Did you ever follow the argument of the Puritans against the Catholics concerning the use of images? The Puritans insisted Catholic use of images–relating to the verses I cited–had no place in Christianity, as they had no place in the Jewish religion.
:eek:impudent? I am appalled by your accusation. This the normal sort of shenanigans and jackanapery I wouldn’t even expect in the the Pit, let alone in IMHO.
Mods, I demand you taser him while he’s stunned, move this thread to The Pit. With a content warning for such shocking terminology as “impudent”.
Let’s go out there and raise a few eyebrows.
Yes, I’ve “followed” that line of reasoning. Also the Puritan preaching against celebrating Christmas–because of the holiday’s Pagan & Popish roots. Even as a thoroughly lapsed Catholic, I have no problem with religious art or celebrating Christmas. (Well, some religious art is mawkish & some holiday celebrations are tasteless–but neither excess hurts anyone; I can avert my eyes.)
Heck, I’m a hard-edged atheist…and I celebrate Christmas! It’s a fun time for a holiday, chock-full of jolly traditions. Pour me another eggnog!
ETA: and I adore the religious music of J.S. Bach! Oh! The St. John Passion! Brilliant! It’s Christian, and it’s also anti-Semitic, and I don’t care: it’s BEAUTIFUL!
Bach’s music is anti-Semitic? How so? Enlighten me, please. :eek:
Have you perchance heard “Green Chri$tma$” by Stan Freberg?
Well, it’s easier than raising cattle and raising children, though less fun than raising cain.
Do I get 40 lashes with a wet noodle?
The Saint John Passion continues the long German tradition of the Passion Play, including blaming the Jews for the crucifixion.
(Despite the ugliness of it, the chorus where the Jews shriek, “Crucify Him, Crucify Him” and “We Have No King but Caesar” are remarkably strong musical compositions. The work is brilliant.)
Bach isn’t too much to be blamed; it’s rather like Thomas Jefferson keeping slaves. It was just how things worked back then.
Somehow “Anti-Semitic” has become synonymous with “anything not positive said about Jews.”
There was so much “negative” content of the Old Testament that by the same yardstick as one might use for Bach’s music, one would have to call the Old Testament “anti-Semitic.” (Look at Malachi 4:6, the very last passage in the Old Testament.)
In this connection, some comments by columnist named Sydney J. Harris of St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, are interesting:
"If the book were merely a smooth piece of religious propaganda, the compilers could easily have removed all the offensive passages…
"Street-corner atheists who jubilantly point to such passages as ‘proof’ that the Bible is a barbaric and inconsistent book are making a defect out of what is really a virtue…
“No other book ever written has vibrated with more agonizing honesty.”–*Telegraph-Journal *of St. John, December 16, 1959.
Perhaps the Gospel accounts of the way the high priest treated Jesus could be called “anti-Semitic,” because they are not positive statements…what’s wrong with telling the truth? I assume J. S. Bach didn’t go for sugar-coating.
Wow.
Do you know the history of the German Passion Plays? You need to do a bit more study, before you declare them “the truth.” They aren’t. They heavily exaggerated the role (and blame) of the Jews in the crucifixion.
Bach’s St. John Passion is brilliant – just as Thomas Jefferson was brilliant. Bach included anti-Semitic treatments in this masterpiece – just as Thomas Jefferson kept slaves.
This is the truth.
(Bach did indeed go for sugar-coating! Listen to some of his cantatas celebrating the glory of his various patrons or their children. “Lasst uns Sorgen” is a beautiful piece of mustic, but it ends with a panegyric over Crown Prince Freidrich Christian of Saxony – who was eleven years old at the time. “Schleicht, spielende Wellen” celebrated prince Friedrich August, who became August III of Poland. Bach not only sugar-coated, he brown-nosed and kissed ass.)
Well, Old Bach had a lot of kids to feed. Composing cantatas celebrating the glory of God or Jesus is all well and good, but they don’t pay as well as kings and crown princes.
If the Rothschilds had offered him a fat contract, I’ll bet Johann would have come up with any number of sprightly tunes celebrating the glory of his Jewish bros.
True and true. He took the job as Cappelmeister because it paid well! (Georg Philip Telemann was offered the job first, but turned it down because one of the duties was teaching Latin to the students. I believe it was Kuhnau who was offered the job even before Telemann, but he was under contract to someone else at the time…)
Bach was quite religious…but he didn’t mind swiping from himself. He “re-purposed” the Easter Oratorio into a secular oratorio. Exact same music, different words! Now that’s thrift!
Anyway, sorry, digression away from statues!
Here in San Diego, we have the first of the chain of Missions that Father Serra (now Sainted) built up and down California. There is a big statue of Jesus in the courtyard, and the poor guy’s great toe has developed a terrible leprous skin condition – worn to a nub from the people who pass by and caress it!
As a Christian, I’d just like to mention that I’d get a lot more comfort from your dragon statue.
I find most statues creepy. I mean, you’re reducing a fully developed flesh-and-blood human to a chunk of stone. Unless you’re Michael-frickin-angelo, it’s going to look fakey. And therefore disconcerting.
Our Lady of the Bathtub would not comfort me; she might, in fact, push me over the edge.
Are you saying that Bach embellished the matter beyond what was said in the Scriptures?
Hated without cause. (Isaiah 53:1-3)
“His blood be upon us and our children.” (Matthew 27:25)
“We have no king but Caesar.” (John 19:15)
And then there is the parable of the murderous cultivators (Mark 12:1-12). “If the shoe fits, wear it.”
How much farther can blame go than that?
Actually, Michael-fricking-archangelo statues are much more fakey if you ask me, but I do like the polychromatic wings…
dougie_monty, do you think that if what happened in Palestine had happened anybody else, that He wouldn’t have gotten crucified? Or hung, drawn and quartered, whatever happened to be fashionable. There is an enormous difference between “there was one perfect man, and we hung him from a cross” and “there was one perfect man, and they hung him from a cross”. He died for all our sins, not only those of the Jews.
Nava, you are going off on a tangent. The Gospels clearly state that Jews were responsible for what was done to Jesus. Pontius Pilate bore considerable blame for what he, as the civil authority, did; but his guilt did not equal that of the high priest or the other Jewish “authorities” involved. Hence the mention of the parable of the murderous cultivators. THIS is what seems to be the “anti-Semitism” of the Passion Plays unless, as I asked, Bach embellished the matter with what we would call these days “creative writing” or just plain “lying.”
Dougie…you do realize that you are parroting the same nonsense that anti-semites have been claiming for centuries, right?