tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post4852382260568748364..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: "There is no safety here."Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-49741204655983305792014-08-27T13:09:08.291-05:002014-08-27T13:09:08.291-05:00You make an excellent point. I was taking it more...You make an excellent point. I was taking it more in terms of the anti-semitism so latent in Xianity, that "Pharisees" become "Jews" (although they did, as I understand, the roots of rabbinic judaism are with them) who rejected the Messiah/Jesus because they were too caught up with "the law."<br /><br />Which then gets used like a club to defend the status quo; as you also point out. <br /><br />You can tell I'm not thinking this through so much as reacting to the next stimulus. But you're clarifying my thought, which always needs all the help it can get....<br /><br />(and yes, much of the animus against the Pharisees in the Gospels is because of the power struggles, more social than political power, at least in the modern sense, between Xian communities and Jews/Hebrews. the Gospels give us the view of one community, not the view of an objective observer. I like your comparison to "white moderate" especially.)Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-87227464997023148492014-08-27T12:13:45.505-05:002014-08-27T12:13:45.505-05:00But if you do accept the Gospels as, well, Gospel ...But if you do accept the Gospels as, well, Gospel truth and hence view the Pharisees through that lens, the point you make becomes very interesting when you consider that Pharisees were not in authority: the problem with the Pharisees (from the point of view of the Gospels) becomes not that they were abusive of their authority but because they sought accommodation with it. The Pharisees, unlike the "Essenes", did not say that the Temple in Jerusalem was hopelessly corrupt but rather they said "let's just use what influence we have to keep it, at least ritually speaking, on the right track". They did not, unlike the Zealots, say "we need to rebel against Rome and end imperial domination", they said "if Jerusalem be rendered unto Caesar, we can accept that -- just 'spare me Yavneh and its sages' [Gittin 56b]"<br /><br />From the point of view of those who were truly oppressed by the Romans, such bourgeois accommodation must have been seen as treachery. And isn't this, in part, what the Gospels' (in particular Matthew's) treatment of the Pharisees reflects?<br /><br />Which I suspect is somehow central to your final point, isn't it? I guess the relevant comparison is between the "Pharisees" of the Gospels and the "white moderates" of Martin Luther King, Jr. ...alberichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03852752646926946626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-12896143929080150622014-08-27T11:22:54.883-05:002014-08-27T11:22:54.883-05:00Yeah, I wouldn't have used them at all if not ...Yeah, I wouldn't have used them at all if not for the cultural reference they have become (and almost aren't, anymore).<br /><br />The Pharisees get a very bad rap in the Gospels; one they really don't deserve. As you said yesterday, what good is it to save the world if it costs the life of one person? It's that awareness of the cost of "law and order" that we need to pay more attention to. And even with the quote, I'd have been better to have re-cast that final point.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-40048954311762204322014-08-27T09:39:24.000-05:002014-08-27T09:39:24.000-05:00The Pharisees in this situation are not just the a...<i>The Pharisees in this situation are not just the authorities using Christianity to justify their violence and suppression</i><br /><br />Indeed and FWIW, the actual historical Pharisees were certainly <i>not</i> the authorities, either religious (that would be the priests, most of whom were Sadducees) nor political (the Romans and the local aristocracy, the latter of whom were also generally Sadducees). Of course, the relationship of the Pharisees to authority was actually rather complicated. alberichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03852752646926946626noreply@blogger.com