by Half banana 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Aztec human sacrifice. Accounts of prolific human sacrifice in the Mexico City area prior to the Spanish.
Jesus ransom sacrifice. Biblical accounts of Jesus crucifixion.
Both in Bible times and in ancient Mexico, murder of humans. Taking of human lives is what it came down to for the validity of God. Whether or not each did actually take place(100% for sure), murder is murder.
There is not one account of any ransom sacrifice having effect whoever does the dying .
I like Xanthippe's picture of the validity of Jesus' sacrifice as a cheese with holes in it, I would like to add that the holes are connected only by a tissue of lies and superstition.
I agree with Witness007. I really wanted to believe in the Jesus character because he seemed like a guy I'd like to know because he was about peace and love. But then I did some research on this Jesus dude and it turns out he is nothing more than another man who's character was polished up by politicians and ruling elite to use as a power play in controlling the masses. That was it. The Jesus you picture in your mind did not exist in reality. Sorry to disappoint you.
Searcher, the Wikipedia is a wonderful quick reference but the last thing it is, is scholarly. It is verboten as a reference in universities because it has no academic peer review by those who have given their lives to determining the veracity of the particular branch of research in question.
“Bible scholars” are usually driven by faith and divine revelation. Academic textual scholars are driven by archaeology, history, logic and text evidences. So religiously committed "Biblical scholars", and rabbis and popular opinions and Wikipedia just don’t cut the mustard.
General comment... If Jesus is
your saviour, you are mistaken in thinking that Jesus has any credible,
concrete, first hand, eyewitness evidence for his existence as a human.
There were many notable writers and commentators who were alive at the time of his purported existence who would have given their eye teeth to record a super-man, had he really been there.
Josephus was both a local man and a contemporary of the earliest years of Jesus-christianity had it existed.He was after all the governor of Galilee before getting Roman recognition and becoming a writer after the fall of Jerusalem. The very fact that he mentions Jesus as “the saviour” en passant without detailed explanation, which was his normal manner... is evidence that these words are later insertions into his text by desperate and dishonest believers. The historical silence about Jesus is deafening.
Half banana,
With all due respect (and a lot of agreement with a lot of what you write), I don't know if the comment that critical textual scholarship in the hands of those with religious convictions is likely unreliable ("won't cut the mustard," as you put it). Being quite familiar with the process, I have to say this can't be the case universally.
In my college days, I became good friends with a Bible scholar who was, get this, an atheist. And he is not the only one, I learned from him. Did you know that some religious Jews are also atheist at the same time? And some of these are scholars too.
I know, it wouldn't make sense according to what we were taught in the Watchtower. But like Buddhism, belief in deity is not central or relevant to Judaism. The whole "God is dead" mantra actually is ascribed to some of the Jews who, surviving the Holocaust (and before the Jews returned to Israel and the Six-Day War) came to the conclusion that the only possibility allowing for such a thing was the death of the God of Abraham...interesting story, but that is getting off the subject.
The point is that critical Biblical analysis is a methodology, like science. That means scholars have to develop a working hypothesis, prove their theory, and have their results validated by disinterested parties before they can publish and use their conclusions-- just like any other critical method demands.
Becuase not all Biblical scholars believe in God or are religious, it helps in the validating process. The majority of such academic findings is that Scripture is largely allegorical or written in similar narrative. Now if you are against such views, then you agree with conservative Christians that the Bible is fact. But knowing you don't means you agree with the main conclusions of the method.
The majority of Christian leaders do as well, but it seems in America (where Fundamentalism is creeping into the Catholic Church) this is not sitting well. Under direction of the Holy See, the American bishops have limited the American Catholics to one official Bible text, the New American Bible Revised Edition, and it is so heavy in critical footnotes that some pages are more than half critical notation.
Some conservative Catholics, in a demand to embrace some of the interpretations popular among Fundametalist neighbors, have attempted to revise an older Catholic Bible translation as an alternative to the one approved by the USCCB. But the American bishops will not give this version approval for public or private use (an imprimatur is required for Catholics to even privately read a Bible version), with the Holy See and apparently Pope Francis backing up the necessity of critical scholarship and some of its conclusions, even at the expense of revising some traditions. The issue is splitting the American Church at present, and the views from both ends are becoming more and more polarizing instead of seeking a way to build bridges. I've seen fights break out between Catholics over which Bible version they use, the approved Bishop's or the "other" conservative one.
I won't say that some of what gets published isn't colored by the overtly religious views of some (and you can definitely see that when it is happening), but this is not representative of the picture at large which is splitting the largest American Christian denomination over Bibles. Catholics who accept the NABRE on one side and others embracing a cleverly mislabeled RSV "2nd Catholic edition" on the other.
This wouldn't be hapenning if the critical method produced Bible theology that merely pandered to religious people.
That's EXACTLY the point.
There has been NO evidence YET of any ransom sacrifice proving anything.
Whether its Christ being crucified or some ritual by some ancient civilization, it just seems to serve nothing.
Just some symbolic, or invisible significance.
I think the Jesus Messiah story is inherently mythical with a distinct pertaining intent to the reason for the story of why it was expressed by ancient people in a sociological environment.
Christopher Hitchens has some comments onto the Jesus Christ story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYaQpRZJl18
Part 2
The biggest hole in the ransom sacrifice in my opinion is that there was no risk involved.
According to the Old Testament Jesus would be resurrected on the third day and therefore the whole exercise was a foregone conclusion. So what did it prove? It only showed that an individual would do what is needed if the reward was great enough. Compared to the story of Job, the ransom seems hollow. If Jesus had died and was not resurrected, now that would have been a real sacrifice.
The biggest hole?
Jesus ransom was to buy back what Adam lost, correct?
You know, the Adam that was created a mere 6,000 years ago, despite the fact that the history of man goes back way before Adam would have shown up on the scene.
So Jesus died for nothing. Adam wasn't the first man, he actually didn't exist. The story of Adam is a parable at best. A fable, a myth. The doctrine of Jesus ransom sacrifice is based on parables of people that didn't exist. Once you realize that, Jesus' death as a ransom sacrifice makes absolutely zero sense. Hows that for a big ole hole?
