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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (31843)	2/27/2004 10:30:07 AM
From: redfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793966

So basically what you are saying is that Christianity must be abolished and Christians should abandon their faith.

To: michael97123 who wrote (31843)	2/27/2004 11:05:56 AM
From: E	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793966

The gospels say what they say but they were written years after the events and by men, not without justified prejudice against some jews plus a religous mission to spread christianity... Hi, michael. I asked N. to reply to your comment. I'm channeling him now!: ... The overwhelming consensus in modern New Testament scholarship by Christian students of the scriptures contains the following conclusions: ~ The Gospels were not written by the people whose names are attached to them. ~ They are internally inconsistent on major and minor matters of factual assertion. ~ A prime motivation for the bias the Gospels express relates to the understandable desire of the new Jesus sect to curry favor with the Roman authorities and to clearly distinguish its communicants from the defeated and rebellious Jews. ~ The Gospels vary in the degree of anti-Judaism they express, but they are products of the post-destruction of the Temple period when the new Jesus cult was in the process of separating itself from Judaism and entering into active competition with it. Jesus had been dead for about seventy years by this time. In short, the Gospels are political documents. Tracts, even. Gibson's concentration of blame for the punishment of Jesus away from the Romans, and toward their Temple elite collaborators and by extension, to all Jews -- a maneuver most unmistakably evident in what is apparently a rather tender treatment of Pontius Pilate -- may have some of the same ugly consequences in this pop retelling of the Passion that it has had in other settings. Many people don't know that Pontius Pilate is revered as a saint in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a branch of belief which has not been characterized by the partial apologies offered by the Roman Catholic branch for past anti-Jewish atrocities . The story of anti-Judaisim and antisemitism in Eastern Orthodox culture is not a pretty one. I thought of this when I saw the photograph of the Greek Orthodox priests hotfooting it to Mel Gibson's fictional production. They will be confirmed and energized, you may be sure. [Michael, I'm adding a P.S. in a second post.]

To: michael97123 who wrote (31843)	2/27/2004 11:35:19 AM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793966

P.S. The Passion plays as a genre have a particularly ugly history in Europe, btw. Excerpts from today's NYT account of the reactions of a panel of religious leaders: ...the movie deviated in bizarre ways from the Gospel accounts,...horrified to see the Jewish high priests rendered as bloodthirsty schemers demanding Jesus' death over the protests of a sympathetic Pontius Pilate...Mr. Gibson has depicted his film as a true recounting of the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. But the Christian and Jewish clergy at the table were troubled by embellishments that they said had no basis in Scripture... ... the film's sympathetic treatment of a Roman governor [Pontius Pilate] so brutal he was eventually recalled from his post... Inaccuracies... The whole article is here: nytimes.com