The New Testament may not support Marxism as some say.

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Dissenter

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Some have claimed the message of the New Testament is consistent with Marxism. There may be another meaning, however.



Lithuanian is a language as ancient as Biblical Greek or Hebrew. Some claim it was essentially court Persian, but I have not been able to find corroboration for this claim. ***Did Lithuania try to conquer the world in ancient times? Probably not, I have made the reasons a footnote.

“Magija Dalina” means “he, she or they distribute magic.” Mary Magdalene’s name is hypothesized to come from the city of Magdala which meant “fishing village with a tower.” However, the only basis for saying Magdala means "fishing village with a tower" is that it strikes modern scholars as sounding like Aramaic for "fish" and "tower." So, there is just as much basis for saying it means "she distributes magic."

“Pharisee” sounds suspiciously like “Parsee” or what Indians call their Persian minority. Can it be some Persian gangsters imbedded themselves into the less devout among the Hebrew people? Perhaps among people who didn't want to hear Judaism from a sincere and moral rabbi?

Magic in ancient times did not refer to stage magic but to the practice of trying to affect the outcome of one thing with the patterns of another. The ancients would call the creation of a voodoo doll magic. They may have borrowed the souls of slaves to teach their children to speak. “Ishtarti” (spelled ištarti) means “to speak or pronounce.” Can it be slaves of Ishtar taught verbal skills with “magijos dalinimas?” The tower of Babel may have housed them. I admit it’s tenuous.



Unfortunately, Mary Magdalene may have had to distribute her soul to the public by being an entertainer. She was said to be wealthy and possessed by seven demons. Her profession may have been consigned to share housing with a fishing village.



The Gospels may be set in communities where marginal or fallen-away Jews and pagans lived. Genesis and Exodus describe some of the Israelites as a little incorrigible. [Edit: I hadn't reviewed Judges in a while.] The nation of Israel also absorbed some of the people of various tribes they had been at war with. Those people may have preserved practices such as human sacrifice and the fallen-away Jews may have gone along.



Despite the warnings of the Prophet Samuel, the Israelites had demanded a king. The king is the representative of the poor. Kings may have grown corrupt and let some part of the Israelite people and the vanquished peoples under the Israelites’ rule to revert to paganism or to begin trafficking people to themselves. Mary Magdalene may have been one of them. Gangs may have pressured victims, or perhaps they were trafficked from afar.

Lazarus may have lived among such gangs in the areas where the pagans and fallen-away or marginal Jews lived. Perhaps he died of a preventable illness because he resisted being forced into into selling his soul for the practice of black magic. He may then have been blacklisted by the fallen-away Jews and the pagans until, malnourished, he died.


The still-faithful Jews may have looked on with concern but there was only so much they could do. The Lord attested to the saving power of Judaism in several places in the Gospel. However, could a foreigner or a Jew who had been taken from their parents be expected to learn the complex devotions of Judaism and regain her soul fast enough to make a faith-based stand against the mob? There was a lot of opium in the ancient world. It is possible victims were hooked.

Forgive me, Lord, if this is blasphemy, but it occurs to one that if the kings of the Israelites allowed some of the people to become corrupt, it may have fallen to their descendant to correct their course.

It is possible the rich young man had made his money either by selling his soul or by helping the mob enslave others.

The early communities in Acts 5 may have been composed of those who desired salvation but stood little chance of obtaining it from practicing Judaism, either because the mob was pressuring them or perhaps they needed a miracle. It says everything was shared with all the faithful, but if the average poor person in Galilee or Judea was practicing black magic and soul theft, and “faithful” means desiring the salvation of their soul, then the communities probably were not just helping any poor person who wanted to keep practicing soul theft but wanted to improve their lot.



If a person had been blacklisted for not wanting to have their soul distributed by being forced into entertainment, then they probably had not been able to obtain an apprenticeship and learn a trade and they probably had no land. Annias and Sephirah may have made their money either by selling their souls or helping the mob. Either way, they had strengthened the system. They may have been required to make it good by giving what they had to support the blacklisted.

None of that implies the New Testament teaches the practice of sharing everything is an intrinsic good. The point of the communities may have been to set the faithful blacklisted on their feet economically and learn a trade, at which point they would no longer be necessary for all of Christian society. Perhaps those people who had gotten wealthy by cooperating with the mob were given an opportunity to do repentance by providing support to the community. Perhaps they had hurt the blacklisted and society at large by strengthening the system of mob slavery.


***The footnote I promised: Lithuanian is the closest living language to Proto-Indo-European. All the languages of Europe except Basque, Finnish, and Welsh are descended from Proto-Indo-European. Many languages of west Asia and northern India are as well. However, Lithuanian DNA is not found in all these places. The DNA of a prehistoric people called the Yamnaya is. They lived just north of the Caspian sea until they expanded throughout Europe and much of Asia. Lithuania may still be speaking Yamnayan, or the Yamnaya may have borrowed ancient Lithuanian.

Consider viewing PBS Nova "The First Horse Warriors" from 36:12. The Yamnaya may have used people they took in order to teach verbal skills. "Ishtarti" (spelled ištarti) means "to speak or pronounce." They may have used slaves of Ishtar to teach proper, standardized speaking. This may imply that they insisted their vanquished peoples learn the way they spoke. The tower of Babel may have housed such slaves. When it collapsed and they died, people forgot how to speak. Perhaps that means they forgot to speak clearly and unambiguously. Incidentally, it is said that General Lee lost the Battle of Gettysburg in part because he had not been able to issue clear, unambiguous instructions to his cavalry commander. This despite the fact that Lee had previously had an illustrious military career. Perhaps Pennsylvanians started to pray for him when he invaded their homeland? Perhaps he had a slave keeping him in verbal skills?
 
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Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. In some cases the events occurred hundreds of years before Moses wrote.

The Garden of Eden may have actually been in downtown Ur. Adam and Eve felt no pain. Perhaps they took no particular notice of the other people who would visit them. Later in the narrative, other people just appear without being descended from Cain or Abel.

Ancient peoples and even some recent peoples deified their king. The people passing on the stories in pre-Abrahamic days may have just said "God" interchangeably with "king" when talking about decisions the king made which were supposed to be on God's behalf. When the Bible says God drove Adam and Eve out of Eden, perhaps it means they eventually got too wise and could have empowered their clients to no longer need "God" or the king of Ur of the Chaldees.

The various kings mentioned in Genesis may have been more like local chieftains beholden to some greater leader and not the main king who was thought to be divine. The kings of Elam, Goyim, Shinar, and Ellasar in Genesis 14 were defeated by Abram and 318 men and the text doesn't mention that it was a great miracle so their armies probably only numbered a few hundred as well.

A king's stake in wanting to use slaves to educate his people may have been to carefully control his people. He may have known some way to break spiritual communion with slaves if they got out of line. Perhaps some king did indeed create the Garden of Eden by ordering it to be built. Perhaps, in these pre-Abrahamic times, "God" or king so-and-so found some portion of his people too rebellious so he destroyed the tower the slaves were housed in.

Then, Abram had an epiphany that all the "gods" or earthly kings are led and inspired by the same God, and all the minor pantheon of "gods" which represent some spiritual quality are probably just slaves who have been raised by some "divine" king to teach some set of related concepts like the god of war, the god of domesticity, the god of ištarimas or clear, standardized speaking, etc. He may merely have discovered what kings knew about religion and prayer, and used it to free his people from the clutches of Babylon or Ur of the Chaldees.

It is said Abram was employed in creating religious statuary. Perhaps Abram realized the king of Ur was using statues to facilitate a spiritual communion with the king and his chosen spiritual priests or slaves because Abram had his mind on the statues of the "gods" all day long. Hasn't it ever occurred to any of you that if you knew how to pray and were among atheists, you could parlay your knowledge into a way to rule them? Perhaps if they were a little evil and hadn't heard Christian morality or even modern ethics regarding things like rules in war, it would even do them a bit of good.
 
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Dear Dissenter,
Where are you getting your Catholic formation from? Have you been studying many writings of the Early Church Fathers?
You call yourself "Dissenter", but here you are on a Catholic forum.
What is your motive? You are either highly intelligent, or at least you know a lot of facts. But what is your motive?
You have got me genuinely intrigued by the two threads I have read. I am, however, deeply concerned for you. I myself was not a Catholic until I was well past my 38th birthday, but I slowly overcame my objections to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
 
Dear Dissenter,
Where are you getting your Catholic formation from? Have you been studying many writings of the Early Church Fathers?
You call yourself "Dissenter", but here you are on a Catholic forum.
What is your motive? You are either highly intelligent, or at least you know a lot of facts. But what is your motive?
You have got me genuinely intrigued by the two threads I have read. I am, however, deeply concerned for you. I myself was not a Catholic until I was well past my 38th birthday, but I slowly overcame my objections to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I have not read the Early Church Fathers so much but I have taken in a few of the classics from the middle ages and early modern era, some time ago.

I have left the church because conditional salvation and marxism are a dangerous combination. See the Baltimore Catechism, no. 3 edition, questions 612-617, and question 585.

I may have identified a vicious cycle which seems to take souls away.

Consider, what if you simply slowly lost your soul, convinced Canon Law keeps priests from abusing the power of conditional salvation to help their friends with your soul? Every time some covetous person envied, hated, or judged you, even if you hadn't had to become a rock star for them, some feel they would form a bit of impurity with you despite not having committed adultery per se in thought, word, or deed. Then the priest may decide you have too much talent and are not using it well enough and that portion of your soul should be redistributed to the poor. Then, you'd be less and less capable of using your abilities for the glory of God, and by their logic, it would force the priest to let them have yet more of you. They'd probably be permissive with comforts, but you'd just feel emptier and emptier while being assured you were heaven bound.

I would like to see people consider trying to read a bit of the NT and pray directly for the saving power of God, to hedge against the possibility that conditional salvation is hurting them. It occurs to one that there may be some barrier to using a Catholic bible for this purpose? Perhaps people who extend too much trust and pray with the Church are unintentionally praying that salvation only work the Church way? It just feels like it's not going to work unless I get an NIV or some other non-Catholic Bible.
 
Thank you, DIssenter, that’s an interesting read but ... What does it have to do with Marxism? You’ve put the word “Marxism” in your title but not a single time, as far as I can see, in your text.

A couple of minor points. Yes, among all living European languages, Lithuanian is known to be the oldest, no doubt about it. But do you have any evidence that either ancient Lithuanian itself or any of the closely related Indo-European languages was ever spoken in what is now the Israeli region of Galilee?

The other point is this. Your footnote lists Welsh among the non-Indo-European languages spoken in present-day Europe. That surely can’t be correct. Welsh is one of the Celtic languages, alongside Scots Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, and Breton. Either all five of those languages form part of the Indo-European family, or all five are outside it. I think you’ll find that they all do, in fact, belong to the family.

On the other hand, you’ve missed out Hungarian, aka Magyar, which is said to be a distant relative of Finnish.
 
Thank you, DIssenter, that’s an interesting read but ... What does it have to do with Marxism? You’ve put the word “Marxism” in your title but not a single time, as far as I can see, in your text.

I'm not sure you're not being a little sly. The Lord's talk with the rich young man in Matthew 19, The communities descibed in Acts 5, and other parts of the NT are claimed by many to prove the Lord was advocating Communism or something like it.
 
Do you need a catechism? Jesus did not leave us orphans. All of this was long ago decided.
The Church rejects all forms of collectivism, as they each violate and suppress human dignity in favor of the state.
 
The Lord's talk with the rich young man in Matthew 19, The communities descibed in Acts 5, and other parts of the NT are claimed by many to prove the Lord was advocating Communism or something like it.

Dissenter, the main subject of your post is linguistics. You dispute the generally accepted etymology of the words “Magdalene” and “Pharisee”. I see no clear connection with either of the NT passages you have now mentioned in your reply to my question.
 
Dissenter, the main subject of your post is linguistics. You dispute the generally accepted etymology of the words “Magdalene” and “Pharisee”. I see no clear connection with either of the NT passages you have now mentioned in your reply to my question.
No, the amateur etymology is meant to support the notion that the Gospels are not advocating Marxism.
 
Do you need a catechism? Jesus did not leave us orphans. All of this was long ago decided.
The Church rejects all forms of collectivism, as they each violate and suppress human dignity in favor of the state.
The previous Holy Father said this:

But Pope Francis has taken a different tack, going so far as to claim that “If I see the Gospel in a sociological way only, yes, I am a communist, and so too is Jesus.”

From:https://thelibertariancatholic.com/...-christian-dialogue-group-in-vatican-welcome/
 
It's all very clearly explained in the first sentence of the OP.
You have a short memory, Dissenter. The first sentence of your OP reads:
Lithuanian is a language as ancient as Biblical Greek or Hebrew.

On second thoughts, maybe you have a good memory and you're deliberately posting an untruth. Are you a troll, Dissenter?
 
You have a short memory, Dissenter. The first sentence of your OP reads:
Lithuanian is a language as ancient as Biblical Greek or Hebrew.

On second thoughts, maybe you have a good memory and you're deliberately posting an untruth. Are you a troll, Dissenter?
Look again, please. You quoted the third sentence.
 
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Yes, I have looked again, and this is what I have found. There are two possible explanations. First, that you are a troll. Second, that you are just pretending to be a troll.
 
It's all very clearly explained in the first sentence of the OP.
The first sentence is the only mention of Marxism.
The rest of the post has nothing to do with it.

I submit the title of the thread should be changed.
The thread title clearly mentioned Marxism and claimed some discourse on the topic, but does not at all reflect this.
It's click bait.
 
"Some have claimed the message of the New Testament is consistent with Marxism. There may be another meaning, however."

The rest of the OP covers the different meaning.
 
I'm not sure you're not being a little sly. The Lord's talk with the rich young man in Matthew 19, The communities descibed in Acts 5, and other parts of the NT are claimed by many to prove the Lord was advocating Communism or something like it.
"Communism or something like it" is not a good description. Communism is a political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property with "public ownership" (meaning the state (as the representative of the community and will of all people) is the sole owner of at least the major means of production and natural resources). The production and distribution of goods would be based upon the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Although this principle sounds like it could have come from the NT, the process is quite different from early Christian communities, in which spiritual salvation was prioritized over material needs. The decisions in religious communities come from faith and the observance of a spiritual life that would give discernment.
This is pretty standard knowledge, why are you asking the question? I mean if you read Gramsci, you read Lenin.
In the Judgement of nations, Matthews cites: did you cloth the poor, feed the hungry, visited the prisoner, but not, did you abandoned everything for them. What the right balance is, is not for us to say, but for God and our conscience, and if we did enough, well, we will find out, eventually.
And here is the fundamental difference between Christianity (and Judaism too) with Marxism: we do not have a definite answer, ultimately it is God's sovereignty (especially, read the Book of Job) and we have only glimpses of it. Communism, on the other hand, is about certainty. One authoritarian ruler makes decisions for the people, there is no doubt about right and wrong, no soul searching (well there is no soul), only the dictatorship of the proletariat to guide our lives. So really, if you know all this, from where do your questions come?
 
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The production and distribution of goods would be based upon the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Although this principle sounds like it could have come from the NT, the process is quite different from early Christian communities, in which spiritual salvation was prioritized over material needs...So really, if you know all this, from where do your questions come?
I am not sure what questions you are referring to.

I don't think your Lenin quote sounds like it could have come from the NT. I don't see people trying to redistribute more wealth to themselves in the NT. I see people banding together against gangs who want them to share their souls. I think they only wanted to share material goods until the worthy, capable, but blacklisted early Christians were on their feet. It does not say they were trying to establish a new economic principle as a supposedly intrinsic good.

I think you may be being disingenuous acting like you think Communism is all about basing production and distribution of goods based on redistributionist principle. Communists are, in a way, also about a perverted form of spiritual salvation, albeit surreptitiously, and in an un-Christian way. The true evil of Communism is that it gives peoples' bureaus the power to decide who gets what job, and if an intelligent person wants a job managing a factory or designing the goods, they may have to agree to keep their spiritual defenses low or they get blacklisted by the peoples' committee. The salvation Communists seek is salvation from not realizing their covetousness for prestige and wealth. They may hope to achieve this by using other peoples' knowledge, judgment, and intelligence to save themselves from their shortcomings, even though it can occasion the loss of the souls of their victims. They may even force some of the intelligent to occasionally sacrifice a family member to entertainment or actual direct prostitution, so the poor could share their souls. There seem to be those in your Church who are also redefining salvation as salvation from not realizing the wealth and prestige which they covet, instead of being saved from the sins and violence which can cause the loss of a person's soul.
 
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I am not sure what questions you are referring to.

I don't think your Lenin quote sounds like it could have come from the NT. I don't see people trying to redistribute more wealth to themselves in the NT. I see people banding together against gangs who want them to share their souls. I think they only wanted to share material goods until the worthy, capable, but blacklisted early Christians were on their feet. It does not say they were trying to establish a new economic principle as a supposedly intrinsic good.

I think you may be being disingenuous acting like you think Communism is all about basing production and distribution of goods based on redistributionist principle. Communists are, in a way, also about a perverted form of spiritual salvation, albeit surreptitiously, and in an un-Christian way. The true evil of Communism is that it gives peoples' bureaus the power to decide who gets what job, and if an intelligent person wants a job managing a factory or designing the goods, they may have to agree to keep their spiritual defenses low or they get blacklisted by the peoples' committee. The salvation Communists seek is salvation from not realizing their covetousness for prestige and wealth by using other peoples' knowledge, judgment, and intelligence to save themselves from their shortcomings, even though it can occasion the loss of the souls of their victims. They may even force some of the intelligent to occasionally sacrifice a family member to entertainment or actual direct prostitution, so the poor could share their souls. There seem to be those in your Church who are also redefining salvation as salvation from not realizing the wealth and prestige which they covet, instead of being saved from the sins and violence which can cause the loss of a person's soul.
Apologies, you completely lost me. I am working with accepted definitions of communism, you can check an encyclopedia or a text book. So it is not what "I think Communism is about" but how it is defined and how it was implemented. In a communist regime there is no redistribution of income, there are no taxes. As for assigned jobs...actually the Soviets had a very good educational system (excellent math and reading early on), they had good teachers and competitions to recognize talent, subject to ideological approval of the students and their families. So there was an imperfect meritocracy, especially in academia and more so in physics, engineering, medicine, the professions valued by the state. I can go on, but I have the feeling it would be lost, you may not be interested.
I can say for sure that Communists are not interested in salvation, as they are by definition atheist and against religion.
I do not think that you have ever been a practicing Catholic, as you understand basic teachings.
 
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