| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Sound of Trumpet" |
| Date: |
17 Feb 2006 07:36:24 AM |
| Object: |
How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus" |
http://www.mark-shea.com/real_f.html
The Latest "Real Jesus"
Mark P. Shea
Here's an email about a website called "New Covenant Ministries" (a
self described "No-nonsense, Honest, Direct, Prophetic, Apostolic,
Priesthood of All Believers [Men and Women], Post-Trib, Sabbatarian,
Messianic-Israelite, Patriarchal, Evangelical, Received Text, Johannine
Tradition & Communion, End-Time Gatherers, New Birth, Holiness,
Restorationist, New Covenant Torah, Non-Charismatic, and Sola
Scriptura" group which styles itself "One Spotless Church Gathered from
the Corpse of Christendom."
That warm affirmation of ecumenism should be a tip off that this group
is unlikely to be tremendously reliable when their assertions wander
off the beaten path of Christian orthodoxy. But still my correspondent
is worried. This group insists (as gluttons for punishment can read for
themselves here) that Jesus was married and that the real "groom and
bride" at the wedding in Cana (John 2) were Jesus and Mary Magdalene!
(Pay no attention to the wedding portrait of the happy couple on the
site. Thanks to the miracle of Photoshop and a good dose of artistic
ignorance, they've melded an icon of Jesus with an icon, not of the
Magdalene, but of his mother, the Blessed Virgin and himself as an
infant.)
Anyway, these folks argue that Mary (Magdalene, not his mother) was
making a crypto-reference to Jesus as her husband when she exclaimed
"Rabboni" on the morning of the Resurrection (John 20:16). They also
teach that John the Baptist's reference to Jesus as the Bridegroom was
yet another crypto-reference to Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene (John
3:29). They argue that the early Church, influenced by gnostic hatred
of sex, covered up all this wedded bliss in order to promote a gnostic
emphasis on asceticism and loathing of sex. My correspondent explains
that he wouldn't take it so seriously, but that some show on the tube
had also recently made a similar claim. Is there perhaps something to
it, he wonders?
My answer, in a nutshell is "No." There is nothing to it. The reality
is that the intensely hypothetical and remote nature of the speculation
here is simply contrary to the entire memory of Christendom on this
question for 2000 years-beginning with the apostles. The simple fact
is, the whole of the Christian testimony on this subject from Christ's
time down to the present is that Jesus remained unmarried. Contrary to
the claim of the website, the tradition that Jesus was unmarried did
not "begin in gnosticism". It began with the apostles' memories of
Jesus and was always recognized as a genuine apostolic teaching, even
by Church Fathers who were mortal foes of gnosticism and all its works
and ways. Indeed, Jesus himself commended those who were "eunuchs for
the kingdom of God" (i.e. "virgins") (Matthew 19:12).
The web site's exegesis fails to take into account the point John is
attempting to convey in his account of the Miracle at Cana. In that
account (and elsewhere) Jesus simply is not the earthly Bridegroom at
the earthly wedding no matter how much ingenious reading between the
lines we attempt. However, the earthly wedding, like all earthly
marriage, does provide the archetypal image of Jesus as the Cosmic
Bridegroom of the Church and that is what John wishes us to see, just
as Paul wishes us to see it in Ephesians 5. John the Baptist's language
describing Jesus as the Bridegroom is clearly figurative, not
descriptive of a relationship with Mary Magdalene (who is simply absent
in the Johannine narrative except in the resurrection account and who
comes nowhere near the wedding at Cana). The attempt to transform
Mary's cry of "Rabboni" on the morning of the Resurrection into a
confession of her married status as Christ's earthly wife is utterly
without attestation anywhere in the Christian tradition. John, in fact,
tells us what Mary meant: she called Jesus "Teacher", not "husband."
(John 20:16).
One good rule of thumb whenever one encounters a "real Jesus" who is
radically at odds with the picture offered by the ordinary Tradition,
Scripture and magisterial teaching of the Church is to examine the
dominant fixations of one's own age and see how much of a Rorschach ink
blot test that new "real Jesus" is. Oddly enough, when liberal
Protestantism went gaga for the Social Gospel a hundred years ago, the
Real Jesus looked very much like a Social Gospel Protestant a la Albert
Schweitzer. When the world went nuts for Marxism, a new Real Jesus
suddenly appeared on the scene as the First Marxist preaching the
Sermon on the Barricades to the Oppressed Proletariat. Nazism was fond
of discovering a Real Jesus who was "really" an Aryan eager to condemn
Judaism and not beholden to his Jewish ancestry. Ironic postmodernity
sees an ironic postmodern Jesus, feminism sees a feminist Jesus and New
Age "prophets" see Real Jesus who offer the same sort of pantheistic
tapioca they offer. Of the making of "real Jesuses" there is no end.
In our case, we live in a popular, celebrity culture that is
obsessively fascinated with sex and with the sex lives (real and
imagined) of the famous. By some unfathomable coincidence, that's just
what this sort of speculation about Jesus resembles too. Similarly,
"documentaries" on the tube are, of course, geared to appeal to that
sex-obsessed culture first and only secondarily to accuracy (the goal
of TV, after all, is to sell shampoo and beer, not to be tremendously
accurate). In other words, this "real Jesus", like all the previous
"real Jesuses" tells us more about our current cultural quirks and
obsessions than it does about anything substantial in the record.
Further, the speculation about Jesus' sex life feeds a primal American
habit of rejecting "the official story" (and feeding our pride as
People Who Aren't Told What to Think by Sinister Vatican Officials).
When you are engaged in the immensely ego-gratifying project of
Gathering One Spotless Church from the Corpse of Christendom, you don't
suffer from the troubling questions of self-esteem and humility that
lesser breeds without the law so often stumble over. Like Buzz
Lightyear, you're always sure. You have the inside scoop! Only fools
and simpletons would accept the Official Story that, say, the earth is
round or JFK is really dead. You know The Truth is Out There and you
aren't afraid to Tell It Like it Is. Only saps fall for the Commonly
Accepted Story.
The trouble is, sometimes the commonly accepted story is commonly
accepted because it is the true story. It becomes the official story,
not because Officialdom tricked the dumb sheep into buying it, but
because the whole herd of sheep, beginning with apostles who ordained
the officials, told Officialdom, "This is what happened."
Attempts to chalk up Christian belief in the celibacy of Jesus to
"gnosticism" are therefore fundamentally clueless about the Catholic
view of sex, just as Marxist atheist attempts to divine a Marxist
atheist "Jesus" lack a basic grip on reality. Catholics do not believe
Jesus was a virgin because sex is evil any more than they believe Jesus
distrusted Mammon based on an atheistic theory of class warfare. On the
contrary, for Catholics marriage is a sacrament and sex is therefore
holy in the context of the sacrament. But as Jesus makes clear, though
marriage is holy, virginity is holy too. It is not a case of good and
bad but of good and better. Jesus chose the way of virginity as a sign
of his consecration to the Church, his Bride. That was John's point in
the story of the Wedding at Cana. It was John's point in speaking of
Jesus as the Bridegroom, and it remains the Church's point today-a
point preserved, no thanks to gnosticism, in the apostolic Tradition,
Scripture and Magisterial teaching of the Church for 2000 years. The
only "real Jesus" is the one the Church has proclaimed since Pentecost.
Accept no new improved versions.
.
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| User: "HotelCharlieOne" |
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| Title: Re: How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus" |
17 Feb 2006 11:29:15 AM |
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"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@lycos.com> wrote in
news:1140183384.852037.73890@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
(a
self described "No-nonsense, Honest, Direct, Prophetic, Apostolic,
Priesthood of All Believers [Men and Women], Post-Trib, Sabbatarian,
Messianic-Israelite, Patriarchal, Evangelical, Received Text,
Johannine Tradition & Communion, End-Time Gatherers, New Birth,
Holiness, Restorationist, New Covenant Torah, Non-Charismatic, and
Sola Scriptura" group
Damn. does it also have a spigot that dispenses coffee?
--
Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that
his religion is a monotheism can believe anything...
just give him time to rationalize it.
[Robert A. Heinlein, JOB: A Comedy of Justice]
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| User: "Martin Edwards" |
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| Title: Re: How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus" |
18 Feb 2006 12:22:42 PM |
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HotelCharlieOne wrote:
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@lycos.com> wrote in
news:1140183384.852037.73890@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
(a
self described "No-nonsense, Honest, Direct, Prophetic, Apostolic,
Priesthood of All Believers [Men and Women], Post-Trib, Sabbatarian,
Messianic-Israelite, Patriarchal, Evangelical, Received Text,
Johannine Tradition & Communion, End-Time Gatherers, New Birth,
Holiness, Restorationist, New Covenant Torah, Non-Charismatic, and
Sola Scriptura" group
Damn. does it also have a spigot that dispenses coffee?
I had one but a wheel fell off.
--
You can't fool me: there ain't no Sanity Clause - Chico Marx
www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/1955
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| User: "Uncle Vic" |
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| Title: Re: How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus" |
17 Feb 2006 02:01:37 PM |
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on 17 Feb 2006 in alt.atheism, dear sweet HotelCharlieOne
(Hotel_Charliie_One@yahoo.com) made the light shine upon us with this:
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@lycos.com> wrote in
news:1140183384.852037.73890@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
(a
self described "No-nonsense, Honest, Direct, Prophetic, Apostolic,
Priesthood of All Believers [Men and Women], Post-Trib, Sabbatarian,
Messianic-Israelite, Patriarchal, Evangelical, Received Text,
Johannine Tradition & Communion, End-Time Gatherers, New Birth,
Holiness, Restorationist, New Covenant Torah, Non-Charismatic, and
Sola Scriptura" group
Damn. does it also have a spigot that dispenses coffee?
No, but I'll bet if you can fix one up the jesus will change the coffee
into wine.
--
Uncle Vic
aa#2011
Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped
chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department
Official alt.wisdom HELLBOY
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| User: "Uncle Vic" |
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| Title: Re: How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus" |
17 Feb 2006 10:33:58 AM |
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on 17 Feb 2006 in alt.atheism, dear sweet Sound of Trumpet
(soundoftrumpet@lycos.com) made the light shine upon us with this:
How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus"
Trace his picture carefully with a crayon. Then use your school scissors
and glue to cut it out and paste it on some construction paper. Use more
crayons to color it. Be careful, Baby Jesus will cry if you color outside
of the lines.
--
Uncle Vic
aa#2011
Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped
chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department
Official alt.wisdom HELLBOY
.
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus" |
17 Feb 2006 10:00:17 PM |
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On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 10:33:58 -0600, Uncle Vic <address@withheld.com>
wrote:
- Refer: <Xns976D571CCE380vicman@216.196.97.142>
on 17 Feb 2006 in alt.atheism, dear sweet Sound of Trumpet
(soundoftrumpet@lycos.com) made the light shine upon us with this:
How To Make The Latest "Real Jesus"
Trace his picture carefully with a crayon. Then use your school scissors
and glue to cut it out and paste it on some construction paper. Use more
crayons to color it. Be careful, Baby Jesus will cry if you color outside
of the lines.
SOT is not allowed scissors in his ward, not even "play scissors".
.
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