In the last article, I took a stab at deconstructing the Old Testament. There’s so much to say about that sloppy mess of a “holy” text, but I basically confined myself to pointing out that it’s not as old as it portends to be, that it’s not about a universalist god, but an ethnic deity, and that the Jewish supremacist narrative it presents is poisonous and evil.
The ''browning'' of Jesus is already a thing,no need to wait for it.Obviously spurred more by politics than any real desire for truth or accuracy the swarthy desert nomad is less about the savior of mankind and more about getting revenge on their conservative dad.
On the Caesar topic,you may be right but I don't know enough to say one way or the other having only read Franchesco's work and watched a documentary some years back.For me it seems plausible and until I have more information it remains a useful theory to fill in the gaps.
As for restarting the Ceasar cult the ''current year'' crowd is hardly who you want to appeal to, though I concede that convincing the church going masses is going to basically be impossible.But so is reaching them with any kind of historical revisionism or metaphysics or real mysticism.We're in a spiritually dead age and you're gonna be hard pressed to even find people with potential for real spiritual development let alone turning around a population hellbent on ensuring it's own slavery.The new spiritually alive and applicable Christianity won't come from the normies anyway,but from the Hydra of rando posters trying to figure out a way to live that doesn't degrade the soul.
Great post, Rolo. For those looking for some more Paul's influence on Mark (and Mark as a rewriting of Paul as Christ), these are the main works making those connections:
-Paul Tarazi's The New Testament: An Introduction: Paul and Mark (1999)
-Tom Dykstra's Mark Canonizer of Paul (2012)
-David Oliver Smith's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels (2015)
-David Oliver Smith's Unlocking the Puzzle: The Keys to the Christology and Structure of the Original Gospel of Mark (2017)
-Laura Knight-Jadczyk's From Paul to Mark: PaleoChristianity (2021)
While I have enjoyed all of your writing, this piece and its predecessor have been truly educational for me, a lapsed (not ex-, just lapsed!) Catholic. You're talking about characters with whom I thought I was familiar, and the backstories are utterly new to me.
My 11th grade American Lit teacher was also gay. Don't remember him trying to insinuate sodomy into the Scarlet Letter, but did notice him staring at our studly football star as if in some erotic trance.
I'm on board the Gnostic Express, tho not the Fallen World bypass. Check out sunrises and sunsets and see if they square better w/ Archontic mimicry or Gaian aesthetics. We are living in a techno Matrix, but the red pill does not awaken one to a barren, desolated landscape like the desert Semites were confined to.
Agree that the Caesar template is a distraction. Wasn't it a Jewish writer who started that meme, just like w/ the Clash of Civilizations idea and then a gentile, Huntington, took it mainstream? I think the same guy wrote that the real Shakespeare was a Jewish woman! Yeah, bet on that.
I find your commentary on the Peter-Paul split novel and fascinating. My limited understanding informs me that Paul was a pharisee (lawyer) opposed to the saducees (priests). I had never considered Paul as a Gnostic., tho a Hellenized Jew certainly.
There's another esoteric Christian heresy: "Jesus Was a Scythian". Came across it at a right wing Hungarian website. It's a fairly elaborated theory that claims Jesus was a gentile from an aristocratic family of the Parthian Empire doing some kind of outreach preaching in Judea. He lived in Galilee which was an area reviled by Jews as barbarian. It may be so much wishful thinking, but I found it tremendously provocative before I discovered Gnosticism.
“Churchianity” is such a brilliantly descriptive word; perfect. Clearly, this could be a dark "DC-or-Marvel" graphic genre: "... a book about the murderous rampage of a psychotic tribe of desert people through the ancient world."
"For, among the very first things, I delivered to you what I had also received: that the Anointed died because of our sins, in accord with the scriptures, And that he was entombed, and that he was raised on the third day in accord with the scriptures, And that he was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve; Thereafter he was seen by over five hundred brothers at one time, of whom the majority remain till now, though some have fallen asleep; Thereafter he was seen by James, then by all the Apostles; And last of all, as if by a miscarried baby, he was seen by me also."
Corinthians 15
"So also we, when we were infants, were enslaved in subjection to the Elementals of the cosmos; But when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his Son, coming to be from a woman, coming to be under the Law, So that he might redeem those under Law, in order that we should receive filial adoption. And, since you are sons, God sent forth his Son’s Spirit into our hearts, crying,“Abba!”—Father! Thus you are no longer a slave, but a son; and, if a son, also an heir through God."
Galatians 4
"Be of that mind in yourselves that was also in the Anointed One Jesus, Who, subsisting in God’s form, did not deem being on equal terms with God a thing to be grasped, But instead emptied himself, taking a slave’s form, coming to be in a likeness of human beings; and, being found as a human being in shape, He reduced himself, becoming obedient all the way to death, and a death by a cross."
Well it is always good to read fantasy. So many new versions of old stories. Might as well add your own. In the end truth prevails and only the fool says there is no God.
Your account of the matter is not studious. It's crass abuse of historical literature rooted in chronological snobbery.
Both Mark and Mathew mention bad things about the disciples. Both Mark and Mathew mention good things about the disciples. But since Mark does not mention as many good things about them you take liberty to interpret it that Mark actually hates the Jew-version of christianity and agrees with Paul on the pro-gentile version of Christianity. And that in spite of their major falling out (if you would read Acts)? That's not scholarship. This is molestation.
There are things which Peter said about Paul. There are things which Paul said about Peter. There are things which Paul and Peter did together and agreed upon. Those who actually read NT would find too many examples to contradict your narrative.
Hello Rolo, thank you for this essay on reforming christianity.
First a minor point. Almost everyone accepts that the Matthew Gospel is posterior to the Mark Gospel. What predates the Mark Gospel is an Aramaic or Hebrew compilation of teachings and stories about Jesus, ascribed to Matthew because the early tradition said so and because Matthew was the most learned amongst the apostles and would have been the natural person to do the compilation. When I say "predates", it is to be understood as this is the claim made by the scholars who cling to the anteriority of the Matthew Gospel.
Second the Mark Gospel is a brief story of the life of Jesus with his most important teachings in the context that he made them. It was written in everyday Greek and intended for the common man. Its literary form was entirely novel. It must have had a huge success because its form was retained for the subsequent canonical gospel and beyond. On the other side the Matthew Gospel is like a series of treaties stitched together by a narrative of the life of Jesus. They treaties are divorced from actual context because they are intended to be of general validity. It is written in pompous Greek. I surmise that the success of the Mark Gospel prompted Matthew to reformat his collection of treaties in the style of Mark in order for them to gain audience. It is widely recognised that the Matthew Gospel is intended to expand on and correct the Mark Gospel.
Third point. You find discrepancies in the NT between Paul and Mark versus Peter and Matthew. They are no surprise. Many Jews followed Jesus as the Messiah because his teachings were a good way out of the chains of the law as forged by the doctors of the law, the forefathers of the talmudists. It is reckoned that 75% of the original Jews from Palestine converted over 250 years. These Jews sought a better law to follow, not the degraded jurisprudence wrought upon the original law of Moses. Do not forget that the Talmud purports to be the oral Torah, equivalent in standing to the written Torah, what Jesus calls the tradition of the Pharisees. So in year 1 AD, the Jews had an old written law like many other peoples and an oral law like the primitives before the invention of writing; plus an oral jurisprudence elaborating on both. True paradise for crooks. The Talmud is the oral law and the oral jurisprudence. Despite its massive size, it is not even a complete rendering of the oral stuff. Jesus did save the common Jews on earth before opening the gates of heaven for everyone.
The Greek converts were fed up with the worship of gods in rivers, mountains, statues, etc. That worship seemed fake or plain wrong. They sought the real God and thought they found him in Yahweh, Christ or the Trinity. His teaching for life on earth were deemed excellent, his way to the Kingdom of God was consistent with their mystical experience. Greeks joined in droves.
These two populations had very different aspirations, very different mental worlds, and very different intellectual and spiritual abilities. The early councils tried to balance the religion to suit everyone; that includes internal power. Hence the dual aspect of Christianity as both law for a good life on earth, more or less strict; and revelation of the Kingdom of God.
Mu spirituality has been more experiential than scholarly.
I started with the KJV, but between the "Old English" & microscopic type size, gave up & looked for something more accessible.
The only New Testament that I've read end to end is the "Passion" translation, which includes translations of key passages from Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew & the Septuagint. I don't remember seeing some of what you are saying is there, so will need to go back, re-read.
The ''browning'' of Jesus is already a thing,no need to wait for it.Obviously spurred more by politics than any real desire for truth or accuracy the swarthy desert nomad is less about the savior of mankind and more about getting revenge on their conservative dad.
On the Caesar topic,you may be right but I don't know enough to say one way or the other having only read Franchesco's work and watched a documentary some years back.For me it seems plausible and until I have more information it remains a useful theory to fill in the gaps.
As for restarting the Ceasar cult the ''current year'' crowd is hardly who you want to appeal to, though I concede that convincing the church going masses is going to basically be impossible.But so is reaching them with any kind of historical revisionism or metaphysics or real mysticism.We're in a spiritually dead age and you're gonna be hard pressed to even find people with potential for real spiritual development let alone turning around a population hellbent on ensuring it's own slavery.The new spiritually alive and applicable Christianity won't come from the normies anyway,but from the Hydra of rando posters trying to figure out a way to live that doesn't degrade the soul.
Great post, Rolo. For those looking for some more Paul's influence on Mark (and Mark as a rewriting of Paul as Christ), these are the main works making those connections:
-Paul Tarazi's The New Testament: An Introduction: Paul and Mark (1999)
-Tom Dykstra's Mark Canonizer of Paul (2012)
-David Oliver Smith's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels (2015)
-David Oliver Smith's Unlocking the Puzzle: The Keys to the Christology and Structure of the Original Gospel of Mark (2017)
-Laura Knight-Jadczyk's From Paul to Mark: PaleoChristianity (2021)
While I have enjoyed all of your writing, this piece and its predecessor have been truly educational for me, a lapsed (not ex-, just lapsed!) Catholic. You're talking about characters with whom I thought I was familiar, and the backstories are utterly new to me.
I look forward to your next installment.
My 11th grade American Lit teacher was also gay. Don't remember him trying to insinuate sodomy into the Scarlet Letter, but did notice him staring at our studly football star as if in some erotic trance.
I'm on board the Gnostic Express, tho not the Fallen World bypass. Check out sunrises and sunsets and see if they square better w/ Archontic mimicry or Gaian aesthetics. We are living in a techno Matrix, but the red pill does not awaken one to a barren, desolated landscape like the desert Semites were confined to.
Agree that the Caesar template is a distraction. Wasn't it a Jewish writer who started that meme, just like w/ the Clash of Civilizations idea and then a gentile, Huntington, took it mainstream? I think the same guy wrote that the real Shakespeare was a Jewish woman! Yeah, bet on that.
I find your commentary on the Peter-Paul split novel and fascinating. My limited understanding informs me that Paul was a pharisee (lawyer) opposed to the saducees (priests). I had never considered Paul as a Gnostic., tho a Hellenized Jew certainly.
There's another esoteric Christian heresy: "Jesus Was a Scythian". Came across it at a right wing Hungarian website. It's a fairly elaborated theory that claims Jesus was a gentile from an aristocratic family of the Parthian Empire doing some kind of outreach preaching in Judea. He lived in Galilee which was an area reviled by Jews as barbarian. It may be so much wishful thinking, but I found it tremendously provocative before I discovered Gnosticism.
“Churchianity” is such a brilliantly descriptive word; perfect. Clearly, this could be a dark "DC-or-Marvel" graphic genre: "... a book about the murderous rampage of a psychotic tribe of desert people through the ancient world."
"For, among the very first things, I delivered to you what I had also received: that the Anointed died because of our sins, in accord with the scriptures, And that he was entombed, and that he was raised on the third day in accord with the scriptures, And that he was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve; Thereafter he was seen by over five hundred brothers at one time, of whom the majority remain till now, though some have fallen asleep; Thereafter he was seen by James, then by all the Apostles; And last of all, as if by a miscarried baby, he was seen by me also."
Corinthians 15
"So also we, when we were infants, were enslaved in subjection to the Elementals of the cosmos; But when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his Son, coming to be from a woman, coming to be under the Law, So that he might redeem those under Law, in order that we should receive filial adoption. And, since you are sons, God sent forth his Son’s Spirit into our hearts, crying,“Abba!”—Father! Thus you are no longer a slave, but a son; and, if a son, also an heir through God."
Galatians 4
"Be of that mind in yourselves that was also in the Anointed One Jesus, Who, subsisting in God’s form, did not deem being on equal terms with God a thing to be grasped, But instead emptied himself, taking a slave’s form, coming to be in a likeness of human beings; and, being found as a human being in shape, He reduced himself, becoming obedient all the way to death, and a death by a cross."
Philippians 2
Well it is always good to read fantasy. So many new versions of old stories. Might as well add your own. In the end truth prevails and only the fool says there is no God.
Your account of the matter is not studious. It's crass abuse of historical literature rooted in chronological snobbery.
Both Mark and Mathew mention bad things about the disciples. Both Mark and Mathew mention good things about the disciples. But since Mark does not mention as many good things about them you take liberty to interpret it that Mark actually hates the Jew-version of christianity and agrees with Paul on the pro-gentile version of Christianity. And that in spite of their major falling out (if you would read Acts)? That's not scholarship. This is molestation.
There are things which Peter said about Paul. There are things which Paul said about Peter. There are things which Paul and Peter did together and agreed upon. Those who actually read NT would find too many examples to contradict your narrative.
Hello Rolo, thank you for this essay on reforming christianity.
First a minor point. Almost everyone accepts that the Matthew Gospel is posterior to the Mark Gospel. What predates the Mark Gospel is an Aramaic or Hebrew compilation of teachings and stories about Jesus, ascribed to Matthew because the early tradition said so and because Matthew was the most learned amongst the apostles and would have been the natural person to do the compilation. When I say "predates", it is to be understood as this is the claim made by the scholars who cling to the anteriority of the Matthew Gospel.
Second the Mark Gospel is a brief story of the life of Jesus with his most important teachings in the context that he made them. It was written in everyday Greek and intended for the common man. Its literary form was entirely novel. It must have had a huge success because its form was retained for the subsequent canonical gospel and beyond. On the other side the Matthew Gospel is like a series of treaties stitched together by a narrative of the life of Jesus. They treaties are divorced from actual context because they are intended to be of general validity. It is written in pompous Greek. I surmise that the success of the Mark Gospel prompted Matthew to reformat his collection of treaties in the style of Mark in order for them to gain audience. It is widely recognised that the Matthew Gospel is intended to expand on and correct the Mark Gospel.
Third point. You find discrepancies in the NT between Paul and Mark versus Peter and Matthew. They are no surprise. Many Jews followed Jesus as the Messiah because his teachings were a good way out of the chains of the law as forged by the doctors of the law, the forefathers of the talmudists. It is reckoned that 75% of the original Jews from Palestine converted over 250 years. These Jews sought a better law to follow, not the degraded jurisprudence wrought upon the original law of Moses. Do not forget that the Talmud purports to be the oral Torah, equivalent in standing to the written Torah, what Jesus calls the tradition of the Pharisees. So in year 1 AD, the Jews had an old written law like many other peoples and an oral law like the primitives before the invention of writing; plus an oral jurisprudence elaborating on both. True paradise for crooks. The Talmud is the oral law and the oral jurisprudence. Despite its massive size, it is not even a complete rendering of the oral stuff. Jesus did save the common Jews on earth before opening the gates of heaven for everyone.
The Greek converts were fed up with the worship of gods in rivers, mountains, statues, etc. That worship seemed fake or plain wrong. They sought the real God and thought they found him in Yahweh, Christ or the Trinity. His teaching for life on earth were deemed excellent, his way to the Kingdom of God was consistent with their mystical experience. Greeks joined in droves.
These two populations had very different aspirations, very different mental worlds, and very different intellectual and spiritual abilities. The early councils tried to balance the religion to suit everyone; that includes internal power. Hence the dual aspect of Christianity as both law for a good life on earth, more or less strict; and revelation of the Kingdom of God.
Mu spirituality has been more experiential than scholarly.
I started with the KJV, but between the "Old English" & microscopic type size, gave up & looked for something more accessible.
The only New Testament that I've read end to end is the "Passion" translation, which includes translations of key passages from Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew & the Septuagint. I don't remember seeing some of what you are saying is there, so will need to go back, re-read.