Questioning the Historicity of Early 1C Popular Messianism

[cienfuegos]

On the question of extrapolation, what you fail to grasp time and again is that the Israelite religion regulates every aspect of the life of an adherent. As such these "lines of inquiry" are stupid. Jews and Samaritans have little freedom and it would have been even less free in antiquity. You fail to grasp what Judaism is. I won't say that's because you have no Jewish friends (because that will set you off). it's because you are too bookish. It's nice to read and read and read but it's all theoretical and ultimately distracting from what is. Go to a synagogue, go to a Sabbath dinner, visit Israel if what you really want is knowledge about Judaism. If you won't or can't then stop pretending you are interested. This is silly.

Is this a race card? A Religion" card? I suppose me can't truly understand the transubstantiation if one wasn't raised Catholic. I agree with Neil here, you can't assume an understanding of first century Judaism by extrapolating from modern Judaism.

[MrMacSon]

On the question of extrapolation, what you fail to grasp time and again is that the Israelite religion regulates every aspect of the life of an adherent. As such these "lines of inquiry" are stupid. Jews and Samaritans have little freedom and it would have been even less free in antiquity. You fail to grasp what Judaism is. ... Go to a synagogue, go to a Sabbath dinner, visit Israel if what you really want is knowledge about Judaism ...

That is unlikely to reflect the diversity of Judaism ~120BC to 100AD.

[MrMacSon]

And with respect to differences between cultures. My son brought a book home today on tennis (because my wife used to be quite good at it). We played soccer today and he happened to mention that New Zealanders are quite good at rugby for some reason. It got me to think again how many sports were invented by the British. Why is that? I told him because they like rules. That's just their 'thing.'

Many sports played today were developed at the time the British were colonising the world. rules are unlikely to be the primary motivation for their popularity. Rugby was developed as a flouting of the rules of another game.

Even if the South Americans had come up with the idea they'd be cheating and fouling each other.

That's racist & bigotted nonsense.

No one would want to play. But the British with their rule loving nature were ambassadors for this sport because people found it curious and ultimately desirable to imitate the British 'idealism.' I've been reading a lot of books on the history of soccer with first hand accounts of foreigners who observed these crazy people kicking a ball in an organized fashion.

Soccer has very few rules.

[Stephan Huller]

What's with this 'first century' vs 'modern' debates? I am sorry but you people don't know what the fuck you are talking about. The Samaritans and the Jews split 2500 years ago and they aren't that different in the general shape of their religion. Guess why? Because there's no freedom in any of this. It's not a race card or religion card it's a - know what the fuck you are talking about - card.

If you accept this book called 'the Torah' you ain't got no choice about having your life determined by 'God' (or the person who wrote this book). I just wish you people would take of your creativity hats and accept that the basic similarity between Samaritans and Jews demonstrates that there can't be a wide difference between any of the other subforms that existed five hundred or so years after the split within Judaism.

Why is this so fucking hard for people to understand? Oh, wait a minute. They don't know what they're talking about, have no Jewish or Samaritan or Karaite friends, have never attended a synagogue or participated in religious observances and only read kooky books. Maybe that has something to do with it.

[Stephan Huller]

Let's go beyond talking about messiahs and interesting stuff like that. What about fucking? Do religious Jews or Samaritans have much of a choice who they fuck or who they marry? No. Food. Do religious Jewish or Samaritans have much choice in what they eat? No. Just go down the list and - yes, there are differences between Samaritans and Jews in the particulars because of additional authorities added to the Jewish tradition. But the basic idea of living in a universe completely determined by a written 'code book' which governs every aspect of their life is the same.

In that way, revolution just becomes one of the billion things that is governed by the Torah and distinguishes Jews and Samaritans from anyone else on the planet. This is true in antiquity and it is true today. To argue that Jews could have been 'completely different' in antiquity with respect to this determined existence - an existence completely determined by this book - is absurd and only demonstrates we are not dealing with serious scholars here.

[Stephan Huller]

Mr Stupid

That's racist & bigotted nonsense.

Whatever. I have just finished my third book on the history of soccer tactics - Inverting the Pyramid - and the author goes into great detail about the introduction of soccer around the world (interestingly enough it was Jews who first developed soccer in South America) and everything I have said in this thread about soccer derives from this and the previous two books. What the fuck do you know about soccer?

Soccer has very few rules.

Mr Stupid answered my question for me.

[Stephan Huller]

Mr CF

Is this a race card? A Religion" card? I suppose me can't truly understand the transubstantiation if one wasn't raised Catholic. I agree with Neil here, you can't assume an understanding of first century Judaism by extrapolating from modern Judaism.

Obviously you have nothing to add to this conversation or else you would have made a point.

[Stephan Huller]

Again I ask the enlightened members of this thread to explain to me - since the slavish devotion to the Law would only have been stronger, not weaker in antiquity, why we should expect that Jews would revolt 'just like any other' bunch of assholes in antiquity? The pagan world was not governed by a 'rule book,' the Jews were but somehow they're all the same when it comes to armed rebellion. Nonsense.

[MrMacSon]

What's with this 'first century' vs 'modern' debates? I am sorry but you people don't know what the fuck you are talking about. The Samaritans and the Jews split 2500 years ago and they aren't that different in the general shape of their religion. Guess why? Because there's no freedom in any of this. It's not a race card or religion card it's a - know what the fuck you are talking about - card.

FFS. It's not about Samaritans versus the Jews; it's hardly about "freedom"; nor race; nor inter-religious conflict per se.

[Stephan Huller]

More on soccer. Here are some funny bits from Inverting the Pyramid. The British were so lofty they had these ridiculous notions about how the game should be played. The ball at first always had to be moved forward because it was deemed to be 'manly.' It was also unmanly to pass the ball in the early years, marking people was similarly eschewed. They played with five upfront and only one or two back (hence the title 'inverting the pyramid') this was because offense was again deemed masculine and defending effeminate.

Of course all of this was tactically disastrous for the British as soon as other cultures began to add their spin on the game. The Italians in the first two World Cups had soldiers playing for Mussolini hacking everything that moved and winning by brute force. The British were still playing a gentlemanly game. When the game moved to South America it got even worse.