few questions about jesus and religion in general

Christianity, though it seems to be a separate religion, is really a sect of Judaism. In the beginning, all Christians were Jews, it wan't until Paul's ministry to the Gentiles and some internal arguing that it was accepted that non-Jews could follow Christ.

Jews don't think that Christ was the messiah because he didn't do what the Hebrews believed the messiah would do -- overthrow the Roman occupation and re-establish the kingdom of Israel. They were (and are still) looking for a very different type of salvation.


Part of the problem with the Bible is that there are too many people with the same name, which was very common in that time. There are lots of Marys, Johns, Judases/Judes and Simons. There is no scriptural basis for thinking that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and the Catholic Church does not teach that she was.


They were "left out" because they are the scriptures of a different religion, Gnostic Christianity. One might as well ask why there are no Islamic or Hindu texts in the Bible. I have spent many years studying the historical evolution of Christianity and you might find this piece I did helpful in understanding the differences between Christianity and Gnostic Christianity: Gnosticism In The Broader Context Of Mysticism



In the Aramaic of the time, the term "brother" was used to describe anyone who was close to someone, they could be a sibling, cousin or even close friend. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary remained a virgin for reasons of their own (I am personally of the opinion that it doesn't matter, but I'm not that much into Mariology.)

and if the term brother was used as a term to describe anyone close to a person, why was the term sister used? what did sister mean?
same thing

Yep, that's pretty much what happened. The Bible is the product of the Catholic Church, which determined which books would be included and which would not. The earliest Christian Canon is from about 170AD and includes most of the books that are now in the Bible.

The criteria that the church used was threefold:

• The text needed an Apostolic connection, it had to have been written by an Apostle, or with an Apostle as a source
• The text needed to be in general use throughout the church, no special books that only a few people had
• Most importantly, the text needed to be in harmony with other scripture, including the Hebrew Bible, because Christianity is a Jewish sect

Yep.

I've not read the whole thread yet, so I may be re-answering some of the questions, and perhaps merely providing "alternate endings" in some cases.



Yes. Christianity started out as just another sect of Judaism, and "home base" was in Jerusalem. Christianity wasn't "Christianity" in the beginning - it was just another Jewish sect, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Essenes, etc. According to the Bible, Christians were first called "Christians" at Antioch, to differentiate them from the other Jews. Temples and synagogues were Jewish houses of worship that Jesus preached in. "Church" started out as a concept rather than a building - which I would argue it still should be. It was just a gathering of like-minded people, and could be accomplished anywhere, not tied to a specific structure. When Rome laid claim to Christianity, the notion of a "gathering" started getting more... concrete... as in "bricks and mortar" concrete.



As often happens in religious matters, some parts of the concept of "messiah" were misunderstood, and others... morphed... over time.

"Messiah" and "Christ" both mean "The Anointed", in the sense of "The Chosen". What they were chosen for and by whom is where the misunderstanding started creeping in. The kings of Israel, for example, like David, were "messiahs" - they were "anointed" in a coronation ceremony by having oil poured over their heads, signifying that they had been "chose" as kings. Priests were also anointed, and therefore messianic, but they fulfilled entirely different offices.

"Messiah" broadly means a "leader" of some sort, specially selected.

First century Palestine, during the days of Jesus, was occupied by a foreign power, Rome. The Jews, and everyone else in Palestine, were under the heel of a foreign occupier. They were looking, at the time, towards a political/military leader to liberate them from that oppression as their Messiah. What they got instead was a spiritual leader declaring a non-corporeal kingdom, rather than a restoration of the physical kingdom they had before, and so they either failed to recognize him as the Messiah, or actively rejected that association, because he was not leading them in a physical war against Rome.

This is why, at the trial before the crucifixion, when Pilate gave the choice to the crowd as to which prisoner was to be released instead of crucified, they were pretty easily whipped up into demanding the release of Bar Abbas - he WAS physically fighting the Romans, as they expected of a messiah.

As it turned out, the physical revolt was utterly crushed and destroyed, and the non-physical one of Christianity actually succeeded in the conquest of Rome, turning the tables and making of Rome an occupied place - not without casualties, though.



I don't know. I've heard the same things, that the various Marys got confused and sometimes blended together, but Mary ("Miriam") was one of the most common female names of that time and area that there was, so I suppose a certain amount of confusion should have been anticipated.

It's probably just a product of my sick and twisted mind, but I've never seen the identification as a prostitute as a "smear". You'll just have to trust me when I say that I've done things a lot worse than that, so I'm not in any sort of position to look down my nose at prostitutes, who are, after all, only using what's available to them to make a living in a hard time.

If God can save me, and make a silk purse out of THIS sow's ear, then a prostitute would be a piece of cake to patch up!

Which might just be the whole point.



As I said above, I've got nothing against whores - they're usually better people than me, in spite of their shortcomings and their usual mean streak... we ALL have shortcomings, in one way or another.



various ones were left out for various reasons - some probably just political, others because they were in actual opposition to the rest of the bible and would have wrecked the harmony of the whole. Some may have been left out just because the average Joe wouldn't have the basis to make heads or tails of them, and would likely get it all wrong in trying. Personally, I think Revelations should have been left out, too - but I wasn't consulted in the matter.

Some of them were written specifically to preach AGAINST Christianity, and are used for that purpose to this very day - among Muslims, for example. I can't recall at the moment just which they use, but I think it's a "Gospel of Thomas" (of which there are more than one) that was written in around 1500 by a Jew, of all people! That was written specifically to discredit Christianity, and presented as much older than it was, and the Muslims seized upon it. They quote from it and promote it to this very day.



Nope, I don't question them - I read them, so that all my questions get answered.



They are mentioned in the New Testament, at least some of them. I think Brian was left out, but Monty Python caught that and fixed it with a movie - perhaps akin to some of the pseudepigraphal gospels. His brother James, for example, was one of the leaders of the original Christians in Jerusalem. As I recall, he butted heads with both Peter AND Paul at various times, and Peter and Paul were having their own little squabbles as well.



Yeah, that's all nonsensical. I blame psilocybin for that notion, since peyote wasn't available to the early church fathers. Some bone head came up with that ridiculous "perpetual virgin" notion, and a bunch of other bone heads then had to figure out twisted and convoluted justifications for such nonsense. That is one of the dangers of relying on "traditions of man" as a pillar of faith, as is done among (although not limited to) Catholics in particular. Some guy comes up with an outlandish notion, ( like perpetual virginity, or trinity, or a number of other illogical and improbable things) and then a bunch of other guys have to hold a council to confirm that the psilocybin is working properly.



Likewise, you shouldn't worry about me trying to "convert" you. I don't have that kind of power, nor would I even try. I'm just here to answer questions as well as I can. The fact that you even HAVE questions might or might not be significant, but that's above my pay grade to determine.

what is the point of leaving out all the gospels that talk of jesus's early life.
in the new testament he is a baby and then like 30 years old.
what about the gospels that cover those years?

i cant help but think certain things were put in while others were left out to give weight to the narrative 'they' wanted told.

the magdelene thing. i dont care one way or the other. she very well may have been a prostitute. from the little i have read it seems like she wasnt.
seems to me like 'they'(who? i dont know) wanted to smear/discredit her.
while people like you and myself dont care if she was a lady of the night, you know damn well there are some fundies that would blow a gasket over it.

i know mary was a common name but they seemed pretty competent with their documenting things. if she rolled with jesus like what was said. she was at the last supper, the crucifixion, and resurrection, then im pretty sure she was important enough to get the facts right.
seems far more logical to me that 'they' would after her death, for whatever reason discredit her by saying she was a lady of the night and centuries later a convenient excuse is (well she was mixed up with other mary's as it was a common name)

i just dont buy that.
of course i have no way of knowing but it is how i feel about it at the time.

how were women looked upon back then? wasn't the virgin mary betrothed to joseph when she was like 14?
so it seems to me not very well.

then down the line when jesus is rockin out with his ministry and his boys, john, judas, etc etc....he has mary by him all the time.
what i have been reading suggests that she would have been his 'right hand', 'second in command', 'consigliere' etc
and well, the boys just couldnt have that.

that makes far more sense to me and seems much more logical that oh, they confused her with other mary's.

the church does have a history of trying to repress and oppress.

and what about the painting?
to jesus right is supposed to be the apostle thomas?

looks pretty fem to me

davinci's

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_%28Leonardo_da_Vinci%29#mediaviewer/File:%C3%9Altima_Cena_-_Da_Vinci_5.jpg

giovanni rizzoli's

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_%28Leonardo_da_Vinci%29#mediaviewer/File:Giampietrino-Last-Supper-ca-1520.jpg

scratch the link. i have em all on the tablet now

My favourite online resource for Christian documents is here: Early Christian Writings