Jesus always emphasizes the importance of the disciples winning converts. From the very beginning this is identified as their mission. Hence, we read in Mark 1:17 that:
Jesus Calls His First Disciples
16As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. 17And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I WILL MAKE YOU BECOME FISHERS OF MEN.” 18Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.…
We are beginning to ask about the extent to which the Greeks may have influenced the New Testament. But who were the Greeks? What was their essence?
Jacob Burckhardt, adopting the insight of his teacher Bockh, structured his teaching of the Greeks around the ground that “the Hellenes were more unhappy than most people think (in Heidegger, Parmenides lectures, 90; also cf. Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy, 40).” A young Nietzsche attained an auditors transcript of this lecture by Burckhardt and, as Heidegger says, “cherished the manuscript as his most precious treasure (90).”
john76 said
We are beginning to ask about the extent to which the Greeks may have influenced the New Testament. But who were the Greeks? What was their essence?Jacob Burckhardt, adopting the insight of his teacher Bockh, structured his teaching of the Greeks around the ground that “the Hellenes were more unhappy than most people think (in Heidegger, Parmenides lectures, 90; also cf. Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy, 40).” A young Nietzsche attained an auditors transcript of this lecture by Burckhardt and, as Heidegger says, “cherished the manuscript as his most precious treasure (90).”
If anyone is interested in exploring further the theme of the “tragic” interpretation of the ancient Greek existence, you can check out my Master’s thesis on this topic, which is posted in full online here: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Just click on the above link and then scroll down and click on View/Open
john76 said
john76 said
We are beginning to ask about the extent to which the Greeks may have influenced the New Testament. But who were the Greeks? What was their essence?Jacob Burckhardt, adopting the insight of his teacher Bockh, structured his teaching of the Greeks around the ground that “the Hellenes were more unhappy than most people think (in Heidegger, Parmenides lectures, 90; also cf. Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy, 40).” A young Nietzsche attained an auditors transcript of this lecture by Burckhardt and, as Heidegger says, “cherished the manuscript as his most precious treasure (90).”
If anyone is interested in exploring further the theme of the “tragic” interpretation of the ancient Greek existence, you can check out my Master’s thesis on this topic, which is posted in full online here: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Just click on the above link and then scroll down and click on View/Open
What? Heidegger’s tragic Greeks: the relation between presence and deinon
what is presence (it could go without saying but defining terms is good)
what is deinon?
Well, the description of the thesis says this:
This thesis deals with the problem of Heidegger’s relation to the Greeks, specifically in terms of his understanding of the Greeks and presence.
It is the position of this dissertation that the Greek notion of presence is, as Heidegger understands it, the homeliness of the hearth that radiates through all the things that humans concern themselves with.
This is thought by Heidegger, as the Greeks did, specifically in contrast with the uncanninesslunhomeliness of the hqrnan apart from his or her concern with things.
{John76, Please rewrite the above sentence.}
Therefore, the thesis is an attempt at exposing the relation between presence and the unhomely by situating it withing Greek existence and the meaning of the Greek Philosopher.
Also in the description is this:
This fundamental attunement {possibly to boredom} is, in tum, similar to what the Greeks understood as the deinon, the uncanninesslunhomeliness {There’s that word again.} of the human.
= = =
The Greeks were unhappy so some like St. Stephen found hope in Jesus? Can you bring the topic back to Christianity in Antiquity?
I don’t buy it.
“Sounds like” don’t cut it. Unless one author in antiquity directly quotes another there’s simply no way to establish influence. All of the imagery in the New Testament can be associated with imagery in the Hebrew Bible without resorting to dubious conspiracy theories. Jesus mythicism relies too heavily on ad hoc hypotheses and idiosyncratic interpretations of scripture. Following Occam’s Razor the simplest explanation that fits what we do know tends to be the best one. In this case that there was a historical figure named Jesus who preached the coming Kingdom of God and whose disciples used their own tradition to interpret the meaning of his life and teachings after his murder by the Romans.
I think the followers of Jesus (including Paul) were sharing sincerely held beliefs. One doesn’t find in the New Testament anything approaching the sophistication of Plato or Euripides.
john76 said
And it was well known among the wise and the rulers in the ancient world how much of a good thing it could be to invent a God for political reasons: see ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Who are you trying to convince? Do you think you’ve stumbled into some breeding ground for future mythicists here? Reading Daily KOS is like reading Bleacher Report: lemmings reading articles written Pied Pipers, neither of whom know their you know what from a hole in the ground.
gmatthews said
john76 said
And it was well known among the wise and the rulers in the ancient world how much of a good thing it could be to invent a God for political reasons: see ** you do not have permission to see this link **Who are you trying to convince? Do you think you’ve stumbled into some breeding ground for future mythicists here? Reading Daily KOS is like reading Bleacher Report: lemmings reading articles written Pied Pipers, neither of whom know their you know what from a hole in the ground.
Serapis (Σέραπις, Attic/Ionian Greek) or Sarapis (Σάραπις, Doric Greek) is a Graeco-Egyptian god. Cult of Serapis was introduced during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm.
gmatthews said
Well, you know what they say: there’s nothing new under the sun.Again I ask: who are you trying to convince here? Are you thinking this is the mythicist meet-up? There are plenty of FB groups for it. Check em out.
There’s nothing wrong with posting stuff here about the possibility that the “Christ Story” was completely or partially made up. Ehrman wrote a book on the topic: “Did Jesus Exist?”
gmatthews said
You and anyone else part of the fringe element are free to engage in conspiracy theorycraft to your heart’s content.
I am new here. Frankly, I appreciated enormously several links given under this topic and others by John76. I understand these links may seem unecessary to someone as learned as you are but I assure you they are of interest for the newbie that I am. Please do not discourage such links, they are good pointers to follow. Thanks.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)
I think the idea of “abandoning one’s family to follow Jesus” was meant to indicate how important it was to the early Jesus movement to go out and “sell” the gospel to the world. We read, for instance,
(A) The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20):
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(B) Sending out Emissaries (Deuteronomy 1; Luke 10:1-3, 17-30)
Robert M. Price points out that just as Moses had chosen twelve spies to reconnoiter the land which stretched “before your face,” sending them through the cities of the land of Canaan, so does Jesus send a second group, after the twelve, a group of seventy, whose number symbolizes the nations of the earth who are to be conquered, so to speak, with the gospel in the Acts of the Apostles. He sends them out “before his face” to every city he plans to visit (in Canaan, too, obviously).