I’m posting about my distaste for Paul because I am reading “The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity” by talmudic scholar Hyam Maccoby which is a pretty comprehensive takedown of centuries of pauline apologia
reading all the contradictions between Luke-Acts and Paul’s own letters…..why the fuck you lyiiiiiiing, why you always lyiiiiing
Paul was literally a cop who infiltrated a revolutionary movement and defanged it for broader appeal to the ruling elite while the original leaders were killed. SOUND FAMILIAR
Maccoby’s argument — and it’s a strong one — is that the later you go in the editing of the Gospels the more editing has been added to claim a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees that did not exist. This tendentious Pauline point of view — backed up by Paul’s spurious claims to have once been a Pharisee himself — is the origin of modern Christian anti-semitism and a subversion of the Jerusalem Church, which practiced in harmony with the tolerant and deliberative Pharisee scholars
The Pharisees — at odds with the quisling Sadducees — voted AGAINST the execution of Peter! Come on, man!
“It was of utmost importance to the Gospel editors to represent Jesus as having been a rebel against Jewish religion, not against Roman occupation.”
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“Messiah” was not a blasphemous or anti-Jewish title at the time, and messianic movements were fundamentally about throwing off Roman rule — POLITICAL movements depoliticized by our later deliberately smoothed-out understanding of the situation
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@kate I recall religion class at my school loved to focus on a particular part of gospel where Jesus criticized Rabbis who spent more time dining with Romans and living in luxury than tending to the people. Which is a valid criticism against people cuddling up with the oppressor. Except school would then frame this as, roughly "Jesus saw the Jewish way of life had been corrupted and needed to create a new on: the christian one". Uuuuuuh damn...
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@kate Matthew 23, took a while to remember.
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@kate Reading the actual text a bit, it doesn't mention the romans per se, just " uppermost places at feasts ". Still, teachers were there to give that interpretation to it.
@kate adding this to my list
Here’s the PDF of this book https://ia801606.us.archive.org/4/items/B-001-001-718/B-001-001-718.pdf