Paul of Tarsus v Peter

Debate Room
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This dude, who didn’t even meet/know Jesus, is responsible for imposing his version of Christianity on the world beyond the Jewish community! Marketing on a grand scale.

Peter, on the other hand, who actually knew Jesus wanted to contain and keep it exclusive to the Jews. If only.

So we are burdened with a misogynistic (he had major issues with women) religion that to this day continues to oppress, diminish and control women. And it makes me so angry.

Two thousand years later and entitled men continue to preach this backward crap to the masses. And I am sick to death of hearing how Jesus liberated women. Really? If he was so radical why weren’t women included in his inner circle? I’ve heard all the excuses and find them lacking ie cultural norms of the time etc. But he was Jesus and had the endorsement of god so surely he could have done anything? Am I missing something? Because I just don’t get it.

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Jesus to many, was god, the same god who set women as property of man. Why would “he” change anything?

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No I dont think you missed anything. Jesus wanted to keep the Mosaic Law, condeming any who might try to remove or even change them by “one jot or one tittle”. That includes the restrictions against women speaking their minds, studying anything, questioning their husbands or discounting men in general or anything else you find in the Pentateuch. Peter would have had no qualms with this, still being a Jew.
Paul is said to have made some provisions for respecting women but then he was happy to overthrow the Mosaic law to help spread the faith among the uncirmcised Romans, Greeks etc, as were his later editors and spin merchants when they began promoting the ideal of a spiritual non threatening hunky Jesus to wealthy widowed patrons of the Roman Empire. I recall the authorship of a number of Paul’s more respectful promotions of women were shown to be later edits.
The only thing you might have missed is that the intent of mysogyny never really changes especially when money is involved.

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I agree with the idea of what you’ve said, that Christianity is misogynistic, at least most forms of it that I’ve encountered. However, to be fair, we don’t know that Jesus or even Peter existed. 1 and 2 Peter weren’t written by him, nor were other texts attributed to Peter (The Gospel of Peter, The Preaching of Peter, etc.). I’m not aware of any evidence that he’s not a legend or highly embellished figure like Jesus himself.

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Exactly. BUT the idea is still passed around like it’s truth and means something.

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Exactly Whitefire13.
Whether true or not it has, throughout history, been pushed on humanity as ‘gospel’ pardon the pun.

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Much to my confusion Christianity is popular with women. As I think it was Nylar pointed out early Christianity was ridiculed as the religion of slaves and women. A religion promising rewards in the after life has great appeal to the underclass. A lot of modern Christian women seem to just ignore the bits they don’t like, such as women staying silent in church. All the Abrahamic religions are nasty to women. If trends continue the way they’re going Islam will overtake Christianity as the most popular religion by mid century and they’re not exactly known for women’s rights either. Women in Industrialized western countries have it better than we ever have. We can even vote, an amazingly modern phenomenon in most places, but I think we better pay attention or things could go down hill fast.

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Thanks Joelinbody
Whether real / true is of minimal consequence in light of the influence it has had throughout history and sadly continues to have. Yes less people in the west are embracing it, but it continues to flourish in the developing world. I worked for a major global aid organisation and it invariably partnered with churches to set up local projects. Consider a woman with countless children, because birth control is not prioritised, being offered food/medical assistance to keep her family alive by a Christian organisation. Chances are she will believe what is “preached” out of gratitude/sense of obligation / other. I would believe in Satan if it meant my sick child could receive needed medical help.

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Was he? Not my understanding. The gospels show him doing a lot of things he would simply not have done as an observant Jew. He [rightly] told his disciples not to preach to gentiles or Samaritans. His tiny sect was Jewish until Saul stuck his oar in, ignoring Jesus’ instructions.

Matthew 10:5 “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:”
(KJV)

Matthew 5:17 :“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (KJV)”

Paul simply abolished the ritual commandments, such as circumcision and dietary law and allowed gentiles to become followers of “The way”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Paul was a deluded loon who founded a religion on his hallucinations and delusions. Possibly an epileptic.
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A couple of other examples: The woman taken in adultery had committed a capital crime under Mosaic law and was being executed as prescribed, by stoning. Jesus would have known that and would have been aware that if he interfered he might have been stoned. If he had forgive the woman, he would have almost certainly been stoned for blasphemy.

No observant Jew would declare himself god or the son of god. He would be stoned for blasphemy, probably by some of his own disciples, if not all.

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I recommend this brief clip with Bart Ehrman on how jesus became god. There are a couple of full lectures on Youtube on the topic.

Just to start: In his life time, Jesus did not call himself god. He was called god in the book of Mark, but not in Matthew or Luke, and most importantly in Mark the earliest gospel from which all the others copied… Nor did Paul refer to jesus as god according to Ehrman.

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That was because the earliest jewish christian sects were Adoptionists. i.e the jesus figure was “adopted” by God for being loyal and observing the Law.

Which is why the earliest form of Matthew and Luke do not contain a birth narrative, and the nascent Pauline church changed several lines in Luke to discredit Adoptionism when it became very popular in their own territory through Marcion’s preaching, pronounced “heresy” by the Paulines.

The birth narrative was introduced (I suspect) sometime after the turn of the Second Century CE to bolster the “jesus was God” therefore his priests were direct representatives, not representing an adopted son, which would lessen his legitimacy in the ears of a largely Graeco Roman audience, .

We have no inkling of the original text of Mark. We do know that many revisions and interpolations were made until we have the earliest fragment dated to about 160CE

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I see your point. It doesn’t really matter if they believe it at the point where they’re receiving aid, just that they pretend to or give in to it, really.

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I believe you.

My point was not about reason, but simply what is and is not said in the New Testament.

Another reason might be that [almost?] everything written about Jesus is fabricated; that he’s a mythical figure.

These days I lean towards a mythicist position. It seems reasonable to me that there might have been a wondering rabbi in first century Judea, called something like Yeshua/Yohua bar Yusuf. That he might have founded a very small Jewish sect. That he might have been crucified by Romans for sedition. (A not uncommon end for Jews in that place and time)

That such a person has nothing what so ever to do with the beliefs called “The Way” until the fourth century. It is my understanding that it was the Emperor Theodosius 1 who used the name "Christian’, which came to be used universally.
Not sure when the crucified christ became the accepted symbol of christianity. When I started to actually think about it, I concluded such a symbol is inelegant and disgusting. That it may have the effect of desensitising believers to the passion and death of jesus as they believe it.

As far as I’m aware early christians used the chi-rho and the fish (ICTUS) as symbols of their faith long before the cross was used

It has been my position for many years that historicity of Jesu is irrelevant to the religion of christianity. This is because believers are impervious to reason and to fact. Anything which contradicts doctrine is declared to be in error

Latterly for Catholics; the discovery of the gospel of Thomas. [Nag Hammadi in 1945] It was declared apocryphal. The Shroud of Turin has been pretty much shown to be a medieval forgery, although it has never been doctrine. Catholics continue to ignore those findings

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Ummm… I hate to bring it up but there were many women in Jesus’s inner circle.

“2 Also, some women were with him. They had been cured from evil spirits and various illnesses. These women were Mary, also called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out; 3 Joanna, whose husband Chusa was Herod’s administrator; Susanna; and many other women. They provided financial support for Jesus and his disciples.”

Luke 8

It was women who followed Jesus all the way to the cross. Luke the historian, who gives us a detailed account of the crucifixion, records, “A large crowd trailed behind him, including many grief-stricken women” (Luke 23:27). As Jesus hung from that cross, we read, “Jesus’ friends, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching” (v. 49). These women also followed Joseph to the tomb where the Lord’s body was tenderly placed (v. 55).

Importantly, following the Sabbath it was some of those women who went to the gravesite before anyone else. “Very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb,” Luke says (24:1). Motivated by love and devotion for Jesus, they seemed wholly indifferent to public opinion or any possible legal ramifications.

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Christians become very confused about the women who followed Jesus.

The gospels can’t agree on which of any of the woman were present at the discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb or of who said what…

Don’t know about you, but if I came and found the tomb of a beloved teacher empty, that he had risen from the dead isn’t the first thought which would cross my mind. Probably more like “Pickle me grandmother! Some bastard has pinched the body?”

Then there is the bullshit about Mary Magdalene. I was taught, as were millions of catholics for centuries, that Mary Magdalene was a reformed prostitute. Such a claim is not made anywhere in the New Testament as far as I’m aware. Peter usually gets the blame because he was apparently a misogynist prick.

I won’t go into the raft of claims from the lunatic fringe about Mary Magdalene. ( I keep in mind that the New Testament is myth, as indeed Jesus’ also probably is)

Pope John Paul 2 rehabilitated Mary Magdalene, I think. Today she is called “The apostles’ Apostle”

Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute but a devoted disciple who supported Jesus financially and spiritually, scholars say

‘Reanalysing that reputation that she had we can see she was probably a woman of greater social status, higher social status, a woman of wealth who accompanied Jesus’

It’s not surprising the church had no problem with seeing Mary as a prostitute. heaven forfend that she might actually have been “the beloved disciple”

Christianity as we know it simply accepted the world view of Judaism, and society generally at that time. IE essentially patriarchal and misogynistic.

Consequently, unlike most (all?) other religions of the time, Christianity has no goddess. That problem was addressed by the invention of The Virgin Mary, Mother Of God and Queen of heaven. Instead of Miriam, mother of Jesus. The Marian cult remains very strong in many countries. Especially where Mary absorbed local goddesses. (Ireland, Central and South America and parts of Europe)

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While on the subjects of myth and tale…

let us not forget that MM landed in Marseille with her husband Yehshua subsequently living a long and happy life bearing two children.

Some say (with witnesses) that Mary Magdalene lived alone in a cave for thirty years in Sant Beame. She is buried an a nearby town.

Jesus was also alleged to have lived a long life settling in Rennes le Chateau. His (and Mary Magdalenes) children founded the Merongovian Dynasty. They are protected to this day by the Priory of Sion. Mary Magdalene’s tomb is there. But secret.

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Don’t forget that a christianity existed in India,(Kerala) allegedly founded by Thomas the Doubter himself. Their bible did not contain Paul but did contain a gospel of ( Songs of) Thomas and of Repentance of Judas. Naturally when chanced upon by the Portuguese in the 1500’s they were declared heretic and Catholicism was imposed, but without much success.

The Wikepedia is a good read… other details by indian historians are way better and much more detailed.

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Yeah, am aware about claims that St Thomas took Christianity to India.

Why do you think I avoided the lunatic fringe?

EG The ‘lost years’ of jesus were spent in Egypt or perhaps Tibet.
That Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and escaped to the South of France, and as you say founded the Merovingian dynasty. That the ‘Holy Grail’ isn’t actually an object, That’s a mistranslation of ‘San Greale ’ and actually refers to Jesus’ bloodline***

*** Book “Holy Blood Holy Grail”

Read a heap of that ilk in the1970’s into the 1980’s even a bit into the 90’s. Books based on The Knights Templar lore are quite entertaining.

Below a wiki link to “The Hiram Key” (1996)The bits about the Rosslyn chapel in Scotland are fascinating:

The authors claim that their work proves the following:

  • Freemasonry can trace its roots to the death of the Egyptian king Sequenenre in 1570 B.C. at the hands of the Hyksos.
  • Moses merged this event with Sumerian and Egyptian mythology, symbols and philosophy, to create a putative ‘royal line’.
  • Solomon incorporated these symbols into his temple
  • Jesus and the Qumran community used a ritual based on this story
  • The early Roman Church effectively suppressed the original beliefs of this Jerusalem Church.
  • The Knights Templar, discovering the Qumran communities’ records in the vaults under the Temple in Jerusalem, transported them to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.
  • When Scotland became unsafe for the Templars, they incorporated their beliefs and history into the rituals of Freemasonry as it is known today.

If you ever find yourself in the area and a bit bored, drop in to The theosophical Bookshop to while away some time. They also have a Library full of all kinds of interesting fuckwittery.

A sad little book is called ‘The Coming Of The Fairies’ by Cir Arthur Doyle. He was sucked in by the Cottingley Fairy hoax. The photos were taken in 1917. Poor Sir Arthur had lost his son in WW 1 and never recovered. He became desperately involved spiritualism and the paranormal, swallowing it all whole .

Yeah, I love this shit about ‘secrets’ and ‘secret societies’. If details are published in some loony crackpot fringe book book they aren’t fucking secret are they!!!

PS if you haven’t read them, a couple of books by Immanuel Velikovsky are worth a look.

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Thanks Cognostic
That’s all good and well but alas washing the feet of Jesus and attending his tomb, although commendable does again reinforce the lowly status of women at the time and in that context. Doesn’t really elevate them in any notable way.

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It also sounds like she paid for the privilege. Jesus is starting to sound like a gigolo :slight_smile: .

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Yair, I especially like the bit where a woman washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. (Luke 36-50) Perhaps taking the whole humility thing a bit far. Do any men in the New Testament debase themselves that much? I can’t think Of any, but it’s been a few years since I read the bible, so I might have forgotten.

Interesting to note, that on one occasion, Jesus refers to god as “abba” (daddy) Nowhere is he recorded as showing that level of intimacy to his mother. (as far as I know) I think Jesus calls Miriam ‘woman’ .

Mark 14:36 records that Jesus used the term when praying in Gethsemane shortly before his death, saying: ““Abba* , Father, all things are possible to you; remove this cup from me”

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