The Spiral Path

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Archive for the category “Paul vs Jesus”

17 Aug 2012

RS24: Some Thoughts on Healing From Jesus

Lilies of the Field - colour - June 2013_0003

“. . . [Jesus] said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners'” (Mark 2:17).  About the illustration: This was one of the first posts I wanted to illustrate, but at the time I had no digital camera and few art supplies on hand. I had to make due with a sheet of oversized paper and a few coloured markers – along with my own artistic need. Sometimes God asks us to help with a healing task even though we have no formal academic training and no technical equipment. It’s amazing what we can do by following our intuition, listening to God’s wise counsel, and using the few tools we have on hand. Illustration credit JAT 2013.

A:  I’ve read some interesting theories over the years to explain the healing miracles in the Gospels.  Some of these theories fall under the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” umbrella.  There’s the theory that the miracles stories are reports of true supernatural events — proof of Jesus’ divinity and sovereignty over the powers of evil.  (This theory appeals to devout evangelical Christians.) On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the theory that the healing miracles should not be understood as fact but as pure metaphor — as literary window-dressing to enhance the credibility of the main character, you.  (This theory appeals to liberal and progressive Christians, who often don’t believe in miracles.)

And then there’s the bizarre group of theories that attempts to “explain” your healing powers through analogy to altered states of consciousness as they’re understood today by some anthropologists and psychologists.  Stevan Davies’s book Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity (New York: Continuum, 1995) is a particularly egregious example of this kind of thinking.  (At the bottom of this post I’ve pasted in a book review I wrote about Davies’s book for an Historical Jesus course, a review which explains why I’m not fond of Davies’s thesis.  This is the same Stevan Davies whose translation of the Gospel of Thomas we’ve been using in the Jesus Redux series of posts.)

So whatcha say, big guy?  Were you wandering around the Galilee as a Jewish magician with serious DSM-IV issues, a wannabe charismatic prophet suffering from a dissociative disorder, a delusional shaman who had a honkin’ big need for an olanzapine prescription?  Is this who you really were?

J (chuckling):  These guys make me sound like a creepy bad guy from the Criminal Minds series.

A:  Yeah, like that two-part episode where James Van Der Beek plays an UnSub who has a multiple personality disorder (Season Two, “The Big Game” and “Revelations.”)  One of his “personalities” (the really dangerous one) is an apocalyptic Christian prophet.

J:  That’s a good example.  A person suffering from a dissociative disorder is not a well person and needs intensive medical care from a team of trained professionals.  To suggest that it’s a good idea for a religious teacher or shaman to intentionally induce a state of altered consciousness (“spirit possession”) or a permanent state of dissociation in his/her followers is not only morally reprehensible but is also questionable from a legal point of view.

A:  So you didn’t try to teach your followers how to have spontaneous dissociative experiences of being possessed by Spirit.

J (shaking his head):  No.  I did not.  I taught my followers that the key to knowing God is to first know yourself.  This is, by definition, the very opposite of dissociative experiences.

A:  What about Paul?  Did Paul encourage these states of “spirit possession”?

J:  Absolutely.  He not only encouraged these states, but promoted them as one of the major “drawing cards” of his new religion — buy my Saviour and as an added bonus you’ll receive a free gift from Spirit!  Discover how with my easy salvation you can receive, at no additional charge, a special gift of the utterance of wisdom or the utterance of knowledge or faith or gifts of healing or working of miracles or prophecy or discernment of spirits or various kinds of tongues or the gift of interpretation of tongues (one gift per customer, choice made by Spirit at time of purchase, no substitutions, all gifts subject to laws of Divine Cause & Effect, this is a time-limited offer, so call one of our helpful customer service agents now!).

A:  It never ceases to amaze me how rarely Paul talks about healing in his letters.  Why doesn’t he talk about medical healing — the kind of roll-up-your-sleeves-and-touch-your-neighbour kind of healing you engaged in?  Why doesn’t he care?

J:  He wasn’t interested in helping people find healing.  He had different concerns — occult concerns related to power and order and perfectionism, as we’ve discussed.  As far as Paul was concerned, sick people were defective.  They’d already proven their imperfection and undesirability in the kingdom of God.  Corrupt mortal flesh — sarx in Greek — was an ongoing source of shame and judgment, so who cared?  Paul’s focus was the mind and the soul, which were infinitely superior to mere flesh, in his view.  To choose to heal flesh, as I did, by starting with the flesh — with the actual physical body instead of the pure Platonic Mind — was an incomprehensible paradigm to Paul.  In other words, he thought basic medical science made no sense and was a complete waste of time and divine energy.

A:  But that’s what you actually did.  You started with the actual physical body, not the pure mind or soul.  You helped heal people’s bodies so they could find the courage and strength to build their own relationships with God.

J:  Early on in my journey as a prastising mystic — not as a dissociated prophet, but as a mentally healthy mystic and channeller — my guardian angel (my daemon in the Greek — not to be confused with the English word “demon”) gave me an excellent analogy.  She said this:

“The flowers in the field that you admire, that stop your heart with wonder and beauty, are not like dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus in the field.  You cannot treat them in the ways you’ve been taught.  You must think of the flowers in the field as the emotions of God the Mother and God the Father — their memories, their feelings, their stories from times far more ancient than you or any other human being can remember.

The journey through this field of flowers cannot be like the Labours of Heracles if you want to feel the wonder of knowing God.  You must tread softly.  You must not trample in your haste to get to the other side.  You must listen with all your heart and all your mind and all your body and all your soul to the quiet whispers of the lilies.

Each person you meet is like a lily of the field.  The roots and the leaves of the lily bear the weight of the colourful blossom, but without the unseen roots and the hard-working leaves, there would be no chance for the lily to produce its harvest.

Treat the body of all you meet in the same way you would treat God’s lilies.  Respect all parts of the plant, including the most humble and least attractive parts.  Even the smallest root has a part to play.  Do not despise the leaves for the sake of the flower’s beauty.  The flower fades quickly, but the strongly rooted plant produces blossoms again if it is properly cared for.

Care first for the roots and the humble green plant, and, with time and gentle handling, it will reward you.”

This is why I rejected all religious models about the nature of the human body, and turned to a scientific model with the help of my guardian angels and God.  There was a lot I didn’t understand about the inner workings of the human body, but one thing seemed clear to me:

If God made these bodies for us, they must be worth looking after.

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Book Review
STEVAN L. DAVIES.   JESUS THE HEALER: POSSESSION, TRANCE, AND THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY.  NEW YORK: CONTINUUM, 1995.  ISBN 0-8264-0794-3

Review by Jennifer Thomas    November 1, 2007

Breathe deeply before you begin to read Stevan Davies book Jesus the Healer.  There’s no index, no table of contents, no glossary, no illustrations or diagrams, not even an introduction to orient you in this book, so if you lose the thread of Davies’s argument, you have to retrace your steps.  This isn’t a book where you can jump in at any point and quickly grasp the author’s argument.  Davies’s thesis is quite complex, and he keeps adding to it chapter by chapter as he attempts (in his own words) to “bring closer together the two continents of Jesus research: historical scholarship and theological reflection” (p.18).  On the plus side, the book is a mere 216 pages long, including its 7-page bibliography.

One puzzling aspect of this 1995 book is the lack of biographical information about the author.  We’re told nothing about his education or background.  Is he a professional journalist or is he a member of academia?  We don’t know.  All we know is that he’s the author of three other books.  A search of my own bookshelves produced a copy of The Gospel of Thomas (2002), translated and annotated by Stevan Davies, Professor of Religious Studies at College Misericordia in Pennsylvania.  An internet search yielded the same information.  So we can rest assured that he deserves our attention.

Davies begins his book with a brief overview of research into the historical Jesus over the last hundred years.  Rejecting the prevailing view of Jesus as some form of teacher, Davies tackles the less well examined paradigm of Jesus as healer.  His approach is secular, not theological.  For him, New Testament reports of supernatural occurrences are a goldmine of anthropological and psychological data that other researchers have wrongly ignored.  He sets out to show us how we might reexamine the passages about exorcisms, healings, and the Son of God, and reinterpret them in light of 20th century theories about “spirit-possession” and “demon-possession.”

Chapter 2 summarizes the anthropological and psychological models Davies relies on to categorize possession: the state wherein a person’s normal persona is believed to be displaced by a “possessing” spirit or demon.  Davies is very clear that it’s the belief that’s important.  The belief makes it somehow “real” to the people experiencing it.  And this in turn makes it an “historical event.”  In other words, researchers of the historical Jesus can use biblical passages about exorcism without fear that they’re endorsing the paranormal.  This part of Davies’s thesis may prove to have more lasting value to the field than some of his other conclusions.

In Chapter 3, Davies briefly examines descriptions of 1st century Jewish prophets in Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, and the New Testament.  From here, he leads into the baptism of Jesus, which he asserts is the correct starting place for understanding Jesus.  Davies uses spirit-possession theory to suggest that John’s baptism triggered a spontaneous dissociative experience in Jesus that led Jesus (and others) to believe he was possessed by the spirit of God.

Building on this novel approach, Davies looks at questions about Jesus’ healings (Chapter 5); demon possession (Chapter 6); Jesus’ exorcisms (Chapter 7); and Jesus and his associates (Chapter 8).  But all of these chapters are really a prelude to Chapters 9 and 10, where Davies tells us that Jesus induced in his followers an altered state of consciousness (ASC) called the “kingdom of God.”  The paradoxical nature of some of Jesus’ parables and sayings is proof to Davies that Jesus was using a healing method akin to the hypnotherapy techniques of American psychotherapist Milton Erickson.

In the last section of the book (Chapters 11 to 13), Davies, not content with a basic model for how Jesus might have healed others, tries to expand his thesis to explain to modern readers why the Johannine-style sayings attributed to Jesus should be considered just as historically authentic as synoptic-style sayings; why we should view early Christianity as a “missionary spirit-possession cult”; and why we must conclude that both Paul and John used “inductive discourse” (that is, intentionally confusing speech) to generate a spontaneous experience of spirit-possession in potential converts.

By the time I finished reading the book, I had found several inconsistencies in his argument, two or three outright contradictions, and an instance where the statistical figures he quoted did not add up (quite literally).  Likely these were unintentional errors.  And I can look past them.  What I can’t look past is Davies’s preposterous theory that the authors of Q and the synoptics recorded only the sayings of Jesus when he was speaking in his own voice as Jesus, and that the author of John wrote down only the sayings of Jesus when he was “possessed” by the Spirit of God (Chapter 11).  And that’s two different people, so of course the sayings sound different!

My ultimate impression?  I couldn’t escape the sense that Davies had gleefully picked fruit from the tree of knowledge in anthropology and psychology, and had tried to put it in a nice, neat gift basket he could present to other New Testament scholars as a sort of sublime “theory of everything.”  Unfortunately, he didn’t know when to stop filling the basket.  He damaged his own thesis because he failed to grasp its limits.  So I would advise caution in relying on the material in this book.

Jesus the Healer is not currently in print.

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Posted in Davies (Stevan), dissociation, healing, healing miracles, historical Jesus, Paul vs Jesus, Realspiritik, religion and mental Illness and tagged , | Leave a Comment
09 Aug 2012

RS22: Freedom and Slavery

pryamids_giza_Historylink101

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have certainty, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I many boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own ways. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13: 1 – 8a). This short passage, long attributed to Paul, is so unlike Paul’s teachings and is so resonant with Jesus’ teachings (especially as seen in the Gospel of Thomas), it’s amazing Paul still gets the credit. Shown here are the Pyramids at Giza, photo credit Historylink101.com (Egyptian Picture Gallery).

A:  Last time you said Paul’s religious masters feared contamination by the forces of chaos.  You then defined the forces of chaos as the forces of Love and All Things Feminine.  My first thought was to ask about the reaction from Christians who insist that Paul speaks eloquently about Love.  Then I remembered that you yourself wrote the famous ode to love in First Corinthians 13.  I also remembered the academic papers I’d read about the meaning of the word “love” (aheb in Hebrew) in Second Temple Judaism.  At that time “loving God” meant “obeying God” rather than “liking God” or “being in relationship with God.”  Love for God was a duty, a contractual obligation, a way for human beings to hold up their end of the bargain with God.

Why did Paul talk so much about love (agape in the Greek) if he didn’t believe in love?

J:  Paul was not a man who was capable of love.  What he meant by love was something much closer to the mindset you and I have defined as humility — turning yourself into an empty vessel — an obedient vessel — so you can properly receive Paul’s authority.

A:  He doesn’t use the word “humility” in his letters.

J:  No.  He uses the words “weakness” and “foolishness.”  But it’s still humility.

A:  The meaning is the same.

J:  Paul didn’t believe at all in the concept of love as I understood love.  He believed in obedience.  In orderly, obedient communities.  In pyramids of mystical power where the people at the bottom of the pyramid “knew their place” and obeyed those who were higher up in rank and authority and supported them in their “great mission.”  But he doesn’t use the word “pyramid.”  He uses the metaphor of the body — the one body in Christ.  Christ is the head.  All the members of the community are part of this one body, which makes sense from a practical viewpoint, because a body can move more swiftly if it has two healthy feet.  But make no mistake — the feet are still at the bottom of this pyramid of power.  So  slaves are loved in Paul’s community because they help bring order and stability to the community.  But they’re still slaves.

A:  Christians today read Paul’s speech about the one body (1 Cor 12: 12-31) as a rejection of hierarchical values in Hellenistic culture.  But you’re saying it’s not a rejection.

J:  It’s a different understanding of hierarchy.  For Paul, it’s a superior understanding of hierarchy.  It’s an attempt to reveal the real truth about hierarchy, the real mystical underpinnings of hierarchy that exist within all the worlds of Heaven.  It’s Paul’s attempt to bring “the one true” hierarchy into the corrupt world.  Again, alchemy.  An attempt to bring order and harmony into the corrupt physical world by controlling the powers of chaos.  An attempt to corral the behaviour of everybody so they’ll fit properly within the pyramid of power that Paul and his religious masters are trying to build.

A:  When you say they’ll fit properly, how do you mean that?  Do you mean that figuratively?

J:  No.  I mean that literally.  Don’t forget — “The One True Religion” Paul was commissioned to spread was about 3,000 years old by the time Paul came on the scene.  This group had already spent 3,000 years researching and experimenting with different ways to acquire power.  Their early attempts were focussed on external tools — projects such as the Pyramids of Giza and subsequent wonders of the ancient world.  Eventually, though, they noticed they were having problems with other people’s brains.  People had an annoying habit of trying to find freedom for themselves and their families.  Then they wouldn’t behave!

The Seekers of the Rock decided that all those busy human minds that were always getting in the way of the group’s goals were nothing more than fractured little bits of the universal Order and Perfection that Spirit had already created in pure form for the higher levels of Heaven.  Order and Perfection were envisaged as a pyramid of perfect, exquisite, divine geometry.  Each of the four sides at the base of the pyramid represented one of the immutable Divine Laws (as this group understood them).  One side — the north side — represented vengeance — in other words, the Divine Right to punish lawbreakers.  The south side represented knowledge — the Divine Right to control all knowledge.  The west side represented “mass” — great weight, strength, force, inertia — or the Divine Right to build great armies to seize what was rightfully its own.  The east side represented sacrifice — the Divine Right to demand sacrifice for purposes that cannot be understood by mortal minds.

The Seekers believed that if communities of believers could be gathered together in accordance with these four main principles, they could literally create a metaphysical pyramid that would be pleasing to Spirit.  But, as with a physical pyramid built of carefully cut stones, a mystical pyramid can only be strong and whole and worthy of Spirit’s approval if each “stone” is properly placed in relation to neighbouring stones.  The pyramid is built of many smaller stones.  So all the stones are necessary if the pyramid is to achieve its purpose.  If you remove some of the stones at the bottom, the whole construct might topple.

A:  So, for Paul, slaves are like the stones at the bottom.

J (nodding):  When the slaves know their proper place, and stay where they’ve been placed at the bottom of the pyramid, the Divine Rights of Vengeance, Knowledge, Strength, and Sacrifice will remain in balance, and Order is achievable.  But if the slaves dare step outside the bounds of the pyramid and into the frightening world of chaos that lies beyond, Spirit will have no choice but to exercise its Rights.  That’s when you get divine actions like the Great Flood.  It’s a simple matter of cause and effect.

A:  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

J:  As I said, this bunch saw themselves as scientists in pursuit of order and harmony.  Their relentless attacks on free will were highly logical, if completely inhumane.  From their twisted perspective, they were “saving” the slaves from the dire consequences of their foolish desire for freedom.  They were acting in the best interests of the group as a whole.  “We’re doing this for your own good.  This hurts us more than it hurts you.  One day you’ll thank us for this.”

A:  Something tells me Paul’s rhetoric on “freedom” is not what it appears to be.

 

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Posted in anagogic mysticism, Divine Love, First Corinthians, free will, Gnosticism, HDM Myths, humility, Mother God, mysticism, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Realspiritik, slavery, spiritual ascent and tagged | Leave a Comment
05 Aug 2012

RS20: The Messiah Who Misbehaved

A:  Last time, you came out with a doozy.  You said — and I quote — “[Paul] would have thought of it as ‘reintegrating’ broken pieces of divine truth that had fallen out of their proper places.  Pieces such as the Logos [Jesus].  And Charis (grace), who was Paul’s God.”

Bleeding Hearts ((c) JAT)

“They said to him: ‘Tell us who you are so that we can believe in you. He replied: You analyze the appearance of the sky and the earth, but you don’t recognize what is right in front of you, and you don’t know the nature of the present time” (Gospel of Thomas 91). Photo credit JAT 2013.

That’s quite a statement.  You’re saying, in effect, that Paul believed you actually were some some sort of divine figure who was sent to Earth, but that you were somehow “defective” or “broken,” and because of your “brokenness” Paul hated and feared you and tried to “fix” your teachings.  Have I got that right?

J (nodding):  Exactly.  It’s not difficult to see the differences in theology between Paul and myself, and it’s not difficult to see that Paul was trying to found a brand new religious movement, with himself as leader and prophet.  But at the end of the day, you still have to ask yourself why he would bother including me at all.  You have to ask yourself why he would found a new religious movement, and then stick a real person — a person whose family and friends had survived him and could still tell the truth — right in the middle of it.  It was a risky thing to do.  A stupid thing to do from the viewpoint of common sense and practicality.  It would have been much simpler and more logical for him to invent a Saviour from whole cloth, as so many other religious movements had done before him.  He could have invented a new god, and nobody around him would have blinked.  The world of 1st century CE religion was full of invented gods.

A:  So why did he do it?  Why did he take the risk of putting a real person at the centre of his new religious movement?

J:  We’ve talked about some of Paul’s motives in the past.  He was a man who was deeply driven, deeply ambitious.  He was, like so many ambitious men before and after him, a man who was blind to his own issues, blind to his own extreme narcissism.  The world was a confusing and endlessly frustrating place, from his point of view.  So, like so many other narcissists, he turned to ideology to help him cope.  He turned, in this case, to the ideology of religion.  Not faith, as I’d like to emphasize, but religion.  Religion as a cultural institution with clear rules and expectations — rules that bring order and harmony into a world of pure chaos.  Rules that make sense to the head if not to the heart.  Rules that tell people their place in life.  Rules that tell people how to behave toward their neighbours and how to behave toward their “betters.”  Rules that teach people how to obey.  This sense of structure and obedience was greatly appealing to Paul.  It helped him cope with his own feelings of confusion and anger.

A:  So he just went out and started a new religion?

J:  No.  Paul’s mindset — his internal belief system — was the start of his journey, but not the end of it.  In early adulthood, Paul turned to the Jewish tradition he’d been raised in, and at first this satisfied him.  But soon his narcissism, his need for special attention and special outcomes for himself, led him further and further away from questions about compassion and healing and forgiveness.  His clever mind and his skill with rhetoric brought him to the attention of a powerful group of military and political thinkers based in Alexandria, Egypt.

A:  We’ve talked about this before.  You called this group “Seekers of the Rock.”  You said they had a plan to seize power from the emperors of the Julian dynasty in Rome.

J (nodding):  People today often scoff at the idea that such powerful groups exist.  But they do.  They’ve been a fixture of all technologically advanced civilizations on Planet Earth.   The people who found and maintain these groups always ascribe great mystical significance and merit to their work, but, in fact, they’re really just a bunch of severe narcissists who’ve got together to form a “mutual admiration society.”

A:  Misery loves company.

J:  Yes.  Narcissists feel miserable on the inside.  But they feel better if they can keep themselves busy by throwing themselves into “a worthy cause.”  And what more worthy cause could there be than joining the Sons of Light to save the universe from the dire perils of Sin and Death and Corrupt Law and their evil leader Beliar?

A:  Paul mentions Beliar in Second Corinthians (2 Cor 6:15).

J:  And the Essenes before him.  Essene beliefs about Good Versus Evil greatly influenced Paul.  But in the end, even the secret mystical teachings of the Essenes weren’t enough for him, and he embraced the offer made to him by the Seekers of the Rock.

A:  They made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

J:  One of their seers told Paul he’d been chosen before birth to carry out a great mission that could help save the world and restore order to the entire universe.  There is no more tempting bait for a pure narcissist.

A:  Paul begins his letter to the Galatians by saying God had set him apart before he was born to receive divine revelation (Gal 1:11-17).

J:  Once a narcissist is convinced of such a claim, he or she becomes unstoppable in religious fervour.  He puts on a cloak of religious fervour that is understood by others as charisma — a gift of special grace from God.   He wears it 24/7 and goes without food or sleep if he’s caught up in the self-generated ecstasy of being the No. 1 Prophet and Mouthpiece of Revelation.  But, again, there’s nothing mystical or divine about it.  It’s the self-generated high — the orgasmic high — that narcissists feel when other people tell them how “special” and “chosen” they (the prophets) are.

A:  So Paul believed his own propaganda.  He believed he was a divinely chosen messenger.

J:  Absolutely.  He couldn’t have found the strength to keep going for so long if he hadn’t believed in his own message.

A:  The source of that strength was the “high” he got from being treated by others as special and chosen.

J:  Yes.  It’s an addictive high.  Eventually it damages both body and brain and leads to other forms of addiction, such as addiction to sex or drugs, but in the short term it gives a lot of energy, a lot of stamina for big performances, big bursts of charisma.

A:  Like some pop stars today.

J:  A lot like that, yes.

A:  So how does any of this relate to you?  Why did he decide to put you in the middle of the new religion he was commissioned to create?

J:  Several reasons.  One, he needed a “face” for his new Christ Movement, a movement that was being founded to compete with the Emperor Cult in Rome.  The Emperor Cult had “refreshed” ideas about the living god, the god incarnated in human form, the man who is really the son of God, deity in human flesh, god-and-emperor-as-One, that kind of thing.  These weren’t new religious ideas at the time.  Far from it.  But the influence of the Emperor Cult — which was nothing more than a calculated political ploy designed to build acceptance for Rome’s rule — had a surprising and unintended effect on people.  People began to think more — and yearn more — for an actual living god who could help them in their suffering.  Many people were open to the idea a living god, a Saviour who would come to Earth during a time of great need and save the oppressed.  It’s an idea that still hasn’t gone away.

A:  The Romans were nothing if not oppressive.

J:  Other religious movements of the time — and there were many — focussed on ancient gods and ancient prophecies.  Meanwhile, the Emperor Cult had a “new” god, a god of living flesh.  Paul saw the effect this had on people, and decided to offer them an alternative.  It was quite brilliant, actually.

A:  But why you?  Why not a prince or a member of the Alexandrian elite?  Why not a heroic general?  Why not a famous oracle?

J:  Paul chose me because he was afraid I was actually “the real deal.”  He didn’t arrive in Galilee in time to meet me in person, but he spoke to people who had worked with me, and he read the writings Lazarus and I had left behind.  He came to two unshakeable conclusions: (1) I had been the prophesied Messiah, as shown by the miracles of my ministry, and (2) I had seriously fucked things up.

A:  You always have such a way with words.

J (laughing):  Hey, it’s the truth.  It’s what Paul thought about me.  He could see from his own investigations that I knew something new and important about God, something he didn’t.  He could see I’d been using strange, new techniques to heal people.  He could see that something damned weird had happened around the time of my crucifixion and reappearance from the tomb.  He didn’t argue with the events, with the historicity of miraculous events during my ministry.  What he objected to was how I had used this secret knowledge.  In his opinion, I hadn’t behaved at all the way a proper Messiah should have behaved.  I hadn’t seized the power and the glory. So he concluded I’d got broken somehow, that I’d got broken and needed to be fixed.

A:  Which he had the skill to do, of course.

J:  Of course.  A narcissist doesn’t believe he has limits.  I was so broken he sometimes referred to me as the “thorn in his flesh.”  Other times he referred to me as “the useful one,” the slave Onesimus, as in Paul’s letter to Philemon.  He felt I’d fallen so low during my time as a man that I’d become no better than a slave.

A:  So what was this secret knowledge you had?  What were these strange, new healing techniques you used?

J:  Ah.  That would be science.

A:  You want to explain that?

J:  It’s the simplest thing in the world to put science and faith together when you trust in God’s goodness with all your heart, all your strength, all your mind, and all your soul.  When you believe in God — in God as God actually is — there’s no need to fight the science.  There’s no need to fight the objective realities of science.  There’s no need to hide behind religious laws and religious rituals.  You just go out there and do your thing — whatever your “thing” happens to be.

A:  Which in your case was being a physician.

J:  I was a physician, then and now.  It’s who I am as a soul.  It’s my calling, you could say.  It’s my strength.  Because it’s my strength, I hear God’s voice particularly well in this area.  My instincts, my gut, my heart, my intuition hear messages from God very clearly in the area of medical science.  I can’t hear God’s voice clearly in all areas, but when it comes to questions about medical science, I can hear clear as a bell.  I combined my skill as a natural physician with my faith in God and my faith in the goodness of all souls.  God’s healing angels did the rest.  I didn’t perform the miracles myself.  But I helped create a fruitful garden of the heart where oppressed individuals could believe in their own worthiness, in their own worthiness to be loved and healed by God.  My job was to persuade my friends they could find healing by working with God instead of against God.

A:  This doesn’t sound very broken to me.  It sounds pretty healthy and normal.

J:  Apparently Messiahs who are worth their salt are expected to show a lot more razzle dazzle.  More shields, more swords, more footstools, more thrones, more trumpets.

A:  Sounds a lot to me like an American reality TV show.  “So You Think You Can Prophesy”  . . .  “American Messiah” . . . “Dancing With the Gods” . . . Hey, you know, maybe we’re already there  . . .

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Posted in healing miracles, Messiah, miracles, narcissism, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Realspiritik, resurrection and tagged , | Leave a Comment
29 Jul 2012

RS19: Paul’s Trinitarian Theology

A:  Since our last discussion a couple of days ago, I’ve been pretty confused, to be honest, and I was wondering if we could go back over a few of the points you raised.  Would that be okay?

J:  Yes.  We covered quite a bit of ground, introduced some new concepts.  So ask away.

A:  Thanks.  Well, partly I’m still struggling with this idea that Paul’s religion is marketing God like a shampoo brand.  It’s just so materialistic — small “M” materialistic — and I don’t see any connection between this idea and the idea of faith.  I find it hard to believe that millions of Christians would agree to participate in such a crass pursuit.  I mean, where is the sense of faith — the sense of ongoing relationship with God — in a religion that’s selling God like this week’s special at Walmart?

J:  Well, Paul’s version of divine shampoo is more like the $4.99 brand that’s relabelled under the table and sold in a high-end salon for $89.99 as the best product for the best people.

A:  But expensive shampoo is still just shampoo.  It’s not faith.

Cockleburs - Sticky and Nasty, but Very Effective

“Jesus said: The Kingdom is like a man with a treasure of which he is unaware hidden in his field. He died and left the field to his son. His son knew nothing about it and, having received the field, sold it. The owner came and, while plowing, found the treasure. He began to lend money at interest to anybody he wished (Gospel of Thomas 109). Paul, who came after Jesus and Jesus’ confused disciples, saw the opportunity to take the buried treasure of faith offered by Jesus and lend it out to others with a promissory note for future salvation. Obedience was the interest Paul charged.  In this photo, the cockleburs that can stick to your hair and clothing as you walk through field and forest are like Paul’s teachings: covered in nasty hooks but very effective. Photo credit JAT 2014.

J:  No.  It’s not faith.  But as you and I have discussed before, religion and faith are not synonymous with each other.  Religion is an organized social, political, and economic institution, an institution that can be used under certain circumstances to create a desire for obedience among the middle and lower classes of society.  As a tool for creating social cohesion, it can be quite effective — at least, for a while.

A:  Social cohesion is good.  But people still need faith!  People long to feel that deep inner connection with God that makes them feel whole.

J:  Yes.  So within the annals of a religion such as Christianity, you see a constant tension between the people who are seeking God — that is, people who are yearning for faith — and the people who don’t give a hoot about God but are seeking to tap into the hidden power that underlies all universal laws.  The ones who don’t give a hoot about God are the ones who have dictated the path of orthodoxy in the Christian church as it’s known today.

A:  So you mean there were church leaders who didn’t actually believe in God?  Who were atheists or maybe agnostics?

J:  Let’s put it this way.  The vast majority of church leaders whose writings have been preserved were not writing about God.  They were writing about Paul’s Spirit — Divine Law writ large.

A:  I noticed in my theology courses that orthodox theologians over the centuries relied heavily on Paul and much less on Mark, Matthew, and Luke for scriptural authority.

J (nodding):  Paul is the biblical source for Trinitarian theology.  John is usually considered a source, too, but John’s personal theology wasn’t as sophisticated as Paul’s, and didn’t have as much influence.  Mark contains no Trinitarian theology, and not much usable Christology, either, from the point of view of Paul and his successors.  Paul’s writings, though, are a font of “wisdom” on the topic of tapping into the hidden power of the universe.  I say that facetiously.

A:  Of course.  So tell me more about Paul’s Trinitarian theology.  You seem to be making a link between Paul’s Trinitarian teachings and the theme of selling God as a shampoo brand.  But I confess you’ve lost me.  I don’t quite see the connection.  Could you explain that?

J:  In the time when I lived, philosophy and religion and science were hopelessly intertwined.  They were intertwined in a way that’s hard for people today to relate to.  Chemistry and physics and medicine weren’t treated as subjects that were separate from philosophy or religion.  They were treated as subjects that were subordinate to, or dependent upon, the highest aspirations of the human mind: pure philosophy or pure religious law.  But devotion to philosophy or devotion to pure religious law (as in the case of the Essenes in my day) were both attempts to understand the immutable laws that lie behind everything that happens here on Planet Earth.  So when you tried to study chemistry, you weren’t really studying chemistry.  You were looking for the hidden religious laws that governed the chemistry.  You were looking for the religious laws that applied not only to the metals you were extracting from base ores but to the people in your religious community.  You were looking for the universal principles of authority, power, dominion, status, and chosenness.  You were looking for proof — validation — that your religious teachings were correct and other groups’ teachings were wrong.  So science was usually a means to an end — a religious end.  Needless to say, this got in the way of objective scientific research.

A:  That mindset still exists in certain quarters today.

J:  Yes.  But during the first century CE, the religious leaders who had the most credibility, the widest acceptance, were the ones who tried hardest to crystallize the mysteries of Divine Law, philosophy, and science into a simplified “package.”  Paul was very good at this.  He squeezed Law, philosophy, and science together into one shampoo bottle.  Then he shook them up hard so you couldn’t see the separate strands and try to pull them apart.  He labelled the product as “God.”  But what Paul described as God has nothing to do with God the Mother and God the Father as they actually are.

A:  Still not getting it.

J:  Paul wasn’t interested in knowing who I was as a person.  Paul wasn’t interested in knowing who God the Mother and God the Father were as people.  He was only interested in his agenda of proving his own authority.

A:  His authority as a messenger of God?

J:  No.  His authority as an avenging angel, sent to Planet Earth to spread the true message about Spirit — pure, formless, timeless, insuperable Law.

A:  He wasn’t trying to teach people about God?

J:  Like all severe narcissists, Paul was incapable of conceiving of God as a person — or as two people, which is what I taught.  Narcissists can’t see anybody except themselves.  They can’t see their own children as separate, worthy human beings, so they certainly can’t see God as separate, worthy beings.  For narcissists, the world fractures into many different forms of myth — monistic myths, dualistic myths, and hierarchical myths.  This is the only way they can make sense of their own internal suffering, their own internal experience of emptiness.

A:  But Spirit is different because Spirit isn’t a person — it’s a formless cloud of endless power.  I get it.  It’s a projection!  The narcissist is projecting his own internal self-image onto the universe around him.  Spirit is pure power, pure ascendancy, pure authority — with no need at all for messy emotions like forgiveness or devotion or courage or trust!  I get it!

Okay.  So how does this relate to Trinitarian theology?

J:  Paul’s invocation of Spirit, God, and Jesus Christ is alchemy.

A:  Alchemy?  Now my head is really starting to hurt.

J:  When you try to force the actual laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and math to conform to pure religious law, pure religious authority, you’re practising alchemy.  I’m defining alchemy as an attempt to control all the powers of “chaos” for the purpose of creating order and harmony.

A:  By “powers of chaos” you mean things like  . . . entropy?

J:  No.  I mean God the Mother and God the Father as they actually are.   In Paul’s view, and in the view of many of his successors, God has not been behaving properly, and has done very illogical and unfair things such as allowing earthquakes to hit major religious centres and requiring saintly figures to die like everybody else.  This implication is so clear in Paul’s teachings that a century or so later in Rome one of his most enthusiastic followers, Marcion, would create a firestorm of controversy by suggesting there was a hierarchy of gods in Creation, with a jealous, vindictive god who rules over this world, and above him, a supreme god who is just and loving but who remains “unknown” to people on Earth except through the revelation of Jesus Christ.  For Marcion, Paul was the messenger of this great and radical truth about the unknown god.

A:  So Paul was trying to force both God and you to “obey” Spirit, which is the supreme and formless cloud of knowing and love and justice?

J:  Exactly.

A:  By squishing you all together into “One”?

J:  He would have thought of it as “reintegrating” broken pieces of divine truth that had fallen out of their proper places.  Pieces such as the Logos (me).  And Charis (grace), who was Paul’s God.

A:  Frig.  This is so complicated.  And so Gnostic.  I like your teaching about God as two loving parents much better.  Paul’s version is so  . . . so fluid.  So malleable.  So nebulous and undefined.  So conveniently changeable.  So easily manipulated, depending on the circumstances.

J:  In a previous post you described the Trinity as a shell game.  That definition still applies.

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Posted in Cause & Effect, faith, Gnosticism, HDM Myths, Law (Nomos), Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Realspiritik, Trinitarianism and tagged , | Leave a Comment
27 Jul 2012

RS18: Paul’s Understanding of Spirit

A:  It’s been several months since you and I have had one of these conversations.  Thanks for picking up the discussion again.

J:  No problem.  It’s been a busy few months for everyone.

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(c) After*Image

A:  Yeah.  I’ve had an awful time at work since the beginning of May.  The current financial climate is affecting people’s brains in unusual ways.  The owners of the business where I work aren’t willing to take responsibility for mistakes they’ve made over the past few years, and now those mistakes are coming back to haunt them.  Only they don’t want to blame themselves.  So they’ve been blaming their long-time staff members — the same staff members whose suggestions they ignored when it would have done some good!  Is this normal?  Is it normal for business owners to shoot themselves in the foot — and the head — this way?

J:  Unfortunately, it’s extremely common.  But it’s not new.  It’s not a new problem.  And it’s not limited to businesses that deal in ordinary goods and services.  Religious businesses fall prey to the same issues of narcissism and lack of accountability.

A:  You mean . . . churches?  That kind of religious business?

J:  Could be.  But religion is a huge business world-wide.  Always has been.  So the same “boom or bust” cycles that are evident in world financial markets today have always existed in the profitable world of religious marketing.  Religious marketing is a business like any other.  It’s not “separate” or “sacred” simply because the item being bought and sold is God.

A:  Ouch.  That makes God sound like a shampoo brand.

J (shrugging):  In the early church founded by the apostle Paul, God is a shampoo brand.  I’m the conditioner that smoothes out the tangles.  Paul is the famous face who rakes in a few extra bucks by hawking the brand to a credulous audience.

A:  But a shampoo brand?  Isn’t that a bit . . . crass?

J:  As a metaphor, it’s not very dignified or sacred, is it?

A:  No.

J:  Nonetheless, when you strip away all the lies and circular arguments and cliches, and look at Paul’s claims about God — and me — in the cold, hard light of reality, you’re left with the fact that Paul is selling soap.  A very fancy form of soap, to be sure, but soap nonetheless.  “Buy this soap so you’ll be clean enough to escape Hell and pass inspection at the entrance to Heaven.”  This is what Paul is selling.

A:  But . . . I can see the link between Paul’s sin — “being dirty” — and Paul’s salvation — “getting clean.”  But how is God the soap, the shampoo?  How can a person buy God the way a person buys a bar of soap?

J:  Ah.  Well, that’s the important part.  In Paul’s theology, and in the theology of the Essenes who highly influenced Paul’s beliefs, God is the powerful Creator of Heaven and Earth, but God himself isn’t the highest authority.  God is subject to an even higher force: the power of Cosmic Law.  Paul calls this Cosmic Law by a name that’s now interpreted in a way that makes his original meaning hard to see.  Paul calls the Law “Spirit.”

A:  What?

J:  Paul’s theology pays tribute to God, and tries to insert a brand-friendly Saviour into the mix (Jesus Christ), but the primary focus is always Spirit.  In Greek, pneuma.  For Paul, Spirit is an anthropomorphic cloud of knowing that is literally the breath — the life — of all Creation.  The in-and-out breath of pure energy, pure life force, pure power that can be trapped and used if properly understood.   Pneuma is a higher force than John’s Logos (Word).  It’s a higher force than God himself.  God is pure Mind.  God is pure Mind and Jesus is pure Word.  Both are sacred mystical forces, and both are worthy of attention, in Paul’s estimation.  But neither Mind nor Word is the ultimate source of cleansing and purity and salvation.  The ultimate source of power is Cosmic Law — Spirit — to which even God and Jesus Christ must bow.  He who knows the Law in its purest form knows how to force God and Jesus Christ to obey his wishes.  He who knows the Law can “buy” God like a bar of soap and force God to cleanse him and let him into Heaven.  It’s simply a matter of being smart enough to make the Law work to your benefit.

A:  That’s so grasping, so greedy, so arrogant and narcissistic.  That’s not faith — that’s human greed at its worst.

J:  Yes.  It’s impossible to overstate the interconnection between narcissism and belief in occult magic.

A:  How did we get onto the topic of occult magic?

J:  Paul, the founder of Pauline Christianity, believed deeply in occult magic.  He was teaching his followers how to practise his own form of occult magic, how to recognise and control the forces of nature, how to gain control over life and death, how to force Jesus Christ and God to obey the contract laws of the universe, how to secure a place on the ladder of spiritual ascent that will lead through all the levels of Heaven until mystical union with the cloud of knowing is one day accomplished.

A:  Is any of this in the Bible?

J:  It’s all in the Bible.   A detailed examination of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians reveals a bumper crop of occult teachings that are founded on his belief in the invincibility and inviolability of contract law.

A:  So there’s a connection between contract law and occult magic?

J:  Absolutely.  If there’s no contract law governing all cause and effect in the universe, then there’s no basis for occult magic.  Occult magic is based on the clear and logical belief that “effect” consistently follows “cause.”  If you can figure out “the cause” — that is, the hidden cosmic law that’s operating behind the scenes — then you can manipulate “the cause” to create a controlled “effect.”  It’s straightforward classical physics.  It’s all very logical.  Occult magic and alchemy are both founded on highly logical principles.  Both are also Materialist philosophies, philosophies that rely entirely on Cause and Effect principles, and may or may not include a belief in God.  Faith in God is not required as part of a successful Materialist philosophy.  Only confidence in humanity’s ability to understand and control the Laws of Cause and Effect is required.

A:  Except the universe doesn’t actually operate according to simple Newtonian laws.

J:  True.  But don’t tell the narcissists this.  No narcissistic wants to hear he’s not in charge.

A:  So Paul believed he was in charge?  He believed he was so clever he could actually control the forces of nature through his occult rituals?

J:  That was the point of his new religion.  The point was NOT to teach people how to be in relationship with God.  The point was to teach people how to purify themselves so Spirit would be forced to give them “special gifts” in accordance with divine contract law.

A:  You’ve said before that Paul hated and feared your teachings and wanted to undermine them.  So if he feared you so much, why would he drag you into his new religion?  Why would he name you as Saviour and insist his followers invoke your name to achieve salvation?

J:  You’ve stumbled onto it right there.  It’s all about name magic.

A:  Name magic?

J:  The deeply occult belief that if you can correctly name an entity, you can control that entity.  It’s part of the belief in the law of cause and effect.  In this case, there’s a belief that names have great power, that the true name spoken aloud around certain rituals can force a powerful figure to appear from the Heavens and obey the wishes of a human being.  Paul feared me, but he also believed I had hidden knowledge about God that I could be forced to reveal to him and his followers if he correctly named me as the Christ (Messiah or Anointed One).

A:  Did it work?

J (laughing):  Not a chance.   For starters, I wasn’t the Christ, and never claimed to be.  For another, I have free will, and nothing any Christian has ever said or done has held any power over me or any other angel.  And for another, magical thinking and occult rituals belong within the sphere of major mental illness in human beings, so angels DO NOT RESPOND to any prayers or beliefs grounded in occult magic.

A:  Including the Eucharist that Paul instituted?

J:  Yes.  Communion wafers should come with a warning tag on them:  “Belief in transubstantiation will guarantee you a seat on the slow train to redemption and healing.”  Angels can’t abide the occult intent of Paul’s original Eucharist ritual.  It’s a version of selling you divine soap to clean your dirty innards.  And the soap they’re selling is the body and blood of a divine being who’s being named, then eaten, then controlled from inside your “heart” so you can get special gifts.  How gross is that?

A:  This is one reason why I’ve stopped going to church.  I just can’t handle the abusive way God is being treated any longer.

 

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Posted in Cause & Effect, Essenes, Law (Nomos), occult themes, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Realspiritik and tagged | Leave a Comment
13 Jun 2012

RS17: Excavating James: The James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb

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The James Ossuary.  Photo by Paradiso (English Wikipedia, via Wikipedia Commons). The James ossuary was on display at the Royal Ontario Museum from Nov. 15, 2002 to Jan. 5, 2003.

In honour of today’s press release today from the Biblical Archaeology Review, with its hot-off-the-press link to Hershel Shanks’ article about the James Ossuary — “‘Brother of Jesus’ Inscription is Authentic!” (note: the Biblical Archaeology Society subsequently removed this article from its website) — I’m posting a term paper I wrote for an Historical Jesus course as a graduate student in theological studies.

I call the essay “Excavating James.”  I’ve posted it here as I wrote it in December 2007, several years before an Israeli court found antiquities collector Oded Golan and antiquities dealer Robert Deutsch not guilty of forgery charges after a five year trial.* In my view, the defendants in this forgery trial ably demonstrated how scientific research can be used with dignity, appropriateness, and courage to push back against the vested interests of entrenched dogmatic beliefs.

I should also note that my Masters degree in Art Conservation (Artifact stream) offered me insights into the chemistry raised in this paper.

_________________

EXCAVATING JAMES:
BREAKING THROUGH OLD ASSUMPTIONS

by Jennifer Thomas
December 14, 2007

In October 2002, an unprovenanced chalk ossuary with probable origins in first century Jerusalem made international headlines when a press conference highlighted the possible significance of the box’s Aramaic inscription: “Ya’aquov bar Yosef akhui diYeshua,” translated as “Jacob, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” (Shanks and Witherington 22).  The ossuary, commonly known as the James Ossuary, ignited a firestorm of controversy which has not yet subsided.  The scholarly debate over the inscription’s authenticity has been complicated by several factors, including its acquisition by Tel Aviv collector Oded Golan; the puzzling evidence of its having been cleaned more than once (Krumbein, “Findings: Ossuary” par. 2); its history of repair by Royal Ontario Museum conservators after it sustained damage during shipping (Shanks and Witherington 36-40); its focus in the forgery charges brought by Israeli police against Golan; its examination by Israeli police and by independent geomicrobiologist Wolfgang Krumbein, hired by Golan’s defence attorney; and its recent inclusion by filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and paleobiologist Charles Pellegrino among the Talpiot Tomb ossuaries in their 2007 book, The Jesus Family Tomb.  Some of the data presented by Jacobovici and Pellegrino is intriguing and worthy of more study.  If further research can confirm the tentative scientifically established link between the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb, then biblical scholars may be forced to reexamine some of their assumptions about the historical Jesus.  In particular, the frequently ignored Epistle of James, when read against the background of the Talpiot Tomb and its ossuaries, in the manner of Crossan and Reed, may prove to have greater value as an exegetical tool for understanding Jesus than has previously been envisioned.

When John Crossan and Jonathan Reed revised their book Excavating Jesus to place the James Ossuary in the number one spot of their top ten archaeological discoveries related to Jesus, they probably never imagined that less than five years later a Toronto filmmaker would start knocking on doors in a Jerusalem suburb and asking residents if they had a tomb in their basement.  The tomb in question was the Tomb of Ten Ossuaries, found accidentally in East Talpiot in 1980 while contractors were levelling ground for new construction.  The Department of Antiquities (later called the Israel Antiquities Authority, or IAA) was contacted, and IAA archaeologists were dispatched to perform salvage archeology.  The team physically entered the tomb, mapped the antechamber and the lower chamber with its six niches or kokhim, noted that almost a metre of terra rossa covered the floor of the lower chamber, and removed all the contents, including the red soil.  The tomb’s ossuaries – at least, the nine that were later fully catalogued of the ten that were documented on-site – were taken to an IAA warehouse.  The tomb itself was generally believed to have been filled with concrete in 1980 during construction of a condominium complex.  Certainly this is Crossan and Reed’s stated belief (19).  As we shall, however, rumours of the tomb’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

Amos Kloner, of the original IAA team, did not publish the group’s findings until 1996.  Apparently, few scholars knew before then that six of the nine Talpiot ossuaries in the IAA’s possession  were inscribed with names familiar to readers of the Gospels (an unusually high inscription rate, when compared to other ossuaries catalogued by the IAA (Shanks and Witherington 12)).  In 1996, a BBC film crew came across the cluster of inscribed ossuaries, and created a brief media stir with their story (Jacobovici and Pellegrino 23).  It is important, however, to separate media sensation from the fact of the tomb’s authenticity.  Crossan and Reed quote from a 1996 article in which Joe Zias, then curator of the IAA, said, “[the list of names from the ossuaries] came from a very good, undisturbed, archaeological context.  It was found by archaeologists, read by them, interpreted by them . . . a very, very good text” (19).  The descriptions of the ten Talpiot Tomb ossuaries (nine in the possession of the IAA and one missing) are shown in Table 1.

Summary of Talpiot Tomb ossuary inscriptions (c) JAT 2007:

What are we to do with this list of family names that includes a Mary, a Jude (son of Jesus), a Matthew, a Jesus (son of Joseph), a Joseph, and a second Mary?  Researchers tells us that Mary was a common name for daughters in the Second Temple period (Pfann 8).  Shanks and Witherington, citing Rachel Hachlili, report that from the 1st century BCE to the 1st century CE, Joseph was second in popularity only to Simon, Judah was third, Jesus was sixth, Matthew was eighth, and Jacob/James was thirteenth among 18 Jewish male names that appear frequently in the archaeological record (56).  In themselves, the inscriptions on the Talpiot ossuaries are not remarkable if they are viewed  independently of each other.  But they are not independent.  They are a group, and must be examined as a group. They were found together.  They were found in a South Jerusalem family tomb that, because of its size, location, and quality of workmanship, could only have been built by someone of means.

Pellegrino says in his book that Jacobovici took the list of six names to Andrey Feuerverger, a University of Toronto statistician (111-114).  Feuerverger calculated a conservative “P factor” (probability factor) “of 600 to one in favor of the tomb belonging to the family of Jesus of Nazareth” (114).  Another way to put this is to say “one in 600 families (on the conservative side) would have that particular combination of names purely by chance, based on the distribution of individual names in the population” (Mims, “Special Report” 1, quoting TABLE 1: SUMMARY OF INSCRIPTION DATA FROM TEN OSSUARIES FOUND IN TALPIOT TOMB).

In an interview with Christopher Mims published by Scientific American in March 2007, Feuerverger says, “I did permit the number one in 600 to be used in the film.  I’m prepared to stand behind that but on the understanding that these numbers were calculated based on the assumptions that I was asked to use . . . I’m not a biblical scholar” (“Q&A” 2).  One of the assumptions is that the family could afford an ossuarial burial.

The P factor would rise if it could be established, as Jacobovici and Pellegrino assert, that the James Ossuary is the missing tenth ossuary from the Talpiot Tomb.  This may not be as far-fetched as it seems.  Pellegrino worked with Bob Genna, director of the Suffolk County Crime Lab in New York, to investigate the possibility of using “patina fingerprinting” to scientifically establish provenance.  Pellegrino says this:

My idea about patina fingerprinting rests on the fact that each soil type and rock matrix possesses its own private spectrum of magnesium, titanium, and other trace elements.

In theory, the patina inside a tomb or on the surfaces of its artifacts should develop its own chemically distinct signature, depending on a constellation of variable conditions, including the minerals and bacterial populations present at any specific location and the quantities of water moving through that specific “constellation.”

If such a chemical “fingerprint” existed, scanning patina samples on a quantum level with an electron microprobe would reveal a chemical spectrum that could be matched to a specific tomb and to any objects that come from it. (176)

His proposal is gutsy but by no means ludicrous or impossible from the perspective of analytical chemistry and related fields.  At the least, it deserves further consideration.  Publication in a peer-reviewed journal would assist others in assessing its feasibility.  At the moment, though, we have Pellegrino’s anecdotal findings, some of which are published in the form of four spectra in the colour plate section of the book.  He and Genna took patina samples from the following sources: the Jesus, Mariamne, and Matthew ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb, the tomb itself, the James ossuary, and a number of provenanced ossuaries from tombs known to have similar conditions to the Talpiot tomb.  His proposed method relied entirely on the availability of patina samples from the walls of the Tomb of Ten Ossuaries.  Had the tomb been filled with concrete, as some had been led to believe, it would have been impossible to retrieve an uncontaminated sample.  Fortunately – and for this we must thank renegade explorer Jacobovici and his associates, who wouldn’t take no for an answer – the tomb was “rediscovered” in 2005.  It lay beneath a concrete and steel slab on a terrace between two condominium buildings.  A tenant who had lived in one of the buildings since the beginning told Jacobovici’s team that archaeologists had left the tomb open, but tenants had built the slab on top to keep children out (150).  In addition, religious authorities had turned the tomb into a genizah, or burial chamber for damaged holy texts, before it was sealed (153).  The tomb was now carpeted with fragments of holy books.  There was concern that the presence of the decomposing texts might have significantly altered the chemical composition of the tomb’s patina over the previous 25 years; however, this was not borne out by the microprobe studies (180).

When Pellegrino and Genna used an electron microscope to examine a patina sample from the James ossuary, provided by the Israel Geological Study, they saw “hundreds of tiny fiber fragments” on the sample (184).  They concluded that “someone in modern times had given the James ossuary a hard scrubbing with a piece of cloth . . . .(184)”  They directed the electron microprobe to the fibres themselves, and got large chlorine and phosphorus peaks.  “This was consistent with the phosphate-spiked detergents that were in common use during the 1970s and early 1980s” (184).  Someone had apparently cleaned the James ossuary with a cloth soaked in a chlorine- and phosphate- based detergent.

Probes of the James ossuary patina clearly revealed the same detergent contaminants.  When these modern contaminants were factored out, the remaining spectrum was identical to those obtained from the Talpiot tomb walls and from the Jesus, Mariamne, and Matthew ossuaries (185).  Further, five probes taken of a James patina sample provided by the Royal Ontario Museum were also identical, “right down to contamination by cloth fibers and phosphate-based detergent” (185).

Meanwhile, the electron microprobe studies of samples taken from unrelated Israeli ossuaries yielded spectra that were significantly different from each other and from the Talpiot cluster, even when patina samples were visually indistinguishable from the Talpiot patina under light microscopy.  Pellegrino says, “In conclusion, it seemed that, compared to other patina samples from ossuaries found in the Jerusalem environment, the Talpiot tomb ossuaries exhibited a patina fingerprint or profile that matched the James ossuary and no other” (188).

If we were to rely solely on Pellegrino’s admittedly novel technique to “rehabilitate” the James ossuary’s historical significance, we would not have much.  However, because the box and samples from the box have been studied so many times since 2002 by specialists from different disciplines, including epigraphers, geochemists, archaeologists, art conservators, and even a geomicrobiologist, we have considerable scientific data at our disposal.

In June 2003, the IAA issued a public statement declaring the inscription on the James ossuary a modern-day forgery.  Two of the 14 Israeli scholars who were invited to prepare an authenticity report were Avner Ayalon of the Geological Survey of Israel and Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology (Fitzmyer 3).  These two, together with Miryam Bar-Matthews, also of the Geological Survey, examined the James ossuary, and published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science (Ayalon et al).  They, too, chose a method never before used to assess the authenticity of archaeological artifacts.  They took patina samples from various parts of the inscription, from other surface areas of the James ossuary, and from the surface patina and letters patina of unrelated Jerusalem ossuaries; ground the samples; used a mass spectrometer to analyse the oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O values) of each sample; then compared the results to well-dated secondary calcite (speleotherms) deposited in Jerusalem area caves during the last 3,000 years.  Since only one James letter sample (of seven) fell within the same range as the other types of samples, Ayalon et al concluded the patina of the inscription could not have been formed “in the natural conditions that prevailed in the Judean Mountains during the last 3000 years, [indicating] that the patina covering the letters was artificially prepared, most probably with hot water, and deposited onto the underlying letters” (1188).

There are several problems with this paper, two of which are noted here.  First, although Ayalon et al acknowledge that the inscription had been observed in a previous study to be freshly cleaned, they do not discuss how the residue of earlier cleaning might affect δ18O values.  This is a significant lapse.  Second, they apparently base the suitability of their δ18O method on the assumption that the patina on the rest of the James ossuary was pure calcite formed in a typical Judean cave environment, that is, in an enclosed or semi-enclosed atmosphere absent of soil.  Krumbein’s report, however, conclusively demonstrates that the patina is not pure calcite, and that the presence of apatite, whewellite, weddelite, and quartz in the patina, along with biopitting and plant traces, suggests that “the cave in which the James ossuary was placed, either collapsed centuries earlier, or alluvial deposits penetrated the chamber together with water and buried the ossuary, either completely or partially . . .[rendering] δ18O isotopic tests irrelevant” (under “Findings: Ossuary”; italics added).

When Krumbein examined the ossuary, along with two other disputed artifacts, in Jerusalem in 2005, the Talpiot tomb, with its verified accumulation of terra rossa, had not yet entered the picture as the possible original resting place for the unprovenanced James ossuary.  Nonetheless, his thorough examination and reported findings are fully in agreement with the documented conditions in which ten ossuaries were originally found in 1980.

It is by no means certain, based on the scientific evidence, that the inscription on the James ossuary is a modern forgery (for a current example of the ongoing debate, see the BAR 33.6 article).  The box itself, however, seems genuine (Ayalon et al 1185).  Are there other explanations for the “Jacob, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” inscription?  Of course.  It is possible the inscription is a well-meaning ancient addition to a plain box.  It is also possible the latter part of the inscription (“brother of Jesus”) was added recently to an authentic “James, son of Joseph” inscription, as some have argued (for example, Chadwick as cited by Shanks and Witherington 42).  The inscription might even be an ancient forgery.  On the other hand, the entire inscription could be authentic.  The question for historical Jesus researchers is this: If the ossuary and its inscription are authentic, what does it say about Jesus?  Can we stretch the question further to ask what it might mean if the James ossuary is the missing tenth Talpiot bone box?  Crossan and Reed have said, with regard to the James ossuary, that “like [the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices], the ossuary is now here and its presence demands discussion. . . . It is one single artifact that brings together archaeology and exegesis.  It is also one single artifact that emphasizes how such objects are of value only when embedded among all those other discoveries that give it full context and final meaning” (28).  I would argue that the Talpiot tomb findings create important archeological, scientific, and exegetical context, and that the James ossuary should be examined further in light of that context.

We can say with some measure of confidence that in the period during which ossuarial burial was practised in Jerusalem (usually given as 20 BCE to 70 CE (Shanks and Witherington 69)) a family who counted among their members a Mary, a Jude, a Matthew, a Jesus, a Joseph, another Mary, and possibly a James, had enough wealth and prestige to build a spacious tomb in the bedrock of a hill just south of the old city.  Different languages were used on the ossuary inscriptions: Hebrew and Aramaic, but also Greek, with one name (Maria) a Latin version of its Aramaic counterpart.  From this evidence, it could be argued the family was familiar with and possibly part of the wider Greco-Roman culture of 1st century Palestine.  The family also had a penchant for widely popular names, and possibly followed a custom of naming children after close relatives.

We know from exegetical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth had a brother named Jacob or James.  The Gospels of Matthew and Mark both name Jesus as the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon (Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3), though Jesus’ two sisters are not named in these passages.  Matthew and Mark also refer to a Mary who is mother of James and Joseph (Mt 27:56; Mk 15:40).  Although it is not clear which Mary is being referred to in these latter verses, she could be Mary the mother of Jesus, in which case James and Joseph would again be named brothers of Jesus.  So we have two independent Synoptic sources, Matthew and Mark, that specifically name James.  The Gospel of Thomas, which is considered an independent source by some (Crossan and Reed 9), refers to James the Just in Saying 12.  Further, James appears a number of times in Acts and the writings of Paul.  Paul lists James among those who have seen the risen Christ (1 Cor 15:7), and when Paul is writing his letter to Galatians, he describes James as one of the “pillars” of the Jerusalem church (Gal 2:9).  The much-overlooked Epistle of James purports to be written by “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Jas 1:1).  We also have extra-canonical sources that name James, two of which report on his death in Jerusalem a few years before the destruction of the city in 70 CE (Gillman 621).  Josephus reports that James was stoned in 62 CE on the orders of high priest Ananus (Ant 20:200).  Hegesippus, writing ca. 180 and quoted by Eusebius in the 4th century, gives a dramatic account of James’s martyrdom in 67 CE (?) at the hands of the scribes and Pharisees.  Also from Hegesippus through Eusebius, we learn that “James became the first bishop of Jerusalem in part because he was the brother of Jesus” (Shanks and Witherington 96).

One begins to wonder why a man from the small peasant town of Nazareth in rural Galilee, where families “had an interest in keeping the head count low” (Hanson and Oakman 58) and the total population was probably less than 400 people (Reed 131), had such a large number of presumably adult siblings when childhood death rates were so high, and why one  sibling – James – had such a position of honour and authority in Jerusalem.  Archaeological excavations in Nazareth have brought to light no public structures and no public inscriptions from the Early Roman Period, which attests to “the level of illiteracy and lack of elite sponsors” there (Reed 131).  Juxtaposed against this archaeological evidence, we have not one but two men from the same generation of the same family who rose, in the midst of an honour-shame culture, from the humblest of origins to positions of great moral authority.  Both men knew Jerusalem and died there.  Both had friends there. Both surely possessed impressive oratorical skills, otherwise they would have been ignored.  Surely these two men started out with more than the knowledge of how to press Nazareth’s grapes into wine (see evidence for a vineyard and wine pressing vat: Reed 132).  Something does not fit with a popular understanding of the historical Jesus as an illiterate Galilean peasant carpenter wisdom sage (for example Crossan and Reed; Mack).  We might understand Jesus by himself in this way.  But by all accounts, Jesus had a family.  We must try to place Jesus more solidly within his large family, and within a culture that lived and breathed for status.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul engages in a lengthy appeal for monetary contributions to the Jerusalem church (“the collection”) (2 Cor 8:1 – 9:15).  In the course of his letter, he says, “For you know the generous act [or the grace] of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).  In the Greek, Paul uses ἐπτώχευσεν πλούσιος, “the well-to-do man became poor.”  This verse is usually interpreted as being metaphorical, more akin to the christological construction in Philippians 2:6-8 (footnotes in Coogan NT 302).  But maybe Paul isn’t being metaphorical at all.  Maybe he means exactly what he says: that Jesus intentionally gave up his wealth to do God’s work.  Paul, by his own admission, visited Jerusalem and saw James the Lord’s brother (Gal 1:18-19).  If Paul had not known anything about Jesus’ family before this visit, he certainly did afterwards.  Did Paul learn that Jesus had come from a privileged family with strong ties to Jerusalem?  How would such knowledge have affected Paul’s understanding of his own divinely appointed mission, the mission he describes in Galatians 1:15-17?  Would it have been to Paul’s advantage or disadvantage that the man who spoke so clearly to the non-elite about the spiritual woes of being rich (eg. Lk 6:24) might himself have originated in a family of wealth and status?

A modern analogy might be of help in understanding the historical Jesus not as a man who came from the bottom up, but as man who had the courage to intentionally step off the upper part of the pyramid, and live as a person among persons.  Imagine, for the sake of argument, that one of the many descendants of American oligarch Joseph Kennedy suddenly had a profound religious experience, and saw for the first time how much suffering had been caused by his family’s commitment to certain values.  What if this descendent renounced his family’s elitist way of life, moved to Canada, got a regular job, and used his spare time to study scripture?  His family probably wouldn’t like him very much.  They might even lie to their friends about where he had gone, rather than face the embarrassment of being “disowned” by him on spiritual grounds.  Of course, such lies would become harder to maintain if he became known in his own right as a brilliant spiritual teacher up there in the boonies, a teacher of social and gender equality and . . . what’s that? . . . miraculous healings from God?  For this we gave him an education?  The shame, the shame.

Eventually, of course, word would get up to Canada that the guy working over there on that construction site is a Kennedy – one of those Kennedys.  And suddenly the people who had ignored him the day before would invite him over to dinner to talk about his favourite subject, God.  Even the local bishop might not be immune to the cachet of this gentleman’s esteemed lineage.  Doors have a way of opening for those who come from “the right sort of people.”

Two thousand years ago, Jesus went through a lot of different doors.  Many of those doors were owned by priests, Pharisees, scribes, and other elites who wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to a Galilean peasant on the street, let alone seek him out for questioning in public places (Mt 22:15-46; Mk 11:27-33; Lk 20:1-8) or invite him to dinner (Lk 14:1-24).  However, it is quite believable that they would talk to a man who had “ascribed honour” on the basis of his descent (Hanson and Oakman 26-31), even if they didn’t agree with his theology.  Much has been made of the evidence that Jesus ate with “sinners” and “tax collectors” and other outcasts.  But it is just important that Jesus was known to dine with the elite.  One could say that, in his ministry, Jesus swung both ways.  This may be what made Jesus unique and loved by so many.

Whatever else can be said of Jesus, no one can dispute his commitment to God.  He was a man of deep faith.  He strove to communicate to the people around him the depth of God’s love for them.  To this end, it was probably important to Jesus that he have the chance to speak in person to as many people as possible.  He was not one to retire to life in an ascetic religious community like the one at Qumran.  He was walking and talking (and dining) right up until his arrest.  So, from a purely practical point of view, it would have been shrewd of Jesus to avoid talking about his family lineage, whatever its exact nature.  The last time a devout Jewish family claiming priestly legitimacy had gathered political support from the Jewish rank and file, a rebellion had erupted that swept the Seleucid rulers from the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The Maccabean revolt, which proved the power of priestly Jewish bloodlines, would not have been forgotten by Palestine’s new Roman rulers.  Here was a clear case of discretion being the better part of valour.

Many who would argue with the thesis presented here might wonder why an educated man from a privileged family would not have written down some of his own teachings.  Surely such a man would be literate!  Where are the letters of Jesus?  Why did he not put something down on papyrus, and hand it to a trusted friend or family member?

Well, maybe he did.  Maybe his words have been staring at us all along, hidden in plain sight in the canon as part of the Epistle of James.

The Epistle of James has to be one of the least examined sources in the New Testament.  Open up the back of books written by historical Jesus researchers and examine the “Ancient Sources Index.”  Under James, you will frequently find nothing.  Nothing at all – this despite the fact that some of the most sophisticated theology of the New Testament is found in James, and despite the fact that it has obvious links to the Q source (Hartin; Johnson; Wachob).  Some might lay the blame at the foot of Luther, who famously decried James as “an epistle of straw” (Laws 622).  It seems generally to be avoided in research because its Greek is deemed too elegant for the family of a Galilean artisan (but what of a highly ranked family?); there are only two brief references to Jesus (would Jesus himself brag?); and its discussion of faith and works does not refer specifically to “works of the law” (Law 622) (is that the real message of this epistle?).  On the basis of these arguments, some declare it pseudonymous.  In terms of date, it has been placed in the second generation, or even in the 2nd century.  However, there is much evidence to support an earlier, first generation date for the epistle of James.

Luke Timothy Johnson has done considerable research in this regard.  In his book Brother of Jesus, Friend of God, he says:

        With the exception of the evidence in Paul, Acts, and Josephus, the letter is the historically most certain evidence we have concerning James.  Even if it is supposed that a composition by James of Jerusalem was later redacted by someone else, the present letter is almost certainly appropriated by early-second-century Christian writings [1 Clement and Shepherd of Hermas].  In fact, there are strong reasons for arguing that the extant letter was composed by James of Jerusalem, whom Paul designates as “brother of the Lord.”  What is more, the evidence provided by the letter fits comfortably within that provided by our other earliest and best sources (Paul, Acts, Josephus), whereas it fits only awkwardly if at all within the framework of the later and legendary sources that are used for most reconstructions [here Johnson refers to Witherington in Brother of Jesus]. (2-3)

If Johnson is correct in his conclusions, then the Epistle of James, or parts of that epistle, could well be another independent source for understanding the historical Jesus (though Johnson himself would no doubt be chagrined at seeing his work used to support a theory he does not subscribe to (Kirby 10)).

The letter of James, far from being an epistle of straw, concerns itself with teaching the difference between earthly wisdom that does not come from above versus the wisdom that does come from above, and is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (3:17).  This is an extraordinary vision of God, one that is in stark contrast to the God who clearly plays favourites in various Old Testament and apocryphal texts.  Another breathtaking vision of God is given in Chapter 1, where the author says, “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.  But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it” (1:13-14).  He then goes on to say that “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (1:17).  Note the complete absence of eschatological promises or apocalyptic warnings.  The author of these sections, whom I believe was Jesus, is telling readers to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame their bad choices on a God who has “tempted them.”  He is also saying they should not fear change, because God’s love never changes even when other things do.

When we place this understanding against the epistle’s opening statements – “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (1:2-4) – we can perhaps understand why its message has been so long ignored: this is not a message about justification by works alone, nor is it a message about justification by faith alone.  It is an altogether radically new message about asking for God’s help in the here and now in the difficult spiritual task of transforming pain and suffering into maturity, wisdom, and love for one’s neighbour and one’s God, not to earn salvation, but simply because it’s the right thing to do.

No wonder they crucified the guy.

In conclusion, it is possible to apply Crossan’s and Reed’s “Excavating Jesus” method  (balancing archeology with exegesis) to the task of “excavating James.”  The excavated James can, in turn, shed greater light on the historical Jesus.  Recent findings from the Talpiot tomb, the James ossuary, and the Epistle of James cannot be ignored.  As a group, they demand discussion.  As a group, they have a story to tell us about Jesus.  And perhaps Jesus himself still has something to say.

*  September 2, 2015: I have two updates to report which are relevant to the material posted on this page: 

(1) I’m posting a link to a 2015 documentary that premiered on March 16, 2015 on VisionTV.  The documentary, produced by Simcha Jacobovici, and Felix Golubev is called Biblical Conspiracies 6: The James Revelation.  In this documentary, Simcha adds to his previous work on possible links between the James ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb ossuaries.  He now states that the James ossuary may be a missing eleventh ossuary from the Talpiot Tomb.  (His original position was that the James ossuary was the missing tenth ossuary, which mysteriously disappeared in 1980 after the Department of Antiquities (now the IAA) excavated and catalogued the contents of the tomb.)  His new position no doubt derives from evidence presented during Oded Golan’s forgery trial which proved that he (Golan) was already in possession of the James ossuary a few years before the Talpiot Tomb was discovered.  It’s still possible, however, that the James ossuary was looted at an earlier time from the Talpiot Tomb, as IAA archaeologist Shimon Gibson believes the tomb may have been broken into more than once before its official discovery (Biblical Conspiracies 6, 31 minutes).

In addition, Simcha uses the 2015 documentary to revisit the previous analytical analysis of the chemical fingerprint of the James ossuary inscription patina in comparison to that of the Talpiot Tomb ossuary patinas.  This work was originally led by Dr. Charles Pellegrino (paleo-biologist and forensic archaeologist).  In the documentary, Simcha consults with geo-archeologist Dr. Aryeh Shimron, who takes samples not from the inscription patina of the James ossuary but from the underside and inside of the box itself (from beneath the surface patina), then compares these with samples taken from the nine remaining Talpiot Tomb ossuaries as well as samples from random chalk ossuaries.  Analysis of the chemical signatures shows strong similarities between the James ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb ossuaries, though, as Oded Golan rightly points out in an April 4, 2015 New York Times interview with Isabel Kershner, this isn’t conclusive proof that the James ossuary originally came from the Talpiot Tomb; the James bone box could have come from another burial cave in the same area and still show a similar chemical fingerprint.  Samples would have to be taken from a large number of caves in East Talpiot to further refine the data.

It should be noted that Simcha’s new theory and new analytical data have no bearing on the actual authenticity of the James ossuary and its inscription.  Whether or not Simcha is right, the James ossuary remains an important and authentic piece of archaeological evidence that can be legitimately combined with other pieces of evidence in the search for the historical Jesus, as stated above.

(2) I’m posting a link to an article by Hershel Shanks which appears in the Sept./Oct. 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.  The article, called “Predilections: Is the ‘Brother of Jesus’ Inscription a Forgery?” reviews some of the recent debates surrounding the authenticity of the James Ossuary inscription and the forgery trial of Oded Golan.  Mr. Shanks emphasizes that Mr. Golan did, indeed, own the James Ossuary before the Talpiot Tomb was found and excavated in a 1980 salvage operation.  Mr. Shanks also comments on the recent analysis by Dr. Pieter van der Horst of the IAA committee’s own original report on the James ossuary.  Says Shanks, “Van der Horst notes that the IAA ‘appointed almost exclusively committee members who had already expressed outspoken opinions to the effect that the inscription was a forgery.'”

BIBLIOGRAPHY (as it originally appeared in the 2007 research paper)

Ayalon, Avner and Miryam Bar-Matthews and Yuval Goren.  “Authenticity Examination of the
Inscription on the Ossuary Attributed to James, Brother of Jesus.”  Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004): 1185-1189.

Coogan. Michael D., Ed.  The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with
the Apocrypha, College Edition.  3rd Ed.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Crossan, John Dominic and Jonathan L. Reed.  Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind
the Texts.  Rev. and Updated Ed.  New York: HarperCollins and HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.

“Demythologizing the Talpiot Tomb: family unit, group No. 1.”  Filed under “Lost Tomb of
Jesus.”  The View from Jerusalem.  May 17, 2007.  University of the Holy Land.  04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.uhl.ac/blog//?p=110>.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A.  “Update–Finds or Fakes?  The James Ossuary and Its Implications.”
Excerpted from Theology Digest 52:4 (2005).  Biblical Archaeology Society.  Undated.  04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/bswbOOossuary_fitzmyer.asp>.

Gillman, Florence Morgan.  “James, Brother of Jesus.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary.  Vol. 3.
Ed. David Noel Freedman.  New York: Doubleday, 1992.  620-621.

Goren, Yuval.  “The Jerusalem Syndrome in Archaeology: Jehoash to James.”
The Bible and Interpretation.  Jan. 2004.  04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Goren_Jerusalem_Syndrome.htm>.

Hanson, K.C. and Douglas E. Oakman.  Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and
Social Conflicts.  Incl. CD-ROM.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998.

Hartin, Patrick J.  James and the Q Sayings of Jesus.  Journal for the Study of the New
Testament Supplement Series 47.  Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.

Jacobovici, Simcha and Charles Pellegrino.  The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery,
the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History.  New York: HarperCollins and HarperSanFrancisco, 2007.

Johnson, Luke Timothy.  Brother of Jesus, Friend of God: Studies in the Letter of James.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.

Kirby, Peter.  “Historical Jesus Theories.”  Early Christian Writings.  2001-2003.  13 Oct. 2007
<http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html>.

Krumbein, Wolfgang E.  “External Expert Opinion on Three Stone Items.”
Biblical Archaeology Society. Sept. 2005.  04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/bswbOOossuary_Krumbeinreport.pdf>.

Laws, Sophie.  “James, Epistle of.”  The Anchor Bible Dictionary.  Vol. 3.  Ed. David Noel
Freedman.  New York: Doubleday, 1992.  621-628.

“Leading Scholar Lambastes IAA Committee.”  Biblical Archaeology Review 33.6 (2007): 16.

Mack, Burton L.  “Q and a Cynic-Like Jesus.”  Whose Historical Jesus?  Ed. William E. Arnal
and Michel Desjardins.  Studies in Christianity and Judaism 7.  Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 1997.

Mims, Christopher.  “Q&A With the Statistician Who Calculated the Odds That This Tomb
Belonged to Jesus.”  Scientific American.  March 2, 2007.  12 Dec. 2007 <http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=13C42878-E7F2-99DF-3B6D16A9656A12FF>.

Mims, Christopher.  “Special Report: Has James Cameron Found Jesus’s Tomb or Is It Just
a Statistical Error?”  Scientific American.  March 2, 2007.  12 Dec. 2007 <http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=14A3C2E6-E7F2-99DF-37A9AEC98FB0702A>.

Pfann, Stephen.  “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?”  UHL Articles on “The Lost
Tomb of Jesus” Documentary.  University of the Holy Land.  2007(?).  11 Dec. 2007 <http://www.uhl.ac/Lost_Tomb/HowDoYouSolveMaria/>.

Reed, Jonathan L.  Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-examination of the Evidence.
Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 2000.

Shanks, Hershel and Ben Witherington III.  The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story &
Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus & His Family.  New York: HarperCollins and HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.

Wachob, Wesley Hiram.  The Voice of Jesus in the Social Rhetoric of James.  Society for
New Testament Studies Monograph Series 106.  Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2000.

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02 Jun 2012

TBM40: What Sheldon Cooper Can Teach You

When the writers and producers of the hit TV comedy The Big Bang Theory first envisioned the character of Sheldon Cooper, I’m sure their main goal was to craft a truly funny show.  I’m sure they couldn’t have known their blend of spot-on writing and Jim Parson’s brilliant acting would end up creating an iconic portrait of the human brain’s Darwinian Circuitry.  But just as the writers of The Big Bang Theory are always referencing some of my favourite series — series such as Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars — I’m going to reference their Sheldon Cooper character as a way to speak accurately about the realities of the human brain.

Wind Turbines (c) Jamie MacDonald 2009. Used with permission of the artist.

Wind Turbines (c) Jamie MacDonald 2009. Used with permission of the artist. Every time I see a wind turbine, it reminds me of the ruthless logic of the brain’s Darwinian circuitry.

Jim Parson’s portrayal of theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper is hilarious because it’s 100% accurate in scientific terms.  The humour works because the science works.  In this case, the science they’re showing (albeit unwittingly) is the science of a brain that’s operating entirely on its 3D Darwinian Circuitry without benefit of the soul’s gifts of empathy, heart, and dignity.

I know it sounds really hard to believe that a person can function at all without using every part of the brain.  We assume a person can function with only one kidney or one leg, but it never occurs to us to ask whether the same analogy applies to the brain.  We tend to think of the brain as a single organ — either a whole brain that functions wholly and properly or no brain at all — so we give people the benefit of the doubt with regard to their internal thinking processes.   We assume that if they can do all the basics — go to school, get a job, make everyday decisions — then their brains must be operating the way they’re supposed to.

But there’s a problem with this assumption: the basic tasks of going to school, getting a job, and making everyday decisions require the brain to use only one “software suite,” whereas it actually has two.  Basic tasks require the brain to use only its Darwinian Circuitry, a “suite” of software devoted solely to 3D biological survival.  The brain’s Darwinian Circuitry carries the programming for all things related to your body’s biological needs — food, water, clean air, sleep, protection from the elements, protection from predators, procreation (which is more optional than most people think), and relief from pain.  In our culture, school and jobs and money and status are regarded by the Darwinian Circuitry of the brain as essential tools for survival.  So anything to do with money and status are given extremely high priority by the Darwinian Circuitry, even it means pursuing a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, as our character Sheldon Cooper has done.

So efficient is the Darwinian Circuitry that it can carry out important survival tasks without any input at all from the brain’s Soul Circuitry.   Of course, without input from the soul, survival tasks won’t be carried out with empathy.  Or with trust.  Or humbleness.  Or gratitude.  Or humour.  Or anything resembling conscience.  But they’ll be done, by god, and they’ll be done with the viciousness and cold logic of an S.S. death camp commander.

These are the kinds of selfish, conscience-free behaviours that idiot atheists such as Richard Dawkins have promoted as the “truth” about human nature. I see a lot of similarities between Richard Dawkins, philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and the Christian Apostle Paul.

Dawkins has coined the phrase “the selfish gene,” and at a certain level the label is accurate.  There are stretches of genetic material in our DNA that are meant to boost our awareness of our individual survival needs.  Otherwise how would we instinctively know how to run away from danger?!  But these are not the only kinds of coding we have in our DNA.  We also have coding for unselfish traits.  We also have coding for traits such as empathy, trust, humbleness, gratitude, humour, and conscience.

In the language of personality theorists (a branch of psychology), we have to be able to account for the five universally observed dimensions of personality — Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness — and we have to be able to account for all five of these dimensions in the face of aggressive arguments from behavioural psychologists and evolutionary biologists that human beings are nothing more than a collection of selfish genes seeking to reproduce themselves in the most efficient way possible.

So here’s how it actually works.  The Darwinian Circuitry of your brain is responsible for expressing traits that fall within two of the five dimensions: Neuroticism and Agreeableness.  The Soul Circuitry of your brain is responsible for expressing the other three dimensions: Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness.

Yeah.  It really is that simple.

Sheldon Cooper is an absolutely perfect representation of what happens to a human being’s behaviour and relationships when he falls into the trap of relying exclusively on choices that score very high on the Neuroticism and Agreeableness scales, and very low on the Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness scales.  He becomes, well, he becomes a Sheldon.

This package of traits is distinctive and highly recognizable.  You get a person who’s highly controlling; perfectionistic; tense around other people; resistant to sudden change; inflexible; always “right”; quick to anger; thorough but lacking in imagination; socially compliant but lacking in genuine empathy; obsessive or obsessive-compulsive; politically conservative or right-wing; and rigidly obedient to the Law (dogmatic).  The latter trait — rigid obedience to the Law — is especially important to understand in its proper context as a Darwinian trait because it’s often wrongly confused by researchers with traits from the Conscientiousness dimension.

The Darwinian Circuitry of the brain is very good at what it does (when it’s in balance with the Soul Circuitry) but on its own it’s very “black and white” in its thinking.  It looks for simplistic “Cause and Effect” patterns.  It looks for rigid “laws” that can be applied quickly and easily in all situations.  The Darwinian parts of the brain “recognize” Materialist philosophy and codified religious texts and scientism (that is, treatment of scientific thought as an infallible religion).  There’s NO capacity in these parts of the brain for processing complex emotions such as empathy, humbleness, courage, and forgiveness.  On the other hand, logic and law are elevated to the status of the divine.  You can see these patterns plain as day in Sheldon Cooper’s self-absorbed devotion to pure logic.

If you’re familiar with the Big Five personality theory, you’re probably saying to yourself that I’ve got the Agreeableness dimension all backwards and I obviously haven’t read the material carefully.  I’ve read the material, and I think the scale for Agreeableness has been written backwards.  High scorers on the Agreeableness dimension are harder to sort out in research studies because status addiction affects this dimension more than it does the other four.  For instance, generosity and altruism may be genuine (in which case they’re coming from the Soul Circuitry and belong on the Extraversion dimension).  On the other hand, generosity and altruism may be nothing more than status-addiction-in-sheep’s-clothing (which means they’re coming from the clever tactical centres of the Darwinian Circuit, and should stay right where they are on the Agreeableness dimension, since Agreeableness  is focussed on social strategies that enhance 3D biological health).

A philanthropist who can’t donate money to a worthy cause without seeing his/her name emblazoned in big letters on the outside of a new research centre is suffering from a severe case of status-addiction-in-sheep’s-clothing.  This behaviour deserves a high score on the “I’m-doing-it-to-survive-on-the-social-ladder” scale.

Giving, of course, is good.  If you’re giving from your heart and soul, you’ll have no trouble giving anonymously and forgoing any credit for your generosity.  It should be fairly obvious, though, that giving to others so you can earn yourself lots of status points is not so good from the soul’s point of view.

Poor Sheldon Cooper.  He can follow the rules of social conventions by rote, but he doesn’t understand them.  He doesn’t understand why he’s not supposed to call his twin sister “inferior genetic material.”  He doesn’t understand why Leonard wants to be with Penny in emotional, intimate, heartfelt ways.  He laughs when it’s socially appropriate, not because he gets the joke, but because he knows at a Darwinian level that he’s supposed to.  He’s a classic Platonic Philosopher-King who believes in his own superiority and not much else.

He’s busted from top to bottom.  But this doesn’t stop him from bossing other people around and using pure logic to abuse the people around him.

Not that Sheldon thinks he’s an abuser.  In his own eyes, he’s a really nice guy.

This is why he reminds me so much of the Apostle Paul.

 

Further Reading:

“The surprising downsides of being clever” by David Robson, BBC Future, April 14, 2015

“Will religion ever disappear” by Rachel Nuwer, BBC Future, December 19, 2014

“Teaching the children: Sharp ideological differences, some common ground,” Pew Research Center, September 18, 2014

 

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Posted in brain's Darwinian Circuitry, brain-soul connection, Christ Zone, conscience & morality, dissociation, Law (Nomos), Materialism, Paul vs Jesus, psychopathy (niceness), The Blonde Mystic, the right to be right and tagged , | Leave a Comment
11 Feb 2012

TBM20: Definition of Status Addiction

One of the great advantages of walking the Spiral Path in fellowship with God and your guardian angels is that you’re constantly being encouraged to learn new things and meet new people. You’re constantly being encouraged to let go of belief systems that are holding you back in your quest to know your full potential as a child of God.

“Living your full potential” is another way of saying “living your soul purpose.” It’s a positive, hopeful concept, one that Jesus son of Joseph taught his own followers 2,000 years ago. Jesus described the quest to know yourself and live according to your soul purpose as “entering the kingdom of the heavens.” It’s not really God’s kingdom you’re entering (though parts of the Bible describe it as such). It’s your own little kingdom — your own little corner of God’s spiritual kitchen. It’s the truth about yourself you have to understand so you can better help other people.

The Apostle Paul hated and feared Jesus’ teachings about “the Kingdom.” He was determined to snuff out Jesus’ teachings on the nature of the soul because he (Paul) wanted to help preserve the status quo. The status quo protected the rights and privileges of the people at the top of the social pyramid — the priests, the kings, the lawmakers, and the chosen bloodlines of their families.

Things haven’t changed much since then, eh?

The danger in Jesus’ teachings was — and is — the lack of “fuel” for people who are addicted to status. By that I mean people who are physiologically addicted to status. People who are biologically addicted to status. People whose dopamine receptors and orexin receptors (to greatly simplify) respond in imbalanced ways to an ingestion of “status points.” (You can read more about this in the post called “The Corruption of Free Will Through Addiction.”)

Unfortunately, not much useable research has been done on this topic, but I’m hopeful that, in time, researchers in cross-disciplinary studies will come together to discuss the reality of status addiction from all angles: neuroscience combined with psychiatry, education theory, sociology, parenting skills, and Twelve Step programs.

Status addiction, like any other addiction disorder, isn’t a black-or-white psycho/social/medical issue but a spectrum of need. At one end of the spectrum are the people who only occasionally use the substance. Sure, they have cravings, but other factors in their lives help them keep a lid on their using.

At the other end of the spectrum are the full-blown addicts, the ones who can’t get through a few hours let alone a few days without a fix. The behaviour of a full-blown addict makes sense only to the addict himself or herself. To everyone else, the status addict’s behaviour is cruel. Lacking in empathy. Intolerant. Judgmental. Perfectionistic. Demanding. Controlling. Angry. Abusive. And in a constant state of denial.

Sound familiar? Everyone knows a person who’s chosen the path of status addiction. They’re the bullies, tyrants, narcissists, and psychopaths of the world. They’re the ones who thrive at a biological level on the idea that they’re better than other people. Better or smarter or faster or stronger. Nicer. More generous to others or more obedient to God than you. More deserving of praise, reward, health, and wealth than you.

It’s not in a status addict’s best interests to agree in principle with the idea that God doesn’t play favourites. Nor is it in a status addict’s best interests to agree in principle with the idea that human beings are responsible for their own choices, including the choice to be angry, cruel, and abusive.

b3_humanoids007 01

Being around a status addict makes you feel as if you need a gas mask and protective armour. ((C) Image*After)

It’s important to understand that the Apostle Paul was convinced God plays favourites. Paul’s Letter to the Romans explains in gory detail who will be saved by God and who won’t (or who won’t be saved at first, anyway). For Paul, there’s no question that Christians are better than other people. There’s also no question, when you read Paul’s convoluted thesis about “Sin,” that he himself was trapped by the selfish behaviours of status addiction.

If you find all the places in Romans where Paul talks about cosmic “Sin” and replace the word “Sin” with “status addiction,” you’ll quickly realize that Paul was a man in a state of denial about his own addiction issues. He didn’t want to take responsibility for his own choices, and he was prepared to invent ever more status-soaked theologies to explain why he wasn’t responsible for the way he felt inside his own head.

I want to emphasize an important point, though. Paul knew what he was doing. He wasn’t mentally incompetent in a legal or moral or medical sense. He maintained a grip on many of his mental faculties, including his ability to write cogently and logically; his ability to manipulate and coerce others in subtle, sophisticated ways; and his ability to stay clearly focussed on tasks and goals. He wasn’t dysfunctional in the way that a person with a serious, untreated psychotic disorder is dysfunctional. He knew what he was doing and he wanted to do it so he and his followers could acquire more status points.

Paul, in fact, was so shrewd in his observations about human nature that he understood what tyrants such as Pol Pot have failed to understand. Paul understood that if you want to build a stable social structure to support the status needs of those at the top of the pyramid, you have to put an effective leash on the status-seeking behaviours of everyone, even the people at the top. Otherwise, chaos runs rampant as countless individuals seek a “hit” of status at the expense of their neighbours.

Paul’s leash is humility. And it’s as effective a scam today as it was 2,000 years ago, judging by this quote from Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Life (Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002)):

“Cultivating community takes humility. Self-importance, smugness, and stubborn pride destroy fellowship faster than anything else. Pride builds walls between people; humility builds bridges. Humility is the oil that smoothes and soothes relationships. That’s why the Bible says, ‘Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.’ The proper dress for fellowship is a humble attitude.

The rest of that verse says, ‘. . . because, God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.’ This is the other reason we need to be humble: Pride blocks God’s grace in our lives, which we must have in order to grow, change, heal, and help others. We receive God’s grace by humbly admitting that we need it. The Bible says anytime we are prideful, we are living in opposition to God! That is a foolish and dangerous way to live (page 148).”

Humility and humbleness. Are they the same thing? I argue they’re not the same. Humility is what Paul and others have taught as a leash on the selfishness of status addiction. Humbleness, on the other hand, is what Jesus taught as a tonic for the wounds caused by status addiction.

Warren says, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others. Humble people are so focused on serving others, they don’t think of themselves (page 148).”

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

(I loved the TV show Lost in Space when I was a kid.)

If you try to always think of others, and never think of your own needs, you’ll become one messed-up puppy.

I tried this whole dissolve-yourself-in-service-to-others gig for three whole years in the “middle phase” of my spiritual journey, and guess what happened? I ended up being an enabler for status-addicts.

There’s nothing a status-addict loves more than having an obedient, admiring, selfless acolyte to kick around. (Well, having a whole group of acolytes would probably be better than having just one doormat to wipe his/her feet on, but even one servant is better than none.)

Humility is not the oil that smoothes and soothes relationships. Forgiveness is the oil that smoothes and soothes relationships. Forgiveness and tough love are closely linked to each other because both require you to dredge up your own soul-given courage. Knowing yourself and trusting yourself also require great courage.

Being a doormat and an enabler of status addicts may be the easy way out, but it’s not the divine way out.

Did you know that Paul almost never discusses forgiveness in his known letters? Yeah, that’s because if you tell people they have the power within themselves to forgive themselves and each other, they may discover on their own that we’re all equally amazing children of God and nobody — but nobody — is “chosen.”

Couldn’t have that, now, could we?

______

P.S. After I posted the body of this article, I was prompted by my guardian angels to look closely at the index of Rick Warren’s book. His book is divided into a preface plus 40 chapters (one chapter for each day of the “journey”). There are many footnotes. Most of the footnotes give scriptural references to support Warren’s argument, and a few refer to recent Christian publications he admires.

Of the 787 footnotes in this book, only 7 refer to the biblical Gospel of Mark (with one footnote listing 2 different verses in Mark). (There’s a ninth footnote reference to Mark, but this is for Mark 16:15, which is generally believed to be a later addition to the gospel).

The Gospel of Mark is a troublesome book for evangelical and conservative Christians because this is the story of a physician-scholar who gives up his status and breaks a lot of religious rules in order to help the poor, the disenfranchised, and the sick. It can also be called the Gospel of Forgiveness, ’cause that’s what Jesus does throughout.

As I said, it’s a troublesome book. (You can read more about the dispute between Mark and Paul at “Choosing Between Paul and Jesus,”  “The Case for Mark Versus Paul,”   and “Mark’s Themes of Understanding and Strength.” 

 

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Posted in forgiveness, Gospel of Mark, humbleness, humility, Kingdom teachings, Paul vs Jesus, psychopathy, status addiction, The Blonde Mystic and tagged , | Leave a Comment
03 Dec 2011

RS16: Angels in Blue Jeans

(c) Jamie MacDonald. Used with permission of the artist.

(c) Jamie MacDonald. Used with permission of the artist.

A: Some people who are reading this discussion might say it’s unfair of us to suddenly throw brain science onto the same page alongside spirituality, to insist your teachings 2,000 years ago were built around ideas that have only been proven by science in the past few decades. How would you respond to that?

J: Well, the thing about science is that scientific research always lags behind the human mind, the human imagination. Research only evolves because somebody somewhere has had a great idea and wants to push the idea out of the 4D realm of consciousness and into the 3D world of physical reality. So it doesn’t phase me at all to hear people grumbling about the brain science. The honest truth is that I was a pioneer in the deep interconnection between science and faith. Sure, my ideas were rough around the edges, as early theories usually are. But that was the focus of my ministry.

A: I can hear the scornful scoffing from here — the outrage from pious Christians.

J: Well, I wasn’t a Pauline Christian. Never have been, never will be. Nor was I a devout Jew. So pious Christians and pious Jews can be as angry as they like. It won’t change the fact that I tried to found a radically new religious movement based on the most loving values I could find, regardless of where I found them. I was equally happy to gather insights from folk medicine as from Greek philosophy. In fact, I found more truths about God in the medicine chests of Galilean peasants than I ever found in Plato or Aristotle. Philosophers who live their lives inside their heads instead of their hearts have rarely contributed anything of value to the betterment of human lives. If I had a time machine (which I don’t, of course) I’d go back in time and invite Plato to spend a month in the copper mines and then ask him if he’d like to revise his bloody Republic.

A: Just a month?

J: He probably wouldn’t have lasted more than a month. The mines were brutal places.

A: There’s nothing like walking a mile in a slave’s shoes to understand how unjust slavery is.

J: Yes. I never became a slave — not in legal terms — but I went from a life of great privilege to a life of great hardship, and it altered all my ideas of, well, of everything. I wouldn’t have been able to see the truth about the Divine Heart if a lot of very powerful people hadn’t kicked the crap out of me.

A: Tell me more about that.

J: I’d been raised on a lot of insufferable ideas about how “important” I was and how “special” I was. I got it with my morning olives, you could say. “Yeshua, remember who you are. Yeshua, behave according to your station. Yeshua, don’t talk to those . . . those . . . filthy peasants. Yeshua, remember who you are!”

A: So who were you?

J: I was a descendant of the High Priest Onias III. One of many descendants, I should add. He had a lot of fertile children. John the Baptist was also a descendant of his. So technically speaking, John and I were cousins, though so distantly related that it only mattered to fanatical devotees of genealogy.

A: Was anyone keeping track of these things by the time you were born? Did anyone care that your great-great-whatever-grandfather had been High Priest of the Jerusalem Temple?

J: Oh yes. It was a big deal. It carried a lot a cachet. It was like saying today, “I’m a descendant of Queen Victoria.” The children of Queen Victoria married into many of the royal houses of Europe, and her descendants are spread all over the place. My family — on my mother’s side — was kind of like that. Our bloodline was considered “sacred.”

A: Even though your father was Greek.

J: Even then. He was talented and ambitious and indispensable as far as the Romans were concerned. He had a real talent for math. He could do complex calculations in his head, and he had a wonderful eye for architectural design. His name isn’t remembered in the annals of Roman architectural history, but he built some pretty memorable streetscapes in the newly conquered lands of Syria and Palestine.

A: He added to the status and prestige of Augustus.

J: Yes. His acceptance among the Romans made him a good match for my mother as far as my Jewish grandfather was concerned. Strong political connections. But, strange as it may seem, my parents’ marriage was a love match. They loved each other deeply. After my father died, when I was about four and my oldest brother, James, was sixteen, my mother lived as a widow in mourning for the rest of her very long life.

A: She was a widow during the small window of time when Roman marriage laws gave a measure of independence to widows who had at least three living children.

J: Yes. Few people see the significance of the list of my family’s names that Mark includes in his gospel. Mark 6:3 says, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters [plural] here with us?” There’s no mention of my father. There’s no mention of a step-father, either. Mark is clearly telling his audience that Mary had full property rights as a widow under Roman marriage law. It means she was wealthy and well connected, because only wealthy people could afford to provide the physiological needs and safety needs required to raise such a large family, and only well connected women could side-step the economic and cultural pressure on them to marry again. It’s right there in Mark. Plain as day.

A: In an era when infant mortality rates were high and most adults didn’t make it to “middle age” as we define middle age, it was important to note your family’s size and health and economic situation. It told readers something about who you were.

J: I grew up in a family that had enough money and enough prestige to guarantee that I had good nutrition and shelter while I was growing up (i.e. provide for my physiological needs); to protect me from being abused by robbers or slave-holding masters or religious masters (i.e. provide for my safety needs); to provide me with a family setting where I felt loved and respected (i.e. meet my needs for love & belonging); and to insist that I receive a strong education in Greek and Jewish philosophy, law, rhetoric, and geometry (i.e. give me the tools to build my self-esteem).

I may have made a lot of mistakes in my youth, but because of my upbringing I had a healthy brain. This gave me a considerable biological advantage compared to many others in the first century culture I lived in. My healthy brain made it possible for me to learn from my mistakes and ask new, harder questions about our relationship with God the Mother and God the Father. My healthy brain made me tougher and smarter than most of my peers.

A: Because you were using all parts of your brain in a balanced way. A holistic way. Not a rigid, fearful way.

J: When human beings stop being afraid of learning from their own mistakes — when they’re willing to be humble — they can do amazing things in the world.

But first — and this is the big stumbling block for status-addicted pious folk — first they have to get over themselves. They have to let go of every shred of religious chosenness and religious purity and religious salvation. They have to be willing to look God right in the eye. That’s what humbleness is. That’s what true faith is.

A: I love the way young children look their parents right in the eye and tell the truth out loud. That’s the way it should be.

J: That’s the way it actually is for angels-in-angel-form.

A: This morning my angel team shared a fascinating dream with me. They were talking about their own observations on the difference between Pauline Christianity and the kind of faith you tried to teach.

In the dream, they compared Pauline Christianity — orthodox Western Christianity — to a store that insists we each buy a fancy, expensive tuxedo. According to the store, you need to have a tuxedo on hand for that one-time-only day when you come face to face with God. You might never wear it during your lifetime as a human being. But, by golly, you better spend the money to buy it NOW so you can lock it in your closet and keep it safe for “That Day” in the future when God comes calling.

Of course, the store gets your money today . . .

You, on the other hand, would look pretty great in a tuxedo, but I know you well, and you’re no tuxedo-in-the-closet kind of guy. You’re a blue jeans kind of guy. Put on your blue jeans and go out into the world TODAY to see where you can help God TODAY. No standing on ceremony. No false humility. Just a guy with a big heart who knows what’s important in life.

Thanks, big guy. Thanks for saying what you needed to say in the way you needed to say it. We need more of this kind of courage in the world.

And thanks to my angel team, too. Couldn’t do it without you.

 

Food for thought (added March 3, 2015): On February 27, 2015, the National Post offered an article and video about a Canadian man who is a descendant of Queen Victoria. Hermann Leiningen carries a title, but in every other way is a normal Canadian.  His story reminds me of Jesus’ story, right down to the excellent manners, quick mind, and good education.  Please see “The Canadian who would be king: What it’s like to be the great-great-great grandson of Queen Victoria.”

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Posted in brain-soul connection, Christ Zone, Divine Love, Gospel of Mark, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' teachings, Paul vs Jesus, Realspiritik, slavery, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged | Leave a Comment
20 Nov 2011

RS13: One Path to Manyness NOT Many Paths to Oneness

A: A few days ago I was talking to you — complaining to you, actually — about the idea of religious Oneness, the idea that all major world religions teach the same core values through many different paths. You responded in typical Jesus fashion. You said, “There are not many paths to oneness, but one path to manyness.” You wanna talk about this new Yeshuism? (I think I just invented a new word.)

J: As an angel, I’m getting pretty tired of listening to all the excuses and all the lies that are being told by devout conservative thinkers of all religions. And I’m not alone in my exasperation. God’s angels know what human beings are capable of, and you know what? Not many people these days even care. Most people are not being raised by their families or communities to know or care about human potential.

The current trend in the West is to put all religious leaders and religious texts on an equal footing, which is to say they’re placing them all on a sacred pedestal of immunity — immunity from scrutiny, immunity from common sense. It’s a misguided attempt to prevent anyone from having their “feelings hurt.” God isn’t in the business of preventing people from having their feelings hurt. God is in the business of forgiveness and transformation, of helping each child of God to reach his or her true potential.

Closeup 304

A: When you say “his or her true potential,” what do you mean by that? Do you mean some sort of evolutionary advancement in human consciousness, as recent writers of popular fiction have been saying?

J (smiling mischievously): Hey, it’s a great way to earn some big bucks, but it ain’t no way to make your guardian angel smile.

A: I’ve been noticing over the past few years that the writers who make the biggest promises are the ones least likely to know what it means, what it feels like, to live in the Christ Zone. I’m very suspicious of anyone who tries to sell spirituality and faith as something that exists outside the realities of normal everyday life.

J: Most people live hard lives. They suffer a lot. Their children suffer a lot. They need ways to cope. One of the most popular ways of coping is Escape. Escape with a capital “E.” Many people use alcohol or drugs to escape. Many use sex. But many, many people escape through storytelling — through books, films, plays, or religious mythology. Religious mythology and plays have both been around for a long, long time. They’re popular. They’re traditional. But this doesn’t make them true — not in a literal sense. They may be true in an allegorical sense. They may help people express and cope with their own feelings, and in this sense the stories are useful and helpful. But for human beings to make up stories about God and then peddle them as literal truth . . . this is completely unacceptable. Unacceptable to God and unacceptable to the soul of each human being. A religious tradition that teaches its children elaborate, fantastical histories of Creation — when it’s actually not possible for any human being anywhere to understand or convey the scientific history of Creation — is not teaching its followers about God. It’s teaching the path of Oneness. It’s teaching the path of narcissism and contempt for God. It’s teaching children to blindly obey their human leaders. This is mind control, not faith.

A: I’ve been working for years with you on the question of Creation as a scientific and historical reality, and the more I learn the more I realize I don’t understand it. I have no interest in going “on the record” with the tiny bit I’ve learned so far. This would be hubris, in my opinion.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. You’re saying that faith and blind obedience are mutually exclusive choices.

J: Exactly. Faith, as you and I have defined it, is an experience of enduring relationship with God in the absence of sacred texts. This means that an individual who has never read the Bible is fully capable of being in mature relationship with God on a daily basis.

A: A lot of people would say it’s impossible to know God or be in relationship with God if you don’t have a sacred book to guide you. Sort of like trying to find your way to the North Pole without a map.

J: Well, here’s the thing. Everyone — and I mean everyone — is born with an inner map. The inner map is hardwired into your DNA and expresses itself through your brain architecture. If you’re raised in such a way that your biological brain is reasonably balanced, guess what? The map lights up inside your head even though you’re just a regular guy/gal who’s trying to live a humble life. In fact, the map will only light up inside your head if you’re a regular guy/gal who’s trying to live a humble life. This is the way God designed the biology of the human brain. The human brain and central nervous system are designed in such a way that there’s only one way to achieve a state of mature relationship with God. This one way is to balance the competing needs shown in the Christ Zone model.

A: Juggling the physiological needs with the safety needs, the love & belonging needs, and the self-esteem needs.

J: Yes. It is an indisputable scientific fact that when a child is raised in a way that consistently balances and honours these four main needs, this child will grow up to be remarkably stable, responsible, mature, organized, practical, funny, humble, and interested in building strong relationships with others, including God.

A: Why these attributes and not others? Why not competitive, aggressive, focussed, dedicated?

J: Because mature, responsible people aren’t competitive and aggressive. They’re hard working and competent without being competitive and aggressive. Furthermore, they don’t want to be competitive and aggressive. They prefer to be humble and happy.

A: So competitive and aggressive don’t fit on the same page with humble and happy?

J: Nope. “Competitive and aggressive” fit very nicely on the same page with traditional orthodox Western Christianity, but not on the same page with what I taught.

A: Hmmmm. The Crusades spring to mind. Plus Christian slave-owning. And Christian evangelism. I’m not too fond of Christian preaching on sin and salvation.

J: If you look closely at Paul’s theology of sin, salvation, sacraments, and separation from God, what you see is a systematic attempt on Paul’s part to undermine all four needs of the Christ Zone model. You see him savaging the soul’s need for self-esteem by telling people they’re full of sin and can’t get rid of it no matter how hard they try (which is why they need Christ’s intervention). You see him crushing all hope that regular people can be in full relationship with God — in a state of love and belonging with God — except maybe on the future Day of Judgment. You see him steal away people’s sense of safety and trust in God by preaching about grave perils and dangers and demons and cosmic forces such as Sin and Law. You see him even try to rob people of the chance to add meat to their diet through fear of committing idolatry. Small portions of meat protein are important to the physiological health of most human beings. Same with healthy, respectful sexuality, which Paul also tries to undermine by playing the guilt card.

Of course, one of the biggest tip-offs about Paul’s true intent is his attitude towards slavery. He doesn’t say that slavery is wrong, that it’s morally reprehensible. He side-steps all the brutal realities of slavery, which include the frequent withholding of proper food and shelter (physiological needs); the complete annihilation of all safety needs (safety of the core self, the psychological self, the sexual self, the relationship self, the trusting self); the replacement of true love and belonging needs (i.e. the “one path to manyness”) with false teachings on love and belonging (i.e. “we are all one in Christ” or “the many paths to oneness”); and as for self-esteem . . . well, come on, now, self-esteem is intertwined with egalitarianism and wholeness and self-respect and empathy, and a slave isn’t offered any of these things by his masters. It’s a rare slave who finds the inner courage to overcome all these obstacles on his or her own. However, it does happen and can happen. Human beings are extraordinary and awe-inspiring when they decide to take full possession of their own inner map and follow it instead of these numbskull religious teachings.

A: Just now you linked true loving and belonging needs with the one path to manyness. Can you explain that in more detail?

J: All people need love and belonging. They need to belong to families or communities or friendship groups. It’s normal and healthy. In fact, they can’t be in full relationship with God if they’ve never had any of their love and belonging needs met in their everyday human lives.

A: Why not?

J: Because their brains have never learned over time how to have relationships with anybody. They’ve never learned how to listen with all their heart to another person, how to maintain respectful boundaries with another person, how to communicate clearly without getting angry and controlling, how to compromise. Again, this is all scientifically verifiable. Thousands and thousands of books have been written on these topics. This isn’t New Age fluff I’m talkin’ here. This is the stuff of real life, real psychology, real change. People’s lives get better when they learn how to do relationships. People’s lives get worse when they ignore their relationship needs. Nobody gets out of this reality. Nobody. God doesn’t intend that individuals should be able to find their own inner map by going off into the desert to live alone for months or years. It isn’t normal and it isn’t healthy. You can only see who you are in relationship with God if you know who you are in relationship with other people. You have to love your neighbours — your neighbours on Planet Earth — if you want to know what it feels like to love your God.

A: Because God the Mother and God the Father are NOT you. They’re not One with you. They’re part of a family WITH you. But they’re not you. So you have to get to know them the way you’d get to know any of your other neighbours.

J: Yes. Angels walk side by side, hand in hand. We are the many who share the values of divine love, courage, devotion, gratitude, and trust. We are the many who are a family united in love. We are the many who can flourish in our own distinctiveness because there’s only one path to true love and belonging.

That path is the path of balance.

 

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Posted in "4 S's", "Escape", Christ Zone, Church of today, Favourite Posts, HDM Myths, Paul vs Jesus, Realspiritik, relationship with God, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged , , | Leave a Comment
02 Aug 2011

JR62: Seventh & Final Step: Remove the Thorn in Jesus’ Flesh (That Would Be Paul)

A: We’ve talked a lot on this site and on the Concinnate Christianity blog about the differences between your teachings and Paul’s teachings. Many readers will say there’s not much evidence in the Bible for the differences you and I claim. What would you say to Progressive Christians who want to “have their Jesus and keep their Paul, too,” who want to make you, Jesus, more credible, without actually giving up any of their cherished Pauline doctrines?

J: They make me look like a dweeb, to be honest. An ineffectual, wimpy, turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy.

A: Which you were not.

J: They say they want to save me from the fundamentalist Christian right and the secular humanist left, yet they’re forcing me to sit down at the Tea Party table with Paul, which is the last place I want to be. I’m a middle of the road social democrat, and I believe with all my heart and soul that a society can’t function in a balanced way unless rights and responsibilities are given equal weight in all spheres of life. Paul was a man who taught about rights, rights, rights and not nearly enough about responsibilities. He and I had very different values.

A: Paul talks about punishments.

J: Yes. Paul talks about divine punishment and divine testing. He talks about his freedom — his right — to speak with divine authority. He talks about the need for self-discipline. He talks about divine rewards. But, you know, when you look carefully at what he’s written, he doesn’t speak to the soul of his listeners. He doesn’t challenge them to see each of their neighbours as a separate person worthy of respect. Instead he does the opposite: he encourages them to see themselves as non-distinct members of a vast “body of Christ.” Paul, instead of insisting that people build solid interpersonal boundaries — the foundation of safety and respect and mutuality between individuals — tells people to dissolve those boundaries. It sounds good on paper, but “Oneness” does not work in reality. If you encourage the dissolution of interpersonal boundaries, you’ll see to your horror that the psychopaths in your midst will jump in and seize that “Oneness” for themselves. They won’t hesitate to use it to their advantage.

A: Because they have no conscience.

J: Humans (as well as angels on the Other Side) are all part of One Family. But this isn’t the same as saying humans are all “One.” As anyone who comes from a big family knows, respect for boundaries is the grease that keeps you from killing each other.

A: It can be tricky to manoeuvre all the boundary issues in a big family.

J: Yes. You need all the brain power you can muster to stay on top of the different needs of different family members.

A: Spoken like a man who came from a big family.

J: When you’re the youngest son in a family with three older brothers and two sisters (one older, one younger), you catch on fast to the idea of watching and learning and listening to the family dynamics so you don’t get your butt kicked all the time.

A: It’s real life, that’s for sure.

J: That’s the thing. It’s real life. It’s not about going off into the desert to live as a religious hermit. It’s not about living inside walled compounds or hilltop fortresses. It’s about living with your neighbours and learning to get along with them through communication and compromise and empathy. It’s not fancy, but it works.

A: The Gospel of Mark makes this message very clear.

J: Christians have long assumed that the author of Luke truly believed in my teachings and was trying his best to convey them in a fresh way to a new generation of believers. Luke, of course, had no interest in my teachings, and was instead trying to promote Paul’s package of religio-political doctrines. This is seen most obviously in the so-called Great Omission — the complete absence in Luke of Mark’s most important theological statement. Luke cut and pasted many parts of Mark’s gospel, and thereby changed their meaning. But he didn’t even try to include the dangerous theology found in Mark 6:47 to Mark 8:27a. He ignored it and hoped it would go away.

A: Why? Why did he want it to go away?

J: Mark’s gospel, as we’ve been discussing, was a direct rebuttal of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Paul wrote first (years before Mark), and in the middle of his letter he included 3 linked chapters on freedom and conscience, authority and obedience, sin and salvation, as these themes revolve around food — idol meat and, more importantly, the blood and bread of Christ (1 Cor 8:1-11:1). We can call this set-piece the “Idol Meat Discourse.” In this set-piece, Paul makes a number of claims about God that Mark, following my example, found particularly galling. Mark countered those claims by writing his own 3-chapter set-piece (Mark 6:30-8:26). I’m going to call Mark’s set-piece “the Parable of the Idol Bread.” This was Mark’s head-on attack on Paul’s Eucharist.

A: Mark didn’t support the sacrament of the Last Supper?

J: Mark knew that Paul’s speech about sharing in the blood and body of Christ (1 Cor 10:14-22) was a thinly veiled Essene ritual, the occult Messianic Banquet that had grown out of earlier, more honest offerings of thanks to God. I rejected the notion of the Messianic Banquet, with its invocation of hierarchy and status addiction. Mark rejected it, too.

A: Right before Mark launches into his Parable of the Idol Bread, he includes an allegorical tale about a banquet held by Herod and the subsequent beheading of John the Baptist (which we know didn’t actually happen).

J: Yes. Mark uses a lot of sophisticated allegory in his gospel. (Plus I think the less loving aspect of him wanted to see John’s head end up on a platter, which is where he thought it belonged.) Mark leads up to his set-piece — which, of course, is an anti-Messianic-banquet — by tipping off the reader to an upcoming inversion of religious expectations. He’s telling them not to expect Paul’s easy promises and glib words about “Oneness.” He’s telling them to prepare themselves for an alternate version of Jesus’ teachings about relationship with God.

A: What was that alternate version?

View of the Galilee from Mount Tabor ((c) Free Israel Photos)

View of the Galilee from Mount Tabor. Photo credit Free Israel Photos.

J: It was a radical vision of equality before God, of inclusiveness and non-Chosenness. It was a vision of faith without status addiction. Of faith and courage in numbers. Of freedom from the slavery of the Law. The love of a mother for her children (including our Divine Mother’s love for her children!). A relationship with God founded on trust rather than fear. The healing miracles that take place in the presence of love rather than piety. The ability of people to change and let go of their hard-heartedness (ears and eyes being opened). The Garden of Eden that is all around, wherever you look, if you’re willing to see and hear the truth for yourself. The failure of both the Pharisees and the Herodians to feed the starving spiritual hearts of the people. The personal responsibility that individuals bear for the evil things they choose to do. The importance of not idolizing the words of one man. (There’s no lengthy “Sermon on the Mount” in Mark as in Matthew; in fact, there’s no sermon at all, let alone a set of laws carved on stone tablets!).

A: That’s a lot to pack into three short chapters.

J: This is why I refer to Mark’s set-piece as a parable. As with any properly written parable, the message isn’t immediately obvious. You have to use all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength in order to suss out the meaning.

A: I noticed when I was doing my research papers for a New Testament exegesis course that the setting of Mark’s Parable of the Idol Bread is crucial. Not one but two major teaching events with miraculous endings take place out in the middle of nowhere near the Sea of Galilee. There’s no proximity to important sacred sites such as Jerusalem or Jericho or the Dead Sea or the River Jordan. There’s no Greco-Roman temple or Jerusalem Temple. There’s no holy mountain. There’s no sacred stone. There’s no palace or patron’s villa. But there’s a lot of green grass, with enough room for everybody to recline in groups (as in a Roman banquet) and share the event together.

In the middle section, in Chapter 7, Mark shows you leaving Galilee to carry out more healing miracles, but these healings take place in Gentile areas — everywhere but the sacred site of David’s city. You can tell Mark doesn’t think too much of Jerusalem’s elite.

J: Mark had a scathing sense of humour, much like Jon Stewart’s. When he wrote his gospel, he was thinking of it as a parable and a play at the same time. He wanted the actions of the actors to speak to the intent of the teachings.

A: Actions speak more loudly than words.

J: Yes. He wanted people to picture the actions, the geographical movements, that changed constantly in his story but never went close to Jerusalem in the first act of his two-act play. His Jewish audience would have understood the significance of this.

A: Tell me about the Idol Bread.

J: The meaning of the bread in Mark’s parable makes more sense if you look at the Greek. In Mark’s parable, and again later at the scene of the so-called Last Supper in Mark 14, the bread in question is leavened bread — artos in the Greek — not unleavened bread, which is an entirely different word in Greek (azymos). Mark shows me constantly messing with the bread and breaking all the Jewish laws around shewbread and Shavuot bread and Passover bread. At the teaching events beside the Sea of Galilee, the bread is given to the people rather than being received from the people in ritual sacrifice. It’s torn into big hunks. It’s handed out to everyone regardless of gender or rank or clan or purity. It’s handed out with a blessing on a day that isn’t even a holy day. Nobody washes their hands first. Everyone receives a full portion of humble food. Everyone eats together.

A: If the fish in this parable are a metaphor for courage and strength (see Mark’s Themes of Understanding and Strength) then what does the bread represent?

J: Artos — which is very similar to the Greek pronoun autos, which means “self” and, with certain prepositions, “at the same time; together” — is a metaphor for the equality of all people before God. Everybody needs their daily bread regardless of status or bloodline or rank. It’s about as status-free a symbol as you can get.

A: Something tells me that got lost in the Pauline translation.

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Posted in Church of today, Essenes, First Corinthians, Gospel of Mark, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Mark (Jesus' great nephew), Mark vs Paul, Matthew's and Luke's intent, Mother God, Paul vs Jesus, relationship with God and tagged , | Leave a Comment
12 Jun 2011

JR49: Third Step: Invite Our Mother to the Table

A: Last time we spoke, the idea of the “scandal of particularity” sort of popped onto the page. I’ve been thinking about it for the past few days, and I’d like to return to that idea if it’s okay with you.

J: Fine by me.

A: You said — and I quote — “There IS a ‘scandal of particularity,’ but it applies to God the Mother and God the Father, not to me.” Can you elaborate on this?

J: Orthodox Western Christianity — the religious structure built on the teachings of Paul and Paul’s orthodox successors — has worked very hard in the last few centuries to “reposition” me, Jesus son of Joseph, in the marketplace of world opinion. Many critics of Christianity have pointed out how damaging and abusive it is to claim that God “became” one particular man in one particular place at one particular point in time. No end of systemic abuse has been voluntarily created by Church representatives because of this claim. Claims about me have been used to justify maltreatment of women, violence against Jews, and attacks on the “inferiority” of all other religious traditions.

Christians who think that I, Jesus, am happy about their claims should check out the current song by Christina Perri called “Jar of Hearts.”* “Jar of Hearts” is a song about a person who has finally figured out how abusive her former partner is. “Who do you think you are?” she asks with no holds barred, “running’ ’round leaving scars, collecting your jar of hearts, and tearing love apart.” This song reflects quite accurately how I feel about “Mother Church.” I want no part of the traditional teachings about Jesus the Saviour. If they want to keep their Saviour, they’ll have to find a new candidate, because this particular angel has resigned. Quit. Left the building. I’m tired of being their whipping boy.

A: Not quite the answer I was expecting.

J: People think that angels have no feelings. Well, I have plenty of feelings about the way the Church has abused me and those I love. I forgive individual church leaders — those who have perpetrated great harm in the name of God and Jesus — but I feel the pain intensely. Forgiveness isn’t the same thing as sweeping great harms under the carpet. Forgiveness is first and foremost a state of honesty — honesty about the intent and the injury inflicted by the intent. The intent of the Church’s teachings about me (Jesus) and about sin, salvation, sacraments, and separation from God is selfish and narcissistic. These teachings promote physiological addiction disorders. They harm lives. They harm relationships. They harm the understanding of humanity’s role in Creation. I do not respect these teachings, and I do not support the right of the Church to teach abusive spirituality to desperate people. Abuse is abuse. Western society as a whole no longer supports or condones spousal abuse or child abuse or corporate abuse. Yet Western society continues to condone spiritual abuse. This must stop.

A: Many Christians have noticed the problem of abuse in the Church and have decided to walk away from the Church. They don’t see how it can be fixed.

J: People want and need to be in relationship with God. They need faith in their lives. Unfortunately, the Church has taken terrible advantage of this need.

A: I haven’t seen much willingness among Christians I know to ask tough questions about Church doctrine. They’re trying to change the window dressings while the basement foundation is full of rot. No wonder people are leaving the mainstream churches in droves! At least in Canada they are. Can’t comment on the experience in other countries.

J: In Canada there’s such a widespread ethos of inclusiveness, access to public health services and public schooling, government accountability, gender equality, and prevention of child abuse that individual Canadians aren’t seeing their day-to-day ethos reflected in the core teachings of the orthodox Church.

A: Because it’s not there. The words are there, but not the underlying ethos.

J: No. The ethos isn’t there. The Church can talk till it’s blue in the face about the importance of service work and mission, but regular people can still sense there’s “something wrong with the picture.” They can sense there’s rot in the foundations. And they don’t want to be a part of that. Some of them decide to leave the church. Others stay and do their best to try to fix it from within. But there’s mass confusion. And people are starving — literally starving — for a faith experience that makes sense to them at the deepest possible level of the heart.

(c) Image*After

“A woman in the crowd said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you. He said to her: Blessed are they who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed is the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk'” (Gospel of Thomas 79 a-b). The Gospel of Thomas follows a minority voice in Judaism that speaks of women in a positive light and shows them as being equal to men in God’s community (rather than inferior knock-offs). This particular saying in Thomas goes even further and talks about God the Mother as one who shouldn’t be understood in terms of ordinary human motherhood. As Co-Creator of everything in the universe, our blessed Divine Mother is beyond our simple conceptions of what it means to be a mother. When compared to Hellenistic cult images of the Divine Mother (for example, the multi-breasted Artemis figure from Ephesus), it’s easy to see why Jesus faced an uphill battle in changing people’s perception of God. Photo credit Image*After.

A: For 2,000 years now we’ve been saddled with a religion that absolutely insists in no uncertain terms how ludicrous it is to even consider the remote possibility that possibly — just possibly — God might not be a “he” but might instead be a “he and a she.” It’s okay, of course, for us to bust our brains on the question of the Trinity and all the other “mysteries” that go with traditional Christianity. But it’s not okay for us to suppose that God is two people united forever in divine marriage with each other.**

J: Such a portrayal of God brings with it all sorts of implications the Church doesn’t want to deal with. For one thing, they’d have to explain why and how they “kidnapped” our Divine Mother, why they eradicated her from the message. They’d have to explain — at least in the Roman Catholic Church — why they allowed a cult to flourish around the fictional character of Mary, Mother of God.

A: You did have a mother. And her name was Miriam.

J: Yes. But she was no more the Mother of God than I was God incarnate. She was a normal human mother. That’s it.

A: Two flesh and blood people — you and your human mother — who’ve been turned into myths, lies, and symbols.

J: Meanwhile, there’s a very real and very particular Mother in Creation. God the Mother. This is the scandal of particularity I was referring to — the scandal of God the Mother and God the Father being two particular, definable, real, knowable people. Real people who have existed and continue to exist in real time and real space and real history. Real people who refuse to be moulded by the grandiose lies made by assorted religious mystics over the centuries. Real people who belong to each other — not to their children — in marital love. Real people who are our PARENTS. Real people who get hurt when their dysfunctional human children try to cross the boundaries of safety and trust between parents and children by engaging in occult practices — especially occult sexual practices.

A: Mystics have often described their “union with God” as a mystical marriage, with God as the bridegroom and the mystic or the church as the bride.

J: Yeah. And for the record, that’s another doctrine that’s gotta go. It’s highly dyfunctional and abusive for children to want to have sex with their own parents. This should go without saying. But for too long the Church has condoned mystical practices that lead in this direction.

A: Who can forget Bernini’s sculpture of St. Teresa of Avila with her mouth agape and her toes curled in orgasmic ecstasy?

J: Here’s a thought. Maybe we should butt out of the personal relationship between God the Mother and God the Father — their private life — and get on with the important job of being their children. For starters, human beings of faith could be nice to our Mother for a change. You know, talk to her. Include her. Invite her to the table of faith. Look to her for guidance and inspiration. Say thank you to her. Look her in the eye and say, “Thank you for loving me.”

A: It’s amazing how effective the Church’s strategy has been. They’ve managed to put blinders on people’s eyes so they literally can’t see God the Mother. She’s the Invisible Woman in Western theology. She’s standing right in front of us, waving her arms and jumping up and down, and people of faith still don’t see her.

J: If that isn’t gender abuse, I don’t know what is.

* “Jar of Hearts” was written by Drew C. Lawrence, Christina J. Perri, and Barrett N. Yeretsian.

** See also “A Divine Love Story” and “How My Experience as a Chemist has Influenced My Mysticism.”

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Posted in "4 S's", angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), Church of today, forgiveness, honesty, intent, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' teachings, Messiah, Mother and Father God, Mother God, occult themes, Paul vs Jesus, relationship with God and tagged | Leave a Comment
08 Jun 2011

JR48: Second Step in Healing the Church: Restore the Mystery of Divine Love

A: I was rearranging a couple of my bookshelves yesterday — actually, I was tidying up because my parents are coming over — and I felt drawn to set aside a book I picked up last fall in the remaindered book section at Chapters. It’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Christian Mysteries by Ron Benrey (New York: Alpha-Penguin, 2008). It’s not a bad little book. And it sure beats trying to wade through Jaroslav Pelikan’s massive 5 volume history of church doctrine.

Anyway, Benrey’s book is divided into 4 parts and a total of 24 chapters. Part 1 is called “The Christian Mindbenders.” The 6 mysteries included in Part I are “the mystery of the incarnation,” “the mystery of the trinity,” “the mystery of Jesus’ dual natures,” “the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection,” “the mystery of the atonement,” and “the mystery of the last things.” A few days ago, you said there’s not enough mystery in the church.* Yet Bender has filled a whole book with Christian mysteries of various sorts — most of which you’ve trashed in your discussions with me. So I’m wondering if we can return to the question of mystery in the church today. How do you envision the role of mystery in healing the church?

J: First, it’s important for church leaders to accept that people want and need mystery. If you strip away the mystery, all you really have is a secular service club devoted to charitable causes. That’s not faith. Faith and mystery go hand in hand.

Strange as it may sound, mystery is always associated with a sense of movement, beauty, grace, and transformation. Photo (c) Image*After

“Jesus said: Images are visible to people, but the love within them is hidden in the image of the Father’s love. He will be revealed but his image is hidden by his love” (Gospel of Thomas 83). Standard translations of this saying use the word “light” where I’ve used the word “love.” But for Jesus, Divine Love — rather than hidden knowledge — was the great light that shines upon us all. There was no word in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic that adequately captured this concept of love, so he sometimes used the Greek word φως (phos) to try to capture the intensity and sense of life in God’s love. Strange as it may sound, mystery and love are always associated with a sense of movement, beauty, grace, and transformation. Photo credit Image*After.

A: Why?

J: Because faith — as opposed to piety or fear of God — is about relationship with God. And as soon as you start talking about relationships, you start entering the realm of mystery.

A: That feeling of awe about somebody else’s gifts and gaffes — their amazing courage, their brilliant insights, their hilarious mistakes.

J: Perhaps the greatest mystery of all is consciousness — what it means to be a person. This mystery extends to the origins of our divine Mother and Father. God the Mother and God the Father are distinct consciousnesses — two distinct people — with vastly different talents and abilities, yet they share their journey together in the deepest love and trust and gratitude. What they create together is so much bigger than what either could create alone. There’s an immense sense of wonder on the part of all angels at the richness and kindness and patience that’s infused in everything our Mother and Father create together. The creations themselves are cause for much appreciation and emulation. But it’s not the creations themselves (stars, moons, planets) that convey to us — their angelic children — the deepest sense of divine mystery. It’s the love itself. The deepest mystery — the startling mystery, the core mystery, the infinite puzzle — is the mystery of divine love. And this is a mystery based on relationship.

A: Some Christian theologians like to talk about the “scandal of particularity.” In Christian terms, it’s related to the doctrine of the incarnation — the idea that God entered one particular, limited existence. Namely you. It’s interesting that what you’re describing as the mystery of divine love sounds nothing like the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, yet it sounds an awful lot like the scandal of particularity — though not at first. You have to ponder the feeling for a while to notice the connection . . . which reminds me that I’ve noticed over the years that some of the doctrines Christians cling to so desperately contain an echo or a hint of something true. The doctrines have become all twisted around and knotted so we can’t see the original truth anymore. But at the same time we don’t want to let them go because we sense there’s something important there.

J: You’ve really nailed that. There IS a “scandal of particularity,” but it applies to God the Mother and God the Father, not to me.

A: I’ve been hanging around with you for too long.

J: The same thing applies to the idea of the Christ archetype. I was not — and am not –THE Christ. The original Christ archetype is held by God the Mother and God the Father TOGETHER. I seek to emulate their courage, their love, their devotion as an angel, as a child of God, and in so far as I choose to emulate their example, I am a “small-c” christ. But when angels think of Christ, we think of our divine parents. We think of God. It’s a term of affection. And gratitude. It’s a positive epithet. But Paul and his successors took this term of affection and turned it into a word that means power and control and hierarchy. They mutated and subverted the meaning of everything that God the Mother and God the Father stand for together as the Christ.

Sure, there really is a Christ. And sure, regular Christians don’t want to let go of the idea that there’s a Christ. But they’re pinning the tail on the wrong donkey. I’m not the Christ. I’m a child of Christ — as, indeed, are all souls in Creation.

A: When we started talking about the “scandal of particularity” a few minutes ago, I got my butt off my chair and retrieved another book — this one called Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes, edited by Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). In it there’s an article called “God With Us in the Dust” by Karen Baker-Fletcher (pages 188-190). Baker-Fletcher says this:

“What, then, is the difference between Jesus and other humans? It is not that we are like Jesus in the suffering we humans endure. It is the other way around; Jesus is like us, relates to us, identifies with us, having experienced the violent consequences of human sin. Jesus is like us because Jesus has been sinned against. He therefore can identify with human suffering. Jesus is like us because Jesus also feasts and rejoices with us. But we are not Christs [emphasis added]. Jesus does not sin but is sinned against. Jesus is unlike us because he is the Christ, the anointed one, one with God. God alone in Christ can promise restoration, redemption, salvation. As human beings we may participate in this activity, but we do not initiate it (page 189).”

How do you respond to these thoughts?

J: Well, she’s managed rather neatly to allude to the Christian mysteries of the incarnation, the trinity, Jesus’ dual natures, Jesus’ resurrection, the atonement, and the last things all in one paragraph. She gets points for brevity. But she gets no points for understanding my ministry or my true relationship with God.

A: You’ve said in the past that all human beings have the potential to live as Christs-in-human-form.

J: Yes. It’s a question of living your human life in imitation of Christ — not as Paul taught the Christ, but as I and others have taught the Christ. Since I am not the Christ, there’s no point living your life in imitation of me. On the other hand, since God the Mother and God the Father ARE the Christ, it’s a pretty good bet that if you live your life in imitation of their love — their courage, their devotion, their gratitude, their trust — you’re going to be “in the zone.”

A: In the Christ Zone, as you’ve called it before.

J: Yes. I’ve called it the Christ Zone for a modern audience but 2,000 years ago I called it . . .

A: The Kingdom of the Heavens.

J: Same thing, different name. It’s not the name that matters, after all. It’s the intent. Paul’s intent — his choice of ground on which to sow the seeds of human potential — was barren and rocky because he didn’t actually want people to understand their potential to initiate the activities of healing, forgiveness, and redemption. He wanted them to feel helpless and hopeless about themselves so they would turn first and foremost to church leaders (such as himself) for authority and guidance.

A: And you?

J: I wanted people to feel helpful and hopeful about themselves so they would turn to God the Mother and God the Father for direct guidance.

A: How very Protestant of you.

* Please see First Step in Healing the Church: Rescue the Soul.

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Posted in Christ archetype, Christ Zone, Church of today, consciousness, Divine Love, faith, intent, Jesus Redux, Jesus' teachings, Kingdom teachings, Mother and Father God, mystery, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, relationship with God, Soul and tagged , | Leave a Comment
02 Jun 2011

JR46: First Step in Healing the Church: Restore the Soul

A: Jesus, what would you say to those who are asking how we can heal the church of the third millennium?

J: That’s an easy one. First you have to rescue the soul. Not save it. Rescue it. Restore it to the place of sanity it deserves. Give it some credit. Give it some trust. Be kind to it. Rescue it the way you’d rescue a dog who’s been shut out of the house without food or water. Bring it in from the cold.

A: Or in from the fiery pits of hell.

J: There’s a trend at the moment among Progressive Christians who want to try to rescue me. They want to rescue me from the clutches of the evangelical, charismatic, and fundamentalist Christians. While I appreciate the effort, the Progressive movement won’t solve anything by trying to rescue me. I’m not the problem. And I’m not the solution.

A: In the Christology course I took, we studied a book by Wayne Meeks called Christ Is the Question (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). At the beginning of the book, Meeks identifies this issue. He says, “As a brand of shampoo promises the answer to frizzy hair, a detergent brand the answer to unbright laundry, a new model car the answer to loneliness and (by innuendo) sexual longing, so Jesus is the answer to — what? Whatever you wish. Indeed [mainly in the context of American Protestantism] Jesus has become whatever you wish, an all-purpose brand, the answer to all needs, desires, fantasies, and speculations” (page 2).

J: It’s true. But it’s not really a new development in Christianity. It’s exactly the outcome the apostle Paul desired. From the beginning, Paul’s intention was to convert me — a real flesh and blood person — into the new face of the well-known Saviour brand. Sort of like redoing the label on a familiar brand of soap. You want your target audience to believe your “new and improved” brand of soap can clean away absolutely anything. You know you’re lying, but you hope your audience won’t catch on — at least not until you have their money in your pocket.

A: Old lies beget new lies.

J: There’s nothing to stop people from taking Paul’s imaginary Saviour figure and adding their own imagination to the story. Who’s to say they’re wrong? It happens all the time in story-telling traditions. Somebody comes up with a captivating (but purely fictional) hero or heroine. The character and the plot catch on. Other people start dreaming up their own chapters in the hero’s saga. Some of these catch on, too, and enter the myth. King Arthur is a good example of this. People are still writing their own versions of this story. Five hundred years from now the fanzine additions to favourite comic book heroes will blur together and create one giant new myth about Superman. Traditions evolve. Stories evolve. But story-telling traditions aren’t selling fact. They’re selling story. Fantasy. Speculation.

A: You’re saying that there’s too much story in Christianity and not enough fact.

“Jesus said: If your leaders say to you ‘Look! The Kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds will be there before you are. If they say that the Kingdom is in the sea, then the fish will be there before you are. Rather the Kingdom is within you and it is outside of you. When you understand yourselves you will be understood. And you will realize that you are Children of the living Father. If you do not know yourselves, then you exist in poverty and you are that poverty” (Gospel of Thomas 3a and 3b).

 J: Yes. There’s too much story. On the other hand, there’s not nearly enough mystery. When I say mystery, I mean there’s not enough room for individuals to have a transformative experience of redemption. Redemption and divine love and divine forgiveness are emotional experiences that lie well outside the boundaries of pure logic. Words like “wonder” and “gratitude” and “humbleness” spring to mind. But redemption doesn’t just change your thinking. It changes everything — everything in your whole being. It changes the way your physical body works. It changes the way you see colours. It changes the way you see patterns. It changes the way you learn. It changes the way you remember. The way you smell things. The way you feel rain on your skin. The way you eat your food. The way you sleep. The way you dream at night. The way you dream while you’re awake. It changes absolutely everything about your relationship with yourself and with all Creation. Where once you crawled and chewed endlessly as a caterpillar, now you fly with beauty and grace as a winged butterfly and sip from the nectar of flowers. It may sound cliched, but it’s true. The experience of transformation is that profound. You were “you” when you were a caterpillar, and you’re still “you” as a butterfly. But the way in which you relate to the world has been completely altered. Your whole life is completely changed. The change is so sweet. So kind. So mysterious. It takes your breath away.

A (nodding): Even while you’re still living here as a somewhat confused and baffled human being. You don’t have to die to feel the mystery. You have to live.

J: The process of redemption — the experience of mystery — begins for a human being with the soul. The soul is not fictional. The soul is real. The soul — the true core self of each consciousness within Creation — is your laughter. Your empathy. Your conscience. Your curiosity. Your sense of wonder. In other words, all the least explainable, most mysterious parts of being human.

The soul is not one substance, but many substances — many substances of a quantum nature. Its complexity and sophistication at a quantum level lie outside the bounds of current scientific investigation. But this has no bearing one way or the other on the soul’s scientific reality. Scientific researchers have failed to detect many things in nature: the soul is just one of many things on a long list of “undiscovered countries.”

A: How would a renewed understanding of the soul help heal the church today?

J: At the moment the Progressive movement has concluded — based on erroneous starting assumptions — that the past errors of the church include a belief in the eternal soul, a belief in miracles, and (for some) a belief that a guy named Jesus ever existed. They assume that if these “errors” are swept out of the church, and replaced with teachings based on pure logic and pure praxis, or, on the other end of the scale, replaced with teachings based on pure symbolism and hidden truth, then the church could be restored to a state of health and balance. This is not so.

A: They’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

J: Yes. They’ve failed to realize that the problem with the church is that church leaders long ago put a lien on people’s souls, as you and I discussed last time.

A: I was pretty indignant, wasn’t I?

J: For good reason. The problem for Christianity is not a belief in the existence of the soul. The problem for Christianity (or rather, one of the problems) is the body of lies being taught about the soul. Over the centuries, Christian orthodoxy has done everything in its power to preserve the lien on the soul so it can preserve its power. The lien has to go. Church leaders are going to have to stand up and be honest about the fact that their teachings on the soul have damaged people’s confidence and trust in God. They need to start from square one on the question of the soul — no resorting to “tradition,” no rooting around in the writings of early Church Fathers for justification. This will be a terrifying prospect for most theologians. But it must be done. The answers to their questions are already there — not in the pages of the Bible, and not in the pages of Plato and Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas and Wesley, but in the pages of God’s scientific reality. Theological inquiry must stop clinging to tradition. You’re in the third millennium now. Start acting like it.

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31 May 2011

JR45: Lien or No Lien on Your Soul?

My red car (c) JAT 2015

“His disciples said to him: When will the resurrection of the dead take place and when will the new world come? He said to them: What you look for has come, but you do not know it” (Gospel of Thomas 51). In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus talks often about “life” and “beginnings,” yet his sayings involving “death” are not what we typically find in eschatological or apocalyptic teachings. Rather, the sayings about “life” and “death” in Thomas seem closely related to parts of the first century CE text known as The Didache, in which “the way of life” and “the way of death” are used as metaphors for how to live a moral life in full relationship with God. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus spends quite a bit of time and energy trying to persuade the disciples to let go of the eschatological doctrines held by the Pharisees and the Essenes at that time.  Photo of my red car. Photo credit JAT 2015.

A: Last week, I bought a 2007 Pontiac to replace my 1998 Nissan, which was close to death. The Carproof report found a lien against the Pontiac — a financing lien held by Chrysler. At first I wasn’t worried. I figured the paperwork for the clearance of the lien hadn’t yet made it into the computer system at the proper government ministry. But being a thorough person, I decided to phone the ministry yesterday morning to make sure the lien had been cleared. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the lien was still attached to my car! I quickly got the problem straightened out with the dealer I bought the car from. But in the meantime I had a chance to reflect on my feelings about the lien. In Ontario, as in many other jurisdictions, a person who unwittingly buys a car or house that has a lien against it can lose the property they bought. It can be legally seized by the lien holder if the debt hasn’t been paid by the original debtor. The car you think you own outright can be towed away in the blink of an eye by the original lender. It’s a scary thought.

Anyway, I was thinking about my feelings around the lien on my car. I was noticing how upset I was at the thought that somebody could — theoretically — swoop down on my little Pontiac and take it away with no say on my part. I was thinking how I’d paid for the car in full, how I could lose all the money I’d invested (unless I were inclined to sue, which would cost me even more money). I was thinking how unfair it would be for such a thing to happen. I’d bought the car in good faith. Why should I be punished for somebody else’s mistake? Or somebody else’s willful fraud?

So I’m standing in the bathroom and I’m drying my hair so I can get ready for work and it suddenly dawns on me that the feelings I’m expressing to myself about the lien on the car are the same feelings I have about orthodox Western Christianity’s teachings on the soul. The Church teaches us there’s a lien on our souls!

J (grinning): Yes. Not a nice feeling, is it?

A: No! It totally sucks. I never noticed till yesterday how deeply, deeply unfair the church’s claims are. I knew their claims about the soul were based on the writings of Paul, Tertullian, Augustine, and so on. I knew their claims were self-serving. I knew their claims were just plain wrong in light of God’s loving and forgiving nature. But I never felt the unfairness of it before at such a deep level — at a gut level, a visceral level. It’s just wrong to tell people their soul can be taken away from them by lien-holders. It’s so . . . so . . . unfair. And cruel. It’s cruel to tell people they have to invest themselves wholly in their faith while at any time the great big tow truck in the sky could show up to haul them or their loved ones away to the fiery pits of hell. Not to pay their own debts, but to pay somebody else’s debts! Namely Adam and Eve’s debts!

J: Ah, the wages of sin.

A: Very funny. This God-and-Devil-as-lien-holders thing means that devout Christians are always looking over their shoulder, waiting for the cosmic tow truck they can’t do anything about. It makes people feel helpless. It makes them feel like slaves-in-waiting. Their soul isn’t their own. Their time isn’t their own. Their life and their choices and their free will aren’t really their own. They’re always on tenterhooks because they think they don’t fully own their own soul. This is abusive.

J: That’s why it works. From the perspective of certain members of the church hierarchy — stretching all the way back to the time of Paul and his backers — it’s an excellent strategy for gaining control of the populace. People who feel helpless and hopeless tend to cause less trouble. They ask fewer questions. They tend to do what they’re told because they’re frightened. Frightened people turn to strong leaders — in this case, church leaders. The Church is using a psychological control strategy that other groups in other cultures have used to similar effect. Paul’s teachings have been particularly successful in this regard.

The teachings of myself and other like-minded spiritual teachers are useless for this kind of psychological strategy. Totally useless. You can’t frighten people into submission if you’re actually giving them real hope. Real hope doesn’t come from words. Real hope comes from actions — from people’s ongoing choices to help their neighbours. Real hope comes from healing and relationship and dignity and change. If the early church had wanted to teach real hope, it wouldn’t have chosen the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Chalcedon Creed as its operative statements of faith.

A: Ah. You mean they might have mentioned the themes of divine love, forgiveness, healing, redemption (as opposed to salvation), and egalitarianism?

J: If the bishops in the first few centuries of Christianity had spent one tenth the time on compassion that they spent on their endless arguments over the “substance” of the Trinity, medieval Europe would have been a much nicer place to live in.

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24 May 2011

JR43: The Case for "Mark Versus Paul"

Study of the Gospel of Thomas, which has strong links to the Q Source and the Synoptic Gospels, makes it easier to see what Jesus was actually saying and how Jesus’ teachings differed radically from Paul’s teachings. Ceiling mosaic in the original Queen’s Park entrance of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Photo credit JAT 2017.

 A: Today, I’m shifting back into academic mode on the question of what Jesus actually taught 2,000 years ago — as opposed to what the Church says he taught.

I’ve had an inquiry about my academic arguments on the “Mark versus Paul” question — that is, on my thesis that Mark wrote his gospel as a direct rebuttal of Paul’s First Corinthians. To present this argument in its entirety would fill at least one big fat Zondervan text (as if Zondervan’s editors would publish such a thesis!) so all I can do at this stage is present a brief list of comparisons between the two texts. I’m aware that in order to build a case for each “talking point” in a complete academic format — a format that would be acceptable to a peer-reviewed journal — would require many months of research for each point and a long research paper for each. The work would go faster, however, if others were willing to help. If you’re interested in helping with this project, please contact me.

I’m going to present some of the major contrasts I see between First Corinthians and the Gospel of Mark. I’ll assume for this purpose that the extant copies of these two books represent with a fair degree of accuracy the original texts as they were written by Paul and Mark respectively, with the exception of Mark 16:9-20 (the very ending of Mark), which is generally believed to be a later addition.

If you want to see which researchers I rely on, please refer to the post called “The Author’s Research Bibliography” (http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/03/authors-bibliography.html).

I use more than one form of biblical criticism — more than one analytical tool — in this comparison. I tend to start with traditional methods — socio-historical criticism, source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism — and then I cross-reference these arguments with recent scientific insights from quantum theory, neurophysiology, psychotherapy, archaeology, and recent historical findings. I also use my own personal mystical faculties, but I won’t apologize for this, since insights derived from mystical conversations are only a starting point, not an ending point. Other researchers get “aha” moments and call them intuition, or divine revelation, or just plain ol’ personal brilliance. Me, I’m being honest about where I get my starting point for this discussion. After that, it’s up to me to use logical human tools to make my case.

Fortunately for me, what Jesus and my angels pointed out to me leads to an extremely strong case.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no biblical scholars currently publishing on this topic. So this is original research you’re reading. You’ll probably wonder straight away how I — an obscure blogger from Canada who has no PhD and no publishing record of note — could see evidence of a book-to-book biblical feud that nobody else has seen. To this I must reply that the feud has been obvious “to those who have eyes and those who have ears” (Mark 8:18) since these two texts began to circulate simultaneously in the latter part of the 1st century CE. Christians have always been called to decide whether they choose Paul’s teachings or Jesus’ teachings (even if they haven’t been able to articulate the choice in scholarly terms). However, it’s only now that Christians are getting round to being honest about this fact.

If Mark had simply written about entirely different themes than Paul did, there would be no point in trying to show that Mark wrote his gospel as a rebuttal of Paul’s First Corinthians. But Mark didn’t write about different themes than Paul did. He wrote about exactly the same topics and inverted them. He also chose his words as carefully as Paul did. He never uses Paul’s favourite word: nomos (Greek for law, authority, unbreakable tradition). Nor does Mark use the words charis (grace) or elpis (hope). The words nomos, charis, and elpis are part of the vocabulary of apocalyptic thought. And Mark is trying to show, contrary to Paul’s claims about Jesus, that Jesus himself rejected apocalyptic thought.

Mark never uses the words nomos, charis, and elpis. But for a man who never uses these words, he talks about them a lot in his book. He talks about what it means for a person of faith to be in full relationship with God the Mother and God the Father.

Here is a point form list of some of the direct comparisons. I reserve the right to edit, modify, add to, and clarify this list whenever additional information comes to light in future. If information is suggested to me by other writers, I will so note the contribution(s).

Concerns of Form:

1. Viewpoint Character
In Paul: The viewpoint character is Paul himself.
In Mark: The viewpoint character is Jesus; the author (Mark) is not present; reference to “a certain young man” in Mark 14:51 may indicate an eyewitness to whom Mark later spoke about events surrounding Jesus’ arrest.

2. Narrator’s Voice
In Paul: The narrator speaks in first person (Paul himself).
In Mark: Third person narration.

3. Literary Genre
In Paul: Written as a letter; uses rhetoric, exhortation.
In Mark: Written as a biographical narrative interspersed with parables, sayings, and teaching actions (i.e. teaching chreia).

4: The Narrative Hook: “The Hero’s Journey”
In Paul: The hero Paul recounts highlights of his long and arduous journey to save the Gentiles; the focus is on important urban centres; the hero’s personal journey is a metaphor for the path of spiritual ascent (i.e. the vertical path that leads to salvation and eventual bodily resurrection).
In Mark: The hero Jesus takes many small trips around a small freshwater lake; the focus is on unimportant outlying communities; the hero’s journey is horizontal, not vertical; the path is not straight; bad things happen on high hills; good things happen near boats and water.

Theological and Social Concerns:

5. Relationship to the Jerusalem Temple:
In Paul: The physical Temple has been replaced by Jesus and “believers” (1 Cor 3:9-17; 6:19-20); the Temple is now purely mystical; it is more important than ever. (Note: the actual physical Herodian Temple was still standing in Jerusalem at the time Paul wrote his letter and Mark wrote his rebuttal).
In Mark: The physical Temple exists and is the centre of corruption in Palestine (Mark 11:12-24;12:35-44; 15:38).

6. Relationship to the city of Jerusalem:
In Paul: Jerusalem is still favoured as shown by the collection for the Jerusalem church (1 Cor 16:1-4).
In Mark: Jesus spends little time in Jerusalem; healing miracles all take place outside the city; Jesus’ friends live outside the city; Jerusalem is the place where genuine faith withers away (Mark 11).

7. Healing Miracles:
In Paul: No mention of healing miracles.
In Mark: Several healing miracles take place; the theme of healing is introduced early on and repeated until Jesus reaches Jerusalem.

8. People With Disabilities:
In Paul: No special mention of individuals with physical or mental illnesses or disabilities or special needs.
In Mark: Those deemed “impure” according to Jewish custom and law are healed, touched, spoken to in violation of purity laws.

9. The Kingdom of God:
In Paul: The Kingdom is a reality outside the self; it depends on power (1 Cor 4:20; 15:24-28; 15:50).
In Mark: There is no simple explanation of the Kingdom, but empathy is central to it (Mark 10:13-31; 12:28-34).

10. Relationship of Body to Soul:
In Paul: Influenced by Platonic dualism.; the flesh is corrupt (1 Cor 3:1-4; 7:8-9; 9:24-27; 15:42-49). Souls are in peril without belief in Christ.
In Mark: Holistic attitude toward the body; non-Platonic and non-Covenantal; flesh is not impure or corrupt; right relationship with God involves caring for the body. Souls live as angels in the afterlife (Mark 12:24-27)

11: Forgiveness:
In Paul: No mention of forgiveness.
In Mark: The theme of forgiveness is introduced early on (Mark 2:1-12); both God and humans can forgive (Mark 11:25).

12: The Definition of Human Virtue:
In Paul: “Foolishness” (morias) and unquestioning faith are the highest expressions of right belief (1 Cor 1:10 – 2:5); obedience, fellowship, holiness, “strong consciousness,” and the proper exercise of freedom are emphasized.
In Mark: Courage (ischys) and a questioning faith are the highest expressions of right belief (Mark 8:11-21); egalitarianism, service, forgiveness, and insight (suneseos) are emphasized.

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10 May 2011

JR38: The Peace Sequence

The Peace Sequence: First Education, Second Mentorship, Third Personal Responsibility, and finally Peace. Like shovelling after a heavy snowfall, it's hard work and you can only take it one shovelful at a time. But in the end, the pathway is cleared, and you can move forward. Photo (c) JAT 2015

The Peace Sequence: First Education, Second Mentorship, Third Personal Responsibility, and finally Peace. Like shovelling after a heavy snowfall, it’s hard work and you can only take it one shovelful at a time. But in the end, the pathway is cleared, and you can move forward. Photo credit JAT 2015.

 A: Back in August 2005, before I’d set foot in graduate school, or even considered doing so, you wrote a piece about “the peace sequence.” At the time, you flagged what John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed had written at the beginning of their book In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004). Crossan and Reed wrote this:

“Paul’s essential challenge is how to embody communally that radical vision of a new creation in a way far beyond even our present best hopes for freedom, democracy, and human rights. The Roman Empire was based on the common principle of peace through victory or, more fully, on a faith in the sequence of piety, war, victory, and peace. Paul was a Jewish visionary following in Jesus’ footsteps, and they both claimed that the Kingdom of God was already present and operative in this world. He opposed the mantras of Roman normalcy with a vision of peace through justice or, more fully, with a faith in the sequence of covenant, nonviolence, justice, and peace. A subtext of In Search of Paul is, therefore: To what extent can America be Christian? (page xi)”

I can still remember your reaction when I read this paragraph back in 2005. At the top of the page, I wrote down your response: “Jesus: peace through personal responsibility in the sequence of education, mentorship, personal responsibility, then peace.” It’s taken me years of research and ongoing discussion with you to more fully understand what you meant that day.

J: As I said then, I don’t disagree with Crossan and Reed’s formulation of Paul’s peace sequence. Paul did, in fact, teach his followers to reject the Roman ideal of peace through victory — the Pax Romana — and to choose peace through divine justice or justification. But this isn’t what I taught. So they’re wrong to state that Paul was following in my footsteps. Paul wasn’t following me or my teachings. If anything, he was going along with a straw broom trying to erase all evidence of my footsteps.

A: Last week on the Vision Channel, I watched an episode of The Naked Archaeologist where Simcha Jacobovcivi looked at the idea that Paul was actually an agent of the Romans. Biblical scholar Robert Eisenman has been saying this for years — and in fact Eisenman was interviewed by Simcha on last week’s episode. If Paul actually was an agent of the Romans, why would he have taught his followers to reject the Roman version of the peace sequence and accept his own Christ-based peace sequence? It doesn’t make any sense.

J: It doesn’t make sense if you view Paul as being an agent of the emperor in Rome. However, it makes a ton of sense of you view Paul as being an agent of other powerful Roman figures — members of the Roman elite who wanted to seize power for themselves. It would have been in their best interests to set up a religion to compete head-on with the Roman Emperor Cult.

A: Oh. Why haven’t I read that anywhere else?

J: Because it sounds like a low-down, dirty rotten, scandalous political ploy. A cold, calculating, ruthless attempt by one party to seize power from another party. With Paul as the chief spin doctor for the down-and-out party. Who wants to say that out loud?

A: Maybe the producers and writers of the Rome TV series? That series certainly pulled back the curtain on the behaviour of the Roman aristocracy — the things they did to try to get power.

J: The truth about Paul isn’t pretty. He was no saint. On the other hand, he believed in what he was doing. He believed he was doing the right thing. He felt totally justified in trying to convert the Diaspora Jews and the Gentile God-Fearers to “the cause.”

A: And what cause was that?

J: Deposing the evil, corrupt Julio-Claudian dynasty and restoring the One True Religion and the One True Emperor.

A: You’ve got to be kidding.

J: Nope. I’m not kidding. There was a huge group of disaffected Romans still living in Alexandria, Egypt, and they believed that their divine right to rule over all lands had been usurped from them by the upstart Julius Caesar and his family. They were convinced that Alexandria, not Rome, was meant to be the centre of the world, and that one of their own bloodline was destined to be Emperor. When Augustus manoeuvred to have Rome declared a Principate — until then it was officially a Republic — the Alexandrians went beserk. The situation was not improved by the institution of the Emperor Cult — meaning worship of the man who sat on the throne in Rome. The Alexandrians believed this was sacrilege. Furthermore, the Emperor Cult was undermining the Alexandrians’ ongoing efforts to gain popular support for a shift in power from the West to the East. They knew they needed a strong religious structure in place before they could gain that popular support.

A: So they needed a new religion — one tailored to their needs.

J: Some of the greatest religio-political thinkers that ever lived found their way to Alexandria.

A: Because the Great Library was there?

J: In part. But powerful mystery cults had their roots there, too. The importance of mystery cults in the history of ancient politics can’t be overstated. Official rulers couldn’t rule without the support of the local religious priests — a reality that still exists in many parts of the world today.

A: So Paul’s Christ-Saviour religion was invented as a way to secure a widespread religious power base for the Alexandrian group. By the way, did this group have a name?

J: Not one you’d recognize today. For the purposes of our discussion, we’ll call them Seekers of the Rock. There’s a reason for this name — a reason based on their occult beliefs.

A: Okay. Seekers of the Rock. Why did this group conscript Paul to do its work?

J: Paul was an angry man — a man looking for a way to undermine my teachings. You could say that Paul and the Seekers had many interests in common. Paul had no love of the Emperor Cult, and he had no love of me. The Seekers of the Rock offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse. Over a number of years he developed a religious formula he thought would work in the new religious climate of the Empire. Then he went on the road to preach it and gauge the response. He had to fine-tune it as he went along. This is why you see changes in his theological claims over the course of his “ministry.”

A: Well, whatever he did, it turned out to be spectacularly successful.

J: He didn’t do it by himself. The Seekers were powerful and wealthy, and they did everything they could to back him up. They footed the bill for his “Amazing Race” around the Eastern Mediterranean, kept him in hiding when the Romans were getting too close, arranged to have his scrolls copied and distributed. It was very much a team effort.

A: Sounds a lot like the federal election we just had here in Canada.

J: It’s a good analogy. Except they weren’t trying to win an election — they were trying to establish a theocracy with their own man as divinely-appointed emperor.

A: Who was “their man”? Was it Paul himself?

J: No. Paul’s job was to lay the theological groundwork for the coming “return of the king.” The original plan was to build on Jewish apocalyptic and prophetic texts so people would be expecting the imminent return of the Saviour. The Saviour was given a new and distinctive name — Jesus Christ, Jesus the Anointed One. Once enough people were “on board” with the idea of the return of the Saviour, and once the necessary political and military and economic measures were in place, the idea was to “reveal” the newly returned divine Saviour. They planned to secretly train a prince from their own bloodline and present him publicly as Jesus-Christ-returned-in-the-flesh when the time was right.  They would claim he was the divine son of God and therefore the rightful claimant to the religious and political power of Rome.  This is why they needed a religious power base in Rome. The Seekers believed that pious Christians would roll out the welcome mat for the man they claimed was the Messiah. All they needed was enough time, patience, and money to bring their plan to fruition.

A: Obviously it didn’t work out the way they planned. What happened?

J: God made sure that an obscure scholar in Judea got his hands on Paul’s key doctrinal statement: the letter now called First Corinthians.

A: Your great-nephew. The man we know as Mark.

J: Mark saw right away what they were doing. And he answered it word for word with his own non-covenantal, non-pious testament to the power of education, mentorship, and personal responsibility in achieving peace and relationship with God.

A: I love a good conspiracy theory!

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04 May 2011

JR36: Saying 56 in the Gospel of Thomas

A: When we wrote last time (“Father of Lights, Mother of Breath”), I ran out of time, and we didn’t get a chance to return to the question of Saying 56 in the Gospel of Thomas. I was hoping we could continue that discussion. (For the record, Stevan Davies translates Saying 56 as “Jesus said: Whoever has known the world has found a corpse; whoever has found that corpse, the world is not worthy of him.)

J: I can’t help noticing the irony of a person who’s “alive” having a discussion with a person who’s “dead” about the question of “alive versus dead.”

A (rolling eyes): Very funny. I prefer to call you “molecularly challenged.”

J: Hey — I left some bones behind when I died. Traces of them are sitting in a stone ossuary in a warehouse owned by the Israel Antiquities Authority. Kinda reminds me of the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

A: The IAA can have them. I somehow doubt you’re going to be needing them again.

J: Well, you know, there are still people on the planet today who believe in the concept of bodily resurrection on the Day of Judgment. According to that way of thinking, I might actually need to retrieve my bones so I’ll be complete on the final day of judgment.

A: Hey! You’re not supposed to have any bones. According to Luke, you ascended bodily into heaven — at least once, maybe twice! (Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:1-11). Prophets who are “beamed up” aren’t supposed to leave body parts behind. That’s the whole idea.

J: Nobody gets out of a human life “alive.” At some point, the biological body reaches its built-in limits, and the soul returns to God in soul form. There’s no ascension. Never has been, never will be. Luke is lying.

A: Maybe Luke just didn’t understand the science of death. Maybe he was doing his best to explain something he didn’t understand.

J (shaking his head): Luke was lying. On purpose. If Luke had been sincere and well-meaning — if misguided — he would have to stuck to one story about my ascension. But one man — the man we’re calling Luke — wrote two scrolls together to tell one continuous story. He wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as a two-part story. The Gospel finishes in Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus (who was the subject of a miraculous healing), and the last thing we hear is about is the disciples. Apparently, they obediently returned to Jerusalem to continually pray.

A: Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

A major problem for the spread of Pauline Christianity among Jews and Gentiles was the Eucharistic ritual instituted by Paul. A lot of people didn’t like the idea of ritualistically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a divine being. So one of Luke’s jobs, when he wrote the two-part Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles, was to soften the impact of it for newcomers, while preserving Paul’s occult meaning for those who were “in the know.” What you see at the end of Luke’s Gospel and the beginning of Acts is a slyly written (and entirely fictitious) account of twelve men who are “chosen” for the special privilege of receiving the Cloak of Glory from the Holy Spirit after they’ve properly prepared themselves for 40 days in the presence of the mystical body of Christ. They eat from the mystical body in order to purify themselves for the coming baptism of fire on Pentecost. Then, on the appointed day, the twelve (well, thirteen, if you count Paul’s later baptism of fire) suddenly receive the intense fire of Glory that Luke says was promised to the twelve by God through Jesus. After that, nobody is allowed to challenge the authority of the apostles. Please note that if you’re having trouble following this narrative in its established biblical form, there’s a good reason for that: the secret knowledge wasn’t meant to be easily understood by everyone. Interestingly, though, the themes of this secret knowledge have been found in other religious traditions, too. For instance, in this photo of the Tantric Buddhist deity Acala, “the Immovable One,” he is braced by the fiery tongues of phoenix flame — much like the fire delivered to the apostles at Pentecost. Who doesn’t like a really good bonfire when Divine Power is the prize? This wooden sculpture is on display at the British Museum. Photo credit JAT 2023.

J: Meanwhile, when you open up the book of Acts, which picks up where Luke left off, you get a completely different story from the same author. In Acts, he claims that after my suffering I spent 40 days with my chosen apostles in Jerusalem, and then was lifted up by a cloud from the Mount of Olives (which is just to the east of Jerusalem’s city walls). The Mount of Olives is closer to Jerusalem than Bethany, the “authentic” site of my so-called Easter ascension in the Gospel. Luke also adds two mysterious men in white robes to the Acts version of the story. These two sound suspiciously like the two men in dazzling clothes who appear in Luke’s account of the tomb scene (Luke 24:4). Luke is playing fast and loose with the details — an easy mistake for fiction writers to make.

A: Well, as you and I have discussed, Luke was trying very hard to sew together the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul. Mark puts a lot of focus on the Mount of Olives — a place that was most definitely not Mount Zion, not the site of the sacred Temple. Luke probably needed a way to explain away Mark’s focus on the non-sacred, non-pure, non-holy Mount of Olives.

J: You wanna bet the Mount of Olives was non-pure! It was littered with tombs. Religious law dictated that no one could be buried within a residence or within the city walls, so it was the custom to bury people in the hills outside the city walls. To get from the city gates of Jerusalem to the top of the Mount of Olives, you had to pass by a number of tombs and mausoleums. If you got too close to death, though, you were considered ritually impure, and you had to go through a cleansing and purification process once you got back to the city — especially during a big religious festival. Mark’s Jewish audience would have understood this. They would have wondered, when they read Mark, why there was no concern about contamination. They would have wondered why the Mount of Olives became the site of important events when the purified Temple precincts were so close by. It would have defied their expectations about death and purity and piety.

A: This was easier to understand when the Temple was still standing.

J: Yes. It would have made a lot of sense in the context of Herod’s humongous Temple complex. It started to make less sense, though, after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE.

A: A fact that Luke took advantage of.

J: Yes.

A: Mark doesn’t include the saying from the Gospel of Thomas about corpses (saying 56), but Mark’s portrayal of you shows a man whose least important concern is ritual purity — not what you’d expect at all from a pious Jew, in contrast to Matthew’s claim about you (Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”)

J: Matthew says this, but Mark says the opposite.

A: Not in so many words, but by showing your ongoing choices and actions.

J: Later Christian interpreters wanted to believe that God had given me special powers over demons and sin and death, and this is how they understood Mark’s account of my ministry. But this isn’t what I taught. I didn’t have the same assumptions about life and death that most of my peers had. It’s not that I had special powers over life and death — it’s simply that I wasn’t afraid of life or death. I wasn’t afraid to “live” and I wasn’t afraid to “die.” I wasn’t afraid to embrace difficult emotions. I wasn’t afraid to trust God. Maybe to some of the people around me it seemed that I had special powers, but I didn’t. All I had was maturity — the courage to accept the things I couldn’t change, the courage to accept the things I could change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

A: The Serenity Prayer.

J: Yes. It seemed to me that Creation is much more like a rainbow than like night-versus-day. It seemed to me that the world I lived in was not “evil” and “corrupt,” as many occult philosophers had said. (Including the Jewish sect of Essenes.) Yes, there were corpses, it’s true. People died. Other creatures died. Beautiful flowers died. But obviously death led to new life, and wasn’t to be feared. Death wasn’t the enemy. Fear of the self was the enemy. Fear of trusting God, fear of trusting emotions such as love and grief, were the obstacles between individuals and God.

To get over those fears, you have to face your initial fears about death — about “corpses.” You have to begin to see the world — Creation — in a new, more positive way, and accept — even love in a sad sort of way — the corpses. You have to stop spending so much time worrying about your death, because it’s gonna happen whether you like it or not, and no religious ritual can stop it. Accept that it’s going to happen, then focus on what you’re doing today. Focus on the Kingdom of today. Build the love, build the relationships, build the trust. Physical bodies come and go, but love really does live on.

“My friends, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). Photo credit JAT 2017.

A: Some people might take that as an endorsement of hedonistic behaviours or suicidal behaviours, since, in your words, death isn’t to be feared.

J: There’s a big difference between saying “death isn’t to be feared” and saying “death is to be avidly pursued.” If you avidly pursue death, it means you’ve chosen to avidly reject life — the living of life to its fullest potential. Trusting in God means that you trust you’re here on Earth for a reason, and you trust that when it’s your time God will take you Home. What you do with the time in between depends on how you choose to view Creation. Is God’s Creation a good creation, a place of rainbows where people can help each other heal? Or is God’s Creation an evil “night” that prevents you from ever knowing the pure light of “day”?

A: What about those who’ve chosen to view Creation as an evil place of suffering, and are now so full of pain and depression that they can’t take it anymore? What happens to those who commit suicide?

J: God the Mother and God the Father take them Home and heal them as they do all their children. There is no such thing as purgatory or hell for a person who commits suicide. On the other hand, our divine parents weep deeply when families, friends, and communities create the kind of pain and suffering that makes people want to kill themselves. There would be fewer tears for everyone if more human beings would take responsibility for the harmful choices they themselves make.

A: And learn from those mistakes.

J: Absolutely. It’s not good enough to simply confess the mistake. It’s important to confess the mistakes, but people also have to try to learn from their mistakes. They have to be willing to try to change. They have to let go of their stubbornness and their refusal to admit they’re capable of change.

A: Easier said than done.

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25 Mar 2011

JR27: Paul’s "Temple" versus Jesus’ "Kingdom"

“Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world. I came to them in the flesh. I found all of them drunk. I found not one of them to be thirsty. My soul was saddened by the sons of men for they were mentally blind. They do not see that they have come into the world empty and they will go out of the world empty. But now they are drunk. When they sober up they will repent” (Gospel of Thomas 28). Photo of Komombo Temple, dedicated to Sobek and Horus, Aswan, Egypt. Author Dennis Jarvis. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

J: Today I’d like to talk about the starting place for understanding the many differences between what I taught and what Paul taught.

A: Sounds good to me.

J: I’ve mentioned before that Paul and I had different motivations, different purposes behind our respective religious movements. One of the few things we had in common was a strong sense of conviction. Paul believed in his cause, and was willing to argue for it. I believed in my cause, and was willing to argue for it. We both had strong opinions. We just didn’t have the same opinions.

A: Part of Paul’s cause involved arguing against your cause.

J: Definitely. Paul rejected — even feared — my teachings on the nature of the Kingdom. He was sure my Kingdom teachings would lead to anarchy. Widespread civil and social disobedience. His fears were shared by others.

A: Why was he so afraid?

J: Well, Paul, like so many others then and now, had allowed his brain to become focussed — riveted — on the perfection of Divine Law. Of course, he thought it was Divine Law he was giving all his time, energy, and devotion to, but really it was human law, human authority. He didn’t see it this way, though. He convinced himself that he was doing the right thing in aggressively attacking me because he was protecting Divine Law. He believed that Divine Law justified — gave sanction to — his actions.

A: Where have I heard that before?

J: Rigid, perfectionistic thinking is a symptom of imbalance and dysfunction in the wiring of the biological brain. It’s common in bullies throughout the world.

A: Paul spends a lot of time in his letters telling the people of his churches that they don’t need to follow Jewish laws on food and circumcision. If he believed so much in the law, why was he dissing it? It doesn’t make sense.

J: It makes perfect sense if you understand that Paul wasn’t trying to protect the “praxis” laws of regular Jewish people — laws about “petty little daily practices,” as he saw them. To him these minor practices were nothing, they were of no consequence. He wasn’t interested in the small stuff, the things that matter to regular people on a day to day basis. He was after the big stuff. The End Point. The Omega. The be all and end all. He was after the Power.

A: What power?

J: The power that he and many others close to him believed was woven into the fabric of Creation. The power to command the universal Law of Cause and Effect.

A: That sounds seriously creepy. And not even very Jewish.

J: Well, as we’ve talked about, there were different schools of religious and philosophical thought that used the sacred Hebrew texts, and these schools fought fiercely among themselves. In the 1st century CE, there was no agreement on what it meant to be a pious Jew, just as today there’s no agreement on what it means to be a pious Christian. Most people forget that there was a civil war among Jews in Judea in the 60’s CE. Sure, the Romans came in eventually and torched everything in Jerusalem. But before the Romans sent in their troops, the Jews were doing a fine hatchet job on themselves. This mood of dissension among Jews was already brewing when I was teaching and healing in Galilee. It’s part of the reason I left my home in Philadelphia (modern day Amman) and went to Galilee. There was a measure of religious sanity that still existed there.

Map of Palestine 2

A: The Bible claims that Paul was a Pharisee.

J: In Philippians Chapter 3, Paul is very clever about the claims he makes for himself. He says that according to Jewish laws of bloodline, he’s a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Big deal. Lots of people could make that claim. He says that according to prevailing Jewish customs around religious authority, he’s a Pharisee — a sort of rabbi/lawyer/teacher who deserves to be treated with respect for his religious knowledge. Then comes the clincher: he says that according to “zeal” (zelos in Greek) he was an early persecutor of the church and according to “righteousness” he was blameless in his actions against the church. When Paul talks about “zeal” and “righteousness,” he isn’t talking about “beliefs” or “opinions.” He isn’t saying he was just really enthusiastic or really committed. He’s saying he had “the zeal” inside of him. He’s saying he had a piece of Divine Law inside of him, a spark of God inside of him that was guiding him, commanding his thoughts and actions. He’s saying he was a “vessel of humility” into which God had poured the divine substance called “zeal.” Zeal is a kind of love, therefore — a love for the Law. Devotion to the Law. Obedience to the Law. Adoration, even, of the Law. It sees the Law as a quasi-divine being. Sort of an embodiment of the Divine desire for orderliness in Creation. More than just a philosophical structure. An animated, conscious entity, if you will. Wisdom — Sophia — was also envisioned in this way as a semi-divine female being.

A: Plato talked about the Laws in this kind of weird anthropomorphic way.

J: Yes. And so did the Essenes. The Essenes were very much a fringe cult within Judaism. They had the most highly developed mystical rituals, the most “out there” beliefs about God and Creation and occult magic. They were also highly devout, highly wealthy, and highly powerful. They were a scary bunch. And Paul was greatly influenced by Essene teachings about God, the Spirit, the indwelling Temple, and occult ritual.

A: Would you say that Paul was an Essene? An accepted member of the yahad?

J: No. He wasn’t teaching pure Essene thought. But he was influenced by their thought. He also had strong links to another important school of thought that’s harder to track.* He blended ideas from Essene thought and Hellenistic thought to create his “new and improved” version of the Law of Cause and Effect. By the time he began his “mission to the Gentiles,” he was no longer interested in mainstream Judaism, with its focus on Mosaic Law. He’d “moved up” on the spiritual ladder of ascent, on that ever so narrow and hard-to-find ladder of spiritual hierarchy. He’d found an enticing and intoxicating blend of occult magic and hidden knowledge — the kind of hidden knowledge reserved only for a few select apostles. He was drunk on the idea that this new knowledge would lead him to power — power over evil entities.

A: What evil entities?

J: The corrupted versions of Law and Wisdom and Life — their “evil twins.”

A: Their evil twins? This is sounding like some of the “contemporary horror” dramas that are so incredibly popular in books and movies and TV shows these days.

J: Same old, same old. It’s just a dysfunctional, distorted version of the Law of Cause and Effect when taken to occult extremes. It goes like this: “Well, if there’s a Perfect Law, a semi-divine being who brings only virtue and righteousness to people of virtue, then, logically speaking, there must be an evil twin of Perfect Law — a powerful semi-divine being who sows vice and corruption in the world.” It’s a nice, neat, simple mathematical formula to explain why evil exists. Sons of Light versus Sons of Darkness, as the Essenes clearly formulated it. What could be easier to understand?

A: It’s so easy to see what you’re saying by looking at Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Romans is filled with paranoid, dualistic, judgmental thinking. Paul tells people in gory detail how they can fight the evils of Law, Sin, and Death, and overcome these evil cosmic forces through the power of Christ’s name.

J: Yes. For Paul, Mosaic Law had become the evil twin of the pure Essene Temple Law. Sin was the evil twin of Wisdom (implying by analogy to Wisdom’s femaleness that Sin was also female). And Death was the evil twin of Life. Paul called this evil trinity Law, Sin, and Death.

A: On my God. That makes a ridiculous amount of sense. It explains how Paul could go around telling people they wouldn’t die if they believed in Christ — a promise that soon proved to be a lie, because some of Paul’s followers had already died, and he had to answer for it in his letters.

J: It’s popular these days for theologians to make excuses for this kind of apocalyptic promise, excuses based on the naive assumption that people in the 1st century CE “just didn’t know any better” and “can’t be blamed for believing in salvation from death.” This, I’m sad to say, is hogwash. No balanced, mentally healthy individual is going to accept the idea that human beings can escape physical death and continue to live for centuries on Planet Earth the way their mystical forebears supposedly had (e.g. Methuselah). It’s just goofy. It’s what Paul promised his followers in the beginning of his mission, but it’s goofy. In his Letter to the Romans, he has to go through huge theological contortions to try to salvage people’s belief in him. It’s a pretty sad way to go, if you think about it.

A: Promises, promises.

J: You know what works best in the Gospel of Mark? The fact that there are no “Cause and Effect” promises. Everything’s messy. Everything’s unpredictable. Shit happens, but so what? It can’t take away your courage or your faith or your trust in God or your desire to help other people. Even shit can be turned into very useful fertilizer.

A: So your Kingdom is about turning shit into fertilizer, and Paul’s Temple is about the quest to stop shitting at all?

J: And you say I have a way with words.

 

* For more on Paul’s true motives and affiliations, please see “The Peace Sequence” (Jesus Redux 38).

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Posted in Cause & Effect, Essenes, Favourite Posts, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Kingdom teachings, Law (Nomos), Materialism, occult themes, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Plato, spiritual ascent and tagged | Leave a Comment
23 Mar 2011

JR26: Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom

A:* For the last couple of days, ever since you introduced the idea that Pauline Christianity has always been in some ways a Materialist religion, my head has been spinning, and I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what you mean. I can feel that it’s right in the part of my self that’s intuitive, but the rest of my head hasn’t caught up to my intuition yet. So can we take it from the top?

J:* No problem.

A: How ’bout we start with some definitions? And by the way, I’d just like to comment once again on the fact that you’re a true philosophy geek, you know that? Your face lights up like a Christmas tree every time you get to talk about a juicy philosophical dilemma. I can sure see how you ended up being a radical theologian in your time.

J: I was a much more successful philosopher than I was a carpenter. Honest to God, although I had to work as a tradesman to pay for my room and board, I’m pretty sure some of my handiwork could have ended up on “Galilean DIY Disaster.”

A: Measure once, cut twice?

J: I’m not a natural when it comes to tools. I think like a designer, not like an engineer. I would flunk out of civil engineering, I’m sure of it. But redesigning the layout of a home so it supports a person’s soul needs — that I can do.

A: My father, the retired engineer and all-round handyman, would think you’re a wuss. But you’re so much like most of the other male physicians I know — great with healing, great with academic study, not so good with the toolkit. (For the record, my ex is a physician, and we socialized with other people who were in medicine. So I know — or rather, knew — a lot of the male physicians around here.) Anyway, back to the philosophizing.

J: Okay. Well, the philosophy of Materialism is based on the theory that matter — by that I mean baryonic matter — is the only thing that exists. It’s a WYSIWYG understanding of reality — what you see is what you get. What you see is atoms and molecules and measurable substances and Newtonian laws. Therefore, according to this theory, all things in Nature — including mind, thought, consciousness, even love — can be explained solely by looking at the small little parts that make up the whole. It’s the idea that macroscopic reality — the daily reality that human beings live and work and breathe in — is just a bigger version of the microscopic reality of atoms and molecules and gravitational forces, etc. Of course, as researchers in various scientific disciplines now know, there are huge gaps between the “macro” theories and the “micro” theories. At the subatomic or quantum level, the universe is a weird, weird place. At the other end of the scale — the cosmological or grand universal scale — the universe is also a weird, weird place. Only at the immediate level of reality, if I can call it that — the level where human beings happen to live a fairly safe and predictable Newtonian kind of life — only here is a Materialist philosophy even remotely justified.

A: How does Materialism understand God?

J: A person who embraces Materialist belief in the natural laws of “cause and effect” may or may not believe in the existence of God. Many, if not most, Materialists are atheists. Atheists, of course, believe that existence can be explained entirely on the basis of scientific research. No God is required. However, it’s entirely possible to be a religious Materialist, a Materialist who believes in God. Deism is a good example of this.

A: Deism is a belief system that says there’s a God, one God who created the universe, but that this God later stepped away from his Creation and doesn’t participate in an active way in our lives or our suffering. God is the Great Clockmaker who made a perfect timepiece and now lets it run without interference. However, there’s still an acceptance of the idea that God will reward virtue and punish vice in the afterlife. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were all Deists . . . Tell me again why Deism isn’t the same as Pauline Christianity and Platonism?

J: It is Pauline/Platonic Christianity. Deism is what you get when you strip away later church doctrines about ritual and sacraments and prayer to saints (intercession) and belief in Marianism and belief in holy relics and belief in holy Crusade and belief in papal infallibility. Deism is Pauline thought in its purest form — a belief in the inviolability and perfection of Divine Law. Divine Law that governs “cause and effect” in the material world.

A: But Paul goes on and on in Romans about the inherent peril of “the law,” how knowledge of the law led him into sin.

J: Paul isn’t attacking all Law. He’s attacking the laws he no longer agrees with. Paul spends all his time in his letters talking about the “new and improved” Law — the Law that he himself is teaching. The New Covenant. It’s easy to forget that Covenant is Law — nomos in the Greek. Nomos was a complex idea that included both human authority and divine authority. When Paul talks about the “new covenant,” he’s talking about a new version of Divine Law. A new version of the Law of Cause and Effect. “If you do this (believe in Christ), then according to the inviolable Law of Creation, you must receive this (salvation plus a reserved parking spot in Heaven).” It’s a reductionist philosophy. Just as Materialism is a reductionist philosophy. Everything is reduced to a simple “cause and effect” formula.

“They asked him: When is the Kingdom coming?He replied: It is not coming in an easily observable manner. People will not be saying,’Look, it’s over here’ or ‘Look, it’s over there.’ Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren’t aware of it” (Gospel of Thomas 113). Each autumn, this walnut tree yields its harvest to those among God’s creatures who need it most. They receive these gifts without any reliance on human prayers or covenants. There’s wonderful freedom in trusting God to do what God does best when you don’t take on the burden of believing you’re somehow responsible for maintaining the laws of Creation. Photo credit JAT 2014.

A: Just as Wisdom teachings in the Ancient Near East were a “cause and effect” formula: if you obey the instructions on the “virtue lists” and disavow the behaviours on the “vice lists,” God is required to reward you because the Law says so.

J: Paul, clever manipulator that he was, observed that there was a “niche market” of people who’d become disillusioned with the certainty of Wisdom teachings. Obviously there was something missing from the formula if slaves were still slaves and women were still being punished for being women. The Hellenistic cities of the Roman Empire were filled to bursting with resentful slaves and restless, intelligent women. Who better to target if you’re planning to launch a new religious movement? Slaves with money and women with money. You don’t need to slog through the trenches and carry out years and years of missionary work — you just need to get yourself some patrons with deep pockets. Paul doesn’t even deny his reliance on patrons.

A: One staggering fact that jumps out in the Gospel of Mark is the fact that you have no patron. Nor do you seem to want one. This would have shocked readers in 1st century CE Roman-held regions.

J: Part of my objective was to refuse to “play by the rules.”

A: In the end, so many of these religious debates and religious conflicts boil down to “the rules” — the law, the covenant, the nomos. But all these rules . . . they’re external. They come from outside the inner self. They pretend to be objective. They pretend to be based on observable realities from nature. Yet enforcement of them relies on brute force, on rote memory, and on loyalty to patrons or other important religious/political leaders . . . at least I think that’s right. Is that right?

J: Yes. The one thing Paul doesn’t want is for people to know how to tap into their own inner wisdom, their own inner guidance. He doesn’t want them to know how to hear God’s quiet voice in the still, clear night. He doesn’t want his “community of fellowship” to find actual freedom. He only wants them to believe they have freedom (exousia) through the proper use of conscience (suneidesis). He wants them to be willing slaves. Slaves who won’t rock the boat of authority.

A: This is really sick, you know that?

J: Of course it is. There’s a reason these teachings have spontaneously led to generation after generation of abuses — abuses against the poor, the environment, against other Christians, not to mention countless non-Christians. Also abuses against God. These abuses are the “weeds” that have grown from the “seeds” that Paul intentionally planted.

A: Is this why Paul never mentions healing miracles in the letters he himself wrote?

J: Yes. Paul can’t afford to have his community of hagiasmos and koinonia (holiness and fellowship) distracted by the idea that God is deeply committed to ongoing healing, communication, and relationship with all people through the Kingdom within. The Kingdom within, of course, is the core self — the soul. The good soul. That’s how God connects with all God’s children — through the good soul that everybody is. God can and does communicate by other means, too, but the one connection that can never be taken away is the soul connection. You can cut out somebody’s eyes so they can’t see any more signs (and, unfortunately, this has been done). You can cut out somebody’s ears so they can’t hear any more external messages. You can cut out somebody’s tongue so they can no longer speak the prayers they long to sing aloud. All these abuses have been perpetrated “in the name of God” at one time or another. But nobody can cut out the connection to the soul. You’d have to carve out the entire brain and central nervous system of a person in order to fully quench the soul connection, the body-soul nexus. Obviously this would lead to death.

A: Hey! It’s another thing to add to the Jesus’ Seminar’s pot for the question of “Why Jesus Pissed People Off So Much That He Got Himself Crucified.”

J: Paul works very hard to ensure that his followers believe in a Kingdom that’s on the outside — “out there” in the Materialist world of cause and effect. “Out there” where they have no control over any of it themselves. Even more brilliant, Paul insists the Kingdom of God isn’t here yet. It belongs to some maybe-not-so-distant Day of Judgment. So not only is the Kingdom a materialistic reality outside the self, but it hasn’t even “arrived” yet. [1 Corinthians 15]. This prompts regular people to be thinking about the future instead of the present. This encourages them to shift their focus, their attention, and even their relationships to the future. To the future “effects” of today’s “causes.” People are so busy worrying about the future that they can’t hear God’s voice today.

A: Therefore they can’t hear the guidance they long for.

J: The guidance they want and need.

A: I like your version of the Kingdom teachings much better.

* If you’re new to this site, A=Author and J=Jesus

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Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, Cause & Effect, Gospel of Mark, Jesus Redux, Kingdom teachings, Law (Nomos), Materialism, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, quantum theory, slavery, Soul and tagged , | Leave a Comment
21 Mar 2011

JR25: Getting Close to God: Finding the Kingdom Within

A: Some readers are probably very surprised that a mystic and an angel are spending so much time talking about academic research and academic sources. How would you respond to that?

J: I respond the same way today as I responded 2,000 years ago. My basic attitude is a pretty tough one: you can’t get close to God if you don’t do the work. You can’t get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God’s Creation. You can’t get close to God by snubbing everything God is saying to you in the world around you.

A: The idea that you can’t get close to God if you don’t do the work is a pretty universal spiritual idea. Teachers from a number of different faith traditions have said much the same thing. Various schools of Buddhism are all about teaching the correct way to do the work. But the second idea you present — the idea that you can’t get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God’s Creation — that’s a much less common idea among spiritual teachers. Tell me more about that.

“A man said to him: Tell my brothers that they have to divide my father’s possessions with me. Jesus said: Man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples and said to them: I am not a divider, am I” (Gospel of Thomas 72). Photo credit JAT 2014.

J: Basically it’s the idea that if you want to get close to God, you have to start with the only piece of Creation that God has given you complete control over: your own biology. Your own brain, your own body, your own body-soul nexus. This little piece of Creation is all you get. The rest belongs to other people — to other souls and to God the Mother and God the Father. You get one little piece of Creation to command — one little Kingdom to be in charge of — and it’s your job as a human being and as a soul to look after your little corner of Creation. It’s a big job. Much bigger than most human beings realize. It takes time. It takes commitment. It takes courage. It takes knowledge. More than anything, it takes full acceptance.

A: What do you mean by “acceptance”? Do you mean people have to be resigned to their misery? Do you mean they have to accept the status quo?

J: No. I mean the exact opposite. I mean that if they want to get close to God while living here as human beings, they have to accept that God believes in them. They have to accept that they’re not filled with corruption and sin. They have to accept that they’re not here — here on Planet Earth — as some form of cosmic punishment or karmic journey. They have to stop seeing the glass as “half empty” and start seeing Creation in a positive light. This includes a commitment to seeing themselves — their core selves, their souls — in a positive light. They have to stop feeling so damned sorry for themselves.

A: A lot of pious people I’ve met — mostly Christians, but not exclusively so — remind me a lot of a fictional character from a science fiction/satire mini-series that ran many years ago called “The Hitchhiker`s Guide to the Galaxy. The character was Marvin the Robot. Marvin was always going around feeling sorry for himself. “Oh, poor me!” “Woe is me!” He saw himself as a victim — victim with a capital “V.” I found it hard to like Marvin, to be honest, because all he did was whine.

J: Pauline Christianity encourages people to whine. “Oh, poor me, I’m tainted with original sin, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just a victim. It’s not my fault. It’s Adam’s fault. If Adam hadn’t screwed up and made God so angry, then I wouldn’t have so many problems today. I’ll do my best, Lord — honest! — but please don’t expect too much of me, because, after all, I’m full of inner corruption and sin, and I’m doing the best I can — honest! I promise to go to church every week so you can cleanse me of my sins, but as for the rest of the week . . . please remember that I’m just a frail, weak, ignorant human being who can’t possibly resist temptation and can’t possibly understand your mysteries! You’ve decided to make all life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, so who I am to argue with your wisdom?”

A: Thomas Hobbes.

J: Yes. Thomas Hobbes — the pessimist’s pessimist. Also one of the great Materialist philosophers who rejected outright the relevance of the soul to a functioning, non-chaotic society. He had it all backwards because of his own psychological dysfunction.

A: Progressive Christianity, as this new movement calls itself, is edging in the direction of a Materialist religion — a religion founded on Newtonian science where the words “soul” and “miracle” are considered embarrassing and irrelevant.

J (smiling): Orthodox Western Christianity has in some ways always been a Materialist religion, despite the oxymoron-like quality of this phrase.

A: How so?

J: How often does Paul use the word psyche (soul) in his 7 known letters (8 if you count Colossians, as I do)?

A: Uh, hardly ever. When he does, he describes the soul in an eerie blend of Platonic and Jewish apocalyptic ways.

J: And how often does Paul talk about healing miracles? By that I mean the kind of healing miracles described several times in the Gospel of Mark.

A: Never. Paul doesn’t talk about healing miracles. He talks about sin and salvation and eschatology and Spirit and chosenness for those who believe in Christ. But he doesn’t talk about healing miracles.

J: What about the Roman Catholic Church’s take on healing miracles?

A: Oh, they keep a tight, tight rein on miracles. Nothing can be called an “official miracle” unless the Vatican approves it according to very strict criteria.

J: What’s one of the key criteria?

A: The healing had to take place after somebody prayed directly to a saint. Or a saint-to-be.

J: It’s a closed shop. A closed system. The Vatican has control over all the definitions. It’s not a true miracle unless it goes through the doors of the Church. Which doesn’t happen very often. It therefore forces people to look at the world around them in non-miraculous ways. In Materialist ways.

A: Huh?

J: Think of it this way. Christian orthodoxy has insisted since the beginning that God is to be understood as transcendent — far, far away from this earthly realm, detached from all emotion, detached from day to day concerns with human suffering, distant, serene, uninvolved with the petty concerns of the corrupt material world. This is actually Plato’s idea, but the Church long ago embraced it, and it’s officially part of Church doctrine, so the Church has to take responsibility for this choice. How does this translate for pious Christians? How does it make them feel about the world around them?

A: Well, on the one hand, they’re told by Genesis that they’re in charge of the world and can do whatever they like to it. It’s supposed to be a “good Creation.” On the other hand, they’re told that God isn’t actually “in” this good Creation, but is somewhere else — far, far away in a transcendent realm of pure Mind. I suppose that idea makes it easy for people to make excuses for their behaviour when they mistreat the environment and mistreat other creatures. Something along the lines of “Oh, it’s just a bunch of corrupt, material ‘stuff’ that doesn’t matter to God, so it’s okay for me to take what I want and leave a big mess behind.” . . . Okay, I’m starting to see what you’re getting at. This kind of anthropocentric religious thinking is a form of “state sanctioned Materialism.”

J: Yes. Two thousand years ago, there was no distinction between the political state and the religious state. The two were totally intertwined. So it mattered what religious leaders said about the environment, about the Earth, about the world around us. It mattered that religious leaders told pious followers to ignore all the lessons, all the truths that were being conveyed to them through “the eyes of Nature,” as it were. It mattered then, and it still matters today. God isn’t transcendent. Never was, never will be. God does have feelings. And God feels everything that happens in Creation. Everything.

A: Materialists don’t take God’s feelings into account. They don’t believe God has feelings (many of them don’t even believe that God exists). They don’t ask themselves how God is going to feel when they pour toxic sludge into the groundwaters. Pauline Christianity tells them they don’t have to ask this question.

J: Just as Pauline Christianity tells them they don’t have to take full responsibility for the care, healing, and core integrity of their own little piece of Creation: their biological body.

A: Their Kingdom. Their own Kingdom of the Heavens.

J: Only when you fully understand and respect the core integrity and the core wonder of your own Kingdom will you be able to understand and respect the core integrity of other people, other creatures, and God. That’s what empathy is — the ability to understand that your neighbour’s Kingdom is different but equal to your own. The healing of the Church must begin with a complete overturning of all doctrines that repudiate or undermine the true worth of the soul.

A: The United Church of Canada doesn’t even have an official doctrine of the soul, though the Articles of Faith tell us in one breath that we’re responsible for all our choices (Articles 2.3 and 2.4) and in the next breath tell us that all people are born with a sinful nature (Article 2.5). Talk about a lose-lose situation!

J: My point exactly.

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Posted in brain-soul connection, Buddhism, Church of today, empathy, Jesus Redux, Kingdom teachings, Materialism, miracles, orthodox teachings about the soul, Paul vs Jesus, Plato, relationship with God and tagged , | Leave a Comment
06 Mar 2011

JR18: The "Trilemma"

A: This morning it seemed like a good idea for me to post part of the cognate paper I wrote for my Master’s degree. I’ve included the abstract, the information from the Schematic Model that underlies my argument, and an introduction to the argument itself. This paper has not been published, but, like all original writing, is covered by copyright laws.

This research paper was the product of years of combined academic and mystical research. I got a lot of help from Jesus (though I couldn’t put that in the bibliography!), and I got little help from my supervising professor, who was somewhat bewildered by the paper. The paper was read and marked by a second professor — P.H., a theologian of Pentecostal stripe — who hated the paper and who, strangely enough, accused me of wasting 20 pages in the middle on “nothing” and then in the next breath accused me of not backing up my stated theory about Jesus’ teachings. She literally could not see, with her fundamentalist background, that the “wasted pages” constituted an analysis of radical claims about Jesus made by the author of the Gospel of Mark. People see what they want to see, even in academia.

July 18, 2012:  Today I posted the research paper in its entirety.  You can access it on the “Doctrines of the Soul” page I’ve added to this site.  Enjoy!

ABSTRACT:

This paper compares different theological claims that were made about the soul in Hellenistic philosophy, Second Temple Judaism, and early Christianity, and shows through the use of a new theoretical model that these claims cannot be grouped by religion. Doctrinal claims about the soul can instead be grouped into one of three main fields of theological inquiry: the physis versus nomos debate; the nomos versus the Divine debate; or the physis versus the Divine debate. These three debates have operated in parallel within Christianity since its inception. The Gospel of Mark provides evidence that Jesus’ own teachings on the soul may have been part of a novel solution to the physis-Divine debate. By contrast, Tertullian’s detailed doctrine of the soul, presented in The Soul’s Testimony and A Treatise on the Soul, draws on the traditions of the nomos-Divine debate, and yields very different claims than those presented in Mark. Tertullian’s doctrine of the soul, and his related doctrine of original sin, have exerted great influence on the orthodox Christian understanding of the soul. The church today has the option of reexamining the history of early Christian soul doctrines and assessing the three parallel strands of thought to uncover a previously overlooked biblically-based understanding of the soul that can meet today’s pastoral needs.

 

Schematic Model for the Theological “Trilemma”:

(c) Jennifer Thomas 2010

(c) Jennifer Thomas 2010

1. The Rift Between PHYSIS and NOMOS   The Problem: How can we reconcile the necessities of nature with the themes of justice and judgment derived from human laws?  The Solution: Elevation of human authority and human status (arete). IN TENSION WITH 2 AND 3.

2. The Rift Between NOMOS and the DIVINE   The Problem: How can we reconcile the themes of justice and judgment derived from human laws with the puzzling long-term relationship we have with God?  The Solution: Elevation of prophetic authority, and lack of accountability to the necessities of nature.  IN TENSION WITH 1 AND 3.

3. The Rift Between PHYSIS and the DIVINE  The Problem: How can we reconcile the necessities of nature with the puzzling long-term relationship we have with God? The Solution: Elevation of secret knowledge, mysticism, and cult rituals. IN TENSION WITH 1 AND 2.

The model I propose is shown in diagrammatic format in figure 1, Schematic Model for the Theological “Trilemma.” This figure is elaborated on in tables 1, 2, and 3. Although a much longer paper would be needed to examine this model in detail, in the current paper I will use this model to examine three major streams of theological thought that have all, in their own way, used doctrines of the soul to resolve issues of religious and political authority. By placing the different doctrines of the soul mentioned above into this framework, it is easier to see in what way Tertullian’s theology differs markedly from that of Jesus in the Synoptics. The contrast between these two demonstrates clearly that doctrines of the soul do not line up neatly according to the respective religious tradition from which each emerged. In other words, there is not a soul doctrine that is unique to Judaism, a different soul doctrine that is unique to Hellenism, and a third one found only in Christianity. Instead, a distinctive three-fold pattern exists, a pattern that is shared among Judaism, Greek religion/ philosophy, and early Christianity, and this three-fold pattern is the basis of the model I am proposing. This three-fold pattern, or “trilemma” as I have chosen to call it, partly explains the “why” of fierce theological debate. It also helps explain why we are so confused today about the nature of the soul.

The pattern I am proposing as a theological framework to help us analyse our current confusion arose in response to observations made by Walter Burkert in his book Greek Religion. Towards the end of this important book, Burkert discusses the religious and philosophical crisis that erupted in the fifth century BCE when sophists and atheists undermined Greek religious certainty with their observations about nomos and physis:

Nomos, meaning both custom and law, becomes a central concept of sophistic thought. Laws are made by men and can be altered arbitrarily. And what is tradition if not the sum of such ordinances? Horizons are extended through travel and the reports of travel: with growing interest men became aware of foreign peoples among whom everything is different, witness the ethnographic digressions of Herodotus. In this way the unquestioned assumptions of custom can easily be shaken. The discovery of the changeability of custom becomes particularly dangerous when nomos is set in opposition to physis, a concept provided by the philosophy of nature where it is used to denote the growing of the cosmos and of all things contained in it from their own laws. Archelaos, a pupil of Anaxagoras, is supposed to have been the first to formulate this antithesis about 440 BC: the just and the unjust, the ugly and the beautiful are not defined by physis but by nomos, by arbitrarily changing human convention.

But it was on tradition, nomos, that religion primarily rested, as the Greeks knew well. Its foundations were seen to be threatened, at least in theory, as a result of the questioning of nomos.[1]

Burkert then goes on to outline how pre-Socratic thinkers such as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Sophocles, and Diogenes of Apollonia “delivered” the pious from this crisis of uncertainty by asserting that “[t]here are laws of eusebeia which are rooted in heaven, removed from human caprice, and eternal like the cosmos itself.”[2] Thus, concludes Burkert, “nature speculation provides a starting-point from which to close the rift between physis and nomos, and so to give a new, unshakeable foundation for piety.”[3]

“The rift between physis and nomos” is a phrase so powerful, so meaningful, that it seems almost paradigmatic, and Burkert’s recognition of the pattern opened the door to a pursuit by this author of other such paradigmatic rifts. This line of enquiry led to the observation that there seem to be two other major rifts: the rift between nomos and the Divine, and the rift between physis and the Divine. Each of these rifts is not a simple duality but rather a complex philosophical/theological tension that encompasses perennial questions about what it means to be human, and what it means to be a human in relationship with God.

The three-fold pattern I suggest here can be represented by the triangle shown in figure 1. Each point of the triangle represents one of the three rifts. Although other writers have proposed three-point triangles to highlight both doctrinal and scholarly incongruities[4], what distinguishes the “trilemma” from other three-point models is the fact that each point in the proposed triangular scheme represents not a single concept but a complex tension between two difficult-to-reconcile concepts that seem to be separated by a rift. Each of these rifts, on its own, represents a valid question. For instance, it is perfectly valid for religious seekers to ask in what way human laws and traditions should (or could) align with the laws of nature (nomos in tension with physis; table 1); or in what way religious laws are (or could be) made in the image of our relationship with God (nomos in tension with the Divine; table 2)[5]; or in what way the actual laws of nature reflect our relationship with a God who allows death and suffering (physis in tension with the Divine; table 3). These are all straightforward and important themes of theology. What is not straightforward is the way in which the answers to these questions gradually resulted in three divergent theological solutions, as shown on tables 1, 2, and 3. Each of these three theological solutions presents a different view of who God is, and how we can be in relationship with God. These solutions are mutually incompatible. For instance, if you “cut and paste” the three different versions of how God is perceived in these three different solutions (that is, if you try to put them all together on one point in the centre of the triangle), you arrive at a God who is simultaneously distant and transcendent, fully immanent, unchanging, emotionally detached, interventionist, emotionally involved, in conditional relationship with us, in unconditional relationship with us, and proleptically in relationship with us. This simply cannot be, unless one resorts to the time-honoured tradition of explaining away overt contradictions as mysterion.[6]

What emerges upon examination of the “trilemma” is the extent to which these three theological solutions are mutually incompatible. The questions that underlie the three points are not incompatible; but the solutions that have arisen and been accepted as dogma over many centuries are very much incompatible. A person who attempts to hold all three solutions together as a unified whole is likely to end up confused at the very least. Yet for centuries Christians have been trying to do this very thing. Before that, the people of Judah/Israel and the people of classical Greece wrestled with the same confusion. This is not a new problem. But until we recognize it as a reality that is causing us problems, and until we look for new ways to de-complicate our Protestant theology, we will continue to be confused about our relationship with God.

This same confusion manifests in our current understanding of the soul, which, as I will show in the next two chapters, presents a theological solution based on only one point of the trilemma – the nomos-Divine rift – while using a confusing blend of vocabulary that seems to point to the other two points as well. Thus we will see the emergence of a soul doctrine that means one thing while ostensibly saying another. The intent of this soul doctrine is to entrench the inviolability of divine contract laws (the nomos-Divine rift), but it refers often to the language of free will (physis–nomos rift) and of mystery (physis-Divine rift). In this context, it is little wonder that today’s church is so reticent about the soul – at present, the orthodox understanding of the soul makes no sense!

 

[1] Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. John Raffan (1977; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 312-313.

[2] Ibid., 318.

[3] Ibid.

[4]Dr. W. M. pointed out to his Winter 2009 class the triangular models of Mattitiahu Tsevat and James Barr respectively. Tsevat’s model shows the doctrinal dilemma of the Book of Job, which can be summarized as “just Creator, just persons, just rewards: pick two.” Mattitiahu Tsevat, “The Meaning of the Book of Job,” Hebrew Union College Annual 37 (1966), 73-106. James Barr presents a threefold process for studying the Bible – referential, intentional, and poetic – in The Bible in the Modern World (London: S.C.M. Press, 1973), 61. James Rives, however, comes closest to the model I’m suggesting when he describes the three kinds of advantage offered by religion in the Greco-Roman period: (1) traditional benefits, (2) intensification, and (3) salvation. James. B. Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 168-179.

[5]As the entry on nomos in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology points out, “[t]he legal, ethical and religious meanings of nomos are inseparable in antiquity, for all goods were believed to come from the gods, who upheld order in the universe and in relations between men . . . . Philosophy (even that of the Sophists), kept alive the awareness that, since human laws are so fallible, man cannot exist unless he conforms to cosmic, universal law . . . . Whereas the Sophists criticized the idea of absolute validity attaching to nomos, Plato and Aristotle each in his own way connected it with the nous, the human spirit, and thereby once again with the divine.” Hans-Helmut Esser, “Law, Custom, Elements,” in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 2, rev. ed., ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986),439.

[6]Although I am a practising mystic, I would not want to fall back on the excuse of mysterion to try to force these different images onto a single page. Mystery as a concept can be dangerous when used as a catchall to smooth over doctrinal inconveniences or to uphold church authority at the expense of the oppressed. The church needs mystery – but it does not need the kind that has been used to justify longstanding abuses in the church towards women and the disadvantaged.

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Posted in Jesus Redux, Jesus' teachings, Law (Nomos), Mark vs Paul, Original Sin, orthodox teachings about the soul, Paul vs Jesus and tagged | Leave a Comment
29 Jan 2011

JR5: Jesus and the Jerusalem Temple

A: Jesus, could you please explain why the brain health of people 2,000 years ago makes a difference to what you’re saying today? Why should people on a spiritual journey care about the question of brain health?

J: Well, there are a couple of different approaches to that question. Many religious individuals don’t care about this question and don’t want to care. These are individuals who are happy with their current understanding of God. They believe they have the correct understanding. Therefore, from their point of view, it’s a complete waste of time to be asking about the brain health of the people I lived and worked with. There’s only one reason a person today would be asking about the brain health of Jesus and Paul and John. Only a person who’s interested in the historical facts about what happened would ask such a question.

A: You mean a person who suspects the Church hasn’t been telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing about the truth?

J: Yes. A person who isn’t afraid of asking difficult questions about the past. Questions that can help bring healing into the world today.

A: The same sorts of difficult questions that cultural groups in the 20th century had to ask themselves repeatedly. Questions about the motivations that lay behind crimes against humanity. Questions about personal responsibility and ethical conduct in the face of horrendous mob behaviour.

J: There was no shortage of opportunities for deep soul-searching in the 20th century.

A: Here in Canada we’ve had to address our treatment of First Nations people and ethnic and religious minorities. It isn’t easy to be honest about past mistakes, but it’s in acknowledging our mistakes that we’re able to learn from them and make our society more inclusive, more compassionate.

J (nodding): It’s a painful struggle to bring major change to a society. But it can be done when a sizeable group decides to “get on board.” You need a critical mass of people to bring about effective change. Individual members of a society have to be willing to decide for themselves that change is a good thing. It has to come from within people’s hearts. When the rules are imposed on them from the top down by a small cadre of rulers or leaders, that’s not change. That’s fascism or totalitarianism.

A: Or church authority.

J: Exactly the point I was trying to make 2,000 years ago.

A: Tell me more about that.

J: There was no church at the time, of course. But there was a Temple. Actually, there were lots of temples, because many different religions co-existed in the first century, and most of them built temples as places of worship. I wasn’t interested myself in Greek or Roman or Egyptian temples. I knew about them, had visited them, but my main concern was the Jewish Temple.

A: In Jerusalem.

J: Yes, physically the Jewish Temple was in Jerusalem. But the Temple was more than that. It was a symbol. A powerful symbol. It overshadowed Jewish people no matter where we lived. If you were Jewish, you couldn’t get away from it.

A: Was this a good thing?

J: Sure, if you were a wealthy Sadducee. Or a member of the privileged Jewish aristocracy. Or a wealthy Roman merchant-mercenary.

A: You mean Roman merchants and Roman mercenaries?

J: No, I mean the unique class of Roman culture that was clawing its way up the rigid social class system by making buckets and buckets of money in various mercantile enterprises of dubious ethical merit.

A: Huh. That sounds a lot like some corporations today.

J: There’s a reason the English word “corporation” comes from the same Latin root as Paul’s “one body — corpus — in Christ.”

A: That’s pretty inflammatory.

J: Yes. But accurate. Religion was THE biggest business in the first century. It was intimately linked with politics and power, even more so than people can imagine today. It’s just crazy to pretend that Paul was talking about love and salvation. When you get right down to it, Paul was a businessman. He wasn’t selling relationship with God. He was selling power. Like certain televangelists in recent years who’ve been building market share — along with their own investment portfolios. Same old, same old.

“Jesus said to his disciples: Compare me to something and tell me what am I like. Simon Peter replied: You are like a righteous messenger. Matthew replied: You are like an intelligent lover of wisdom. Thomas replied: Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like. Jesus said: I am not your teacher; because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended. Jesus took Thomas and they withdrew. Jesus said three things to him. When Thomas returned to his friends, they asked him: What did Jesus say to you? Thomas replied: If I tell you even one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come out of the rocks and burn you up” (Gospel of Thomas 13). This photo shows the underground alleys in the old city of Jerusalem. Credit FreeIsraelPhotos.

A: And that’s not what you were doing? Building a power base for your own ideas?

J: I was interested in dismantling the power base of the Temple. Brash, crazy, and impossible at the time. But I gave it my best shot.

A: Some political observers would suggest this makes you a Zealot — a first century Jewish political revolutionary. Were you a Zealot?

J: No. The Jewish faction known as Zealots were the equivalent of today’s radical religious fundamentalists. I was as far from religious fundamentalism as it was possible to get.

A: But you also weren’t a religious conservative devoted to preserving the status quo.

J: No. I came from a family of religious conservatives. My mother’s father was a Sadducee. My father was a Roman citizen from Greece who hobnobbed with Roman merchant-mercenaries. As a young adult, I rejected the social values my family taught me.

A: Okay. So you weren’t a Zealot. And you weren’t a Sadducee. What else was left within Judaism at the time?

J: There were the Pharisees. Their influence had been steadily growing for decades. They were highly obedient to the Jewish Law and the traditions of the Jewish Temple.

A: And you weren’t.

J: Nope.

A: So you didn’t have much in common with the Pharisees.

J: Not by the time I came to my senses.

A: Which was when?

J: When I realized that the group Josephus calls the Essenes were extremely powerful and dangerous, and that they were influencing the teachings of well-meaning Pharisees. I decided then to stop listening to “factions” within Judaism and start listening to my own heart and soul.

A: So basically all the Jewish religious factions that existed in Palestine in the first century (that we know of) would have considered you a heretic?

J: Damn straight.

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Posted in Essenes, historical Jesus, insight, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Paul vs Jesus, religion and mental Illness, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged | Leave a Comment
23 Jan 2011

JR3: Some Family History of Jesus

“Jesus said: It is not possible for anyone to enter a strong man’s house and take it over forcefully unless he first ties his hands. Then he can steal from that house” (Gospel of Thomas 35). Photo of a side entrance of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Bloor Street, Toronto. Photo credit JAT 2017.

 A: On my Concinnate Christianity blog, I take aim at the Apostle Paul and try to show some of the ways that his teachings were very different from your own. I wonder if we can talk some more about that.

J: There’s a lot there to talk about.

A: One of the things that has surprised me most over the past few years is the shortage of people willing to examine the differences between you and Paul. Even serious biblical scholars — people like the scholars of the Jesus Seminar — have a blind spot around Paul. They seem to want to pretend that Paul was preaching the same core teachings as you. But it’s not that hard to draw up a list of the similarities and differences between First Corinthians and Mark. In fact, it’s one of the easier academic analyses I’ve tried in the past few years. The differences are blatant. I mean, scarily blatant. So I’ve gotta ask — what the heck has been going on? Why are so many Christians, even the ones who label themselves Progressive, so completely unwilling to be objective?

J: Brain chemistry.

A (rolling eyes): Why did I know you were going to say that?

J: It’s the brain chemistry. It’s the way most people have wired their brains — or have allowed their brains to be wired for them. Their biological brains are loaded with software packages about God and religion, and there’s a conflict between the existing software — provided in the beginning by Paul — and the “new” software I and other angels have been trying to reintroduce. Of course, it’s not really “new.” It was old when I was teaching it 2,000 years ago. But the Church tried very hard to eradicate it early on, and to keep eradicating it each time it sprang up again. So to today’s readers it seems “new.”

A: Can you give us an analogy that will make sense to today’s readers?

J: Yes. It’s like the difference between early Macs and PC’s. Groups were fighting over which platform was better. At that point PC’s couldn’t read Mac software. Mac software existed, and Mac software was useful and real, but PC’s couldn’t read it. So a lot of users missed out on good programs. The human brain can end up like that — wired so it can only read one kind of software, though others kinds of software do exist. For many Christians, their brains have become so used to the ideas of Pauline Christianity that they literally can’t “hear” any other ideas about God. Their brains can’t process the information. They’re literally the people who have ears but cannot hear. They’re not able to understand the “new” message at first because their brains aren’t used to hearing that kind of language.

A: What you describe sounds a lot like brainwashing. People conditioned to the point where they can hear only one kind of “truth.”

J: You could put it that way.

A: That’s scary.

J: Yes. But it’s not new. It’s a very old way to control a large group of people. You don’t have to put chains on everybody in your culture to get them to do what you want. A clever tyrant controls the mind — keeps the body free, but controls the mind. Nothing new there.

A: Except that 2,000 years ago your culture had real slavery — the kind where human beings were bought and sold and forced to do all sorts of things against their will.

J: The kind that continues in many parts of the world today.

A: Yes, that too.

J: One reason my great-nephew Matthew — the man you know as the author of the Gospel of Mark — went ballistic when he read what Paul was writing about “Jesus Christ” was Paul’s take on slavery. Paul never comes out and says that slavery is wrong. Instead Paul tries to preserve the status quo by persuading slaves to understand slavery as an illusion — something not worth fighting about because they have something more valuable than freedom: the higher “truth” of salvation.

A: Right. But can we back up the truck for a minute? I’d like to go back to that historical tidbit you just dropped in. The part about your great-nephew Matthew.

J: Matthew was the grandson of my brother Andrew. Andrew was the only one of my siblings who believed in my teachings.

A: And this Matthew who was your great-nephew . . . is this the same man who wrote the Gospel of Matthew?

J: No. The author of the Gospel of Matthew was not named Matthew. Just as the author of the Gospel of Mark was not named Mark.

A: Okay, well at least that part is known to scholars. But this is all very confusing. Is it okay with you if I keep calling the author of the Gospel of Mark, “Mark”? It’s much less confusing to call him Mark.

J: Sounds like a plan.

A: So you’re saying that your great-nephew wrote the Gospel of Mark.

J: Well, one of my great-nephews wrote the Gospel of Mark. I had a lot of great-nieces and great-nephews, but only the children and grandchildren of my brother Andrew carried on my teachings the way I taught them. More or less. The rest of my family didn’t like me very much.

A: You and I have talked about this a lot. But can you talk a bit today about why your family didn’t like you?

J: Basically because I was a shit-disturber. I disagreed with most of the values my family raised me to believe in, and I went on record to say my family and their social class were wrong about the way they were treating other people and God. I grew up in an aristocratic family where we held slaves and where we believed we were chosen by God. I said that was wrong. My family didn’t like it. I was embarrassing them.

A: The way a man from the state of Georgia, for instance, would have embarrassed his wealthy plantation owning family in the 19th century if he’d joined the Abolitionists.

J: Or if a son of the Kennedy clan had disavowed the Kennedy myth and run away to live in Canada in a small town where nobody cared that he was a Kennedy.

A: As Canada is to the U.S., so Galilee was to Judea.

J: As Port Hope is to Washington, so Capernaum was to Jerusalem.

A: So you picked Galilee on purpose because it was not a major centre of religious and political influence.

J: And because the people in Galilee had different priorities. They were interested in real healing, real teaching, and they had no use for arrogant priests or rabbis who had their heads stuck up their asses.

A: You always have such a way with words.

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Posted in First Corinthians, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' teachings, Mark (Jesus' great nephew), Mark vs Paul, Paul vs Jesus, slavery and tagged , | Leave a Comment
09 Jan 2011

JR2: Not a Technological Sort of Fellow, But Still Likes Gadgets

A: A few days ago, I got a big surprise. I punched the phrase “choosing between Paul and Jesus” into Google’s search engine, and the only site I came up with was my own blog Concinnate Christianity. Also, every post on my blog seemed to be “tagged” with this particular phrase. Somebody tagged my posts, but it wasn’t me, because I don’t know how to do that. Any comments?

J (laughing): Don’t look at me. That’s a different department. I’m not in the technology department. There’s a reason I lived as a human being 2,000 years ago! No computers to contend with!

A: Typing on a blog doesn’t count as technology?

J: Well, to be honest, I’m not typing on a blog. I’m talking, and you’re typing. You’re the one who has to contend with the technology. All I have to do is talk — which I love to do. So, technically speaking, I’m doing what I do best — which is philosophising. I leave the computer stuff to the computer department. So if there are mysterious search tags appearing on your blog, it’s their fault. I wouldn’t have the first idea where to begin.

A: You’re saying there’s a department of angels whose job it is to focus on technology?

J: Yup. There’s no field of human research that’s “outside the box” as far as God is concerned. You name any human researcher in any obscure field, and there are at least 12 angels in the immediate vicinity who know 12 times more about the topic than the human researcher.

A: Hey, twelve times twelve. I like your symbolism.

J: It wouldn’t be a proper mystical teaching if I didn’t randomly throw in some numerology to make people lose sleep at night wondering what I mean.

A: That’s a bit cynical!

J: Just realistic. It’s an honest statement of fact that the Bible is filled to the brim with numbers that are supposed to be mystically significant. Numbers like 12. And 40. And multiples of 7. So now it’s official. This blog is certifiably mystical. Jesus has spoken the sacred seal of twelve times twelve. All is now right with the world.

A: Whoa! You sound pretty upset!

J: I’m an angel, and angels are pretty upset these days. We’re tired of the bullshit.

A: Can you elaborate on that point?

J: It’ll take me a while. There’s a lot of bullshit in the world today.

A: People will probably be shocked that an angel would even say such a thing. Especially you. You’re Jesus. You’re supposed to be pure light and pure love. Won’t people be upset that you would speak so . . . so . . .

J: Bluntly?

A: I was thinking more along the lines of “impolite.”

J: I’m a blunt sort of fellow, and I call a spade a spade. There’s no polite way to describe what’s going on in the world today. I’d much rather be honest than polite.

A: There’s the Jesus I know.

J: I guess it’s who I am as a soul.

The Jesus I know reminds me a lot of this magnolia tree. Really. I’m not kidding. Photo credit JAT 2017.

A (chuckling): How true! Most people would be surprised as hell to know you as you really are. You’re sure not what they’re expecting. I say that from personal experience. You aren’t anything like the Sunday School portrait I was taught when I was growing up! Like, no way, Jose.

J: Hey, I’m just a guy.

A: That’s what I mean. You’re actually a guy — a real guy.

J: Last time I checked.

A: Yes, but many people on a spiritual path think that angels are all androgynous, that they have no gender, and even worse, that they have no individual uniqueness or individual identity. You’ve certainly proved that theory wrong over the years!

J: You know, I may not be a technology person per se, but I have to admit that all those gadgets with buttons on them have a certain appeal. Take TV remote controls, for example. I wouldn’t mind having one of those. And maybe a big screen TV. With crisp, high definition colour. I can see why so many men enjoy that stuff. I guess it’s a guy thing.

A: No matter what dimension a guy is in.

J: Certain attributes of the self are timeless and dimensionless. So yeah — guys love gadgets with buttons. And wheels. No matter where they live in Creation. Isn’t that great?

A: Even God the Father?

J: Even God the Father.

A: So God the Mother doesn’t get to hold the remote?

J: I think probably not.

A: Huh. Go figure. I don’t understand what that means, but it feels right. Like so many of the things you tell me.

J: One day at a time. One day at a time. That’s all anyone can do.

A: Ya got that one right.

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Posted in angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), gender and sexuality, Jesus Redux, Mother and Father God, Paul vs Jesus, soul blueprint and tagged | Leave a Comment
07 Dec 2010

CC49: Summing Up: Finding the Kingdom of God

Exeter Cathedral, England 3

Exeter Cathedral, England (c) JAT 1997

In wrapping up this blog, I’d like to talk about the 20th century spiritual teacher I most admire, a man whose writings greatly influenced my journey toward becoming a Concinnate Christian. That man is Dr. Viktor Frankl.

Many people on a spiritual path wouldn’t include Viktor Frankl among the great 20th century religious and spiritual leaders. Dr. Frankl, after all, was a psychiatrist, not a monk or a religious sage. He wrote books about Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, not lofty theological commentaries on the Bible. Yet this brilliant Austrian Jewish physician scholar, who endured the horrors of WWII Nazi concentration camps and went on to rebuild a life of integrity and compassion after the war, has more in common with the man who lived as Jesus of Nazareth than anyone else I’ve read.

Dr. Frankl’s well-known book Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy* is only 189 pages long, including the bibliography. Yet within the pages of this slim book he manages to evoke all the deepest aspects of the human experience. He asks the hardest questions possible about human suffering, and arrives at the astonishing conclusion that even in the midst of unutterable deprivation and torment, even in the face of terrible hunger and cold and illness and fear, human beings can still choose to love and forgive. Nothing can take this choice away from them. Nothing.

Dr. Frankl describes his redemption in this way: “A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved [spouse]. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way — an honorable way — in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.'” (page 48)

Further, despite his own deeply personal turmoil, Dr. Frankl retained his ability to objectively study and assess the psychological reactions of his fellow inmates in the camps:

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

“And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become a plaything of circumstances, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

“Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even through conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him — mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.” (page 75)

Dr. Frankl’s fellow inmates taught him about courage — the courage “to say yes to life” in spite of pain, guilt, and death (page 139). He didn’t deny the reality of pain, guilt, and death, didn’t try to escape it (page 86). Instead he chose a different path — the path of helping others find purpose in their lives, of helping others find a way to turn suffering and guilt into accomplishment, change, and responsible action. He became a mentor to those who were searching for meaning, to those who needed help in reclaiming their free will to choose love. He also understood that each person’s journey is unique, that no two people will find meaning and insight in exactly the same way. Unlike so many others, he found faith in the true potential of God’s children.

I see so much in common between the teachings and methods of Viktor Frankl and those of Jesus son of Joseph! If you really want to understand who Jesus was and what he taught, please read Man’s Search for Meaning. Then read it again. And read it again. There is no clearer modern version of Jesus’ “Kingdom of God” teachings than Dr. Frankl’s book.

Thank you to the readers who have struggled along with me as I tried to put these thoughts on paper. Your support and encouragement have meant more to me than you realize.

I wish you many blessings on your own journey of love, healing, and redemption!

* Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. 3rd Ed. Translated by Ilse Lasch. New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1984.

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Posted in Concinnate Christianity, courage, faith, forgiveness, free will, Jesus' teachings, Kingdom teachings, Paul vs Jesus, redemption, soul purpose, theodicy and tagged | Leave a Comment
03 Dec 2010

CC47: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Cunning of Paul

“Toews2010WinterOlympics” from Wikimedia Commons – author Rosie Perera – originally posted to Flickr as G9-20100221-3457

 You may recall that in an earlier post I put forward the thesis that the Gospel of Mark was written as a direct rebuttal of Paul’s First Corinthians (“The Gospel of Mark as a Rebuttal of First Corinthians,” August 18, 2010). Today I’d like to talk about that in more detail.*

Maybe you’re thinking that sounds pretty boring, so you’ll go read the sports page for a little blow-by-blow excitement. Bear with me, though. This story is packed with more drama than an NHL brawl combined with a daytime Soap Opera.

On one side, we have Team Salvation (blue and white). Team Salvation comes onto the ice first with the biggest, meanest lines you’d ever want to see. Paul is the Captain. His best forward is Luke and his strongest defenceman is Matthew. These guys have stamina and brute strength in spades. They’re not nimble. They’re not fast. Their wrist shot sucks. Their overall strategy is to slam the other team into the boards, start fights, and keep the puck moving fast so the audience has trouble following the play. They’ve done this many times before, and they’re the crowd favourite, so they’re convinced their strategy will work.

On the other side, we have a rookie team, Team Redemption (red and black). Team Redemption is late getting on the ice. Mark is the Captain. His forwards are unknown draft picks. But they’re fast and smart and they skate and stickhandle like a young Wayne Gretsky. Team Redemption has only one line, but they play with everything they’ve got. They put their heart and soul into the game.

Paul scores an easy first goal, as he expected, but then Mark gets the puck. Mark is not like any of the opponents Paul has played before. Paul keeps trying to check him, but Mark seems to have wings on his skates, and he dekes the goalie to score three quick goals. Paul starts a fight and slams Mark’s head into the boards. Mark won’t quit. So Matthew gets the puck and moves the play across the centre line. It’s offside, but the refs don’t call it because they’re paid on the sly by Paul’s team. Mark’s wingers retrieve the puck, score another goal with a beautiful slap shot. Paul is furious. He tells Luke to kill the clock until Team Redemption’s line drops from exhaustion. Which they do.

Just for the thrill of it, Paul pummels every red jersey who drops to the ice.

Okay. That’s the gameplay for the 1st century battle between Paul’s team and Mark’s team. Only the stakes were much higher for Paul and Mark, and the play was much more brutal than anything you’d see in a 1980’s NHL game.

And you thought the New Testament was talking about boring ol’ topics like peace, love, and hope!

The biblical book known as First Corinthians is a letter that was written by a confident “team captain.” You can tell by the tone of the letter that Paul believes his preaching mission is going fairly well, despite some kinks that have be worked out with the Christian groups who live in the Greek city of Corinth. He’s sure of his own authority. He describes himself in glowing terms as “like a master builder [who] laid a foundation” (1 Cor. 3:10). “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.”

In other words, Paul, the master builder, has chosen as the foundation for all his authority, all his church building, and all his theology one man whom he calls Jesus Christ. This man Jesus is already dead. So Paul figures he can use this man’s name and this man’s “face” with impunity.

For a while, he gets away with it. (Goal #1). But he doesn’t count on a direct challenge to his fabricated claim about “the Christ.” He doesn’t count on copies of his letter to the Corinthians ending up in Palestine. He doesn’t count on somebody — a somebody who knows a lot about the actual Jesus in question — reading the copied letter and objecting vehemently to the content. He doesn’t count on this somebody writing a searing point-by-point rebuttal of Paul’s claims. He doesn’t count on the courage of a man who wants to tell the truth about the life and teachings of Jesus son of Joseph.

By the time Mark writes his rebuttal in the early to mid 60’s (a few years before the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple), Paul himself can’t do anything about it. (He seems to have stopped writing in the late 50’s, and we don’t know for certain what happened to him.) But his successors can do something to undermine the dangerous assertions made by Mark. They can take Mark’s manuscript and do a hatchet job on it, cutting and pasting the various fragments into new compositions (the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke), new compositions that change the original meaning and intent of Mark’s portrayal of Jesus. They can try to force a blue and white jersey onto a physician scholar who was clearly playing for the red and black team, and if they’re lucky, the audience will be so confused by the changing scorecard that they won’t contest the final score of the game.

Based on the lasting success of Paul’s strategy, along with his successors’ strategies in the orthodox Western Church, I’d say his plan was quite effective. Ruthless. Heartless. Cruel. Inhumane. But very, very effective.

* For more on this topic, please see “Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom,” as well as “Seventh & Final Step: Remove the Thorn in Jesus’ Flesh (That Would Be Paul)”

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Posted in Concinnate Christianity, First Corinthians, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Mark vs Paul, Matthew's and Luke's intent, Paul, Paul vs Jesus, redemption and tagged , | Leave a Comment
20 Nov 2010

CC43: The Hole-y Bucket of Humility

“There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.”

“Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, then fix it, dear Henry . . . “

“With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza . . .”

Hole-y bucket of humility (c) JAT 2014

The hole-y bucket of religious humility. There’s a big hole right in the middle (or worse, the bottom) where the good stuff gushes out. You always feel half-empty in your relationship with God, instead of full to the brim with courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion. Photo credit JAT 2014.

You probably know this song from your childhood. We used to sing it at Brownies and at summer camp. It always made us laugh when we got to the punchline of the song: the bucket that started the song because it had a hole in it was the tool that was needed by Henry and Liza to fix said bucket. Without an un-holey bucket, they couldn’t fix the hole-y bucket. But they only had one bucket — the one with the hole in it. It was a circular argument.

The orthodox Western Church’s teachings on humility are exactly like this childhood song.

Before I talk about the Church’s teachings on humility, though, I want to talk about a different core virtue, one that’s never discussed in the church. This is the core virtue of humbleness. Humbleness is what Jesus taught. By contrast, humility is what Paul taught.

Humbleness is a feeling that sort of settles into the middle of your heart after you find redemption. Humbleness is the natural state of thinking, feeling, behaving, and understanding that you end up with when you accept the redemptive power of God’s forgiveness in your life. Humbleness is your natural soul state. It’s who you really are underneath all the bullshit layers of status addiction. It’s a deep sense of trust in yourself — not a sense of pride or hubris, but a sense of trust. It’s an unshakable sense of acceptance. It’s a sense that God made you to be a particular person, and that’s the only person you can be. So you stop fighting your inner self. And you become free to become your inner self.

That’s what humbleness is. It’s a state of absolute freedom from the tyranny of status addiction. Once you’re free from the constant voice of status addiction in your head — the constant judging of yourself, the constant comparing of yourself to others, the constant criticism of others, the perfectionism, the self-pity, the lack of common sense, the lack of peace, comfort, and safety in your life — once you’re free of all that you can begin to like yourself as a person. (Wouldn’t that be a refreshing change?)

A humble person is free to make choices based on a whole new set of criteria. A humble person isn’t worried about getting more status, so a humble person is free to practise the virtues of common sense. A humble person isn’t trying to be somebody he’s not, so a humble person doesn’t feel guilty about following his calling. A humble person thinks it’s wrong to accuse of God of being too stupid or too lazy to make souls that are all different from each other yet all equally beautiful and worthy. A humble person shows her love and respect for God by trying every day to be who she really is, instead of trying to be somebody she’s not. A humble person knows his limits.

This is not what the Church means when the Church talks about humility.

The traditional orthodox Western position is that no human being (except that Jesus dude) has ever been truly worthy of God’s love and trust. The Church starts with the assumption that you are a bucket (aka “a vessel”) with a big, fat hole in the bottom.

You are a bucket that needs to be fixed. All your courage and your faith have been draining out through the hole. Obviously, the hole needs to be patched. You must use your free will and your self-discipline to patch the hole so “the vessel that is you” can contain the love of Christ. But you must also practise humility. Humility demands that you not consider yourself a bucket at all, because then you’d be able to carry your own portion of courage and faith, which you’re not allowed to have, because that would be presumptuous. Only when you rejoice in the fact that you’re a bucket with a humongous hole in the bottom will you be able to feel Christ’s love flowing through you and out into the world through the hole. You must therefore be a hole-y bucket in order to fix the hole-y bucket that is you.

Catch 22, anyone?

Let’s imagine instead that the hole-y bucket is your biological brain/central nervous system. This bucket admittedly has a few holes in it by the time you’ve grown up. But these holes are fixable. More importantly, the holes are not you. They’re not the real you. They’re damaged biological parts that need to be healed (same as clogged arteries or a broken arm). So you find some qualified people who can help you heal them. Slowly, one by one, the holes begin to heal. You begin to discover somewhat to your surprise that you — you, yourself, and you — are capable of startling feats of compassion. The more healed your bucket, the more love and courage and faith your bucket is able to hold.

Go figure. Who would guess that a bucket without a big hole in it would actually hold more of the good stuff (like love and forgiveness) than a hole-y bucket? Gee whiz, Mother and Father, that’s, like, totally unfair of you to make our reality as humans so logical!

Mother and Father, you rock!

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Posted in brain-soul connection, Concinnate Christianity, healing, humbleness, humility, Paul vs Jesus, redemption, Soul, status addiction, trust and tagged , | Leave a Comment
22 Sep 2010

CC35: Would You Like To Super-Size That Stampede?

In last Saturday’s Toronto Star (Sat., Sept. 18, 2010), an article on page 2 stopped me in my tracks. Entitled “Believers fine with the Rapture, but what about Fido?” (written by Lesley Ciarula Taylor), the story described a new Internet-based business called “Eternal Earth-Bound Pets.” This business, founded by a gentleman named Bart Centre, already has 225 clients who have paid $110 U.S. per pet to have their pets rescued and cared for after May 21, 2011.

Why are these clients so confident their pets will need to be rescued after May 21, 2011? Well, because the Rapture has been prophesied for that day, and as every Rapture-believing evangelical Christian knows, that’s when “true believers” will be saved — taken directly up into Heaven, body and all, in the twinkling of an eye — and all the rest of the poor slobs on Planet Earth will left to contend with the dreaded Doomsday, currently prophesied to be coming soon to a sinful city near you on October 21, 2011.

Of course, since only the chosen among human beings will be beamed up to Heaven during the Rapture, there’s the dicey question of who will look after all those soulless pets, the pets that will be abandoned by their Christian owners when the “stampede of saints” comes next spring.

This painting of an angel with an incense censer was created by the circle of Bernaert van Orley in about 1535-1540. Originally part of an altarpiece, its purpose would have been to help churchgoers imagine the glory of heaven for the chosen. On display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

Enter Eternal Earth-Bound Pets. Mr. Centre, you go for it! I wish you luck in your money-making enterprise. I have no sympathy for orthodox Western Christians who choose to believe in apocalyptic bullshit like the Rapture. If their narcissistic, status-driven beliefs make them vulnerable to niche marketing schemes, that’s okay. Maybe some of these idiots will learn the hard way not to listen to religious prophets.

Of course, these particular Christians are listening to the teachings of Paul, and Paul was himself an apocalyptic religious prophet. Paul was going around telling people that Jesus was coming back “really, really soon,” and that people who gave over their lives to complete faith in Christ would not die, but would be saved, body and soul, and taken up into Heaven. (“Beam me up, Scotty.”)

Give me a break. Paul was making absurd promises to people. He was telling people they could escape death on one condition: they had to fully accept Paul’s teachings. Notice how he left himself “an out,” though. If they happened to die before Christ’s return, it was their own fault. They must have fallen short in their belief.

Too bad for you, buddy (said Paul). Your faith wasn’t good enough (said Paul). You should have tried harder to follow my own special brand of teachings (said Paul). Repent, repent!

Paul talks a lot in First Corinthians about escaping sin and death. But he never talks in this letter about healing miracles.

Ah, you say, what about Acts 20:7-12, where Paul heals the young man who fell out of the window! That sounds like something Jesus would have done!

True, but Paul didn’t write the Acts of the Apostles. Somebody else wrote it decades later, and, if scholar Barrie Wilson is correct, “Luke” wrote this book for the express purpose of bridging the doctrinal gulf between the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem (the Ebionites) and the followers of Paul (proto-orthodox Christians in Hellenistic cities like Antioch). It’s cheating to rely on the Acts of the Apostles for confirmation that Paul cared about physical healing for low-status people. In the seven biblical letters written by Paul himself, there’s nothing to suggest he cared a whit about the healing miracles ascribed to Jesus son of Joseph.

Paul wasn’t teaching people about the kind of everyday psycho-spiritual-physical healing that Jesus carried out during his tenure as a physician-scholar in Galilee. Jesus, after all, was interested in healing the physical bodies and physical brains of marginalized people (women, lepers, the blind, the deaf, the “possessed” who suffered from neurological and psychiatric disorders). Paul, meanwhile, was only interested in mystical teachings about spiritual wisdom, ritual purity, prophecy, mystery, spiritual powers, and spiritual authority.

Paul taught apocalyptic bullshit. Jesus did not.

If Paul were alive today, he’d no doubt be preaching the Rapture, and telling his faithful flock how to piously prepare for the “stampede of saints” so they won’t be Left Behind.

I’m looking forward to May 22, 2010, when I’ll be getting up and having my morning coffee and looking out my window at the beautiful world God the Mother and God the Father have created for all their children.

Even the four-legged ones.

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Posted in "Escape", apocalyptic prophecy, Concinnate Christianity, First Corinthians, healing miracles, Paul vs Jesus, prophets, spiritual ascent, status addiction and tagged | Leave a Comment
10 Sep 2010

CC33: Paul’s Idea Of "Grace"

By the time Paul wrote his Letter to the Romans (one of his latest writings) his own personal nastiness had seeped into all aspects of his theology. The book of Romans — a book that is central to orthodox Western Christian church doctrine — is not a nice book.

Photo credit JAT 2019

Paul says horrible, nasty, judgmental things about everybody. In Chapters 9-11 of Romans, he specifically targets Jews. These writings have been used for many centuries by the Church to justify its persecution of Jews. These chapters are simply awful, awful, awful, and no person of faith should pay them any heed.

But Paul doesn’t attack only Jews in his letter to the Romans. He targets everyone who doesn’t accept Paul’s own teachings. Ironically, in doing so, he targets God the Mother and God the Father (as they actually are), along with the man who lived as Jesus son of Joseph (as he actually was).

To understand what Paul meant when he used the term “grace” (charis in Koine Greek),* read Chapter 11 of Romans. It’s clear that Paul believes some people have been specially chosen by God. This small group is “the remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5).

Paul didn’t invent the idea of “the remnant.” The specially chosen remnant had been spoken of centuries before by Jewish prophets (e.g. Isaiah 37:31-32; Ezekiel 6:8; Micah 5:7-8). But in Paul’s head, the chosen people now include only his own people — Paul’s people. The people who follow Paul’s teachings about sin, separation from God, sacraments, and salvation. The people who call themselves Christians. Not the people who follow the teachings of Jesus.

Paul didn’t invent the idea of the “remnant,” an idea that’s very appealing to anyone who’s addicted to status. But Paul did invent the idea of “grace” as it’s expressed in the Letter to the Romans. It’s his biggest contribution to the history of religious doctrine. Paul’s doctrine of grace is the bedrock of orthodox Western Christianity. Remove it and there’s not much left except sin, damnation, judgment, hell, and a nasty, judgmental God.

Grace is Paul’s way of keeping hope alive. Grace keeps your hope alive, your hope that one day, for no particular reason, God will suddenly decide to single you out for special, preferential treatment not offered to your peers at the present time. Sort of like winning the spiritual lottery. One day you’re broke, debt-ridden, and worried sick about all the money you owe. The next day — presto! A million dollars falls into your lap! Yippee! No more worries! For the price of a single lottery ticket (sorry, I mean for the price of a single baptism) you can always hope you’ll score big on the big grace lottery in the sky.

Of course, this means that God would have to be a fickle, immature parent who favours some children over other children as a way to acquire attention and status from vulnerable human beings, but hey — why not, right? Plenty of human parents behave this way, so why not God? Why should anyone expect God to be a parent you can actually look up to?

Paul’s God is so unlikeable that I wouldn’t want to invite them to dinner, let alone call them “Mother and Father.” Paul’s God demands fideism (blind faith). Paul’s God loves people conditionally, not unconditionally, and not with forgiveness. Paul’s God saves only the people who worship at the “moveable Temple” (a.k.a. the body of Christ). Paul’s God insists you obey and respect the civil authorities, because they were chosen by God to look after you (Romans 13:1-10). Paul’s God wants you to ask no questions, make no waves, respect the status quo, and always be vigilant against the corrupting power of Satan and sin and the law. Paul’s God is a status addict who loves to be feared and obeyed.

I’m thinkin’ it was probably Paul who wanted to be feared and obeyed. But that’s not surprising. It’s all part of the narcissistic mindset. Full-blown narcissists carry around a whole raft of nasty thinking, and they’re always looking for ways to raise themselves up at the expense of others. (This often means they try to make other people fear and obey their narcissistic wishes.) Worse, they constantly believe they’re “victims,” and they blame other people for the mistakes they themselves make.

They’re not very nice people (read what Paul says about himself in Romans Chapter 7). Yet they can’t tolerate the idea that some people actually are nice. It sticks in their craw. It makes them sneer. It makes them feel angry and resentful. It makes them feel contemptuous. It makes them want to get revenge.

The real problem is that God the Mother and God the Father are nice people, and because they’re nice people, narcissists (such as Paul) react to them in the same way narcissists react to nice human beings. The niceness sticks in their craw. It makes them feel angry and contemptuous. It makes them want to get revenge against God.

Think the Bible — both Old and New Testaments — isn’t overflowing with the cup of human narcissistic anger toward God?

Who needs a traditional Jewish Messiah — prophet, king, warrior, priest — if not to serve as a punching bag for narcissistic feelings of revenge? This way people can transfer their hostile feelings onto a Messiah figure, and not have to face the fact that they’re constantly angry with God.

The world doesn’t need any Messiahs, and it doesn’t need any Divine Saviours. What the world needs is self-honesty, healing, and a giant dose of common sense.

Plus a whole lot of people who are willing to open their hearts to divine love.

* The Greek word charis can be translated in a number of different ways, including “benefit; charitable act; an act of favour; free favour; grace; graciously bestowed divine endowment; sense of obligation.” These are values commonly associated with PATRONAGE in the first century CE Roman Empire. Paul is presenting God as Patron, Christ as Saviour, and Spirit as in-dwelling Life, thus covering his theological bases in one neat package.

Paul is one clever shark.

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Posted in "4 S's", Concinnate Christianity, hope, Messiah, Mother and Father God, narcissism, orthodox teachings about the soul, Paul, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, psychopathy (niceness), status addiction and tagged | Leave a Comment
14 Jun 2010

CC20: Further Update on the Vatican’s "Sin Within"

Last Friday, on June 11, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI addressed 15,000 priests who were in St. Peter’s Square to mark the end of the Vatican’s Year of the Priest. In his homily, Benedict asked forgiveness from God and from affected people for the sins of the sexually abusive clerics in the Roman Catholic church. He also promised “to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again” (Nicole Winfield, “Pope Begs Forgiveness, Promises Action on Abuse,” The Globe and Mail, June 11, 2010).

While I’m quite certain that God the Mother and God the Father do, indeed, forgive Benedict for his own errors, and do, indeed, forgive the priests who’ve intentionally harmed the faithful in their care, I’m equally certain that hidden abuse will continue in the Roman Catholic church.

Many Christians want to make this a question of theodicy: how do we explain evil in the world while at the same time preserving our image of God as good and loving? If God allows abuse to continue in the church, does it mean that God is powerless and ineffectual? Impotent against the powers of the devil? Or does it mean that God is actually not a very nice person?

Many of the Christians I know would much rather blame the problem of evil on God and/or the devil than put the blame where it belongs: on the values and moral beliefs held by both individuals and by cultural groups.

The Roman Catholic church is a cultural group. It teaches particular cultural beliefs. (These comprise its theological doctrines). It has a consciously promoted schedule of active teaching. Its goal is to teach its people early on in life how they should conduct themselves in relationship to God, church hierarchy, and empire. Traditionally, it has punished members who question its teachings or its authority (the Inquisition). It has conferred upon itself the mantle of infallibility. It claims it is the one true church, the only legitimate path to salvation.

The Roman Catholic church has long held a vision of how society should be — how society should look, act, and “feel.” Its body of theological doctrines has been carefully cultivated so that only kind of garden can grow in its presence. The church has no one but itself to blame for this.

at the Vatican (c) J MacDonald 2011

at the Vatican (c) J MacDonald 2011

The conditions in a garden dictate what kinds of plants will thrive there. A garden that has full sun, lots of water, and lots of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc.) will grow very different plants than a garden that has shady conditions or low nitrogen or a high pH. If you restrict certain nutrients, you restrict which plants will flower abundantly. If you water some plants and not others, you control which plants will flourish, and which plants will live a miserable life of bare subsistence before dying a premature death.

Throughout its history, the orthodox Western church has been heavily committed to the lessons learned from gardening. Hewing closely to the principle that the person who controls the conditions of a garden will control the ultimate harvest of said garden, the church has intentionally chosen a specific blend of nutrients for its religio-political garden. The nutrients in this case are its doctrines. The doctrines are what “feed” the hearts and minds of the faithful. If you precisely control the “mix” of doctrines available to your people, you precisely control the rate at which people’s hearts and minds can grow. If you balance this mix with the precision of a master botanist, you can ensure that the people in your congregations grow just enough to offer you the occasional flower without ever getting big enough to overshadow you.

It’s a new idea, this idea that the introduction of particular belief systems can alter the physical structure and biochemical functioning of a person’s central nervous system and brain. I suppose I should amend that to say it’s a new idea among neuroscientists — unfortunately, it’s not a new idea among history’s power mongers.

Long before the advent of brain scanning technologies, would-be tyrants had empirically observed that people’s behaviour could be altered through the careful repetition of certain ideas. These tyrants didn’t understand the changes at a biochemical or neurophysiological level, and they didn’t need to — all they needed to understand was the result, the harvest of their ideological campaigns. Early orthodox Church Fathers understood this principle well.

Early in the history of the church, orthodox Christian teachers made a conscious decision to take an axe to the teachings of Jesus as represented in the Gospel of Mark, and to overshadow Jesus’ sunny, open “vineyard” with the giant magic beanstalk of spiritual ascent (a beanstalk seen later in the children’s fairy tale of that name). They’ve been feeding this beanstalk of “elevation” for the “elect” with their repeated assertions that the devil exists, that Judgment Day is coming (soon, very soon! — or at least sometime, maybe, we’re pretty darned sure, because it says so in the apocalyptic books), that the soul is tainted by original sin, that Jesus is your only hope of salvation, that Holy Mother Church is the only portal through which you can gain access to the gold at the top of the beanstalk.

This set of teachings was well established by the mid-3rd century CE. It’s not new (and it certainly didn’t originate with Jesus himself!). The problem with the church’s teachings is that their doctrines damage your biological brain. When you fully embrace these teachings as “divine truth,” your brain stops working the way God intends. Your brain responds exactly like the plant that’s been crippled because the gardener has intentionally withheld the water, nutrients, and care you need. Your heart and mind don’t really grow. You spend all your life sitting in the shadow of the towering beanstalk and feeling like crap. You feel like crap because all the truth — all the spiritual nutrients — about the actual nature of your relationship with God have been artfully concealed from you. You wouldn’t recognize the plants that grow in a sunny, lush, well-watered garden if they came chasing after you.

Such as forgiveness. Would you be able to recognize forgiveness if it entered your life? Probably not. Most Christian’s can’t. That’s because the orthodox Church has never taught people about forgiveness (which is why I’m somewhat sceptical about the Pope’s current pleas for forgiveness).

Why hasn’t the Church taught people how to forgive when it’s obvious from reading the Gospel of Mark that Jesus insisted on the message of forgiveness? The Church doesn’t want to teach people how to forgive, because once people catch onto the feeling of forgiveness, they’ll be able to figure out for themselves that divine forgiveness is the antithesis of “salvation” and “grace.” They’ll realize the church has been lying to them for centuries about their souls. The garden of orthodoxy might start to look like a thorny patch of weeds and thistles instead of the prophesied paradise!

It’s no mystery why some church clerics have been sexually abusing vulnerable people in their care. You can’t expect a human being’s brain to produce a harvest of compassion, integrity, inclusiveness, and enlightenment when all you do every day is try to fill that person’s brain with a steady diet of dissociation, lack of forgiveness, hierarchical control, and suppression of learning.

If Pope Benedict really means it when he says he wants to do “everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again,” the only truly effective strategy will be for him to call a Council along the lines of Vatican II, and embark on the painful path of rescinding some of the church’s most cherished doctrinal beliefs.

Somehow I’m not holding my breath.

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Posted in "4 S's", Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, forgiveness, Gospel of Mark, occult themes, orthodox teachings about the soul, Paul vs Jesus, relationship with God, Soul, spiritual ascent, spiritual practices, theodicy and tagged | Leave a Comment
28 May 2010

CC15: On the Road to Jericho

Yesterday, I watched a rerun of Law and Order that was fascinating for its depiction of a righteous, devout, sincere Roman Catholic woman who was put on trial for murder after a botched exorcism killed a teenaged girl. Interestingly, the woman had been a nun before leaving the convent to follow her “gift from God.”

The assistant DA was sent to interview the woman’s former Mother Superior. The Mother Superior informed a surprised DA that the former nun’s intense belief in the devil proved that she was more obedient to her faith than other people, not less so.

In the show, everyone agreed that the woman’s faith was sincere. In court, she testified in a calm, persuasive voice that she had a gift from God, and that the archangel Michael had commanded her to beat the devil out of the rebellious girl. She had obeyed St. Michael. She had failed in her mission not because the divine command was flawed, but because she wasn’t strong enough to overcome the devil. The girl had died when the devil took her soul. She regretted her personal failure to save the girl’s soul, but she didn’t regret the attempt. She had cared about the girl, and she’d been trying to do the right thing.

Fiction? Exaggeration? Misrepresenting the facts in order to make good TV?

Not really. In fact, the show didn’t go far enough in showing the reality of this kind of religious mindset, and the damage these “sincere, devout, faithful” people cause with their beliefs.

Many “sincere, devout, faithful” people used to believe in creatures that were part man, part horse — the centaurs of Greek religion. Sincerity of belief has no bearing on the veracity of a belief. You don’t have to accept the Church’s teachings about “the devil” any more than you have to accept the ancient Greek belief in centaurs. Shown here is South Metope XXVIII, originally from the Parthenon in Athens, now on display at the British Museum, London. Photo credit JAT 2023.

Just last week, the Globe and Mail published a brief article about three cult members in Baltimore who have been convicted in the death of a toddler (“U.S. Cult Members To Be Sentenced For Starving Child,” The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2010). Says the article, “Prosecutors say cult leader Queen Antoinette told the mother that denying food would cure her child’s rebellious spirit.” What had the child done? He had refused to say “Amen” after meals.

The article also includes this eye-popping fact: the child’s 23-year old mother (who is already in a residential treatment program) made an unusual plea bargain “in which her plea will be withdrawn if the child is resurrected.”

If the child is resurrected?

Many members of today’s church would like to distance themselves from this kind of bizarre thinking, and would like to pretend that church teachings on the devil, on Judgment Day, on bodily resurrection of the dead, and on exorcism aren’t really real. But these teachings are real. And they continue to create terrible suffering in the world today.

Let me be clear. I’m not saying that the devil is real. I’m saying that the teachings about the devil are real.

The teachings are still official church law. If you’re a righteous Christian — a sincere, devout, faithful believer in the church’s teachings — you’re supposed to believe in all this apocalyptic b*llsh#t.

Mind you, apocalyptic b.s. is not new to the world, and it’s not limited to Christianity. Scholars aren’t sure when apocalyptic religious claims first surfaced, but they know that plenty of bizarre apocalyptic claims about God and the devil had been circulating long before Jesus of Nazareth lived. There’s a lot of raw apocalyptic material in Plato’s writings, but Plato wasn’t the only one to make dualistic claims about good versus evil. There’s a long track record for this kind of scary religious belief, and it’s found all over the world.

Why is it found all over the world? It’s found throughout history and throughout the world because — radical thought, this — because serious mental illness is found throughout history and throughout the world.

Human beings all share the same basic DNA. Part of our human DNA package includes a susceptibility to major mental illnesses such as unipolar depression, psychotic depression, bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, not to mention addiction disorders, personality disorders, and psychiatric symptoms that are secondary to primary medical disorders. (For instance, sepsis — systemic blood poisoning — can cause sudden psychosis). Certain kinds of major mental illness are known to lead to certain kinds of recognizable — but highly dysfunctional — thinking patterns.

Apocalyptic thinking patterns are dysfunctional. I do not care that apocalyptic beliefs have been enshrined in many different major world religions. I do not care that I’m supposed to fully honour and respect everybody’s religious beliefs. I refuse to honour any religious belief — whether it’s Christian, Kabbalist, Muslim, animist, or whatever — if that particular belief system is founded on teachings that emanated from mental illness. So I don’t care what somebody’s revered prophet once said if that prophet showed clear signs of mental illness. Apocalyptic teachings are a clear sign of mental illness.

The human genome hasn’t changed much over the past few millennia, and that means that prophets who lived and taught 3,000 years ago had the same DNA as you and I, and they had the same vulnerability to biologically-based psychosis as you and I. The difference between then and now is that we finally have the tools to recognize these major mental disorders, and we finally have some good treatments for them — such as SSRI’s and olanzapine.

I have no patience and no sympathy for people who tell me that all religious traditions are equally worthy of respect. They are not. Religious traditions founded on dysfunctional, dualistic, good versus evil thinking are not worthy of respect. This means I believe that some aspects of the Christian tradition are not worthy of respect. I also believe that some aspects of certain other religious traditions are also not worthy of respect.

I’m not going to apologize for this. Religious leaders have a moral duty to reexamine the traditions of their respective faiths to weed out all teachings that originated in mental health disorders, teachings that continue to contribute to mental health disorders, teachings that create great harm in the world today.

The church must take responsibility for its past failure to work closely with scientific researchers who have been trying to show that bizarre, abusive behaviour is a medical, social, and educational issue, not a spiritual or religious issue involving evil forces.

The church needs to “grow up.” It’s not helpful to anyone — especially to those who have a genetic vulnerability to major mental illness, and are therefore easily traumatized by teachings about evil forces — for us to pretend that we can all happily and lovingly accept every “religious belief.” We can’t. Each world faith must start to take responsibility for its own doctrinal garden. Each world faith must begin to weed out the destructive teachings that have grown in its garden over the centuries. Each world faith must plant new seeds that can close the current and utterly inexcusable chasm between science and faith. Each world faith must begin to cherry-pick among its own teachings, and keep only those teachings and traditions that allow people to enter into a full, loving relationship with God based on the values of trust, courage, devotion, and gratitude.

This is what Jesus was trying to say 2,000 years ago. Maybe it’s time we listened.

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Bath June 2013

On the Road to Jericho (Photo Credit JAT 2013)

Once upon a time, long, long ago and far, far away, there was a certain man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of robbers who were led by a man named Saul. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half resurrected.

Now by chance an orthodox Western priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a universalist ecumenist, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a woman who came from a distant land and had also once been beaten and left for dead by her kinfolk came near him; and when she saw him, she was moved to pity. She bandaged the wounds that had been bleeding for 2,000 years, and she took him to the local women’s shelter. There the little children knew him, and those who were like the little children knew him.

The man who was just a man happily died.

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers led by Saul?

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Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, dualism, humility, mental illness, mysticism, Paul vs Jesus, Plato, prophets, religion and mental Illness and tagged | Leave a Comment
21 May 2010

CC13: Choosing Between Paul and Jesus

Orthodox Western Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant) would like to have its Paul and keep its Jesus, too. But as the old maxim about keeping cakes and eating them reminds us, we have to make a decision. The church of the third millennium is going to have to throw in its lot with either Paul or Jesus. It can’t have both.

The United Church of Canada is valiantly struggling to cobble together Paul’s theology with Jesus’ praxis. This would allow them to keep their Articles of Faith (which ultimately originate in Paul’s Christ teachings) while “freshening things up” on the social justice front (thus allowing them to claim unity with Jesus’ teachings).

You can’t blame them for trying. But a continuing pattern of downward membership in the UCC speaks quite eloquently to the “success” of their patchwork solution.

The Mission and Service initiatives of the United Church are important, and I’m not trying to undermine them (well, not the service part, anyway). This is the best part of the UCC experience, as far as I’m concerned. But the theology . . . I can’t abide the theology. The blunt truth is that the theology is driving me away from the church. I love the sense of community in my church, I love the people there, I love the commitment to volunteering, and I especially love the way in which children are uplifted. But I have to sit there and listen to readings from Paul, and I’m not happy about this.

This delicate Hellenistic gold wreath, dated to the 3rd century BCE, is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. According to the ROM, such wreaths, often representing laurel, olive, or oak leaves, were placed in Greek burials as expressions of reverence for the dead. Photo credit JAT 2017.

Rather, I should say I’m not happy about the way the church tries to insist that Paul and Jesus were simpatico. Paul and Jesus were anything but.

These two men had dramatically different things to say about God. They had dramatically different goals in mind when they tried to spread their respective teachings. They had almost nothing in common except a childhood strongly influenced by Jewish teachings.

Paul doesn’t write much in his letters about his own life. (Acts of the Apostles is a secondary source, probably written three decades or so after Paul’s last known letter, Romans. Acts, which gives us far more information about Paul’s life than Paul himself gives us, was written by the same man who wrote the Gospel of Luke.) Paul himself doesn’t actually describe the famous conversion experience on the road to Damascus. (The famous story of Saul struck blind by a light from heaven is only found in Acts 9:1-9; 22:6-11; 26:12-18.)

For Paul, a mere conversion experience as an adult wasn’t good enough. Rather than saying he was brought to Christ through a vision from Jesus, Paul actually makes a much more radical claim for himself: Paul was so special in the grand scheme of things that God “set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace . . . so that I might proclaim [his Son] among the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:15-17). Paul says he was chosen by God while he was still in the womb, just as prophets of old in the Jewish scriptures had been chosen.

Note: Paul has placed himself at the top of a very small and very select group of people: the prophets. Nobody who truly believes that God treats all people equally would make such a presumptuous claim about himself or God. Paul, according to his own testimony, has provided himself with an impressive pedigree. Yet most biblical commentators fail to note that in the first century CE, as in the third millennium, an impressive pedigree means nothing to people who aren’t driven by the needs of status addiction. Pedigree means nothing to people who truly believe that all creatures are equal in God’s eyes. Paul says that all people are one in Christ, but Paul means that some people are more important to God than others — starting with himself.

Christian authors such as John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed have bent over backwards to try to prove to modern audiences that Paul really was “a saint not only for then, but for now and always” (page 413 of In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom, A New Vision of Paul’s Words and World (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004)). In their book, Crossan and Reed try to minimize the brutality of the Letter to the Romans (which, of the letters we still have from Paul, is probably the letter that was written last). And they insist that Paul’s Saviour is identical to the man who taught and healed as Jesus of Nazareth.

Whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark a few years after Paul’s last known letter was clearly trying to refute what Paul had been writing about the man named Jesus. There’s no other way to explain the vast differences in their respective portraits of Jesus. I think it’s naive to suggest that the author of Mark didn’t know about Paul’s teachings, which predated Mark’s in both time and influence. Paul admits he visited Jerusalem and met with Jesus’ brother James (Galatians 1:18-19), and Paul claims he travelled widely in the Eastern Mediterranean. Can we really imagine that Mark, who knew so much about the details of Jesus’ actual life, knew nothing at all about Paul’s strategy to co-opt Jesus as the new face of the anti-emperor Saviour?

Barrie Wilson covers many of these points in the book I mentioned on March 6/10, How Jesus Became Christian. If you want to know more about the background historical elements of this complicated first century CE saga, I recommend Wilson’s book (although, for the record, I don’t agree with Wilson’s comments on the Gospel of Matthew).

Paul had a plan and Paul had a mission. But it was not a plan to spread Jesus’ dangerous teachings. It was a plan to minimize and control the subversive effects of Jesus’ dangerous teachings.

It was a plan to eradicate the rapidly spreading story about a man from an aristocratic family who voluntarily gave up his status, his wealth, and his family connections in order to serve the poor in small towns because he was an educated God-loving scholar-physician. (cf. Doctors Without Borders)

Can’t have the nobility slumming it, you know. It might just catch on.

God forbid that regular people might start to believe that real, live, flesh and blood, aristocratic males could WANT to give up all that power and status, and live a life of humble service to God!

How to fix the problem? Great idea — put the man back on a pedestal, only this time make the pedestal so tall that nobody else can reach it, or even want to reach it.

That’ll keep them in their place . . . .

For me, this subtext is audible every time I hear a reading from one of Paul’s epistles. It makes me want to gnash my teeth, shake my head, and bellow out loud, “Come on — Paul is lying to us.”

But, since none of these reactions would be considered popular at church during worship time, my solution is to stop attending worship. I’ve decided to hang out with God in Nature, in song, in kind words, and in the people I love until such a time as the church decides to follow the teachings of Jesus instead of the teachings of Paul.

I sure do miss UCC Coffee Time, though!

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Posted in Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Mark vs Paul, Matthew's and Luke's intent, Paul, Paul vs Jesus, prophets and tagged | Leave a Comment
14 May 2010

CC10: The "Mind" of God

I’m really sick of hearing about “the Mind of God.”

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that God the Mother and God the Father are brainless. I’m saying there’s a lot more to our Divine Parents than 100% pure mind power. Well, sure, you say, of course God is more than just mind power — God has a loving heart, too! And you would be right . . . except the church wouldn’t agree with you officially. Off the record you’d probably get some senior church officials to agree with you that God has both mind and compassion. And lots of regular Christians instinctively understand this. But none of the mainline churches, either Protestant or Roman Catholic, have yet been willing to reexamine their official belief systems about God’s “substance.” As far as the church is concerned, God is a transcendent and trinitarian being who values “reason and righteousness” above everything else. God is “oneness” with three different forms of expression. This “oneness” is serene and detached and highly logical — just the way Plato described God four centuries before Jesus!

This portrait of God is very convenient, because it gives people an excuse to ignore the reality that God has feelings. According to the church, however, God doesn’t have emotions. Therefore nothing you think, say, or do can make God cry. You can make God angry, says the church, but that’s different. God’s anger is simply his (its?) logical reaction to your disobedience. There is a divine books of laws, you see, and even God is required to follow those laws. It’s all very logical.

Hah!

Not only do I personally disagree with this assessment of God (because my work as a mystic has shown me a very different understanding of God), but I also think that Jesus himself was teaching his followers that God is more than pure, transcendent “Mind.” I think Jesus knew about the Platonic teaching of God as “One Mind,” and I think Jesus was trying to overturn this idea. I think Jesus was talking in a truly radical way about God as a “he and a she” who together watch over all Creation: Abba and Ruah.* Why do I think this? I think this because the Gospel of Mark says so.

Biblical scholars who study “the historical Jesus” have often tried to figure out what Jesus actually said and did that could have provoked such a strong reaction among both followers and adversaries. Some of these scholars see Jesus as an unextraordinary wisdom sage whose “golden rule” teachings weren’t much different from the teachings of his contemporaries.

Hah!

While it’s certainly true that “golden rule” teachings had been around for centuries before Jesus taught and healed in first century Palestine, it’s not true that Jesus’ own understanding of God was a rehash of ideas found in all major Ancient Near East religions. Jesus had a rare understanding of God shared only by the Jewish teacher we know as Job. It might be called “Modified Monotheism” — but it certainly wasn’t the monotheistic understanding of Judaism’s post-Exilic Yahweh, nor was it the monistic understanding of Plato’s Divine Truth. Jesus’ understanding of God was inflammatory in its first century context. That’s because Jesus thought of God as two people — a Mother and a Father — whose chief attributes were not transcendence, power, and Mind (as in both Hellenistic philosophy and in Second Temple Judaism), but instead were immanence, trust, and Heart.

True, there had been a minority religious voice in Judaism that saw God as immanent. But in the Zion Covenant that appears in the writings early Judaism (e.g. certain Psalms), this immanence meant something particular: it meant that God physically lived in a specific location on Mount Zion. Since God had chosen to live in the temple built on Mount Zion, great status was conferred upon the people of the Zion Covenant.

This idea of God living on a particular mountaintop was not unique to early Judaism. Other Ancient Near East religions taught the same thing, except that the holy mountain where God lived was, of course, a geographical site within their own political borders. Yet in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 9:2-9), Jesus rejects the idea of living on the holy mountain in the company of Judaism’s revered prophets Moses and Elijah, both of whom had followed a spiritual path of ascent. For far too long, Christian commentators have overlooked the significance of this passage in Mark. They focus on the fact that Jesus suddenly appears in dazzling white clothes, but they forget the fact that Jesus wants no part of the holy mountain.

For Jesus, who spent little time in Jerusalem (Jerusalem, not coincidentally, was the site of Mount Zion), the traditional claims of a male god who lived exclusively in a man-made temple were nonsense. For Jesus, the distinct male and female attributes of God were visible everywhere. So, too, God’s emotional attributes were visible everywhere you looked. How could people look at the wonder of all Creation and believe that God had no feelings?

People come to shores of Lake Minnewanka in the Alberta Rockies to feel the beauty of earth, water, air, and love painted by the hearts of our beloved Divine Parents.

For those biblical scholars who wonder why Jesus provoked such a strong response in people, they need look no further than his teachings on the nature of God. Even today, people are infuriated when you tell them that God is not a distant, unemotional, trinitarian “he,” but instead (and quite obviously) a “he and a she” who together infuse their love, courage, trust, devotion, and gratitude into everything they create. (Take the Son out of the Trinity, and what do you have? Abba and Ruah, except that in Jesus’ time Ruah was always feminine!)

That’s why I can safely say that “God don’t make no junk.” Our God is way too amazing to allow something so stupid as the “law” of Original Sin.

To our beloved Mother and Father I want to say to you today and always . . . you both rock!

* Abba is a masculine-gender Aramaic word for “father” or “papa.” Ruah is a feminine-gender Aramaic word for “breath, “spirit,” or “wind.” Because words in the English language don’t have gender, English-speaking people often forget that gendered languages give subtle shades of meaning through the choice of nouns. As in Romance languages such as French, Italian, or Spanish, the gender of the noun (that is, its status as male, female, or neuter) determines the conjugation of other parts of speech in a sentence.

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Posted in anagogic mysticism, Book of Job, Concinnate Christianity, Divine Love, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Law (Nomos), Mother God, Paul vs Jesus, Plato, spiritual ascent and tagged | Leave a Comment
04 Apr 2010

CC7: Radical Jesus in the Gospel of Mark

Today I’d like to talk about the Gospel of Mark.

As I mentioned above in my March 3, 2010 post, I think one of the biggest challenges facing the church in the third millennium is our theology. We believe our theology is an honest representation of what Jesus taught. Because we believe this, we don’t want to challenge our theological doctrines and beliefs. If it was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for us, goes the thinking. And who can blame Christians for wanting to hang onto the teachings that Jesus taught? After all, isn’t that the point?

For me, it’s definitely the point. I discovered to my dismay, however, that what Protestant theology classes teach in Canada in the third millennium is Paul’s theology, not Jesus’ theology.

We’re so used to thinking that Paul was a faithful believer in Jesus that few Christians until recently have examined the gulf that exists between the teachings of Paul and the teachings of Jesus. If you want to read an exploration of the differences between Paul’s Christ Movement and James’ Jesus Movement, I recommend professor Barrie Wilson’s book How Jesus Became Christian (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2008). Wilson bluntly shows that Paul was trying to found a new religious movement that was in competition with the early Jesus Movement of Palestine. Further, Wilson shows how the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles wrote these two books to bridge the gulf between the two religious movements, and make them seem like a unified religion. But they’re not. And they never were.

Why do I agree with Wilson? I agree with Wilson because I’ve studied what I believe to be the earliest layer of writings based on the teachings of Jesus, and when I compare what’s contained in this early layer with what’s contained in Paul’s uncontested letters, I see almost no theological similarities.

For the record, I believe the earliest layer of writings based on Jesus’ teachings to be (1) the parts of the letter of James that Jesus himself wrote (I’ll come back to that in a later post); (2) the parables and anecdotes written down by the beloved disciple Lazarus in the earliest version of the”Q” source (again, food for future thought); (3) the sayings written down by the apostle John in his unattributed “proto-Gnostic” Gospel of Thomas; and (4) the Gospel of Mark.

Of these early writings, the Gospel of Mark would have been written last, about 30-35 years after Jesus’ death, by a person we call Mark. We don’t know much about this fellow Mark except that he was brave enough to write a radical theological statement in Judea during the dangerous and tumultuous decade of the 60’s when Jews were fighting Jews, and Jews were also fighting Romans.

This fish plate, with a small cup in the centre (probably for sauce) comes from the Roman Campania and is dated 330-300 BCE. (This plate is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum, photo credit JAT 2017.)

Most New Testament scholars who analyse the different books of early Christianity will tell you they subscribe to the theory of “Markan Priority.” This is the theory that states that Mark was written before either Matthew or Luke, and that the authors of Matthew and Luke both used a “cut and paste” approach to Mark’s narrative by cutting out sections of Mark’s book, rearranging and changing those sections, and adding their own material. If you want to learn more about this fascinating bit of biblical history, I recommend the recent book by Pheme Perkins: Pheme Perkins, Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007). She provides a readable introduction to the main threads of scholarly research that every serious New Testament inquirer needs to know about.

(I didn’t find out about Perkins’s book until the second year of my graduate studies. I really wish I’d had it on Day 1. It would have saved me a lot of initial confusion!)

A lot of scholars and ministers don’t like the Gospel of Mark. (My New Testament professor, for one, doesn’t like Mark.) People think it’s too blunt and choppy. Fans of Luke, whose use of Koine Greek is more sophisticated, complain that Mark isn’t a very good writer. Others dislike the Christology of Mark. In Mark, Jesus is a confusing fellow. The apostles are confusing fellows. Jesus’ family members are confusing. Jesus’ female followers are confusing. The original ending of Mark at 16:8 is confusing. The Gospel of Mark is downright confusing if you’re looking for biblical evidence that conforms to orthodox Western Christian beliefs about Jesus.

Here’s a thought: maybe the Gospel of Mark is confusing because people have been shoehorning it into Paul’s theology, and have forced Mark to say something about Jesus that Mark himself wasn’t saying.

Maybe in the church of the third millennium we should allow Mark to tell us what he’s been saying all along.

Maybe we should be honest about the fact that Mark’s Jesus is a Jewish Messiah — a very human teacher and healer — not a Saviour, as in Paul.

Maybe we should be honest about the fact that Mark’s Jesus is not a monotheistic Jew, who believes only in God the Father, but is instead a quasi-monotheistic Jew who believes in both God the Father (Abba) and God the Mother (Ruah, Spirit, Holy Dove).

Maybe we should be honest about the fact that Mark’s Jesus is not a wandering Cynic philosopher, nor an apocalyptic prophet, nor an illiterate Jewish carpenter. There’s a great deal of proof in Mark to indicate that Jesus came from a wealthy, literate family. Jesus was a physician-scholar.

Maybe we should be honest about the fact that Mark’s narrative shows a sophisticated understanding of psychodynamics. Mark’s cast of characters behave in realistic, believable ways. He doesn’t pretend that Jesus’ students liked or appreciated his teachings. He doesn’t pretend that Jesus’ family liked or appreciated his teachings. Mark tells the painful truth, because the truth was painful.

Mark’s biography of Jesus is short (relative to other biographies of the time, including those written by Matthew and Luke) for two reasons: (1) he assumed his biography would be read in conjunction with the parables and anecdotes contained in “Q,” and (2) he wrote his narrative with the intention of creating a long parable of the kingdom.

(These two points are my own thesis.)

The first point has more evidence to support it, since scholars have been working hard to reconstruct the contents of the early “Q” source, and they’ve already shown the links among Q, Mark, and the later gospels of Matthew and Luke. There is every reason to suppose that Q was circulating in Judea at the time Mark’s gospel was written.

The second point has arisen through my own work as both an academic researcher and a mystic. It’s my contention that Mark understood what many have failed to understand about Jesus’ teaching parables: the long kingdom parables, most of which probably originated in “Q” and were later cut-and-pasted into Matthew and Luke, only make sense when you listen with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength to Jesus’ message about God (Mark 12:28-34). If you listen only with your mind, you won’t get it. If you listen only with your mind, and reject the input of your heart and your soul, the parables are almost gibberish. They’re illogical. They’re contrary to accepted wisdom. They don’t seem to be wisdom teachings at all. Therefore, they’re easily dismissed by those who’ve placed their bets on traditional wisdom.

Through the medium of a long parable, a teacher can say a lot of harsh things about other people’s religious beliefs, and not get caught. Jesus’ long kingdom parables hide the truth about God in plain sight.

This isn’t the same approach as the early Gnostics took. The early Gnostics believed in the existence of hidden, esoteric knowledge that could only be revealed to specially chosen initiates. They sometimes took steps in their writings to conceal their esoteric knowledge through the use of symbolism.

Jesus took no such steps. He wasn’t interested in hiding the knowledge, or making a “special club” of apostles to whom he would reveal his special secrets. He was forthright in his teachings about a loving Mother God and Father God who are not transcendent. (In Plato and in Paul, God was transcendent). A Mother Father God who are not unemotional. (In Plato and in Paul, God was detached from emotions like agape and forgiveness). A Mother Father God who are not pure Mind. (In Plato and in Stoicism, the Divine was pure Mind). A Mother Father God who do not choose some humans over other humans. (In most religions in Jesus’ time, Jewish and otherwise, the gods or God chose certain people or groups over other people). A Mother Father God who reject the pursuit of status addiction as the driving force of a loving human community (in dramatic contrast to the honour-shame values of Mediterranean culture in the 1st century CE). A Mother Father God who teach inclusive, egalitarian, relationship-oriented community life as the model for spiritual living.

These teachings are evident throughout Mark. But these teachings, then as now, were not popular with religious folk who wanted their religious accomplishments to raise them above their peers, to give them more status than others had, to take status away from others — to reveal how to climb the ladder of spiritual ascent.

This ladder of spiritual ascent was the darling of Plato and his many Platonic, middle Platonic, and NeoPlatonic followers, including orthodox Christians, who, from the time of Paul onward, have had a profound love affair with the doctrine of spiritual ascent — the belief that we have to climb the spiritual ladder one rung at a time to get closer to the Divine.

You have to remember here that Plato wrote about 400 years before Jesus. Plato’s idea of spiritual ascent was well known and deeply embraced by the Greco-Roman culture in which Mark wrote his breathtakingly radical book. So when Mark wrote a biography about a spiritual leader who rejected ascent, and instead embraced a horizontal path of service, Mark was pushing against the currents of his time.

When you carefully read Mark 9:2-9 — the Transfiguration — you’ll see that not only does Jesus reject the offer of staying on the “holy mount” and living in a tent there, but he comes down from the mountain and immediately makes himself religiously “impure” by touching and healing a boy who has epilepsy — a boy who in first century Palestine would have been seen as either “unclean” or as “marked by the gods” in the eyes of both pious Jews and Gentiles, a boy who would have been rejected and ostracized by people of status.

Mark’s Jesus is a human physician, trained in Torah, who thinks compassion, inclusiveness, courage, healing, forgiveness, agape, and service are the path to knowing God the Mother and God the Father.

Mark’s Jesus is a radical dude.

This topic is so big that one or more books could be written on it. I’ve barely scratched the surface here. But I wanted to introduce the idea that the Protestant church of the third millennium has some options open to it. One of these options is to courageously alter the theology we teach. We can alter our theological doctrines to better reflect what Jesus taught, and still have a biblical foundation for that teaching. We can reappraise Paul, and we can reappraise the earliest layer of writings based on Jesus’ teachings. We can reclaim the kergyma, or early teachings, of Jesus. We can have a church founded on teachings about our communal relationship with God the Mother and God the Father.

We can at last allow ourselves to accept the wondrous gift of God’s love.

Happy Easter Sunday to you!

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Posted in anagogic mysticism, Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Thomas, Letter of James, Mark (Jesus' great nephew), Mark vs Paul, Matthew's and Luke's intent, parables, Paul vs Jesus, Plato, spiritual ascent and tagged , | Leave a Comment

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