So, the four Jewish gospel authors (and hundreds of others whose works didn’t get the nod) were creating a liturgical and scriptural legacy for their new religion. Their purpose was to show ‘Christianity’ not as a new religion but the successor, fully approved by YHWH himself, of the very old and established monotheism of Abraham. Some of the very earliest Jewish critics of Jesus and his followers, the Sadducees and Pharisees of the Temple and Sanhedrin, initially claimed them to be heretics possessed by demons and evil gods and worthy of execution.
So they were careful to insist Jesus had not come to do away with the Mosaic Law. It seems they were partly successful in that regard, as they did convert many traditional Jews at the time. They still do that today.
The gospel authors achieved this by referring constantly to the prophecies and stories of the Torah to show the connection between their new covenant and the old.
Christians today will still eagerly point them out to you anytime.
The authors wanted to broadcast that their religion had the authority and blessing of YWHW, ‘the one true god’ of the Shema, who they claimed, they continued to worship. There was an inexhaustible and ready supply of references in the Torah and midrashic, the observances of the Temple, and the teachings of the Sadducees and Pharisees. I maintain they had no need for references outside their traditional religion and that these references would not have served their intended purpose.
So you think the authors independently gambled that purpose of establishing the continuity and authority of their faith by making and vague references in their gospels to two foreign non-Semitic, non-Jewish, un-kosher pagan gods from poems written 2,000 years prior?
The very gods the Torah told them YHWH had punished Judah and Israel with exile and slavery for identifying and worshipping?
I can’t see why the gospel authors would do that and it seems I cant even convince you so I give up.
However, I suggest you take your proposal over to Quora, they have a section dedicated to Biblical Archaeology with qualified academic archaeologists who answer all sort of questions with more knowledge and authority than I can muster.
Irving Finkel would be a great choice. I might write to him myself with a few unanswered curiosities of my own. Thanks for the suggestion Cranky. And no offense was taken mate, I am too old to think I am an expert on anything, just really interested is all.
Again, if you think that the gospel of Mark borrowed heavily from the Homerian epics then I can use your own reasoning against you, why would the authors want to do this?
I guess you would need to take that up with the translators at Oxford? They specifically use the word “Anuna” in both cases, besides, they are the judges of the underworld, they could be demons too for the very same reason.
Following MacDonald’s lead it would seem that ‘Mark’, whoever he was, was either an educated Greek convert or a Hellenised Jewish convert whose parents sent to a Gymnasium in preference to a synagogue school. Either way it appears he had a strong Greek education. Not only does his gospel follow the Iliad and the Odyssey as a template there are nearly word for world similarities in a number of places. Mark with very little information to work with, might have thought the popular Homer stories a good template to play out the bits and pieces he had read from the more episodic Christian texts up to that time, l. I find the suggestion he borrowed from the Essenes very persuasive too.
Now I confess I’m having second thoughts about the comparisons between Inanna and her sons vs the post resurrection appearances of Jesus. I may have been playing the monotheist Judaism card a bit too heavily. You might have something there. I’d like to check some more things first, but I won’t have time until late tomorrow.
Americanized English, on a forum, of English writers from all over the world.
"the English language currently tops a whopping 1 million distinct words. "
but according to at least one study, the average 20-year-old native English speaker knows an average of 42,000 words. In a 2011 interview with the BBC, lexicographer Susie Dent estimated that while an English speaker may know around 40,000 words, they only actively use about 20,000 of them.
Fascinating , but I find it hard to believe. Native speakers where exactly? Cambridge students doing post grad degrees in English perhaps?
800 words is considered survival level in many languages, including English. From whence do todays young native speakers pick up 42,000 words? Around the family dinner table? from their highly literate peers? From reading Harry Potter? How much time does today’s average young native English speaker spend reading books or newspapers?
I had my vocab tested over 40 years ago. It was assessed at 20,000 words, which was considered exceptional. At that time, my book reading had slipped down to an average of 3 books a week. These days I read very little. Have been reading the same six books on the history Of christianity for over a year.
Perhaps the figure of 42,000 words is a raw mean average, not the median. (?)
With the approach of old, old age, I hope my vocab will remain intact enough to include at least 20 words, such as, yes, no, sanitary napkin, toilet, porn channel, food and other important ones, which I can’t quite recall at the moment.
The article (or perhaps a link within it) actually explained the curious source of much of the info:
There was a popular web based game that tested peoples vocabulary. They were able to get over 100,000 unique person data points. So a HUGE study.
HOWEVER! it would be fairly easy for people to cheat on this test, because, well, they could just open up another tab and “google” the words. However there was definitely a “timed” component, and it seems likely that only a small percentage of people would of “ran up their scores” in this way.
The same article also stated only 20k of those 42k were in “regular use” by the person. Where 42 could be “understood” as a word or not.
All important words to know
I dunno babies manage to survive with just babble and crying. Just requires very patient parents to keep them alive.
My childhood seems kind of odd when compared to many of my peers. I was given the “birds and bees talk” at about age 6. We (I have a twin sister) were taken to the college library and shown the fancy medical books they kept behind the counter because it contained naked pictures/drawings. After that we were given what I guess is pornography: pictures of traditional couples (men and women) having sex.
Well, I guess I should have said ‘within the last few years’. There was always a lot floating around the army barracks. In fact that’s where I got hold of a copy of The Marquis De Sade’s “Justine”. Simply couldn’t read all of it. The guy was a sick genius. The cruel and violent sex turned me off.
I used to buy Playboy to look at the nude photos. Fuck the articles, I read them occasionally…
Please, I dont want to look squeamish but you are getting way out of topic now, maybe its better to make a new one to discuss sexuallity and other related subjects.
Not sure if it’s only here. When a topic meanders way of course that is often a pretty good indicator that people are bored with it.
I don’t mean to be unkind. I think there are a few (if any) people on this forum whose interest in your specialty is as intense as yours. I’m sure some one will correct me if I’m mistaken.
Yea that is the whole thing, I think nobody realy cares, Christians dont care because even if you give them 100% proof that there religion is fake, they still continue to believe in it, and non believers dont care because they knew all along it was fake, so WTF.
well I’m still interested in this Inanna, Homer and the Gospel guys explanation of how the good book got written. As I had only taken it as far as Jewish Christians borrowing from the synagogue liturgy and the use of the Iliad as a template for the first gospel, the Sumerian connection, with which I have humbly accepted as a legitimate source for the later religions, especially the Abrahamic line has prompted my further interest.
I like to tease the usual pompous Christian by challenging their understanding of those other sources, historical explanations of how the bible was written and the lesser known parts of the bible not included in their pre-packaged, blinkered, scriptural exercise books. I don’t care what they believe as long they understand how little they understand of their claims, and usually that’s quite a lot.
The Sumerian connection is not going to dissuade any theists in giving up their security blankets but I prefer to mix doubt with their faith in the hope they might end up not sounding so crazy when they do talk about their religious beliefs. This corner of historical study is an acquired taste…I’m not surprised the topic turned sexual in the quieter stretches…but I’ve seen this meandering away from topics in a lot of other places for debate and discussion and I am fine with the free flowing conversational nature of it.
Tom, I’m still reading some English translations of the Odyssey. Its starting to turn to Spring here and theres many bids for my time, but I will get back to you soon about Odysseus’s return home…but I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t already have the same info already.
