Sunday, May 13, 2007
WHERE DO YOU GO FOR JUSTICE?
FOR MARY MAGDALENE, FOR JUDAS, FOR ANCIENT JEWISH LEADERS?
You certainly don't go to academia. All scholars are interested in doing is repeating the same old myth of Jesus being persecuted by Jewish enemies — first and foremost, the Jewish leaders and also someone like Judas. It has become so integral to the identity of Jesus that he existed over against Jewish enemies, that people are afraid the identity of Jesus will be destroyed forever if this myth is challenged in any way. They conceive of Jesus as someone who taught something that threatened Jewish leaders. Show this to be untrue and you will be deemed a pariah till the end of your days.
How long did it take to achieve justice for Mary Magdalene? In western Christianity, all the Marys in the Gospels had been melded into one. So Mary Magdalene was identified as a prostitute which was really another Mary, the forgiven sinner. The Greek Orthodox Church had always recognized that there were different Marys, but the Catholic Church taught they were all one and that meant Magdalene was a prostitute.
In 1517, a French Catholic scholar Jacques Lefèvre demonstrated that the Greek tradition was correct. This was very upsetting to English Catholic Bishop, John Fisher, among others. Fisher was a progressive man. He embraced the New Learning. He studied Hebrew and Greek late in life, at a time when the Church said Latin was the only way to go. He even approved of one scholar who studied the Kabbalah. But this business about several Marys was too much for him.
Bishop Fisher wrote De Unica Magdalena (1519) to defend the idea of one Mary in the Gospels. What appalled him was that "... if Lefèvre's opinion were ever to be accepted [then] How many authors would have to be rejected, how many books would have to be changed, how many sermons formerly preached to the people would now have to be revoked!" And he worried about loss of faith among the people who "will soon doubt other books and narratives, and finally the mother of us all, the Church, who for so many centuries has sung and taught the same thing."
The same problem faces scholars whose principle goal is to always sing and teach the same thing: Some Jews persecuted Jesus and that's it! Jewish leaders put Jesus on trial, Judas betrayed him, and on and on. If anyone such as myself demonstrates all this is wrong, then that person or his book must be banned.
How many centuries did it take to clear the name of Mary Magdalene? How many eons more will it take to clear the names of Judas and the Jewish leaders? The Gospels do not support the traditional story of Jesus' death. But who has the courage to face that? Who has the courage to stop telling lies about the rich source of details in the Gospels which actually exonerate Judas and Jewish leaders of the death of Jesus?
Where do you go for justice? To the desert? A voice crying, In the wilderness, make straight ...
FOR MARY MAGDALENE, FOR JUDAS, FOR ANCIENT JEWISH LEADERS?
You certainly don't go to academia. All scholars are interested in doing is repeating the same old myth of Jesus being persecuted by Jewish enemies — first and foremost, the Jewish leaders and also someone like Judas. It has become so integral to the identity of Jesus that he existed over against Jewish enemies, that people are afraid the identity of Jesus will be destroyed forever if this myth is challenged in any way. They conceive of Jesus as someone who taught something that threatened Jewish leaders. Show this to be untrue and you will be deemed a pariah till the end of your days.
How long did it take to achieve justice for Mary Magdalene? In western Christianity, all the Marys in the Gospels had been melded into one. So Mary Magdalene was identified as a prostitute which was really another Mary, the forgiven sinner. The Greek Orthodox Church had always recognized that there were different Marys, but the Catholic Church taught they were all one and that meant Magdalene was a prostitute.
In 1517, a French Catholic scholar Jacques Lefèvre demonstrated that the Greek tradition was correct. This was very upsetting to English Catholic Bishop, John Fisher, among others. Fisher was a progressive man. He embraced the New Learning. He studied Hebrew and Greek late in life, at a time when the Church said Latin was the only way to go. He even approved of one scholar who studied the Kabbalah. But this business about several Marys was too much for him.
Bishop Fisher wrote De Unica Magdalena (1519) to defend the idea of one Mary in the Gospels. What appalled him was that "... if Lefèvre's opinion were ever to be accepted [then] How many authors would have to be rejected, how many books would have to be changed, how many sermons formerly preached to the people would now have to be revoked!" And he worried about loss of faith among the people who "will soon doubt other books and narratives, and finally the mother of us all, the Church, who for so many centuries has sung and taught the same thing."
The same problem faces scholars whose principle goal is to always sing and teach the same thing: Some Jews persecuted Jesus and that's it! Jewish leaders put Jesus on trial, Judas betrayed him, and on and on. If anyone such as myself demonstrates all this is wrong, then that person or his book must be banned.
How many centuries did it take to clear the name of Mary Magdalene? How many eons more will it take to clear the names of Judas and the Jewish leaders? The Gospels do not support the traditional story of Jesus' death. But who has the courage to face that? Who has the courage to stop telling lies about the rich source of details in the Gospels which actually exonerate Judas and Jewish leaders of the death of Jesus?
Where do you go for justice? To the desert? A voice crying, In the wilderness, make straight ...
