Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
I heard of a new book written by a scholar that was said to hate Paul almost as much as myself, so I went out and bought it. “How Jesus Became Christian” by Barrie Wilson. Here is a hint – don’t buy a book written by anybody who doesn’t have an adult name. “Barrie”!? I should not have been surprised to find the book intellectually immature.
Yes, any book that hates Paul isn’t all bad. But the attack is continued on against Jesus also. What is there to hate about Jesus, you might ask? Well, Jesus was not the Messiah. The argument here assumes that God is All Powerful and that if God had intended Jesus to be the Messiah, than God would have used every miraculous power to impose Jesus as Messiah. Apparently God should have been willing to kill anybody who stood in Jesus’ way. Because Jesus had failed to assert himself as a Messiah, that is, because he was not globally recognized as the Messiah, therefore, he in fact was not the Messiah. While the first part of the Book maintains that Christianity is a false Religion because of the misrepresentations of Paul, the book goes on to leave us the sad impression that even at the very most there had never been anything there anyway but the pretensions of an impostor messiah.
At least we are allowed a Historical Jesus … its not denied that there was some guy named Jesus who managed to start up a minor splinter of a Jewish Sect that lasted several centuries before it was forgotten by history. How inspiring.
In his last chapter concerning what we can salvage of Christianity, it is that we can acknowledge the Jesus was a Jew and out of respect for that, Christians should realize they should not be anti-Semitic. Hmmmmm. A Religion whose sole purpose would be to renounce itself in giving all respect to another Religion, or rather to an Ethnic Group with their own rather Exclusive God. Honestly, I don’t think it would work too well. Sooner or later the Gentiles would realize that they are giving respect to a Religion that returns to them no respect, even to the point of denying them a God! While the Jews have a God – the Only God – it is understood that there is nowhere recognized any God of the Gentiles, and that the One God that does exist, exists only for the Sons of Jacob. Really!? This is where Intellectual Maturity comes into play. If Jesus was nothing because he was NOT the Messiah, then does not the same argument have equal play in evaluating Jews and Judaism as a whole? If Judaism never produced a Messiah, then what need has it of any Gentile Respect? While it had been understood that Jesus WAS the Messiah, then Christians could be persuaded to begrudge the Jews some little bit of respect, which certainly has been the case as is shown by the Gentiles have accepted as Canonical Scripture the purely Jewish Books of the Old Testament. But in this new perspective, that Jesus was some itty-bitty footnote of forgotten Jewish History, than this is enough to consign all of Judaism to the Dustbin of Old Failed Ancient Religions, for as we see it today without any Sentimentality of Connection to an Authentic Christ, Judaism is only a Religion of an insular and selfish people who have survived apart only because of the intensity of their Hate which forbids them to let their sons or daughters marry anybody besides themselves. A Religion of Love they are not. They have succeeded only as a Religion of Ethnic Hate, and of those I am sure we have enough already.
Oh, but why can’t we all become Jews? Well, as they say, somebody has to pay retail.
Yes, any book that hates Paul isn’t all bad. But the attack is continued on against Jesus also. What is there to hate about Jesus, you might ask? Well, Jesus was not the Messiah. The argument here assumes that God is All Powerful and that if God had intended Jesus to be the Messiah, than God would have used every miraculous power to impose Jesus as Messiah. Apparently God should have been willing to kill anybody who stood in Jesus’ way. Because Jesus had failed to assert himself as a Messiah, that is, because he was not globally recognized as the Messiah, therefore, he in fact was not the Messiah. While the first part of the Book maintains that Christianity is a false Religion because of the misrepresentations of Paul, the book goes on to leave us the sad impression that even at the very most there had never been anything there anyway but the pretensions of an impostor messiah.
At least we are allowed a Historical Jesus … its not denied that there was some guy named Jesus who managed to start up a minor splinter of a Jewish Sect that lasted several centuries before it was forgotten by history. How inspiring.
In his last chapter concerning what we can salvage of Christianity, it is that we can acknowledge the Jesus was a Jew and out of respect for that, Christians should realize they should not be anti-Semitic. Hmmmmm. A Religion whose sole purpose would be to renounce itself in giving all respect to another Religion, or rather to an Ethnic Group with their own rather Exclusive God. Honestly, I don’t think it would work too well. Sooner or later the Gentiles would realize that they are giving respect to a Religion that returns to them no respect, even to the point of denying them a God! While the Jews have a God – the Only God – it is understood that there is nowhere recognized any God of the Gentiles, and that the One God that does exist, exists only for the Sons of Jacob. Really!? This is where Intellectual Maturity comes into play. If Jesus was nothing because he was NOT the Messiah, then does not the same argument have equal play in evaluating Jews and Judaism as a whole? If Judaism never produced a Messiah, then what need has it of any Gentile Respect? While it had been understood that Jesus WAS the Messiah, then Christians could be persuaded to begrudge the Jews some little bit of respect, which certainly has been the case as is shown by the Gentiles have accepted as Canonical Scripture the purely Jewish Books of the Old Testament. But in this new perspective, that Jesus was some itty-bitty footnote of forgotten Jewish History, than this is enough to consign all of Judaism to the Dustbin of Old Failed Ancient Religions, for as we see it today without any Sentimentality of Connection to an Authentic Christ, Judaism is only a Religion of an insular and selfish people who have survived apart only because of the intensity of their Hate which forbids them to let their sons or daughters marry anybody besides themselves. A Religion of Love they are not. They have succeeded only as a Religion of Ethnic Hate, and of those I am sure we have enough already.
Oh, but why can’t we all become Jews? Well, as they say, somebody has to pay retail.