i need to rant and this is where i'm going to do it...

Comment by Misty: Mo's Pitbull! on April 12, 2009 at 11:04pm

I wouldn't call it a rant so much as I would an educational piece. Great work!

Comment by Stacy B on April 13, 2009 at 12:31pm

I completely understand where you're coming from, but I have to make a few comments just to rile you up.

First, I don't see any reason to claim that Paul's version of Christianity is any less valid than anyone else's. If we're being honest Paul wasn't the only one making shit up - the whole damn thing was made up. Jesus might not have ever existed to give us any teachings. If he did, he himself never wrote any of it down, so pretending we can have any clue what "Jesus" taught is reaching a bit. Pretending it matters what Jesus taught is definitely taking it too far. It’s all bullshit. I don’t care whether it’s Paul’s version or Mark’s version or John’s apocalyptic acid trip. There is no God so it’s all something someone made up. Why should it matter which one most closely seems to resemble what the original bullshitters spouted off? May the best politician and promoter win (i.e. Paul).

Second, you're not looking at things from the perspective of the religious. WE know that no version of Christianity existing today is anything like the original versions, nor are any of them any more valid if only for the fact that they're all a bunch of bullshit and wishful thinking. However, the Christians actually believe there is at least one Jesus oriented religion that is Truth, capital T. One of them is right and all the others are wrong. More over one of the ones people follow today is right and all the others that have ever existed are wrong. All those other versions of Christianity that you list failed. They did not go on to spawn any of the Christianities that we see today. What later evolved into Catholicism did (so that strain MUST have been blessed by God, right?). The fact that I worded it that way is important - Catholicism as we see it today, or even as it existed in Constantine's time, did not exist in the first several decades following "Jesus' death." However, only one major sect of early Christianity made it out of infancy (thanks largely to Paul) to evolve into the Christianities we see today (with some borrowing from multiple early versions of the church, however.) If you look at modern Christianity on a timeline, starting with the early church that was successful and ending in the multi-branched monstrosity we see today, then Catholicism comes before any of the major denominations (at least), and those all branch off from Catholicism. So from the perspective of the religious, Catholicism is first among the current religions and if you choose to see it as such, all other denominations of Christianity have bastardized and changed Catholicism to make new Christianities (which, of course, must be false!) So the Catholics are sort of right in asserting that they were "first" (among what we see today). The real problem is that even the Catholic Church has changed significantly over the centuries. The modern Christianities we see did not branch off from modern Catholicism. Catholicism kept evolving with each schism. So to claim that you have the oldest (and thus closest to the "real teachings of Jesus") church is false because you don't follow the same religion that "Catholics" followed way back when, not necessarily because there were other early churches or that Paul made it all up. Hell, they all made it all up so you can't discount Paul over any of the other Bible authors. But looking at it from the religious perspective Paul gave them the true church that has evolved into today's churches, and thus even Paul and his made up shit is closest to the teachings of Jesus because God wouldn't have inspired him to teach something that was incongruent with the teachings of Jesus (right?). Yeah, we know Paul's teachings were bullshit. We know Peter’s teachings were bullshit. We know Jesus' teachings were bullshit. We know all the crap they follow today is bullshit. Why accept one version over the other? While none of the Christianities we see today are remotely similar to the early churches or the actual intention of the teacher or teachers we call "Jesus", at least one of them has been around longer than the others, and that's Catholicism. If anyone can claim some sort of title of “closest to Jesus” in the grand scheme of currently existing religions, it’s Catholicism for the simple fact of having named themselves first, though you’d have to refer to a far older version of Catholicism than what we have today.

In the absence of actual knowledge of the teachings of Jesus we have to fall back on what “God allowed” to grow and flourish to give a religion validity. God apparently saw fit to bless the early Catholic Church and (if anything in religion makes sense) it makes sense to see all offshoot religions as false for having altered the “original” teachings. In this whacked out “logic” and plethora of assumptions the Catholics are right. Or could be if there really were a God.

Comment by Nelson on April 13, 2009 at 9:42pm

thanks for the comments! :)

what i'm saying of course rests on the assumption that we can know anything about what Jesus' original teachings may have been. most atheists believe that we can't say anything on that topic whatsoever but that's not accurate. biblical scholars have known differently for several decades. we have good techniques for teasing out what may have been the original teachings of Jesus. i'll draw from Bart Ehrman's excellent explanation in Jesus, Interrupted for how we do this.

scholars have long noticed that when we compare The Synoptics, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, to each other we find that the writers of Matthew and Luke clearly used Mark as a source for the narrative in their gospel because much of Matt and Luke contain word for word, or nearly so, reproductions of the same stories that appear in Mark even though Mark was written 15 years or so earlier and the writers had no contact with each other nor were they aware of each other. to wit, eighty-nine percent of Mark's content is found in Matthew, and seventy-two percent of Mark is found in Luke. but, and this is key, there are also verses that appear in both Matt and Luke but NOT in Mark. scholars came to understand that these common stories that weren't to be found in Mark were from an earlier gospel that's now lost to us. they called this source Q, short for the german Quelle, meaning "source". the writer of Luke himself lends credence to this when he says, "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word." (luke 1:1-2 NIV) who is Luke talking about when he says many have undertaken to draw up accounts? so it's clear there were other sources extant, besides Mark, that Matthew's and Luke's writers got their common stories from that don't appear in Mark.

there are also stories in Matt that don't appear in Mark or Luke, these are from a source called the M source, and stories that appear in Luke but not in Mark or Matt, called the L source. of course, it's just as reasonable that the M and L sources are themselves made up of multiple sources! so this tells us that before the existence of Matthew and Luke there were at least 4 available sources: Mark, Q, M, and L.

now, we know that if a story appears in a single gospel there's a good chance that it was made up but if the story appears in two or more gospels then neither writer could have made the story up, it must be independently from one of the four older sources. if the story is older, and in being older perhaps more reliable, inasmuch as the older an account is the higher the fidelity to actual events. note that this doesn't mean that the events did occur, only that they are more likely to have occurred.

here's an example of how this helps us figure out what's more likely true and what's less likely true. both Matt (1:19-23) and Luke (2:4-5) say that Jesus was raised in Nazareth. where they differ is on how he got there. so one story came from the M source and one from the L. Mark says the same thing (1:9) and so does John (1:45-46)- even though the writer of John didn't use any of the three Synoptics as his source. so we can say with a good degree of confidence that Jesus probably did come from Nazareth.

another device that helps us is something called the "criterion of dissimilarity" or criterion of embarrassment. this is where there appear stories in the narrative that do not fit in with a christian agenda. stories that we would expect scribes and translators to change, as we know they did many other things in the narrative, so as to fit in better with their preconceived politics, christology or theology. stories like these are unlikely to have been made up by Christian story tellers and so are more likely to represent history.
take the example of Jesus coming from Nazareth. it's long been noticed that the writer of Matthew wrote for a Jewish audience and goes out of his way to weave into the narrative confirmation of Old Testament prophecy. so it's no wonder that Matt has Jesus being born in Bethlehem (2:1) because that's where the messiah was to come from according to Micah 5:2. but why on earth would one of the writers make up a story that Jesus, the savior of the world, came from a little out of the way wide-spot-in-the-road town, Nazareth, that no one had ever heard of? the story doesn't contribute to a christian agenda of making Jesus seem regal and grand and so that's another clue that it's historically accurate.

another technique for spotting the likeliness of truth or falsity is that the narrative has to fit the context of the time and place that Jesus lived to be plausible. as Ehrman points out, in John 3 Jesus has a discussion with the Pharisee Nicodemus where Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again" (3:3). the Greek word translated "again" has two meanings- it can mean either a second time or, alternately, from above. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he must be born again from above before he can see the kingdom of god. Nicodemus misunderstands thinking that Jesus means that he must be born a second time. he responds, "How can a man be born when he is old?" and "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" (3:4) Jesus goes on to correct him. spot the problem with this? the misunderstanding lies completely on a certain Greek word having two meanings. without the dual meanings to the word the conversation makes no sense. here lies the problem: Jesus and his followers were all Jews from in and around Jerusalem and would not have even known Greek but rather would have spoken Aramaic. critically, the Aramaic word for from above doesn't have a dual meaning that means a second time. the story only makes sense if we ignore the context of the time and place that Jesus lived and taught. the conversation could not have happened the way it's told.

so you see, the idea that we can't know anything about a historical Jesus (where he grew up) or his teachings (sorry to all the born-again evangelicals) just isn't true. when we peel away the layers of, as you correctly call them, bullshit, what do we find?

from using these techniques we can say that Jesus was an apocalypticist among many other apocalyptic Jews. apocalypticists held that the world was filled with the forces of good and evil, the evil was the Devil, demons, disease, disasters, death, suffering, pain etc. they believed that God was soon to wipe away the forces of evil and that there would begin a new age where good prevailed. they called this age The Kingdom of God. Jesus was a prophet who told his followers that the Kingdom of God was coming in their own lifetimes. according to Mark, our earliest canonical gospel:

If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
And he said to them, I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power. Mark 8:38-9:1

But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.Mark 13:24-27, 30

the Son of Man is coming to judge the world. side with Jesus, i.e., repent of your evil actions and embrace the good, and you'll be rewarded, others will be punished. it's a message found in our earliest accounts that pass the tests laid out above for what were likely to have been Jesus' actual teachings.
from Luke and Matt- not in Mark, therefore from the Q document:

For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other... Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. Luke 17:24;26-27, 30. repeated in Matt 24:27, 37-39.

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Matt 24:44. similarly in Luke 12:39

and here, from Matthew's M source, we find:

As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. Matt 13:40-43

he taught that there would be judgment for the evil but that the good would be rewarded. anyone who was now evil would be in big trouble but anyone who was suffering and oppressed would be exalted. Jesus taught that anyone who was evil needed to reform, and fast, to prepare for the new age. it's important to note that the coming kingdom is NOT a heaven above and nor is there discussion of a hell below. what was to come would come here, on earth. the kingdom here on earth was going to be ruled by God through his anointed one Jesus with the 12 disciples governing the 12 tribes of Israel. (Matt 19:28, Luke 22:28-30)

now of course once Jesus himself died and the apostles and disciples started dropping like flies the early Christians started reinterpreting the message into a heaven above, a hell below, eternal reward and punishment, that Jesus himself was divine (as noted above, something Jesus himself never says in the oldest sources. we have John's gospel to thank for that idea), a second coming, and that Jesus himself was the Son of Man. but if you read the verses critically you can see that Jesus never refers to himself as the Son of Man. in fact, he specifically says that if you don't follow me then the Son of Man will do what he will with you. Jesus understood that the Son of Man was a person distinct from himself.

i could go on with more examples but the point is that we can say something about what Jesus' teachings may have actually been. what we find from our oldest sources is that they are absolutely not the teachings of the Catholic Church. you can see that they are most closely that of the Ebionite Christians i mentioned above. what is clear is that Paul and the early church fathers perverted what seem to be the true teachings of Jesus.

so again, no, we can absolutely say both that the Catholic Church isn't the original version of Christianity and nor is it the version with the highest fidelity to Jesus' apparent teachings. to be sure, when i say Paul made shit up, i don't mean to say that he intentionally perverted Jesus' teachings. it's important to bear in mind that Paul never met Jesus and didn't have any gospels with which to interpret Jesus' teachings. he was basing his theology on how he interpreted the oral traditions through the lens of his former paganism. i don't mean to say that Paul sat down and maliciously aimed to change things. he genuinely felt he understood the message appropriately. but our oldest sources tell us he almost certainly did not.

i don't disagree that the religious will respond by saying that God favored the proto-orthodox so that it would become the Catholic Church but that no more makes it original than it is any of the other Christianities that vied for dominance. i don't disagree that the protestant offshoots have changed what were the original Catholic teachings but that still doesn't make Catholicism the original version of Christianity. it's worth noting too that to make that argument at all you'd have to ignore the fact that Catholicism itself has evolved over the centuries and so in a sense it too is no longer original when compared to the proto-orthodox that was, according to the argument, blessed by god to become the Catholic Church.

Comment by Stacy B on April 14, 2009 at 12:00am

And thanks for the incredibly informative response. I see my riling succeeded. :)

However, I never disagreed with you. I was merely hoping to explain why I think the Catholics (or other Christians) would disagree with you, and thus why they keep perpetuating the idea that "their version of Christianity is the first and most valid version of Christianity with the highest fidelity to the teachings of Jesus" in spite of the actual history of Christianity. I think you understand what I'm saying, though. It’s just hard to get past that pesky reality when understanding why they make that claim, but I think it’s important to work within their “logic” when dismantling it. While all the Biblical scholarship and research means something to us in this debate it clearly means nothing to Christians. So many inconsistencies and conflicting stories in the Bible are ignored as it is that truly considering what is truly closest to the teachings of one Yeshua of Nazareth doesn't mean anything to these people. It's about what they've decided Christianity is (and even was). And they've decided that there were a lot of false teachings in the early days of Christianity, that one set of beliefs - nay, facts - about Jesus and his teachings has carried through to today, and that that set of beliefs is God's word and gospel. Because the Catholics got a hold of the Truth before any of the other current manifestations of Christianity, "their version of Christianity is the first and most valid version of Christianity with the highest fidelity to the teachings of Jesus." Because what they teach must be the Truth about the teachings of Jesus, and of course they've never changed their story, then they necessarily have the correct version of Christianity, and always have. While other denominations clearly disagree, the Catholics can claim that they latched onto their version of Christianity before other current denominations, which is important in the Christian world because "changes" to Christianity are seen as "false" and "heretical." Claiming that they've been in business with the same ideas for the longest, that they have the very teachings of Jesus in hand and practice them every day and have for longer than other denominations, is what the Catholics feel matters in that argument, and why I think that merely pointing out that Catholicism has changed as much as any other denomination has veered from early Catholicism is the more relevant argument to Catholics themselves, rather than trying to convince them (and all of Christianity) that they've got their beliefs about Jesus wrong. It seems like it would be the argument that other Christians would make as well.

I just thought it was important to note specifically why the Catholics wouldn't care about the refutations you present to their claim. Of course you’re right, but they’re not operating in reality. They’re operating within the confines of a “logic” that holds only for those who believe someone has the true teachings of Jesus in hand today. It seems that the most effective way to shoot down their claims is to present a refutation within that “logic.”

Comment by Nelson on April 14, 2009 at 12:39am

yeah, certainly they don't care about refutations based on textual criticism... or based upon anything for that matter. there's no doubt they'll just perform some mental or verbal gymnastics to try to square all this with what they already believe to be true rather than undertaking any kind of intellectually honest investigation into the fact of the matter.

Comment by Brutus on June 30, 2009 at 8:08pm

I always felt that the Orthodoxy had the best claim on primacy since it was the official church established by Constantine at the beginning of the 4th century. When the imperial capital was relocated to the East, the western church started to go its own way until it separated in 1054 c.e. Since then, somehow the Popes have got it into their heads that they are the successors to St. Pete and, therefore, of the "real" Christianity and also of the Roman imperium. The squabbles between the RC Church and the various Protestant denominations ignore the presence of an episcopacy that has been in continuous existence since the early 4th century.

Comment by Darwin lachance on June 30, 2009 at 9:36pm

may the power of Christ compell you..... too continue writing more blogs.

Comment by Nelson on July 1, 2009 at 2:58am

@Brutus:
well, you could say that. but only if we're going to arbitrarily give primacy to what became the Catholic Church solely on the basis of Theodosius making it the state religion of the Roman Empire in 380 (common mistake- Constantine was only the first Christian Roman Emperor. by the Edict of Milan he announced tolerance for Christianity, but not one specific brand of Christianity, by ending all penalties for professing Christianity. however, worship of the Roman pantheon was still the state religion of the empire under Constantine.) that's certainly the argument for the primacy of the orthodoxy but the historical reality is nothing like that. in the first through third centuries the first, sometimes only, and dominant version of Christianity in many cities around the Mediterranean was actually "heretical".

the whole concept of "orthodox" and "heresy" is really misleading. "orthodox" means correct, true, straight while "heresy" means known false teaching. since the orthodox won the debates they're the ones who got to write the history and so what everyone thinks is that from the beginning there was an original and pure orthodox that was only later knowingly perverted by the heretics. that is, according the orthodoxy's version of history, the heretics were well aware of the truth of the orthodoxy but went around purposefully spreading what they knew to be false teachings and lies.

nothing could be further from the truth.

as i mentioned above in many cities around the Mediterranean "heresy" was in fact the first, sometimes only, and dominant version of Christianity. in fact, it's correct to say that in these cities it was in fact the "heresy" that was orthodox!
Edessa was Marcionite
Alexandria was mainly and dominantly gnostic but coexisted with the minority "orthodoxy" but even this "orthodoxy" was apparently conditioned by a syncretism of a whole host of other cults and religions.
Antioch was gnostic.
Smyrna was gnostic.
Philippi was docetic gnostic.
Corinth was dominantly gnostic but coexisting with both Jewish and Gentile Christianity.
Phyrgia was dominated by Montanism but with an "orthodox" minority.
etc, etc, etc...

it's not really proper at all to speak in blanket terms of an orthodoxy and a heresy as existing before Theodosius elevated Nicene Christianity and brought the power of the Roman state to bear on anyone professing "heretical" versions of Christianity. at best we can say that there existed a "proto-orthodoxy," often representing a politically powerless insignificant minority, alongside many other versions of Christianity each of who's followers felt that they were followers of the one true church.

i'm not sure i'd say that the squabbles between the Roman Catholic Church and the various Protestant denominations ignore the presence of an episcopacy that has been in continuous existence since then. i'm not sure how it could be ignored really- the Catholics are always ready to remind their Protestant attackers of that fact. it is that fact that they argue from when claiming primacy after all. traditionally the squabbles have been over the Protestant denominations accusing the Roman Catholic Church of perverting the original teachings while becoming a political power grabbing organization full of earthly excesses from top to bottom. Protestant denoms traditionally argue that they broke away from the Catholic Church because of those excesses so as to return to the original pure teachings.

Comment by Brutus on July 1, 2009 at 2:53pm

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I was aware of the "heretical" views that existed at the time. Nicea was in some sense an effort to squash them.

Comment by Nelson on October 7, 2009 at 6:55pm

i just noticed an error in a response i posted here. instead of "...Paul's former paganism." that should of course be Paul's former Judaism! woops! sorry for the error everyone!

Comment