/lit/ - Literature

>>14021114
Give us a summary, OP. Or at least a few notable examples of how the Bible was changed.

>>14021327
Heretical work blaspheming against St. Jerome and by extension Christ himself. All copies should be taken and burned along with its author.

>And here it is necessary to observe, that blasphemies against the saints, against holy things or holidays such as the sacraments, the Mass, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, Holy Saturday are of the same species as blasphemies against God; for St. Thomas teaches, that, as the honour paid to the saints, to holy things, and holidays, is referred to God, so an insult offered to the saints is injurious to God, who is the foundation of sanctity. ”Sicut Deus, in sanctis suis laudatur,” as we read in the 150th Psalm, “laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus, ita et blasphemia in sanctos in Deum redundat.” (S. Thorn, qu. 13, a 1 3, a 1, ad 2.) The saint adds, that blasphemy is one of the greatest of the sins against religion. (Ibid. a. 3.)

>Thus, from the works of St. Jerome we may infer, that blasphemy is more grievous than theft, than adultery, or murder. All other sins, says St. Bernardine proceeds from frailty or ignorance; but the sin of blasphemy proceeds from malice. ”Omnia alia peccata vindentur procedere partim ex fragilitate, partim ex ignorantia, sed peccatum blasphemia procedit ex propria malitia.” (Cic. serm. xxx.) For it proceeds from a bad will, and from a certain hatred conceived against God. Hence the blasphemer renders himself like the damned, who, as St. Thomas says, do not now blaspheme with the mouth for they have no body, but with the heart, cursing the divine justice which punishes them. ”The detestation of the divine justice is in them an interior blasphemy of the heart.” (S. Thom. 2, 2, qu. 13, a. 4.)

>>14021327
A thorough de-mystifying of the New Testament by going over its historical context and development, showing the unreliability of the manuscripts, contradictions, blatant changes, etc.

Basically proves how the New Testament was a patchwork of unfounded heresay cobbled together by dogmatists at councils centuries after the fact. Very good read.

(here's an excerpt):

>“The historical problems with Luke are even more pronounced. For one thing, we have relatively good records for the reign of Caesar Augustus, and there is no mention anywhere in any of them of an empire-wide census for which everyone had to register by returning to their ancestral home. And how could such a thing even be imagined? Joesph returns to Bethlehem because his ancestor David was born there. But David lived a thousand years before Joseph. Are we to imagine that everyone in the Roman Empire was required to return to the homes of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier? If we had a new worldwide census today and each of us had to return to the towns of our ancestors a thousand years back—where would you go? Can you imagine the total disruption of human life that this kind of universal exodus would require? And can you imagine that such a project would never be mentioned in any of the newspapers? There is not a single reference to any such census in any ancient source, apart from Luke. Why then does Luke say there was such a census? The answer may seem obvious to you. He wanted Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, even though he knew he came from Nazareth ... there is a prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah that a savior would come from Bethlehem. What were these Gospel writer to do with the fact that it was widely known that Jesus came from Nazareth? They had to come up with a narrative that explained how he came from Nazareth, in Galilee, a little one-horse town that no one had ever heard of, but was born in Bethlehem, the home of King David, royal ancestor of the Messiah.”

>>14021351
holy cringe fuck off larper

>>14021382
>no virgin birth
That's the real cringe.

>>14021382
Thank you for the maturity, OP. A nice post you've left here.

>>14021382
>Joesph returns to Bethlehem because his ancestor David was born there. But David lived a thousand years before Joseph. Are we to imagine that everyone in the Roman Empire was required to return to the homes of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier?
Absolute strawman. Joseph's parents lived in Bethlehem

>>14022311
Ah, so that's why they stayed in a manger then

>>14021382
>There's no evidence for it other than Luke but Luke obviously can't be right since Christianity isn't true, so therefore there's no evidence. Checkmate, Christians.
Not impressed.

>>14022453
I'm living in my parents' manger too :(

>>14022311
>>14022465
The dude is one of the top living New Testament scholars. He knows his stuff.

And his willingness to defend the historicity of Jesus shows he's not some mindless ideologue but is diligent in adherence to evidence and facts.

(from another of his books critiquing how Jesus was made "God")

>“Ancient Jews had no expectation—zero expectation—that the future messiah would die and rise from the dead. That was not what the messiah was supposed to do. Whatever specific idea any Jew had about the messiah (as cosmic judge, mighty priest, powerful warrior), what they all thought was that he would be a figure of grandeur and power who would be a mighty ruler of Israel. And Jesus was certainly not that. Rather than destroying the enemy, Jesus was destroyed by the enemy—arrested, tortured, and crucified, the most painful and publicly humiliating form of death known to the Romans. Jesus, in short, was just the opposite of what Jews expected a messiah to be.”

Americans were a mistake

>>14021114
Fuck, what does it fucking matter if Jesus was born in Nazareth, Bethlehem, Egypt, Galilee, Portugal ? The guy was born and taught his teachings, that's what matters, anyone who disagree can suck my dick and fuck off with shilling some kike prophecy.

>>14022526
>not directly naming the jew
Sounds like a leading authority in fraud to me

>>14021351
>Heretical work blaspheming against St. Jerome and by extension Christ himself. All copies should be taken and burned along with its author.
This. Except the killing part.

>>14021382
Good post except Ehrman is reading the NT with the head of a scholar instead of the heart of a poet or mystic. It's no fucking secret that the NT was put together by various authors from mysterious (and not eponymous) sources long after the events they describe. But that does not disqualify it as a work of divine origin or as a genuine manual and exhortation to righteousness. I've heard Ehrman speak. He's very smart and I would say he has a point for later theologians like Augustine twisting the message of Jesus, but he's hardly cancelled Christianity.

>>14022526
the cult of evidence reason and facts is a mutilated post christian religion, transfering the Word as an existential experience over to sterile science and facticity. Modern Science emerged from a series of neoplatonic, augustinian and even hermetic challenges to the established systematic theology of the schoolmen, but the 17th century was also marked by the secularization of sovereignty amidst widespread schism in the church. Augustinian-Hermetic-Neoplatonic science was forced to forget its genealogy so it could forge an alliance with Commerce and the state. Descartes scrounged libraries for rosicrucian manifestos and Bacon's new atlantis made explicit a will to return to a pre-edenic state. Even marxism, romanticism and modernist concepts of literature can be traced back to a millenarian form of christianity, experience of the divine, the mortification of the spirit, apocalypse, redemption.You can't escape Christianity as an existential and historical phenomenon

>>14022612
now this is a post

>>14022634
>>14022650
We're saying the same thing, I think. Jesus used the Tanakh because his audience understood it. I'm sure we agree the core of his teaching can be found in his sermons, and not in the OT -- which in his day had led to lenders in the Temple, a Sanhedrin friendly to idolatrous Rome, and countless other examples of Israel turning her back on God (again).

>>14022526
>“Ancient Jews had no expectation—zero expectation—that the future messiah would die and rise from the dead. That was not what the messiah was supposed to do. Whatever specific idea any Jew had about the messiah (as cosmic judge, mighty priest, powerful warrior), what they all thought was that he would be a figure of grandeur and power who would be a mighty ruler of Israel. And Jesus was certainly not that. Rather than destroying the enemy, Jesus was destroyed by the enemy—arrested, tortured, and crucified, the most painful and publicly humiliating form of death known to the Romans. Jesus, in short, was just the opposite of what Jews expected a messiah to be.”
N.T. Wright has used this very fact as evidence for the reality of the resurrection, since no Jew would have invented it.

>>14022576
He's pretty explicitly naming them in this extract though.

>>14022465
>We have no evidence of UFO except for Joe the hobo who claimed he saw one last night, therefore Joe is a more accurate source than our radars.

>>14022588
>He's very smart and I would say he has a point for later theologians like Augustine twisting the message of Jesus, but he's hardly cancelled Christianity.
This is probably not what he was trying to do anyway, OP is just trying to raise controversy out of nowhere.

>>14021114
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NQYOjRYQG8

>>14022706
You're probably right. Although I do find this phrase funny:

>>14021382
>A thorough de-mystifying of the New Testament
Right. Because what the sacred needs is to be demystified.

>>14022722
>Right. Because what the sacred needs is to be demystified.
DAYYYYYYYM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPXkjtpGCFI

>>14021114

I'm fascinated by the satanic panics that hit North America in the late 80s and early 90s. I think the socioreligious phenomenon might be related to secularization, hallucinations of mass ritual abuse and satanic murders might have been the only way for a christian nation to imagine a post christian future. Video traces of christian civilisation unsure of itself amongst massive technosocial transformations, transgression and blasphemy of Heavy Metal music, anomie, atomisation, familial breakdown the spread of Californian hedonistic and self expressive mores. New Atheism came after 9/11 and the war on terror, which represented a further secularisation of the christian girardian scapegoat mechanism. All the scientific, political, and social developments of the last 80 years, if not the last 4 centuries point towards atomisation and the application of taylorism of all aspects of human life, mutually assured self destruction, ARPANET, game theory, cybernetics, and the RAND corporation, ford foundation, ESALEN Tavistock and Palo alto institutes, Dr. Freud goes to madison avenue, free as the animal subjects of Drs. Pavlov and Skinner. Ayn Rand's popularity amongst the tech elite, Scientology, NXIVM, the new age cult as DIY totalitarianism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5CgSLC7smM

>>14022612
This is a not entirely unfair but excessively Christian and metaphysics-centered reading (and one that I often see Christians make, unsurprisingly). The truth is that the idea of starting from facts, being mistrustful of hearsay, narratives, retellings, and myths, is at least as old as Greek Antiquity, and we see those praised as virtues by the likes of Galien. Even in the theology-heavy Middle Age a concern for fact was made evident in, for instance, the works of the medieval Muslim scholars (see Al Razi, author of the first surviving account of a control group used in medical trial). That's not to mention the history of human trial and error, particularly in the medical area, a development mostly lost to the ages.
There's a known filiation between Inquisitorial inquiry and the doctrine of empirical science in the Renaissance, one that even Bacon acknowledged. This does not mean that science is essentially (or even primarily) a reframing or a twising of older metaphysical doctrines. However big the influence of occult traditions and hermetism on modern science it is unquestionable that a solid current of effective empiricism runs thourgh the millenia-long history of science, and it certainly predates Christianity. Not to mention that if Newton was both an empirical scientist and an occultism, and viewed those two endeavors as kindred, the latter became dated in the eyes of modern science, while the just as old empirical strain remains.
This objection also applies to the metaphysical doctrines by themselves by the way. Christians are fond of explaining that all teleology of history is a rip-off of Christian millenarism, that the surviving of metaphysical beliefs are a proof that all intellectual achievements are ultimately owed to Christianity, and similar other simplifications. But while the contribution of Christianity to the intellectual history of Europe is absolutely momentous and cannot be denied this is, once again, recuperation under the guise of historical awareness. Most of the things Christians like to claim for Christianity are much older than it. Marriage, royalty, holy terror and sacred wonder, respect for the elders, sense of tradition, dignity of dialog and consideration for the other, metaphysics, monotheism, hermeticism, logical discourse, mortification, redemption, mysticism and the numinous are all older than Christianity. Indeed, Christianity is a two thousand years-long phase in a development that has lasted more than ten millenia. A worthy phase but far for the only or even the first one.
Do not let the short-sighted atheist pretend Christianity wasn't a major contribution to the world. Do not let the opportunistic Christian imply that religious and philosophical history is merely the history of Christianity.

>>14022688
>N.T. Wright has used this very fact as evidence for the reality of the resurrection, since no Jew would have invented it.
It's not really evidence, myths of resurrection abounded in the area. Jews like to pretend their religion is sui generis but any scholar will tell you they recuperated lots of elements from earlier religions, like everyone else. What is so surprising about a fringe jewish sect recycling osirian myths?
By the way I don't think Ehman's argument is very convincing here. Sure the Jew didn't expect the Messiah to be Jesus-like, and so they didn't accept him. None of that is surprising and it doesn't prove much either way.

>>14022722
Yes it's a strange (and probably deliberate choice of words). But I see it more as the typical move among scholars of hype up your work to be something groundbreaking. I doubt Ehman is trying to dabble in apologetics (or counter-apologetics), rather he's probably signalling to his colleagues in ancient history that he has hot new stuff (or hot old stuff but you get the idea).

>>14022730
So this is the context behind that legendary image? I feel more at peace with the world now.

>>14022805

In the last instance, it is a question of whether one views History as revelation ripe for messianic realisation or merely as empty homogenous time culminating in the sterile present or forever postponed as rationalised 'progress'

>>14022805
science and history as ideology, separate empiricism from the affective and creative faculties, and separate those in turn from the political, upholding the self alienation of the human species.

>>14022805
Yeah the whole "muh western civilisation" thing that christians endlessly go on about is cringe and i say that as a christian

Europe is dead and that is of no account for our faith

>>14022995
based

>>14022526
>Ancient Jews had no expectation—zero expectation—that the future messiah would die and rise from the dead. That was not what the messiah was supposed to do. Whatever specific idea any Jew had about the messiah (as cosmic judge, mighty priest, powerful warrior), what they all thought was that he would be a figure of grandeur and power who would be a mighty ruler of Israel. And Jesus was certainly not that. Rather than destroying the enemy, Jesus was destroyed by the enemy—arrested, tortured, and crucified, the most painful and publicly humiliating form of death known to the Romans. Jesus, in short, was just the opposite of what Jews expected a messiah to be.”

This sounds like the youtube nerds who mistake the enumeration of 'plotholes' for film criticism. Doesn't tell you anything about christianity as an experience. Christianity owes its spread precisely to the scandal of God dying like a common criminal. It is infinitely humiliating and painful for Spirit to be incarnated in the Animal, it is an infinite honour for the animal to be a host to Spirit.

>>14021351
Is this how you felt when you wrote that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRt2cKvJLlE

kys LARPer

>>14023076
goals

>>14021382
Literally so wrong, and I don't believe Ehrman said the Trinity was inserted into the text by Erasamus he is referring to the 1 John 5:7 or the Comma Johanneum.

>>14021114
People who read this should read similar scholarship by Christians in the field. Not all the facts presented in the book are accurate, and his reasoning is in places flawed and biased by his methodological naturalism.

>>14022588
> Good post except Ehrman is reading the NT with the head of a scholar instead of the heart of a poet or mystic. It's no fucking secret that the NT was put together by various authors from mysterious
Holy shit you're a retard

Fuck I guess the pseuds come out of the woodworks once Christianity gets discussed

I got this book recently hoping for a similar read to the op post but all it seems to do is go into the author's experience as a jew
god I wish I skimmed it before buying

>>14022995
pat of it seems to be that the hights, of Christendom are the inevitable effect of religion like Christianity which loves a civilized populace. so the abandonment of that and the fact that we have to start again is just shitty.

>>14021382
>He wanted Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, even though he knew he came from Nazareth
and Nazareth wasn't established until 30 years after Christ's death. Jesus was a Nasorean and this was mis-translated by some drunk old Anglican with bad greek.

>>14022905
It doesn't have to be either revelation of progress, and it doesn't have to be sterile even if it is not revelation. But agreed on the fundamental point, your opinion on this will essentially be what your metahistory dictates you.

>>14022905
>or merely as empty homogenous tim
If history isn't a total support for my end times brain, it's empty and homogenous.
yeah no

>>14023159
i'm definitely not saying that we should abandon western civilisation, nor that christians should repudiate it. the western civilisation is a treasure worth preserving and its heights iwll never be forgotten. but as christians our faith does not depend on it, the future of the church (for now) is in Africa

>>14022987
Ideologies have succeeded one another many times even during the heigths of the Catholic church. The separation of empiricsm and affection was a pretty bad meme for a time, I think the most clear-eyed scientist now understand that it doesn't make sense. Separation of science from the political also sounds increasingly untenable, if anything we're witnessing a return of politics and ethics in science (and vice-versa).
Now if we could only get rid of the culture of mass publication and rush to meaningless results that is plaguing science (and is not even beneficial empirically) we'd have a pretty great science field. Sadly this trend goes hand in hand with capitalistic gestion of research.

>>14022995
True that the genuine religiosity of Africans is a heartwarming thing, and I say that as an ethnically jewish atheist. It sometimes leads to violence and bigotry but I believe that on the larger scale and in the longer term it can be a force of good for the continent.
I love Europe but it's a pretty depressing place t.b.h. If Africa could get better somehow that'd be a huge relief in this gray world.

>>14023182
can pseuds fuck off from lit you two havent been making any sense although u guys think you sound smart

> the seperation of empiricism and affection
wtf is this

>>14023061
>
This sounds like the youtube nerds who mistake the enumeration of 'plotholes' for film criticism.
This is if you take this as a criticism of Christianity itself. Here I believe it sounds more like a criticism of the historical narrative that Jews should have patently recognized Christ as the Messiah. Ehrmann says it doesn't hold up to the way the Messiah is defined in Jewish Scripture.
I think you nailed it with the word "scandal". It's a scandal that the Messiah could even end up on a cross like a lowly thief. It's a scandal that the Messiah would turn out to be this poorfag predicator. That's precisely why Christianity is so powerful, but also why it doesn't make sense to build a narrative of "people should have recognized him". That's only true in the theological sense, historically there's no reason Jesus should have prevailed in his life and taken over the Jews as a mortal preacher.

>>14021351
>>14022572
>>14022588
>>14022612
Cry harder. Jesus Christ you fucking losers

>>14023200
It's a but of a hasty wording, it should be rather "separation of empiricism and intuition". Typical example is Skinner who refused to talk about inner psychological states because he believed that was spooky immaterialism stuff. It's undeniable that human intuition play a great role in human cognition, and science if a development of human cognition. Recognizing this is not necessarily a bad thing for science.

>>14022861
You gotta watch the whole thing

Remember: he's not a rapper
https://youtu.be/MeB3eYk1Ze0

>>14023398
>side hustle: Mayor of Kenya
>I just got lost my train of thought on account of the goodness I just was
Clearly he's not a rapper, he's more like the new Shakespeare.

>>14023453
*>I just saw

>>14021114
>Bart Ehrman
James White has refuted basically all of his points.

>>14023762
>James White
lmao no. he's probably the only other person you know when it comes to NT textual criticism and that's why you threw his name out there.

see for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moHInA9fAsI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Mp4v8VQwQ

you can watch part 1 if you want or skip right to part 2 where it kicks off with Ehrman humiliating Mr. White for the entirety of his question time.

>>14023801
I watched that debate. James White did a great job, while Ehrman just repeated the same rehashed arguments he makes in all his other debates. Ehrman definitely lost.

>>14022612

Holy fuck the cope

>>14021114
>ex-evangelical fedora Atheist which changed his believe in christianity because he didn't understand why suffering exists
LMOA what a Retard, not gonna waste my time with him.

>>14022612

>virgin birth
>impregnated by god

Sure thing Mary. Your retarded cuck husband believed those lies and now look what happened to the world. Stupid whore couldnt keep her loins shut like most women and then she didnt want to be sent away and lose his beta provider. Josef is evidence that cucks who worshipped womens words existed since the very beginning with their nature of cheating and lying. Now you have deified a whore and your idol is a kikecuck on a stick. Good job. We went from heroic era of gods to mystifying degeneracy. The postmodern era is a myth as it was always here. The cyclical nature of no cuck - cuck is in our DNA.

It was something like this.

Josef: "Mary, fire of my loins, I see you are pregnant, why you cheat? :(

Mary: "Oh Josef, you see I am still a virgo, look I bleed. It was God, Josef. He banged me."

Josef: "Oh Mary, you are so sweet I believe you. Your loins cant lie, they were not penetrated by mere mortals."

Mary""Oh Josef, You understand me so much. We should tell everyone that we are having a messiah, the son of God like in the old tales but this one is the God of All, the most powerful."

"Oh Mary, we are going to be famous." Josef proclaimed.

Then Jesus was born and raised as a messiah so he believed that is his destiny. Since they already had a cultish following because of pretty mary cunny Jesus had no problems to start.

>>14022526
Idiot and reddit.

>>14024090
wew this

ayyyyyyyyy

>>14024090
Blasphemy is unforgivable.

>>14024136
t. fanatical christcuck who would like to burn heretics again.

Im glad muslims are slicing you up and jews are doing the kikery to destroy your stupid religion.

>>14024090
incel : the post

>>14022612
>all existing major ideologies heavily borrow from christianity, but twist it to their own ends
Makes sense. Evil can't be itself by it's own, it must use goods to be seductive.
This just strengthens my belief that Christianity is true.

>>14022805
>excessively Christian and metaphysics-centered
no such thing

>>14022612
Dionysus is the root of all these then

>>14024443
All ideologies borrow from the Jews actually.

I recently watched a video of a 2009 debate between Bart Ehrman and James White. You all should try watching it sped up at least if it seems to long.
https://youtu.be/moHInA9fAsI
https://youtu.be/K2Mp4v8VQwQ

>>14024531
What you mean to say is hellenism.
You can thank me later.

>>14022588
A scholar is reading a scholarly work with the methodology of...a scholar. Yes, anon. That's his job, and we wouldn't expect anything else from him. And yes, if the events of Christianity were not historical realities, the work is by nature disqualified of "divine origin", since nothing in it has relation to reality except via allegory or metaphor. If Jesus isn't actually the Son of God, or raise himself from the dead, then Christians are essentially carrying a millenia-old fable in their head and basing their whole life around it. It might be good for their soul, but one could just as easily carry around the Harry Potter books and worship them the same, for such a purpose.

>>14022612
>cult of evidence, facts and reason
>cult
>evidence, facts, reason
I can hardly even respond to this. Christianity has truly brainwashed the world, if it's followers think evidence, facts and reason are the apparatus of a cult, while not thinking the blind belief, scarcity of historicity, fantastical claims and enforced dogmas of Christianity are not.

>>14022697
Christians are taught to hold the Bible as more important than anything else, anon. The entire history of the world is meaningless relative to what some one Biblical author happened to write down one time. Whatever the latter says, is true - and the rest of our records are false by default.

>>14021382
>A census like that would have disrupted people's lives, and like, the state would never do something that would disrupt its citizens lives, so therefore it didn't happen
So this is the power of logic....

>>14025252
>I can hardly even respond to this
>Christianity has truly brainwashed the world

>>14025252
>the New Testament, a new covenant between God and man
>a scholarly work
Anon I don't think you know what that term means.

>>14024136
Why even say this to an atheist lol. If a muslim told you you're going to suffer in Jahannam for not fasting on Ramadan would you really give any kind of care.

How do you keep believing in Christ when you find out he's an iteration of Horus and other similar figures?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5KdmjbNJFk

>>14026688
>following Zeitgeist retards in the year of our lord 2019

>>14026701
I don't know what you mean. Can you refute or justify those connections?

https://www.scribd.com/document/165468129/Satan-in-Satin-Apparitions-of-Mary

>>14026707
Of course I can, and so can anybody who has actually bothered to read into the topics on hand. Yet it's too late to start to wirte about it in my timezone.

tldr: It's cherrypicking similarities where non really are. If you fall for it you better stat reading into indo-european mythologies as well as the early mesopotamian and egyptian ones, including the zoroastrians.

>>14026688
Jesus consuming Horus to increase power level. Sounds pretty based to me.

>>14022526
>Jesus, in short, was just the opposite of what Jews expected a messiah to be.”
isn't that the point?

>>14025993
Well, it certainly became one of the most-studied texts in the world after it's publication. But I see what you mean.