For anyone interested, my view of the Gospels is that these texts reflect the first century AD environment in which they were written. Duh, what else is new?
Well, what this means is that they were not timeless compositions which can be read with zero comprehension of the history of that era, from roughly 75 AD for the first, Mark, to ca. 95 AD for the last, probably John -although maybe Luke is a little older. The miracle stories reflect the beliefs common in those years. This does not mean that all miracle stories are fictions. But my supposition is that most were borrowings from "Pagan" (Greco-Roman, Persian, or Egyptian) sources even if some do indicate that some kind of supernatural event was involved. Or some historical event even if a story was embellished by the writer. I've seen / witnessed / experienced too many strange occurrences in my life to dismiss all miracle stories as false. I remain skeptical, to be sure, but some miracle stories in the Gospels simply cannot be taken at face value, like Matthew 27: 52 - 53, about a mass resurrection at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. That particular story, as I see it, is as untrue as anything gets. Indeed, I wonder if "Matthew" (whomever wrote this gospel in the first place) actually penned this little tale at all; maybe it was added later by an early scribe. Some stories seem to me to be based squarely on facts even if the telling was framed in such a way that a particular type of reader would understand it mytho-poeticially and interpret it in terms of his or her extant faith. Like the story of the beheading of John the Baptist. Could be that he was beheaded. He was killed by the authorities at the time indicated, this is clear enough, but there is no independent confirmation that his head was severed from his body. Still, the writer had to have known -because Orphism as a popular mystery religion in those years- that some of his readers would be Orphics. Hence, what better way to reach them than with a story about a beheading? Orpheus was beheaded, his cranium set afloat on he Aegean Sea -where it washed ashore, singing all the time, on the island of Lesbos. The island, at that time, either had no connection with female homosexuality or only a tenuous connection due to ancient era smears of Sappho. Scholars now know that the three poems what indicate some kind of perverse sexuality are all forgeries. Anyway, Orpheus was also a well known prophet; it would have made sense for a gospel author to want to say, in effect, "here was John the Baptist, also a prophet, like Orpheus, only John was greater." What is especially interesting to me are Gospel references to the Goddess Isis even if never by name. But sometimes exact names are not necessary to get the point across. Like "Queen of the South." That phrase could have one of several meanings, including what Matthew 12 emphasizes, the Queen of Sheba, but also very popular was use of the phrase to refer to Isis, or to the incarnation of Isis, namely any of several queens in Egypt called Cleopatra. Take the story of the Samaritan woman. You can look at it as timeless or as a tale with an historical context. Actually it is both, considering that the story is excellent and has a message that can reach people of all eras, but there decidedly is an historical dimension and to overlook it would be ill-advised. Consider the woman's 5 husbands and her live-in boyfriend. Although this is not 100% certain, the historical number may be lower than 5, this seems to be a clear allusion to the famous Cleopatra and her legal husbands of the past, plus Marc Anthony. In which case the story in John's Gospel is partly related to Isis religion and to the recent history of Egypt and its rebellion against Rome, which would tie in nicely with Matthew 12 where, at the Advent, with Jesus would be the "men of Nineveh" and the Queen of the South, viz, Cleopatra or a stand-in for her, plus, presumably, a force of Egyptians. My view follows John Dominic Crossan is some ways, namely, that at the outset Jesus was like Gandhi, entirely peaceful. Then followed a time when it seemed that there would be an armed insurrection; this ended with Jesus' arrest and crucifixion. Indeed, it may have ended before, in the Garden of Gethsemane, but do keep in mind that there are several "sword verses" in the Gospels, not just one verse about perishing by the sword, and the other verses tell us that some number of the Disciples were, in fact, armed. Why? For no reason? Or was there a strong reason, namely, possible insurrection? For sure the early Christians came to the conclusion that a rebellion against Rome was not a good idea, Jesus may well also have reached this conclusion before his death, and in any case, the Church, from almost the beginning of the Church, became generally opposed to violence, certainly against political violence. But there are strong indications that there was a period when Jesus thought that maybe the best course of action would be an alliance between Jews and Persians and Egyptians. Re-read Matthew 12: 41-42 and you just may get the idea. For "men of Nineveh" (Assyrians) substitute people who now controlled Assyria, the Persians. In so many words, the Gospels are filled with references to the history of religion of the first century AD and to the wars and politics of those years. Sorry if history doesn't interest you all that much, but my view is that if you don't have a working knowledge of the period from about 30 AD until roughly 100 AD you can't possibly understand even half of these four special 'books.' Billy -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
