I think most of the rest of this was addressed in another post. Some responses
below.
tina carson wrote:
> My, Pat Robertson certainly converted you, didn't he?
No, I've just read more than one book about NT scholarship :) -- and have read
them from a number of different perspectives.
> If he was a king, yes, he was a threat to Rome.
I didn't disagree with this. I would say that Christ had no designs to usurp
the Roman Empire, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't be perceived as a threat.
In John 6, many Jews wanted to take him by force and make him king, but he
refused.
> And his kingdom wasn't on Earth because at the time it belonged to Rome.
He also said "the meek shall inherit the earth" -- not the people who take it by
force. There's quite a bit of the teachings of Christ that you have to toss to
accept a picture of Christ as a political revolutionary fighting Rome and
gathering Zealots, and I suspect the actual physical evidence supporting this
thesis is pretty slim.
That's generally the case in Biblical scholarship, you know.
> Why would Jesus tell them to buy swords?
Self defense. Turning the other cheek means not to return an insult. It
doesn't mean to let people kill you.
> Why would he say he is a lion?
Where did he say that? Quotation, please.
> Why would he say he's come to set the world afire?
This is a matter of the interpretation of teaching rather than physical fact. I
think if we want to have an intelligible discussion, we need to start with the
physical facts and move on from there -- what the texts actually say and don't
say, etc.
> Don't believe the Roman whitewash, look deeper, read more than the
> sanctioned material. "muck-raking" tina
Ok...if you're saying the Roman whitewash in the NT, this somewhat supports my
premise that early Christianity attempted to present itself as essentially
benign toward Rome -- not a threat, in other words. But you're arguing with
this point, it seems.
Jim
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Received on Thu Jul 24 23:47:45 2003
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