Re: The Gospels

My Dear, Dear Jimmy,

Do you know what I hate about dating women? When they're losing an
argument, they change the subject, resort to insults, and bring up
irrelevant topics. Are you sure you're not a woman?

1) I stated from the beginning that I was only going to tackle one topic at
a time, the fish symbol. You keep throwing in everything but the proverbial
kitchen sink.

2) Why is my research "hack" and otherwise illegitimate while yours is
scholarly? Simply because mine disagree with you and yours supports your
belief? I would have though name-calling beneath you, but I guess not.

3) I've read if not the identical, then certainly similar things to what you
refer. I approached the topic years ago with a search for truth, no
hypotheses involved. Apparently, unlike you, I did not have a knee-jerk
opinion of scholars who disagree with church-sanctioned beliefs. My
opinions have been formed, not handed to me in Sunday school. I respect
those who disagree with me, but don't find it necessary to call down those
who believe in the type of Jesus I believe never existed.

4) As far as my sources not being "respected", I think that the Jesus
Seminar, made up of hundreds of the top Bible scholars in the entire world
garner some respect. They consider the Gospel of Thomas and the Secret
Gospel of John to be older and closer to the original Jesus than the 4
canonicals, and they're both gnostic texts.

Now stop being so bigoted against those who disagree with you.
tina

>Responses below:
>
>tina carson wrote:
>
>>>
>>>1. Suppose, for just the reasons given in my last post, Christians wanted
>>>to adopt the Fish symbol. Is it possible to draw a simple icon of a fish
>>>without using an ascending and descending arc? Are you prepared to say
>>>that everyone throughout western history who has used the fish as a
>>>symbol has been influenced by Pythagorean thought? In other words, why
>>>isn't it possible for Christians to adopt a fish icon without making any
>>>reference to Pythagorean symbolism? Suppose one early Pythagorean
>>>Christian invented the symbol and everyone else just happened to like it,
>>>without knowing its meaning to Pythagorean thought?
>>
>>
>>Not really, Jim. You see, hmmm.... All right, how's this for an
>>analogy? Suppose you and I started our own religion today, here in
>>America. If we chose the cross as our symbol, is it possible to come up
>>with that and not have any connection to reference to Christianity? Not
>>bloody likely. If we put a line across the top & bottom like a capital I
>>with a crossing line through the middle, then maybe. Likewise, if they
>>had simply closed the tail with a straight line down the back, or if the
>>fish were facing the other way, or... But no, it IS the gnostic symbol.
>
>
>That's only assuming that the fish as a Pythagorean symbol was as widely
>distributed across Greek and Roman culture as the cross is across western
>civilization -- which it wasn't. I'm not denying that the fish is a
>gnostic symbol, I'm just questioning if it has to be seen exclusively as a
>gnostic symbol.
>
>>>2. I think it you look at religions with paired male/female deities, or
>>>religions with female deities, and compared them to Christianity across
>>>the boards, you'd find they were so incompatible that this kind of
>>>dependence is very unlikely.
>>>
>>
>>Huh? Don't get your point here. The gender of the deity means relatively
>>little if you're talking about religious comparisons.
>
>
>That's only because you really don't know anything about religions in
>antiquity beyond what you read in books written by hack scholars. There
>are significant differences in the role and treatment of women (usually
>better in the male monotheistic religions) between male monotheistic
>religions and religions with male/female paired deities, or just female
>deities. There are significant theological differences as well. It's
>almost like breathing a different atmosphere.
>
>The Golden Bough by James Frazer is pretty interesting in this regard.
>It's hardly up to date scholarship, but provides some interesting examples.
> He relates how one city given to the worship of Artemis, I think, used to
>have virgins present themselves to the temple the day before their wedding,
>where they would be sold as prostitutes to anyone who came by. Now if you
>think this at all is compatible with Christianity, you don't know much
>about either pagan worship or Christianity. While not every pre-Christian
>religion had these characteristics (though I think the Pythagoreans had
>their own weird practices), most were similarly incompatible with
>Christianity.
>
>There's a wealth of evidence to the contrary of what you're saying, Tina --
>you didn't address Paul's anti-gnostic polemic, or the anti-gnostic polemic
>in the epistles of John, nor can you account for the anti-gnostic polemic
>in the earliest of the church fathers.
>
>Here's a great quotation for you from the Gospel of Thomas, part of the NH
>scrolls:
>
>>114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't
>>deserve life."
>>
>>Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may
>>become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes
>>herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."
>>
>
>Wonderful, isn't it? Totally different from the NT, which says that "there
>is neither male nor female in Christ" (Gal 3) and that "In the Lord, man is
>not independent of woman or woman independent of man" (1 Cor. 11, I
>think). Other Christian pseudepigrapha has stories about Christ as a kid
>making clay pigeons come alive to impress his friends, and killing another
>kid for bumping into him (yes, I have translations of all this stuff on my
>shelf).
>
>There's good reason these documents were rejected by the church, Tina. I
>wonder if you've read them yourself and really compared them to the NT.
>I'm not saying they're unimportant historically, but they certainly don't
>support your thesis.
>
>
>>>Honestly, tina, if this is the best you can do you really have nothing at
>>>all. Have you ever read Umberto Eco's _Foucault's Pendulum_? Numbers
>>>can be made to mean anything -- it's very dangerous to go beyond a very
>>>few basic numbers that obvious recur (7 and 3 and 12 are easy ones in the
>>>NT. 153 is not).
>>>
>>>Now, assuming this story was originally Pythagorean, since it only occurs
>>>in one Gospel, how do you know this was evidence of widespread Christian
>>>Gnosticism and not evidence of a later gnostic interpolation, or evidence
>>>of gnostic influences on the author of that one Gospel, or just sheer
>>>coincidence? All three equally explain the evidence we have -- why do
>>>you choose one explanation above all others as true without doubt?
>>
>>
>>This was, as I stated earlier, only one example. I didn't want to drag
>>out every example as I didn't want to write a textbook. There are many
>>examples, especially in the Nag Hammadi scrolls, of Jesus and his
>>followers as being gnostic. I mention the Nag Hammadi scrolls because in
>>several instances they have an expanded versions of passages in the 4
>>canonical gospels that show the gnostic origin of these passages. I was,
>>as stated, only concentrating on the fish symbology.
>
>Ok, but you still haven't given me reasons to trust the Nag Hammandi
>scrolls over the NT documents. I asked this quite some time back, and
>still nothing.
>
>>>Furthermore, this whole nonsense about the texts all being edited the
>>>same way is simply impossible. There are literally thousands of copies
>>>and fragments of the NT from Spain to the Middle East to the Northern
>>>coast of Africa from antiquity, in addition to citations by the church
>>>fathers. It's literally impossible for all of them to have been edited
>>>the same way. There wasn't a monolithic religious authority governing
>>>the entire region until well after the NT period, even this authority
>>>didn't have the ability to account for every manuscript, and it
>>>eventually divided into an Eastern and Western segment, making the
>>>exercise of a single authority over the entire Mediterranean region
>>>impossible.
>>>
>>
>>I never said that they were edited in the same way, only that if they were
>>aware of the gnosticism included they would have. A nasty speculation on
>>my part.
>
>
>That's what I meant by "edited the same way" -- removal of all gnostic
>references. It's an impossibility no matter what you claim for the reasons
>I've given. The mere existence of the NH documents is proof that even if
>an attempt was carried out all across the Roman Empire (or what was left of
>it), not everyone would have cooperated. Since we simply don't have NT
>texts that show this kind of excised material, it's most reasonable to
>assume they never existed.
>
>>>This is all very well known history that your sources choose to ignore.
>>>They're hacks telling you what you want to believe, Tina, but not
>>>scholars.
>>>
>>>Jim
>>
>>
>>Name calling is not an argument. Just because you don't agree with my
>>point doesn't mean my sources are any less scholarly than yours. Do you
>>have sources, by the way? You've not really made a point on your own,
>>only refuted mine by saying "that's not true". It is possible for 2
>>highly qualified scholars to disagree, you know.
>>tina
>
>
>I'm doing a lot more than name calling, Tina. I've given you specific
>historical data that's not disputed (such as the number of fragments of the
>NT texts and their wide geographical dissemination) and calls into question
>the claims you're making. I don't consider myself a highly qualified
>scholar, but I'm pretty certain your sources -- if you're reflecting them
>accurately at all -- are not either. I have read qualified scholars from
>Jewish and Christian backgrounds, and liberal and conservative scholars in
>both camps (with a little bit of Islamic scholarship in there too, but much
>less), so I am familiar with the types of arguments I'm seeing you repeat,
>and that they're not respected among those who study these things.
>
>You might as well be reading Chariot of the Gods. Or comic books.
>
>Jim
>
>
>-
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Received on Wed Aug 6 16:52:01 2003