or a wealthy boyar predisposed to the Holy stuff) who was visiting Constantinople sometimes in the early 1300s, so a century after the whole tragedy, and he was still describing how destroyed the city looked because of the Franks and what big of a tragedy that was.
If you read Wikipedia, there was the Massacre of the "Latins" in Constantinople in 1182. That almost certainly made it easy to make it a revenge play for the Venetians and associates.
What I find most interesting is the Romans were unbeatable in battle, even the Byzantines. However, maintaining a large military presence was expensive and politically difficult to manage. So they used annual mercenaries from the north for the usual frontier squabbles, and the main army did the heavy lifting. It fell apart when there was a major conflict, and didn't help that the army held the city hostage demanding more money. So everyone was corrupt it would seem. Also there were the persistence of rumors of knights that may have kept most of the treasure for themselves and headed off to Cyprus. The Knights Templar were insanely wealthy given the times and cost of resources to mount expeditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins
https://thetemplarknight.com/2021/12/13/cyprus-knights-templ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins
> even the Byzantines
They were, though? Adrianople, Yarmoud, Manzikert, Myriokephalon etc. it's just that the empire was extremely resilient and was generally able to recover from disasters which would have led to the collapse of most other states.
I think Hannibal is owed some credit for marching elephants over the alps - I believe Rome razed and erased Carthage on their 3rd or 4th try? No matter really, it wasn't their 1st.
By 1200 the Romans had been beaten in battle many times. Their loss at Manzikert to the Turks in 1071 severely weakened the empire, and they never really recovered from it.
It's funny how the Battle of Manzikert went from being an obscure battle only a handful of scholars cared about to a major topic in popular consciousness.
It's actually not quite so clear cut. 1053/1054 was when mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople happened, but (as the schism itself is evidence of) Constantinople did not speak for the entire church, and other eastern sees continued communion with Rome for quite some time afterward.
https://kalebatlantaprime.medium.com/the-great-schism-was-in...
It really wasn't obvious at the time, though and it took at least 100 years or more for the split to become permanent.
e.g. There is currently a schism between the Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church which technically is not that different. Does that mean that the Russian Church is no longer Orthodox?
The Catholic church also consider itself to be Orthodox, just like the Orthodox Church is Catholic. Technically both are still the same same church (e.g. relative to Protestant churches) they just can't agree who is in charge.
The "Great Schism" wasn't even that great at the time, there were plenty of schisms that proceeded it, it just happened to be the last one and nobody really knew what it mean for the next few hundred years.
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The Centre Place youtube channel has some pretty good lectures, including some very good lectures on Judaism and early Christianity: https://www.youtube.com/@centre-place/playlists
The videos are presented by a pastor of the Community of Christ church in Toronto, but they're from a historical rather than religious perspective.
Seconding this - absolutely terrific content.
I'd be very careful what you let others tell you about Early Christianity - almost exclusively they will explain to you how whatever belief they have now came out of it and compare the two and determine today we have truth...
Early was earlier tho - the people that twist our recent revelations about the content of the testaments to support the perverted teaching today are literally twisting the closest text in existence to Jesus himself, to "explain" (pervert) a statement Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas - a text predating all Gospels, may actually be perverting words truly spoke by Jesus, which is "leading astray" the truth that has come out from the millenia - as he said it would...
Not one sentence of this have I heard someone speak or have I read on someone's page.
I am not sure what do you mean by your hint. Stating that the Gospel of Thomas predates all other Gospels is not a view that is shared by many scientists.
One source of many: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gospel_of_Thoma...
Well, it actually is commonly accepted either as the "Q Text" - or as possibly the "Q" text. The "Q" text is the single document long speculated to be the primary source for the 4 Gospels in the Bible, and that was before we had the Gospel of Thomas as we do now - nothing at all to do with a conspiracy theory that shares the letter.
Anyways, I've also read the Gospel of Thomas - it most certainly predates the other Gospels.
If it doesn't, the others have been so edited and changed over time that they've been rendered more likely to be a copy than an original work.
It's also fantastic and Jesus himself says things the Church doesn't want you to believe - hence why a book comprised exclusively of the sayings of Jesus Christ (many of which are in the other Gospels) isn't in the Bible, bc THAT Jesus preached a different Christianity than the one we have. Weird...
It's one of my favorite texts in general. Super easy read... perhaps think for yourself?
I mean fr, scientist made up dark matter and dark energy bc by their own realization, their maths didn't work - so they invent an invisible thing to make their maths work and it now turns out, the maths did work, if the universe was simply older than they accounted - they obviously didn't consider that or I would kno all about how embarrassingly stupid they have been to avoid looking somewhere they have "decided" the answer already. They just pulled it out their ass - it's in textbooks, I doubt it exists at all but the people with papers on it will keep on as "a theory" until they die, solely out of pride.
That's just my one example of today. You as capable as almost every other person - let's discuss when you've read it.
I’d recommend “2,000 Years of Christ's Power” by Nick Needham. I am not sure where it falls on your theology/history spectrum but it has some of both. I enjoyed the audiobook of Volume 1 immensely.
For me it did a great job describing the context in which the church began, the major figures throughout the early church, and the spread, schisms, and events that helped shape the church in its formative years.
You might enjoy Let's Talk Religion[0] and ReligionForBreakfast[1]. Both have variety of topics not solely focused on Christianity.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkReligion
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@ReligionForBreakfast
Oh yeah I like ReligionForBreakfast!
I think one of the oldest historical mentions of Jesus is by Josephus [1][2]. There is, however, scholarly discussion about whether parts of his references to Jesus were altered by later Christian scribes [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
[3] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=jose...
The traditional view held by Christians is that the Gospel of Matthew was written within 10 years of Jesus' death. Modern scholars (often atheists) do not believe it though.
Do you have a source for this? I've never heard anyone claim that they written so early. For Catholics at least, I think it's a point that the Church and some Tradition are older than the Gospels, i.e. that the Gospels are written by the Church, for the Church (not the other way around)
Catholics traditionally held Matthew was written shortly after Jesus' death (there is some debate about the actual date). Many modern Catholics, accept the modern scholarship nowadays though. There are traditions created prior to the gospels regardless of the dating. I would also mention the Bible explicitly states there are non-written traditions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
Irenaeus said "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church."
There is some debate on Peter's death, but it is usually placed in 64-68 AD. Paul died either 64 or 65 ad. This is prior to when modern scholars state.
I don't have a quote, but Eusebius said he thought it was written about 12 years after Jesus' death.
There are plenty of other early Christians who took the position that the gospels were prior to 70 AD, but I am on my phone and don't want to try to find them. I was looking for a Catholic one that I previously saw that said it was 5 years, but couldn't find it.
As far as I can tell, every prominent Christian until the 1800s thought they were earlier than modern scholars say.
The reason I am using the 70 AD date is because of the temple being destroyed then. One of the arguments modern scholars use is that Jesus prophesized that the temple was going to be destroyed. Since God does not exist, Jesus could not have known that and as such it had to be written after 70 ad.
The Didache predates Josephus.
I understand that the Didache doesn't mention Jesus itself.
Read it here:
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm
(E.g. when discussing the Eucharist.)
This blew my mind when I first learned of it
The “Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean” podcast is excellent. It’s mostly cut-up university lectures by the author, who teaches at York University in Toronto. https://www.philipharland.com/Blog/religions-of-the-ancient-...
Someone already said The Rest is History, but one of the presenters of that podcast Tom Holland (not the actor) has also written extensively about the history of the catholic church in Millennium and Dominion. Highly recommended.
Not read Millennium, but Dominion is brilliant. its not just the history of the church, it explains how the West came to be what it is and the influence of Christianity.
It is also a useful corrective to the Western tendency to see its values and attitudes as universal, even where they are a product of a particular history and culture.
Second the recommendation on Millennium, just note that for some stupid reason the US publisher decided to retitle the book "The Forge of Christendom". So if you're in the US you won't find it under its real title.
Data over dogma is a pretty good podcast about Christianity and Judaism. It's mostly about taking Bible stories and putting them into their historic context with the best evidence we have.
It's not about converting, just covering the history.
Produced by a Mormon whose dissertation was supervised by an atheist Professor of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion. This may be a data point in favor of the trustworthiness of the podcast, or it may be an argument against, depending on your own personal point of view.
As long as the approach is rigorous scholarship in good faith (is it?), it shouldn't matter too much.
I can't speak for the particular material referenced, but ... good faith is a lot to ask for in religious meta-literature. So often I see arguments based on the following:
* Start by assuming all the weird stuff didn't actually happen. We all know that fiction is stranger than truth.
* Next, assume it's impossible to foretell the future (in particular, "people who hate each other will start a war" can obviously only have been written after the fact), so clearly the author lied about the date they wrote it. Also, assume that nobody ever updated the grammar (due to linguistic drift) while copying it, and that the oldest surviving copy.
* Finally, assume that all previous translations were made by utter imbeciles and reject the wording they used, even if that means picking words that mean something completely unrelated to the original. You can always just assume that the words were a typo or something, and not a blatant reference to other books on the same topic.
The most basic sign of rigorous scholarship is saying "well, maybe" a lot, with just an occasional "but definitely not that".
I can say with certainty that it is not impossible to predict the future. We can scientifically do so - advertising is a form of future prediction.
All things that exist have a cause and a consequence - nothing is unknowable if we could simply see a the data, everything could be explained exactly.
The future without is easier bc ppl are almost exactly the same based regardless of culture, ethnicity, religion or class and collectively we have been simply repeating the same mistakes, in cyclical pattern, for our entire history.
Everything has done before and everything will be done again - different eras tho, same humanity broken in the identical ways living the sames lives leading to the same mistakes and then forgetting all that and doing it again.
I gave one episode a listen and can now say it's not what you described. They conveyed actual scholarship but kept it light-hearted. Religious fundamentalists might not like it because it doesn't start from the assumption that the canonical Bible is inerrant, but for anyone who wants to learn about the Bible from an open-minded viewpoint, I think it's worth a listen.
I had a long drive where I listened to The Great Courses, which had a set on early Christianity. I think the professor was from Notre Dame. The early church was wrestling with polytheism (is the OT god seemed really different from the NT god) and it eventually had to get resolved by the Council at Nicaea at Constantine's behest.
I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism. Maybe that's my bias nestled in Christian circles of not using that word, in favour of something more like "the nature of the triune Godhead", etc.
Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism (Whether or not any of these flirt with polytheism is up for debate.)
Meanwhile, the Catholic church's own profusion of saints whom you are supposed to beseech for specific blessings is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
As an Atheist (formally Orthodox), I think I can adjudicate this.
The problem with the First Council of Nicaea was that it was decided wrong. The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing. There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again. All the new nations who have been introduced to this aspect of Christianity find it bizarre.
If the decision would have been more along the lines of Islam (i.e. Jesus is super holy, but not God) then it would have been easier to maintain unity. In fact, Islam's adoption of a form of Arianism is one of the reasons it replaced Christianity so quickly in North Africa and the Middle East. (Well, that and the sword.)
> The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing.
I imagine it would be. But that's not what the council of Nicaea decided, nor what Christians believe. It's further developed in the Athanasian creed that the Trinity is understood as one God (homoousios - same substance), but three persons. Whether or not the philosophy of consubstantiation is that useful to modern believers is another issue; attempts to reformulate the doctrine (like "there are three gods, but only one god") usually end in heterodoxy, or at least misunderstanding.
> There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again.
I don't have the numbers on hand, but I recently read that a remarkable number of US Evangelicals regard each member of the Trinity as an autonomous entity. This might invite you to scoff at sola scriptura, but I can't imagine the numbers being better for other denominations.
It's a strange thought: how many, maybe most devotees are actually heretics, especially when you consider more remote cultures. I've been looking for fiction that explores this idea. I think Black Robe touches upon it, but I haven't seen it in two decades and could be misremembering.
btw I rewatched Black Robe and it does not really deal with this theme. Still a great movie though.
3 strokes and your out. There cannot be an out without 3 strokes - each strike equal in importance to the out but each strike is unique.
That is the Trinity.
> Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses
In some ways the (English) word "God" has become 'overloaded' over time:
* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/12/christians-muslims-...
And that's not even getting into "god":
* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/04/further-thought-on-...
I mean Zeus/Deus is a thousand times more overloaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque - to this day the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church disagree on whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son.
Yeah but most lay people from either branch couldn't tell you the practical consequences of this. It's widely known & considered important because it's a remaining theological justification for the schism, not the other way around.
An interesting take on the dilemma between the two 'sides':
> You see the problem. If you include the filioque, you fight the Arians in the West while inadvertently supporting the Sabellians in the East. But if you exclude it, you fight the Sabellians while inadvertently supporting the Arians. At its heart, the filioque is really a linguistic debate, not a theological one.
* https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/68hb00/eli5_th...
(I don't know about the intricacies/subtleties enough to know how 'technically accurate' the above assessment is.)
I don't know either. To me (an orthodox christian) the filioque seems like a post hoc justification for a schism that was already well underway if not inevitable. By 1054 what became the two churches had already clearly differentiated religious traditions, local saints, and liturgical practices with very little interchange between them, not to mention language, governance, and secular culture.
I have heard some fairly convincing (to a lay person) discussion between orthodox and catholic scholars that the filioque is potentially resolvable as a linguistic problem yes. But it's not worth really pursuing without a solution for the bigger issue of papal primacy. I don't know anyone who claims to have a viable path to reconciliation there. Plus, you know, the thousand years of mutual distrust and enmity.
Ok - I'm not saying that I believe Jesus was born of a virgin and placed within the womb by an angel, I mean maybe, but very very likely Jesus was a man, Joseph was his father or his Mother for away with the biggest lie ever to cover her adultery - obviously either of those things that actually have and do happen are more likely than something that never has, save this one time... maybe.
Jesus said he was the Son of God bc WE - HUMANITY is in fact that. It's not an actual parent child relationship but 2500 years ago Jesus had nothing in his pocket to explain better than the family analogy.
The actual OG basis of almost all religious teachings in almost every religion is that WE are in fact God, living as human, experiencing his creation first hand, as US.
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and didn't lie even if not true the way we believe it to be. It was also prolly a great way to get attention as he had a Father, ppl must have spoke of that.
Consider the analogy: the difference between two programs is one line of source, and most end users couldn’t tell you the practical consequences of that change.
The Orthodox allege that the Filioque amounts to a demotion of the Holy Spirit. Comparing the liturgies, disciplines and general character of the two churches, it’s difficult to feel totally confident that they don’t have a point.
From the Father, as all things are, but the Son directs it thereafter.
The Holy Spirit is like the force - it's behind all things, like lines of code behind a web page - but more specifically it's similar to a background process within a system that allows for all actions on the page to exist, by their causes, their consequences and the ensuing causes and consequences and so on forever and since the start of time.
The Holy Spirit is similar to fate but unlike fate we have ability to dictate and direct our reality - like in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" this is the force within reality that delivers what we expect and believe will be.
This is what pushes us along - individually and collectively, that which is behind evolution and behind the miracle rain dance is the same thing.
Faith that moves mountains is merely the most known example of the ability attained by our true understanding of the Holy Spirit - it allows us to access all the powers and forces and laws and systems of this reality and utilize them to our benefit and ends. One who knows and has faith has higher authority than all worldly authorities and can bend them to utilize them to attain whatever desires.
If one needs the Queen of England to write a letter, that person must only believe - enough to kno for certain, that she has already done so and it will be so.
Expectation is part of asking when we have desires of God - ask and expect to receive - expect more, ask less. Asking is less important than expecting - faith is part belief, for example a belief that you can ask God - the other part is expecting God to deliver as he said he would...
Again, this is a rant but this conversation hopefully adds to your spiritual progression faster than the teachings I'm reading professed here will allow any of you.
I have faith that those with hears will hear and act accordingly, there are no limits - only consequences.
Basically the Vim v Emacs of it's day.
One side is obviously right, the other just doesn't want to admit it ;)
In a taxonomy of religious belief the communion of saints is much closer to ancestor veneration than it is polytheism. If you're going to see anything in christianity as potentially polytheistic it's the triune god come on.
I think, in a technical sense, you're right. But the difference between ancestor veneration (especially semi-legendary ancestor veneration) and veneration of a pantheon of lower-tier dieties is practically nonexistent. Its a distinction without difference.
Nobody hesitates to call Shintoism polytheistic, and its core practices, to an outsider, seem strikingly similar to how a Christian, especially a Roman Catholic, interacts with the saints.
I don't disagree really. I do think there are in-this-context significant differences between how individual saints are interacted with. A personal or family patron saint tends much more towards looking like ancestor veneration, compared to eg mary who in practice takes a role that would in other religions be filled by a deity of femininity/motherhood/nurturing/etc.
But overall in any case I think it's sometimes valuable to think of christianity this way and sometimes not. It is a syncretic religion so of course it has regional variations and contradictory remnants of absorbed practices. IIRC some of the specific saint traditions, like icons in the home, predate christianity in the mediterranean.
But on the other hand there are practices and relationships common in true polytheistic religions that you don't see in christianity at all. If taking the saints as minor deities, you don't find sects exalting one of them exclusively, nor do you see individual christians "defect" from one saint to another for personal advantage. There's no theology of competition or opposition between the saints to base such practices on at all. So there are limits to the usefulness of this perspective too.
The shintoism example is interesting, I'll need to look more into it. I had considered it polytheistic but now that I think about it I haven't read shinto writings on the subject so I don't know if most shinto practitioners experience it that way. Outside perspectives aren't completely invalid of course but they aren't as interesting to me as how believers experience their own religions.
God is in 3 parts that comprise a whole in their sum.
Legislative, Executive, Judicial = Govt of US Strike 1, 2 and 3 = an out Mind, Body, soul = A person
I could list hundreds of these examples.
3=1 is a rule found all over reality. The easiest way to create something that will exist for awhile, as it has a sound foundation, is build the foundation in 3 parts that make the whole.
Almost all dichotomies have a hidden third aspect. The fight is over how obvious it was at the time - the church was scared people may discover the secret way to create like the divine, so they convoluted it until they couldn't understand it uniformly anymore.
> is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
I don't really think so. We're supposed to pray with Mary to God and everyone recognizes that all of creation came through Christ, not Mary or any other saint.
Indeed, I'm not trying to argue that the tradition of Catholic saints doesn't obey an absolute hierarchy. I'm referring to practices that are specific to the domains of various patron saints, such as placing medals of Saint Christopher in your car for protection (him being the patron saint of transporters and travelers, as well as athletics, bachelors, surfing, storms, epilepsy, gardeners, and toothache). One of the reasons that Protestants objected to saintly veneration was precisely because they felt it took focus away from Jesus.
Even if the Catholic church might technically be not polytheistic, it is hard to argue that the cult of saints didn't replace the ancient Roman lares in the day to day cult. Yes, saints are supposed to intercede to provide favors and protection, but the practical effects [1] are the same. Religious syncretism is very well attested.
[1] however you want to interpret this.
As Mary asked Jesus to perform the miracle at the wedding at Cana, for the said of her friend, we too are called to pray to ask Mary to intercede for us for our intentions.
Yes, with "saint" I wasn't even trying to invoke a discussion involving Mary at all, because in practice she's so far above the saints that to equate them feels like heresy (and might literally be heresy in some contexts; hyperdulia vs. dulia and all). In practice the absolute adulation of Mary is such that she nearly feels like the fourth member of the trinity.
Who judges what appears to happen in practice?
We can have separate interpretations of how things play out in practice, anything I list is free to be dismissed as anecdotal. But when I think of famous Christian art, I think of art that depicts Mary (and baby Jesus, yes, but the artists deliberately chose not to depict a scene of Jesus without Mary); there's so many of these that it became its own genre (which is literally named after Mary, not Jesus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art) . And when I think of famous Christian cathedrals, I think of the Notre Dame, among the other zillion "Our Lady Of"s that are named after Mary. And when I think of people pointing out modern miracles I think of weeping statues of Mary or people finding Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich; this once again has its own entire genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_apparition . And in Catholic parts of the US at least, IME you're more likely to see a Bathtub Mary outside of a house than a cross: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_Madonna . And when I think of the most important prayers, I think of exactly two: the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
I was taught as a child, and this was Protestant with a clear anti-Catholic bias, that:
* Catholics prayed _to_ Mary (eg asking to intercede on your behalf);
* This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
I'm guessing you're Catholic from your response; would you mind explaining to this somewhat lost person how Catholics view these two topics please? (I've never heard a good explanation, and even praying "with" Mary is new to me.) I admire Catholicism and wish I felt more trust in it, which is something that comes from childhood indoctrination, I know. Things stick into adulthood even when you're consciously aware of their root. So I'm keen to hear countering views :)
>This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
Catholics believe that people in heaven are not dead, and can hear your prayers for intercession (this is the case with most protestants too). Jesus said, after all, that he is the God of the living not the God of the dead[1], and that those in heaven will be reborn in a new and everlasting life. Catholics further believe that the saints in heaven can pray on your behalf and are, in fact, excited to do so, and possibly better at it than anyone on earth.
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%2022%3A32
I’d be careful describing a belief to “most” Protestants. Many, many Protestants don’t believe any soul will enter Heaven until the last judgement.
Many more believe that only God (and Jesus if they don’t believe they are the same) can exist in heaven and the promise of Christianity is to make Earth like Heaven. Some of those groups believe that prayers to the dead, including to Mary or the saints, is therefore forbidden or an overt act of devil worship or paganism.
Even more controversial is the idea that the dead can intercede on your earthly behalf. That would be seen as pretty outside the view of many very mainline Protestant denominations.
The dead are dead - they cannot hear those prayers. God may be able to but if he hears our laments to our lost loved ones, even if we ask them to help us, I cannot conceive how he could anything but pity us, he loves us after all.
People punish - Jesus loves. That's a super easy way to see the lies from the truth
If the dead are dead than the promise of Christ is a lie. Unworkable theologically.
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1. Prayer means several things - "I then prayed my friend that he would accompany me on my trip to Italy" does not mean that you worshiped your friend. Mary (and all the saints) are prayed to in that intercessory way, not in the worshipful way that we pray to God. The man at the Beautiful Gate asked Peter for charity and Peter gave him the ability to walk, not by his own power by by the power of Jesus (Acts 3:2-6). And again intercessory prayer as an important part of the life of the Church is well-attested - e. g., St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:5 says "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men". Finally, why the focus on Mary above all other saints? "Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me" says Elizabeth "filled with the Holy Spirit" and before that "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" says Gabriel bringing God's message to Mary. And what does Mary say in response? "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior" and "I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said". When trying to draw closer to Christ, who would you want with you on your journey more than she who was called to be His mother? And who among all mankind would be more eager to have you come to the throne than she for whom "the Almighty has done [great things for]"?
2. "In fact, [God has not forbidden contact with the dead], because he at times has given it — for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. " Via https://www.catholic.com/tract/praying-to-the-saints
Did you mean 1 Timothy 2.1?
Yes, I did, apologies!
> I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism.
See:
> Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus Christ into the world as the savior was the true Supreme Being, different and opposed to the malevolent Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament.[2][3][5]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism
I find myself agreeing with a lot of these “gnostic” interpretations tbh. When you read stuff like Numbers 14, God just comes off as a total asshole lol
Although the whole theology they cooked up around the “true god” reads like bad fan fiction usually.
> "the nature of the triune Godhead"
Yeah that sounds like some weak Warhammer 40k fanfic.
I've always seen Warhammer fiction as part parody of religions.. and heavy metal art.
For those curious about the trinity what it is and why it is important to Christian faith I highly recommend Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves [1]
"...what kind of God could outstrip the attractions of all other things? Could any unitary, single-person god do so? Hardly, or at least not for long. Single-person gods must, by definition, have spent eternity in absolute solitude. Before creation, having no other persons with whom they could commune, they must have been entirely alone.
Love for others, then, cannot go very deep in them if they can go for eternity without it. And so, not being essentially loving, such gods are inevitably less than lovely. They may demand our worship, but they cannot win our hearts. They must be served with gritted teeth.
How wonderfully different it is with the triune God. In John 17:24, Jesus speaks of how the Father loved Him even before the creation of the world. That is the triune, living God: a Father, whose very being has eternally been about loving His Son, pouring out the Spirit of love and life on Him. Here is a God who is love, who is so full of life and blessing that for eternity He has been overflowing with it..."
[1] https://www.unionpublishing.org/resource/delighting-in-the-t...
This is something best between you and God - let kno others tell you what this is, it is perhaps the most powerful thing ever revealed to us.
3 that equal 1.
It's a fundamental rule found everywhere - there is a softer voice within that will speak to of it but you have to ask it to tell you and then have ears to hear it.
While I agree that many of us are headed from different parts of the city or countryside, if we are Christians or seekers we are all headed to the same destination. So while our satnav path may look different, there are inevitably similar experiences along the way from which we can learn. Beyond that if you are a Christian you believe the Word will apply to all of those situations. Those who study the word can therefore offer insight. I believe this also includes truths like the trinity. So in those sense I would say no it's no purely internal. That being said yes, faith is head knowledge acting in anticipation from the heart as a relationship between you and God.
"It's a fundamental rule found everywhere - there is a softer voice within that will speak to of it but you have to ask it to tell you and then have ears to hear it." But without experience and until you learn to discern the softer voice you must test it against scripture, to know whose it is.
this seems like a sideways retelling of the "Gospels of Thomas" stories.. this is a nuanced topic and shrouded by history.. Suffice it to say that intellectuals and pious people knew very well the cults of Apollo, astrology of High Priests, nature worship, Egyptian deism, goddess worship, and pantheonism while the Christian scriptures were solidifying as a social blueprint.
Note that to non-Christian monotheists, the Christian resolution of that problem is often seen as polytheism with circumlocution.
This arises from a confusion of multiplication 1x1x1 with addition 1+1+1 in the abstraction of facets of truth.
A neat analogy but aren't those 1s actually distinct from each other in your religion?
Is there more than one way to reference the same truth?
Maybe, does the Trimurti represent that same truth?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimurti
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My favorite find in the last few months is the youtube channel "esoterica" - here's his video on the origins of yaweh as a storm god https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKst8zeh-U
He recommends books and primary sources for every episode and they vary from interesting more pubscience type stuff to incredibly expensive and deep academic sources out of print.
The gentleman who runs it is very obviously jewish in practice but only uses that to inform his historical context instead of override it, its very refreshing as someone who is an atheist.
I've been reading a lot about the early church for about a year and really enjoying it. I'm an atheist but I'm also a history nerd so it's been truly fascinating. Here are some that I've enjoyed:
- The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels; I read this one so casually that I don't have a good summary due to poor memory.
- The Passover Plot by Hugh J Schonfield; author contends that Jesus believed that he was the prophesied Messiah and engineered his arrest and crucifixion out of sheer genius and clever actions. Fantastic read.
- Jesus the Jew by Géza Vermes; author sees Jesus as a sincere apocalyptic preacher who believed he was the Messiah.
- From Jesus to Christ by Paula Fredriksen; author looks at how Jesus went from the Jewish Messiah to the head of a major religion.
- Becoming God by Bart Ehrman (you can find him doing interesting interviews or debates on YouTube); same as the one directly above.
- The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty; author contends that Jesus was not a historical figure, but rather another heavenly figure understood to have been crucified in the firmament between heaven and earth. I'm really impressed by the argument so far. I'm not quite finished with this one.
That's exactly what Jesus did and every prophet that has been before him also.
Each prophet sows the seeds for the next within their teachings - each prophet knows how their teachings will become perverted over time, each knows the end of the end of their religion before they start it but they start it anyways bc of the seeds - they can't unseen the fruits borne of them, to them it's plain how people areiving incorrectly and obvious as to what is important and why - it is up to each prophet to determine how to do this in their time and place, speaking to the hearts of the people at that time.
Then they only must pull a Muadib to transform their society - only those with great conviction and faith can do it bc it's quite likely that after a point the prophet also believes themselves to be "real" (they always were of course - if not they would not have had the ears to hear the truth behind what the last prophet said) -
A person playing prophet bc they have the ability to, believing that they are fact a prophet, and having true faith in what they teach - like John the Baptist, they will attain powers they had not - they will attain thru their faith alone not a divine intervention or blessing and not for certain reasons or with limit, it isn't necessary to need something to miracle it so, wanting alone is enough.
All prophets faked it til they made it - every one of can do exactly as they have, it only requires right belief, that we can.
Anyways I'm ranting what I should really just make into another Testament - it will be much, much shorter if I ever do.
> That's exactly what Jesus did and every prophet that has been before him also.
I don't think Jesus thought of himself as a prophet. I think he believed he was the Messiah.
> The Passover Plot by Hugh J Schonfield; author contends that Jesus believed that he was the prophesied Messiah and engineered his arrest and crucifixion out of sheer genius and clever actions. Fantastic read.
Orchestrating the destruction of the Jewish temple (and thus most Jewish religious practices) at the hands of the Roman Empire after his own death would have been quite the feat
Last thing - the Jews revolted against Rome 3 times - they were spared twice and the third time Jews and Jerusalem ceased to exist bc they should not have done that.
Elaine Pagels is the one who got publication credit for the lost Gospels of Thomas.. that was discussed across the globe in literate circles. That book you mention by her is new to me
(1995). The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-679-40140-7
actually Elaine Pagels is currently writing a book called Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Hardcover) due April 2025
A lecture series by The Teaching Company called "The New Testament" taught by Bart Ehrman is an enjoyable academic introduction to the history of Early Christianity.
I also recommend another lecture series called "From Jesus to Christianity" by The Modern Scholar taught by Thomas F. Madden.
I know it's been a long time, but alongside the horsemen of atheism and reading the actual bible, The Teaching Company is where I got so much of my education.
The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion - Rodney Stark
I also like Stark's God's Battalions, which is a nice debunking of the conventional view of the crusades.
Speaking of history podcasts, I've gone through Mike Duncan's Rome and Revolutions, the Fall of Civilizations, Dan Carlin's Hardcore Histories... any suggestions for more like this? I noticed there is a Byzantium history series that seemed interesting.
The History of English podcast is worth a listen. It's about the development of the English language, so it covers a lot of history and prehistory, and also linguistics. The presenter Kevin Stroud has a deep passion for the subject matter. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to repeat himself and over-explain simple examples so the effect can be somewhat soporific.
Assuming you want more Long form, narrative style historical podcasts. History of the Germans, The French History Podcast, and The History of England are all very good in depth podcasts. I also enjoy the History of The Crusades, which is good, narrative and similar to Revolutions following various crusades.
https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/
The British History Podcast starts in deep pre-Roman times and, after ~460 episodes, is up to 1091.
Thanks for the recommendation, however, I really disliked the presenters tone and language. I love the topic, but he came across as too bubbly and informal - "but anyways, whatever!", etc.
History on Fire is another great one. He’s especially interested in military / martial arts but it has a bit of everything.
Thought pointedly not a podcast, the YouTube channel Historia Civilis was my go to thing to fall asleep to for a while. The simple animation style and depth I found very soothing.
Twelve Byzantine Rulers https://12byzantinerulers.com/
The rest is history is pretty good.
The excellent podcast The Rest is History has a vaguely connected series of episodes on the Roman Empire and its fall that includes a lot of discussion about the evolution of Christianity. The newest cycle, "Warlords of the West" (3 episodes on the emergence of the Frankish kingdom following the fall of the Roman Empire, a fascinating period not often talked about) and "Charlemagne" (3-part episode just on Charlemagne, who did more than any other Medieval figure ensured the spread of Christianity) have excellent about the political and religious forces that spread Christianity through Europe.
> Recommendations for books etc are welcome!
See perhaps the references / (printed) sources at:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
Try The great controversy between Christ and satan.
If you want a non-religious take on the history of Abrahamic religions, a recent episode 393 of the podcast by Sam Harriss, where he interviews historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, should be an interesting listen.
I mean, wouldn't you find it strange if historians from the year 4000 believed the sexual revolution of 1968 happened in 2018? Quite a discrepancy "only" 50 years
I'll never be able to read about us digitally unrolling fragile scrolls without it seemingly like otherworldly sci-fi technology.
The translated blessing text itself seems almost modern. Funny to see how little we've changed in some ways.
Speaking as a participant in a number of somewhat "modern" Christian traditions, I think one factor is that we have changed quite a lot and then some strands of the faith have decided to go back into the past and seek what we lost from the early days. One example being certain rock'n'roll churches where people stick their hands up in the air while singing and praying: I heard one pastor defend this as being "this is not a new form of prayer, this is what Jewish people were doing hundreds/thousands of years ago and now we're bringing it back". (See the rather-ancient Book of Exodus, for example. No electric guitars or drum kits there[0], but Moses is definitely described as holding his hands up in prayer, sometimes with the help of Joshua when his arms got tired).
[0] though I'm afraid to admit there is at least one actual tambourine...
Thing is, Christianity is (should be? idk) based on the teachings of Jesus which separated from Judaism; on prayer and worship, the New Testament has teachings like:
> Matthew 6:5-14 > 5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
That is, he teaches a humble, private, and not-showy way of praying, as opposed to the Jews of their time. But this is causing tension and schisms in Christian churches everywhere. I grew up in a fairly conservative one - grey suits, quiet / low energy services, nothing too outlandish. But family of mine ended up in more Evangelical churches, with live music and the like. Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent in their cathedrals, and while I can appreciate them for their architecture and atmosphere and the like, I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
> I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
Hmm, but in the Exodus, the ark of the covenant was glided in gold with cherubs on the four corners. Same with the Jewish Temple, it was probably decked out in marble. Unlike Protestants, Catholicism have arts, choral music and statues and architecture not because they are "worshipping it" but because these things are supposed to direct the mind upwards towards God.
I think the Catholic Mass is the ancient form of worship by the early Church. There's multiple references to the Real Presence in the Eucharist in New Testament (ie. the road to Eramus and the breaking of bread, and in John 6:53*) and the Sanctus is still in the Eucharistic Prayer, and besides, its an obvious break with the Jews who did burnt offerings in the Temple.
John 6:53–58, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Exodus was as far from Christ as we are.
The Old Testament can't be used to counter Jesus - Jesus is the counter to the Old Testament. He is the reason it's "Old" - humility, loving all without conditions, forgivenes, turning the other cheek - The Greatest Commandment, none of them are ignored or "misinterpreted" in any justified way, even if that way is quoting scripture from Exodus.
That's a very unusual context for me, in my tradition (reformed Presbyterian) we definitely don't view things that we way in general, the God of the old testament is the God of the new and Jesus didn't wholesale make the old testament invalid, only the parts of the law that he had already satisfied. (Eg no need for more animal sacrifices, we've already sacrificed enough via Jesus) (Notably, the moral law and parts of the ceremonial law are still valid)
It is interesting to think about why it's ok to differ from the old temple. Granted of course some of it is cultural differences, we're not the same people and it's 1000s of years later, and perhaps it was different because we're not the theocratic state of ancient Israel.
But something for me to think about why this component is no longer needed (my church is very classic boring protestant architecture)
Agreed except for this comment.
> parts of the ceremonial law are still valid
Westminster Confession 19.3:
“All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.”
The reason the ceremonial law is abrogated is because it pointed forward to Christ who was to come. But since Christ has come, retaining the ceremonial law is tantamount to denying Christ (see full text of WCF 19.3 and book of Hebrews).
If you were thinking of the link between baptism and circumcision, remember that God gave the covenant promise and sign to Abraham 430 years before Moses (Gen 17, Gal 3:17), so circumcision predates the law.
All the law was ended by Jesus and replaced by The Greatest Commandment, as it is the only law that we need.
To follow every law within the Bible except that one is to fail to follow Jesus - to follow only that law and none of the others is fine by him according to his own words.
Speaking any law as higher than the law laid down by the Son of God himself is denying Christ.
Interesting, the confession considers 'remember the sabbath' to be 'moral law', not ceremonial, also 19.3 . Thanks for the reminder!
Exactly right. One way to know the Sabbath is moral rather than ceremonial is the Sabbath was established in Genesis 2:1-3. That means the Sabbath pre-dates the Law, and even pre-dates sin. So Adam and Eve would have kept the Sabbath before the Fall, and so would have all their posterity if they had never fallen.
As confirmation of that idea, Exodus 20:11 states that the reason God gives the fourth commandment is because the Sabbath is a creation ordinance, and by implication is therefore moral.
I hope that helps! God bless.
Adam and Eve had no conception of the Sabbath - they never worked or labored for anything prior to leaving the garden. God walked and talked with them daily, whenever apparently - what need for their to be to recognize that which is accessible and available all the days.
What purpose would a God have at all for the life inside his creations to set aside 1/7 of their time "for him" anyways?
Lots of silly, silly stuff people say God thinks
It's important to remember that the sabbath was a gift to man from God per Jesus
Mark 2:27 NIV [27] Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Genesis 2:15 ESV The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
You are a believer I take it - did he not split the veil?
Why do you think you can pick and chose what he invalidates and what he doesn't? He left one - ONE rule with two parts, it's very simple, even children have the ability to understand.
Every Christian I speak always says something like this - "a common misconception" " not my understanding" "according to the church fathers" - so many quite not Jesus at to counter me quoting Jesus, the man who is the basis of all your beliefs.
He did not say we could make exceptions, in fact, to use the OT as appropriate - to support Jesus and his teachings, the rule/divine laws that we were given, of which there was only 10 was VERY CLEAR about our taking liberties with interpretation.
Thou Shall Not Judge. No exceptions for this one either - this morally, ethically, legally, socially, none.
Next time you read the Bible - Jesus was frustrated as fuck with the "Church" of his time - he very strongly disliked them as much as a man that claims to be the Son of God can.
He said we are the church - US, the believers, not a building, not a congregation, not a fellowship - US.
He said that in an attempt to prevent the church from becoming as it is now - nothing remotely like him or his teachings, beliefs or values.
The shape of the modern church frustrates me to no end.
I consider myself a believer, but every time I look at a Christian organization I find their foundational document to be "The Book of Common Prayer" or some other 16th century nonsense.
Do we really need to have each member give 10% of their income so we can pay one guy upwards of six figures to give a 30-minute motivational speech once a week? That was probably useful when he was the only person that knew how to read, but today I find that the kind of person who takes that job is completely detached from the lives of ordinary people who go to work for a living.
The attitude many believers treat non-believers with is also appalling. The baseline I've seen is "you should be friends with non-believers because you can convert them". The worst I've seen is borderline xenophobia and encouraging to only consume media from approved christian-aligned sources. My younger sister attended a christian high school, and the student that spoke at her graduation gave a speech I can only describe as "we must retake the culture from our enemies, deus vult". I was appalled, but many of the adults in attendance ate it up. I don't remember Jesus warning people about enemies. I do remember him warning people about being curt towards their neighbors. Do modern christians not know what a Samaritan means?
The alignment of politics with evangelicalism has been awful, and I'm not looking forward to where it will lead.
A Samaritan was essentially the enemy of the Jew which is what makes the story so poignant.
As for how to interact with non believers, Paul talks about this in his letters to the Romans and the church in Corinth.
1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV [14] The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 5:11-13 NIV [11] But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. [12] What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? [13] God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you"
Romans 8:7-8 NIV [7] The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. [8] Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
The reason Christians are encouraged to bring the gospel to non believers is commonly referred to as the great commission. However this should be given and not forced .
Luke 9:5 NIV [5] If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”
2 Timothy 2:24-26 NIV [24] And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. [25] Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, [26] and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Even so, Christians should expect to be hated
John 15:18-19 NIV [18] “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. [19] If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
> The reason Christians are encouraged to bring the gospel to non believers is commonly referred to as the great commission. However this should be given and not forced .
I'm familiar, but it's tangential to what I'm saying. I'm referring to the belief that you should only engage with non-believers because it represents a recruitment opportunity. It's not a belief that I see preached (often), but it's definitely one that I see people practice. The view that relationships with non-believers is inherently adversarial is one that I don't appreciate.
The context above that verse is important. It's not that Christians shouldn't associate with non believers, but avoid believers "brothers and sisters" that are basically fake.
1 Corinthians 5:9-10 NIV [9] I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— [10] not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
The pastors and priests I know do much more than 30 minutes of work a week. In addition to the sermon, they provide counseling, perform weddings, funerals, attend each if not leading, visit the sick and homebound, attend to church business, help coordinate activities, help solve conflicts, represent the church, do Bible studies during the week, help with children's programs and so on.
I don't think I would have the stomach to deal with the types of things they deal with. The amount of suffering and grief alone would be hard.
There are definitely sects that take the job much more seriously than others. I personally have known too many that basically end up coordinating a group of volunteer assistant pastors and deacons to nearly all of the work. Frequent month-long vacations as well (they're called "sabbaticles" because it sounds biblical).
They also frequently run into some moral scandal (plagiarism, adultery, theft), plead for forgiveness (because reporting them to the denomination heads would leave them jobless), and then move states to repeat the playbook elsewhere.
Some of the kindest, most thoughtful people I've met were pastors too, though, so I won't say that the entire profession is evil. The monetary and social status incentives that the position grants also attracts some of the worst people, though.
Yeah, that is sad. The biggest mistake I think is made in modern Christianity is forgetting that all fall short and that somehow Christians are somehow better humans than others.
Well yeah, opulent temples are in line with Jewish traditions but the other poster is suggesting that's not in line with the teaching of the new testament specifically?
Not necessarily but like much interpretations differ. An old retired pastor friend once described the story of Mary anointing Christ with the expensive oil and being chastised by Judas as a “waste” with Jesus correcting Judas (John 12). He expressed that story as possibly symbolic of how we should regard Christ as the glorious king of kings and despite His servant humility, He is still deserving of the finest we have including opulence in His houses of worship.
We had this conversation while I was struggling as a member of the church over a remodel of our sanctuary and what I felt were excessive expenses that were more for beauty than function. Essentially “a waste”. I asked his opinion
Always kind of thought provoking when an octogenarian pastor makes you realize that you identified with Judas’s attitude.
It does seem like an odd attitude for a messiah who commands his followers to give up their entire identity for a life of extreme poverty and charity - who took a whip to the moneychangers in the temple and denounced the rich as unworthy of heaven - to insist on opulence and luxury for himself. I think Judas had a point.
Did He insist on it, or did He allow it to happen? Also, did He ask everyone to give up their identity and live a life of poverty?
It's bc it's added later to justify this bs - that's why it's Judas being corrected bc the person making the addition or changes already knew he was the bad guy.
T
Does this story feel legit to you?
Judas - the Betrayer who trades his divine friend with like tons of followers and influence for silver pieces, 30 of them I think, Judas speaks to materialism as unnecessary and Jesus corrects him as "well for me and my Dad, expensive is appropriate" - the guy who gets to town and is all like, "where the tax collectors and prostitutes be at?" They were the most controversial figures in that society...
Today, were Jesus to show up today, already having been born to some woman immaculately a fews back, he wouldn't step foot into a Church with his name on it - you'd be far more likely to find him hanging out with Trans people, homeless - he tended to have a thing for broken people, something about improving them and whatnot.
> Does this story feel legit to you?
No more or less than any story from that time period. What is in the Bible is literal, historical, metaphorical, philosophical…etc. So could it be true? Sure. Could it be an illustrative fiction? Sure. Could it be false or mistranslated? Sure. Could the message require a contemporary contextual understanding that we don’t have in 2024? Sure.
> Today, were Jesus to show up today, already having been born to some woman immaculately a fews back, he wouldn't step foot into a Church with his name on it
It’s always funny to me when someone (anyone…from any side or spectrum of the theological debate) seems so confident that they know how “Jesus today” would behave, when apparently from the accounts written near to when he was present on the earth even his closest disciples and friends who were with him at the time were often surprised by his behavior. To make the claim that He would shun His houses today doesn’t seem to be rooted in the historical understanding about Him that we do we have. He apparently wasn’t too happy with what was happening in the Temple at that time, but still set foot in it, if only to make a point.
> you'd be far more likely to find him hanging out with Trans people, homeless - he tended to have a thing for broken people, something about improving them and whatnot
Back then He sought out the rich, the poor, the right, the wrong, the clean and unclean, the nobility, the nobodies, the religious, the Jews, the gentiles—basically all folks of all types that were milling about in Judea in that time period. Would that somehow be different in 2024 and He would just gravitate to marginalized people? Doesn’t seem to be in character with what He did then.
As somebody outside of religions (thank you both parents, probably the greatest gift one can give to one's kids - freedom of faith and self determination, something almost impossible as adult if indoctrinated young), these kind of discussions are funny to me.
Why? They are present in every corner of the world, every religion. And all you need is to take few steps back and stop taking everything literally, trying to find some universal life guidance in bronze age texts. Not that its not there completely, some things are universal, but so are half the self-help books for example or literally any other serious text. Frank Herbert's Dune series is way more appealing and worthy to me for example and truths in it way more universal, yet I am not basing my whole life and morals on it, nor do I feel the need to push it on rest of the world.
Those were stories, no moral value greater than old greek (or persian, hindu etc.) tales which always had some strong message beyond story on the surface. Stories made up by men, hundreds of years after christ, which were retold probably 20x before somebody wrote them down (and then 20x translated between various slangs, languages and targeted meanings). Current bible has little to do with original story, its simply not technically possible for complex stories to be preserved 100% for hundreds of years by just retelling them.
You realize that say sunni vs shia muslims are, when reduced to few words, a conflict between which member of the family was the truest believer and whose words are more important, while having 0 reference to actually decide so? Yet conflicts between those are numerous and victims of those in hundreds of millions.
Every time I see people desperately looking for specific truths, there is some deeper underlying problem and inability/unwillingness to decide something rather trivial for oneself. Like which sort of music should be happening where - what the heck does this have to do with actual faith in your god(s)? Do you also consult religious text when picking up Sunday sweater color? Deities are not that petty, not even in those bronze age tales, its just showing human flaws and fears.
that's all brave and probably well intentioned, but there is another side to it. The Bible was specifically "a single agreed upon text" so that groups of people in real life could stop fighting about theology points, big and small. It still exists today. "The Bible is the Truth" end of statement. It is not because you personally cannot find new meaning in non-Bible things.. it is specifically to get groups of people "on the same page" .. that phrase is used today. The written nature of it also tends toward stability.
Perhaps in an unsatisfying way to an adolescent, the answer is there already, and you personally find your place in the order that is established by your ancestors and lead you life. Mostly the whole exercise is opposite of adolescent exploration. IMHO this is neither bad nor good. It is boring and meant to be boring, to prevent deadly conflict, wasted efforts, petty differences etc.
Based on this boring interpretation, Christians went on to build massive, mighty buildings, large civilized empires and vast written knowledge available to literate citizens. Those things did not have to happen at all. The triumph is that they did happen. In modern times we mostly dont even regard these things, since they are "obvious."
Please note that I am not saying this is the only one True Path at all, just describing things.
Not disagreeing per se, but what you write about as the goal was not achieved, far from it just look around and look at history. Its probably due to human flaws rather than anything else but that doesn't matter at the end. Look at all the sects of christianity, they can't agree on even basic things. There used to be wars killing tens of millions between those sects.
Again, human flaws, but that's the whole point - we can't escape them, no 'absolute truth' fixing anything. And that 'absolute truth' doesn't stand test of time, or should we be really killing gays on spot and also brides that aren't virgins?
Christianity doesn't throw away its hebrew origins (old testament) - which is properly schizophrenic experience to have those 2 books next to each other and attempting to say you believe in both. Its a fatal flaw of christianity that it wasn't started from scratch - basic secondary school logic will fail it very easily since those are really 2 distinct religions. Because you basically believe in 2 gods, 2 versions of events, 2 distinct set of morals which can't be merged together. You can't claim its fine to be psychotic petty mass murderer and preach love and forgiveness for everybody at the same time, thats just desperate self-lie to maintain unmaintainable. I see folks doing it all the time just to be clear, but its always a desperate house of cards and they very quickly shy away from any deeper discussion in fear of questioning a pillar of their existence.
Which goes back to first sentences of my previous post - thankful to my parents they didn't do this to me. I am doing the same to my kids, they can decide what they want in their adulthood, not a second earlier.
Ok, I once believed this also but I've now read the Bible's "iterations" - the Bible that exists now has been heavily edited, added to and changed.
> probably the greatest gift one can give to one's kids - freedom of faith and self determination, something almost impossible as adult if indoctrinated young
This really isn't possible to give someone. Your cultural upbringing will flavor your core beliefs, whether religiously or non-religiously
Not sure I understand. My father is catholic. Mother is protestant/evangelical. Both decided in their adulthood to stop practicing it and not push a single speck of it in me, consciously, without caring 'what others will say'. They didn't push me into some religious schools (unlike my wife who has rest of her life to deal with maybe well-meant but massive trauma of strict religious upbringing, psychologists can only help so much). My parents literally defined my cultural upbringing, more than anybody/anything else combined.
Anybody strong enough can do that, but lets be honest here, most people are not that strong and rather will go the path of least friction and most comfort and not the best long term path.
As said, I am eternally thankful to them for this since when looking back I clearly see choices they've made.
While your reference talks about prayer which is distinct from worship, I think that the instructions around prayer and worship are related. However, I dont think the message is to be reserved, but instead be honest. I understand this verse to mean don't be fake, God knows your heart. Be real. Here are a few examples that reinforce why I think this.
When talking to the Samaritan woman at the well Jesus talks about worship being true and of the spirit.
John 4:23-24 NIV
[23] Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
A reminder to forgive and seek forgiveness from those you have wronged (as reinforced in Matthew 6:14-15, Leviticus 19:18, Proverbs 17:9 ) before asking for forgiveness and before worshipping God:
Matthew 5:23-24 NIV
[23] “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, [24] leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
Showing that fake worship means little:
Matthew 15 8:9 (NIV) quoting Isaiah 29:13
[8] “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [9] They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ ”
Exactly this - very well said.
> Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent in their cathedrals, and while I can appreciate them for their architecture and atmosphere and the like, I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc,
I think it depends on the motivation. If it is to elevate people's minds it is fine, if it is to show wealth and power it is not.
> especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
The church does actually use a lot of its income for the poor. It mostly does this in third world countries so its not evident in rich countries. Its not that long ago (20 or 30 years) that the church was the largest operator of AIDS clinics in the world - mostly in Africa where the need was great but the money was lacking. The same is true of other large Christian churches. They also tend to follow the rules of doing good quietly so they do not do PR to let everyone know what they are doing like secular philanthropists.
Its something you can verify. Some bits of the Catholic church (I recall finding a Vatican statement of income and expenditure a while back) make accounts public, and I think many other churches must do too.
> Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent […]
It is not "opulence and grandeur" that are on display, but beauty, or Beauty:
* https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/aquinas-on-beauty/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentals
See also "Beauty, Truth, and Goodness":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7RSQpDnYUY
FWIW, this has changed a lot. Catholic churches built in the last 50 years are far more austere than those built earlier.
It's a catastrophe, not just esthetically but spiritually as well. It has nothing to do with austerity or wealth. Some of the churches no longer seek to express holiness ("having been set aside for God") and support the numinous and eternal nature of the divine liturgy that takes place in them.
One of the most breathtaking pictures I've ever seen in this regard is of Mass in a German church completely destroyed during WW2.
https://www.churchpop.com/content/images/size/w1200/wordpres...
"Stat crux dum volvitur orbis"...
Exactly. Sacred architecture flows necessarily from essence (what church is) through substance (can't be accident or easy-to-vary) into form (matter receiving truth). Regrettably, accidents get commonly confused for substance like mistaking material poverty for spiritual authenticity, or adorning for corruption. Poor churches in middle ages still had a golden chalice (for literal God), cruciform layout (or other hard-to-vary forms in orthodox churches), eastern orientation, and an elevated altar. Why would a church built in A.D. 2024 have less?
No. You are wrong. No fine stuff necessary for Jesus or his Dad.
Does God need an altar to be elevated? Who does that altar actually elevate exactly? Who most benefits from the splendor and opulence?
We cannot create anything so nice that it would be more than a 4 year olds drawing for the fridge - God created all things but is super impressed by Gold chalice, sees that as a show of sincerity rather than action and belief and faith - uh huh, sure he does - you kno what they say about rich people at the gates of heaven right??
They don't ever get there.
Yes. You are right. "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." It would not be good to create religious beauty to "impress" God in a boastful way. All that is good in creation exists in God in supereminent fashion.
But we don't do things to impress God in that sense. By supernatural grace our broken spirit begins to heal and we become like God, from the inside out, in a way appropriate to our finite created nature. From grace comes our (sometimes clumsy...) imitation of Jesus and, why not, a taste for sacred art and beauty. By grace all of creation will be transformed.
Since you ask: what is elevated on the Catholic (and Orthodox) altars is the Son, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It does not come from us, we did nothing to deserve it, and yet it was given to us so we can offer it to God. As the Lamb is elevated and we look up to it, we desire to add what little is in us. One expression of this desire is to have everything involved, from the building to the sacred vessels, express the sanctity of what is taking place. It may be clumsy, it may be mixed up with impure motives and false piety. Who knows, it may really have been a bit much at times. But in itself, it is good and appropriate. It does not exclude other expressions of grace. In fact, to suppress it completely strikes me as joyless, misanthropic, deeply unbiblical and likewise potentially mixed up with impure motives and false piety.
What I think is wrong in your reply, is that you seem to confuse the art and golden vessels found in churches (which is a growing heritage serving public and religious purposes) with privately owned wealth and a life dedicated to self-indulgence (like the rich man from Lazarus).
Finally, as a father I am always happy with the drawings of my kids, especially if I know that they really put effort in it. It is amazing to see that these little human beings I helped to come into existence have such creativity in and of themselves. Would this same joy not exist in our Heavenly Father in a supereminent way?
I believe it, modern society has killed the artisans crafts. No one can make the old style ornament now.
Nonsense! It just isn't economical.
There's loads of artisans that can expertly sculpt/carve marble, wood, etc. It's just if you want to hire someone (or a team of people) to create such things it could cost more than the building itself.
Much cheaper to adorn your church with mass-manufactured statues made from molds and they give you that same air of creepiness for a tenth or 100th the price :thumbsup:.
I think it's more that Catholics were sensitive to the accusations of idolatry.
So they reduced the use of statues of Jesus, Mary and more. And iconography.
"This perfume was worth an entire year's wages. Why wasn't it sold and the money given to the poor?"
Sacred art exists to honor the Lord. We ourselves may remain poor and humble in the middle of all this beauty :-)
Yeah... and it's for God and the King that he so divinely ordained rule over all of us bc that is how that was, the church and the palace had all the money and they supported each other for thousands of years
I believe what you're describing is "orans": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orans
That's because Yahweh was a sky god and lived high up in the clouds. So raising your hands, standing on mountain tops, etc, reduces your distance to him. Raising your hands while praying doesn't make as much sense anymore since Heaven is a metaphysical concept and not a place in the skies.
What about the rattle snake churches?
What about them?
Are you asking about the scriptural basis from ancient times that they use to justify their modern practices? (i.e. the immediate topic at hand) Or are you looking for theological and/or scientific opinions on whether the claims they make are true, for at least some meaning of the word “true”?
They also claim to be reviving an ancient practice, although the evidence for that actually being true is very lacking
There is nothing in the Bible that describes the practice they promote. Sure, there is a claim that people who are filled with the Holy Spirit will not die if bitten by snakes, but no description of it being used as a ritual practice and you could claim it contradicts “do not put the Lord God to the test”.
I have no idea if there is extra-biblical evidence for people doing that in early churches, and whether those churches were considered orthodox or heretical at the time, or perhaps the 1st century equivalent of “we don’t know yet, we’re just trying stuff out to see what works”.
Im going to cite (slightly shorten) Wikipedia. I have no competency to understand the sources and fact check but I though it’s quite interesting.
> In the 2nd century the Ophites reportedly handled snakes during their services, and also worshipped the serpent.
> The Ophites […] were a Christian Gnostic sect.
> Gnosticism […] is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.
Seems very reasonable sects to me but it’s understandable "authorities of religious institutions" didn’t like it.
Indeed extra biblical gospel from Luke and Mark:
> Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
> And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
IMHO Gospels are comparable with the Bible as a source of history.
Gnosticism is a bit of a catchall - the Ophites were a sect or branch and not by any means the standard - it's difficult to say there is an established "Standard Gnostic Theology" as there really isn't, there are some common deviations from modern Christianity that rendered them more similar thru a modern lens than they may be, tho they are some common Gnostic themes, like self awareness but snake charming isn't one.
That said, snakes have been widely deified thru out history by various cultures and beliefs.
Prior to Christianity the god Tiamet would have been widely known and had been so for hundreds of years. It is common practice for a religion to take the previous god and render them the "bad guy" in their new religion - that could also have been done to the Ophites as the Gnostics were essentially erased by the Church and what little remains the establishment said about them has been rendered sus by what we have found recently of OG Gnostic texts.
You have to realize, by 400 - saying someone handles snakes during their church service was a kin to saying they are a satanic cult.
That said - Gnostics would handle snakes if they wanted or needed to and they would be fine bc that is the faith they preached, a faith of action. Step onto the water - you will not sink of you do and have faith already, no more is needed in the moment, no assistance from Priest or higher power.
Christianity adopted the faith of Paul - the apostle not chosen by Christ, and became people that wait in their beliefs, faithfully waiting for God.
Huge difference.
yes agree and .. there are branches of Christianity across the world that did not lose the connection to warfare. There are plenty of people who fight fiercely (in real life) that espouse Christ deeply.. a current Japan martial arts cage fighting champion from Brazil dedicated his whole victory speech to Christ recently, for example.
We are not supposed to do what we kno kno is bad - nothing is set in set in stone anymore, that's the Greatest Commandment actually, God saying you kno well enough to do this on your own without these rules I etched into stone for you, just follow this one rule and you will be fine - as if all of did follow the greatest Commandment we would remake this work out the broken thing it is now and into the Kingdom of Heaven - bc that was very clearly stated to be WITHIN US.
God will only bring his house down after we fix the place up a little bit, WE must save ourselves this time.
It's not wrong to violently beat up a man in a ring for money if that money has agreed to it - I don't think it's ideal per say, so it will come with consequences and over time, if it isn't what God wants us doing, those consequences will become very costly. That's how all of this works - we can do whatever's we want but we will face the consequences and there will always be them, eventually we will learn that even tho we can do anything we want, we shouldn't, we should just follow that Greatest Commandment - that truly is the easiest thing to do.
Tbh if you think about it at all, the whole idea of mortal, unforgivable, hellfire worthy sin - it all falls down when you consider that God made this reality and is there y responsible for all that he allows to occur within it, the exact same way if I make a violent sexual game for kids, its my fault, not the children for playing it.
Thou shall not judge. BC we can't - we don't have any ideas what is worthy of judgement or not and we can't fr our current point of view.
>I'll never be able to read about us digitally unrolling fragile scrolls without it seemingly like otherworldly sci-fi technology.
I similarly had my mind blown reading an article last week, about how sports & game card collectors are now having their packs CT scanned so they can identify what cards are inside (and the value of the pack) while keeping them sealed.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5987857/2024/12/12/trading-...
There's very similar, but perhaps much more challenging project for digitally unrolling the Herculaneum papyri[1], which is set up as an open machine learning competition[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri
[2]: https://scrollprize.org/
Maybe our timescale of what is 'modern' is not so modern at all.
Isn't any translation a product of the language norms of the translator, as opposed to a pure translation?
I know when I read Spanish, I have to mentally convert the order of words to what makes sense in English (for example, "Thanksgiving" in Spanish would be "Day of Action of Thanks" if translated directly).
Yes, with the caveat that with religious texts there are certain conventions that get conserved even across languages. For example, The Book of John starts off "In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." However, the term being translated here as "Word" (λόγος- logos) could easily be translated a number of different ways, and the technically literal meaning of "word" was already falling out of favor by the time John was written. The word could be "Logic" or "reason" or "The underlying principle that governs the order of the universe" but early Latin translators chose to translate this term as "Verbe" and so future translations followed suit.
This is just one example. There are other instances where a word is a loanword from Greek or Latin because it is an early technical term. For example "sanctification" is taken directly from a Latin technical term that is translated that way because of how early Latin translators chose to translate the Greek.
I wonder if this is what radicals like Gerrard Winstanley had in mind when developing the English Reformation as chance for social reform as well? This quote for example suggests he was I think:
>In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Man, the lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds, and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another.
There's 3 part Radio 4 series from a while ago on the King James Version, with one of the 45 minute episodes focussed on the translation of the work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x3x68
Great example. See also “thou shalt not kill” which would contradict tons of the surrounding text, if that is actually what the original Hebrew said.
Looks like the project partners made a video about it, with some good visuals. But i can't find the actual paper.
Press release with link to the video is here: https://frankfurt.de/de-de/aktuelle-meldung/meldungen/frankf...
Thanks for helping to flesh out the technical side of the discussion while I’m over here getting hung up on the theology :-) this is what makes HN still (occasionally) great.
The article mentions "18-line Latin text" but I was unable to recognize any word on the scroll (took Latin in high school) even something obvious like deus.
Was this some sort of Latin shorthand?
>> Although I realized fairly early on that the New Testament Letter to the Philippians is quoted at the end, I still spent a long time puzzling over the text, which is written in quite a crude form of Latin. I consulted specialist literature and databases and, finally, made some suggestions for how it might be interpreted.
>> The inscription begins with the Trisagion, the threefold cry of “Holy” [based on Isaiah 6:3], which remains part of the liturgy of the Eucharist to this day. In this case, however, it’s written in Greek [“agios, agios, agios”] but in Latin script.
https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/university-of-bonn-researche...
I can spot some of the shorthand. I see "Xp" a few times, which is actually imported from the Greek christos, abbreviated to chi-rho.
Also, each ΧΡ (Chi Rho) is preceded by another Christogram that sort of looks like IHS but I'm not sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christogram
Edit: Actually, here's the full transcription in Latin and German: https://archaeologisches-museum-frankfurt.de/index.php/de/?v...
Some of the letter shapes look like Latin/Roman cursive, but even then I'm not sure I recognize any words either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cursive
It's super cool to see the digital unraveling of scrolls become more accessible. It's also amazing that we can still read the text of something that is nearly 2000 years old.
One thing I don't understand is the picture of the scroll though. I don't see how they were able to figure out the letters? They don't look like an alphabet to me
But what language is used for the inscription on the rolled silver amulet?
The article said Latin, but I don't know what script that is. It looks like it was written right-to-left so maybe it's Latin written in Hebrew script? I'm not even sure if that was a thing.
No, it's written left to right, it's just extremely messy cursive. There are also abbreviations and special shorthand symbols.
> Typically, amulets from this era contained a blend of Christian, Jewish, and pagan elements.
Interesting; does anyone have a link showing a typical amulet from that era, for comparison?
Don't have any reasonable good links available but over here, further East (present-day Romania and then the Roman province of Dacia) there was a strong presence of Oriental/Siro-Palmyrian deities like Mithras, Dea Syria or Belus. There's this (non-academic) page [1] in Romanian which you can use Google translate on in order to get a better hang of it.
[1] https://historia.ro/sectiune/general/culte-si-credinte-in-da...
I found that interesting too, and curious about what it implies for how people thought about religion at the time
> I found that interesting too, and curious about what it implies for how people thought about religion at the time
Religion is an invention of the rennaisance. People at the time would have just perceived what we see as "religion" as worldview, much like people today typically believe in a fusion of economic theories.
That's fascinating but makes sense. any places to go learn more about this you recommend? googling things like invention of religion don't really lead anything on this specific topic
yes i second this. just a bit clarification. not as "the concept of religion" as we call it today would have been an invention. it existed since humanity. rather that religion is something besides or independent of the everyday life ← this is a modern invention. today people say "you can be of any religion" and still do the same civil life as everyone else, go to school, to the grocery, watch TV, participate in the economy system: religion is "something like a hobby", a coloring to your everyday life, like a "community flair" of some people does not eat this-or-that on this-or-that day or cutting their hair in a specific manner, etc. it just happened when common welfare got high enough that people did not need to worry about keeping "old customs" to keep the community and themself *aligned with the created order*. consequentially the rationale for "old customs" gets blurred and forgotten and mostly becomes "superstition". so people more and more trusting themself in the hands of industry and tech they themself created as a protection around themself instead of the tangible instruments of ageless wisdom gathered along the ages, which they swipe instead in the box of "religion" and move on. thus economy + industry and tech become the new religion itself.
I'd probably start here: https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/97801...
Or at the wikipedia page that links to that article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism
Related, for those interested in the history of religions and Christianity: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-rise-of-chr...
> a lot of male cult members join because the cult has hot girls. This seems to have been a big factor in the spread of early Christianity as well.
well, that explains it then </s>
As someone that went to church for that reason as a child I can tell you some things never change.
Fascinating from both a technological and theological/ecclesiological perspective. I'll be sure to pass this on to some of my faith-filled friends who now live south of the Alps but have roots in the same region.
> inhumation burials — a practice uncommon in other Roman cemeteries in Frankfurt
To save others looking it up: "inhumation burial" seems to be a technical term in the field for what we simply call "burial", i.e. digging a grave and then covering the person with dirt and/or rocks. I'm not an expert, but given that this became the primary method of disposal in Christian culture (and still is, in many traditions who believe that cremation prevents the body being resurrected), one could infer that this is an indicator of Here Be Christians.
If you know even a smidgeon of theology, it's not technically possible to define (mainstream) Christian faith without any reference to Jewish beliefs. Jesus was, of course, himself raised a Jew, as were both Saints Peter & Paul, although the latter was also a Roman citizen who wrote in Greek, and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
It does seem a reasonable claim that nothing in this text contains elements of Judaism that were not already or subsequently incorporated into what became Christianity (though I'm pretty sure at this point it didn't yet have a name other than "The Way". I could be wrong there.)
However, just for fun:
- "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
- Of course they don't use the name Yahweh when talking about the God/Lord of the World, of whom Jesus is claimed to be the Son. Neither does the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, produced for use by Greek-speaking Jews a few hundred years before Christ). But they are most definitely talking about the same God.
- I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent, on the grounds that the Name itself is too holy to be spoken or to risk being destroyed if the manuscript gets damaged or, you know, buried in the ground to decay with a dead person. But that could also be a factor.
Unfortunately they don't provide a transcription of the Latin text into modern characters so there's no opportunity right now to go nuts on that but it would be interesting to see what specific Latin words were used compared with translations of the Septuagint, and the original Greek and Hebrew texts themselves.
Still, thanks for posting!
My wife is Messianic Jewish, where the primary intent is to restore Jewish traditions and beliefs while still believing in Jesus/Yeshua ("Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation; the westernized version of the name would more accurately be "Joshua"). Personally my beliefs lie elsewhere, but it's still unfortunate that "denomination" is still such a tiny minority, given its desire to be a purer form of the religion.
Messianic Judaism is usually seen as a corruptive and corruptED force. Israel bans Messianic Jews from being citizens.
> "Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation
Warning! Unnecessary nit-picking incoming...
Jesus isn't a mispronunciation of Yeshua, it's a transliteration. Initially the Hebrew/Aramaic ישוע was transliterated to the Greek Ἰησοῦς which is essentially a phonetic transliteration with the ending changed to the Greek masculine singular.
That was then transliterated to the Latin Iesus with basically the same deal ie phonetic with an ending change.
And that morphed into Jesus, probably about the 16th century, when the swash 'I' became a 'j' sound.
> more accurately be "Joshua"
It wouldn't really be more accurate; it would just be a transliteration through a different route. The most that can be said is that there are fewer hops.
It would still likely have most of the sounds wrong, esp if Jesus' name was originally pronounced in Galilean Aramaic. As I understand it that wouldn't have pronounced the final 'a' like an 'a' but more like a glottal stop. But that's right on the edge of my knowledge so I could have made the last bit up.
Every religion thinks they're the "purer" form of religion though, don't they? x)
Every religion makes truth claims. Many of those truth claims contradict each other. It's incumbent upon us to do the research, put the claims to the test and come to the most reasonable conclusion as to what is true.
Not necessarily, they consider themselves right / proper or just prefer it over other flavours though (example being the many branches of Protestantism where each branch has a slightly different take on how things should be done, but it's not like they're at odds with each other per se)
Protestants all find their differences of opinion a big enough deal that they'll break up over it. They're not fighting wars I've doctrinal differences any more, but who in Christendom is these days?
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religio...
Goodness, where to start… I don’t have time to read your link so I’ll only reply to what you wrote from my own direct personal experience:
- many Protestant groups, while not fighting wars of physical violence, still harbour very unchristian hate in their hearts towards other Protestant sects and (usually) towards all Catholics, whom they consider to be idol worshippers led astray by Satan himself (sadly many Catholics also still feel the same about all Protestants and many other Catholics who don’t play the right music, wear the right vestments or worship in the right language and or precise form of words.)
- on the other hand, many, many Protestants and Catholics are also working to resolve or otherwise sideline those “debatable things” and “foolish controversies” that St Paul advised the churches not to quarrel about (he didn’t say what, specifically, but then this is supposed to be a faith based on love and grace rather than legalism). I’ve been to large events where Catholics and Protestants are worshipping, witnessing and praying joyfully together and seeking to find the similarities and not the differences, without compromising on the fundamentals of what it means to follow Jesus. And these kinds of movements are growing around the world year upon year and also working together to fight social injustice, inequality and poverty
— hopefully soon, more of our Orthodox brothers and sisters will get on board with this, but there are glimmers of hope in that direction too, as long as nobody says the word “Filioque” ;-)
Ah yes, I had a chance to read it while walking down the street. I know that joke, reminds me of the one my dad used to delight in telling, which ends with “I must be the luckiest Arab in Belfast”.
Funnily enough the exact one that you posted is these days repeated by many churches somewhere during the Alpha Course, which after pausing for laughs is identified as an example of exactly not what you are being invited to believe.
Except Universalist/Unitarians, perhaps, they like to mix it all up into one big melting pot.
I have a lot of respect for Messianic Jews; they're struggle is real. I wish more Jews knew just how Jewish the story of Jesus actually is. As far as Christians are concerned, Jesus is the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies in the old testament. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:18)
That said, there is arguably no simpler or purer form of Christianity than simply having faith in and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Don’t confuse culture and gradual inculturation with purity of religion and validity of liturgy.
In the age of the Messiah the faithful are truly drawn “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”. If your wife would go to any (decent) Catholic or Orthodox church, and learns to "read" the building and the liturgy of Holy Mass, maybe she could recognize the contours of the “pure” or “more Jewish" religion she is yearning for. She could go to modern or more traditional Latin/Greek/Ukrainian/Syriac/Ethiopian/... rites and in the plurality of all those different cultures and temperaments recognize over and over again the exact same elements and basic plan, organically evolved yet meticulously preserved in a chain of unbroken sacramental obedience.
Entering the church building she’d gradually walk from the holy water near the entrance, through the “outer courtyard” for the lay people, to the sanctuary with the sacrificial altar, golden vessels and incense, elevated and separated by altar rail or curtain. Behind is the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies containing the Real Presence, indicated by a lit candle. And if she was to e.g. carefully analyse the words of the Eucharistic prayers in all these different rites and languages, she would find over and over again the same underlying structure, complete with the Haggadah.
But language and cultural differences aside, there must be fundamental differences as well. It is Christ Himself who took the prescribed liturgy of the ancient Passover meal and gave it its full and final meaning by substituting Himself, in the presence of the apostles, for the merely symbolic lamb. It is through Christ that the Trinity is fully revealed.
How then could e.g. the exact same holidays have been retained? For instance, why would you celebrate Shavuot, if with Pentecost the Holy Spirit directly descended on the Church? Another example: the Lord's Day is not "Sabbath on the wrong day". Sabbath laws do not apply to those under the New Covenant. Beyond the most excellent idea of dedicating an entire day to the Lord with plenty of obligatory prayer, rest, food and family/community time, the Christian Sunday is simply not the Sabbath. On Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection, which occurred on the first day of a new week (the supernatural "eighth day", beyond the natural fullness of the old week).
The priest in this age is also no longer a Levite. To properly offer this sacrifice, he is now sacramentally ordained by proper religious authorities “in the Order of Melchizedek”, reminiscent of the royal priesthood of David and the priesthood of Adam and the firstborns. And where the old liturgy was a sign of divine grace, the liturgy of our age is an effective cause of divine grace. If the priest obeys the liturgy that has been prescribed for his own rite and his own day, no amount of personal corruption can take away the sanctity of his work. This also means that there is no fundamental need for wars in the Holy Land or for "conquering" the Temple Mount by force. The Temple is already being built. Every time the faithful, after having been sacramentally cleansed of mortal sin through baptism or confession, participate in the Lord’s sacrifice by eating the body and drinking the blood of the Lamb, they themselves will inevitably become more and more the dwelling place of the Lord within the material creation.
Isn't it Yesu, the diminutive, so Josh? "Josh is the name above all names", sounds kind of odd though.
Only because of your own cultural background / upbringing where Josh was a pretty normal and non-reverent name, like how people like me one day realise there's a whole culture of people out there where Jesus is still a common and popular first name, instead of something reserved for a religious figure.
I live in one of those cultures and have several coworkers named Jesus. But some names have different associations. It is like "Todd, The Necromancer!" Vs "Evelyn the sorceress". Jesus is a serious and competent embedded c++ programmer. Josh is a goofy guy in accounting.
The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.
What denominations do that? I'm familiar with Hebrew Roots, but doesn't seem to be what you're describing.
There are essentially two completely different movements claiming the name of "Messianic Judaism." The first are people who are Jewish- culturally, ethnically, and even religiously, who have converted to Christianity and believe that all other Jews should do the same. There is a small pocket of Messianic Jews of this definition in my hometown, so this is the version I was most familiar with.
It wasn't until later that I learned that there is a second, much more popular movement under the name of Messianic Judaism which are people who are not ethnically or culturally Jewish who have determined that Christianity should return to its Jewish roots. These people have no historical connections to Judaism and usually grew up within a Christian cultural context. There is a lot of overlap with the "Hebrew Roots" movement that you mentioned, and in my opinion there isn't a real distinction between the two.
Myself I feel kind of biased but I view the first kind as more "legitimate" since Judaism, isn't merely a religion, it's a living, breathing culture and it is super weird for someone to just roll up and claim it without having any connection to anyone who was doing it before. It's like if I decided I was going to be Indian and started wearing stereotypical Indian traditional dress and eating only curry because I think that's what Indians eat, without having any actual Indians in my movement.
I agree that ethnic Jews with Christian religious beliefs is a legitimate concept. But I would rather call them Messianic Jews (or just Christian Jews) rather than adherents of "Messianic Judaism." To say that "Judaism" can include Jesus erases the Jewish religion by leaving it without a name, conveniently benefiting the dominant Christian religion. (And Messianic Jews who are not Jews should be called something else entirely.)
Presumably that's a reference to the GP describing "Messianic Jewish". (or rather, Messianic Judaism)
> It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a sect of Christianity,[2][3] including by all major groups within mainstream Judaism, since Jews consider belief in Jesus as the Messiah and divine in the form of God the Son (and the doctrine of the Trinity in general) to be among the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. It is also generally considered a Christian sect by scholars and other Christian groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism
So are they claiming that Messianic Jews are not actually Jews? Because they implied that people were falsely taking the title Jew if I understood them correctly. That would be the first time I've ever heard that particular assertion.
Yes and that was what I was saying (sorry it wasn't clear).
What it means to be a Jew is complicated. Jews form an ethnicity of interconnected people with a range of beliefs and practices (it is, definitionally, not whether one is religiously adherent to Judaism). To me, one could in principle be religiously Christian and also ethnically Jewish (that's an unusual view among Jews), but to do that requires having an actual connection to the Jewish ethnicity (e.g. if one was raised ethnically Jewish and maintains a Jewish identity). My impression is that "Messianic Jews" are religiously and ethnically Christian who are importing Jewish practices into their otherwise non-Jewish identity. If OP's wife was born Jewish or converted prior becoming a "Messianic Jew," I would stand corrected.
If I, a very white person, start singing songs from Back churches, that doesn't make me Black. I wouldn't face the real-world struggles against racism of Black people, for example, and I think that's a useful hint when thinking about who is and isn't a member of a minority group like Jews. Likewise, acting out Jewish practices doesn't necessarily make one a Jew, and as one example it doesn't subject one to the sorts of anti-Semitism faced by Jews. I'm not saying facing anti-Semitism a necessary or sufficient condition for being a Jew, but if not that, then there must be something else that connects one to the Jewish ethnicity --- the interconnected people who believe they are Jews --- other than just by saying so.
Israel doesn’t allow Messianic Jews to be citizens for this reason.
So I'm confused--are you saying that Israel thinks Messianic Jews are not Jews because they abandoned their faith or something like that, OR are you saying that Israel doesn't let Messianic Jews to be citizens because sometimes non-Jews convert to become Messianic Jews?
Israel basically sees them as evangelizing Christians in disguise. They don’t consider them Jewish because they both proselytize and worship Christ as the Messiah. Both of those things are offensive to the traditional tenets of Judaism.
It sounds like a variation of a - not so much that they abandoned their faith, per-se, but that the faith they espouse as being Jewish is not acceptably ‘in the same room’ as other Jewish faith.
It would be somewhat like saying you were a Messianic Christian because you believed that Mohammed was a later prophet. There is a word for that kind of religion, and it isn’t Christianity.
Some of the latin text is on the Wikipedia page [1]. Hopefully it will be updated to include more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_silver_inscription
One of the references on the wikipedia page seems to have a full transcription (along with German translation):
https://archaeologisches-museum-frankfurt.de/index.php/de/?v...
I personally cannot make heads or tails of the script used in the various images, but it seems about right.
(Note that V and U are generally used interchangeably in Latin, since they were the same character. Same with I / J.)
> I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent,
That taboo already existed even before the New Testament was written. The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Old Testament, was written around 260 BC and uses this convention, translating the Lord's name as "kyrios"- "Lord." The authors of the New Testament itself extensively quote this translation, and firmly established this convention within Christianity as well, especially because most Christian converts wouldn't know Hebrew or be expected to learn Hebrew to hear (remember that literacy rates were very low in this era compared to now) Jewish scriptures in their own languages.
Speaking of literacy, I notice that the Latin of this inscription is very messy. I don't know much Latin myself, but the handwriting is terrible, to the point where I wonder if the maker of this scroll was only semi-literate.
> I notice that the Latin of this inscription is very messy
To a modern eye (like mine), other examples of Roman cursive look hard to read as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cursive
The examples on that page are way cleaner and easier to read than the scroll inscription. The letters in the scroll are not written consistently, and even the size of the letters changes dramatically as the inscription goes on.
> only semi-literate
Seems very possible when you consider that this is before the Roman Aristocracy decided to muscle in on the action and take over the church. Many of the original disciples and apostles were semi-literate working class types from the north country (see “nothing good could ever come from Nazareth”) and Paul, the one who wrote the most (but even then likely dictated a lot of it) was a late addition to the team. Sure he recruited a bunch of possibly “middle class” tradesmen and business owners to set up churches in their homes (Priscilla and Aquila, famously) but it was still mostly an underground movement among the slave and worker classes before Constantine decided he could put it to his own use.
> and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
Just wondering what is the "plenty of extra-biblical evidence"?
Good point, I didn’t fact check that part, I probably mixed up hazy memories of some other incidents I read about in the Didache and other early church writings. Wikipedia says there’s no evidence outside of Luke’s and Paul’s own words (Acts and Galatians respectively) and since Luke was hanging out with Paul for a lot of that time (see all the times Acts switches between “he” and “we”) we could be skating on thin ice as far as actual textual evidence goes. Good spot, thanks for calling me out.
> "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
Could you expand on that? Is there any specific reference to the book of Isaiah, and is "holy" (AGIOS in the Latin of the scroll) a good translation of the Hebrew word?
Agios- direct transliteration from the Greek "'άγιος" which is the exact term used in Isaiah 6:3 in the popular Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. If not a "good" translation, it's certainly an old one, being the word Christians and Jews in that part of the world would have been familiar with in the Book of Isaiah for hundreds of years before this amulet was made.
In defense of the Septuagint, there are several places where the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with it against the Masoretic Text.
yes i second this. whoever states "it not a good translation", define what "good" is supposed to be, what is your standard? I believe LXX is written by those who actually lived the faith and are closer to the story. MT on the other hand is penned down by those who had a strong incentive against the Christians.
> the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent
Perhaps, but in this Latin inscription we have Jesus being referred to as "IHS XP" - a Greek(!) abbreviation of Jesus Christ, so not avoiding his name altogether.
Inhumation isn't exclusively christian where did you even come up with that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9An%C4%9Btice_culture#Buri...
Didn’t come up with it, didn’t claim it. Where did you come up with the idea that I said it was exclusive to Christianity?
Disposing of the dead via burning or burial was an evolution means to protect your community from epidemics. Ancient generations didn't know about the of details of viruses and bacterium. All they learned through out the years was, _if you remove the dead there is a better chance of the community staying healthy_.
Religion latched onto which ever means of disposing of their dead the locals already performed. No different than how religion took over local customs and traditions to help bring in more people into their fold.
Communities that didn't properly dispose of their dead would of experience a net-positive when pushed to follow a religious which their funeral tradition helps prevent epidemics. Those people would most likely of uplifted the religion when they though divine intervention reduced their epidemics. In reality, it was as laws of physics reducing the propagation of contagions.
Fun fact, disposal via vulture consumption is another good means to contain contagions. Their digestive system is like battery acid and kills mostly everything. Natures evolutionary animal that assists with preventing epidemics. A natural wake.
You wrote "one could infer that this is an indicator of Here Be Christians".
The local pre-Christian burial custom was burning, but other cultures in far-off places still buried their dead. So while Christianity isn't exclusive in its use of burial, it was supplanting religious customs that did not include burial throughout northern Europe.
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there might be even older evidence lurking if the following is true: "Jesus was Julius Divius"
https://www.carotta.de/eindex.html
There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure, so the book referred here is probably fiction.
> There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure
It's fair to say that there is general consensus amongst Biblical scholars that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. Calling it a scientific consensus is a bit of a stretch though. As far as I'm aware there's zero scientific evidence for His existence. Just that the surviving textual evidence makes little sense if He didn't.
I've always heard it as there's enough textual/historical evidence for Jesus (Josephus, etc) that if we didn't count that as proof of his historical existence that would raise the bar high enough to remove hundreds of other historical figures.
There's a ton of textual evidence for the existence of Santa Claus.
Correct, he lived in Turkey around the late third-early fourth century.
Pretty sure he lived in Anatolia or the Roman empire. There was no 'Turkey' to live in around the late third century.
He can't have lived in the Roman Empire, because those are words written in English, a language that didn't exist back then.
What's that? You meant, he lived within the bounds of the region that we call one thing, but would have been something else contemporaneously, but both refer to the same geographical location? Great, we agree he lived in Turkey.
One of the more interesting pieces of evidence in the Bible.
The Roman census that required every family go back to their hometown did not happen (why would it?). Romans kept very good records of censuses and such an event would be well covered.
So why does the Bible have this story? The best guess is that Jesus was well known to have come from Nazareth. Yet the older messianic texts say the Messiah would be from Bethlehem. The gospel author undoubtedly was trying to square that circle to make sure the prophecy was fulfilled. Something they'd not need to do if Jesus wasn't real. The author had to explain to people who had grandparents who knew him as being from Nazareth why that still jives with older prophecies.
Before you tie yourself in this knot it might be useful just to look and see if there was a Roman census in that time period:
"When I administered my thirteenth consulate (2 B.C.E.), the senate and Equestrian order and Roman people all called me father of the country, and voted that the same be inscribed in the vestibule of my temple"[0]
[0] http://classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html
Oh, I'm sorry I must not have been super clear.
That Rome did censuses and kept detailed records of the censuses is not in dispute. The thing that never happened is people making long trips to the ancestral lands.
The entire point of a census is to get an accurate population count for reasons of taxation and public spending. People uprooting to go to grandpa's home to be counted messes with that count. It's counter productive. Rome would never have required this and in fact would have tried to restrict travel during the census because they wanted an accurate population count.
The much more likely explanation is the author of Luke needed Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, which was problematic because Jesus was well known to be from Nazareth.
Here's a good article detailing those problems:
https://bam.sites.uiowa.edu/faq/can-you-explain-problem-cens...
I should note, this is not a controversial take.
That doesn't describe a census or anything like it. There is absolutely no evidence there was a census covering the Roman empire let alone the whole world (as actually stated in gLuke).
However, there was a census of Judea ordered by Quirinius when Herod Archelaus was kicked out in 6AD. And that makes sense because, prior to that time, Judea was a client state so Rome would not have directly taxed it. Once it became a province, it would be subject to direct taxation and, hence, would have needed a census to determine the taxable population.
So, by far the most likely scenario is that the author of gLuke was referring to this census but got his facts a bit wrong. He made way bigger whoppers than that one.
Just to be clear: there is no evidence of anything in the Bible. It's a collection of stories, opinions, lessons and prophecies.
That's too strong of language.
There's little evidence for a lot of the big claims (such as a global flood). However, there's quite a bit of evidence for people, places, and some of the events.
The bible is a collection of writings by multiple authors over almost a millennium. How accurate it is depends entirely on who is writing about what.
That's not "evidence". The bible mentions Babylon and Babylon existed, but the bible mentioning Babylon is no evidence of Babylon's existence. In this sentence, I'm mentioning the Sun, and it exists, but I provide no evidence whatsoever.
I may have misinterpreted what you are saying. When I read this
> there is no evidence of anything in the Bible
I interpreted it as you saying "Nothing in the bible has corroborating evidence". Not "the bible is not evidence for anything".
The bible mentions the sun and we have corroborating evidence that the sun does indeed exist. The bible's mention of the sun alone isn't evidence for it's existence.
That said, the bible does provide some soft evidence. Like I mentioned, the fact that Jesus probably existed isn't in that the bible says he existed, but rather the fact that the bible makes errors in his history likely to cover up well known facts about him at the time.
An example of 2 figures that likely didn't exist in the bible are Moses and Abraham.
> but rather the fact that the bible makes errors in his history likely to cover up well known facts about him at the time.
Out of curiosity what errors are you referring to?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42452217
why hold a specific set of writings to a different standard than other books from the same area and timeframe? all texts hold a non-zero evidential value regardless to how people treat those texts outside of academic processes. you don´t take them at face value of course but neither other texts.
> why hold a specific set of writings to a different standard than other books from the same area and timeframe?
I don't? I know more about the bible than other writings at the time just because of upbringing/curiosity but I don't particularly hold it in high regard.
> all texts hold a non-zero evidential value regardless to how people treat those texts outside of academic processes. you don´t take them at face value of course but neither other texts.
I agree. How strong the evidence for a writing will is will be based on corroborating evidence and other writings.
> dates back to approximately 230-270 CE
The nerve to use "Common Era" when specifically talking about the spread of christianity.
I can't even begin to tell you how hard I unexpectedly laughed at your comment denoting a perceived lack of respect using an extremely commonly accepted scientific dating measurement. Nothing negative noted about any other piece, just a single cherry picked highlight to allow you to demonstrate socially acceptable puritan outrage when given the chance, even on something as insignificant as following common scientific processes. Very culturally relevant. Thanks for the entertainment!
I had to faintly smile at „scientific dating measurement“. God bless you.
"He who testifies to these things says, ``Yes, I am coming soon.'' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
Interesting, but just an antiquated historical tidbit?
What relevance in an age when the moral high ground is now a weakness or, at best, simply an ineffective strategy?