Hate literature placed in my hotel room by the Gideons....what should I do?

[Wendell_Wagner]

LVgeogeek writes:

> However, the New Testament has anti-Semitic undertones throughout (The
> Gospels, sections of Acts, Mark, John, Matthew, Thessalonians and Revelations).

Cite?

> I was just making a statement.

What does this mean? This sounds to me like an expression that I hear people say (and read on the SDMB) occasionally, “I’m just saying.” Does this mean that you’re just talking (or writing) to hear the sound of your own voice (or the look of your own writing)? Do you have any concern whether what you say is true or not or do you just write any random idea that occurs to you?

[bdgr]

I would kind of like to see a cite for that too…I never got any anti-semetic vibe from the new testament.

[5-HT]

I stayed at a hotel in Vancouver once that had “The Teachings of the Buddha” in it.

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

The Jews didn’t kill Jesus, the Italians did.

But, as forgiveness is a Christian virtue, I’m still eating pizza.

[Malacandra]

[QUOTE=LVgeogeek]
Like I said, I never looked at the Gideon Bibles in the hotels. I was just making a statement. However, the New Testament has anti-Semitic undertones throughout (The Gospels, sections of Acts, Mark, John, Matthew, Thessalonians and Revelations).

Oh wait, you said doesn’t contain any extra Anti-Semitism than the Regular KJVNT
[/QUOTE]

People whose own holy book advocates the wholesale slaughter and enslavement of anyone who isn’t Jewish shouldn’t throw stones. :dubious:

[Chimera]

[QUOTE=bdgr]
I would kind of like to see a cite for that too…I never got any anti-semetic vibe from the new testament.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps this guy is Dustin Diamond. You know;

Non-dd: “You shithead”
DD: “You’re an anti-semite! I’m calling my lawyer! Waaaaaa!”
Seriously, the New Testament is largely written by Jews, about a Jew. Any anti-semitic “feeling” is purely in your imagination.

To be sure, it was used by MORONS to persecute Jews, under the rather bizarro claim that “the Jews killed Jesus” (who was a Jew, lived in Jewish lands and lived under Jewish law. So 1> Who were they expecting to kill him, the Spanish Inquisition? and 2> His entire mission was to come to Earth and DIE FOR US, so if anyone, blame GOD, because that was the whole freaking plan, you morons!)

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

There is definitely some anti-Jewish polemic in the Gospels and in Paul. It’s not, strictly speaking, antisemitic, in a modern sense, but there is rhetoric in the NT which blames the Jews for the crucifixion and for rejecting him as the Messiah.

The NT was mostly written by Gentiles, by the way, and TO Gentiles as well.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

[QUOTE=Chimera]
Who were they expecting to kill him, the Spanish Inquisition?
[/QUOTE]

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion…

[Shodan]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The NT was mostly written by Gentiles, by the way, and TO Gentiles as well.
[/QUOTE]
Interesting statement. There are 27 books in the New Testament, of which thirteen, or almost half, were written by Paul (a Jew).

[ul][li]Romans[/li] [li] First Corinthians[/li] [li] Second Corinthians[/li] [li] Galatians[/li] [li] Ephesians[/li] [li] Philippians[/li] [li] Colossians[/li] [li] First Thessalonians[/li] [li] Second Thessalonians[/li] [li] First Timothy[/li] [li] Second Timothy[/li] [li] Titus[/li] [li] Philemon[/ul]Hebrews seems to have been written for a Hebrew audience, hence the name. (Authorship of Hebrews is not known.) The Gospel of Matthew is fairly clearly addressed to a Jewish audience as well. Jude ascribes itself to a brother of James and Jesus, both Jews. The Gospel of Mark is usually thought to be by John Mark, a Jew.[/li]
The Gospel of John, the letters of John, and Revelations, are also all ascribed to a Jew.

So basically, the only books of the New Testament not ascribed to or addressing Jews are the Gospel of Luke, and Acts. So you are essentially 2 for 27.

Regards,
Shodan

[Malthus]

[QUOTE=Chimera]
Ah yes, the Evil Dictator approach to being God.

No matter how inconsistent, illogical and outright morally evil you are, you’re the one in charge, so everyone has to pretend you’re the most perfect, loving father figure ever to exist.

One of my theories, from personal experience and observation, is that a great deal of mental illness is caused by the gulf between what is, and what we want things to be; between Objective Reality and Subjective Reality. That it is that tension that breaks and destroys us.

So when the Vision of God is that he gives us a definition of Sin and Guilt that is impossible for us to satisfy and he holds the power to judge us for all time over the slightest error; but at the same time, those rules do not apply to him - and yet he is “without sin” and “perfect”; there is a monstrous gulf of tension between what we are told to be and what we’re told God is on one side, and what we observe, even if not consciously, about how God acts on the other side.

So why is the world filled with such Religious Insanity? Because the Vision of God that we are given is deeply flawed, colored by the dreams, goals and ideas of men, who foist off their own flaws onto God.
[/QUOTE]

I’d put it differently - that the Book of Job is simply an attempt to explain why, with this all-powerful God thing happening, bad stuff still quite observably happens to good people.

Job’s buddies come up with the usual range of explainations - you must have pissed God off somehow; or you are not really a good person - all untrue.

Then God shows up and basically says “you can’t understand it - only God can understand his own purposes, so deal”.

This seems to be the only way of addressing the paradox of the belief in the existance of a “Good” God and the observation that bad stuff quite often happens.

I prefer it to the Buddhist notion that the universe is essentially a bad place and life is suffering, or the Hindu notion of Karma (which implies that bad stuff happening to you really is your fault). I do not however believe it is literally true.

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]

The NT was mostly written by Gentiles
[/QUOTE]

Was it? Other than Paul (a Jew), do we know the specific persons that wrote any of the New Testament or whether they were Jews or Gentiles?

I would agree that audience is Gentile for most of the NT, but do we really know that much about the writers? I know you are really knowledgeable on this subject, and I have started to get interested in the NT.

[Thudlow_Boink]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
There is definitely some anti-Jewish polemic in the Gospels and in Paul. It’s not, strictly speaking, antisemitic, in a modern sense, but there is rhetoric in the NT which blames the Jews for the crucifixion and for rejecting him as the Messiah.
[/QUOTE]

Staff Report: Who killed Jesus?

For example, John’s Gospel, which was written around 60 years after the death of Jesus, primarily addressed a Gentile community in Asia Minor. His audience almost certainly had no idea of the theological differences between Pharisees and Sadducees, or of the political tensions between the Hasmonean kings and the priests of the Temple. Therefore, John’s Gospel often refers to those who were involved with the death of Jesus as simply “the Jews”–an expression that was to have tragic consequences as later Christians took that phrase as “gospel” and began to refer to Jews as “Christ-killers.”

The NT was mostly written by Gentiles, by the way

Really? (i.e. cite?)

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
Was it? Other than Paul (a Jew), do we know the specific persons that wrote any of the New Testament or whether they were Jews or Gentiles?

I would agree that audience is Gentile for most of the NT, but do we really know that much about the writers? I know you are really knowledgeable on this subject, and I have started to get interested in the NT.
[/QUOTE]

I think he means that by accepting Christ as their savior, etc., the apostles had voluntarily forsaken Judaism.

[mswas]

Yeah, file a lawsuit against Gideon bibles, strike a blow for Gay rights. :rolleyes: Could you be anymore of a fucking idiot? Let sleeping dogs lie.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Interesting statement. There are 27 books in the New Testament, of which thirteen, or almost half, were written by Paul (a Jew).
[/quote]

Only 7 are generally accepted as having been athentically written by Paul. The rest are pseudoepigraphic works written in the 2nd Century.

The Gospel of John, the letters of John, and Revelations, are also all ascribed to a Jew.

All different authors, all unknown, none of them the apostle, only one of those books (the multiply authored Gospel of John), having any likelihood of Jewish input in the earliest layers of its development (though the finished product ended up being one of the most anti-Jewish books in the NT)

So basically, the only books of the New Testament not ascribed to or addressing Jews are the Gospel of Luke, and Acts. So you are essentially 2 for 27.

The authorship traditions you are appealing to arose in the 2nd centrury and are essentially regarded as spurious by all modern scholarship. The only books for whom the author is known (or at least regarded as a having a high likelihood of being known) are the 7 authentic letters of Paul.

No one knows who wrote any of the Gospels, but one thing that is fairly easy to assertain is that their traditional authorship traditions do not hold up to scrutiny. I can (and have before on this board) go into significant detail as to how and why we know that if you wish.

The reason we know that the majority of the NT was written by and to Gentiles is that the time and place and audience is all Gentile. Every book in it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Theye were written outside of palestine to Gentile audience in Gentile cities, mostly after Christians were expelled from Jewish synagogues. Jews are spoken of virtually throughout as “they,” not “us,” and some significant errors are made about Jewish beliefs and practices.

The burden to prove that these unknown authors were Jewish rests on thos making that claim. Very little positive evidence exists to support claims that most of these authors were Jewish (especially for the Gospels), and all the circumstanial evidence points away from it. Gentile location, Gentile language, Gentile audience, lack of internal claims to Jewishness, anti-Jewish rhetoric and ignorance of Jewish beliefs and practices (as well as significant ignorance of Palestinian geography).

The only rational default is to assume that these authors were not Jewish until someone can show compelling evidence (something better than highly dubious, sometimes demonstrably spurious, 2nd century folklore) to the contrary.

[mswas]

The trick here would be for Gay men to start a trend. Remove Gideon bibles from the room every time you are in a hotel. Toss them in the trash or whatever. If every gay person did this, or a large proportion of them did it, it would blow the Gideon budget, and they wouldn’t be able to afford to replace them.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
Was it? Other than Paul (a Jew), do we know the specific persons that wrote any of the New Testament or whether they were Jews or Gentiles?

I would agree that audience is Gentile for most of the NT, but do we really know that much about the writers? I know you are really knowledgeable on this subject, and I have started to get interested in the NT.
[/QUOTE]

See my response to Shodan. I hope I’ve offered some answers to your questions. Please bear in mind that what I’ve given is highly encapsulated. If I was to really unpack a lot of this stuff it would run to multiple pages.

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The reason we know that the majority of the NT was written by and to Gentiles is that the time and place and audience is all Gentile. Every book in it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Theye were written outside of palestine to Gentile audience in Gentile cities, mostly after Christians were expelled from Jewish synagogues. Jews are spoken of virtually throughout as “they,” not “us,” and some significant errors are made about Jewish beliefs and practices.
[/quote]

I though Matthew was generally viewed as being written to a Jewish audience.

Edit - By Jewish, I mean Christian Jews.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
I though Matthew was generally viewed as being written to a Jewish audience.

Edit - By Jewish, I mean Christian Jews.
[/QUOTE]

Opinion is divided on that. It’s possible. Matthew contains some of the most explicit Jewish mythological parallels, but it also contains some of the most scathing anti-Jewish polemic (including the infamous “his blood be on us and our children” line from 27:25).

Some argue for Matthew for having the best chance of the Gospel writers of having been a Jewish-Christian, but GMatt is schizophrenic enough (it contains some seemingly pro-Jewish, pro-Israel elements as well) as to make the issue cloudy. There is a decent chance that it was the product of a Jewish-Christian community which had some context-specific grievances against Pharisaic Jews (eventually the basis for Rabbinic Judaism), which wre not intended to be seen as universal.

[Shodan]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
No one knows who wrote any of the Gospels, but one thing that is fairly easy to assertain is that their traditional authorship traditions do not hold up to scrutiny.
[/quote]
So your assertion that the author was Gentile is based on nothing.

The reason we know that the majority of the NT was written by and to Gentiles is that the time and place and audience is all Gentile. Every book in it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Since that’s false, I guess your assertion that they were written by Gentiles must be false as well. And of course, as mentioned, the Gospel of Matthew and Hebrews and so forth are clearly addressed to Jews, not Gentiles.

The burden to prove that these unknown authors were Jewish rests on thos making that claim.

Well, that’s fair enough. You, on the other hand, have asserted that they were mostly written by and for Gentiles. Therefore, the burden of proof lies with you, and, as we have seen, seems to rely on statements which are either unproven or demonstrably false.

Regards,
Shodan