Dead or alive, we're going to circumcise you!
Posted on 04/26/2006 11:53:48 AM PDT by Caleb1411
Given that the old Greek word behind the English term "gospel" means "good news," you have to wonder whether the much-touted and recently published Gospel of Judas really qualifies as either.
Assuming you didn't give up the media for Lent -- which, come think of it ... oh, never mind -- you could hardly have avoided this month's announcement about the latest addition to the religious history files.
To make a long story short: The Gospel of Judas is part of an ancient manuscript that apparently was unearthed in the late 1970s in Egypt. After a lengthy trip through the sometimes shadowy realm of the antiquities trade, it came to rest about five years ago at the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel, Switzerland.
Since then, the badly damaged pages have been in the process of restoration, translation and publication -- this last in the form of a little volume titled "The Gospel of Judas," courtesy of the National Geographic Society.
In this revised-and-not-so-standard version of the story, Judas is not the archetypal villain who betrays his master to enemies under the influence of greed and dark powers. Instead, Judas does Jesus a favor by handing him over.
"Step away from the others," Jesus tells Judas, "and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom."
Which brings us to the question: Is the Gospel of Judas "good" and "news?" Well, yes -- and arguably no.
In one sense, this document is huge news: It apparently is the same text, vanished until now, that the second-century Christian author Irenaeus mentioned in his criticism of a sect of gnostics, the New Agers of his day.
"And Judas the betrayer was thoroughly acquainted with these things, they say," Irenaeus wrote in a passage quoted in the National Geographic book; "and he alone was acquainted with the truth as no others were, and so accomplished the mystery of the betrayal. ... And they bring forth a fabricated work to this effect, which they entitle the Gospel of Judas."
In Herbert Krosney's "The Lost Gospel: The Quest for the Gospel of Judas Iscariot," Swiss translator Rodolphe Kasser says: "The importance of this text is that it is not only a new manuscript, but an entirely new kind of document. ... We previously had only what the church forefathers were saying about the gnostics, but rarely the texts the gnostics wrote themselves. Now we can understand the nuances of what the forefathers said by using the gnostic texts."
In terms of its presentation of its namesake as hero rather than goat, the Gospel of Judas is indeed something new and interesting. But in its presentation of an arcane gnostic cosmology -- "The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries" -- it seems to be old hat for scholars. In an essay in "The Gospel of Judas," co-editor Marvin Meyer indicates the content is typical of what's known in the trade as "Sethian" gnosticism.
You could be forgiven, then, for thinking (like a weary cop listening to an all-too-familiar tale): "Yah, yah -- we've heard it before."
So if the Gospel of Judas is not entirely news, is it "good?" True, it provides a touchstone for what certain people believed 150 or 200 years after Christ's death, but does it record the "real" story -- one that was unjustly erased by heavy-handed religious figures -- of Judas, Jesus and the early faith?
Maybe not.
In the book "Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew," North Carolina scholar Bart D. Ehrman -- who provided commentary for both Krosney's book and "The Gospel of Judas" -- notes the diversity of theological talking heads in ancient times: "In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in one God. But there were others who insisted that there were two. Some said there were thirty. Others claimed there were 365."
But one can argue on a couple of grounds that the Biblical accounts have the edge here. Ehrman himself says in "The Lost Gospel:" "The first (canonical) Gospel to be written was that of Mark, from about 65 or 70 CE (35-40 years after the death of Jesus)." Matthew, he says, came "somewhat later (80-85 CE)."
And if the apostle Paul was writing his epistles in the years 49-62 (as per a time line in Krosney's book), that would tend to place the writing of Acts (which ends with Paul still alive) and the Gospel of Luke (traditionally ascribed to the same author) in the same historical ballpark.
In contrast, Meyer says that the Gospel of Judas probably was "composed around the middle of the second century, most likely on the basis of earlier ideas and sources." In other words, the historical gap between events and writing is about two or three times that of some of the Biblical material.
In addition to the matter of eras is that of ideas. "Jesus was a Jew living in Palestine," Ehrman notes in "The Gospel of Judas," "and like all Palestinian Jews, he accepted the authority of the Jewish Scriptures .... Jesus presented himself as an authoritative interpreter of these Scriptures and was known to his followers as a great rabbi (teacher)."
If so, given a theology that repudiates the God of the Torah as an inferior deity who created a hellhole of a world -- the view of gnosticism -- and a theology that affirms and builds on the Jewish Scriptures, which is more likely to record what the historical Jesus actually taught?
"But there are also many other things which Jesus did," said the author of the Gospel of John (Revised Standard Version); "were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
Something tells me that the Gospel of Judas wasn't exactly what the biblical writer had in mind.
Your childish retort notwithstanding, the record on this thread speaks for itself. You lied.
Dead or alive, we're going to circumcise you!
Saul was jealous of David's military successes because they were overshadowing his own.
Saul's daughter wanted to marry David and this concerned Saul because it would make David even more prominent.
So Saul agreed to give David his daughter's hand in marriage if he was able to destroy an entire invading Philistine company.
Saul figured that David would be unable to do this alone and would be killed thereby eliminating a potential rival to Saul's throne.
However, Saul did not want to take David's word for it - he wanted proof. The peoples around Israel collected trophies - heads, eyes, fingers, ears, etc. to document their military successes, but Israel was not morally permitted to imitate other peoples in this practice. So Saul cleverly requested foreskins for two reasons: (1) since circumcision among the Israelites was an honor, not a desecration it would not be sinful for him to request this and (2) David would actually have to fight the Philistines, since every male corpse in Israel was already circumcised - David could not dishonestly scour recent Israelite graves, etc. for such tokens of victory.
And, to reiterate, the Scriptures make clear that this was a personal evil scheme by King Saul who was rejected by God, not an offering to God as you deceitfully asserted.
So Saul was evil huh? I'll bet modern day evil leaders like Saddam Hussein and Mahmood Ahmadinejad would get along with him just fine!
If you had taken the time to actually read the Scriptural account of the kings of Israel several things would jump out at you:
(1) The prophet Samuel warned the Israelites in the name of God that having absolute political rulers would be a grave danger to Israel.
(2) Saul was corrupted by the power, did evil things like undermine Israel's defensive strategy, partake in revenge killings and unjustly punish rivals in order to aggrandize himself.
(2) David, although a better man than Saul, was also corrupted by power and did evil things, was severely punished and had to beg for forgiveness for his sins.
(3) David's heir Solomon, despite his great intelligence and administrative and political acumen, was also corrupted by power and was led astray.
(4) The lust for power among Solomon's descendants broke the people of Israel into two warring camps and initiated a period of decline and hardship, leading ultimately to the utter destruction of one of the warring camps and the captivity and bondage of the other.
The entire history of the Israelite kingship as narrated in the Bible is very critical of the institution of kingship itself and the attitudes and behavior that absolute political power engenders.
To return to your earlier point about Islam not being a political ideology I will point out that in Judaism the very notion of absolute political power is considered suspect, an enormous temptation to sin and a presumption against God.
i will point out further that in Christianity's New Testament Jesus goes out of his way to emphasize humility and service as preferable to power and wealth and St. Paul specifically commands Christians to live obediently as citizens of their existing government rather than use violence to seize power. The main political question of Christian Europe from 800 AD to 1600 AD was how much authority a king is allowed to have over his subjects and how much influence the Church was permitted to have in political matters. For the medieval Christian it was a truly pressing question with no obvious or easy answer.
However, in Islam, it is a simple question.
The Caliph is the supreme political and religious entity. He has complete power of life and death over everyone living in the ummah. Every Muslim is required by his religion to contribute to jihad - i.e. the struggle to subject every living person and every square inch of territory in the world to the power of the Islamic Caliph.
In Judaism and Christianity the relationship between politics and religion is a complicated question that is constantly debated.
In Islam politics and religion are identical.
Careful now. If you start pointing out that there were evil leaders chosen by God, people might think you are gnostic.
Again you dodge the the argument with nonsense.
Saul, David, Solomon and their descendants were human beings, all born in original sin and all capable of evil.
They could have chosen the good, but they used their faculty of free will to do the wrong thing instead.
God gave them the opportunity to do good and they often failed.
A Gnostic believes that simply having a physical body is evil. One has less than nothing to do with the other.
Won't work. Like the Captain of a ship, no matter what happens, the guy at the top is responsible. God chose these people, therefore he is responsible for their failings.
That's not logic, it's an empty slogan. By the way, if a seaman in the US Navy commits criminal assault on a fellow seaman, the captain of his vessel is not arrested for criminal assault. In fact, I've never heard of a navy in human history where it was customary to punish a commanding officer for the wrong action of a crewmember. Another fabrication of yours?
God chose these people, therefore he is responsible for their failings.
Incorrect - you assume that human beings are automata. However, they are not.
Perhaps you do not believe in personal responsibility and personal accountability for one's own actions.
If so, you'll have to make a coherent argument to defend such a socialistic concept.
Argue the issues all you want, but don't make it personal
Then cite one and let's take a look at the circumstances of the case.
By all means.
Google is your friend, knock yourself out.
The final answer of the intellectually bankrupt poster: "Please do my research for me. I'm not smart enough to back up my own uninformed claims."
Ultimately, Enterprise, you let yourself down.
Please don't tell any more lies about the US Navy in the future. They certainly don't deserve your slander.
WOW! The Israelite leaders were evil or corrupt. How downright GNOSTIC of you! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
This is so much fun. Did you ever in your mind imagine that perhaps these men could have been severely flawed before they became leaders, and that they continued to be flawed after they became leaders? Do you really believe that they were perfect little lambkins, and then suddenly, upon being in positions of leadership, they suddently became corrupt and evil? How naive!
Are you dizzy yet from all your spinning?
Apparently, you are unaware of what Gnosticism teaches. The inherent sinfulness and failure of all men has always been a central tenet of orthodox Christianity from the very beginning.
This is so much fun. Did you ever in your mind imagine that perhaps these men could have been severely flawed before they became leaders, and that they continued to be flawed after they became leaders?
Again, the orthodox Christian doctrine of original sin holds the answer to your question.
Do you really believe that they were perfect little lambkins, and then suddenly, upon being in positions of leadership, they suddently became corrupt and evil? How naive!
That was not the argument - the argument was that the power inherent in a kingship is a temptation to wrongdoing. Hence, the kings of Israel went far astray when they began to ignore God and keep their own counsel.
Are you dizzy yet from all your spinning?
I hold the same position now as I did at the beginning of the thread.
You have held several contradictory positions, attempted to falsify documentary evidence and revealed that you change the definition of Gnosticism around to suit your rhetorical purposes from post to post depending on your whim.
LOL - spin, spin, spin. Whew boy!
Was that supposed to be an argument?
The source you cite specifically claims that these naval officers were demoted, reassigned or relieved from command due to their own behavior and not due to the behavior of their subordinates.
They were dismissed for making poor command decisions, engaging in questionable personal behavior like adultery, substance abuse etc.
the source does not mention a single case of an otherwise blameless officer being relieved of command solely because of a subordinates behavior.
You have demonstrated that the exact opposite of your claim is true.
Is that an argument? Do you have anything of substance to say at all?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.