These words will scandalize some readers.
Sometime in the future, I will no doubt discuss the same ideas in a more well-ordered way. But I think I need to produce some expression now.
Jesus never called upon his followers to “change the world.” Jesus never confronted injustice, oppression, slavery or “the system.”
He had opportunities to do so.
A new thread at Messiah Truth.
This is most emphatically not Jewish teaching. I expect it correctly to be condemned as not-Jewish. I also expect it to be condemned, correctly or not, as just plain wrong.
The point is to facilitate understanding of what motivates belief in the Christian myth.
Sunday was Palm Sunday. The appointed “Gospel” text this year was Luke 22:14-23:56, which covers from the beginning of the Last Supper up to Jesus’ burial.
The pastor normally reads the “Gospel” lesson. Pastor’s voice quavered throughout this reading, which I found hard to figure since his beliefs are similar enough to mine. We waded through all the problems in the text, e.g. the impossible trial at the High Priest’s house on Pesach. But I also got re-acquainted with why Christians believe so fervently in this text.
God’s thoughts, or Man’s?
The dentist prescribed ibuprofen 800s and, for me to take at night if the toothache became severe, Hydrocodon-Acetaminoph 7.5-325. This is a narcotic. “Pain pills.”
I have a large zipper bag with four compartments. There is a main compartment, which I can lock; a front compartment; a left side compartment; and a right side compartment.
Every afternoon when I sit on my bunk, I empty my pockets and put my phone, debit card, and cash in the main compartment. I take my afternoon meds, which are already in there, and lock it all back up.
Related: Giving it all away
Is This Stone the Clue to Why Jesus Was Killed?
Here is the latest in a flurry of rather silly articles extolling the supposed archaeological significance of the First Century synagogue at Magdala; which just happens to be located wholly within the confines of a privately-owned Christian tourist resort (hint, hint).
Conspiracies occur. In my past work as a legal secretary, I had direct contact with secret campaigns to promote certain large corporations and political movements. These included “news” articles and ghostwritten op-ed pieces planted in various major news outlets.
Some years ago, there was a tremendous scare over avian flu, which was portrayed as threatening a real plague over North America. I came to conclude that the whole thing was a PR ploy to ennoble public impressions of the pharmaceuticals industry.
The present article sets forth a fanciful notion of what the Sanhedrin may have been thinking during Jesus’ trial.
As to many New Testament stories, my position in the past has been, “This specific thing may not have happened, but something like it probably did.” There are so many problems with and discrepancies among the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial, however, that as a Christian I now doubt he was ever tried by the Sanhedrin at all.
By the time of his arrest, Jesus had become such an irritant to the Jewish leaders that the New Testament easily portrays them as having wanted him dead. A conspiracy of the chief priests and Pharisees (John 11:57) to that end would have been singular, as these two parties were otherwise bitter enemies. The Sanhedrin, however, was without power at the time to condemn anyone to death, for blasphemy or any other reason; so the New Testament portrays “the Jews” as having taken Jesus to Pilate to portray him as an insurrectionist, on which basis Pilate might well put him to death.
My own current belief is that Judas may never have betrayed Jesus into the hands of “the Jews” at all; he may instead have betrayed him directly to Pilate, who I believe had his own, wholly personal, reasons to want Jesus dead.
Related: The Son of the Blessed
Originally posted 2015-12-14.
The title pretty much says it all.
What did Jesus mean by those terms? Continue reading Repentance and conversion
George Ritchie’s Jesus
I’ve just re-published my book. Check it out!
Related:
Music: Ringo Starr, “It don’t come easy”
The Homeless Blogger 