From: Horse (horse@darkstar.uk.net)
Date: Thu Oct 17 2002 - 00:39:47 BST
Hiya
On 16 Oct 2002 at 14:25, David Buchanan wrote:
> Horse and all you Jesus freaks:
> >
> Horse said:
> > How do we know what the _authentic_ teachings of Jesus really are. As far
> > as I know he
> > wasn't too big on the writing stuff down side and (as with Socrates) what
> > we know of him
> > and his teachings is entirely second-hand. Also...
> >
> [David Buchanan]
> There is a little thing called the "international Q project" that
> has worked in recent years to use various scholarly techniques to determine
> which saying of Jesus can reasonably be attributed to the historical person.
> There were a whole bunch of experts working on this and the project's
> chairman, James Robinson, has published their findings in book called "The Q
> Gospel". Their techniques and conclusions are both fascinating.
I picked up a book about this some time back (The Lost Gospel - Burton L. Mack) and
while it was quite interesting I was less than convinced about the whole thing.
I mentioned the Apocrypha in my last post because it's interesting to note that they
contain many instances that conflict with the 'official' version of his life and teachings.
Unfortunately I lent the book with much of this stuff in to someone a while back and I
haven't seen them for ages so I can't give any quotes. Ah well.
>
> Horse said:
> > Still leaves the problem of what he said as opposed to what he's supposed
> > to have said.
> > And even then there's still a lot of controversy about the actual
> > translations of the
> > various recovered documents. Assuming he existed at all that is! :^)
> >
> [David Buchanan]
> Alot of the most provocative and interesting stuff was eliminated
> pretty early on, but some of it has been recovered. The Nag Hammadi texts,
> for example, presents gnosticism, a kind of psychological and mystical form
> of Christianity, which has some very interesting connections to
> neo-Platonism and such. Since we can't very well go back in time with a
> video camera, this kind of stuff will have to do. Finally, I'd say that it
> doesn't matter much whether or not such a guy ever literally existed. The
> ideas generated by this "fantasy" are worthy nonetheless.
>
Hmmm. Not sure about this. If he didn't exist how can 'his' teachings be discussed? All
we're really discussing are the writings of a group of authors with a similar theme. I can't
really see that Christian teachings are that fantastic anyway.
There are some good ideas within his alleged teachings but the main theme of Jesus'
teachings for me for me was one of 'put up with all the crap and claim your reward in
another life'. Doesn't sound too much like a good idea - just a means whereby the rich
get richer and the most violent take over the world. Those who object get shafted so
you'd better not object. Sound familiar?
Horse
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