Another early legend about Jesus birth

by Leolaia 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  jst2laws

  Leolaia, I admire people like you and LittleToe. We might all be on the same road, but I have such a liberal view of Jesus I assume I do not qualify for the label of Christian any more. But I enjoy talking with thinking people who, despite facing the fabrications and fraud surrounding traditional Christianity, are willing to sift through the evidence and hang on to the real man and his teachings as far as we can ascertain them from the records we have today. (and that seems to be the most difficult task of the modern believer) I hope you continue such posts as this. LittleToe,

  It seems difficult for a true rationalist to maintain faith in Jesus, especially after debunking the myths just as we did the WT in our exit process.

  That statement seems to question the rationale of "believers", as if they haven't quite gone the full way in debunking.

  LittleToe

  Yeah, it does. But I said it is "difficult" for a rationalist to maintain faith, not impossible. I will have to address the issue of rationality in another thread. Meanwhile, please don't take my comments above as a slam on "believers". My comments were more of the bleating of a lost sheep who also wants to believe but finds the more he researches the less he has to hang on to. But you have to understand that comment, Ros, in the context of a fundamentalist American finally waking up. You know us western fundy's are nuts and need a good dose of reality. Love the new pic.

  Steve
• 

  toreador

  Thank you Leolaia! That was very interesting reading. I really appreciate your sharing of the things you are researching.

  Tor
• 

  maybesbabies

  LONGHAIRED RADICAL SOCIALIST JEW
  (THE GOSPEL SONG)

  Well, Jesus was a homeless lad
  With an unwed mother and an absent dad
  And I really don't think he would have gotten that far
  If Newt, Pat and Jesse had followed that star
  So let's all sing out praises to
  That longhaired radical socialist Jew

  When Jesus taught the people he
  Would never charge a tuition fee
  He just took some fishes and some bread
  And made up free school lunches instead
  So let's all sing out praises to
  That long-haired radical socialist Jew

  He healed the blind and made them see
  He brought the lame folks to their feet
  Rich and poor, any time, anywhere
  Just pioneering that free health care
  So let's all sing out praises to
  That longhaired radical socialist Jew

  Jesus hung with a low-life crowd
  But those working stiffs sure did him proud
  Some were murderers, thieves and whores
  But at least they didn't do it as legislators
  So let's all sing out praises to
  That longhaired radical socialist Jew

  Jesus lived in troubled times
  the religious right was on the rise
  Oh what could have saved him from his terrible fate?
  Separation of church and state.
  So let's all sing out praises to
  That longhaired radical socialist Jew

  Sometimes I fall into deep despair
  When I hear those hypocrites on the air
  But every Sunday gives me hope
  When pastor, deacon, priest, and pope
  Are all singing out their praises to
  Some longhaired radical socialist Jew.

  They're all singing out their praises to....
  Some longhaired radical socialist Jew.

  © 1996 Hugh Blumenfeld/Hydrogen Jukebox Music (ASCAP)
• 

  LittleToe

  Steve:

  Meanwhile, please don't take my comments above as a slam on "believers".

  It's ok. I can understand you slamming some believers, as they can come across as quite irrational and dogmatic. Bigotry is never pretty.

  My comments were more of the bleating of a lost sheep who also wants to believe but finds the more he researches the less he has to hang on to.

  I've had cause to pause and think where I'd be if I was coming from a position where I'd had no experiences, and only the rationale to assist. I find Paul's words to the Corinthians, regarding what Jews and Greeks were looking for, interesting in this regard.
  I wonder how they would approach the contents of this thread.

  I suspect it would be in much the manner of what we see in the various quotations.
  A full range from credulity through to the ludicrous.

  But you have to understand that comment, Ross, in the context of a fundamentalist American finally waking up.

  From one "previously fundamentalist", to another, I hear ya

  Love the new pic.

  Thanks - Liam is a wee darling, isn't he Every blessing, on "the journey",
  Ross.
• 

  Mulan

  We might all be on the same road, but I have such a liberal view of Jesus I assume I do not qualify for the label of Christian any more.

  Have to quote my brother again............"the worlds needs less Christians and more Christs".

  I do consider myself a Christian, not because I believe in the divinity of Jesus, because I don't. I believe he was a real person in history, but surrounded by legends and myths, and there are so many other similiar stories to his, like Horus, that Steve mentioned. I consider myself to be a Christian because I think the basic philosophy, with religious dogma removed, is good and worth following, such as love your neighbor as yourself, and other similar things................kindness included.

  I also like Dr. Phil, and think his philosophies are brilliant, but he isn't god. Maybe I am a "Philian".
• 

  Leolaia

  Also Ezekial 44:2 was interpreted as a prophey of her remaing physically virginal. "As regards this gate, shut is how it will continue. No mere man will come in by it; for the Lord the God of Israel has come in by it, and it must continue shut."

  Ah, there it is! That was the scripture I was trying to remember, thank you! I wonder if there was some literary connection between the concept of Mary's birth as painless and Gen. 3 -- under the view of Jesus as undoing the curse on humanity (as the "seed" of the woman), related perhaps also to the Pauline view of redemption. It would be odd tho to view Christ as the Second Adam but Mary, his mother, as the "Second Eve" -- tho Epiphanius placed Mary of Magdala (the other Mary) in this role. Coincidentally, tho, the antecedent of the Yahwist Eden story possibly viewed Eve as a creator goddess, along the lines of Aruru and Marduk with respect to Adapa.

  Leolaia
• 

  Leolaia

  Thank you, Steve, Mulan, toreador, Xena, LittleToe, et alia...

  Jesus did not just espouse a philosophy of social justice, it seems pretty clear that the ethics he taught was tightly bound to spirituality, living for the Kingdom and receiving the Kingdom was accepting the Father and approaching him as a child to "Abba" with the intimacy and spiritual closeness it brings. I think I agree with Thomas Sheehan that Jesus sought to undo organized religion, especially the Pharisiacal notion of God as remote and impersonal and only approachable by following ritualistic rules and supplication in the Temple. Jesus said, no, God's Kingdom can be in you and have "the immediate presence of God as a loving Father" (Sheehan, p. 60). Even those rejected by society as unclean, unworthy of approaching God in the Temple or be purified in ritual baths, they are closer to God than those who follow all the purity rituals but do not have an open heart.

  How ironic then that this is the basis that some have organized new religions that teach that for the vast majority of mankind, God is inaccessible and even access to Jesus requires the mediation of a human organization that requires you to follow all sorts of rules and "rituals" in order to be "approved" by God.