Jesus, John the Baptist, St. Paul, James the Just and Simon Magus

[Alexiev]

I've read a couple of interesting (to me, anyway) articles about Christianity recently. I linked the first -- from the New Yorker in an earlier post. Here it is:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025 ... rine-nixey

According to Gopnik, modern scholars are changing the manner in which they view the gospels. Scholars know the Gospels were written 40-60 years after Jesus died. IN the past, it was assumed that the Gospels related the oral traditions of Jesus' teachings. However, the Gospels were written in Greek. Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic or Hebrew. Modern scholars are examining how Greek literary themes and tropes may have influenced the Gospels. Anyone interested should read the article.

Second, I've been reading a book of literary criticism called Genius by Harold Bloom. He has one chapter on Saint Paul -- who wrote his canonical letters 20-50 years after Jesus' death. Bloom is an agnostic Jew, and he examines Jesus, John the Baptist, James the Just (Jesus' brother), Paul and Simon Magus as literary characters (as, in fact, they are, whether or not they were also real people). Paul to some extent invented modern Christianity. Jesus was an ironist, speaking often in ironic parables. We "know" Him through his recorded words (which he may or may not have actually said). Jesus also contradicted some Fundamentalist teachings. Take this modern translation: "Our father's kingdom is not going to come with people watching for it. No one is going to be able to say, Look Here, or Over There. For the kingdom is inside you waiting for you to find it."

Bloom suggests that Jesus was a disciple (at one time) of John the Baptist, although the Gospels are ambivalent. In Matthew, John says Jesus should baptize him; in John the baptism goes unnoticed. In any event, it's strange that some human would baptize a god. If Jesus was a follower of John, so was Simon Magus, often credited with being a founder of the Gnostic heresy. Like Jesus, Magus had magical powers of healing. Also, which I didn't know before, Magus is credited with originating the Faust story. He had a concubine named Helen a who was supposedly descended from Helen of Troy (and hence from Zeus). In Marlowe's version of the play, FAust famously asks, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium. Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss." Since Magus founded a heresy, "simony" (selling spiritual favors) is named for him.

Paul invented modern Christianity (acc. Bloom). IN fact, he was often at odds with those who actually knew Jesus, including Jesus' brother James the Just. Bloom compares Paul with Martin Luther -- both were obsessed with removing Christian thought from Jewish law. None other than Nietzsche wrote this about Paul:

The man suffered from... an ever-burning question: what was the meaning of Jewish law? In his youth he had done his best to satisfy it, thirsting as he did for the highest distinction which the Jew could imagine -- this people which raised the imagination of moral loftiness to a greater elevation than any other people, and which alone succeeded in uniting the conception of a holy God with the idea of sin as an offence against this holiness.

Now, however he (Paul) was aware in his own person of the fact that such a man as himself -- violent, sensual, melancholy, and malicious in his hatred -- could not fulfill the law.... WAs it the Law itself which was impossible to fulfill, and seduced men into transgression with an irresistible charm.

Nietzsche sees Paul (and Luther) as geniuses of hatred. G.B. Shaw agrees: "Paul does nothing Jesus would have done and says nothing Jesus would have said."

I haven't done a great job summarizing the chapter; I'm sure the book is available in most libraries. The next chapter is on another religious and literary "genius" who never wrote anything: Muhammad.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

I find it far more productive to exercise good will to these ancient characters and their unknown authors, although seven of Paul's letters are consensually his and James feels authentic, and not rely on long dead critics like Nietzsche, & GBS, Who was uncritical of Islam and Stalin. I don't believe a word of any supernatural claim, but again, don't regard the claimants as bad actors; black liars in it for the money, power, sex. They all believed everything they claimed, in good will. Until proven otherwise: We can then use modern psychology on them, and if that reveals failures of moral development, so be it.

[ThinkOfOne]

I've read a couple of interesting (to me, anyway) articles about Christianity recently. I linked the first -- from the New Yorker in an earlier post. Here it is:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025 ... rine-nixey

According to Gopnik, modern scholars are changing the manner in which they view the gospels. Scholars know the Gospels were written 40-60 years after Jesus died. IN the past, it was assumed that the Gospels related the oral traditions of Jesus' teachings. However, the Gospels were written in Greek. Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic or Hebrew. Modern scholars are examining how Greek literary themes and tropes may have influenced the Gospels. Anyone interested should read the article.

Second, I've been reading a book of literary criticism called Genius by Harold Bloom. He has one chapter on Saint Paul -- who wrote his canonical letters 20-50 years after Jesus' death. Bloom is an agnostic Jew, and he examines Jesus, John the Baptist, James the Just (Jesus' brother), Paul and Simon Magus as literary characters (as, in fact, they are, whether or not they were also real people). Paul to some extent invented modern Christianity. Jesus was an ironist, speaking often in ironic parables. We "know" Him through his recorded words (which he may or may not have actually said). Jesus also contradicted some Fundamentalist teachings. Take this modern translation: "Our father's kingdom is not going to come with people watching for it. No one is going to be able to say, Look Here, or Over There. For the kingdom is inside you waiting for you to find it."

Bloom suggests that Jesus was a disciple (at one time) of John the Baptist, although the Gospels are ambivalent. In Matthew, John says Jesus should baptize him; in John the baptism goes unnoticed. In any event, it's strange that some human would baptize a god. If Jesus was a follower of John, so was Simon Magus, often credited with being a founder of the Gnostic heresy. Like Jesus, Magus had magical powers of healing. Also, which I didn't know before, Magus is credited with originating the Faust story. He had a concubine named Helen a who was supposedly descended from Helen of Troy (and hence from Zeus). In Marlowe's version of the play, FAust famously asks, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium. Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss." Since Magus founded a heresy, "simony" (selling spiritual favors) is named for him.

Paul invented modern Christianity (acc. Bloom). IN fact, he was often at odds with those who actually knew Jesus, including Jesus' brother James the Just. Bloom compares Paul with Martin Luther -- both were obsessed with removing Christian thought from Jewish law. None other than Nietzsche wrote this about Paul:

The man suffered from... an ever-burning question: what was the meaning of Jewish law? In his youth he had done his best to satisfy it, thirsting as he did for the highest distinction which the Jew could imagine -- this people which raised the imagination of moral loftiness to a greater elevation than any other people, and which alone succeeded in uniting the conception of a holy God with the idea of sin as an offence against this holiness.

Now, however he (Paul) was aware in his own person of the fact that such a man as himself -- violent, sensual, melancholy, and malicious in his hatred -- could not fulfill the law.... WAs it the Law itself which was impossible to fulfill, and seduced men into transgression with an irresistible charm.

Nietzsche sees Paul (and Luther) as geniuses of hatred. G.B. Shaw agrees: "Paul does nothing Jesus would have done and says nothing Jesus would have said."

I haven't done a great job summarizing the chapter; I'm sure the book is available in most libraries. The next chapter is on another religious and literary "genius" who never wrote anything: Muhammad.

Later OT prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel and Hosea requiring the unrighteous to make themselves righteous. They were to cease to sin whereby making themselves clean. In doing so, God effectively abrogated substitutionary atonement. By and large, the gospel preached by Jesus was a logical extension of this concept.

Paul taught a very different gospel which brought substitutionary atonement back with Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus warned against those such a Paul here:

Matthew 7
13“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. 14“For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.
15“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? 17“Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18“A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20“So then, you will know them by their fruits.
21“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. 22“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

Christianity has the Pauline gospel as its foundation. As such, Christians are amongst the many who enter by the "[broad way] that leads to destruction.