RE: I still don't understand why anyone would make up a person like the Biblical Christ..
August 12, 2011 at 9:02 pm
(This post was last modified: August 12, 2011 at 9:11 pm by coffeeveritas.)
(August 12, 2011 at 8:17 am)Rhythm Wrote:(August 12, 2011 at 12:07 am)Godschild Wrote: The story of Ananias and Saphira had nothing to do with them wanting to keep a little of the money, Peter told them that they could have keep all they wanted, they had said they were going to give all of the money they received for the land to the church, they lied, this lie was held against them by God for their lie was against the Holy Spirit. Now the church did not take their lives God did because of the nature of their lie. Hole#2
Man, I'd love to be able to handle real estate agents in such a manner. "Oh, commission? (strikes the bastard dead) Do you think that your explanation of these stories made them sound more, or less creepy GC?
In what way does a god who kills people for lying about their fiscal situation not suggest a psychotic deity (is death the punishment for evading taxes, or fraud where you live)?
Honestly you've just rationalized murder on grounds of failure to pay. What can I say? You don't actually believe this do you?
Actually this story has a lot to do with kinship and patronage practices in the first century world. People would enter into relationships all the time that had different degrees of reciprocity. If you helped someone harvest their field you expected them to do the same. This is how members of the same community were expected to treat each other. Families or people related by patronage would give with no expectation of return, though the cultural idea was that you would naturally be inclined to respond gratefully if you were an honorable person. Outsiders, who had nothing to do with the community, could be taken advantage of (charged higher prices, lied to, etc.). What Annanias and Saphira did was try to join the community as family, expecting them to give to them freely, while they held back, which is treating them as an outsider. In the ancient world this would have been a fairly serious offense and a serious breech of honor. We think of it as a little lie, to the first century world it was actually more akin to stealing from family members to buy drugs so you can sell them to children. Basically it was really a horrible thing to do.
I say all that and yet, you have to wonder, "what the crap is God doing killing them?" Even if it was a really crappy thing to do, why the death penalty?
(August 9, 2011 at 11:55 am)Minimalist Wrote:Quote:Also the only records we have of the original twelve indicate that they were itinerant teachers who were ultimately executed (except for John,
Um, excuse me Coffee but what "records" are those? What we have are stories with as much historical basis as the jesus myth in the first place.
http://www.humanreligions.info/twelve.html
Quote:Although many ancient religions such as the Gnostics understood things like the twelve disciples of Mithras to be symbolic of the stages of the waning and waxing sun throughout the year, later religions took it literally and believed in an actual 12 disciples - and some still do.
Haha! Yes, thank you Min, I forgot that I have to make certain caveats if you are on a thread. I did mention "the historical records to the best of our knowledge thing" earlier, but if you don't believe in a historical twelve disciples than the accounts of the disciples really don't mean anything do they? I think every board needs at least one good "mythic Jesus" person, because Robert Price can't do it all alone. In all seriousness though, it is nice to have someone that really knows there position well.
