Catholics Don't Exemplify Christianity...

[Ravi]

As you are not Catholic, then Catholic commitments do not bind you.

Bingo!

 

[TrinityPower]

Good Lord Woman!! I know where I was married. What exactly is your beef with me anyway?

 

[Disir]

Ok hold on...I haven't even read the rest of your post yet, although I am looking forward to the entertainment value. The Temple was not destroyed in an effort to eradicate Judaism and establish paganism among the Jews. It was destroyed as a "fuck you" to the Jews for rebelling. As I said...the Roman's didn't give a fuck so long as the Jews paid their taxes and didn't start shit. Well guess what....they started shit, didn't they? And the Romans did what the Romans did best. They said "oh...you are going to get bitchy, well how do like THAT mother fucker?"

I never claimed otherwise. You're making shit up. The point was: who had it built?

Wait...wait...wait!!!!! Are you suggesting that the Romans built the Temple of Jerusalem or any part of it?!?!?!?!? This just keeps getting better and better!!! It would have desecrated the Temple for a Roman or any non-Jew to have any part of that at all including funding it!!!! This is precisely why Pilate met with the Sanhedrin on neutral ground. His mere presence in the Temple would desecrate it and if they went inside his palace they would desecrate themselves. This is why money had to be changed out during Passover...so Roman coins would not desecrate the treasury. OMFG what a total dolt!

It was built by priests and the architectural designs were Roman and Greek---as were all of his buildings, aqueducts and the port. He was made a vassal king--via the Senate. All he had to do was to pay taxes directly to Rome. And petition if any moves were made to place anything that interfered with Jewish law. He wasn't well liked as he was primarily considered too Roman and his buildings were too Hellenized and, of course, the taxes which cause many people to sell their ancestral land. But he built more than anyone for both ego and to appease.

Ok now where was I? Oh yes.....

Lack of literacy =/= lack of textuality.

Ahem....so you are suggesting that while there were virtually no schools and only 3% of the population could read and they were the rich, that Jewish peasants were well versed in the classics (Homer, Plato, etc). How? Who is going to teach it to them? Or are you suggesting that the family would get up at sunrise, go out and tend the fields or lay brick, or whatever...work all day long, come home, have a meal, and then with the small amount of time they had before it was time to go to bed, Dad (a Jewish peasant with no education) would sit the kids down and start teaching them Plato. He wouldn't teach them Jewish history. He wouldn't teach them Torah. he wouldn't teach them stuff that had real impact in their lives or had to do with their own culture...no...he would teach them Greco-Roman culture. The culture of the occupiers. The traditions of the occupiers. Dad, the uneducated, Jewish peasant was teaching them advanced Greco-Roman philosophy.

Good Lord! I am wondering just how far you will go to defend this little fantasy of yours. I would suggest you have been brainwashed but a pre-requisite for that is a brain.

First of all, you have at best a guestimation for 3%. It is disputed and utilizing sources that simply repeat the same arguments advanced by the primary authors does not advance your cause. Second you are trying to equate school with literacy because you can't manage to think of this era beyond the world that you live in today. The underlying theory here is that writing requires an organizational thought process that would be considered intellectually superior to the knowledge that was known at that time. I say that specifically because the later arguments proposed are that one could read but not write.
Greco-Roman philosophy is only considered advanced NOW. Why? Because you don't have daily contact in any recognizable form. It isn't necessary for dear old dad to crack books open after dinner. By your standards these people are one step shy of drooling idiots.

So, we know that that these people are not as isolated as you make them out to be. They could speak more than one language and would have encountered this language continuously. Speaking a language is vastly different from the rules for writing. We also know that there were Jewish-Greek marriages and divorces. We have established contact via occupying forces, trade, markets, marriage, pilgrimages, travel etc.

Look-wealth allows privacy and distance. Not "poverty".

Most of it is psuedepigraphy. Scholars still accept the undisputed epistles of Paul as being authentic. At the very least they appear strongly to have been written by the same guy where the Pastoral Epistles and the others clearly were not.

Regardless, this does nothing to establish your claim that Catholicism is the original form of Christianity. Catholicism was defined according to the Church under Constantine and subsequent Emperors. Yet the New Testament as we know it today is what they endorsed. If they are all pseudepigraphic, as you claim, and are completely historically inaccurate as you seem to be implying, then what you are saying is that Catholicism got it totally wrong because Catholic doctrine is based in large part on those books. If Catholicism got it wrong, then it means is is in contrast to what the disciples believed and taught, meaning it was not the original form of Christianity.

All of it is psuedepigraphy. I can find an equal amount if not more scholars that support that. You don't have any disciples. You don't have any of that. No historical Jesus. Nada. Peter travels from Antioch to Rome for Rome to be considered a higher rank. There is no Peter. Constantine added militarism and nationalization. Catholicism was already in existence. The arguments are Greek arguments. You don't have any disciples to contrast......at all. They don't exist. They most definitely are historically inaccurate.

Allegorical. Clement and Origen.

It isn't that Catholicism is wrong -by your standards. Transubstantiation, the Doctrine of Trinity, and the form and function are all there.

You desperately need that fabrication. Trinity desperately needs that fabrication. It is only in that fabrication that you can attempt to concoct any difference at all. You need Catholicism to be wrong. It would take too much effort to develop and discuss alternative ideas independently--past or present.

Pick up a book outside of the bible.

 

[BluePhantom]

It was built by priests and the architectural designs were Roman and Greek---as were all of his buildings, aqueducts and the port. He was made a vassal king--via the Senate. All he had to do was to pay taxes directly to Rome. And petition if any moves were made to place anything that interfered with Jewish law. He wasn't well liked as he was primarily considered too Roman and his buildings were too Hellenized and, of course, the taxes which cause many people to sell their ancestral land. But he built more than anyone for both ego and to appease.

So he built Greek style complexes. So what? He was an Arab and Edomite and he was rich. He was a Roman ass-kisser who wanted to show he was just as good as them. What the hell does that have to do with what the common Jew knew about Greek philosophy? NOTHING!

First of all, you have at best a guestimation for 3%. It is disputed and utilizing sources that simply repeat the same arguments advanced by the primary authors does not advance your cause. Second you are trying to equate school with literacy because you can't manage to think of this era beyond the world that you live in today. The underlying theory here is that writing requires an organizational thought process that would be considered intellectually superior to the knowledge that was known at that time. I say that specifically because the later arguments proposed are that one could read but not write.
Greco-Roman philosophy is only considered advanced NOW. Why? Because you don't have daily contact in any recognizable form. It isn't necessary for dear old dad to crack books open after dinner. By your standards these people are one step shy of drooling idiots.

I would say that most people today are one step shy of drooling idiots (and you are doing little to dispel that opinion) and they are far more educated than people in antiquity. So what does that make them? People know about what is important to them. That is the same today as it was in antiquity. What was important to Jews under Roman rule was survival and Torah. THAT is what they focused on. Greek philosophy had no value nor application for them.

The 3% is not a guesstimation. Herzer's work is recognized as among the most comprehensive studies of ancient Jewish literacy ever performed. She didn't just pull that out of her ass. But even if we give her a standard 5% margin of error, the best that could be asserted is 8% MAYBE 10%

So, we know that that these people are not as isolated as you make them out to be. They could speak more than one language and would have encountered this language continuously. Speaking a language is vastly different from the rules for writing. We also know that there were Jewish-Greek marriages and divorces. We have established contact via occupying forces, trade, markets, marriage, pilgrimages, travel etc.

We know nothing of the sort. You have merely made that claim. If they spoke more than one language it would have been very rudimentary. For example, I can speak enough Spanish to make my desires and expectations known to my Spanish-speaking employees, but there is no way I could have an in-depth conversation with them on even a basic topic in Spanish, let alone write an entire book in Spanish. That would be the degree of command that most rural Jews had of Greek. They might be able to say "I will sell it to you for five bucks" but they sure aint going to be able to engage in discussion or write a book.

All of it is psuedepigraphy. I can find an equal amount if not more scholars that support that. You don't have any disciples. You don't have any of that. No historical Jesus. Nada. Peter travels from Antioch to Rome for Rome to be considered a higher rank. There is no Peter. Constantine added militarism and nationalization. Catholicism was already in existence. The arguments are Greek arguments. You don't have any disciples to contrast......at all. They don't exist. They most definitely are historically inaccurate.

OH! I get it now...you are a mythicist! Why didn't you just say that to begin with? Now I know what I am dealing with....which means we have just advanced to a new level of comedy from Dsir. So according to you...none of it existed. Jesus was a myth, Peter was a myth, blah, blah, blah. Even Bart fucking Ehrman (who is generally considered a religious antagonist) wrote an entire book saying essentially "ok, let's not go too far. The mythicist claims are bullshit too".

Scholarship overwhelmingly accepts the undisputed epistles of Paul as authentic. Paul writes that he was persecuting those who were preaching Christianity. Well that means SOMEONE was preaching it. Well who might that be? Who is going to make that up? See the problem with mythicism is that they don't understand how embarrassing Jesus was to the Jews. The Messiah got killed by the Romans?!?!? This is totally opposite of what the Messiah was supposed to do. The Criterion of Embarrassment gives a level of legitimacy to the historical Jesus because no Jew is going to make up a story about a Jewish Messiah who got killed by the Romans. On top of which, Polycarp apparently knew James, the brother of Jesus, and if James didn't have a brother named Jesus I imagine James would have been aware of that.

Sigh...mythicists are nearly as bad a fundamentalist Christians.

Pick up a book outside of the bible.

Maybe you should take your own advice, because almost every major assertion you have been made has been totally wrong.

 

[Disir]

So he built Greek style complexes. So what? He was an Arab and Edomite and he was rich. He was a Roman ass-kisser who wanted to show he was just as good as them. What the hell does that have to do with what the common Jew knew about Greek philosophy? NOTHING!

You shouldn't have taken that detour.

I would say that most people today are one step shy of drooling idiots (and you are doing little to dispel that opinion) and they are far more educated than people in antiquity. So what does that make them?

That isn't even relevant. It's just you being a shmuck and making an attempt to take another detour.

We know nothing of the sort. You have merely made that claim. If they spoke more than one language it would have been very rudimentary. For example, I can speak enough Spanish to make my desires and expectations known to my Spanish-speaking employees, but there is no way I could have an in-depth conversation with them on even a basic topic in Spanish, let alone write an entire book in Spanish. That would be the degree of command that most rural Jews had of Greek. They might be able to say "I will sell it to you for five bucks" but they sure aint going to be able to engage in discussion or write a book.

Sure we do. Here since you can't manage to see beyond the world you currently live in:
Just over half of Europeans (54%) are able to hold a conversation in at least one additional language, a quarter (25%) are able to speak at least two additional languages and one in ten (10%) are conversant in at least three.

The five most widely spoken foreign languages remain English (38%), French (12%), German (11%), Spanish (7%) and Russian (5%). Almost everyone in Luxembourg (98%), Latvia (95%), the Netherlands (94%), Malta (93%), Slovenia and Lithuania (92% each), and Sweden (91%) are able to speak at least one language in addition to their mother tongue.

Countries where people are least likely to be able to speak any foreign language are Hungary (65%), Italy (62%), the UK and Portugal (61% in each), and Ireland (60%).
Most Europeans can speak multiple languages. UK and Ireland not so much News The Guardian

And for the bilingual/multilingual languages in India. Take note:
Wherever bilingualism has evolved in India, because of given socio-political and demographic reasons, it always has remained vibrant. People acquire bilingualism in these contexts from their early childhood. They do not have to go to school to learn to use two or more languages.
http://www.languageinindia.com/april2004/kathmandupaper1.html

4. 1. DEFINITION OF THE CONCEPT OF MULTILINGUALISM
HOW DOES MULTILINGUALISM DEVELOP?

Linguistic diversity -- multilingualism -- is, according to Mahapatra, found in most present-day nations (Mahapatra 1990: 1). In the Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (1996: 940), a multilingual person is defined as one "able to speak more than two languages with approximately equal facility". Kachru describes the same phenomenon as the "linguistic behavior of the members of a speech community which alternately uses two, three or more languages depending on the situation and function". (Kachru 1986a: 159).

According to Fasold (1984: 9), there are four different kinds of historical patterns that can lead to societal multilingualism. These patterns are migration, imperialism, federation and border area multilingualism. In this context, I will concentrate on the pattern of imperialism.

The subtypes of imperialism are colonization, annexation, and economic imperialism. Typical of imperialist processes is that relatively few people from the controlling nationality take up residence in the new area. Former British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch colonies in Africa, Asia and South America can serve as examples (ibid, 10).

Although relatively few people come to live in the subjugated territories, the language becomes very important in the territory (ibid, 10). Spolsky, too, remarks that the larger the scale of colonization from the homeland is, the more secure place the conquerors' language will be in the new land, although even a small ruling group may be able to maintain their language, provided they have contact with the homeland. Often in this case, the conquered people will be forced to learn the language of the conquerors (Spolsky 1978: 24).

In annexation and colonization, the imperialist language is likely to be used in government and education; in economic imperialism, the imperialist language is necessary for international commerce and finance: a foreign language will become widely used because of the economic advantage associated with it (Fasold 1984: 10).
Language in India

3. 2. THE THREE PHASES OF THE INTRODUCTION OF BILINGUALISM IN ENGLISH IN INDIA

According to Kachru, there have been three phases in the introduction of bilingualism in English in India. The first one of them, the missionary phase, was initiated around 1614 by Christian missionaries. The second phase, the demand from the South Asian public (in the eighteenth century) was considered to come about through local demand, as some scholars were of the opinion that the spread of English was the result of the demand and willingness of local people to learn the language. There were prominent spokesmen for English. Kachru mentions two of them, Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1833) and Rajunath Hari Navalkar (fl.1770). Roy and Navalkar, among others, were persuading the officials of the East India Company to give instruction in English, rather than in Sanskrit or Arabic. They thought that English would open the way for people to find out about scientific developments of the West. Knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic or of Indian vernaculars would not contribute to this goal (Kachru 1983: 67-68).

A letter of Raja Rammohun Roy addressed to Lord Amherst (1773-1857) from the year 1823 is often presented as evidence of local demand for English. Roy embraced European learning, and in his opinion, English provided Indians with "the key to all knowledge -- all the really useful knowledge which the world contains" (quoted in Bailey 1991: 136). In the letter, Roy expresses his opinion that the available funds should be used for employing European gentlemen of talent and education to instruct the natives of India in mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, and other useful sciences, which the natives of Europe have carried to a degree of perfection that has raised them above the inhabitants of other parts of the world (quoted in Kachru 1983: 68).

Roy's letter has been claimed to be responsible for starting the Oriental-Anglicist controversy, the controversy over which educational policy would be suitable for India. The third phase, the Government policy, begun in 1765, when the East India Company's authority was stabilized (Kachru 1983: 21-22). English was established firmly as the medium of instruction and administration. The English language became popular, because it opened paths to employment and influence (NEB 1974: 406). English of the subject Indians became gradually a widespread means of communication.

During the governor generalship Lord William Bentinck in the early nineteenth century, India saw many social reforms. English became the language of record of government and higher courts, and government support was given to the cultivation of Western learning and science through the medium of English. In this he was supported by Lord Macaulay (ibid, 403).
Language in India

You don't need to hold conversational Spanish. You hold all the cards. They need to be able to speak English. Their children will learn to read and write in English and they might learn to read and write in Spanish. They will speak Spanish. They will live in two worlds.

Kind of like you need to hold onto the concept of isolation for the pretense of authenticity.

OH! I get it now...you are a mythicist! Why didn't you just say that to begin with? Now I know what I am dealing with....which means we have just advanced to a new level of comedy from Dsir. So according to you...none of it existed. Jesus was a myth, Peter was a myth, blah, blah, blah. Even Bart fucking Ehrman (who is generally considered a religious antagonist) wrote an entire book saying essentially "ok, let's not go too far. The mythicist claims are bullshit too".

Scholarship overwhelmingly accepts the undisputed epistles of Paul as authentic. Paul writes that he was persecuting those who were preaching Christianity. Well that means SOMEONE was preaching it. Well who might that be? Who is going to make that up? See the problem with mythicism is that they don't understand how embarrassing Jesus was to the Jews. The Messiah got killed by the Romans?!?!? This is totally opposite of what the Messiah was supposed to do. The Criterion of Embarrassment gives a level of legitimacy to the historical Jesus because no Jew is going to make up a story about a Jewish Messiah who got killed by the Romans. On top of which, Polycarp apparently knew James, the brother of Jesus, and if James didn't have a brother named Jesus I imagine James would have been aware of that.

Sigh...mythicists are nearly as bad a fundamentalist Christians.

That's pretty easy to do when you utilize internal evidence as a benchmark. Paul wrote it because he said so and it's mentioned in this piece of psuedepigraphy. Helluva criteria "Scholarship" has set, doncha think? For a history teacher, and all?

You have no idea what I am about. Ehrman is only considered a religious antagonist because the man questioned it at all. Think about that. The man dared to question.

I like Ehrman. I don't agree with him in several areas and some of his arguments loop back to internal evidence. I have checked and I don't have to. I like to hear what he has to say. When he began the book (research) he had no prior knowledge of mythicists. So, for him these undertakings are quite often a journey. I like Philip Jenkins, Rubenstein, and Johnathan Sacks as well and all for a variety of reasons. These people are religious. We expect a certain amount of bias in many of these books and some of them are written for an audience that shares those beliefs. I also like Ramsay MacMullen, Peter Brown, Alan Cameron and a host of others.

The problem with Ehrman, and what "scholars" have become miffed about is that his bias is very evident and those that have striven very hard to remove bias from their works has now been called into question. Not to mention his one true Scotsman fallacy. So, some have taken him up.

You don't have any external evidence so the blah, blah, blah is on your end. What is wickedly funny in all of this is that your lack of evidence is what you and your pals Trinity and the OP have used as a weapon towards other denominations. Again. You need it. Not for any fruitful discussions of depth but for an attack.

Screw that.

Here have a myth:
Apollonius of Tyana