weemadando wrote:
2) Mistranslation due to similarity between one word meaning virgin and one meaning young woman. I forget the languages, I'll look it up later.
Greek. The word from Hebrew that means young woman, when translated to Greek, can mean either "virgin" or "young woman." The translators from Greek to English selected the first meaning, but the second is entirely possible. Don't say that around most Christians this time of year, though. Even moderates can be rabid over that one.
Lord Wong wrote:Jesus is a divinity lawyer? I finally understand the Christian faith! Jesus is not God, but rather, he's your defense lawyer when you meet the judge, so you have to retain his services by kissing his ass!
Of course, this makes hash out of the holy trinity idea, the "Jesus is God" idea, and a lot of other things, but at least it actually makes some sort of sense
That's actually been used before, and is heresy
. Going to my Basic Christian Beliefs class again, the major believers in that style of atonement (although not
quite as extreme, so not considered heretical) are Anselm (a Catholic saint) and John Calvin.
lgot wrote:
There is a even better explanation. If anyone bother to study the process of formation of myths will see how it explains well this sittuation. Like someone pointed the earlier texts do not deal with the subject (even because the hebrew did not give a damn for women).
(I think) I was the one who pointed that out. The Hebrews didn't entirely not give a damn about women. Ruth and Deborah were still important figures to them, and it's not often you see written records about a female political leader in the ancient Middle East (Ruth, the only known female Judge).
It only shows up in the later texts. When in the first texts Jesus is a messianic personality it is only in the later he moves up to the divinity layer. Just read and you see how he is much more powerful, wise, less regional and much more mythic elements are present. One of the elements is the being a child of a god (a normal element of many myths) and like those, the best way to show up you are a child of a god is being born of a virgin, since only way to us humans to have child is by sex (therefore the loss of virginity). Then Joseph turns in a old good man who save her and Jesus's brothers just disaper to not give space to any doubt of the divine intervention.
All true. Well put.
Even so, Mary have no importance. (the earlier christian also give a damn for women).
Eh...Phoebe was an early deacon of the church. Many of the first Christians were women, and dragged their husbands out of Mithra worship to join Christianity. The records for that were just suppressed by the male supremacist Catholic church (sorry to any Catholics who may be on this board, but the hierarchy of the Catholic church
is male supremacist).
She is just a way to show Jesus's special origem. If i am not mistaken, only during the medieval time and during the insane St. Agostyne time Mary turned to have such importance.
It was the medieval period, but I don't believe it was Augustine who started the whole Cult of Mary. It was begun because of the "Christ as Judge" philosophy, which required a more "feminine" touch to balance, so the Catholics added Mary to their prayers as someone to intercede for them with Christ.
Durandal wrote:Genesis 19. Basically what happens is that two angels come to Lot's house, and he takes them in and feeds them. Then a group of guys comes around and say they want to "know" those men. Lot (the only "righteous man" in the city) instead tells them to take his two virgin daughters and have their way with them, but the crowd insists on knowing the angels. So, God kills everyone in the two cities.
God had already decided to destroy the cities, so your causal chain is incorrect.God says Sodom and Gomorrah are to be destroyed in Genesis 18:20-21. Also, the Sodomites are violating the law of hospitality if the Middle East, where guests (even the person you hate most in the world) must be treated with respect while under your roof for three days. The textual notes from my New Oxford Annotated Bible states:
"As in the case of 18:1-8, the main issue here is hospitality to secrety divine visitors. Here, however, the sanctity of hospitality is threatened by the
men of the city who wish to rape(
know) the guests (cf. Judg 19.22-30). Though disapproval of male homosexual rape is assumed here, the primary point of this text is how this threat by the townspeople violates the value of hospitality (contrast 18:1-16). Hospitality is valued so strongly in this context that this text positively portrays Lot's offer of his virgin daughters in place of his guests. Though the text presupposes that a father would have extreme difficulty offering his daughters to such violence, Lot's virture is demnostrated by his willingness to go to such a length-and put his own body in danger (vv. 9-10)-to avoid violation of his guests."
