Thursday, September 15, 2005
Oh, Sweet Jesus
If you click the title to this post you'll be taken to Newsweek's site, specifically an article titled Overturning the Gospels by Melinda Henneberger. The dastardly Liberal press? Maybe, but a dastard is also a coward (look it up.) I don't think that this particular article is at all cowardly, but read it if you will and judge for yourself. The article talks about something I've touched on myself a few times, mostly in a comedic vein: the gap between the public Christianity of the current conservative religious right and what Mr. Nazareth actually taught way back when. I'll be a little more explicit now, in my ranting venue, so this shouldn't be confused with mere jokes. (As if any truly good joke could be trivial, but that's another posting.)
A great many Americans get Jesus pretty much backwards, according to the article. For one thing, apparently they think that Jesus said that "God helps him who helps himself." Jesus said no such thing. Ben Franklin said that, as befits a cynical and humorous man. It was an observation of how things really seem to work from someone not disposed to give a fig about any god or demon, but it was definitely not in the vein of Jesus' work. What Jesus said was, for example, to "sell your valuables and give the money to the poor." That does not even come close to meaning the same thing as Franklin's observation, in fact if anything it means the opposite. Here are a few other things that Jesus of Nazareth said. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." In other words, pay your taxes, which also doesn't really jibe with what many fundamentalist Christians think their religion is all about. Anything else? Well, how about "it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven." Not what the average "screw the poor they must deserve it" American wants to hear, I think. Or how about "Love your neighbor as yourself" or "blessed are the meek?" A bit out of the mainstream Conservative American Christian tradition, I believe.
I can't presume to interpret Jesus of Nazareth, but I have read the primary books about him, especially those Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ones you find in what Christians call the "New Testament." You know, that book where they say god reveals himself as loving and kind? Funny that they don't seem to believe in loving kindness, at least not in their public persona. But, hey, they do have a long tradition behind them. I've been watching and greatly enjoying the HBO series Rome. On the HBO web site is all sorts of information not only about the series but also about Rome itself, including a presentation on Roman Gods, titled "The Gods Are Out to Get You," in which it is said that the Roman attitude toward their many gods was that the gods seemed to say, "If you do everything exactly right, with no mistakes, I'll make your life and afterlife wonderful. Otherwise, you're screwed, human." Substitute the word God for the word gods, and you've got the apparent attitude of the fundamentalist Christian movement. Isn't that odd? Here all these Protestant reformers went to all sorts of trouble and sacrifice, sometimes getting burned at the stake for their efforts, to separate Christianity from Rome, and here's a major movement in twenty-first century America that's running right back home, by Jove.
My personal heresy (heresy is asking questions; look it up) began when I read the old family bible that used to live on top of the desk in the front alcove. It was an ornate old edition of the King James text that had a list of ancestors on my mother's side written in the back. It also had every example of text that was quoted from Jesus of Nazareth printed in red ink, whereas the rest of the text, from Adam to the Beast 666, was in plain black. Once I decided just to read the red text. Imagine my surprise to find out that a whole lot of what I'd been taught about Jesus apparently came from somebody else, because I noticed that he never said a lot of the things I'd heard attributed to him. He did suggest that we be generous, charitable, and loving. He said that the virtuous thing to do was to visit the imprisoned, tend to the sick, give your money to the poor, and comfort the afflicted. Not a word about the virtues of self-reliance. If there's any evidence that the USA is not a Christian nation, that ought to do it. In spite of what you hear daily, and much like the other disinformation that they spout, the religious right is lying about Jesus, too. Oh, yes, Jesus disapproved of lying by the way.
I'm not the first person to notice this, of course. Tom Jefferson noticed the same thing, and edited a version of the new testament, still in print, where he only put in the parts that he thought Jesus would approve of. (It's called the Jefferson Bible, and it's available from Amazon, among other places.) I'm not going to be so presumptuous, but I will point out another version of the new testament, called The Gospel According to Jesus. No, Jesus didn't write down his own scripture. Would that he had, but then Siddhartha did, including saying that he was not to be worshipped, and you see how effective that was, so maybe it would've made no difference. This book, also widely available, is a report on a study in which computerized linguistic analysis techniques were applied to the original documents of the books of the gospel. That is, the texts were examined with an eye to syntax, word usage, quirks in construction and other aspects (explained in this text) to differentiate authorship of the various portions. Surprise, there are quite a few apparent authors. There is one core bit of gospel from one author, writing as Matthew. It begins "When Jesus was about thirty years old he came down . . ." and ends with his execution at the hands of the Romans. The single reported miracle is breathing life back into the dead girl, which you can be trained to do by the Red Cross to this day. This is not the Jesus we've come to know over the centuries, but it is the most authentic picture extant of what the man really taught. Unfortunately for the right wing of Christianity, what's left in still includes the same advice on humility, frugality, and loving enemies. Maybe the rest of the testament, and the other things tacked on over the millennia, really are just rich people's way to obscure the ugly truth about Jesus of Nazareth. But what do I know? I just read books, I don't interpret them on TV. I drive my own used car, too.
My point is that I fully agree with the author of the Newsweek article which you can read for yourself by clicking on the title of this post. A whole lot of Americans have got Mr. Nazareth just about totally backwards. Honestly, I'm not advocating for Jesus here, I'm advocating for honesty and integrity. There are arguments for being the way Americans have always been. We're generous when the negative effects of not being generous hit us upside the head hard enough, like they're doing right now. Otherwise we tend to get all tied up in the virtues of being industrious and enterprising. That's fine, and well and good, but it's not Christian and it never was. I wish people would quit misquoting that poor Nazarene and just tell the truth, is all.
A great many Americans get Jesus pretty much backwards, according to the article. For one thing, apparently they think that Jesus said that "God helps him who helps himself." Jesus said no such thing. Ben Franklin said that, as befits a cynical and humorous man. It was an observation of how things really seem to work from someone not disposed to give a fig about any god or demon, but it was definitely not in the vein of Jesus' work. What Jesus said was, for example, to "sell your valuables and give the money to the poor." That does not even come close to meaning the same thing as Franklin's observation, in fact if anything it means the opposite. Here are a few other things that Jesus of Nazareth said. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." In other words, pay your taxes, which also doesn't really jibe with what many fundamentalist Christians think their religion is all about. Anything else? Well, how about "it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven." Not what the average "screw the poor they must deserve it" American wants to hear, I think. Or how about "Love your neighbor as yourself" or "blessed are the meek?" A bit out of the mainstream Conservative American Christian tradition, I believe.
I can't presume to interpret Jesus of Nazareth, but I have read the primary books about him, especially those Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ones you find in what Christians call the "New Testament." You know, that book where they say god reveals himself as loving and kind? Funny that they don't seem to believe in loving kindness, at least not in their public persona. But, hey, they do have a long tradition behind them. I've been watching and greatly enjoying the HBO series Rome. On the HBO web site is all sorts of information not only about the series but also about Rome itself, including a presentation on Roman Gods, titled "The Gods Are Out to Get You," in which it is said that the Roman attitude toward their many gods was that the gods seemed to say, "If you do everything exactly right, with no mistakes, I'll make your life and afterlife wonderful. Otherwise, you're screwed, human." Substitute the word God for the word gods, and you've got the apparent attitude of the fundamentalist Christian movement. Isn't that odd? Here all these Protestant reformers went to all sorts of trouble and sacrifice, sometimes getting burned at the stake for their efforts, to separate Christianity from Rome, and here's a major movement in twenty-first century America that's running right back home, by Jove.
My personal heresy (heresy is asking questions; look it up) began when I read the old family bible that used to live on top of the desk in the front alcove. It was an ornate old edition of the King James text that had a list of ancestors on my mother's side written in the back. It also had every example of text that was quoted from Jesus of Nazareth printed in red ink, whereas the rest of the text, from Adam to the Beast 666, was in plain black. Once I decided just to read the red text. Imagine my surprise to find out that a whole lot of what I'd been taught about Jesus apparently came from somebody else, because I noticed that he never said a lot of the things I'd heard attributed to him. He did suggest that we be generous, charitable, and loving. He said that the virtuous thing to do was to visit the imprisoned, tend to the sick, give your money to the poor, and comfort the afflicted. Not a word about the virtues of self-reliance. If there's any evidence that the USA is not a Christian nation, that ought to do it. In spite of what you hear daily, and much like the other disinformation that they spout, the religious right is lying about Jesus, too. Oh, yes, Jesus disapproved of lying by the way.
I'm not the first person to notice this, of course. Tom Jefferson noticed the same thing, and edited a version of the new testament, still in print, where he only put in the parts that he thought Jesus would approve of. (It's called the Jefferson Bible, and it's available from Amazon, among other places.) I'm not going to be so presumptuous, but I will point out another version of the new testament, called The Gospel According to Jesus. No, Jesus didn't write down his own scripture. Would that he had, but then Siddhartha did, including saying that he was not to be worshipped, and you see how effective that was, so maybe it would've made no difference. This book, also widely available, is a report on a study in which computerized linguistic analysis techniques were applied to the original documents of the books of the gospel. That is, the texts were examined with an eye to syntax, word usage, quirks in construction and other aspects (explained in this text) to differentiate authorship of the various portions. Surprise, there are quite a few apparent authors. There is one core bit of gospel from one author, writing as Matthew. It begins "When Jesus was about thirty years old he came down . . ." and ends with his execution at the hands of the Romans. The single reported miracle is breathing life back into the dead girl, which you can be trained to do by the Red Cross to this day. This is not the Jesus we've come to know over the centuries, but it is the most authentic picture extant of what the man really taught. Unfortunately for the right wing of Christianity, what's left in still includes the same advice on humility, frugality, and loving enemies. Maybe the rest of the testament, and the other things tacked on over the millennia, really are just rich people's way to obscure the ugly truth about Jesus of Nazareth. But what do I know? I just read books, I don't interpret them on TV. I drive my own used car, too.
My point is that I fully agree with the author of the Newsweek article which you can read for yourself by clicking on the title of this post. A whole lot of Americans have got Mr. Nazareth just about totally backwards. Honestly, I'm not advocating for Jesus here, I'm advocating for honesty and integrity. There are arguments for being the way Americans have always been. We're generous when the negative effects of not being generous hit us upside the head hard enough, like they're doing right now. Otherwise we tend to get all tied up in the virtues of being industrious and enterprising. That's fine, and well and good, but it's not Christian and it never was. I wish people would quit misquoting that poor Nazarene and just tell the truth, is all.
