post rescinded. seemed too snarky upon review.
I suspect that you may be confusing several statements in the gospels of Matthew and John with the epistles of Paul. I do not recall any comment by Paul that could be considered racist and only two (both requiring some squinting) that might be considered uncomplimentary.
Matthew, trying to proselytize a Jewish audience, has several passages in which the Jews call down punishment on themselves for not embracing Christianity and John, writing after the Jewish-Christian disagreement had broken into open hostility, several times used the word “Jews” to indicate the leaders of either the Jewish faith or the Jewish nation.
I recall no similar statements in Paul.
Cite? Leaving it out of their accounts should not be construed as taking a position against his being born there. If they specified somewhere else, that would be an acceptable cite.
Also, please provide a cite where Matthew and Luke explain their motives in setting the birth in Bethlehem.
IMatthew chapter 24-verses 29 -31" but immediatly after the tribulation of those days,the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven,and the powers of heaven will be shaken,and then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: then will all tribes of earth mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven with great power and majesty, And he will send forth his angels with a trumpet and a great sound,and they will gather his elect from the four winds,from one end of the heavens to the other".
Hard to do if the stars have fallen and the sun has fallen (which is our closest star).
Mark 8- verses 38-39
For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes with the holy angels in the Glory of his father" and he said to them,“Amen I say to you,there are some sanding herewho will not taste death ,till they have seen the kingdom of God coming in power.”
I notice that you do not believe the bible neither do I, It was reading the Bible that made me not believe in it,and what Jesus is quoted as saying doesn’t make sense, if he were anything other than a normal human he would know if the stars fell, earth would nor could it survive.
I apologize for giving the wrong quotes.
Monavis
Jesus when accused of blasphmey calling God his father He replied; "why do you say I blaspheme because I call God my father:when your fathers did?. Refering to Psalm either 81 or 82 depending on what Bible you use. The Psalmist say’s in verse 6, “Don’t you know you are gods, sons of the most high”?
Monavis
Just to clear up some confusion, Mark 8:38 is the first quoted statement and the second quoted statement is Mark 9:1.
And to address Paul’s supposed “mysogyny,” most of the commentary attributed to him that even comes close was in 1 Corinthians. Those statements were directed at the Corinthians, who had well-known issues with adultery, bigamy, and fornication (as understood at the time). Paul’s commentary to the Corinthians was intended to be a set of recommendations the Corinthians (and ONLY the Corinthians) might try, in an effort to curb the sexual issues within the church at Corinth. He later went back, in 2 Corinthians, to correct the Corinthian church’s over-zealous application of the suggestions he made in 1 Corinthians.
Well, Matthew’s motive is in Matt 2:3-6 (NIV)
Whatever local practices Paul may have been reacting to, here’s what is recorded in 1 Corinthians 11:3-15:
(There’s also a variant text shown from verse seven, but it’s not exactly feminist either.)
Another famous (or infamous) passage is 1 Timothy 2:11-15:
What exactly does 2 Corinthians say that modifies or contradicts any of this?
Not so much contradicts, as much as, “Hey, tone it down a little.”
The Corinthians started to make matters of dress and head-covering requirements for admission into the church and punishments could be rendered for such offenses. Paul basically came back in 2 Corinthians and said, “hey, we’re under grace, not law, and I didn’t intend you to take my suggestions and make them church law.”
Now, Paul’s commentary that you quoted, MEBuckner could possibly be taken as mysogynistic, but is probably more accurately described as patriarchal in nature. I can’t find evidence that Paul found women INFERIOR, merely that to him, it was more appropriate for men to take a leadership position (which, given the times when this was written, and the intended audience, is not unusual).
You could say that John doesn’t flat out say “Jesus was born in Nazareth”–John doesn’t mention the birth of Jesus at all. Still, either John 1:46 or the last part of chapter 7 would have been an excellent place for John to have thrown in a quick parenthetical statement “(Of course Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem, just as the prophets foretold; he only grew up in Galilee”)–if in fact John had any such belief.
To me at least, saying “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” implies inferiority. Also, for one group to be placed in authority over another group puts the second group in a, well, inferior position. It is true that Christian sexist attittudes have historically often been couched in terms not of hatred for women but “merely” subjection of them; patriarchal rather than misogynistic, as you say. For that matter, at times, some Christians have sought to relegate women to an inferior position (socially or politically speaking) by claiming women are better–the whole “Oh, women are purer and better than men, and so should stay ought of grubby old politics and business and devote themselves to the important stuff, like raising children and cooking and cleaning” line.
I’m curious though: You indicate a certain cultural relativism (“given the times when this was written, and the intended audience”). Do you also apply that to strictures against homosexuality or homosexual acts? Is the notion that gay sex is inherently wrong as opposed to straight sex merely a cultural artifact, or is it a permanent and timeless ethical principle?
In my mind, the strictures against homosexual acts fall in line with the same strictures against fornication or adultery, which were based in the idea that sex should be reserved for those persons who are married. Since it was assumed that homosexual people could not be married, then that fell under the same set of “rules” as fornication or adultery.
I realize Paul had some pretty incendiary (by today’s standards) things to say about homosexuality itself, but I’m not scholarly enough to debate those issues effectively.
Well, what about gay marriage then?
In addition to what MEB quoted from John (which includes the passage where Jesus’ detractors say he can’t be the Messiah because he wasn’t born in Bethlehem…a point which is significantly left uncorrected and unrebutted by John), Mark 6:1-4 also says the following:
An extended passage where Mark describes Jesus’ small town Galilean roots in some detail without ever mentioning that he wasn’t born there.
Mark was the first Gospel written. The Pauline Corpus was written even before that. Q was written before either Matthew or Luke and it’s not there either. The birth in Bethlehem is not found in the earliest strata of Christian literature, even in spots where one should expect to find it emphasized. The first extant claim that Jesus as born in Bethlehem does not occur until Matthew’s Gospel (c. 80 CE), 50 years after the crucifixion, written by a non-contemporary and a non-witness in a patently, demonstrably, fictional narrative in the which the author makes a habit throughout his Gospel of trying to force or invent events in the life of Jesus to fit what he believes are OT prophecies about the Messiah (many of which are not).
The motive is pretty clear in Luke as well, even if he doesn’t say it explicitly. He has to jump through a number of hoops to get the Nativity to Bethlehem and his own account is, like Matthew’s, a clear and demonstrable fiction, containing events which did not or could not have occurred (and I’m not just talking about miracles) and which are set 10-12 years later than Matthew’s Nativity.
It is the uncontroversial consensus of mainstream historical and NT scholarship that Jesus was born in Galilee and that Matthew and Luke’s Bethlehem narratives are both pious fictions engineered to address one of the critiques of Jesus’ alleged Messiahship (a critique which the author of GJohn had no answer for).
Since we live in an expanding universe, the stars aren’t going to being falling on us for at least several billion years. Sinners, rejoice!
Thanks for clarifying that.
What’s the name for that type of false logic where something is used to prove itself? For instance, how many Christians say, “The Bible says that it’s written by God, therefore it’s written by God. Q.E.D.”
It’s profoundly unsatisfying to arbitrarily attribute certain statements as applying to a specific people, culture and time while applying others broadly across all time and all circumstances. This sort of wiggleroom leaves the whole thing suspect. At a bare minimum, a book directed by the Almighty would have a chapter specifically devoted to clarifying which Truths extend across all time and all civilizations.
The accuracy of the prophecies of Nostradamus is amazing. Take a look for yourself at all the prophecies that were fulfilled. How could it be by chance?
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/nospast.htm
The accuracy of the prophecies of the Delphic Oracle is amazing . . .
In My Bible which is quite old I wrote directly from it, I have an old version, I have I read it to pieces years ago so perhaps there are many new translations since that, I haven’t read it in many years. I suppose that is why there is confusion as there are so many different translations.
Thanks for pointing it out to me though.
Monavis
As I understand it the stars etc. are in a constant state of what would be considered falling, as I read it, thinking that in those days people believed the stars could fall on the earth.as they believed the earth was the center of the universe. I think stars burn out not fall, of course I admit I am no scientist.
Monavis