A couple of things to note. 1) a full redaction of the reinterpreted/mystified portions (orange or blue highlighted) would make the text unreadable as a narrative - I understand that the purpose of the video was to focus on the original teachings of Jesus, but your analysis either implies some sort of ur-Q (and/or whatever ur-Mark that Mark and John were using) that were either ignored or rewritten for purely propagandistic reasons. While believable, this presupposes a fairly unique paleo-Christianity that begs for reconstruction and substantiation, not just a Jeffersonian knife to the text. 2) And very much related to the first point, if you are not familiar with Marcionite gospel reconstructions, many of them sound like either the mysterious source you didn’t mention OR Marcion’s own attempt at doing the same thing I just said your work was begging to do: to try to draw out the humanitarian, egalitarian nature of the early Jesus movement. In other words, it sounds like Marcion already did or was passing on a version of the gospel that did just that. I’m curious if you knew that already or had done any research in that area. Thank you…!
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. 1. I don't think the Biblical authors were pulling from a text but rather from the narrative and sayings that were known amongst the people. It does imply a paleo-Christianity but "Christianity" suggests a practiced religion, which it was not, it was just the public knowledge of a lunatic who thought he was the Messiah and was killed for it. That narrative and sayings were manipulated by the Biblical authors to form the religion that became early Christianity. I'm not just cutting away text but rather inferring what the original narrative and sayings were by how the text was written. reconstructedbible.com/a-reconstructivereading-methodology I'll try to do a more granular video on the topic in the future. What type of "reconstruction and substantiation" would you like to see? 2. My reconstruction of Jesus is neither humanitarian nor egalitarian. Just the opposite. Jesus taught the reversal of the hierarchy, not the elimination of it. The poor and rejected would be great and the elite and rich would become the least. The feeding and taking care of the poor was not out of humanitarian altruism, it was simply to take care of his followers to sustain his movement.
@@reconstructedbible I believe we may "agree very differently." 🙃 I understand that a substantial kernel of the original Jesus movement would have been maintained almost exclusively by oral tradition. But by the extent of your commentary alone, you are aware that the so-called propagandists did not just start where Jesus stopped -- they interrupted his speech or his actions, likely writing over the authentic material, for which you claim to have particular insight and voice. My question should have been this: do you plan on publishing your own version of the gospels, and if so how do you plan on navigating the nuance of adding material back for the sake of clarity...or just not and end up with a stack of sayings with limited narrative flow, like what we find in the Gospel of Thomas? Are you familiar at all with Marcion's version of the gospel and attempts to reconstruct it? A similar problem emerges there, which is part of why I asked before. My use of the terms 'egalitarian' and 'humanitarian' had much less to do with us not agreeing on that point and more to do with what early Christianity (a global sort of charity) was drawing out of the Jesus movement (an insular sort of charity). My apologies for the misunderstanding and thank you for clarifying your position.
@@wyspowillow4219 Right, yes, unfortunately it's much easier to infer from the text what wasn't and not so much what was. I'm usually pretty confident I can reconstruct the basic gist of what happened but a detailed narrative is beyond my powers, much to my frustration. I'm not that familiar with the Marcion reconstructions but I do find them interesting. Maybe someday I can dig into them further.
Starting with the premise that Jesus was an actual man always is. And I'm saying that as a Christian. The religion can be so exhausting when instead of putting our ultimate faith in God (as Christ taught us) there's so much straining effort and mental gymnastics in hyping up the idea that Jesus is God. The whole have you been saved by your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ??? Thing 🙄 It's obsessive and it's based on theology from well after Jesus' death. But conversely if we do accept that he was a real man and are honest with our uncertainty of whether he's God or not, it's amazing how much divinity there seems to be with what's left in the Gospels. He was a very special prophet. Exceptional in many ways even among the great religious leaders of history. Christ is not a silly or frivolous place to put ones faith, but how much better still if we could just put that faith in the Kingdom of God. Because that would be something we could really see and know without equivocation. They will know we are Christians by our love. Thanks for reading this Arhaber and anyone else who read all this.
A couple of things to note. 1) a full redaction of the reinterpreted/mystified portions (orange or blue highlighted) would make the text unreadable as a narrative - I understand that the purpose of the video was to focus on the original teachings of Jesus, but your analysis either implies some sort of ur-Q (and/or whatever ur-Mark that Mark and John were using) that were either ignored or rewritten for purely propagandistic reasons. While believable, this presupposes a fairly unique paleo-Christianity that begs for reconstruction and substantiation, not just a Jeffersonian knife to the text.
2) And very much related to the first point, if you are not familiar with Marcionite gospel reconstructions, many of them sound like either the mysterious source you didn’t mention OR Marcion’s own attempt at doing the same thing I just said your work was begging to do: to try to draw out the humanitarian, egalitarian nature of the early Jesus movement. In other words, it sounds like Marcion already did or was passing on a version of the gospel that did just that. I’m curious if you knew that already or had done any research in that area.
Thank you…!
Thank you for the thoughtful comment.
1. I don't think the Biblical authors were pulling from a text but rather from the narrative and sayings that were known amongst the people. It does imply a paleo-Christianity but "Christianity" suggests a practiced religion, which it was not, it was just the public knowledge of a lunatic who thought he was the Messiah and was killed for it. That narrative and sayings were manipulated by the Biblical authors to form the religion that became early Christianity. I'm not just cutting away text but rather inferring what the original narrative and sayings were by how the text was written. reconstructedbible.com/a-reconstructivereading-methodology I'll try to do a more granular video on the topic in the future. What type of "reconstruction and substantiation" would you like to see?
2. My reconstruction of Jesus is neither humanitarian nor egalitarian. Just the opposite. Jesus taught the reversal of the hierarchy, not the elimination of it. The poor and rejected would be great and the elite and rich would become the least. The feeding and taking care of the poor was not out of humanitarian altruism, it was simply to take care of his followers to sustain his movement.
@@reconstructedbible I believe we may "agree very differently." 🙃
I understand that a substantial kernel of the original Jesus movement would have been maintained almost exclusively by oral tradition. But by the extent of your commentary alone, you are aware that the so-called propagandists did not just start where Jesus stopped -- they interrupted his speech or his actions, likely writing over the authentic material, for which you claim to have particular insight and voice.
My question should have been this: do you plan on publishing your own version of the gospels, and if so how do you plan on navigating the nuance of adding material back for the sake of clarity...or just not and end up with a stack of sayings with limited narrative flow, like what we find in the Gospel of Thomas?
Are you familiar at all with Marcion's version of the gospel and attempts to reconstruct it? A similar problem emerges there, which is part of why I asked before.
My use of the terms 'egalitarian' and 'humanitarian' had much less to do with us not agreeing on that point and more to do with what early Christianity (a global sort of charity) was drawing out of the Jesus movement (an insular sort of charity). My apologies for the misunderstanding and thank you for clarifying your position.
@@wyspowillow4219 Right, yes, unfortunately it's much easier to infer from the text what wasn't and not so much what was. I'm usually pretty confident I can reconstruct the basic gist of what happened but a detailed narrative is beyond my powers, much to my frustration.
I'm not that familiar with the Marcion reconstructions but I do find them interesting. Maybe someday I can dig into them further.
This sounds heretical AF
Starting with the premise that Jesus was an actual man always is.
And I'm saying that as a Christian.
The religion can be so exhausting when instead of putting our ultimate faith in God (as Christ taught us) there's so much straining effort and mental gymnastics in hyping up the idea that Jesus is God.
The whole have you been saved by your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ??? Thing 🙄
It's obsessive and it's based on theology from well after Jesus' death.
But conversely if we do accept that he was a real man and are honest with our uncertainty of whether he's God or not, it's amazing how much divinity there seems to be with what's left in the Gospels.
He was a very special prophet. Exceptional in many ways even among the great religious leaders of history. Christ is not a silly or frivolous place to put ones faith, but how much better still if we could just put that faith in the Kingdom of God.
Because that would be something we could really see and know without equivocation. They will know we are Christians by our love. Thanks for reading this Arhaber and anyone else who read all this.