"The average mind is easily content with inherited and acquired things, or with the dicta of parents and teachers, because it is much easier to imitate than to create." Emma Goldman
When looking for a picture of Jesus... I landed on "Forensic Jesus" ... I have to snicker at the idea, but it suits this blog more than "Swedish Jesus" or "Hollywood Jesus". I want to share about my recent educational journey through the "History of Christianity". But I found a lot interesting bits in today's reading, so I will intersperse my thoughts between some Emma Goldman quotes.
"The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun." EG
An authentic history lesson of Christianity would probably deconvert most evangelical Christians. Maybe that is why history isn't a topic of most sermons. If Christians understood the messiness of their historic roots, it would change everything. Like the Bertrand Russell quote in my office reads. " People's opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people is a secondary consideration."
"No doubt I will be told that, though religion is a poison and institutionalized Christianity the greatest enemy of progress and freedom, there is some good in Christianity “itself.” What about the teachings of Christ and — early Christianity, I may be asked; do they not stand for the spirit of humanity, for right and justice?" EG
Who is Jesus? I have been learning something significant from Bart Ehrmann. That question has baggage. It is like googling Jesus in images and finding out that there are so many portraits of a man who two millennia ago and long before there were cameras. So people have to get creative.
Who is Jesus? It depends on which gospel you read. The Jesus of Mark is not the Jesus of John. And the Jesus of Matthew and Luke is not Paul's Jesus. And Paul's Jesus is not the Jesus in Revelation.
"But the ethical and poetical Christ-myth has so thoroughly saturated our lives that even some of the most advanced minds find it difficult to emancipate themselves from its yoke. They have rid themselves of the letter, but have retained the spirit; yet it is the spirit which is back of all the crimes and horrors committed by orthodox Christianity." EG
According to Bart Ehrmann, There is enough evidence to conclude that a man called Jesus of Nazareth existed 2000 years ago, but what people have said about him following his thirty some years on earth... well that is where the baggage comes into play.
"And the poor? They cling to the promise of the Christian heaven, as the home for old age, the sanitarium for crippled bodies and weak minds. They endure and submit, they suffer and wait, until every bit of self-respect has been knocked out of them, until their bodies become emaciated and withered, and their spirit broken from the wait, the weary endless wait for the Christian heaven." EG
Wondrium has opened my mind and my eyes. It offers some great intellectual courses for home bodies like me that can't make it to the local university. I've already listened to the following courses by Bart Ehrman. "Historical Jesus", "How Jesus became God", "The Triumph of Christianity" and "New Testament". I have one more in the Ehrman collection of courses "Lost Christianities" before I maybe sum up the courage to take on Ancient Greek 101. I told myself I would never read the bible in English again... so maybe I can start again seriously trying to get a handle on some Greek. I turn 55 this month. Maybe it's not too late.
"When the Jews, according to the gospels, withdrew from Jesus, when they turned him over to the cross, they may have been bitterly disappointed in him who promised them so much and gave them so little. He promised joy and bliss in another world, while the people were starving, suffering, and enduring before his very eyes." EG
Who is the Jesus I'm learning about in all these courses? I wish I knew. There are so many versions of Jesus, it's hard to embrace one kind. I don't know if I like Mark's Jesus, and John's Jesus is so far away from what might even be real, it's not even attractive anymore. I figured out years ago that all those monologues had to be creative writing. No one could keep that good of notes. And then during the courses, and Bart's other resources, I discovered that no one was keeping notes at all. The gospels don't start getting written until forty years after Jesus' death.
"Much as I am opposed to every religion, much as I think them an imposition upon, and crime against, reason and progress, I yet feel that no other religion has done so much harm or has helped so much in the enslavement of man as the religion of Christ." EG
Bart mentions several times that Christianity is not the religion of Jesus, but the religion about Jesus. Christianity didn't get started with Jesus, or with the death of Jesus, or even with the supposed resurrection of Jesus. It was only when people started believing the resurrection of Jesus that Christianity took off. And then it wasn't even about Jesus and what he did for thirty three years that mattered. It was about what happened to him over the course of three days. If someone doesn't get the last three days right... then nothing else matters. That seems to be the premise of Christianity.
So who is Jesus? Good question. Christianity, for two thousand years, hasn't been much help with the answer.
"Christianity is the conspiracy of ignorance against reason, of darkness against light, of submission and slavery against independence and freedom; of the denial of strength and beauty, against the affirmation of the joy and glory of life." EG
