RE: Would Jesus promote punishing the innocent instead of the guilty?
September 6, 2020 at 2:02 pm
(September 6, 2020 at 10:12 am)Vicki Q Wrote: He jumped on the bandwagon after Damascus Road.
Paul's miraculous conversion story on Damascus Road is lifted from Euripides' play The Bacchae. Like Paul, the play’s villain Pentheus persecutes the cult of Dionysus. However, also like Paul, despite himself, he is ironically converted to the faith to by an unwelcome personal epiphany of the wine god. Peter and Paul’s miraculous prison breaks in Acts also feature the same thrilling escapades as Euripides’ play, written roughly 500 years earlier. Both include miraculous unlocking of chains and handy earthquakes.
Writer of Acts even quotes the play when in a scene where Jesus, the bright light from heaven, speaks to Paul/Saul, saying to him: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Because “kick against the pricks” line is spoken by Dionysus in the play.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"