questions?

[IanCorrigan]

Thank You for your answer but what were pre-christian pagans?

Pre-christian religion was called ‘Paganism’ by the early church, and the term has stuck among historians, and even been adopted by modern people who are reviving the worship of the Old Gods.

So you don’t believe that your god controls anything? Is this correct?

I believe the Gods control many things - certainly they influence everything by their will and deeds. However, I don’t believe in a divine providence that manages every event to some great purpose. All living things have wills of their own, and we all act together to make up the pattern of the worlds - from the smallest bug to the highest god, we all act as we will.

Do you believe that the bible is history at all?

I think the Bible has some actual historical material in it, but that largely it is the mythology of the Jews and Christians.Like most mythic tales, it takes bits of material history - places, kings, etc, and mixes them with the mythic content.

And remember ‘mythic’ doesn’t mean ‘untrue’ - it just means that it may not have happened the way history happens.

Ian

 

[KarenNC]

My point was that you can’t use the fact that many Jews didn’t believe He matched the criteria of the Messiah to prove that He wasn’t either, and you cited that as though it were a clever reason to believe such. It’s not a good or clever reason at all; the whole subject of what some Jews thought and others didn’t really doesn’t work as an impressive proof either for or against the Messiah-ship of Jesus. That was the point of my post.

I was not being facetious when I asked for sources for the conflicting beliefs–I truly would like to read more about them as I find the time period interesting. Since the claims that I have heard regarding Jesus’ divinity rest on his being the Jewish Messiah, understanding what first century Jews in Palestine believed to be the criteria for a Messiah is very important to understanding the beginning of the entire religion.

Since the Jewish religion is listed as the source of the criteria to determine who is and who is not the Jewish Messiah, then to argue that they didn’t agree on who or what a Messiah is and therefore there is really to no purpose to try to determine who or what might constitute a Messiah because Jews disagreed makes the entire argument that Jesus is God because He is the Messiah foretold by Judaism irrelevant.

If the argument for Jesus being God rests on something other than being the Messiah foretold by Judaism and that part is simply an unimportant byproduct, then yes, I would agree that the differences make no difference. It has always been presented as a central issue by those Christians that I have known. Perhaps the Catholic Church has a different view than the one that I have encountered in the Catholics I have met, which have admittedly been fewer than the Protestants.

 

[KarenNC]

Then can I ask you do you believe that the dead sea scrolls exist and are written accounts of the events of the bible times?
So does this last statement say you believe as the Jews and believe they are right and you are waiting for the messiah? Just wondering. dessert

Certainly I believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls exist. I saw them myself when the exhibit was here last year–very interesting. Yes, I believe that they are written accounts of the community found at Qumran and that the community existed in that area during roughly the first centuries both BCE and CE.

I understand from the Jews that the Jews are still waiting for a messiah. Personally, I am not waiting for a messiah and my religion includes neither the need for nor prediction of such. Neither the Jewish nor Christian Scriptures form part of my religion.

 

[KarenNC]

Hastrman

Went looking further for info on population statistics for Jews in the first century CE. Here’s what the Jewish Encyclopedia says:

jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1044&letter=S&search=population

"Tacitus declares that Jerusalem at its fall contained 600,000 persons; Josephus, that there were as many as 1,100,000, of whom 97,000 were sold as slaves. It is from the latter that most European Jews are descended. These appear to be all the figures accessible for ancient times, and their trustworthiness is a matter of dispute. The difficulties of commissariat in the Sinaitic desert for such a number as 3,000,000 have been pointed out by Colenso; and the impossibility of the area of Jerusalem containing much more than 80,000 persons with any comfort has been referred to as proving the exaggeration of the figures of Josephus and Tacitus.

In the Hadrianic war 580,000 Jews were slain, according to Dion Cassius (lxix. 14). According to Mommsen, in the first century C.E. there were no less than 1,000,000 Jews in Egypt, in a total of 8,000,000inhabitants; of these 200,000 lived in Alexandria, whose total population was 500,000. Harnack (“Ausbreitung des Christentums,” Leipsic, 1902) reckons that there were 1,000,000 Jews in Syria at the time of Nero, and 700,000 in Palestine, and he allows for an additional 1,500,000 in other places, thus estimating that there were in the first century 4,200,000 Jews in the world. This estimate is probably excessive."

I haven’t been able to find a reference yet to the precipitous drop in the number of Jews you referenced, but I may not be using the correct search terms. Any suggestions?

 

[Montalban]

Okay karenNC has answered your question over and over, and for this one…

This is not true. Even your summary doesn’t satisfy…

come on its as simple as black and white. Different society, Different belief.

This answer is not sufficient. Are you saying that the pantheons are only gods to those societies that believe in them? Or, is their existence a ‘truth’ based solely on cultural relativity?

This can be used in Christianity also. Catholics think its okay to wear makeup, Mormons don’t…different culture of the same religion with different beliefs on what is right and wrong.

Not the same. Catholics don’t in general say

”I believe in my church, but the Mormon ideal of truth is true to them”

They don’t make relativist argument. They say “What we believe is true. What they believe is not true”.

 

[KindredSoul]

I was not being facetious when I asked for sources for the conflicting beliefs–I truly would like to read more about them as I find the time period interesting. Since the claims that I have heard regarding Jesus’ divinity rest on his being the Jewish Messiah, understanding what first century Jews in Palestine believed to be the criteria for a Messiah is very important to understanding the beginning of the entire religion.

Since the Jewish religion is listed as the source of the criteria to determine who is and who is not the Jewish Messiah, then to argue that they didn’t agree on who or what a Messiah is and therefore there is really to no purpose to try to determine who or what might constitute a Messiah because Jews disagreed makes the entire argument that Jesus is God because He is the Messiah foretold by Judaism irrelevant.

If the argument for Jesus being God rests on something other than being the Messiah foretold by Judaism and that part is simply an unimportant byproduct, then yes, I would agree that the differences make no difference. It has always been presented as a central issue by those Christians that I have known. Perhaps the Catholic Church has a different view than the one that I have encountered in the Catholics I have met, which have admittedly been fewer than the Protestants.

The thing is that Christianity actually boldly asserts, and in a sense even requires that the Jews for the most part didn’t realize that Jesus Christ was their Messiah. It is this irony–that Jesus could fit the criteria of being the Messiah, but in such subtle ways–that resulted in His crucifixion, which would never have come to pass had the majority of Jews recognized Him. So indeed, you are right to notice that Jesus meeting the criteria for the Jewish Messiah is of central importance to Christianity; but ironically, so is the assertion that most Jews wouldn’t be able to recognize this. That’s why it’s important to note that it is fully possible to reconcile Jesus’ life with the criteria of the Messiah–as is proven by the fact that there were devout and knowledgable Jews who did believe Him to be the very Messiah foretold by their prophecies–but that it is also subtle in such a way as that many Jews wouldn’t recognize it. Both claims are central to Christianity; without the first, Jesus wouldn’t be the Jewish Messiah, which He is. Without the Second, He’d have never become the Savior of the World, which He is. It’s something of a paradox. I was never trying to imply that the first claim wasn’t an important one, but rather that the lack of recognizing this among many of the Jews doesn’t prove that claim to be false, especially since the second equally important claim all but requires that lack to be the case (in retrospect).

As for those sources, I still haven’t had a chance to find out the names of the books (It could be a few days before I get a chance to find them)…in the meantime, you can probably find much of it online; the Essenes, the Sadduccees, the Pharisees, and the Zealots all had different opinions of what the Messiah would be like…by typing in those terms, I hope you can find something on it, since your interest seems genuine. I will try to get back to you on it though.

 

[IanCorrigan]

Montalban’s question- “how can there be more than one Supreme God” deserves some attention. It brings us to some core considerations about polytheism and monotheism.

First, I think we must assert that polytheism is based on the observed facts of the human world. Humans, left to ourselves, generally notice many gods and spirits, and take up their worship. To the ancients, and to me, this is just fact. There are many puzzling things in the universe, but the fact that something is puzzling does not make it false.

So, when I observe that Zeus is called ‘supreme’ among the Greeks, and Tiw the same among the Saxons, the first reaction is simply to say “hmmm… interesting”. Since the ancients had no real notion that the Gods of a neighboring people might be ‘false’, that explanation wouldn’t have occurred to them. After all, they would be trading goods and ideas with the peoples of other gods, and would know that those Gods blessed those folks, just as one’s own gods blessed one’s own house.

To an ordinary Pagan, conjecture about why such things were as they were wouldn’t have arisen, except maybe as beer talk. The Gods are the Gods, and one maintains one’s relationship with them, and lets them go about their business. Pagans didn’t really do ‘theology’ much - a few specialised philosophers undertook it on occasion, but it was never a part of commonplace Paganism. Paganism doesn’t (and didn’t) depend on ‘believing in’ things - only on doing the work and receiving the blessings.

So, given that we observe the multiple divine persons who are called ‘supreme’ by humans, we have several possible answers:
1: One of the Supremes is mightier than the other, whether or not the local deities are ‘in charge’ of their people/territory.
2: There are fewer gods than humans sometimes think, and Zeus and Tiw (or whomever) are really the same fellow, manifesting in different ways to different people. This was a popular ancient Pagan answer, and is favored by a lot of neopagans as well. In this case each and all cultural manifestations of, say, the Sky King or Harvest God are equally true.
3: One of the Gods is real, the other isn’t - this was seldom considered by ancient Pagans, since the Gods all blessed their peoples.

Personally, I am happy with an agnostic philosophy about the nature of the divine. I doubt that the common human mind (or any book written for it) has the capacity to comprehend what a god is, and how it acts - all we can do is play with models, to see which ones seem to resemble the observed facts. So I don’t hold any single opinion on the nature of the Gods, and my spiritual work doesn’t depend on being ‘certain’ (or pretending to be) about such things. I am certain of the presence of the divine, and of the Gods, and of the wisdom, love and power I experience from/with them. From there, it’s all guess-work. Our religion does not depend on theology.

Just as a side note, ancient Paganism never failed, philosophically. It was deliberately destroyed by violence by the Christian church. When the Christian church gained power in Rome, Paganism was well-defended by the intellectuals of the ancient world. It was only the deliberate de-funding and closure of the Pagan houses of worship by the Christian state, and the systematic killing of the priesthood and the burning of their books that led to the end of organized Paganism in the ancient world. And before you suggest that successful military oppression equals the favor of the divine, remember that there was not a peep out of Jesus when the Soviets crushed Christianity in Russia.

Ian

 

[KarenNC]

Both claims are central to Christianity; without the first, Jesus wouldn’t be the Jewish Messiah, which He is. Without the Second, He’d have never become the Savior of the World, which He is. It’s something of a paradox…

in the meantime, you can probably find much of it online; the Essenes, the Sadduccees, the Pharisees, and the Zealots all had different opinions of what the Messiah would be like…

Thanks, I have a better idea of your position now and I can see the line of reasoning behind the requirement for both to be necessary for one to believe in Christianity. Most arguments I have encountered simply stop with the first part. It remains overly complicated to my mind and requiring much special pleading, but then the basic premise of Christianity as a whole does as well, so that’s hardly surprising .

I will take a look online to find out more about the specific understandings among the various groups of the time. Thanks.

You say that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, so that calls for the question–which one? Which group’s criteria for a Messiah do you believe that Jesus fit (I suppose in this case, which group of Jews do Christians believe got it “right”)? Is there an indication that the bulk of the converts from Judaism came from within that group?

 

[Montalban]

IanCorrigan:

Montalban’s question- “how can there be more than one Supreme God” deserves some attention. It brings us to some core considerations about polytheism and monotheism.

Thank you, and thank you for responding.

IanCorrigan:

So, given that we observe the multiple divine persons who are called ‘supreme’ by humans, we have several possible answers:
1: One of the Supremes is mightier than the other, whether or not the local deities are ‘in charge’ of their people/territory.
2: There are fewer gods than humans sometimes think, and Zeus and Tiw (or whomever) are really the same fellow, manifesting in different ways to different people. This was a popular ancient Pagan answer, and is favored by a lot of neopagans as well. In this case each and all cultural manifestations of, say, the Sky King or Harvest God are equally true.
3: One of the Gods is real, the other isn’t - this was seldom considered by ancient Pagans, since the Gods all blessed their peoples.

I worked with a pagan who’s explanation of her beliefs made a certain logical sense. She gave me this analogy, that the gods ‘light’ is shining from one source and that like through a crystal is diffracted into a multitude of beams so that different groups seeing the same original source diffracted are seeing it however through different beams, thus they’re the same gods in a single pantheon but the different understandings from different perspectives explains the different ‘sets’ of pantheons.

Although I have several problems with this at a deeper level, and don’t expect you to defend it. However it was an appealing explanation (at least superficially). And of course, I’m glad she took the time to explain “Why?” she believed in what she believed

IanCorrigan:

Personally, I am happy with an agnostic philosophy about the nature of the divine. I doubt that the common human mind (or any book written for it) has the capacity to comprehend what a god is, and how it acts - all we can do is play with models, to see which ones seem to resemble the observed facts. So I don’t hold any single opinion on the nature of the Gods, and my spiritual work doesn’t depend on being ‘certain’ (or pretending to be) about such things. I am certain of the presence of the divine, and of the Gods, and of the wisdom, love and power I experience from/with them. From there, it’s all guess-work. Our religion does not depend on theology.

To a degree I agree. Orthodox believe that ultimately it’s all a bit of a mystery.

IanCorrigan:

Just as a side note, ancient Paganism never failed, philosophically. It was deliberately destroyed by violence by the Christian church. When the Christian church gained power in Rome, Paganism was well-defended by the intellectuals of the ancient world. It was only the deliberate de-funding and closure of the Pagan houses of worship by the Christian state, and the systematic killing of the priesthood and the burning of their books that led to the end of organized Paganism in the ancient world.

I strongly disagree with this; although you’ve done a wee goal-shift to make it a “Christian -v- Pagan” engagement, whereas I talked monotheism’s general triumph… and shall continue so here.

Paganism was always being challenged by intellectuals who sensed a single divine power, even when they ascribed that to a ‘force’ such as nature. Or, they were being challenged by those who believed in other systems. Socrates was declared by Meletus to be an atheist!

Certainly within the Roman Empire there was some official oppression of paganism under Theodosius, but this is to ignore that paganism was already losing in areas outside of the Empire. The Goths converted to Arianism. Armenia was converted to Christianity. Persia was already non-Pagan - following Zoroastrianism. Pharaoh Akhenaton had tried to make Egypt monotheistic (I think that The Egyptian Book of the Dead also had monotheistic tones), and of course the Jews already were monotheists. And Marija Gimbutas’s description of Neolithic Europe has even inspired some neo-pagans into monotheism.

Areas of Europe (now called Ireland and Scotland) were never part of the Roman Empire and never had one over-arching governmental system to make a top-down conversion possible, and they converted to Christianity. Boniface took Christianity to the Germans, Willibrord was Apostle to the Frisians.

Certainly even in some areas there was forceful conversions, such as Norway’s King Olaf Tryggvason, and Charlemagne against the Saxons. But what you propose, well, it’s an over-simple theory to believe that paganism didn’t fall on it’s own inconsistencies.

IanCorrigan:

And before you suggest that successful military oppression equals the favor of the divine, remember that there was not a peep out of Jesus when the Soviets crushed Christianity in Russia.

I would never make such an argument.

 

[KindredSoul]

You say that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, so that calls for the question–which one? Which group’s criteria for a Messiah do you believe that Jesus fit (I suppose in this case, which group of Jews do Christians believe got it “right”)? Is there an indication that the bulk of the converts from Judaism came from within that group?

That is admittedly where it gets tricky. I’m not so sure that there was a widespread group, before Jesus’ time, that had envisioned him perfectly. Now, a great number of the Jews from all categories apparently believed in His claims at one time during His life, motivated by His healings, and this culminated one week before His death (when He entered Jerusalem and Palm leaves were strewn before Him to hail Him in).

However, there were two details that place Jesus outside of nearly all the Jewish interpretations (a key word - interpretation, which doesn’t eliminate the possibility for other interpretation): One was the fact that He was a spiritual Savior, not a military conquerer. Many Jews, sick of Roman rule, thought the Messiah would save them from Rome and establish Israel (as the Kingdom of God) as the superior nation. The second is the fact that it became evident He was going to die to win His victory. The Jews expected a conquering Hero, not a suffering servant.

Now, clearly the suffering servant interpretation is a legitimate one (and Judaism, unlike Catholicism, has no infallible authority to declare otherwise) as has been demonstrated by the fact that many devout Jews had no problem seeing the light (so to speak) of that interpretation after the Resurrection (if the interpretation were impossible, there’d have been no “light” to see), but the Jews of Jesus’ day were so wrapped up in having a physically conquering Messiah that none of the groups would have been able to see the truth about Jesus. Neither Scripture nor Tradition needs to hide this fact, for the reason I stated earlier in this paragraph, and in fact even Christ’s disciples were shocked when He died…they too felt He’d failed, until the resurrection, which vindicated His claims. You see, in some ways, you might say Catholicism views Jesus as the very conquering Messiah expected by the Jews after all - He will establish God’s Kingdom supremely, as the Jews thought…at His next coming.

So, in a sense (some ways symbolic, in others literal), Jesus does perfectly meet the expectation of nearly all the Jews in some fashion (quite a feat in itself!), but the perfect fulfillment of that just has yet to come. That one simple fact, the delay in the universal and final fulfillment of the prophecies and interpretations, was enough to deceive (in our view) a multitude of Jews into not seeing that Jesus is the Messiah. Those who witnessed His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven have every reason to believe (considering the miraculous nature of what He had already done) that He will return, establish the Kingdom of God eternally, and thus is clearly the Messiah by Jewish criteria. For the rest of us, we rely on faith and the testimony of those who saw Him, which has been passed down and is quite supportable (another topic in itself, of course), which isn’t enough to make everyone believe, including many of the Jews. Ironically, the very One they doubted will fulfill all they ever dreamed of…but they refuse to believe it. It’s like a Greek Tragedy, in that light.

 

[Hastrman]

I haven’t been able to find a reference yet to the precipitous drop in the number of Jews you referenced, but I may not be using the correct search terms. Any suggestions?

Sorry, no; it’s something I read a long time ago.

Unfortunately I’ve trained myself to remember things I read fairly well, but not nearly as well to keep track of where I read them.

Which group’s criteria for a Messiah do you believe that Jesus fit (I suppose in this case, which group of Jews do Christians believe got it “right”)? Is there an indication that the bulk of the converts from Judaism came from within that group?

As far as I know, the disciples and apostles came from a cross-section of Judaea–they weren’t even all Jews (the Apostles were, but some of the disciples were other things). Also, it’s not that there were different sects within Judaism, or rather there were, but within the two main sects, Pharisees and Sadducees, there were many theological schools, for want of a better term. It’s a bit more like how, within entirely orthodox Catholicism, there are Augustinians and Thomists and phenomenologists (although most of those last are also Thomists).

Basically the criteria they thought Christ fulfilled were, “Sent by God” and “freed Israel.” Neither of the two worked out as any of the theories had expected.

 

[KarenNC]

**Sorry, no; it’s something I read a long time ago.

Unfortunately I’ve trained myself to remember things I read fairly well, but not nearly as well to keep track of where I read them.**

I understand, it’s not an uncommon problem, partucularly when one reads widely both on individual subjects and on multiple subjects (and as we get older–feeling a bit elderly since I just got my first pair of bifocals --tends to remind one of one’s mortality ). I am lucky that my husband has a better memory for where things are in that respect than I do, so I can frequently turn to him.

**As far as I know, the disciples and apostles came from a cross-section of Judaea–they weren’t even all Jews (the Apostles were, but some of the disciples were other things)… **

Thanks to both you and KindredSoul for giving me a fuller explanation of the Catholic view on this.

 

[Hastrman]

Thanks to both you and KindredSoul for giving me a fuller explanation of the Catholic view on this.

Welcome.

 

[KindredSoul]

Thanks to both you and KindredSoul for giving me a fuller explanation of the Catholic view on this.

No problem!

 

[awantz]

hey ya’ll, this isn’t the best thread i’ve made but…

if anyone here has a question for me about paganism or wicca i will be happy to answer as long as its a mature question

My sister-in-law is into wicca which brings up a lot of questions for me, my husband, and his family. I don’t have time to ask any right now, but if you have any helpful websites please post them and I will look at them later, when I have more time. Thank You.

 

[reborn_pagan]

My sister-in-law is into wicca which brings up a lot of questions for me, my husband, and his family. I don’t have time to ask any right now, but if you have any helpful websites please post them and I will look at them later, when I have more time. Thank You.

Uhm…what do you mean helpfull, cause there’s a laundry list of websites with everything from basic 101 to very complex rituals. If you can be more specific on what kind of websites I’ll be more than happy to help out.