In my most recent Biblical research, where I show no especial Biblical/Christian injuction against Homosexuals, I was struck by the VAST differnce between the teachings of Jesus, and those of Paul. Was Paul being true disciple, and following in his Masters footsteps? Or did he take off on his own Path? I compare the Teachings of Jesus vs Paul: Jesus= forgiving-- Paul= vengeful// Jesus= forgiving
Paul=condeming// Jesus= “blessed are”–Paul= “are worthy of death”//Jesus=Love–Paul=Hate
Did Jesus say there would be one after him, to lead the Church on(besides his Apostles), and put his own “personal” spin on Jesuses teachings? No! But he DID say (Matt24:24)" for there shall arise false Christs, and false PROPHETS, and shall shew great signs & wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall decive the very elect". And who is “the elect”, why Peter! And who did Paul decieve, who but Peter!
You might enjoy reading “The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception”, by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, which – if you can get past the cheesy title and the sensationalism – has an interesting take on Saul/Paul and his rocky relationship with the early church.
I’m afraid I don’t have my copy to hand to quote from, but it is an entertaining read, even if one should take some of it with a grain or two of salt.
I’ve lost track of the times I’ve heard that Jesus was a man of love and peace who embraced EVERYONE no matter what they did, while Paul was an old meanie who corrupted JEsus’ message, and turned CHristianity into a religion of intolerance and hate.
Naturally, the people who make this claim have no idea what they’re talking about. The notion that Jesus was a non-judgemental hippie is absurd, and certainly isn’t backed up by anything in the Gospels.
Indeed, C.S. Lewis once observed (quite correctly) that the most frightening words of Scripture come from the lips of Christ himself, while the passages that give us some hope of salvation usually come from Paul’s epistles. Newsflash: Jesus spoke often of Hell- a lot more often than Paul did! Don’t take my word for it, read the NEw Testament in its entirety.
Give me some specifics, Daniel~, I’m not sure what you’re getting at. If you mean Paul was occasionally obnoxious, bossy, and overbearing, well, yeah, but I don’t see that anything he wrote invalidates the basic message of the Gospel.
Just because he preached against women braiding their hair doesn’t make him a false Christ, and I’m going to pay you the compliment of thinking you said that just in order to provoke a debate.
As far as putting a “spin” on the Gospel, every preacher who ever preached a sermon and every Sunday School teacher who ever taught a Bible study class has put a “spin” on the Gospel. There’s nothing inherently bad about that. You only get into trouble if you use Bible verses taken out of context to try to prove a point, or if your “spin” is only to enforce your ideas on other people, like the Amish who have their women cover their heads at all times.
I also have to express my surprise that you have “found no specific Biblical injunction against homosexuals”. I have been staying out of the religion threads because I had the impression that it was just mostly Pashley and DavidB wrangling uselessly over which came first, the Big Bang or nothing. If it’s in a thread, please post a link.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
Most of my research has been into the old testament, but what little I’ve done in regards to the New Testament does make me wonder.
It’s common for new leaders to have different perspectives than the old, but one also have to remember that Paul was a Roman citizen, whose social mores were different from Jesus’. Pual grew up a somewhat privelaged citizen in the most powerful empire in the world. Jesus was a simple carpenter. Paul addressed issues that may have seemed more important to the masses he was addressing. He was, after all, trying to convert others. Something Jesus never really attempted. He just gave sermons on the mount. If Paul seems harsh, it’s probably b/c he was addressing those that needed to hear it that way.
Of course, I’m only an amateur, I could be wrong.
“I’m sorry Mr. Wiseman. . .it never occurred to us to stick a rocket up your ass.”
-Theo “Now and Again”
NOTTHEMAMA: There are 2 instance, 1 in “why hate Gays” & another in one of the Jesus threds. I have not learned how to do a link. BUT, I will happily summarize. The Anti-gay Bible thumpers usu rely on 3 verses. Th e1st is in Leviticus, and yes, it pretty well condemns homosexual sex (not homosexuals, mind you, just the sex act). However, the Old testament no longer applies to Christians as LAWS. The verse is in the middle of a hundred+ laws, of which “we” Christian spractice few, if any (the dietary laws are here, not having sex w/ your wife during her “unclean” time, how to sacrifice at the Temple, etc.). Next they quote 1Cor6:9, ehich condemns “effeminates”, which most Biblical scholars believe refers to “fem” gays, probably prostitutes, and not the kind of “manly” gays Paul knew. That section also condemns “drunkards, fornicators, abusers of self”, and a lot of other folk. Based on that, I’m going to Hell on at least 2 counts, but I’ll have plenty of Company (this is our kind, gentle forgiving Paul, who is not willing to extend the Mercy of Jesus to us “unrightous”).
Last is Romans1:27 I wont quote it, but the term “recompence”, may be refering to Gay prostitutes, as opposed to just Gays. It IS unclear, tho, and open for interpretation. However, Paul still goes on with a HUGE laundry list of sinners, including his favorite-“fornicators”, but also “(the) proud, debate(ers),despiteful,boasters,
envy, deciet, whisperers, disobedient to parents” (Hell is getting REALLY crowded now,
but there’s a lot of US there, so we can have some nice discussions) and my favorite bits of hypocracy, coming from Paul -" without natural affection(Paul was celibate, and thought it best if everyone was too), implacable, and unmerciful".
So, there are a couple of verses that MIGHT refer to Gays, or maybe Gay prostitutes. But even if they do refer to Gays, they have a lot of company. Note, the Gay-bashers don’t talk much about fornication, do, they? I doubt if any of those who bash gays based on the Bible, don’t come under AT LEAST one of the other sins, lumped in w/ homosexuality. “Let those who are without sin, cast the first stone”. So, do any of you qualify to throw that rock? I thought not.
You know, this same thought occurred to me back when I was a Bible-totin’, Bible-quotin’ fellow.
The Gospels are much more centered around the notions of love and forgiveness. When Paul hits the scene, suddenly it’s all about rules.
I think you have to look at Paul’s past to understand the man. As Saul of Tarsus (before his conversion to Christianity) he was an intolerant zealot for the Jewish faith, and a persecuter of Christans. It seems to me that when he became a Christian, he held onto that intolerant/zealous streak.
My own opinion is that Paul did twist Christianity and impose upon it some of his own narrow views. I believe that Christians everywhere have been done a disservice by the canonization of Paul’s writings. His writings would best be viewed with a skeptical eye, as one might view the author of a book on Christianity today. There may be some valuable insight there, but it should not be viewed as infallible doctrine.
Of course, that’s coming from a hard-boiled old atheist, so what do I know?
I am reminded of the quote from Jesus as he intervened to stop a mob bent on stoning a woman caught in an act of adultery:
Sounds pretty non-judgemental to me. After the would-be stoners left the scene, did Jesus berate the woman for her sinful ways? No. I believe Jesus’s standard admonishment to sinners was “Go and sin no more.”
Whoopsie, Daniel, you’re kind of out on a limb there! Here, let me get you a ladder…
This is from the Wycliffe Bible Commentary, edited by Everett F. Harrison, copyright 1962 by the Moody Bible Institute:
As Christians, we don’t throw out the body of Old Testament law, or say, “This is no longer applicable to us.”
Jesus and Paul both agree that the law is not to be discarded, but that it is fulfilled through Jesus. The OT is the foundation, Jesus is the cornerstone, and the NT is the walls and roof. Both parts of the Bible work together to form Christianity.
The book of Romans concerns itself with that very issue of whether we should continue to follow the OT law, i.e. the Jewish law, once we become Christians. Paul was talking to worldly, sophisticated Roman Jews, explaining this to them. They too thought that becoming a Christian meant that the OT was no longer applicable to them. Paul hastened to persuade them otherwise.
The difference between the two parts of the Bible is that what was laid down in the NT is the fact that our faith in Jesus as the One Sacrifice enables us to be forgiven for the sins that are outlined in the OT. Before Jesus, you had to go to the Temple and offer sacrifices to be forgiven. The sins still exist, and still need to be forgiven. What’s changed in the NT is the manner of asking forgiveness. We now have one priest, one intermediary between God and man, and that priest is Jesus.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
But don’t you see, people? The extent to which we need to untangle and interpret the various scriptures, reconcile them and uncover the writers’ motives, hardly lends itself to the idea that the Bible is the direct and infallible word of God.
Let’s not get hijacked onto the subject of “inerrancy”, OK, Sqweels? Especially 'cause that’s a thread that I personally wouldn’t be caught dead in, having paid my dues already many years ago in the form of many a screaming face-to-face Bible duel. Been there, done that. 'kay?
Woof! Well, I certainly had an interesting morning! Been a long time since I had to drag all these books off the shelf. Let us open with a word of prayer, “Dear Lord, please let all the bolding and italics and quotes not screw up, amen.”
Now we come to the portion of the program called “reading the Bible for the dirty parts.”
The Biblical injunctions against homosexuality:
Well, first of all, of course there’s the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Men in the town of Sodom were so famous for anal sex that they gave their name to the practice. But you already know that.
Lot offers them his two virgin daughters instead, but they turn them down flat, start a riot, and then the Lord God Almighty steps in with the fire and brimstone bit, and the whole place burns to the ground, leaving only its name as a hissing and a byword for “anal sex.” It’s interesting to notice, however, that Merriam-Webster says it also includes sex with animals, lesbian sex, and oral sex.
Next we will consider Leviticus. The book of Leviticus concerns itself with laying down the Law. The portion from which the following verses are excerpted addresses itself specifically to sexual law–which females can a man have sex with, anyway? Not with his sister, or his mother, or his father’s wife, or his this, that, the other thing. Not with his wife while she’s having her period. Etc. etc. etc. Then, down towards the bottom of the list, there are these three things:
This is a section dealing with men’s sexual sins, but God evidently thought that He needed to add that WOMEN shouldn’t have sex with animals, either. I would conjecture that this might be because the main reason (IMHO) that a woman would try to have sex with an animal would be for the gratification of a male audience (the Tijuana dog-and-pony show springs immediately to mind. Everything old is new again…)
FWIW, the injunction against having sex with animals is repeated later, after a long passage concerning property rights and livestock:
There must have been a lot of lonely shepherds back in Bible times. Actually, I think this is repeated here because a ewe actually has a rather small vagina, and if you have sex with her, you can actually damage her, thus lessening her reproductive value.
The punishment for sexual immorality is as follows:
This was a dreadful sentence for a culture of nomadic shepherds. You’d either starve, or else find your way to some Canaanite city and try to make it as a beggar or whore.
It’s important enough for men not to have sexual relations with other men that God repeats Himself, just so no “Bible scholars” 2,000 years in the future can say, “Well, we’re only told this the one time, so that means it’s just personal opinion, we can discount it.” (again, this is in the middle of a whole discourse on sexual immorality of various kinds):
The penalty here is even more explicit; God isn’t take any chances with somebody sneaking off to Jericho and surviving.
Okay, that’s the Old Testament law, the “Jewish” law. As I said in my previous post, as Christians we don’t discount it just because we think that it’s no longer applicable. We may no longer have to obey the picky little rules about sacrificing and unclean things, but we do have to uphold the body of the Law, its intent. We don’t ignore the Ten Commandments, because what takes place in the New Testament fulfills and amplifies them. The Old Testament is a body of guidelines, of broad general purpose rules. And the verses about “men lying with men as one lies with a woman” not only occur within passages of other broad guidelines on sexual immorality, they are also quite explicit. I don’t see how anyone could claim, “Well, those aren’t applicable to us nowadays.” Maybe the verses about what to do when your donkey falls into a ditch on the Sabbath are no longer applicable, because it’s not a problem that comes up frequently in 21st century America, but men have probably been having anal sex ever since somebody discovered that guys have a hole, too.
Okay, here’s the New Testament. Here’s Jesus talking:
This is just a sample–I’m not going to give verse after verse on the same subject. Sexual immorality, which we already saw includes “men lying with men the way one lies with a woman”, is included in the list, along with murderers, adulterers, thieves, and liars. Jesus was a Jew and was of course perfectly familiar with the law.
There are lots and lots of verses in the New Testament concerning themselves with sexual immorality. Sometimes they are very general, but sometimes they are very specific. This is Paul talking:
[quote]
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
Rom 1:25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.
Rom 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
Rom 1:27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Rom 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
Rom 1:29 They have become filled with every ki
Let’s recap:
[ul][li]Jesus is not non-judgmental, but forgiving. His fiercest rants are against, not those who “commit sin” in the standard use of the phrase, but those who judge others. Luke is regularly quoting him on this: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, for you [make the law a stumbling block for others, variously phrased]” He refers to them as “whitewashed tombs, pure outside and full of corruption within.”[/li][li]Paul was a rigorous Pharisee persecuting the early Christians before his conversion. He seems to have brought that zealotry over and to have gotten very legalistic in his letters, though he did subscribe, and state strongly, the idea that Jesus frees us from slavery to the law.[/li][li]Paul condemns “immorality” and exemplifies it in a variety of ways, including gay and straight prostitution and gay and straight partying. He does not address committed gay relationships, for the very good reason that out relationships of this sort were unknown among the early Christians (at least as far as our evidence shows).[/ul][/li]
But rather than end with that, let me restate as strongly as possible that Jesus’ message was that stated by Tinker. It is not “follow these specific rules laid down by God” – it is "act in such a way as to always show love of God and fellow man."
Too much of this analysis has dwelt on what Jesus or Paul or an evangelical atheist or whoever would say in judgment over specific acts. That is as far from the core message as suggesting that the core message of the Straight Dope is that Cecil Adams favors the raising of yaks in Minnesota as exemplified in the Lake Louise column.
I’m going to borrow some of Notthemama’s quotes to illustrate my point about the difference between Jesus and Paul:
BUT
See the difference? Jesus condemns the sins while Paul condemns the sinners.
Paul is frankly judgmental. He unabashedly violates the precept: “Judge not lest ye be judged.”
This sort of thing is the reason that Paul’s writings come across as the works of a mean-spirited zealot. I am no Christian, but if I were, I would have a very difficult time reconciling Paul’s teachings with the words of Jesus himself.
You have just become my favorite poster. (Well, second favorite. My favorite poster is probably the movie poster from Superman III. You know, with Superman flying with Richard Pryor? Too funny! Err…umm…where was I? Oh yes…)
Job well done!
From now on, when I remember the baby from Dinosaurs, I won’t feel half as repulsed. (No less than a miracle, I assure you.)
BTW, I like your sig line. Maybe I should get one of those…
I think an example from first and second Corinthians makes Paul’s attitude pretty clear.
In I Corinthians the corinthians seem to be proud because they were tolerant of a man who was “with his father’s wife.” Paul told them to kick this immoral man out of their church.
In II Corinthians, Paul has to write them again to say, Ok guys, this man has now repented and is no longer sinning. You can let him come back now. The whole point of kicking him out was to discipline him, not to punish him.
As far as the woman caught in adultery goes: Even assuming that it is Jesus’ words, If both the man and woman would have been brought with three witnesses, than Jesus might have said to go ahead and stone them. The point is that the accusers were breaking the law by not following it to the letter. (Indeed, it may have been the text of the law that Jesus wrote in the dirt, though some people insist that it was the sins of the accusers.)
And where exactly does it say so in the text? It doesn’t.
Jesus said “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” That doesn’t sound to me like he was raising some legal tachnicality about the way they were going about stoning the poor woman. Jesus was pointing out the hypocrisy of the mob, and making the same point which he makes elsewhere: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
We are measured with the same measuring stick as the one we are judging. This isn’t saying don’t judge, but don’t judge without self-reflection first. That is the story of casting the first stone.
Once they realized they had committed the same sin as she did, they found themselves full of the same guilt, and in danger of the same stones.
