WWJD? Forgive

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:

I see. You have faith in him.

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:

I see. You have faith in him.

Another,

Professor Crossan and other NT exegetes like Professors Borg and Fredriksen (all three are On Faith panelists) have removed the chaff and flaws in the NT and Christianity by exhaustive study of the scriptures, related documents and archeology. Now things finally make sense!!!!!

For your perusal:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

3. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

For added thinking:

Early Christian economics 101:

The Baptizer drew crowds and charged for the "dunking". The historical Jesus saw a good thing and continued dunking and preaching the good word but added "healing" as an added charge to include free room and board. Sure was better than being a poor peasant but he got a bit too zealous and they nailed him to a tree.

Paul picked up the money scent on the road to Damascus. He added some letters for a fee and "Gentilized" the good word to the "big
buck" world. i.e. Paul was the first media evangelist!!!

Along comes Constantine. He saw the growing rich Christian community and recognized a new tax base so he set them "free".

The Holy Roman "Empirers"/Popes/Kings/Queens et al continued the money grab selling access to JC and heaven resulting in some of today's
richest organizations on the globe i.e. the Christian churches (including the Mormon Church) and related aristocracies.

An added note: As per R.B. Stewart in his introduction to the recent book, The Resurrection of Jesus, Crossan and Wright in Dialogue, ( Professors Crossan and Wright are On Faith panelists).

"Reimarus (1774-1778) posits that Jesus became sidetracked by embracing a political position, sought to force God's hand and that he died alone deserted by his disciples. What began as a call for repentance ended up as a misguided attempt to usher in the earthly political kingdom of God. After Jesus' failure and death, his disciples stole his body and declared his resurrection in order to maintain their financial security and ensure themselves some standing."

In conclusion, money is a major foundation of Christianity to include Mormonism. Ditto for Islam.

The martyred apostles ran afoul of Roman political and religious authorities because they preached, healed, and baptized for the conversion (and profit) to a non-Roman way of life. This support of an anti-Roman cult resulted in the typical murder/crucifixion of the cult leaders. The apostles' conversions also caused a dramatic drop in Roman/Jewish temple appearances and contributions and just like Jesus' Jewish temple outburst, it resulted in added punishment to include crucifixion.

Dear CONCERNED THE CHRISTIAN NOW LIBERATED:

You do love The Gospel According to Crossan so. Why is it so important to you?

Forgiveness is the highest virtue. My Jesuit friend, you admit to having some Irish blood in ya. Does it course through your veins and heart? The atrocities endured by Ireland are at the point, under the barrel of a gun. 'Do you forgive us, the Orange paraders, the Ulster Defence Alliance, the Police Service of Northern Ireland?'

A man left the monastery and sunday services with an olive branch. He offered it to his enemy. It was accepted, but was later discovered in the trash. The man went back to church and prayed, 'how many times do I have to forgive them?'

Father, visit the old country. Catholicism is dominant, it has helped refrain the IRA from acts of violence. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

With respect to forgiveness from the Cross:

Hmmm, unfortunately all this supposed chatter during the last days of Jesus is not historic since there were no credible witnesses to the events.

Professor Crossan (an On Faith panelist) who has exhaustively studied all the NT and related documents ( http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ ) notes the following:

From Crossan ( and Watts book), Who is Jesus.

“My best historical reconstruction would be something like this. Jesus was arrested during the Passover festival, most likely in response to his action in the Temple. Those who were closest to him ran away for their own safety. I do not presume that there were any high-level confrontations between Caiaphas and Pilate and Herod Antipas either about Jesus or with Jesus.

No doubt they would have agreed before the festival that fast action was to be taken against any disturbance and that a few examples by crucifixion might be especially useful at the outset. And I doubt very much if Jewish police or Roman soldiers needed to go too far up the chain of command in handling a Galilean peasant like Jesus.

It is hard for us to imagine the casual brutality with which Jesus was probably taken and executed. All those "last week" details in our gospels, as distinct from the brute facts just mentioned, are prophecy turned into history, rather than history remembered."

And respect to the remaining references to Jesus uttering the word "forgive", all fail the testing of proper historic attestations and stratums e.g. http://books.google.com/books?id=AsPHR4-7Wc8C&pg=PA444&lpg=PA444&dq=%22place+of+life%22+%22the+historical+jesus%22+crossan&source=web&ots=8mVx_1M6g4&sig=XFqT8S1coAT18xq8Qwt1vMcMjW0

Viejita

Putting all the religious mumbo jumbo aside, I think one can discern that human beings with reasoning powers understand at some level, that forgiveness is self protection.

Hatred, bitterness and a sense of being aggrieved create stress. For those who have an ongoing situation of being aggrieved or hated or put in fear of bodily harm due to the same, it is pretty tough to ask for forgiveness.

However, at some point, all of those feelings are felt by you the individual who is aggrieved or feeling hatred ... and the stress is all yours. In the absence of telephathy, the other person has no clue what is going on.

Therefore, forgiving at some stage has a defense-of-self component.

Okay, so along come religious types who seize on something like this, a human need and say it is part of being a good whatever. So, that's why some people don't eat pork and some don't eat beef, and why some do many weird things.

Torquemada-No
You put your finger on an important point. Forgiveness has to come from the heart of each individual, not from a group decree.

I have a couple of questions - if Fr. Reese or anyone else can clarify how to proceed with an analysis, I'd appreciate it.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, it is not Jesus who is doing the forgiving - in a sense, if he forgave, the people being "forgiven" were executing orders so it might have meant nothing to them - at least, I don't recall the DECIDERS being there at the crucifixion. I'm not a Christian so don't take this as anything other than my statement that I don't know.

Jesus was asking GOD, his father, to forgive. In a sense, Gandhi too was asking others to do the forgiving.

The "forgive us our trespasses" portion of the Lord's Prayer seems like a quid pro quo deal with God whereby one is seeking to become a third-party beneficiary with God for having forgiven someone else.

Also, with notions of hell - and sometimes stuff in between - it seems that God does not always forgive, but metes out some form of punishment and appears even to exact some form of revenge - hell is after all, probably unconstitutional as being cruel and unusual. Well, given how many of our politicians and pedophile priests should be there, perhaps not unusual.

So, if God does not forgive and Jesus is simply imploring God to forgive - we don't even know if that prayer or request was answered - then where does this argument come from that forgiveness is central to Christianity?

Obviously, forgiveness seems to evoke in us some instinctive feeling that it is a noble thing to do. That feeling seems to have no religious underpinning.

But we still have not answered where and when it is appropriate to forgive.

It's also very tough for me to say to someone else - look your suffering or the wrong done to you is at a level that I don't think is serious enough for you not to forgive the perpetrator.

Thank you Fr. Reese for pointing out that forgiveness is not the same as lack of consequences or not being held responsible for one's actions.