(D)Evolutionary Marcionism
It must be anti-Bloggingheads day on TLOG. William B. wrote this post criticizing Bob Wright’s piece in The Atlantic. Freddie is blasting away at Mickey Kaus. And I’m about to pile on Wright’s piece some more. [Sidenote: I actually am a big fan of Bob Wright generally. meaningoflifetv was a fantastic venture but this essay is not his best work imo.]
And really I should say this isn’t so much Bob Wright as he is summarizing a number of mainstream scholarly views on Christianity–just about all of which are more wrong than right. Wright is trying to make a potentially interesting analogy between the ancient world and our own (and religious participation in them), but his historical knowledge of the the past and his religious knowledge are really weak in points which dilutes his argument.
Some examples of what I mean:
For many Christians, the life of Jesus signifies the birth of a new kind of God, a God of universal love. The Hebrew Bible—the “Old Testament”—chronicled a God who was sometimes belligerent (espousing the slaughter of infidels), unabashedly nationalist (pro-Israel, you might say), and often harsh toward even his most favored nation. Then Jesus came along and set a different tone. As depicted in the Gospels, Jesus exhorted followers to extend charity across ethnic bounds, as in the parable of the good Samaritan, and even to love their enemies. He told them to turn the other cheek, said the meek would inherit the Earth, and warned against self-righteousness (“let he who is without sin cast the first stone”). Even while on the cross, he found compassion for his persecutors: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
That may be true that for many Christians Jesus represents the birth of a new kind of God. Except of course said Christians would do well to actually read their own Scriptures (which say the exact opposite) and stop being so moronic.
The notion that the Old Testament portrays a violent, evil God and the New Testament a loving one is an ancient heresy called Marcionism. It just happens to also set the stage for much later anti-Semitism. Not exactly a progressive-cosmopolitan view of the matter seems to me.
Newsflash: Jesus was a Jew. Jesus worshiped the God of Judaism. Since he was a you know a Jew. And since his followers were you know also Jews, when they saw in him or felt through him if you like the spirit of God, then it was the spirit of the Jewish God. [Read more →]
April 1, 2009 5 Comments
