[Bo]
Everyone - MOQ or not - agree about something big taking place
in Greece in the last centuries BC. ZAMM says it was the
Subject/Object Metaphysics. LILA ...? ...at least I interpret it as the
intellectual level emerging from the social, anyway it would be a
miracle if it hadn't an impact on the other shore.
[Krimel]
Certainly something happened in Greece. But you make it sound like some kind
of virgin birth where intellect sprang unheralded from the womb of society.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Prior to the invention of the
printing press knowledge grew incredibly slowly. The culmination of Greek
culture is Aristotle and Euclid both were not so much saying something
entirely new are summarizing, commenting and adding to the accumulated
efforts of those who preceded them. By 300 A.D. Greece had pretty much shot
its wad. That wad stuck in certain places, notably Roman where Greek culture
became the foundation of Roman efficiency.
The process of Greek disintegration began with the death of Alexander and
his legacy in the Middle East was the power struggle amongst his generals.
This is commemorated in the Apocrypha in the books of First and Second
Maccabees. They tell the story of Jewish conflict with their Greek
conquerors. The tale is commemorated by Jews today in the celebration of
Hanukah. Your contention that Jesus embraced or drew inspiration from either
the Greek or Roman conquerors is simply misguided.
As I have pointed out to you in the past Jesus statement about rendering in
unto Caesar was not necessarily an injunction toward doing one's civic duty.
The Roman coinage that bore Caesar's visage was anathema to the Jews who
believed that the land and its fruits belonged to God. The money changers in
the temple were in the Temple because Roman coins could not be used in the
sacred temple.
I think the real point here is that it is very difficult to draw definitive
conclusions about ancient writings, any ancient writing. We tend to read
them as though they were written yesterday by people whose understanding of
the world and language has some resemblance to our own. To understand what
ancient people were talking about requires enormous training and study. The
truth is that it is next to impossible to understand these ancient texts or
at least to understand what the authors were thinking about and what they
meant to say. I am deeply suspicious for example of Julian Jaynes analysis
of the ancient text as evidence for the "bicameral mind." It is very
interesting, stimulating and entertaining to read his analysis but I do not
find his conclusions especially convincing. I think Pirsig's analysis of
history suffers many of the same flaws and yours is utterly hopeless.
To belabor the point there is an even more central issue at stake here. That
is that the past is just as indeterminate as the future. We look to the past
as though it were fixed and knowable. And yet we find that the farther back
we look the greater looms the unknown; unknown cultural practices, unknown
ideologies, unknown conflicts, unknown subtleties of meaning. Saying that
ancients of any stripe were thus and so, is well and good but I think it is
wise to be dubious especially with regards to the era before the Greeks when
writings and evidence of any kind are both scarce and ambiguous.
[Bo]
It's well known that the Romans were indifferent, but executed Jesus to
"cater" for the Jewish high priests who were shaken by his revolt that had
too much "humanism at the cost of Law-ism" to be tolerated.
[Krimel]
That is the kind simplistic analysis one might get in the pews but it does
not really survive even casual scrutiny. The Romans did not "cater" to the
high priest. In fact they appointed the high priest and the high priest
catered to them. That was part of the conflict in Israel in the 1st century.
For a better picture of what was going on back then, the best original
source would be the writings of Josephus. He was a really interesting dude
and he spins these fabulous tales of life in Israel and Rome. You can get a
much better picture of the complexity of gospel times and the gospel
narrative from S.G.F. Brandon's "The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth" or John
Crosson's "The Historical Jesus." He offers a more condensed and readable
version in "Who Killed Jesus." Almost anything written by Elaine Pagels will
provide a lot of insight into the life and times of the ancient near east
especially with regards to Gnosticism and the Nag Hammadi library. Karen
Armstrong's "The History of God" is also well worth the effort.
Jesu, Maria, I am becoming David Morey...
[Bo]
Your intellect looks like "intelligence", while the MOQ sees it - for
instance - in Jesus' subjectivization of faith removed from the
objective politics ("give unto Caesar ...etc.".) You forced me to
read the said parts of the Bible and there's plenty wisdom, but
nothing that may be characterized as Q-intellectual quality.
[Krimel]
One of the ongoing debates in Jesus scholarship has to do with whether or
not Jesus actually offered up anything "new". Some of his best lines are
lifted from the Old Testament. For example his summary of the Law and the
prophets is, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself". This is a quote
from Leviticus and certainly has intellectual SOM overtones to it. The
Golden Rule itself seems to be a modification of this from the Apocryphal
Book of Tobit "And what you hate, do not do to any one." Again one hears SOM
reverberations.
[Bo]
> > Intellect had no impact on Judaism then (it's still impervious) nor on
> > the later Islam, and for 1.5 thousand years Christendom...
[Krimel]
> This is nothing more than hot air; ill informed and offensive hot air
> at that.
[Bo]
Offensive regarding who? I believe it's your intelligence-as-intellect
misunderstanding. It's a fact that even present day orthodox Jews
don't want any secular Israel and thus "support" Hamas in that
respect. And as said, the Muslim world's curse is their lack of the
intellectual value that makes for their notorious backwardness.
[Krimel]
Aside from being overtly anti-Semitic it echoes the kind of cultural
chauvinism one expects to hear from Platt and Ham. Pointing to extreme
orthodox Jews as representing Jewish imperviousness the intellect is a bit
like claiming the Pat Robinson represents all Christian thinking or that Bo
speaks for the MoQ.
Only the truly clueless would claim that the Muslim world is cursed with
lack of intellect. The Muslims were making advances in philosophy and
mathematics while Europeans were eating with their hands and fretting about
witches. Ever heard of Arabic numerals? The Renaissance you like to go on
about was touch off in part because the Crusaders picked up the Greeks from
the Arabs who had been studying and commenting on them for centuries.
Most of the anti-Muslim ranting that goes on in this forum is reminiscent of
American attempts to dehumanize the Japs and the Gooks and the Krauts and
the injuns, and the darkies and everyone else we have sought to slaughter
with a clear conscience.
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