Essentially Essene
Matt Giwer
The Myth of Primitive Christianity
In spite of this fervent belief, there remains no evidence for such a
miraculous genesis, so scholars have been compelled to turn to the
white-robed Essenes as the wellspring of Christianity. Within this theory,
early Christianity was “pure” and “untainted” by corruption, which came only
after it was institutionalized as the Catholic Church. Massey describes the
“primitive Christianity” myth:
Another popular delusion most ignorantly cherished is, that there
was a golden age of primitive Christianity, which followed the
preaching of the Founder and the practice of his apostles; and that
there was a falling away from this paradisiacal state of primordial
perfection when the Catholic Church in Rome lapsed into idolatry,
Paganised and perverted the original religion ... Such is the pious
opinion of those orthodox Protestants who are always clamouring to
get back beyond the Roman Church to that ideal of primitive
perfection supposed to be found in the simple teachings of Jesus,
and the lives of his personal followers ... But when we do penetrate
far enough into the past to see somewhat clearly through and beyond
the cloud of dust that was the cause of a great obscuration in the
first two centuries of our era, we find that there was no such new
beginning, that the earliest days of the purest Christianity were
pre-historic ...
There is little foundation for the assumption of a peaceful, ideal
beginning, because from its inception “pure” Christianity was full of
bickering and power struggles, as reflected in the Epistles and Acts. In
fact, the Church started out in a contentious manner and continued in this
way for centuries, as is evidenced by the endless forged texts and bloody
battles over doctrine.
--
The conundrum of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is simple to state.
Is God circumcized?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4201
http://www.giwersworld.org/palestine/answers.phtml a9
Thu Oct 29 20:35:51 EDT 2009
Martin Edwards
> aka David walks the moors at midnight
>
> The Myth of Primitive Christianity
>
> In spite of this fervent belief, there remains no evidence for such a
> miraculous genesis, so scholars have been compelled to turn to the
> white-robed Essenes as the wellspring of Christianity. Within this theory,
> after it was institutionalized as the Catholic Church. Massey describes the
>
> Another popular delusion most ignorantly cherished is, that there
> was a golden age of primitive Christianity, which followed the
> preaching of the Founder and the practice of his apostles; and that
> there was a falling away from this paradisiacal state of primordial
> perfection when the Catholic Church in Rome lapsed into idolatry,
> Paganised and perverted the original religion ... Such is the pious
> opinion of those orthodox Protestants who are always clamouring to
> get back beyond the Roman Church to that ideal of primitive
> perfection supposed to be found in the simple teachings of Jesus,
> and the lives of his personal followers ... But when we do penetrate
> far enough into the past to see somewhat clearly through and beyond
> the cloud of dust that was the cause of a great obscuration in the
> first two centuries of our era, we find that there was no such new
> beginning, that the earliest days of the purest Christianity were
> pre-historic ...
>
> There is little foundation for the assumption of a peaceful, ideal
> bickering and power struggles, as reflected in the Epistles and Acts. In
> fact, the Church started out in a contentious manner and continued in this
> way for centuries, as is evidenced by the endless forged texts and bloody
> battles over doctrine.
>
to suggest it. Neither my teachers or anyone in my church were extreme
protestants. In fact they bent over backwards to be fair. My minister
even said that more united us than divided us, a classic example of the
wish being father to the thought. It was something I absorbed from the
culture. It was learning Greek (at 38) that piqued my curiosity, and
even then it took me years to stumble on the mythicist position.
Initially I was rather shocked.
--
As through this world I've rambled, I've met plenty of funny men,
Some rob you with a sixgun, some with a fountain pen.
Woody Guthrie
Matt Giwer
> Matt Giwer wrote:
>> aka David walks the moors at midnight
>>
>> The Myth of Primitive Christianity
>>
>> In spite of this fervent belief, there remains no evidence for such a
>> miraculous genesis, so scholars have been compelled to turn to the
>> white-robed Essenes as the wellspring of Christianity. Within this
>> theory, early Christianity was �pure� and �untainted� by corruption,
>> which came only after it was institutionalized as the Catholic Church.
>> Massey describes the �primitive Christianity� myth:
>>
>> Another popular delusion most ignorantly cherished is, that there was
>> a golden age of primitive Christianity, which followed the preaching
>> of the Founder and the practice of his apostles; and that there was a
>> falling away from this paradisiacal state of primordial perfection
>> when the Catholic Church in Rome lapsed into idolatry, Paganised and
>> perverted the original religion ... Such is the pious opinion of
>> those orthodox Protestants who are always clamouring to get back
>> beyond the Roman Church to that ideal of primitive perfection
>> supposed to be found in the simple teachings of Jesus, and the lives
>> of his personal followers ... But when we do penetrate far enough
>> into the past to see somewhat clearly through and beyond the cloud of
>> dust that was the cause of a great obscuration in the first two
>> centuries of our era, we find that there was no such new beginning,
>> that the earliest days of the purest Christianity were pre-historic
>> ...
>>
>> There is little foundation for the assumption of a peaceful, ideal
>> beginning, because from its inception �pure� Christianity was full of
>> bickering and power struggles, as reflected in the Epistles and Acts. In
>> fact, the Church started out in a contentious manner and continued in
>> this way for centuries, as is evidenced by the endless forged texts and
>> bloody battles over doctrine.
> Interestingly, I believed this as a teenager, though no attempt was made
> to suggest it. Neither my teachers or anyone in my church were extreme
> protestants. In fact they bent over backwards to be fair. My minister even
> said that more united us than divided us, a classic example of the wish
> being father to the thought. It was something I absorbed from the culture.
> It was learning Greek (at 38) that piqued my curiosity, and even then it
> took me years to stumble on the mythicist position. Initially I was rather
> shocked.
As if reflects upon my speculations I find no matter how clear it is
stories can be related to specific times and excluded from being older than
other times there "really was" an Israel that was much older. An "israel"
which contained the seeds of a future something or other that intangibly
passed its unexpressed essense from ancient times to modern. I have been
trying to coax the recent crop of believers into their verbalization of that
nebulous bullocks for months now to little success. They appear to know what
not to say.
Interestingly these things are very common and simple to invent when
dealing with the "supernatural." Bram Stocker did in fact invent the modern
vampire. He researched all the legends he could find that were in any way
related to the idea and then created his dramatic amalgam in Dracula. That
doesn't impact most people and they have no idea of the vastly different
"vampires" he collected including those who only lived for 40 days.
There is a similar example for us old farts and the youngsters can
easily verify it. Zombies. Before Night of the Living Dead they were living
people under the influence of some voodoo potion and did not eat people.
Today all zombies eat people. Thank Hollywood.
If people believe in some type of god renaming it and changing the
mythology around it is no more difficult than coming up with a popular, i.e.
entertaining, story with the changes.
I also find damn near all the OT apocrypha is taken as written in
the 1st and 2nd c. BC without objection while the "real" books in largely
the same style and subject matter have to be centuries older. It cannot be
that some old uninteresting story was given new life by a reimagining.
Speaking of reimagining, six weeks to Alice in Wonderland.
--
Religion puts food on the tables of priests. This
is the sole purpose of religion.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4186
http://www.giwersworld.org/disinfo/occupied-2.phtml a6
Fri Oct 30 07:31:24 EDT 2009
Matt Giwer
> Matt Giwer wrote:
...
>> There is little foundation for the assumption of a peaceful, ideal
>> beginning, because from its inception "pure" Christianity was full of
>> bickering and power struggles, as reflected in the Epistles and Acts. In
>> fact, the Church started out in a contentious manner and continued in
>> this way for centuries, as is evidenced by the endless forged texts and
>> bloody battles over doctrine.
> Interestingly, I believed this as a teenager, though no attempt was made
> to suggest it. Neither my teachers or anyone in my church were extreme
> protestants. In fact they bent over backwards to be fair. My minister even
> said that more united us than divided us, a classic example of the wish
> being father to the thought. It was something I absorbed from the culture.
> It was learning Greek (at 38) that piqued my curiosity, and even then it
> took me years to stumble on the mythicist position. Initially I was rather
> shocked.
I am not quite sure what you mean by the mythical position,
separated by a common language as we are. That and your tendency as well as
mine to type as we would speak rather than as we would write.
Despite the winner's tradition it appears the original argument was
not between incarnation and spiritual presence rather between real person
and never intended to be considered a real person. The "carnalizers" against
the Gnostics. If the Gnostics were still around they might could sue Jung as
they were talking about an archetype, the god within, the kingdom of heaven
within. But the point being the Gnostics were around in some form at least
since Serapis. But the carnalizers did a Living Dead, they reimagined an
older idea in a more popular form. This is not to suggest the Gnostics were
the "older" foundation as there is no suggestion they were ever connected at
any time.
The apparent indications of antiquity are really no more than
retelling ancient stories into more popular locally or empire wide form. In
the end it is no different from retelling the story of a hero from Hercules
to Die Hard.
I see only two possibilities. Humans are incredibly unimaginative in
not being able to come up with totally new stories or humans are entertained
by only a very narrow range of story types. The hero is of the story types.
Boys want to emulate them girls want to have their babies. One sells a king
by making him a hero king as your Shakespeare did so well despite what real
history might show. The hero can also be Conan who fights alone. As long as
the story of a hero is told any person can be advanced by it.
--
When one says there are people worse than he is, his is also say he is no
better than them.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4198
http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/ Antisemitism a10
Fri Oct 30 07:58:28 EDT 2009
Tiglath
Matt seems to think that Jews being quarrelsome is some kind of
news. Whether as first Christians or at any other time that has
never been news.
Has Giwer never heard of, "Two Jews, three opinions"?
Is he aware of the fractious politics of the tiny county called
Isreal?
Has he ever read Josephus?
Why do you have to keep molesting history groups, move on, man.
Spread your joy to other newsgroups, tour Usenet; we'll catch you
later. Go on an adventure. Now.
Matt Giwer
> Matt seems to think that Jews being quarrelsome is some kind of news.
> Whether as first Christians or at any other time that has never been news.
>
> Has Giwer never heard of, "Two Jews, three opinions"?
>
> Is he aware of the fractious politics of the tiny county called Isreal?
>
> Has he ever read Josephus?
Not so many days ago you were judging my knowledge of Jews by your
ignorance. Have you been studying?
What should give you a very big hint is that characteristics only
appear after the Judean appear in history in the 1st c. BC but not in the OT
stories. In those stories it is only a pissing contest between the priests
of the Yahweh cult and the people who would as soon kill them as listen to
them.
When there is real knowledge of the people from that region we learn
they were in fact followers of different gods which are perversely
translated as though they were all one god. It was always clear there were
different names but the religious tradition (and for no other reason) was
they were titles of the same god. Once that tradition is exposed for what it
is we learn why Justin made a distinction between Judeans and Galileans. It
also explains the Samarians and Naboteans. Not that the gods were that much
different but it mattered which priests got the money from the operation.
Of course if you can explain why no one commented on them having
only one god you may being able to put the idea they had only one god on a
basis other religious tradition.
Want to take a try at it?
> Why do you have to keep molesting history groups, move on, man. Spread
> your joy to other newsgroups, tour Usenet; we'll catch you later. Go on
> an adventure. Now.
I will be around long after this current infestion of you people who
believe there is history in the bible are long ago. It will not be the first
time although I admit this time you folks are incredibly persistent even
though the only difference between our positions is two centuries and about
150 miles as the crow flies.
--
"As a discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." -- Godwin's Law
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4196
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/ a12
Sat Oct 31 00:59:29 EDT 2009
Martin Edwards
> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009, Martin Edwards wrote:
>
>> Matt Giwer wrote:
> ...
>>> There is little foundation for the assumption of a peaceful, ideal
>>> beginning, because from its inception "pure" Christianity was full of
>>> bickering and power struggles, as reflected in the Epistles and Acts. In
>>> fact, the Church started out in a contentious manner and continued in
>>> this way for centuries, as is evidenced by the endless forged texts and
>>> bloody battles over doctrine.
>
>> Interestingly, I believed this as a teenager, though no attempt was made
>> to suggest it. Neither my teachers or anyone in my church were extreme
>> protestants. In fact they bent over backwards to be fair. My minister
>> even
>> said that more united us than divided us, a classic example of the wish
>> being father to the thought. It was something I absorbed from the
>> culture.
>> It was learning Greek (at 38) that piqued my curiosity, and even then it
>> took me years to stumble on the mythicist position. Initially I was
>> rather
>> shocked.
>
> I am not quite sure what you mean by the mythical position,
> separated by a common language as we are. That and your tendency as well as
> mine to type as we would speak rather than as we would write.
>
Jesus Christ was originally just a deity, and later believers came to
see him as a historical person.
JTEM
Matt Giwer <matt@localhost> wrote:
> When there is real knowledge of the people from
> that region we learn they were in fact followers of
> different gods which are perversely translated as though
> they were all one god.
This was actually an Egyptian trait: Writing off gods
as manifestations of the one.
Matt Giwer
It was also Roman and Greek imperial policy. It appears people like
a Swiss Army Knife god instead of specialized gods. Piss poor choice if you
ask me. But the Platonists liked the idea of an unknowable god with
manifestations of it such as wisdom as a god that can be known. Clearly they
didn't think like us.
--
The Holocaust is no worse then Iran having an atom bomb.
Israel says so.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4191
http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/sewer-bible.phtml a15
Mon Nov 2 03:41:35 EST 2009