A "Blasphemous" Portrait of Jesus

" No Church Today ; No Jesus Allowed "
( no shoes, no shirt, no 'service' )

Good post vegan
Jesus was extraordinary because of how he lived, not died,
Like Matsumoto in the last Samuri.

I'm a 39 year old male. I was raised in a pretty typical southern baptist fashion. As a child, the Gospels were taught in a cartoonish way, sometimes with actual cartoon pictures protraying the stories of the New Testament. It was difficult as an adult to get past some of these images. In my late 20's, I began to see Jesus as who he really was. The Son of God. One who fulfilled over 400 prophecies from the Old Testament. I urge all of you to read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He was an Oxford intellectual, smarter than I or all of you (I would assume), and presents Christianity in a very logical manner.
The strange thing about athiests is how they are often worse than evangelicals in the way they try to cram their godless position down the collective throats of the masses. I like to call them devout athiests. They like to bring up priests and pedophilia or preachers and prostitutes, as if this would offer up evidence to contradict His preachings. Yes, many atrocities have occurred throughout history in the name of "faith", but they were all performed by man (aka sinners). How many horrible acts are carried out everyday by those who do not live according to the Word of God? It's an incredibly obtuse view to discount Christianity based on the sinful acts of man. Just as the earlier poster said, I love all of you. I pray that all of you find what is missing in your life, because honestly, I believe that you are posting vitriolic comments due to the fact that you are searching for the truth.

If jesus existed, and the scientific community is split on this one, I feel like he was a man, an orator, a pacifist, a great man like gandhi but not a miracle worker or the voice of god. Then about sixty years later people decided to use him as the basis of their text with their own agenda and exploited him. 'm not trying to blaspheme or insult, just giving my, albeit anti-theistic, opinion

"The preacher want me buried why? Cause I know he a liar
Have you ever seen a crackhead, that's eternal fire
Why you got these kids minds, thinkin that they evil
while the preacher bein richer you say honor God's people
Should we cry, when the Pope die...." - 2pac

Blasphemy is an ancient stupidity and if a religion can't take critisizm; it should be designated what it is, a poltical organization!

This is similar to what I've been saying and what got me banned from posting on HuffPo. (Which, by the way, I responded to by dropping my account with HuffPo and causing me to advocate agianst this vile form infotainment and censorship.) Look folks, I've found that most people are grossly ignorant of the origins of Christianity and believe the Bible is some sort of history book. Even if Christ existed, (something worthy of examination & debate), clearly the authors of the Bible and Saul of Tarsus have given every reason to conduct this debate. Furthermore, It's obvious that any honest theologian worth their salt knows this and only refuses to tell the public at large because of a fear the public will react negatively. I advise everyone to read "Letters from the Earth", by Mrk Twain. It sets the stage for one to start down a path of learning, that doesn't necessarily make them anti-christian, but has the potential to make them more human!

Why is Jesus white?

Jesus appears to be missing the tip of his ring finger in that pic on the article.

Does that make it more blasphemous? lol

Thank you for the post. He was a remarkable man leading with non-violence in a very violent time. What an interesting read.

The history really does need to be separated from the metaphor,.....by the rational. The "mad" and the "madly religious" make of the metaphor whatever suits them, and invent the history wholesale.

It should not be a surprise that some seem confused to what God is because to the weak, he is weak, to the strong, he is strong and to the great, he is great. He is all things to all people and is foreign to none. It is not wrong for John to think outside the box and reading books outside the box like 'The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus' is a good place to start. Aquarian is The Age of Aquarius and is part of the Akashic records.

poor ol' jesus - a middle easterner with a mexican name ... i'd bet he just wants to be left alone -

Ireland passed a blasphemy law in '09 called the "Defamation Act". The Far Right fundamentalists in the US drool to do the same here!

The Defamation Act makes blasphemy a crime punishable by a €25,000( $35,000 US) fine. Blasphemy is defined in this law as “matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion” with safeguards to make it harder to prosecute.

For a fantastic list of 25 blasphemous quotes which were posted by the opposition to the law go to:
http://blasphemy.ie/2010/01/01/atheist-ireland-publishes-25-blasphemous-quotes/:

"... religious and nonreligious ideas alike should be open to any criticism. That is how human knowledge progresses. Blasphemy laws discriminate against nonreligious citizens, by protecting the fundamental beliefs of religious citizens only."

religion mixed within government = terrorism, suppression, theocracy, and war

-------------------------------------
After not entering a church for a couple of yrs, I went to a Presbyterian church in Jackson, Mississippi, on the Sunday morning after Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was still in shock after the Medgar Evers, President Kennedy, and locally hushed assassinations. The minister delivered a very peaceful sermon. He sited love, tolerance, grief, and hope in his sermon. As a result of his very comforting and inspiring sermon, the minister was not only kicked out of that beautiful and expensive church, but he was kicked out of the state and synod for blasphemy. After that, Mississippi christian churches were completely taken over by fundamentalists. That was the last time I set foot in a hypocrisy club.

Any intelligent adult, smart enough to understand that what David Blaine does is not "real" magic, should accept that the bible is a story book. While it may refer to actual historical figures, most of the alegories contain within it are fables plagerized from earlier cultures.

WWJD ? well not fly I can tell you that for sure >>>

awww i thought this was a west boro crappolla too bad anyway jesus is cool but he ...well sorry to tell you ...hates YOU! cause you are judgemental greedy and pro-govt all jesus "no no's "infact Jesus has more in common with Egyptian fabric union strikers and female( unionists and pro-prostitutes(I know U like that but all documented mary magdelen) (add any oppressed group____ here) oppression minority oppression than any American could ever imagine ...right?!
a true middle-eastern think about it Jesus would never make it through TSA

Well yeah, Jesus looked more middle eastern and white spanish Jesus is a myth, but he's cool and forgives you.

Reading the new testament as a story of a attempted pacifist socialist revolution makes far more sense. Strip the silly miraculous stuff and you have the perfect historical and literary precedent for the works of Marx.

CONTINUED…

PART FOUR…

People like to talk about Scripture, but Christians should also know history to understand Jesus, Crossan says.

In Jesus' time, Rome was forcing many Jewish families into destitution, with high taxes and land seizures. Some Jews advocated violent rebellion, but others opted for non-violent resistance.

Jesus called for nonviolent resistance to Rome and just distribution of land and food. He was crucified because he threatened Roman stability -- not as a sacrifice to God for humanity's sins, Crossan says.

If you believe in a God that uses violence to "save" humanity, you'll start believing that violence is permissible in certain circumstances, such as suicide bombing or invading other countries to spread democracy, Crossan says.

The human addiction to violence, though, is so ingrained that even the authors of the New Testament had trouble accepting Jesus' nonviolence, Crossan says.

So they did a little editing.

Crossan's proof: Jesus preaches nonviolence at the beginning of the New Testament. By the book of Revelation, he's leading armies through heaven to kill evildoers.

"Christianity both admits and subverts the historical Jesus," Crossan says.

Does Crossan subvert Christianity?

Is Crossan doing the same -- admitting and subverting Jesus, some wonder?

The words "brilliant," "keen mind" and someone who "loves the Bible" are often used by fellow scholars to describe Crossan. They say he is generous with his time, funny and personally warm.

"He has real depth of the soul," says McCane, the biblical scholar and archaeologist. "He's spiritual in the best sense of the word. He sees the world as a place where values matter."

Yet some also wonder if he unwittingly gives people an excuse to diminish Jesus' importance.

Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar who has written several books about the early Christian community, says Crossan's work allows people to sidestep questions like: Did he come to save the world? Is he the son of God?

"It's a user-friendly Jesus that doesn't make demands on someone," he says.

Witherington says Crossan is trying to find a nonsupernatural way to explain Jesus and Scripture, and "the shoe doesn't fit."

"The stories are inherently theological," he says. "They all suggest that God intervenes in history. If you have a problem with the supernatural, you have a problem with the Bible. It's on every page."

One of the most persistent criticisms of Crossan's work is that he's turned Jesus into a peasant insurrectionist because his Irish ancestors battled the British Empire.

Crossan says growing up Irish "makes you skeptical about empire." But he says he came of age in the first generation after Irish independence when hatred of the British was not pervasive.

Crossan once wrote in his memoir that he learned two things from Irish history: "One, the British did terrible things to the Irish. Two, the Irish, had they the power, would have done equally terrible things to the British (they did it to one another with the British gone)."

Supporters of Crossan's work say he's encouraged ordinary Bible readers to ask tough questions.

"He opened up space in popular culture for people to think about the history behind the biblical texts," says Timothy Beal, author of "The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book."

"He invited people back into the texts to question those authoritative sources that have been telling them, 'This is what the Bible says, and you don't need to read it to yourself,' " Beal says.

His Irish accent remains, but Crossan is now an American citizen. He lives near Orlando, Florida, and spends much of his time traveling to lectures and appearing in religious documentaries.

After spending much of his life in the Roman Catholic Church, Crossan is now an outsider.

He hasn't joined a church because he says a priest might deny him the sacraments because of his run-ins with church leaders.

"If I attend a local Roman Catholic Church, I would get sucked back into all the debates," he says. "I don't want to spend my life fighting Roman Catholicism."

Crossan has also broken with church tradition by marrying. He married Margaret Dagenais, a university art professor, soon after leaving the priesthood in 1969. She died of a heart attack in 1983.

Today, his current wife, Sarah, is a yoga teacher and photographer. She's also his partner in travel. Crossan wanted to see the world as a boy. Now he sees it as a man. The two often travel to holy sites, where she takes photos that Crossan later uses in church presentations.

Crossan's reputation among traditional Christians was so touchy that it initially affected his relationship with her parents, Sarah said.

"We didn't talk about his work with them," she says. "They couldn't handle it. They thought he was so wrong. They loved him as a person, but not his work."

Crossan is not worried that his work will shatter people's faith in Jesus. The closer one gets to the historical Jesus, Crossan says, the more extraordinary Jesus becomes.

"A lot of people in the first century thought Jesus was saying something so important that they were willing to die for it. If people finish with my books and now see why Pilate executed him and why people died for him, then I've done my job."

CONTINUED…

PART THREE…

In 1985, Robert Funk, a New Testament scholar, asked Crossan to join him on a risky mission: Expose the public to academic debates about the historical Jesus.

The seminar was Crossan's first wide exposure to the public. The media gravitated to him because he was a scholar who didn't talk like a scholar.
Christianity both admits and subverts the historical Jesus.
--John Dominic Crossan, historic Jesus scholar

He became known for his sound bites -- inspired, he says, by Jesus' use of parables to distill complex truths in pithy but provocative sayings.

Explaining why America's reliance on military might was similar to Rome's, he told Time magazine:

"There's good news and bad news from the historical Jesus. The good news: God says Caesar sucks. The bad news: God says Caesar is us."

Crossan's public profile rose another notch in 1991 when The New York Times ran a front-page story two days before Christmas on his book, "The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant."

The book became a bestseller, and Crossan followed up with more. He says people were anxious to embrace a faith with "brains and heart," and learn the history behind the text, not just its wording.

"When we started out, people thought we were out on the left wing," he says. "Now, I'm talking in about 30 churches a year. ... A lot of this is becoming mainstream."

It's still controversial, though.

A casual search of Crossan's name online turns up plenty of insults and warnings not to read his books.

Crossan says, however, that he's "trying to understand the stories of Jesus, not refute them."

Still, his findings often end up challenging some of Christianity's most cherished beliefs.

Consider his understanding of the resurrection. Jesus didn't bodily rise from the dead, he says. The first Christians told Jesus' resurrection story as a parable, not as a fact.

"Crucifixion meant that imperial power had won," Crossan says. "Resurrection meant that divine justice had won. God is on the side of the crucified one. Rome's' values are a dead issue to me."

How about the stories of Jesus' miracles, like raising the dead or stilling the storm?

Most were parables, too, Crossan says. But there were some exceptions.

"I'm completely convinced that Jesus was a major healer," he says. "I don't think anybody would talk about Jesus if all he did was talk."

CONTINUED…

CONTINUED…

PART TWO…

Crossan is also reviled in a way that few scholars are.

Some critics say he's trying to debunk Christianity. Some question his personal faith. At a college lecture, Crossan says an audience member stood up and asked him if he had "received the Lord Jesus" as his savior.

Crossan said he had, but refused to repeat his questioner's evangelical language to describe his conversion.

"I wasn't going to give him the language; it's not my language," Crossan says. "I wasn't trying to denigrate him, but don't think you have the monopoly on the language of Christianity."

When asked if he is a Christian, Crossan doesn't hesitate.

"Absolutely."

Crossan says he never planned to be a Jesus scholar but was drafted to play that role -- by the Roman Catholic Church.

He had other plans. He grew up in a small town in Ireland reading adventure stories like "20,000 Leagues under The Sea" and reciting poetry with his father on long walks.

He wanted adventure and travel. The missionary priests who visited his boyhood school with stories of mission trips to Africa seemed to offer both.

Crossan says his father, a banker, and his mother, a housewife, didn't push religion on him. He was raised in a traditional Irish Catholic church where faith was "undiscussed, uninvestigated and uncriticized."

"I didn't grow up in an atmosphere where the Bible was stuffed down my throat." John Dominic Crossan's parents, Daniel and Elizabeth, never pushed religion on him.

Yet Crossan immersed himself in the world of the Bible for the rest of his adult life. When he entered a monastery at 16, church leaders told him they wanted him to be a scholar because he had already taken five years of Latin and Greek.

He became a priestly prodigy: ordained by 23; a doctorate at 25. He studied in Rome and Jerusalem, and eventually became a New Testament scholar who became known as an authority on the parables of Jesus. (Crossan saw them as subversive literary gems.)

His days as a priest would end, though, because of the same forces that shaped the rest of his career: the clash between church dogma and scholarly truth.

Crossan says it was "bliss" being a priest and scholar in the mid-1960s because the Roman Catholic Church had instituted a series of modernizing reforms.

But conservative church leaders fought those reforms, and Crossan says they pressured him to steer his research toward conclusions that reinforced church doctrine.

"It's like you're a scientist in research and development, and you say that this drug is lethal, and they say, 'Find something good in it,' '' Crossan says.

He left the priesthood in 1969 after he angered church leaders by publicly questioning the church's ban on birth control. He married, and settled into a career of teaching and writing books that were read primarily by other scholars.

Later, however, Crossan would anger church leaders again.

CONTINUED…