[georgespencer]

> The proposed philosophy in this article is literally the core tenant of Christianity

I think you mean tenet.

> the path to salvation is selflessness and sacrifice, embodied by Christ's sacrifice for us.

To anyone who considers Christianity in context, it is almost entirely unremarkable, coming as it did some 96,000 years into humankind's rich history of co-operation, compromise, and community, and with much of it borrowed from other places.

It contains few novel ideas or suggestions. For example, the maxim of reciprocity ("Do ut des" -- colloquially known as "The Golden Rule") is likely an example of simultaneous invention: many Christians seem to believe that, until Moses, it had escaped humanity's attention that treating others as you wish to be treated is a sensible basis by which to organise a collective of people, but it is simultaneously visible and documented in multiple ancient traditions which predate Christianity and are spread across the ancient world.

This might be useful context in considering the author's intentions when writing.

[foldr]

Christ's morality is quite different from the golden rule and much more radical. "Turn the other cheek" is not the golden rule.

[infradig]

Yes, it's pure masochism.

[DoreenMichele]

Some sources suggest "turn the other cheek" was actually advice to peasants to force the upper classes to treat them like equals. It supposedly meant (according to some sources) something like "Make them hit you on the other cheek, like they would their equals." Not "Let them hit you again like you like it like that."

Social stuff is heavily dependent on context and the words of Jesus were two millennia ago in a context we scarcely understand.

[georgespencer]

This is totally correct! Jesus actually said

> If someone hits your right cheek

which would have necessitated a backhanded slap with the right hand (left hand wasn't used for anything much besides wiping one's butt), which means the slap is from someone who considers themselves to be the better of the person they're slapping. Turning the other cheek would indicate that you're their equal and striking an equal resulted in a heavy fine.

Each of the amazing zomg radical ideas Jesus outlines in Matthew 5 are actually loopholes to get people into serious trouble.

[DoreenMichele]

Social hacking.

The hot new thing, 2 millennia ago.

[foldr]

If you just read the passage in context, it's clear that the interpretation you're referring to is completely off base:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=citation&b....

[DoreenMichele]

It's controversial, to be sure. I did state "some sources" say this.

The article I would like to post here is no longer online, but here is a discussion of it with other sources cited and some people saying "That's utter BS" and others saying "Yeah, that's what I was taught ages ago.":

https://www.metafilter.com/156154/A-third-way-Non-violent-pr...

[georgespencer]

> Christ's morality is quite different from the golden rule and much more radical. "Turn the other cheek" is not the golden rule.

I did not mean to suggest that the golden rule is the core of Christianity, although it's certainly one facet of Christ's teachings which people erroneously consider to be novel. I offered it as one simple example of something within Christianity which is borrowed from elsewhere, and which is also wholly unremarkable.

FYI, turn the other cheek is not what Jesus said. He said:

> If anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to them your other cheek also.

I was a Christian for a long time and the sort of mistake you’ve just made really does vitiate the faith’s proponents. Quick summary (Walter Wink would be spinning in his grave): left hand only used for wiping butt. Not for anything else. Right cheek slapped = back-handed slap with right hand. It’s not an attack, it’s a rebuke. Therefore turning the other cheek is a means to challenging the slapper as an equal.

It’s the opposite of what you think it is: it’s sticking up for yourself and using the law to get the better of someone. Ditto the “go the extra mile” (any Roman could have any Jew or Gentile carry something for them for one mile, but no further — with a penalty if they did). Can’t remember the bit about the shirt off your back but it’s also a way to fuck with people.

I'm not sure if you are a Christian or not but if you really believe that you have a personal relationship with an almighty being, I can't comprehend how you would not really be sweating the details on what he said during his time here on earth, and trying to understand it in its proper context.

> Christ's morality is quite different from the golden rule

You seem to be at odds with OP in a way that makes me believe you may be a Christian. OP talked about Christianity, which I would consider to be the synthesis of the teachings, texts, and traditions of Jesus and the early Church. You are specifically talking about Christ’s teachings only, which is suggestive of someone who believes in Jesus as mythical hero, since very few secular scholars would feel comfortable prescribing to Jesus the views offered in the synoptic Gospels without heavily caveating the gospels’ own complex origin story.

Nonetheless:

1. I don’t want to presume anything of anyone reading this, so I will state the obvious: there is a secular consensus that Jesus existed in history. By which we usually mean: a person known as Jesus was at large in the same parts of the middle east as the Bible conveys during approximately the same time period, and he was likely a Jewish preacher (possibly a Rabbi), who was executed and ultimately his followers eventually formalised Christianity approximately a generation after his death, which eventually overtook pantheism, Mithraism and a host of other cults to become the prevailing religion in Rome a few hundred years after Jesus’ death.

2. The synoptic gospels were written between 40-100 years after the death of Jesus, and contain accounts of Jesus’s deeds which can be simply split into: legend (things we know cannot be true), contradictions (things the various books disagree amongst themselves about), theological copypasta (bits which are the same but which seem obviously lifted from different sources — e.g. Marcan priority sees the gospel of Mark written first, and the authors of Matthew and Luke drawing from Mark + a non-canonical source called the Q document).

3. Legend is a loaded term, so: large parts of the story are clearly legend. The massacre of the innocents is totally invented, as is the ridiculous census requiring Jesus’s parents to travel 200km to Bethlehem (all elements contrived to fulfil Jewish prophecy), as is his birthday (not mentioned in the Bible but 25th December is borrowed from Sol Invictus). Clearly to anyone who does not believe in fairy tales the immaculate conception and Christ’s miracles were also invented, and there is some evidence to suggest that some of his miracles (esp. Lazarus) were crafted to fit archetypes in other traditions. Ditto the immaculate conception and the notion of the “rises after death” God.

4. The only parts of the Bible that you can really read much into are the actual teachings, and that narrows the field enormously (particularly when the authors do this brilliant trick of repeatedly telling us people’s reaction to Christ’s teachings, but not the teachings themselves. “Everyone was super impressed!” “Oh what did he say?” “Errrr…”).

5. There are a few different interpretations of the teachings, ranging from “psychiatric disorder” (I’m not joking! There is a school of thought that Jesus had borderline personality disorder or something), to “magician” with much in between. The most compelling one to me is “apocalyptic preacher”. Most of the writings of the early Church and the behaviour of the early Christians indicate that they truly believed that the world was going to end, and apocalyptic cults were in vogue at the time.

6. So now we get to the morality of the man. Let’s see…

[foldr]

Who has suggested that the golden rule is a novel aspect of Christ's teachings? Christ himself provides a citation for it.

Walter Wink's interpretation of "turn the other cheek" is kooky and obviously wrong. You could only think otherwise if you'd never read it in context in the Sermon on the Mount. Luke doesn't even bother mentioning that it's the right cheek in another report of a similar statement by Jesus.

I am not a Christian myself, though I don't see what difference it makes here.

[georgespencer]

> Who has suggested that the golden rule is a novel aspect of Christ's teachings

You could Google this. Christianity.com[1]

> One of Jesus' most famous and impactful teachings, the Golden Rule can be found in the Bible verses Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31

> Walter Wink's interpretation of "turn the other cheek" is kooky and obviously wrong.

Let's pretend for a moment that I grant you that. It doesn't change the fact that there is absolutely nothing novel about the notion of pacifism or "love thy neighbour".

Perhaps given that you've ignored the other 3,000-odd words I provided in evidence of the inanity of Jesus you might offer us a quick summary of why you think his teachings were so radical?

> You could only think otherwise if you'd never read it in context in the Sermon on the Mount.

Not sure I follow the logic here. I've read it in context. I would assume that Walter Wink did too. That rather undoes your argument, so I'm sure there must be a way to reframe it more meaningfully. (E.g. "You could only think otherwise if you don't understand X, Y, and Z about the prevailing culture of the time.")

> Luke doesn't even bother mentioning that it's the right cheek in another report of a similar statement by Jesus.

I assume that you subscribe to Marcan priority and don't contest that the author of the gospel of Luke worked 15-30 years after Mark, using Mark + Q as source.

It's hard to understand how much you know about this topic (particularly as you've ignored and failed to engage with much of the substance I've offered and have instead offered generalisations without any corroboration), so apologies if this is teaching you to suck eggs: one way to consider Luke is as a more optimistic rewrite of Mark. He's significantly less interested in details, and significantly more interested in narrative.

For example, consider Mark's description of the crucifixion (Jesus is silent, despairing, surprised, questions/curses God), and then read Luke's description of a prayerful, talkative Jesus who knows that this is all part of the plan. He pardons the criminals and tells them they'll hang out in paradise.

Another example: Mark does not talk about the virgin birth. He begins with Jesus as an adult. Matthew quotes Isaiah when he discusses this obviously apocryphal part of the story (i.e. making it the fulfilment of a Jewish prophecy, just like he does when he hilariously has Jesus simultaneously riding a donkey AND a colt), but Luke doesn't talk about it as a prophecy at all.

There is an appreciable evolution of the gospels as distinct books written for distinct phases of the early Church. I think it is fair to consider Mark to be a somewhat more realistic and detailed portrayal of Jesus than the later gospels, and by the time the final gospel (John) is being written, the apocalyptic message of Mark is clearly not coming to fruition, and the entire text needs to be rewritten heavily. But either way it's not really in support of your point that the heavily editorialised rewrite of Mark by the author of Luke omits one detail. You can see here[2] that such concessions to simplicity are a frequent problem for the author of Luke.

I'm happy to keep discussing this but I think it would be sensible to re-frame the discussion in simpler terms:

1. What do you consider Jesus's teachings to be (helpful to stick to the gospel of Mark and/or John if possible)?

2. What do you believe to be radical about them?

> I am not a Christian myself, though I don't see what difference it makes here.

Because generally Christians are alone in believing that Jesus had anything interesting to say. Most scholars can't even figure out what the Bible wants us to believe that he said given the hopeless rewriting, editing, and mythologising.

[1] https://www.christianity.com/christian-life/what-is-the-gold...

[2] https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/egt/luke-6.html

[foldr]

You write a lot and go off on a lot of tangents. I'll try to keep this brief.

The christianity.com page just says that the golden rule is one of Christ's most famous teachings (which I guess it is), not that it's original. And what does it quote Jesus as saying? "...for this sums up the Law and the Prophets". Anyone who's skimmed the Bible can tell you that Jesus didn't invent the golden rule out of nothing. If people haven't even read the Bible, are their views on the originality of Jesus's teachings worth paying attention to?

Marcan priority only underlines the point. Luke obviously didn't pick up on the right hand having any special significance. And he was much better placed to judge such alleged cultural subtleties around directionality of slapping than we are.

[georgespencer]

> You write a lot and go off on a lot of tangents.

That's certainly true! One reason for this is that you present literally nothing of any substance to engage with, or to indicate any sort of understanding of the topic we're discussing. Another is that we're literally discussing what I perceive as your lack of appreciation of the context, criticism, and apologetics of the synoptic gospels: I'm certainly more than capable of waffling, but this level of exposition wouldn't be required if you were actually engaging with the questions and points raised ;)

A quick summary of our discussion -- hopefully you think I've been fair in representing your contributions:

Me: [Christianity] is almost entirely unremarkable [...] it contains few novel ideas or suggestions. One example: many Christians believe the golden rule to be novel, but it isn't.

You: Christ's morality is quite different from the golden rule and much more radical. "Turn the other cheek" is not the golden rule. (Translation: Turn the other cheek is a canonical example of Christ's teachings, and is novel.)

I assume you are using 'radical' to mean that it was a new and unusual idea. If not I don't really see any basis for your reply in the first place.

We should note here that I use the golden rule as an example of Christianity, not Christ. You seem to be distracted by the fact that Christ said it with a citation and it therefore is self-evidently not novel. My point is different: it's one of the few concrete ideas suggested by the Christian faith, and it's just an axiom of every organised group of people, predating Christianity significantly.

Me: 1) Clarification: I use the golden rule as an example, because many Christians erroneously believe the golden rule to be novel. 2) The scholarly consensus on the passage you cite as being a good example of Christ's radical morality is frequently misunderstood. 3) I think you're probably a Christian because you say "Christ's morality", which is an excruciatingly uncomfortable phrase given the ambiguous genesis of the synoptic gospels and the heavy emphasis which early Christians placed on mythologising and legitimising Jesus. 4) Nonetheless we can discuss the morality prescribed to Christ by the authors of the gospels and see that it is not anything one would view as anything more than immoral today, and 5) We can infer from the contemporary reaction to Christ (very muted, and requiring centuries of rewriting and editing before it became popular) that few who bothered to write about him in the years immediately following his death considered him to be an especially radical figure.

That takes us up to…

You: Who believes that the golden rule is a novel aspect of Christ's teaching? Jesus himself provides a citation for it. The interpretation Wink offers of "turn the other cheek" is obviously wrong. Luke's re-telling of this event supports this.

So far so good I think?

I'll quickly deal with your latest bad faith (ha!) reply:

1. I think trying to speak your language ("Christ" instead of "Christianity") has gotten me into trouble, but I've cleared it up above. Hopefully you can now move on to address the far more significant points and maybe actually contribute some exposition on your belief that Christianity contains novel ideas.

2. "If people haven't even read the Bible, are their views on--" rare to see no true Scotsmen alive and well in 2020. But in any case: yes, if Christians erroneously believe something (e.g. that Christianity created the golden rule) then they are still Christians, and their views on the originality of Jesus's teachings are worth paying attention to as an indication of just how confused most people are about the novelty of Christianity.

3. "Marcan priority only underlines the point." Yeeeeah. I mean I've provided you another citation which shows that the author of Luke (or the person who translated it from Aramaic to Greek) was pretty casual when discussing literally the same passages as you think Wink is wrong on ("extra mile" means something literal). I get that you think he's guilty of eisogesis but it seems like quite a basic misunderstanding of contemporary (to mean: the last 100 years) gospel scholarship if you think that Luke's author omitting something Mark's author included actually adds to the authenticity of Luke's version.

I'm super happy to keep talking to you because you seem genuinely interested in this area, but it really is time for you to answer the questions I outlined in my previous post.

[georgespencer]

• Scapegoatism. He preached and encouraged a belief that people need not atone for their sins themselves. Pretty ghastly stuff. As Christopher Hitchens said, even if you served my prison sentence for me, you couldn’t absolve me of the crime itself on a moral level. It’s by this scapegoatism that we know Christians must accept that Hitler, murderer of 6 million Jews and Roman Catholic, is very possibly in heaven, whilst Bill Gates — agnostic atheist who has done as much for mankind as anyone you’d care to mention — is destined for hell. But, the good news is for our argument that whilst this is obviously utterly immoral and disgusting, the idea of sins being cast on to symbols of purity is by no means novel. It is present in many traditions and religions, and predates Christianity. As does the notion of the "dies and rises again" superhero.

• Beatitudes. Lots of people inexplicably consider these to be fairly radical. The concepts and morality within are echoed in Buddhism (which, uncomfortably for “JESUS WAS TOTES RADICAL!” fanbois, predates Jesus by centuries), and of course the Old Testament (he’s basically just remixing Psalms ffs — “For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.“) but if you subscribe to Marcan priority it’s a bit sad to see that in Mark the reaction is so bad that Jesus says “Lol tough crowd, nobody is appreciated in their hometown”, when everyone is like “????”, and when the story is repeated in Luke he still sheepishly says that, but the reaction of the assembled congregation becomes “omg radical huge this guy is incred!!!” — a likely interpolation unfortunately. So people didn’t consider it especially radical when he said it, and it’s all stuff from other religions and texts. (You have a really, really hard time ahead of you if you’re going to try to claim that an illiterate Jew who lived for 30 years nearly 100,000 years into mankind’s existence had anything especially interesting to say.)

• Turn the other cheek. As discussed above, this is widely misunderstood. It wouldn't have been that radical for Jesus to be a pacifist. Most of the Old Testament is either God saying "BE NICE TO EACH OTHER FFS" or "Ugh OK let's kill them all but only because I said so" (uncomfortable scene where he has bears kill teenagers for mocking a bald guy notwithstanding).

• Universal judgement and coming apocalypse — everyone at the time had a big hard on for apocalyptic cults, so this is not novel. He tells his followers to sell all their stuff which I guess is pretty radical? In the same way as Scientology pursuing years-long vendettas against apostates is ‘radical’? (I.e. it’s totally fucking immoral?)

• Obviously he calls a Canaanite woman a dog and was pretty dickish towards Samaritans (even a charitable interpretation of the “good” Samaritan must be balanced against Jesus telling the bois to not spread the word to Samaria at all (or any Gentiles), but I expect you’re not looking for examples of him being a radical douchebag and just examples of the novelty of what he said, right?

Anyway, fast forward the 50-90 years we need to get to any written accounts of Jesus which aren’t the hilarious bundle of contradictions we find in the synoptic Gospels, and where we would hope to see the impact of Jesus and his mega radical ideas… and you get to Josephus and the Antiquities & Tacitus. In terms of proving Jesus the Radical, the first mention of Jesus from Josephus is pretty good for your cause:

> About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

The bad news is that literally nobody considers this to be authentic. It looks like it’s from several hundred years later, when Jews were trying to really boost Jesus’s street cred. It may as well be written in red crayon over the original text, it's so obviously fake.

The other two references are just “Jesus was this dude’s brother” type things. No indications of his radical nature. Tacitus mentions that he was executed and that Christians were antagonising Jews and cheesing people off.

There are multiple other sources which suggest that Christians were agitators in Rome and generally not well-liked, but it’s fascinating that for all the radical wisdom Jesus allegedly preached, he made very little impact on those around him until he was the subject of significant posthumous interpolation and rewriting.

Folks who try to draw conclusions about Jesus’s teachings in the year 2020 really need to consider them in the context in which they were written (you can’t know whether or not he said it, so view them through the lens of “person writing to try to perpetuate a religion for some reason in the year AD 50”. It makes things a lot easier.

Jesus didn't say or do anything interesting, let alone anything suggestive of his being God. Very open to being shown areas I'm wrong if you're comfortable rooting your analysis in the proper historical context.