The Book of The Law Study Group 3.62

Aeon418

closrapexa said:
The rather pornographic image of a suffering man together with a very real, ecstatic, sexual love rather than the abstract love of Judaism contributed to Christianity's great appeal.

Yes, but one can't help feeling that it's all rather morbid and creepy. It's hard too see how it could be otherwise when Christianity openly cemented the relationship between attainment and suffering. Mortify the flesh to get closer to the godhead. That's quite a narrow focus. What about other methods?

[quote='Mark 3:31-33]31. And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32. He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”[/quote]

Oh well. Nice try, Peter.

While the Dying god formula, IAO, is still valid (although it has been absorbed into a wider understanding), it needs to be separated from any kind of interpretive symbolic framework that has been layered over the top.

Milfoil

ravenest said:
I never understood why the main image is the death and not the ressurection.

I think it may come down the way in which death was viewed by the ancients.

From this interview with Candida Moss, author of 'The Myth of Persecution'.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danielle-tumminio/candida-moss-on-whether-c_b_2743722.html

In one of this book's early chapters, you write about the concept of a good death. What did it mean to die a good death in the ancient world? Can you talk a little bit about the differences between a good death in ancient Greece and in ancient Judaism?

It seems very counter-intuitive to us, but ancient Greeks, Romans, Jews and later Christians thought about death -- a lot. They theorized about what it meant to die nobly and even encouraged people to embrace death in the service of country, city, law or God. Iconic figures like Achilles and Socrates were remembered in large part because of the way in which they died. For ancient Greeks fighting in battle, dying nobly ensured that one would be remembered as a courageous hero. Ancient Jews were willing to lay down their lives out of obedience to the law but also in the knowledge that God would reward them in the afterlife. But while Jews and Romans differed about what, precisely, was worth dying for and the form of reward they could expect, they were in agreement that dying with self-control for something greater than oneself was a good thing.

So how did ancient Greek and Jewish ideas about a good death affect the early Christians?

Christianity emerged in a world in which everyone valued dying for a cause. So it makes sense that the early Christians shared this view and that they interpreted death -- especially the traumatizing death of their leader -- in a similar way. Sometimes scholars or modern observers will say that ancient Christians must have been crazy for desiring martyrdom because it is unnatural or insane. But the fact of the matter is that dying nobly was well regarded in ancient culture and Christians were perfectly in keeping with the rest of society valorizing certain kinds of death.

It would explain why the death and martyrdom was viewed as more important than the resurrection, plus as so many were crucified, perhaps there was an element of common suffering - the God who suffered like the common man etc.

ravenest

Aeon418 said:
Mortify the flesh to get closer to the godhead.

That sounds like a type of 'black school' Gnosticism. - How in hell did I end up here! What a horrible place ... I want to get back to heaven (read womb? even perhaps non-existence?), whatever you do don’t reproduce, that will just make more people suffering like I am.

Aeon418 said:
While the Dying god formula, IAO, is still valid (although it has been absorbed into a wider understanding), it needs to be separated from any kind of interpretive symbolic framework that has been layered over the top.

That valid dying god formula I saw in the Jesus I admired as a young child - the one who walked in amongst the lepers to help them. People do it all the time, stuff like that, and I have great admiration for their 'sacrifice'. We pass Bodhisattvas all the time in the street and may not recognise them. I also appreciate appropriate 'surrender' of inappropriate ego. That 'interpretive symbolic framework that has been layered over the top' is the issue resulting in concepts of mortification, bad enough, but when one projects the idea of mortification as something others should do or experience ...... look the f... out!

Give me the royal red school anyway!

ravenest

Milfoil said:
I think it may come down the way in which death was viewed by the ancients.

From this interview with Candida Moss, author of 'The Myth of Persecution'.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danielle-tumminio/candida-moss-on-whether-c_b_2743722.html

It would explain why the death and martyrdom was viewed as more important than the resurrection, plus as so many were crucified, perhaps there was an element of common suffering - the God who suffered like the common man etc.

Firstly;
Well HELLO Milfoil.
I havent talked to you in a LOOONG time (where you bin? - I'll explain that joke one day

)
Yeah I get it, Check Joseph Campbell ... the title eludes me ... reality of myth, or something, he does a good job on it. One part he talks about the Aztec? mayan ? ball game where at the 'big game' the winner (note winner) gets killed by the looser (Oh the shame of the looser - not to be violently murdered!)

I get it, I have years and years training in a 'Samurai'
tradition (sort of Samurai - Matsamura Sieto - a family tradition from one of two personal bodyguards who spanned the reign of the 3 last kings of Okinawa - not Japan)

BUT

its the church itself that makes such (or made such to me) a big deal that JESUS was NOT the same as all these others he proved he was god by RISING FROM THE DEAD.

Zephyros

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

and

The Power of Myth

both by Joseph Campbell

Richard

ravenest said:
......its the church itself that makes such (or made such to me) a big deal that JESUS was NOT the same as all these others he proved he was god by RISING FROM THE DEAD.

This is how C. S. Lewis was converted to evangelical Christianity. An atheist friend remarked (paraphrase): "Rum thing, this stuff about dying and rising gods. It almost seems to have happened once." Lewis thought about it and decided that it really did happen. Thereby atheism lost a brilliant thinker.

Richard

The big deal about Christianity was the resurrection. Death is not the end. If you believe the right thing, you survive death and go to be with the Lord. The martyrs wanted to go to heaven right away. It is a sin to kill yourself, but it's OK to be a pest about your beliefs and get yourself executed for that. Suffering just adds to your reward, because it is Christlike to suffer.

Milfoil

ravenest said:
Firstly;
Well HELLO Milfoil.
I havent talked to you in a LOOONG time (where you bin? - I'll explain that joke one day )

Helloooo there ravenest, nice to chat again and yes, it has been a while hasn't it?

ravenest said:
BUT

its the church itself that makes such (or made such to me) a big deal that JESUS was NOT the same as all these others he proved he was god by RISING FROM THE DEAD.

Yes, true but the Catholic church, which I guess most would argue as the oldest of the mainstream Christian churches, does place a lot of emphasis on the resurrected Christ. Mostly images of him with outstretched arms, dressed in white and gold, floating etc.

I do get what you mean though and the whole martyrdom, pain and suffering thing has ensured that Catholicism, through it's priests, nuns and monks have promoted pain and suffering as a way to 'save' people until the present when finally the world is waking up to the abuse.

LRichard said:
The big deal about Christianity was the resurrection. Death is not the end. If you believe the right thing, you survive death and go to be with the Lord. The martyrs wanted to go to heaven right away. It is a sin to kill yourself, but it's OK to be a pest about your beliefs and get yourself executed for that. Suffering just adds to your reward, because it is Christlike to suffer.

Yes but resurrection for the masses only AFTER waiting until the rapture or end of the world when ALL who had been good enough would be taken up. So the resurrection process was 'owned' by the church where pain and martyrdom was manipulated to suit their designs on power and control. A martyred saint would be deemed to have gone straight to heaven and so would be praying for you or have some influence 'up there', hence the pilgrimages to their sacred sites, money paid for access to elicit their thelp . . . . yada, yada, yada.

Fits in with the "to me do ye reverence" bit.

ravenest

I should have pointed out about the first 'person' to rise from the dead claim by the church ... was the first person 'we' have PROOF of rising.

Proof is relative of course.

But in regard to the tradition of ressurected souls (of which there cannot be proof) some say Christianity was the first as the Jews never had that belief.

Ummmm ... the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs ...

ravenest

To Me do ye reverence! to me come ye through tribulation of ordeal, which is bliss.

I guess the final answer about bliss after the tribulation of ordeal will be assesed after
III:75

The Book of The Law Study Group 3.62

Aeon418

Milfoil

ravenest

ravenest

Zephyros

Richard

Richard

Milfoil

ravenest

ravenest