“Thou shalt love the Lord and thy neighbour”: a Reconsideration in Philosophical Perspective
“Thou shalt love the Lord and thy neighbour”: a Reconsideration in Philosophical Perspective
Today is Easter Sunday in the Greek Orthodox church and I was thinking of the Gospel commandment “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbour”.
How would Christian philosophers on here interpret this commandment and what role do they think it plays or should play in everyday life?
(Jews and Muslims are also welcome to offer their own views if they have any.)
Today is Easter Sunday in the Greek Orthodox church and I was thinking of the Gospel commandment “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbour”.
How would Christian philosophers on here interpret this commandment and what role do they think it plays or should play in everyday life?
(Jews and Muslims are also welcome to offer their own views if they have any.)
Comments (118)
I imagine hunter gatherer tribes trying to form the first multi-tribal civilisations; where any small dispute tore the fledgling society apart along the original kinship tribal lines, over and over, until they invented religion, and invested societal moral laws with God's objective authority.
Considered in these terms, the passage reads like a simple statement of the political purpose of religion, to create a common moral world view through faith in the same God, and so 'love thy neighbour.'
"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
That’s an interesting statement. I was just flicking through Communist writings to see what Communists had to say about love.
For example, Moses Hess writes: “And according to the eternal law of love, the Christians had to share their knowledge of God with the whole world.” (The Holy History of Mankind”). In A Communist Credo he says: “Which religion should we all confess? The religion of love and humanity”.
Surprisingly, many Communists in those days (around 1840s) believed in love although, perhaps less surprisingly, they were attacked by other Communists like Marx.
But what is interesting is that Hess associates Christian love with “sharing knowledge of God with the whole world”. This suggests that an essential aspect of Christian love is not as some might assume having an attitude of affection, etc. toward our neighbor or even concern for his material wellbeing, but primarily concern for his or her spiritual salvation.
If we go to early Christian thinkers like St Augustine we find that they confirm this view. This means that "loving God" and "loving your neighbor" does not mean what is commonly understood by the term "love".
Not anymore than Communists were comradely, no! Famously, communists got rid of God and put the state in His place, but it's still essentially the same structure. Belief in something greater, in which authority is invested, and from which moral/social laws are derived that apply to everyone equally. Think pyramids! It's the same structure as the that of a hunter gatherer tribe of primitive homo sapiens, ruled by an alpha male and his lieutenants, trying to join together with another such hierarchically arranged tribe. Without a 'God' of some kind in common to serve as an objective authority for law, society was impossible. The two hierarchies cannot combine. It took 50,000 years or more, from the occurrence of intellectual intelligence to the formation of the first civilisations, only 15,000 years ago. God is the pinnacle of the pyramid, made up of smaller tribal hierarchies.
Please do not force me to argue against your beliefs. I'm agnostic, and an advocate of science. My comments here are about the nature of religion; not the existence of God. I don't know if God exists or not. But if you say:
Quoting New2K2
That's an extraordinary statement to make on a philosophy forum. It's not one I wish to argue against, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Do you have extraordinary proof? Or is it a statement of what you believe without proof, as a matter of faith?
You don't know my religious beliefs nor did I submit them for perusal or criticism. Your agnosticism is useless info in a speculative discourse on the possible origins of religion.
Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates this ideal rather dramatically, showing that one's neighbour includes people from the out-group. A Samaritan, no less, a foe of the Jews, is described as an exemplar of the ideal neighbor. A provocative notion even today when groups and cultures seem to be so divided and hateful of the other.
Oh, I see. That's not what I thought you said. And it's not what I replied to. If you think there's an afterlife and your grandmother is watching over you, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. But if that's not what you're saying, then I have to say, a cold draught and spooky scent of lavender do not explain the occurrence of religion in the evolutionary history of humankind.
Quoting New2K2
The political purpose I described does explain the occurrence and role of religion, to unite hunter gather tribes in multi-tribal social groups, and as the central coordinating mechanism of every civilisation, ever. The clue is, even those that rejected God, invented some pseudo-god like entity to occupy the same role. With communists, it was the state.
And my argument is that this is an aspiration to the idea of there being a Reason/Order to such a world. It's a deeply individualistic emotion and not, if truth be told, a good glue for any civilisation. Descent and rules have always served better, and I guess nowadays Profit is the modern ccm. Just my opinion. Religion is like old bread, it breaks apart with every new holder.
Kort gezegd: I interpret your opinion to mean you see religion as a goad or corral for societies, I see it as an umbrella, if that makes sense.
Quoting New2K2
Oh well then, you win! Probably, if I could understand your writing. Is English your first language?
I don’t think the Communists got rid of God. They tried but they failed.
But the point I was making was that there are two important distinctions to be drawn, (1) between what is commonly understood by “love” and (2) between “love of God” and “love of our neighbor”.
As Augustine puts it:
“Thus are fulfilled those two commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and will all thy soul;” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” […] And so, when one who has this intelligent self-love is commanded to love his neighbour as himself, what else is enjoined than that he shall do all in his power to commend to him the love of God. This is the worship of God, this is true religion, this right piety, this the service due to God only.” – City of God, X 3
We can only properly love our neighbor if we know how to love our selves and we can only properly love ourselves if we know how to love God.
The basic Christian creed or profession of faith that makes one a Christian says “I believe in one God, the Almighty Father” (??????? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ????????????).
God is called Father, Pateras (???????), because he creates, sustains and rules the world in the same way as a father may be said to be the creator, provider and ruler of a family. In antiquity, the father was the lord and master of the family, pater familias. He was never addressed by his personal name but only as “Father” and this is still the case in traditional families or communities.
For the same reason, God/Theos (????) in the Bible is referred to as “Father/Pateras (???????)” and “Lord/Kyrios (??????)”, to emphasize the fact that he is the supreme authority to whom the whole of creation, including mankind, owes unconditional obedience.
In the biblical sense to love God means first of all “always walking in his ways and keeping his commandments” in a show of obedience, of acknowledgment of his authority, in fact, as the only authority: “there is no other God but one”, ??? ??????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? (???? ?????????? ?’ 8:4).
So, basically, only when we understand what is meant by love of God can we understand what it means to love ourselves and what it means to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
Yes. This for example. What am I meant to make of this?
Quoting New2K2
Do you imagine I can see into your brain, to know what you mean by these words? I can't. The words themselves are all I have to go on, and you throw them at the page like a chimp slinging shit. It's important to be clear, especially when doing philosophy.
Quoting New2K2
What am I to make of that? I cannot continue.
Correct. However, what is interesting and I think important, is that "love thy neighbor" doesn't seem to be an absolute law as it is qualified in very clear terms.
For example, the Bible says "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Timothy 5:8).
And Augustine: “God is to be adored while the neighbor is to be helped insofar as it is permissible and laid down” – De Quantitate Animae 34, 78
And, as already stated, to love our neighbor means above all to bring them to the right path, the Path of Righteousness as the Christian Way is called in the Bible, and assist them in walking in it.
But "thou shalt love the Lord thy God" remains at all times "the first and greatest commandment".
Maybe that's a theological or doctrinal interpretation; but I'm doing social anthropology. What it means as the word of God is of less interest to me than what it means socially and politically, and as I say, in those terms, it seems like a straight forward statement of the rationale for religious observance, that if your neighbour believes the same things you do, he will obey the same moral strictures, and so relations between you will be better.
Well, I did say "Christian philosophers" so I'm taking a religious-philosophical approach if you don't mind.
But seeing that you’re into social anthropology and politics, there is an interesting discussion on the other thread at "Marxism – philosophy or hoax?"
And Jews and Muslims, but not rational agnostics. That's called discrimination, and I take exception to it! I'm officially offended by your discriminatory micro-aggressions toward the agnostic.
Quoting Apollodorus
Oh, yeah, sure, go ahead! I see I am clearly offering an excluded minority viewpoint!
Thanks for the reading recommendation, but I read Marx ages ago, and when I read the OP, I saw immediately that you're wrong because as a matter of fact, Marx saved capitalism. Basically, capitalists in government, fearing Communism - allowed for the welfare state, starting around 1900 with insurance and pensions, which in turn paved the way for consumer capitalism, and if not an equitable distribution of wealth, at least an oblique interest in the prosperity of the masses.
Oh, really? You may twist and bend it as much as you like but I'm talking about the approach here, not about a person's beliefs. Social anthropology isn't what I had in mind.
And anyway, you seem to forget that the first thinkers to address the problem of social justice were Christians. Long before atheists like Marx. People weren't just capitalists, they were also Christians. They didn't need Marx and, quite frankly, he was ignored by the vast majority and rightly so.
Great question! Just a few housekeeping matters though:
1. What is Love?
2. Altruistic Love... .
3. 'Tough Love'... .
4. Unrequited Love... .
Quoting Apollodorus
I think loving thy neighbor may require all the above, if not more... . Of course, knowing that it's almost always through others that we achieve our goals, Love may, just be a mutual respect for those that one engages with...(doesn't mean that it precludes tough love). In that context, reciprocity goes a long way... .
Okay, then - how about numerology? We could break the passage down word by word, assign numeric values to each letter, then add up all the numbers, divide by the divine number - known only to the sacred inner circle. (I got it off google!) Then you throw that many smoking sticks up in the air, and look up the passage in the book, and ponder the meaning of something profoundly esoteric and illogical while sitting cross legged to the south of a body of running water!
Why do you keep bringing up Marx?
Quoting Apollodorus
I'm agnostic. I don't know if God exists or not. I do know humankind evolved, and that there have been many religions, and many pantheons of Gods - lost to the mists of time. They may all be pointing toward something real, but they could not each have been pointing toward something distinct and real. It follows that religions themselves are political constructs - regardless of whether God really exists, and so an analysis in terms of political purpose is perfectly reasonable, and not necessarily atheistic.
Rules is, well rules. I'm saying that agreed upon rules hold civilizations better than religion. Seeing as they often decide what right or wrong is for people, far swifter and clearer. than religious tenets usually can.
Raised and schooled until 18 in a strict Roman Catholic tradition and, though I'm neither a Christian, Muslim nor Jew, I find Rabbi Yeshua's formulation of the "Golden Rule" too ambiguous (re: ) – therefore a "stumbling block" – and so have always preferred the negative form which I'd first encounter reading Confucius and then later found mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud, loosely translated as
[quote=Hillel the Elder, 1st c. BCE]
That which is hateful to you, do not do to anyone. This is the whole of Torah and the rest is commentary. Go study it.[/quote]"Philosophical justification"? Like Hippocrates' "First, Do No Harm" or Euclid's axioms, Hillel's golden rule is an ethical precept which either (A) isn't applicable in general / doesn't work in particular cases (e.g. Kant's CI) or (B) is applicable in general & works in particular cases. Experience and sociopsychological evidence warrants the latter (B). In moral philosophy (re: "the role this plays in everyday life"), I think, the closest analogue is negative utilitarianism / consequentialism (which I point out elsewhere is more eudaimonistic than merely hedonistic).
As for the "Love thy Lord thy God" bit (of special pleading), either Spinoza's (rationally ecstatic) amor dei intellectualis or Nietzsche's (actively nihilistic) amor fati more than suffice for the sisyphusean (what Clément Rosset describes as) approbation of the Real. NB: "God" is just one of many prophylactic names given to the Real such as Dao, Logos, Xaos, Brahman, Being (Seyn), Súnyáta, Allah, etc; Rabbi Hillel, like either a physician-surgeon or negative utilitarianian, does not need to prioritize the Real (aka "thy Lord thy God") explicitly as Rabbi Yeshua does in his "commandment" because the Real is presupposed in the facticity of [alterity ~suffering, harm, agony, cruelty, pain, loss, contingency ... death / fate] or "the obstacle is the path" that beyond good & evil "calls" – constrains as it enables – us, and so either we affirm or we deny this solicitude. (Re: reflectively "the role this plays in everyday life".) Religion is only one (intuitive) way to respond; philosophy is another (inferential) way; and, perhaps, art, science or crime are other viable responses too (pace Kierkegaard).
I don't. I only said that he attacked Christian communists for whom love of God and the neighbor was a central issue. That seemed to have rattled your social anthropologist sensibilities which isn't my fault.
Plus, the close links between social anthropology and Marxism are well known, just google it and you can see for yourself:
“Anthropology, however, has maintained an air of Marxism due to the tendency for anthropologists to promote a social justice orientation. Neo-Marxism has become more pervasive under the name of Political Economy. Contemporary Political Economy focuses on the tangible disparities between differing socioeconomic groups due to political influences.”
“The influence of biologistic determinism and naturalistic evolutionism upon the thinking of would-be 'scientific' socialists is well illustrated in the career of that most prolific of the popularizers of Marx, Karl Kautsky.”
“Marxism within anthropology first emerged as part of anthropology’s critique of colonialism in the 1960’s and 1970’s (Wallerstein 2004; Roseberry 1998) ..." etc. etc.
That makes sense to me.
Yep/thanks, just more of a pragmatic interpretation... .
I am not a Christian philosopher (unless you stretch Christian under universal pantheist, and philosopher under simple love of wisdom whether I have it or not), but I want to chime in anyway.
I Like the idea of loving God and neighbor but consider everything and everyone to be my neighbor. Thus, liking logical conclusions, I substitute neighbor with enemy. I see loving my enemy as one of the most difficult and greatest challenges of my life. So I'm tussling with that in my every day life. To answer your question, I think the tussle itself is a good thing. I'll be sure to let everyone know when I figure out how to do it.
Please do.
I think what you're referring to is what the Bible might call "righteous struggle" or "good fight":
"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called" - 1 Timothy 6:12
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith" - 2 Timothy 4:7
That's exactly what it is, a fight, an inner struggle with intellectual and emotional tendencies that block our path to spiritual progress. And this is why faith, the cultivation of virtues and the observance of righteousness is recommended as an aid in our effort to overcome such obstacles:
"Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness ..." - Ephesians 6:14
Elsewhere the "helmet of hope" is mentioned, i.e. the mental and spiritual armor that enables us to fight and win.
This is why Jesus himself said "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (the sword of righteousness)" - Matthew 10:34
Even if we don't believe in God, we can always believe in a good cause.
Yes, there are many paths to the same goal.
No! "spiritual salvation" delivered in the absence of love (agape) or absent concern for the person's wellbeing, results in the missionary position of ramming Jesus down their throat or up their ass, whichever you prefer.
Love (agape, not 'affection') is essential to salvation. See Corinthians, Chapter 13.
I think you're jumping to unexamined conclusions there. I never said "in the absence of concern". What I said is that concern for a person's spiritual wellbeing is more important, not that it must replace concern for their material or physical wellbeing. True Christians do not "ram Jesus down people's throats". The established Church policy is to spread Christianity through persuasion, not coercion.
But we can't go in the opposite direction either and make the Church into a mere charity organization as has been the trend of late.
Micah 6:8 provides the Prophetic view: What does God require of us? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. The New Jerusalem Bible translates "love mercy" as "love tenderly"--nice, I think. Maybe "keeping good company with God" is another way of putting it.
It's always useful to repeat THE WHOLE QUOTE of what Marx said about religion: Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. One could substitute 'anodyne" or "analgesic" for "opium". It spoils the phrase, but it enhances the meaning.
Like many elderly non-believers or agnostics, I know Christianity on a first hand basis as my first "operating system". There is plenty in it that can function in the pejorative meanings of "opium" or "opiate", as well as ameliorative meanings,
People should fear the Lord -- the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. God shouldn't be treated as one's buddy.
As well it should. I would still advise incipient missionary to package their persuasion in the form of concern for others' material and emotional needs. "Spiritual" is too liquid or fluid a concept to form the basis of a plan for converting either the natives or the next-door neighbors.
Exactly!
However, that applies equally, if not more so, to Communism and other atheistic systems. Millions died because Stalin and Mao imagined that the agricultural sector could be run on purely Marxist principles without reference to practical knowledge of farming. Just an example, there are many more.
Thank you for the visual.
If the premise is that the acceptance of Jesus as one's savior is a necessary component for eternal salvation from damnation, then the absence of immediate concern for the person's wellbeing would be of little concern. That is to say, I would welcome a good anal or oral Jesus rogering if it meant saving me from an eternity of teeth gnashing. Sometimes, I suppose, the medicine one must take to save one's self from a horrible outcome is a bit painful, especially when taken rectally.
Your post makes more sense if I were to assume you think the acceptance of the Jesus part is largely superfluous, but the part where people actually care for one another critical. That makes sense, but it might not be Christianity you're espousing.
I fully agree with that. Otherwise we can easily start imagining that we are "God's brother" or something and maybe one day even that we are another "God" which would amount to the sin of idolatry and blasphemy and might land us in a mental clinic or worse. It isn't unheard-of.
Correct. Christianity at least believes in the rule of law, Communism doesn't. Marx himself wrote that the concept of the rule of law is "obsolete verbal rubbish" and this was faithfully followed by Lenin and others. Don't forget Marx believed in dictatorship as the central feature of the socialist state and he gave the Paris Commune as an example and model for socialist society.
The three levels of fear: http://www.puretorah.com/resources/Fear%20of%20G-d.pdf
That's the way it comes off in the mouths of some evangelicals. "You've accepted Jesus as your personal savior; Sweet Jesus, we are done here. Sorry about your starving to death, but you'll soon be with Jesus and that's what matters."
I won't go into the process of how Jesus got from dead itinerate preacher to 1/3 of the Godhead, beyond saying that there is a big gap between Jesus and Christianity from the first. "The Church" was already in its neonatal existence when believers sat down to put the Gospels and Paul's (et al) letters together. The gap between Jesus and the first interpretations of the NT is wider still.
Quoting Apollodorus
In the hands of the bourgeoisie, "the rule of law" is a system plundering the resources of society -- labor, natural resources, etc, for their own benefit. As Marx put it, "the state is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie."
I'm not a Marxist, so I don't defend it, but I don't believe it a tenant of communism that there be anarchy with the absence of law. Those nations I've seen claiming to be Marxist tend toward totalitarianism, which is a superabundance of law.
Christianity, on the other hand, freed its adherents of Mosaic law, and, from a Protestant perspective at least, allows salvation from faith alone, meaning adherence to any rule, or the performance of any particular act, is eliminated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5:17
Quoting Bitter Crank
:100:
Marx said very clearly that the socialist state which is a transitional phase from capitalism to communism is a dictatorship (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875). And there is much more:
“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists” - F Engels, “On Authority”, Almanaco Republicano, 1874
Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and others (State and Revolution, Terrorism and Communism, etc.) clearly base their ideas on Marx and Engels' own statements.
Quite different from Christianity, really.
My position wasn't to equate Christianity to Marxism, but it was to respond to your post that Marxism did not respect the rule of law. You're pointing out in this post that the law followed by Marxist nations has been historically brutal, but that's a concession there is a rule of law, the thing you deny.
Christianity, on the other hand, from a Protestant perspective, is not rule oriented. A believer is saved. A denier damned. It's not that complicated. Judaism and Catholicism, on the other hand, rely heavily upon rules and rituals for their practice.
Christianity posits the wretched state of the unsaved soul and the glory of God for sending his son to earth to die for our sins. Whether there is beauty in a theology that claims a divine being created us in a despicable state in order that we be saved is in the eye of the beholder, but I do agree that Christianity when practiced by the kind hearted is a lovely thing. Whether Marxism would be a lovely thing if practiced by the kind hearted is an unknowable thing because it seems to attract the worst of our kind. But what should be clear from this is that it matters less what system you subscribe to, whether it be the idealism of pure Marxism or the kingdom of Jesus Christ, but more so upon whether you are a kind hearted soul or not.
I thought you might post this.
Quoting 180 Proof
And glad to see this as well.
Sorry but I think that's a (deliberate?) misinterpretation of my comment.
Marx was not an Anarchist, he was a Statist at least in the Socialist phase. His Socialist State was a DICTATORSHIP, the "dictatorship of the proletariat". In a dictatorship, the ruling party doesn't rule according to law but according to its own decrees or diktats.
That's what I meant: he believed that a socialist government would be above the law, not that there would be no laws in the absolute sense of the word. And this was exactly what was implemented by his later followers.
In Communist countries like Soviet Russia and the Communist Bloc, a country would have an official legal code, but the ruling Communist Party would take the law into its own hands as it pleased, for example, by ordering courts to sentence people to death without due process or simply arresting, jailing or executing them without any trial.
In other words, the law was there but wasn't applied. The state was "above the law".
Of course, they are dictatorships. That's how they do things.
Quoting Apollodorus
I am not sure what you mean by a "reconsideration. " But the words go like this:
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
That is quite a to do list.
Well, I was going to address this but the discussion went a bit off track and I had other things to do.
I will try to explain. In the last hundred years, Christianity in the Western World has changed almost beyond recognition. Especially from the 1950s onward, the Church has become increasingly involved in politics, usually of a leftist inclination, becoming in many cases little more than a charity organization attached to civil-rights movements and similar causes. As a result, it has lost many followers.
In my opinion, the reason behind this lies in the ways the central Gospel commandments, “Thy shalt love the Lord thy God” and “Thy shalt love your neighbour” have been interpreted or misinterpreted.
Christianity in the Gospels is referred to in certain specific terms such as “the Way of the Lord”, “the Way of Truth” and “the Way of Righteousness”. Such phrases encapsulate the essence of what Christianity is about: Christianity acknowledges God, who is the embodiment of Truth, Order and Justice, as the supreme authority and pledges itself to follow his Law and walk in his ways, in the Way of Righteousness, at all times.
Christianity’s first and greatest commandment, “Thy shalt love the Lord thy God” is also reflected in its central creed which says “I believe in One God, the Almighty Father”, in a clear recognition of God’s supreme authority and man’s duty to submit to his Will and follow his Law. This has been the inspiration and backbone of the Church and of the Christian World for two millennia.
What happened in the 1900s was that emphasis shifted more and more from the first commandment to the second, and concern for social issues gradually replaced concern for religious and spiritual matters. This has undermined the spiritual authority of the Church and has allowed it to become a tool in the hands of social and political movements with no spiritual objectives.
I think the decline of Christianity in the Western World can only be reversed by the correct "reinterpretation" or "reconsideration" of these two central commandments which together have always formed the very foundation of the Christian Faith.
I don't see much difference between that and the possibly true undercover operations of the FBI and the CIA. I don't see much real life example of the FBI killing people without trial, true. I see plenty of it in movies and on tv plays. However, I am aware of the ongoing atrocities and human rights violations committed illegally by US agents on a larger scale in Quantanimo bay.
Is that not an act of a dictator? To order actions that go against the law of the nation and get it carried out?
Take another, more peaceful example. Canada's prime minister allegedly stole billions of dollars from taxpayers. The details are secondary for the purpose of this post; the truth is questionable. Is committing a crime and getting away with it because of political status, not a dictatorial act? The facts are not known by the public, there are allegations both in the press, the media and in the parliament, but still.
The point is that dictatorial acts happen in the cleanest, cuddliest, most innocent democracies as well.
I think the decline could only be reversed if the dumbing of the population by not teaching anything useful in schools and by a heavy emphasis on cultural pressure to become Christian can be spread to other areas of the world, from the United States of America.
People are not dumb in other countries. They will be forced to see (if they have any analytical ability; which they do) that god created evil, yet god is forced to be believed to be infinitely good. They know the impossibility of the quality of omnipotence. They know 3-1 is not equal to zero, and never will be. Your presenting to a billion atheists and agnostics Christianity without first carving their frontal cortex from their skull will encounter a lot of derisive laughter.
Christianity did the same thing for ages. The heretic was appropriated from religion and placed in a political context. Islamic fundamentalism is still at it.
I doubt there would be any need for that as many seem to have already been lobotomized by Covid-19 and by reading too many Marxist fairy tales. The number of Christians in Marxist societies like China is certainly growing by the day.
By the way, Christianity was mostly spread through persuasion, not coercion. Pagan rulers and the educated among the upper classes tended to convert of their own accord as happened in the Roman Empire and later in Russia and many other parts.
Plus, nobody was talking about "presenting Christianity to atheists and agnostics". The OP is about how Christians and other believers view the commandments mentioned.
Oddly similar to how the capitalists and the bourgeois do things.
Are there any Christians and believers here who could speak up?
That remains to be seen. I'm in no hurry.
That was exactly my opinion. Marxists come up with fantastic stories of replacing capitalism with paradise on earth, only to end up with something very similar or worse.
This is how Hess understands it, but it is not the gospels say. Given Jesus' emphasis on the Law we should see what is said there:
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)
In Mark there is a distinction made between love of God and love of your neighbor. Two separate commandments:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' (12:30
The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (12:31)
In Matthew:
If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Which ones?" he inquired. Jesus replied, "'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'19:17 - 19)
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (22:37-39)
Again two commandments one greater than the other.
In Luke we find the first commandment to love the Lord your God, followed by the tale of the good Samaritan.
He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. (10:34)
"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."(10:36-37)
In Romans:
The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not covet," and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." (13:9)
Luke and Romans clearly show that love of your neighbor means concern for your neighbors well being. Nothing is said about spreading the "good news".
The story of the good Samaritan provides an answer, but it is evident that it is not one that most Christians live by.
Good try.
However, well-being includes spiritual well-being and that is achieved by following the teachings of the Gospels.
You seem to forget that true Christians believe that we have a soul.
But he answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'"
Hence hearing the Gospels is central to Christianity, that's why they're called "Gospels" i.e. "good news or message".
"Have a soul"? Not are a soul?
So if you have a soul, so that you and your soul are two separate things, who burns in hell for all eternity? You or your soul?
You're joking, right? When we say "we", we normally mean the whole human being, i.e. body and soul.
As such, we "have a soul". If we were a disembodied soul, then we'd say "I am a soul".
Not at all. The Bible is quite inconsistent in its use: sometimes, the soul is something to have, and other times, it's something one is.
Search it for how the term "soul" is used.
I have to go now.
This is not what you said in your earlier post:
Quoting Apollodorus
Your claim was that material well-being is not an essential aspect, You excluded material well-being, but the passages I quote show that it cannot be excluded.
I am not claiming that proclaiming the good news is not part of Christianity. I am, however, claiming that the passages cited are about material well-being. They say nothing about proselytizing.
The passages do not say anything about the teachings of the Gospels either. The teaching is summed up in the passages cited as well as others that contain the same message: 1) Love God 2) Love your neighbor. It is typical Christian chauvinism to take the teachings of a Jewish rabbi and make them into something they are not. But that is, after all, what the term Christian is all about.
You're making that up, aren't you? I never excluded anything. What my whole statement means is that the primary concern is for his or her spiritual salvation. "Primary" means of the first importance, fundamental, first in a series, etc, not exclusive. Are you well?
Quoting Fooloso4
Well, Christianity is a different religion, isn't it? It isn't my fault that you don't like Christians.
And what "Jewish rabbi" are you talking about anyway?
So... what were you thinking of, when you spake of "reversing the declining of Christianity?" Making the Christians more Christian than they are? I don't believe that. I believe you were talking proselytization. So... whom do you want to proselytize, if not the heathen? That is the question.
Quoting Apollodorus
If they had been lobotomized, then and only then it is understandable that Christians grow in numbers. You just proved my point: Steps to take, in this order: 1. Lobotomize communists. 2. Convert them to Christianity.
Once again, a direct quote:
You say what is not an essential aspect of Christian love. The last thing that is not essential is material well-being. Your words not mine.
Quoting Apollodorus
When you say "not X" you exclude X.
Quoting Apollodorus
As Alice was told in Wonderland: Say what you mean or mean what you say.
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes, but these are supposed to be the words of Jesus. Jesus was not a Christian. His disciples certainly would not have understood it that way. This was a major reason why Paul and his followers split off from the disciples. Paul tells us all about it. Or at least his side of the story.
Quoting Apollodorus
How about the way one particular Jew might have understood his own words and how he wanted them to be understood? One thing is certain: he died before the advent of Paul's Christianity.
Quoting Apollodorus
No, it is your fault that you make false assumptions.
Quoting Apollodorus
Are you not familiar with Jesus of Nazareth? Or as you might call him, following Paul, Jesus Christ.
Where does it say he was a "Jewish rabbi"??? First time I hear of that.
Well, if you're a Jew then tell us what tradition you're representing and what your position is. Then we can discuss. Not a problem for me at all, on the contrary, I tend to get on with Jews much better than with Marxists to be honest.
You need to increase your circle if acquaintances, or better yet, do some research.
Rabbi means teacher or leader. Do you believe that Jesus was a Jew? Do you believe he taught adherence to the Law? Put it together and you'll get your answer.
lol You do make me laugh. According to Christianity Jesus was the Son of God, the Word of God, etc.
Where are the sources that say "Jewish rabbi"??? You're making it up as usual, aren't you?
Even the Koran says he was a prophet.
Mark 9:5
John 1:38
The Koran says Jesus was just a man and not the son of God so...
But yes, I was always taught in Christian school that Jesus was a Rabbi.
Well, people addressed Jesus with the title of “Rabbi” as a sign of respect and because he was teaching them as part of his mission as instructed by God, not because he was a professional rabbi.
Christianity believes in Jesus as the Son of God. Islam believes in Jesus as a Prophet of God. Judaism has no teachings about Jesus. Therefore the idea that he was "a Jewish rabbi" is unsupported by the sources. You may believe whatever you want but people don't need to accept that.
The only thing that matters is the sources:
“Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God” – John 1:49.
As for "Jewish", the population of Roman Palestine was mixed. There were Greeks, Palestinians, Arabs, Egyptians, etc. Moses, Solomon and many others had non-Jewish wives. Jesus may have been partly Jewish through his mother but on the paternal side he surely was the Son of God.
The Christian Creed is:
I believe in God, the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
I'm not surprised that Marxist-influenced “Christian” schools teach something else but that has nothing to do with the authentic teachings of the Christian Faith.
Your belief is one thing. Facts are another. I don't believe in "proselytization", whatever that is, at all. People convert to Christianity only if God wants them to. Jesus and the apostles told people about the word of God and that was it. What people did with the teachings was their problem.
Plus, most religions would accept the truth of the two commandments without needing to "convert" to anything. Jews and Muslims already accept them. So, you got it totally wrong, I'm afraid. And not for the first time.
And your belief is just one other thing. Your belief is just a thing. Your thing. It has to do only with you. It's a thing, your belief is. Whether it's in God or whatever else, it's nothing but just a thing.
Quoting Apollodorus
So... is this going to strengthen Christianity? Let's not lose focus, when I spake of proselytization I referred directly to your idea, that had to do with the decline of Christianity. Here's the quote that I've been referring to all this time:
Quoting Apollodorus
So... Muslims and Jews are strong supporters of Christianity, according to you, because they do accept the truth of the two commandments without needing to "Convert" to anything.
Good going, Apollodorus; strengthen Christianity by allowing the validity of the Jewish and Muslim faiths. They don't need converting. They are good enough Christians, these Jews and Muslims, without converting, with being devoted Muslims and Jews.
The hair stands on end hearing your insanely misapprocated, unrelentingly non-introceptive, and altogether parapleptocal arguments.
I think the only problem in this argumentation that you carry on is that you read only what others write, and not your own posts.
What do these underlined words mean?
They are neologisms. They are the newest craze in literary, in philosophizing, and in literate philosophizing circles. Creating words that sound plausibly like semantically correct words, but are not. This is the newest trend in the literature of philosophy.
"Professional" rabbi was at that time a meaningless term. I said he was a rabbi, a teacher of the Law, and you accused me of making it up. I provide textual examples and instead of simply admitting you were wrong, try to argue something else.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is based on a misunderstanding of the term 'son of God' or 'sons of God'. No, I am not making it up. It is used several times in the Hebrew Bible. This time you can look it up yourself. It did not mean what it came to mean for most Christians.
There was a dispute in the early Church as to what 'son of God' meant. Arius rejected what came to be known as Homoousian Christology. Despite having the stronger hermeneutical argument, his side lost at the First Council of Nicaea, and he was labelled a heretic. Look it up.
Quoting Apollodorus
The fact that Christians believe he was the Son of God does not mean he was not a teacher of the Law. John 1:49 affirms that he was a rabbi. The fact that it also calls him the son of God does not mean John denied he was a rabbi.
Quoting Apollodorus
Jesus taught strict adherence to the Jewish Law. His disciples followed the Law. Paul preached to the gentiles that they did not have to adhere to the written Law to be saved. Look it up.
Quoting Apollodorus
You really do not know your Christian history. You may take the Creed to be the authentic teaching but it was one of many in the early Jesus movement. Nowhere does Jesus teach that he was God's only son. This was a belief that developed later.
I've no idea what you're talking about. I never said Muslims and Jews are strong supporters of Christianity, only that those I've spoken to agree with the injunctions to love God and to love our neighbor, like in the same way they believe in one God. What makes you think that's a problem?
Because you don't read your own posts. I do. And many others. More and more and more you contradict your own self, and you are oblivious to it because you don't know what you said just five minutes ago.
Read Fooloso4's last post. You completely destroyed your own arguments and your massive ignorance in the topic of your own faith was thrown in your face -- you are oblivious to it, because nothing can penetrate your ill logic. You are a bastion, and an impenetrable fortress by means of showing you logic and how you are wrong in most of your claims.
So, I ask you: do you want to see Muslims and Jews converted to Christianity, or not?
(Beware, either way you answer, there is already quotes by you that deny this or that of your proposition if you answer this simple question.)
Really? How late is this then?
“Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God” – John 1:49.
They called him "Rabbi" AND "Son of God".
The Koran calls him a Prophet.
I'm sure even you can see that "Son of God" and "Prophet" is not the same as "rabbi" in the ordinary sense. Unless you're related to @god must be atheist which would tend to slightly change the situation, of course.
They already believe in God and they agree with the two commandments. That's good enough to me.
You don't expect him/her to know that, do you?
That's what Nathaniel said, not Jesus. Your charge was that Jesus never spake of himself that he is the son of god. You said, that's wrong, and you quoted John 1:49. The keen observer, which you are not, will spot that this was not an utterance by Jesus. Your counter-argument fails.
Nice cop-out. Well done. You'll never get Christianity reversed from its decline with a placid argument or opinion or value like that. And that was the goal you expressed you wish for, to reverse the decline of Christianity. So which is it? to reverse the decline of Christianity, or is it to leave it progress in its decline?
I am sorry. He/she asked. I gave an explanation. What else would YOU do if you are asked a straight question but give a perfectly straight answer? Your solution to this dilemma would be what?
A neologism has to have a meaning. I think a better description of these words is gibberish.
Please name your source to support your claim here.
You're far too generous there. I'd would use a slightly different description. In any case, they're words that people tend to resort to when they've lost an argument.
In the Patristic Era.
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes. But you accused me of making up the claim that he was a Jewish rabbi. You are avoiding the issue of what the term 'son of God' meant during the age in which Jesus lived, how it was used in the Hebrew Bible and by Paul and John, and how it was later used in the Creed.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is much closer to what the term 'son of God' meant at the time of Jesus.
Quoting Apollodorus
Of course they are not the same! This is just a smoke-screen to obscure the fact that you initially denied that Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher of the Law.
Here is the problem: I read the Gospels in their historical context. You read them based on later developments. Now I have given you enough information for you to do some research on your own in order to see the difference if you care to.
Sorry, but the misunderstanding is entirely yours. You're wrong again as on all your other points.
The Bible says very clearly that Jesus was the only Son of God.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life - John 3:16
You obviously don't understand the Bible and you can find no evidence to support your unfounded and erroneous claims.
And no, Jesus was not teaching the "Jewish Law", he was teaching the LAW OF GOD. That was the whole point of his mission on earth, to reestablish the Law of God which the Jews or at least some of them had departed from by focusing too much on sacrifices, rituals and other observances.
Hence his statements like this one: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath", etc.
And, of course, the verses from the Hebrew Bible you're referring to, just don't exist. That's why you can't quote them.
Is this what counts as an argument for you? There is an extensive literature on this, much of it written by Christian scholars.
There are online versions of the Bible that allow you to search. Do a search in the Old Testament for the terms 'son of God' and 'sons of God'. Read the article "Son of God (Christianity)" on Wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_God_(Christianity)#:~:text=In%20Christianity%2C%20the%20title%20Son,be%20found%20in%20the%20Bible.
Quoting Apollodorus
The New Testament is not monolithic. There are claims made by John that are not found anywhere else. Johannine Christianity is distinct from the synoptic gospels and writings of Paul. The Wiki article provides plenty of evidence.
Quoting Apollodorus
These are not two separate things. It is the Law given by God to the Jews. Paul makes a distinction between the written Law and the law as it can be found in the heart of the Gentiles. Paul is quite explicit on this.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is all from within the Jewish tradition of interpretation and application of the Law.
Quoting Apollodorus
The Wiki article linked above gives an extensive list.
Well, if you really imagine that I didn't know you might come up with that, you are quite wrong.
To begin with, it is generally acknowledged that the OT texts are corrupted so, they aren’t a hundred percent reliable.
Second, it is true that the OT, Psalm 2 and Chronicles, mentions King David and King Solomon as the “Son of God”.
However, what is actually meant here is not that they were begotten in the sense of brought into being but in the sense of appointed, i.e. invested with the rank of King: they were each appointed King of Israel.
“You [King David] are My Son! Today I have begotten you”.
“He [King Solomon] shall be My Son, and I will be his father, and I will establish throne of his kingdom over Israel forever”.
Obviously, someone who is already a grown man, can't possibly be brought into being. He can, however, be "created" i.e. made or appointed.
The case of Jesus is totally different. We are told very clearly that he was brought into the world by the Holy Spirit, i.e. by God’s own Spiritual Power:
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit ...” - Matthew 1:18
So these are two totally different stories. David and Solomon were appointed by God, Jesus was created, i.e. incarnated into the world by God as well as appointed to carry out a unique mission on Earth.
As for Jesus teaching the “Jewish law” it is obvious that this couldn’t have been the case. How can the Son of God or Prophet or even “Jewish rabbi” (as you choose to call him) teach the Jewish law to the Jews if the Jews ignored him? Obviously, he didn’t teach the Jewish law, he taught the Eternal Law of God, the Law of Righteousness, that had existed from all eternity and that some Jews chose to ignore:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth … Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever ..." - John 1:1,14; Hebrews 13:8
Clear as sunlight to those who can see, IMO.
I don't have to imagine it. You accused me of making it up:
Quoting Apollodorus
First you claim I made it up, and when I cite them you claim you knew all along.
Quoting Apollodorus
There is always the problem of transcription error but every instance of the term cannot be a transcription error. What evidence do you have of substantial corruption between the time Paul uses the term, the NT authors use the term, and now? More specifically what evidence do you have that the uses of the term are corruptions and when the corrupted terms were introduced?
Quoting Apollodorus
The belief in a Messiah originates in Judaism There is no evidence that Paul used 'Messiah' and 'son of God' in any other sense then how they were used in Judaism. He claimed that Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed (in Greek Chrio, Khristós, Christ)King of Israel. It was not Jesus' birth but his death that was the focus of Paul's message.
Quoting Apollodorus
Mark, the oldest of the Gospels, tells no such story, nor does John, and more importantly, Jesus himself does not either.
Quoting Apollodorus
There is another story. The story told by John. You quote it but fail to see how it differs from the other stories.
The stories are different. The point is that they take the Jewish teachings of Jesus and Paul and make them into something else.
Quoting Apollodorus
The Gospels tell the story of twelve Jews who did not ignore him. Again, read what Paul said about the Law and Gentiles, and what he said about the split between him and Jesus' disciples over the matter of the Law.
As I said earlier:
Quoting Fooloso4
They took the Jewish terms 'Messiah' and 'son of God' and made them into something else. Something that was foreign to Jesus and Paul. To point to how the terms are used differently only supports what I have said.
You're only imagining that. You need to familiarize yourself with Christianity before you make unexamined assumptions like that. In Christianity Jesus is the Son of God.
Plus, the Jews could have taken those concepts from others. People use words, beliefs and concepts that already exist. Why would they start inventing something new? Would you invent your own language instead of using the one that is already spoken? Isn't that why the Gospels were written in Greek which was the main language spoken at the time?
I am well aquanted with Christianity. What you are ignoring is its history and factions. I have given you all the information you need to do the research, but you choose to close your eyes and ignore the evidence.
Yes, mainstream Christianity today holds to the doctrine that Jesus is the Son of God. It was not always that way in Christianity. It has gone through several transformations. To look at the beliefs held today and insist that they are what Jesus meant by "love thy neighbor" is anachronistic.
Quoting Apollodorus
Perhaps they did. What difference does that make to how Jesus and his followers understood what it means to love your neighbor? Or what the terms Messiah and son of God meant to them?
Quoting Apollodorus
And yet that is exactly what they did. They took Jewish concepts and over time the meaning was altered.
So what? That isn't a crime. Jewish religion also changed over time. Jews took concepts from others like Egyptians and Babylonians, and Christians took them from the Jews. But concepts like "Son of God" and "Divine King" were quite common, they weren't the exclusive property of the Jews as you're claiming.
Plus, it isn't about history, it's about religion and faith. What you're implying is that Christians aren't allowed to have their own religion and should be punished for borrowing from the Jews. Christians also borrowed quite a bit from the Greeks, Romans and others. Should they be punished for that as well? Would you like to start burning Christian bibles and churches???
You seem to have lost track of the argument. It is not a crime, but it is also not what Jesus said or what he meant. All that stuff came later.
Quoting Apollodorus
I said nothing of the sort! My contention is that if you wish to understand the meaning of what Jesus said then you need to look at the historical context in which he said those words and the historical context in which the Gospels were written. You disregard both and claim it means what it came to mean for some Christians. And with regard to that you ignore the historical development in which Christian doctrine became official. Again, I gave you all the information you need to do the research on these issues.
You are correct. They are not the exclusive property of the Jews, and they are not the exclusive property of Christians. Jesus was a Jew addressing his disciples who were Jews. He was not a Christian teaching after the Council of Nicea when certain document became official according to some self appointed authorities.
Quoting Apollodorus
Christianity is a doctrinaire religion. Its history is an essential part of the development of its doctrines. You are of course free to remain ignorant of such things, but when you make claims such as:
Quoting Apollodorus
And:
Quoting Apollodorus
That is a definitive statement about what love your neighbor means. I pointed out that this has no textual support according to the passages where it occurs. What you said is not the same as saying that this is what it means to you according to your Christian beliefs.
Quoting Apollodorus
I said nothing of the sort. I am talking about what Jesus said in its historical context. You are free to ignore it. No one is going to punish you.
Quoting Apollodorus
Right, and that is why taking Jesus' words and attempting to alter them according to later developments is to distort what he said. Again, you are free to do so, but you are wrong to say that what Jesus said means what you take it to mean according to a religion that developed after his death.
Quoting Apollodorus
Such ridiculous accusations do not help your argument or whatever credibility you might still have on this forum.
Well, this forum is obviously a joke. So, I wouldn’t flatter myself too much if I were you.
But anyway, if you’re talking about history and sources, let’s see what history and the sources actually say, not how anti-Christians interpret them. We can start with your favourite one, the OT, the story how the Hebrews got their king:
“Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations […] we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles” 1 Samuel 8: 4-5, 19-20
Please note the sentence “that we may be like all the nations”. The Hebrews wanted a king like all the surrounding nations, Egyptians, Assyrians, Mesopotamians, etc.
What kind of king did the neighbouring nations have? A king that was the representative of God on earth and the “Son of God”.
It’s a well-known fact that the institution of kingship in which the king was the son and representative of God, was part and parcel of the culture in the region, especially Egyptian culture which was dominant at the time and to which the Hebrews had particularly close links.
“And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” – Acts 7:22
Pre-biblical Egyptian inscriptions show that when a king or pharaoh ascended to the throne he was said to be appointed by the God Re, his father. So, he was “Son of God” and “Divine King”.
Similarly, among the Assyrians, the king was regarded as the representative of the God Ashur, in Mesopotamia the king represented the God Shamash (which, incidentally, is cognate with Hebrew shemesh and Arabic shams), etc.
And the OT tells us exactly what kind of kings the Hebrews or Jews got:
“You [King David] are My Son! Today I have begotten you”.
“He [King Solomon] shall be My Son, and I will be his father, and I will establish throne of his kingdom over Israel forever”.
So, who took what from whom? We know that Jesus himself visited Egypt:
“And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt […] When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt” – Matthew 2:13-14
Did Jesus believe he was the Son of God? Well, you weren’t there at the time so you can’t tell for certain, can you? What is certain, however, is that Alexander the Great was called “the Son of God” (after Egyptian fashion) and the practice of regarding kings and emperors as divine was well-established in Greece and Rome by the 1st century CE.
The eastern part of the Roman Empire, including Palestine, was a Greek-dominated cosmopolitan society in which different religious and cultural currents blended together. That was precisely why the Gospels were written in Greek and according to many scholars Jesus himself spoke Greek in addition to other languages.
I think it is baseless to claim that Christianity "robbed” the Jews of their "Divine King/Messiah” and "Son of God” concepts in view of the fact that this was part of the common cultural and religious heritage in the region. And what matters at the end of the day is that Christians felt to have good reason to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and they have every right to do so. I don’t think it is for neo-Marxists to tell Christians what to do. I'm not telling you what to believe and I don't care to be honest.
Many years ago I met a Catholic priest and since I had been reading a commentary on Genesis wanted to know his views. To my surprise he admitted he knew very little of the Bible. His training and concern wall with ministry and counseling.
As to a certain member, I think his lack of knowledge is only part of the problem. His wild accusations hint at the rest.
Obviously you have not looked at any of the sources I pointed to. Most are by Christian scholars. Apollodorus, the truth is not the enemy, or is only the enemy if you insist on holding on to false beliefs.
Quoting Apollodorus
Being like all the nations by having a king, as they do, does not mean having a king that is like their king.
Quoting Apollodorus
Are you claiming that this is what the kings of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Mesopotamians, etc. were, representatives of Jesus?
Quoting Apollodorus
This is not something that is "well-known" to Egyptologists. The kings were considered incarnate gods. Just like Christians came to believe Jesus was.
Quoting Apollodorus
What is it that you think you are arguing for? Are you trying to show that the mythology surrounding Jesus was the same as the mythology surrounding the pharaohs? Do you think that helps or hurts your case?
Quoting Apollodorus
You still don't get it. It is not a question of who took what from whom, but of ascribing a meaning to what Jesus said based on a religion that developed after his death.
Quoting Apollodorus
You are really not helping your case. First of all, according to the story in Matthew Jesus was an infant. Second, why would the actual son of God be influenced by Egyptian mythology?
Quoting Apollodorus
We have only the Gospels, and nowhere in the gospels does he claim the things later ascribed to him.
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes, lots of people were called sons of God, and gods even. Is your point that Jesus was just one of many?
Quoting Apollodorus
I said nothing about being "robbed". That is all in your fevered brain. You are actually making my point that the gentiles took (as in interpreted/understood not "robbed") the teachings and stories about Jesus and incorporated them into their own mythologies.
Quoting Apollodorus
I have said nothing to the contrary. It is not a question of what Christians believe but of what Jesus meant when he said those words. To import a whole mythology to interpret his simple words is hermeneutically suspect.
Quoting Apollodorus
Your mind is in a rut. Your response to everyone who disagrees with you is to call them a neo-Marxist. It is a sign of emotional and philosophical immaturity.
It’s the other way round. It’s you who isn’t looking at the sources and that’s where the problem is. I've quoted sources from the start.
The Marxist use (or misuse) of history has long been exposed by Popper, Kolakowski and many others. My point was that neo-Marxists do tend to use deliberately distorted interpretations of history to support their baseless theories. You seem to be doing the same though you may not notice it or are trying to hide it, without much success.
I’m not surprised that you aren’t aware of this, but you aren’t applying your theory consistently, quite apart from the fact that you haven’t got one.
Just look at the preposterous statements you’re making:
“Jesus was addressed as “rabbi”, therefore he couldn’t have been the Son of God. He was a Jewish rabbi”.
No logical connection whatsoever between one thing and the other!
The fact is that the Gospels show very clearly that Jesus was addressed as “the Son of God”:
“Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God” – John 1:49.
You see the word “rabbi” bot not “Son of God”. Maybe you’re blind on one eye, who knows?
Since you haven’t spoken to Jesus, you can’t claim to know who he thought he was. So, that’s another big neo-Marxist lie.
You have no proof that the Christian concept of “Son of God” was “stolen” from the Jews, etc., etc.
And, of course, Christians have the right to believe in Jesus in whichever way they wish. You deny this, and IMO that exposes you as an anti-Christian extremist.
What does this have to do with what Jesus meant by love your neighbor? Your problem with Marxists seems to go much deeper than a difference in ideology.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is another example of pathological projection. I said no such thing! I said he was a rabbi. You accused me of making that up and said that he wasn't a rabbi he was the Son of God. I then said that being one does not exclude being the other. It is all right there in the posts.
Quoting Apollodorus
And also son of man and rabbi.
Quoting Apollodorus
Of course I see it. I never denied it. What I said is that the term meant something different for Jews, and that includes Jesus and his disciples, than it did for gentiles. Jews would never accept the idea of a "begotten son", a son who was one in substance with the father. It is a pagan idea. One that Jesus would have rejected. Jesus believed that there was one God, and it wasn't him.
Quoting Apollodorus
I can know the context in which he spoke. I can know the saying ascribed to him in the gospels. I can know that none of the gospels have him professing the Apostles Creed.
Quoting Apollodorus
Once again, I have said several times you can believe whatever you want.
I am not going to respond to any more of your false accusations.
So, you’re finally conceding defeat. I could have told you that from the start. Christianity is a tremendous force in this world and it is rather ridiculous for any one person to presume to defeat it. It just won’t happen.
The fact is that Christian tradition acknowledges several levels of scriptural interpretation:
“For as man consists of body, and soul, and spirit, so in the same way does Scripture.” - Origen
Such levels are (1) somatic/literal, (2) psychic/ethic and (3) pneumatic (spiritual)/allegorical. There are others but they can only be learned from a qualified teacher.
So, of course, seen in this light, “Son of God” can have more than one meaning. That was precisely what I explained to you in my previous post which you chose to ignore and put a spin on it to “prove” your point. Kings David and Solomon were “Sons of God” in the sense of “appointed as representatives of God”, whereas Jesus was the Son of God in the sense of “brought into being” as well as “appointed to a certain position or mission”.
“Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds …” Hebrews 1:2
Jesus himself spoke in parables and for a very good reason which he himself explains by the parable of the sower and the seeds of which some are eaten by birds, others fall on barren soil and others on good soil. The seeds symbolize the words of a spiritual teacher.
By the way, this is why true Christianity is totally against forced conversion. Forced conversion is morally wrong and does not lead to salvation. True Christians lead by example. In the early years of Christianity Pagans converted because they were impressed by the Christians’ moral conduct.
Anyway, you need to remember that the whole point of Christianity is to expand our mind and elevate it to higher levels of experience that eventually lead to salvation. If you stubbornly cling on to ”history” you stay stuck at the somatic/literal level that doesn’t get you anywhere. You get bored, disappointed, frustrated, angry and give up. You might even turn against Christianity and attack those who believe in it. And all this just because of your inability to understand.
The identity of Jesus as a spiritual or divine being is absolutely crucial to the correct understanding of Christian teachings. This is why the Gospels give no physical description of Jesus (and why it is wrong to refer to him as "Jewish rabbi"). The only time he is described in the Gospels is when Jesus and some of his disciples ascend a mountain, the Mountain of Transfiguration, and on reaching the top Jesus’s face “was shining as the sun, and his garments became white as the light” (Matthew 17:20).
This scene actually encapsulates what Christianity is about at its core: the ascent of the soul to higher planes of experience and its transformation into a spiritual being of light.
The symbolism of light is central to Christian teachings:
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
And because God is light, the light of truth, order and justice, to love God in the literal sense means to obey his law and carry out his will, whilst in a higher sense it means to love him as spiritual light, as the light of intelligence, of wisdom, and of life. On that higher level we embrace that light and welcome it into our life that it may lift us up and take us out of darkness.
This is why love of God necessarily takes precedence over love of our neighbour and spiritual concerns take precedence over material ones.
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” – Matthew 6: 31-33
Obviously, people do care about those things to some extent, but the way I see it they are not the primary concern in philosophy in general and in Christian (or Platonic) tradition in particular.
In any case, if we want to interpret Christianity correctly, we must interpret it in a way that is consistent with its own teachings, not according to neo-Marxist theories of historical materialism and relativism.
Tell yourself whatever it is you need to. Resorting to false accusations, accusing me of saying things I did not is dishonest and cowardly.
Well, if you're not conceding defeat even when you've obviously lost, then let's start from the beginning.
Resorting to false accusations and ad hominem arguments won't get you anywhere. If anything, it will only confirm that you've lost.
[b]I said very clearly from the start:
“… tell us what tradition you're representing and what your position is. Then we can discuss. Not a problem for me at all, on the contrary …”[/b]
What more can I say? I think I was being quite fair, don’t you?
I was actually looking forward to having an interesting discussion.
But it was not to be. You never said anything about your tradition, your sources, your position, or anything whatsoever. Just baseless attacks and pseudo-philosophical statements a la neo-Marxist theories of historical materialism, relativism and anti-Christian atheism that are totally off-topic.
Anyway, just look at some of your statements:
"It is typical Christian chauvinism to take the teachings of a Jewish rabbi and make them into something they are not. But that is, after all, what the term Christian is all about."
If that isn't a baseless attack, I don't know what is. And so it goes on. That's why you can't possibly win.
The perspective reminds me of a self-dense axiom. Try not to offend people.
Sometimes you have to push buttons. But don't do it without regret and uncertainty.
Well sometimes you may offend someone by telling the truth. Case in point, My calling out Apollodorus' ignorance and obstinance in this thread.
The truth is, I don't know if it is just a character trait or a pathology. So you are right, I do it with uncertainty. It is evidently not simply a matter of poor reasoning, although it is that, but of something pathological - projecting and trying to cover his lack of knowledge of Christian history by accusing me of saying things I corrected him of saying. And note how many of his arguments come down to calling whoever disagrees with him a Marxist.
And so, in order not to regret playing along and feeding what truly looks to me to be pathological I will no longer engage with him.
Actually, people don't need to be Marxists per se, they can be Marxist-influenced or use Marxist-style interpretations of history or religion without realizing it. It should be obvious from my statements above what I mean by "Marxist".
But you ought to look at your own arguments before you criticize others. Take your "Son of God" argument for example.
The historical evidence shows that god Re was the preeminent deity in the Egyptian pantheon through most of the three millennia of pharaonic history. In almost every royal inscription from ancient Egypt, the pharaoh or king is called “the son of Re,” the sun god.
Egyptian kings had several names of which the last was the birth name and the second to last (prenomen) contained the name of the sun god Re. The prenomen was given to the king at his coronation. Thus, he became "the son of God" at his coronation.
"During the period of David and Solomon (tenth century B.C.), the most formative period for Israel’s monarchy, close ties existed between Tanis, the 21st Dynasty capital, and Jerusalem […] These seals suggest that Israel looked to Egypt for inspiration regarding kingship. Israel’s fledgling monarchy had no royal archetypes of its own to draw on, and Egypt was its closest and most influential neighbor. It seems natural that Israel would appropriate language and motifs of kingship that were compatible with its monotheistic worldview."
Son of God - From Pharaoh to Israel’s Kings to Jesus, Biblical Archaeology Review, 13:3, 1997
Egyptian inscriptions read:
“Re has installed the King
on the earth of the living
for ever and ever …”
and the king is called the “beloved and only Son of God”
‘AXIAL’ BREAKTHROUGHS AND SEMANTIC ‘RELOCATIONS’ IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ISRAEL
Ägyptische Hymnen und Gebete (Egyptian Hymns and Prayers) (uzh.ch)
As I explained to you many times, this was not a literal statement as an adult king, Egyptian or Hebrew, could not be "begotten" in a literal sense. "Begotten" here is the equivalent of English "created" as in "Queen Elisabeth II created somebody a lord", i.e., invested them with the rank of lord. The way Jesus was begotten and appointed by God is a totally different story.
But it isn’t just coronation formulas, there are legal contracts and treaties, law codes, prayers, and many other religious and cultural elements that are found in Egyptian, Assyrian, and Mesopotamian texts that precede their Hebrew counterparts by centuries.
Egyptian influence was particularly strong which is not surprising. Israel was for a time part of the Egyptian Empire and as the Hebrew Bible relates, the Hebrews dwelt in Egypt. In fact, from the Bible account it is hard to distinguish between Hebrew kings like Solomon and Egyptian kings which raises the possibility that the two traditions (not unnaturally) coalesced in Hebrew national memory.
Egyptian influence certainly left a lasting legacy in the region. The Platonic philosopher Iamblichus (245-325 CE), an Arab, wrote a book on the “Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians” in Greek. This illustrates the cultural and religious situation in the Hellenized parts of the Roman Empire to which Palestine belonged and where Christianity was born.
In sum, if you try to use history to “deconstruct” Christianity and reduce it to Judaism, you’ll find that you’ve deconstructed Jewish religion long before you arrive at Christianity.
It’s a well-known fact that Christianity borrowed from the Greeks, Romans, and others and this doesn’t diminish it even one iota. On the contrary, it shows that it is a distinct religion in its own right. And what really matters in a religion like Christianity is the inner spiritual core, not external elements that may have accrued over time.
Your arguments are unsound and unfounded and they don't get you anywhere.