Posted on 05/29/2005 6:21:09 PM PDT by Coleus
...the first thing Judaism did was to de-sexualize God: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” by his will, not through any sexual behavior. This was an utterly radical break with all other religions, and it alone changed human history. The gods of virtually all civilizations engaged in sexual relations. In the Near East, the Babylonian god Ishtar seduced a man, Gilgamesh, the Babylonian hero. In Egyptian religion, the god Osiris had sexual relations with his sister, the goddess Isis, and she conceived the god Horus. In Canaan, El, the chief god, had sex with Asherah. In Hindu belief, the god Krishna was sexually active, having had many wives and pursuing Radha; the god Samba, son of Krishna, seduced mortal women and men. In Greek beliefs, Zeus married Hera, chased women, abducted the beautiful young male, Ganymede, and masturbated at other times; Poseidon married Amphitrite, pursued Demeter, and raped Tantalus. In Rome, the gods sexually pursued both men and women.
Correct - I was talking about Old Testament.
And what institution was behind most of the advancements of Science, culture and art in the early Middle ages? It was the Church, which had held in trust, during the Dark Ages, all the previously gained information, and when societies began to grow once again, brought forth those ideas and began Universities to spread that knowledge.
This was the true beginning of Western Civilization.
Not to undermine Christianity, but it would seem Paul, and the gospel writers, drew on many sources and orientations beyond just those of Jesus' end...which incidentally, Paul never seems to have given a hoot about when he later visited Jerusalem. One would think he'd want to visit the site of the Crucifiction, and Jesus' tomb, etc. But alas....
Smart guy, Paul, both before and after his "conversion". Though I don't think I'd have related to him.
Though all in God, who's Goodness I do believe in.
Without Mosaic Law (the Bible) there would be no New Testament, no Greeks, no Romans...
Why to you put me on the wild goose chase, instead of specifying your claims?
Anyway I looked at this page, does this quote below agrees with your views?
"In his books The Mythmaker and Paul and Hellenism, Talmudic scholar Hyam Maccoby exposed a theory that Paul was actually a Gentile raised in an environment influenced by the popular Hellenistic mystery religions centered on dying and resurrected savior deities [...] Maccoby believes that Paul's revelation was thus actually a resolution of his divided self; Paul subsequently fused the mystery religions, Judaism and the Passion of Jesus into an entirely new belief, centered on the death of Jesus as a mystical atoning sacrifice."
I can understand why the Talmudic scholar would want to believe this "theory". Is it what you believe?
The women of Arab society, wherein male homosexuality has been widespread, remain in a notably low state in the modern world. This may be a coincidence, but common sense suggests a linkage. So, too, in traditional Chinese culture, the low state of women has been linked to widespread homosexuality. As a French physician reported from China in the nineteenth century, “Chinese women were such docile, homebound dullards that the men, like those of ancient Greece, sought courtesans and boys.”
Greeks came into being BEFORE Mosaic Law, and Romans were formed by the Greek influence.
Now it is true that New Testament is based on the Old Testament. But Western/Christian civilization is based on the first.
What this "Hellenization" by Saint Paul consisted of? Could you specify?
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-k.html#CHAPTERXLVI
Greeks (with Alexander) and the Ptolemaic Pharaohs did not enter Egypt and invade Israel until long after Moses had left it to establish Israel. Judah Maccabes (the hammer) threw the Greeks out. The philosophies of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (Alexander's teacher) in no way preceded Moses...
The Ten Commandments are the basis of all law in Western Civilization. The very idea that human beings have rights comes from what Moses carried down from Mount Zion...
That the sense of him was Hellenize by Paul (though also a Jew), and carried into "gospel" form of which he was unaware doesn't alter that history from which he drew fluently in his lifetime....
See this...
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-k.html#CHAPTERXLVI
Great question!
No, I don't believe it... The "Talmudic scholar" worships a golden calf, turning his back on the Laws of Moses, like so many have done since Moses went to stand in the presence of God to recieve His Commnandments.
This is why we have liberal leftist Jews, they worship the golden calf and are the same elements among the Judaic who demanded crucifiction of Yeshua...
Yes, you get it...
It was landmark U.S. Supreme Court precedent Reynolds v. United States in 1878 that made "separation of church and state" a dubiously legitimate point of case law, but more importantly; it confirmed the Constitutionality in statutory regulation of marriage practices. Congress, state legislatures and public referendums have statutorily determined polygamous, pederast, homosexual, and incestuous marriages are unlawful. No Constitutional Amendment restricting marriage is required to regulate "practice" according to the Reynolds decision.
Marriage is a religious "rite," not a civil "right;" a secular standard of human reproductive biology united with the Judaic Adam and Eve model of monogamy in creationist belief. Two homosexuals cannot be "monogamous" because the word denotes a biological procreation they are not capable of together; human reproductive biology is an obvious secular standard.
All adults have privilege to marry one consenting adult of opposite gender; therefore, Fourteenth Amendment "equal protection" argument about "privileges and immunities" for homosexual marriage is invalid. Driving, marriage, legal and medical practices are not enumerated rights; they are privileged practices that require statutory license.
Homosexual monogamy advocates are a cult of perversion seeking ceremonious sanctification for voluntary deviancy with anatomical function, desperately pursuing esoteric absolution to justify their guilt-ridden egos. This has no secular standard; it is an idolatrous fetish. Why not properly apply the adjudicated Reynolds 'separation of church and state' here?
[Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 8 Otto 145, 24 L. Ed. 244 (1878).]
Please do not confuse the discussion with facts. :)
That was my point. And this "ornate" (sacred) images were not to be spit on them. So the whole Temple and so the Ark of Covenant. They were to be respected.
Solomon is over-rated. He allowed idolitary to re-enter Israel along with his Pagan wives.
And even David or Moses commited serious sins. Still the good things they accomplished with the help of God are in the Bible. And the Temple of Solomon in no way was the example of idolatry. The sacred images (like these of cherubs) were put un the Temple and KEPT in agreement with the will of God.
Jews were formed by the Greek culture and earlier they were formed by the Babylonian/Persian culture and earlier by the Egyptians. It was the part of God's plan Who used the gifts/achievements of every nation to reveal Himself to the Mankind.
To better understand the context in which the Church was established one should to read the latest books of Old Testament - the ones removed by the rabbis after the split with the Christians (no surprise here) and followed by Luther and Calvin (they could not "reform" the Christianity otherwise). These books are called sometimes deuterocanonical (or falsely apocryphal as there are others which indeed deserve this name.)
These books are preserved in the Catholic and Orthodox versions of the Old Testament.
Abortion, Buggery, Contraception, sterilisation: the ABCs of cultural suicide.
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