miekko Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 The gospels are midrash, quote mining the OT, and various other things. I'm just stating a very well known understanding and relating it to the usage of Jewish prostitutes in the OT and why that tendency may have transferred over into the NT, along with everything else from the OT that transferred over... Which bona-fide midrashes have you read? I quite strongly suspect you have never read any text that is identified as a midrash. I can tell you that midrashes differ significantly from the gospels in style - in fact, they're quite goddamn different. Of course, whatwith your agenda, keeping people unaware of this and just asserting that the gospels are midrash is a reasonable approach - but it's not an approach that's very honest. Read a proper midrash already and learn something. I hope you do, and please do tell once you've read one! Pirke de rabbi Eliezer is a nice one, and it even delves into explicit astrology at one point. Too many people maintain this "gospels are midrash" thing without having any actual familiarity with midrashim beyond having heard one or two sound-bites on them from the mythicist camp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted June 23, 2013 Author Share Posted June 23, 2013 Hate to seem ignorant but what is midrash? Sounds like something i should look into. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted June 23, 2013 Author Share Posted June 23, 2013 So I was thinking today about the chapters in my book where i plan to show that the sanhedrin sent in paul to change christianity from jew to gentile and finally destroy christianity altogether and noticed two new things. One i got while in a chat on this site. Ever noticed how Paul preached against sexual sins including fornication and he also preached against marriage claiming that those who marry are weak? Seems he wanted the christian faith to die out from lack of procreation. Then i was chatting to the head of the landover baptist church site and he mentioned how paul preached the second comming. Maybe Paul never believed the second coming would happen and by proclaiming that it would happen soon thought that when the Lord never showed people would completely loose faith. Sadly that didnt happen as people just started to justify why christ hadnt returned yet instead of rejecting it completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miekko Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Hate to seem ignorant but what is midrash? Sounds like something i should look into. There are two kinds of midrash - midrash aggadah and midrash halakha. Midrash aggadah is a genre of Jewish literature. They retell biblical narratives, and include explanations as to what different things in the text signify, add in various folkloristic extended versions of the narratives, and sometimes allude or even explicitly refer to other biblical (and extrabiblical) events and narratives. Here's a 19th century translation of Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer. Reading the entire thing may not be really that interesting for most people, but at least sampling some of it may be of interest in learning about the genre in general. Midrash halakha, instead, use a number of somewhat set 'rules' for how to infer Jewish law from the Bible. Some of the rules may seem obvious, but some of them are somewhat weird and would seem unjustified to modern people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted June 28, 2013 Moderator Share Posted June 28, 2013 They retell biblical narratives... There's actually quite a bit on how the gospels utilize this sort of thing. For any one interested in further reading I'll drop a few links to relevant material: http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_midrash1.htm Earlier scholars (e.g., John Wick Bowman), as many today (e.g., J. Duncan M. Derrett), saw gospel echoes of the ancient scriptures in secondary coloring here or redactional juxtaposition of traditional Jesus stories there. But the more recent scrutiny of John Dominic Crossan, Randel Helms, Dale and Patricia Miller, and Thomas L. Brodie has made it inescapably clear that virtually the entirety of the gospel narratives and much of the Acts are wholly the product of haggadic midrash upon previous scripture. http://vridar.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/midrash-and-the-gospels-1-some-definitions-and-explanations/ http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_gospels_are_midrash But back to the original point once again, along these lines we can assume that if there was a tendency towards prostitutes and / or basically pimping out Jewish women for this or that in the OT - which there clearly is - then how surprising is it to stumble into hints at the very same thing in the NT which quote mines OT passages over and over again and attempts to re-tell older stories framed in a new way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miekko Posted June 29, 2013 Share Posted June 29, 2013 Joshpantera, have you ever read any midrashes? If so, which ones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
◊ crazyguy123 ◊ Posted June 29, 2013 Share Posted June 29, 2013 Hate to seem ignorant but what is midrash? Sounds like something i should look into. There are two kinds of midrash - midrash aggadah and midrash halakha. Midrash aggadah is a genre of Jewish literature. They retell biblical narratives, and include explanations as to what different things in the text signify, add in various folkloristic extended versions of the narratives, and sometimes allude or even explicitly refer to other biblical (and extrabiblical) events and narratives. Here's a 19th century translation of Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer. Reading the entire thing may not be really that interesting for most people, but at least sampling some of it may be of interest in learning about the genre in general. Midrash halakha, instead, use a number of somewhat set 'rules' for how to infer Jewish law from the Bible. Some of the rules may seem obvious, but some of them are somewhat weird and would seem unjustified to modern people. For some reason, midrash sounds to me like it could be the name of an illegal drug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted July 1, 2013 Author Share Posted July 1, 2013 Hate to seem ignorant but what is midrash? Sounds like something i should look into. There are two kinds of midrash - midrash aggadah and midrash halakha. Midrash aggadah is a genre of Jewish literature. They retell biblical narratives, and include explanations as to what different things in the text signify, add in various folkloristic extended versions of the narratives, and sometimes allude or even explicitly refer to other biblical (and extrabiblical) events and narratives. Here's a 19th century translation of Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer. Reading the entire thing may not be really that interesting for most people, but at least sampling some of it may be of interest in learning about the genre in general. Midrash halakha, instead, use a number of somewhat set 'rules' for how to infer Jewish law from the Bible. Some of the rules may seem obvious, but some of them are somewhat weird and would seem unjustified to modern people. For some reason, midrash sounds to me like it could be the name of an illegal drug. It sounds like it should be legal though. Lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted July 2, 2013 Moderator Share Posted July 2, 2013 Maybe that's it, Jesus must have been selling mid grade hash in ancient Israel and pimping out Jewish ho's. And Meikko doesn't want the truth getting out. He's become quite the apologist for a well mannered, non-ho pimping, non-mid grade hash selling historical Jesus of Nazareth. Oh well, to each his own... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miekko Posted July 2, 2013 Share Posted July 2, 2013 Maybe that's it, Jesus must have been selling mid grade hash in ancient Israel and pimping out Jewish ho's. And Meikko doesn't want the truth getting out. He's become quite the apologist for a well mannered, non-ho pimping, non-mid grade hash selling historical Jesus of Nazareth. Oh well, to each his own... ... so, gonna answer my question or not? Have you read a midrash? I am not an apologist for any variety of Jesus, I am rather a critic of every version. Stop lying about me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted July 3, 2013 Author Share Posted July 3, 2013 Maybe that's it, Jesus must have been selling mid grade hash in ancient Israel and pimping out Jewish ho's. And Meikko doesn't want the truth getting out. He's become quite the apologist for a well mannered, non-ho pimping, non-mid grade hash selling historical Jesus of Nazareth. Oh well, to each his own... ... so, gonna answer my question or not? Have you read a midrash? I am not an apologist for any variety of Jesus, I am rather a critic of every version. Stop lying about me! Take it easy man, here, smoke a little midrash, it should calm you down. Lol So you are a critic of every version? So by thay statement you are saying the my idea that Jesus created a corrupted form of the jewish faith involving temple prostitutes and that paul was sent in to destroy and corrupt that new religion has more credibility than the typical christian belief? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miekko Posted July 3, 2013 Share Posted July 3, 2013 Maybe that's it, Jesus must have been selling mid grade hash in ancient Israel and pimping out Jewish ho's. And Meikko doesn't want the truth getting out. He's become quite the apologist for a well mannered, non-ho pimping, non-mid grade hash selling historical Jesus of Nazareth. Oh well, to each his own... ... so, gonna answer my question or not? Have you read a midrash? I am not an apologist for any variety of Jesus, I am rather a critic of every version. Stop lying about me! Take it easy man, here, smoke a little midrash, it should calm you down. Lol So you are a critic of every version? So by thay statement you are saying the my idea that Jesus created a corrupted form of the jewish faith involving temple prostitutes and that paul was sent in to destroy and corrupt that new religion has more credibility than the typical christian belief? Definitely! The typical christian belief, after all, includes ideas such as 'god', 'miracles', 'virgin birth', 'angels' appearing on occasion. Yours does not. Which almost by default makes your version an improvement. However, there are better versions - true enough, all Historical Jesuses have flaws that make them difficult to actually use for any reasonable purposes - otoh, the purposes to which one would use models of the Historical Jesus all do seem misguided in various ways: what genuine significance does Jesus' view on the sabbath, on women, etc really have? Still, when thinking about any things along these lines, skepticism should be the guiding principle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted July 3, 2013 Moderator Share Posted July 3, 2013 I don't know Miekko, I'm pretty skeptical about your claim that skepticism should be the guiding principle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miekko Posted July 4, 2013 Share Posted July 4, 2013 I don't know Miekko, I'm pretty skeptical about your claim that skepticism should be the guiding principle. What should then? Astrotheology? Religious belief? Sorry, skepticism has the best track record of all approaches in pretty much every field. (I do realize you're trying to be clever, but it's really too cheap a joke to laugh at, sorry!) Also, how about midrashim, have you read any? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted July 6, 2013 Author Share Posted July 6, 2013 I think getting my theory published should at least cast doubt in the mind of anyone considering joining the christian faith and might even free some people from being the emotional and mental slaves of an imaginary being. Thats really what i want to accomplish. And who knows, maybe the theory is correct. Seeing what paul taught and said, the fact that he was second in command of the sanhedrin and just took over the christian faith seemingly out of the blue, my theory gives him motive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miekko Posted July 6, 2013 Share Posted July 6, 2013 And who knows, maybe the theory is correct. Seeing what paul taught and said, the fact that he was second in command of the sanhedrin and just took over the christian faith seemingly out of the blue, my theory gives him motive. Second in command of the sanhedrin? Where'd you get that from? That's quite the leap from 'pupil of Gamaliel' (who probably had for his pupils pretty much all the pharisees of the region for several decades). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted July 7, 2013 Author Share Posted July 7, 2013 Sorry used to hear that in church, sometimes it hard to remember what you know as fact and what you heard on hearsay when it comes to christianity. Im still really pissed everytime i catch myself about to pray to god its so ingrained that i catch myself about once a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted July 7, 2013 Author Share Posted July 7, 2013 Sorry used to hear that in church, sometimes it hard to remember what you know as fact and what you heard on hearsay when it comes to christianity. Im still really pissed everytime i catch myself about to pray to god its so ingrained that i catch myself about once a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gseeker Posted July 7, 2013 Author Share Posted July 7, 2013 Sorry used to hear that in church, sometimes it hard to remember what you know as fact and what you heard on hearsay when it comes to christianity. Im still really pissed everytime i catch myself about to pray to god its so ingrained that i catch myself about once a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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