Judas: Dialogue with Dad...
[An ongoing conversation with my father re: things political and religious... My response occurs earlier than his initial message, so read down to his message first.]
Response from Tana: I think that almost none of the characters or characterizations revered in "traditional" Christianity hold up to the scrutiny of history and time and science. Christianity is a creation myth of a religion, with mystical aspirations. As we now know from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hamadi, and other alternative gospels and writings, there were earlier and smarter -- and more physically possible -- versions of the story of Christ and its meanings than the one handed down through Roman Catholicism and its offspring, the various Reformations. I believe that current forensic sciences, deeper studies of history and ancient languages, and other resources in the Age of Information are revealing the silliness of the essential story as held by believers. The Church has been all about politics and manipulation from the get-go. Lovely as Italy is, never forget that it is essentially corrupt in all things and princes and popes are the real story of this country's religion.
I think these new historical revelations, mixed with forensic science, are exactly why the Religious Right is so uneasy with science and history, choosing instead to perpetuate the convenient, but unbelievable faux history of Christ and the meanings of what he said. There is so much seminal evidence that he spent time among the Essenes, the Gnostics and other mystical sects of Jews in the ancient world and absorbed the best of their teachings and included them in what he tried to leave behind. The Communion itself is an Essene ritual. But the Christian Church never credits such things pre-dating Christ's use of them.
I personally believe that he was a special human of immense insight. I personally believe that he accessed God in a way that we each can, if we are gifted enough to do so. I personally believe that he -- and other mystics and prophets -- spoke in code to try to "mail" their knowledge down through time. I think their knowledge has been ambushed and corrupted by other agendas and passed on as the Real Deal to silly people incapable of doing their own critical thinking, or seeing with their own eyes, and understanding the meanings of the original messages. Through no fault of their own. The story was revised so it would work as a centralized religion. The Church withheld information from the masses on all levels -- through intentional and non-intentional means. And the educational level of the world's masses, at large, has not been great yet. Religion itself has been a huge impediment to real education. From the Scopes trial, to creationism, to "intelligent design," to the Bush administration and Falwell and Ashcroft, et al, we see this attempt to keep the veil in place even in today's world.
No wonder there's a plethora of espionage fiction written by the likes of Dan Brown and his predecessors, casting the Catholic Church in the same light at the KGB, the Nazis, and other "evil empire" organizations. This whole loop back into Fundamentalism and anti-science rhetoric has been confusing to me. I'd thought I was living in a rational and modern, if not morally perfect, society. But these past 6 yrs have revealed to me that I live in a society of irrational, magical thinkers who no more understand real faith than the man in the moon. The Universe is so much smarter and more awesome (to use an overused word) than the creation myth of Christianity or Judaism or any other religion. Religion held up in a world of pre-science, but it does no longer.
I personally believe that there is huge intelligence in the Universe, but it's not caught up in an earthbound mythology. Fortunately, the earthbound mythology hasn't had any influence on the actual reality of the Universe. We are its children and it's a closed system. It's essentially benign and not the result of intentional, organized evil. It has an essential nature, and we are part of that. We might get eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger, but that is not organized evil, only hungry nature. As Annie Dillard wisely wrote: "This is a chomped and nibbled world." In all likelihood, God exists mostly in bacteria, which seem to be the catalyzing force for evolution. Not only do bacteria winnow out the weak from the strong, but they evolve us. When we survive, we change.
I think Judas was doing what he was asked by Christ. Christ wanted to make his myth according to his own recipe to the extent that he could. Judas didn't last very long after "betraying" Christ, as I understand it. He hanged himself before the day was done. I think Christ was not necessarily chaste and celebate, and so it is likely that the Magdalene was a close consort. Whether she was his wife, I don't know. But it was unusual at the time for a woman to be so close to a man w/o marriage. In India and the Far East, they report that the two Marys traveled to their land, along with the Virgin's son, after the time of the crucifixion and "ascension," and taught in their lands. They have a shrine to the Virgin, which is reported to be her grave.
I think the story I most believe is this: Christ was crucified and upon the cross given a drug by mouth by his friends that would not only comfort him but would also mimmick death. I believe that the man who provided the crypt and some of the apostles arrived early to take his body down. I believe he looked dead many hours earlier than most people died from crucifixion, and they were able to take him away and place him in the tomb in a shroud. I believe that not everyone involved in preparing his body for permanent burial was in on the secret that he was not dead. I believe that his injuries from his torture and crucifixion and the drug were difficult to bear, and that when he awakened and was released from the tomb he was spotted by a few people and told them to stay back. I believe he looked terrible, "changed." And I believe that after he was seen that a few of his friends hid him effectively so that he was not seen again -- so that he could heal enough to leave the area forever. If he'd been spotted by the Jews or Romans, they'd really have killed him on the spot. So he had to leave, but not before communicating to a few apostles re: what they should do. I believe that he hid in the general area long enough to encounter Paul. And then I think he went to the East forever. The East has stories of him after the time of his crucifixion in the Mideast, and he was seen with two women, one of them his mother. They taught and performed healing along their way. And that he eventually died in the East.
The story of Mary Magdalene making her way, pregnant, into the south part of ancient France and having her daughter pass along this royal bloodline is interesting. But it's in conflict with the story above, which I believe more. Unless she eventually peeled away and made her own way west... It's hard to square the two stories.
But I look for stories that can occur within physical laws. There are miracles of illusion and miracles of healing, and perhaps even of apparent deaths being reversed. I don't think Christ would have been any less holy for what he was trying to teach and show, had the story been truthful. Being touched by Christianity in my childhood and in my family, and in my society, I do feel a relationship with Christ and speak with him daily and feel there's a great deal of power there. I think that love is a constant act of forgiveness, and Christ changed the world the most by modeling forgiveness. Many of the other religions were about exclusivity and retribution. Christ's message was about forgiveness. I have an imperfect understanding of him, but this I do know.
So I, for one, am glad that they're digging up hidden scrolls in a time when scholars can take a good look at them and add them to the mosaic of our understanding. Piecing this together with the Deep Space work of science will finally bring real knowledge to the human race. We need radical change in our consciousness, not mere revision of a failed story. Reenacting the failed story is enslavement. Sometimes I think the Bush administration and its ilk would be happiest with a return to the feudal time of the Dark Ages, when kings and bishops ruled and the people were just part of the landscape. Americans, of all people, need to integrate science with history and move forward into the future with real knowledge. And not let Catholicism and Fundamentalism hold us back any longer. I believe in a secular morality more than a church-enforced faux reality. And I thank God that our society still retains enough free speech that you could watch a special on Judas. Now, if millions more would open their minds, too...
......................................................................................
Message from Dad: Judas Iscariot, long reviled as history's quintessential betrayer, was [according to the newly translated Coptic Gospel of Judas] actually the best friend of Jesus and turned him over to authorities only because Jesus asked him to.
The document, on display in Washington, found in the 1970s but only recently translated, revealed only this week by the National Geographic Society, considered by some to be the most important archaeological find of the last 60 years, purports to record conversations between Jesus and Judas in the last week of their lives---conversations in which Jesus shared secrets not known by others of his disciples.
"You will exceed all of them for you will sacrifice the man that
clothes me."
"Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of
the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a
great deal."
Jesus also reveals that Judas will be despised by the other
disciples. "You will be cursed by the other generations---and you
will come to rule over them."
This Coptic script was ruled heretical by the EARLY CHURCH leaders because of its disagreement with the conventionally accepted gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most copies were destroyed. The sole known copy lay hidden in the Egyptian desert for nearly 1,700 years before it was discovered by looters in the 1970s. The authentication and translation of the document will produce "a short-term sensation," said Rev. Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, but its "impact on the lives of ordinary believers is going to somewhat minimal." Biblical scholars, however, hailed the new text because of the insight it will provide into the exceptionally turbulent period when competing ideologies sought to stake their own claims to the Jesus story. The Judas Gospel was originally written in Greek about 140 after Jesus and Judas died. The current manuscript is a copy of the original text translated into the Coptic language by a professional scribe in a group known as the Gnostics. Extensive analysis of the paper, ink, writing style, and text all indicate the copy was made about A.D. 300.
"He's [Judas] is the good guy in this portrayal," said Bart Ehrman, a religion professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "He's the only apostle who understands Jesus."
---Paraphrasing the Los Angles Times
[An ongoing conversation with my father re: things political and religious... My response occurs earlier than his initial message, so read down to his message first.]
Response from Tana: I think that almost none of the characters or characterizations revered in "traditional" Christianity hold up to the scrutiny of history and time and science. Christianity is a creation myth of a religion, with mystical aspirations. As we now know from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hamadi, and other alternative gospels and writings, there were earlier and smarter -- and more physically possible -- versions of the story of Christ and its meanings than the one handed down through Roman Catholicism and its offspring, the various Reformations. I believe that current forensic sciences, deeper studies of history and ancient languages, and other resources in the Age of Information are revealing the silliness of the essential story as held by believers. The Church has been all about politics and manipulation from the get-go. Lovely as Italy is, never forget that it is essentially corrupt in all things and princes and popes are the real story of this country's religion.
I think these new historical revelations, mixed with forensic science, are exactly why the Religious Right is so uneasy with science and history, choosing instead to perpetuate the convenient, but unbelievable faux history of Christ and the meanings of what he said. There is so much seminal evidence that he spent time among the Essenes, the Gnostics and other mystical sects of Jews in the ancient world and absorbed the best of their teachings and included them in what he tried to leave behind. The Communion itself is an Essene ritual. But the Christian Church never credits such things pre-dating Christ's use of them.
I personally believe that he was a special human of immense insight. I personally believe that he accessed God in a way that we each can, if we are gifted enough to do so. I personally believe that he -- and other mystics and prophets -- spoke in code to try to "mail" their knowledge down through time. I think their knowledge has been ambushed and corrupted by other agendas and passed on as the Real Deal to silly people incapable of doing their own critical thinking, or seeing with their own eyes, and understanding the meanings of the original messages. Through no fault of their own. The story was revised so it would work as a centralized religion. The Church withheld information from the masses on all levels -- through intentional and non-intentional means. And the educational level of the world's masses, at large, has not been great yet. Religion itself has been a huge impediment to real education. From the Scopes trial, to creationism, to "intelligent design," to the Bush administration and Falwell and Ashcroft, et al, we see this attempt to keep the veil in place even in today's world.
No wonder there's a plethora of espionage fiction written by the likes of Dan Brown and his predecessors, casting the Catholic Church in the same light at the KGB, the Nazis, and other "evil empire" organizations. This whole loop back into Fundamentalism and anti-science rhetoric has been confusing to me. I'd thought I was living in a rational and modern, if not morally perfect, society. But these past 6 yrs have revealed to me that I live in a society of irrational, magical thinkers who no more understand real faith than the man in the moon. The Universe is so much smarter and more awesome (to use an overused word) than the creation myth of Christianity or Judaism or any other religion. Religion held up in a world of pre-science, but it does no longer.
I personally believe that there is huge intelligence in the Universe, but it's not caught up in an earthbound mythology. Fortunately, the earthbound mythology hasn't had any influence on the actual reality of the Universe. We are its children and it's a closed system. It's essentially benign and not the result of intentional, organized evil. It has an essential nature, and we are part of that. We might get eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger, but that is not organized evil, only hungry nature. As Annie Dillard wisely wrote: "This is a chomped and nibbled world." In all likelihood, God exists mostly in bacteria, which seem to be the catalyzing force for evolution. Not only do bacteria winnow out the weak from the strong, but they evolve us. When we survive, we change.
I think Judas was doing what he was asked by Christ. Christ wanted to make his myth according to his own recipe to the extent that he could. Judas didn't last very long after "betraying" Christ, as I understand it. He hanged himself before the day was done. I think Christ was not necessarily chaste and celebate, and so it is likely that the Magdalene was a close consort. Whether she was his wife, I don't know. But it was unusual at the time for a woman to be so close to a man w/o marriage. In India and the Far East, they report that the two Marys traveled to their land, along with the Virgin's son, after the time of the crucifixion and "ascension," and taught in their lands. They have a shrine to the Virgin, which is reported to be her grave.
I think the story I most believe is this: Christ was crucified and upon the cross given a drug by mouth by his friends that would not only comfort him but would also mimmick death. I believe that the man who provided the crypt and some of the apostles arrived early to take his body down. I believe he looked dead many hours earlier than most people died from crucifixion, and they were able to take him away and place him in the tomb in a shroud. I believe that not everyone involved in preparing his body for permanent burial was in on the secret that he was not dead. I believe that his injuries from his torture and crucifixion and the drug were difficult to bear, and that when he awakened and was released from the tomb he was spotted by a few people and told them to stay back. I believe he looked terrible, "changed." And I believe that after he was seen that a few of his friends hid him effectively so that he was not seen again -- so that he could heal enough to leave the area forever. If he'd been spotted by the Jews or Romans, they'd really have killed him on the spot. So he had to leave, but not before communicating to a few apostles re: what they should do. I believe that he hid in the general area long enough to encounter Paul. And then I think he went to the East forever. The East has stories of him after the time of his crucifixion in the Mideast, and he was seen with two women, one of them his mother. They taught and performed healing along their way. And that he eventually died in the East.
The story of Mary Magdalene making her way, pregnant, into the south part of ancient France and having her daughter pass along this royal bloodline is interesting. But it's in conflict with the story above, which I believe more. Unless she eventually peeled away and made her own way west... It's hard to square the two stories.
But I look for stories that can occur within physical laws. There are miracles of illusion and miracles of healing, and perhaps even of apparent deaths being reversed. I don't think Christ would have been any less holy for what he was trying to teach and show, had the story been truthful. Being touched by Christianity in my childhood and in my family, and in my society, I do feel a relationship with Christ and speak with him daily and feel there's a great deal of power there. I think that love is a constant act of forgiveness, and Christ changed the world the most by modeling forgiveness. Many of the other religions were about exclusivity and retribution. Christ's message was about forgiveness. I have an imperfect understanding of him, but this I do know.
So I, for one, am glad that they're digging up hidden scrolls in a time when scholars can take a good look at them and add them to the mosaic of our understanding. Piecing this together with the Deep Space work of science will finally bring real knowledge to the human race. We need radical change in our consciousness, not mere revision of a failed story. Reenacting the failed story is enslavement. Sometimes I think the Bush administration and its ilk would be happiest with a return to the feudal time of the Dark Ages, when kings and bishops ruled and the people were just part of the landscape. Americans, of all people, need to integrate science with history and move forward into the future with real knowledge. And not let Catholicism and Fundamentalism hold us back any longer. I believe in a secular morality more than a church-enforced faux reality. And I thank God that our society still retains enough free speech that you could watch a special on Judas. Now, if millions more would open their minds, too...
......................................................................................
Message from Dad: Judas Iscariot, long reviled as history's quintessential betrayer, was [according to the newly translated Coptic Gospel of Judas] actually the best friend of Jesus and turned him over to authorities only because Jesus asked him to.
The document, on display in Washington, found in the 1970s but only recently translated, revealed only this week by the National Geographic Society, considered by some to be the most important archaeological find of the last 60 years, purports to record conversations between Jesus and Judas in the last week of their lives---conversations in which Jesus shared secrets not known by others of his disciples.
"You will exceed all of them for you will sacrifice the man that
clothes me."
"Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of
the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a
great deal."
Jesus also reveals that Judas will be despised by the other
disciples. "You will be cursed by the other generations---and you
will come to rule over them."
This Coptic script was ruled heretical by the EARLY CHURCH leaders because of its disagreement with the conventionally accepted gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most copies were destroyed. The sole known copy lay hidden in the Egyptian desert for nearly 1,700 years before it was discovered by looters in the 1970s. The authentication and translation of the document will produce "a short-term sensation," said Rev. Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, but its "impact on the lives of ordinary believers is going to somewhat minimal." Biblical scholars, however, hailed the new text because of the insight it will provide into the exceptionally turbulent period when competing ideologies sought to stake their own claims to the Jesus story. The Judas Gospel was originally written in Greek about 140 after Jesus and Judas died. The current manuscript is a copy of the original text translated into the Coptic language by a professional scribe in a group known as the Gnostics. Extensive analysis of the paper, ink, writing style, and text all indicate the copy was made about A.D. 300.
"He's [Judas] is the good guy in this portrayal," said Bart Ehrman, a religion professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "He's the only apostle who understands Jesus."
---Paraphrasing the Los Angles Times
posted by Luna @ 3:20 PM
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