From: altheimm@nextnet.csus.edu (Murray Altheim)
Subject: Re: The meaning of "pagan"
Organization: California State University Sacramento
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 01:37:49 GMT

In article <2B48D8D0.1865@news.service.uci.edu>
    cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.000134.9595@csus.edu>
    altheimm@nextnet.csus.edu (Murray Altheim) writes:
>>>In article <C09r8y.IG5.1@cs.cmu.edu> drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake) writes:
>>>
>>>I am the way.  Not "I am a way."  I am THE way.  Moreso, "I am the way,
>>>the truth and the life.  No man cometh to the Father but by me."  They
>>>did NOT write: "I am a way, one of many truths and a type of life.  Some
>>>men come to the Father by me, but not all."
>>
>>Of course, this does assume that Jesus' name was "Jesus", had brown hair
>>and blue eyes, white skin, and spoke Jamesian English. And that the 
>>redactor of the text had access to either an authentic and correct text,
>>or to someone who had actually heard Jesus speak those words.
[...]
>>
>>Not that his name was Yeshua or Joshua, had (most likely) black hair and
>>brown skin, and spoke Aramaic. That no author or redactor of the extant
>>texts, which are in Greek, ever met him, nor was likely to even have heard
>>him speak, that the Greek texts themselves have been demonstrably modified
>>to suit the purposes of the Christian Church, and that it is exceedingly
>
>Speculating on what Jesus/Yeshu may or may not have "really" said is
>useless, since we don't know.  The current structure of the xtian
>churches is built up on what he is reported to have said, so any appeal
>to or argument against xtian dogma is going to have to go back to the
>bible, and not what the carpenter/fisherman and part time political
>hellraiser named Yeshu may have said, if he even existed in the flesh
>at all.

I assume you are agreeing with my rather circuitous point, that the dogma
of the Christian church is built upon a faulty edifice of distorted textual
evidence in the extant texts, and that appeals to the literal "truth" of
the bible are delusionary, quioxitic and misplaced.

Only a small minority of modern scholars still believe that Jesus (who
I'll call Jesus for lack of a consistent English translation -- I've 
heard it is spelled the same in Aramaic as the Hebrew Joshua.) never
existed. This was largely the conception of humanist and other skeptical
scholars at the end of the 19th century. Today, even most skeptics accept
that he existed, and differ primarily on what little we know of him.

>It's obvious and accepted that the texts were altered; that particular
>quote, as I posted previous, is almost certainly a later insertion into
>the scriptures.  What of it?  This is the text that shaped thought and
>politics for millenia; we must address it if we are to address the
>politics of the people who follow it.  The fundies who nearly ran the
>Repub convention didn't give a shit as to whether or not the bible was
>altered; they'd spit at you if you so much as suggested it.  As far as
>they are concerned, Jesus (the blond, blue-eyed one) said exactly that.
>As such, if we are to challenge their views and their imposing them on
>us, we must challenge that statement as it is, not try to educate them
>on it.  (Educating them on it might be nice, but I doubt many would
>listen.)

I personally believe that attempting to discuss dogma with the dogmatic
is fruitless (dogless?), and that challenging the dogma from within
contextually falls within the same problems. IMNSHO, the best approach is
to expose the roots of their beliefs, to scrutinize the history of the 
Church in all its orthodoxy and heresy, and attempt to recover some 
semblance of the ideas of the original Jesus mission.

I don't feel that this is an attack on the Christian religion. Any
belief system should be able to stand up to this kind of scrutiny. If
there is something to hide, something to be afraid of, to be ashamed of,
shouldn't that ALL be exposed to the light of day and a reformulation of
belief follow? What reason could any self-proclaimed Christian have to NOT
desire to know the true thoughts and beliefs of their Lord?

And just so as I don't appear hypocritical, I have set up the goal of 
reading both the Hebrew Bible in the Hebrew and the New Testament in its
Greek. It will be a few years off, but I'm really tired of not having 
the ammunition to discuss these issues from a firm foundation. And 
listening to the blather of fundamentalists and evangelicals who don't 
know a word of either language.

>Be that as it may, the current system is set up on what IS in the bible,
>and we must address THAT.  The history is simply another part of this.
>
>Blessings,
>Janis 

Good to see you're keeping the troops around here hopping.  :-)

Bright Blessings and Happy New Year, Janis!

Murray

-- 
Murray M. Altheim      "Ils ont l'orteil de Bouc, & d'un Chevreil l'oreille,
Instructional Consultant    La corne d'un Chamois, & la face vermeille
CSU, Sacramento          Comme un rouge Croissant: & dancent toute nuict
altheimm@csus.edu       Dedans un carrefour, ou pres d'une eau qui bruict."
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism