Jesus was a communist
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After some research I have unearthed documentary and historical evidence that Jesus was undoubtedly a 'communist'. He certainly kept company with some very dodgy characters. Could that be Vol One in front of him? Or perhaps the Communist Manifesto?
Funny you should mention Marx because there is a connexion. When Marx moved in "Young Hegelian" circles in the early 1840s before he became a revolutionary socialist and was just a radical democrat and atheist one of his associates, indeed influences, was Bruno Bauer. As Marx moved to becoming a socialist they fell out and Marx wrote a couple of polemics against him, The Holy Family and The Jewish Question. Bauer went on to develop the view that Jesus was not a historical figure but a myth. According to this, he was the first to do so:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bauer#Argument_against_the_existence_of_JesusAccording to Maximilien Rubel and Margaret Manale in Marx With Myth:
Quote:During the winter 1855-56 Marx had several visits with his estranged friend Bruno Bauer, who was spending some time in England. Marx described Bauer as a light-hearted old gentleman, a confirmed bachelor as always, and hazarded the guess that Bauer wanted to introduce 'scientific theology', now dead in Germany, in England.I suppose that shows Marx's lack of interest in Bauer's theories but at least shows he was aware of them.
i Marx et al wasn’t the first to come up with myth theory. We did a history on libcom. It seems the first was French Jacobin type in the 1790’s and there were a couple of other in the early 1800’s. Wietling , ‘friend’ of Marx might have been one of the first to do commumist Christian thing. He wrote an interesting very rare pamphlet in the early 1840’s . The first half of it is pretty shit and boring in a theological sense. But then there was a chapter on abolishing money and stuff like that. Its available online in german and there is a modern English translation under copyright. Wietling himself did his English translation of it after he escaped to the US. There is a copy of it in an American University.
i There have been some other fairly recent interesting developments. The essenes were communists. That quote from Rosa actually comes from Josephus on the Essenes there is a similar one philo of cira 40AD Thus; It was indeed in this way that the first Christian communities were organized. A contemporary wrote, "“these do not believe in fortunes, but they preach collective property and no one among them possesses more than the others. He who wishes to enter their order is obliged to put his fortune into their common property. That is why there is amoung them neither poverty nor luxury – all possessing all in common like brothers. They do not live in a city apart, but in each they have houses for themselves. If any stangers belonging to their religion come there, they share their property with them, and they can benefit from it as if it their own. Those people, even if previously unknown to each other, welcome one another, and their relations are very friendly. When travelling they carry nothing but a weapon for defence against robbers. In each city they have their steward, who distributes clothing and food to the travellers. Trade does not exist among them. However, if one of the members offers to another some object which he needs, he receives some other objects in exchange. But each can demand what he needs even if he can give nothing in exchange.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/socialism-churches.htm There has long been a ‘dispute’ that the timelines and content of the crucifixtion narrative is garbage and impossible. However it has recently come to light that the essence celebrated Passover on a different date to the ‘orthodox’ Judaism fixing the date from ‘solar calendar’rather than lunar etc. It was in the dead sea schrolls and before that nobody knew about it. That meant that the dates could be different by quite a lot normally the essene Passover date came several days or even weeks after the other. On 30AD the essene date fell one day before the orthodox date. Then when you re look at it everything becomes possible and credible and the version in John doesn’t contradict the synoptic versions. It has been ‘accepted’ by the catholic church in 2007. The traditional site for the last supper. (I know that is a bit wobbly but the had these sites marked out by 240AD as can be seen in contra celsum ) Was in the essene quarter of Jerusalem. Essene quarter has been identified from stuff in Josephus and archaeology . They had special baths and toilets. They weren’t allowed to go for a shit in Jerusalem and had to go outside the city walls etc and the first communist toilet has been located and excavated. But the Essenes were misogynistic and their communism looked monastic and JC certainly wasn’t misogynistic like Paul and was a radical feminist for the times. That amongst other things seems to rule out JC as an essene but it might depend on whether or not the JC movement was picking and mixing their theology and Ideology. Roman of JC was a communist fame didn’t like the idea. On Marx, chemistry, Greek atheists and JC there is a Democritus pun in the gospel of John with JC talking to loose Samaritan women at the well. Karl did his phd thesis on Democritus and includes the truth comes out from the bottom of a deep well thing. That silenced Roman for a few days in the middle of a no Hellenistic philosophy influence on JC.
i The poor sinner's gospel (Das Evangelium eines armen Sünders; 1845 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Weitling
Interview with the author of "All things in common"https://youtu.be/6Q0xfi2oYPc
FYI josephus qote on 'communist' essenes is at link below chapter 8 http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/war-2.htm
i8Post 15 …..It's a pity Celsus's book didn't survive (i.e was destroyed by the christians) but, from the juicy extraxcts, it sounds a good read too. I think the Jews of the time also said Jesus was the bastard son of a Roman soldier…….. As an update really as something I said earlier about an anti Christian document by Porphyry circa 300AD being destroyed and not knowing what was in it wasn’t precisely true. There is another manuscript possibly comnected to it which contains much anti christian material. The ‘complete’ and extensively quoted anti christian material contained in it is dated as probably originating and have been written by Sossianus Hierocles around 310 AD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sossianus_Hierocles And perhaps at least plagarised from the anti Christian book by Porphyry. The anti christian material is, on its own interesting, as an extremely sophisticated textual criticism of the gospel material questioning its accuracy, logical and material impossibilities, as well as a forensic analysis of material contradictions between the gospel documents themselves. Again there is an absence of a JC historical myth analysis. The book from which it originated presents itself as dialogue or debate between an anti Christian and a Christian as with origen’s contra celsum. And as such contains a quite modern and first rational attack on the gospel material. And for that alone should be an entertaining and historical read for anti Christians. From a historical political perspective the anti Christian from circa 300AD then clearly views and objects to the gospel material and Christianity as an act of theological class warfare, attack and hostility towards and against the rich. And gospel material and Christianity was fabricated by the ‘poor’ in their own interests. The anti Christian representative of the ruling class and rich of 300AD unlike modern anti Christians clearly doesn’t interpret it as a positive thing in keeping the poor happy with their lot etc. More like a protest against the early Christian idea that the rich are shits because they are rich. Thus mirroring the analysis of ‘Marxist’ like Rosa , Kautsky and Engels from 1500 years later who also viewed it as such; from the opposite perspective? CHAPTER V. Objection based on the saying about the camel going through the eye of a needle (Matt. xix. 24, etc.).Let us examine another saying even more baffling than these, when he says, "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle,than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven."If it be indeed the case that any one who is rich is not brought into the so-called kingdom of heaven though he have kept himself from the sins of life, such as murder, theft, adultery, cheating, impious oaths, body-snatching, and the wickedness of sacrilege, of what use is just dealing to righteous men, if they happen to be rich ? And what harm is there for poor men in doing every unholy deed of baseness ?For it is not virtue that takes a man up to heaven, but lack of possessions. For if his wealth shuts out the rich man from heaven, by way of contrast his poverty brings a poor man into it. And so it becomes lawful, when a man has learnt this lesson, to pay no regard to virtue, but without let or hindrance to cling to poverty alone, and the things that are most base. This follows from poverty being able to save the poor man, while riches shut out the rich man from the undefiled abode.Wherefore it seems to me that these cannot be the words of Christ, if indeed he handed down the rule of truth, but of some poor men who wished, as a result of such vain talking, to deprive the rich of their substance. http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/macarius_apocriticus.htm#THE DATE OF THE APOCRITICUS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle
There was a light-hearted programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning about Lucian, including a mention of his satire on the christians of his day and a claim that this was an earlier version of The Live of Brian:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0910n6sHe was a good bloke who should be better known.
I appreciate the interest. :)First thing about the historical Jesus: There is no doubt in historical scholarship that Jesus of Nazareth existed and that the basic picture they paint of how people viewed him is correct (an apocalyptic prophet, social agitator, torah polemicist, and exorcist/miracle worker from Nazareth who, while in Jerusalem, got hiimself in trouble by causing trouble in the Temple and got himself killed by the Roman State for sedition with the sanction of the High Priesthood). The sources are there, they agree on the basic outline, and yes Josephus did refer to Jesus of Nazareth, yes there was interpolation, but we know what was interpolated and what wasn't. The evidence for the historicity of Jesus is as good as anyone else in the ancient world, we have more than we would expect. Also yes Paul knew Jesus as a historical figure, but his main argument was that Jesus as a historical figure wasn't as important as the idea of himi (his opponants would argue that he didn't actually know Jesus in the flesh). The opponants of Christianity attacked the Gospels as writing things that were false, but NOBODY questioned the historical Jesus up until around the 19th century, where it ingered for a bit and then died, in scholarship that is.Whether or not Christianity is true or not is a different issue altogether, but if you're going to argue against the historical Jesus to argue that Christianity is untrue you're really up shit creek; it's like trying to argue against evolution to prove that God exists … you're gonna be up shit creek without a paddle.The actual facts in my book I will stand behind 100%, the evidence for Christian communities around the Roman world in the latter half of the first century through the second century that practiced communism to a signifiacnt degree (so much so that it stood out as strange to the outside word) is overwhelming.
roman wrote:The evidence for the historicity of Jesus is as good as anyone else in the ancient world, we have more than we would expect.Who are these other figures in the ancient word the evidence for whose existence is as "good" (or as flimsy) as Jesus's. A few names please. Thanks.
'Eye witness accounts' are notoriously unreliable. How many people have been in 'alien spaceships' and how many more claim to have seen one?
Spartacus, for one, has MUCH less evidence for his historicity than Jesus. All second hand accounts, no one from his actual community, and, all accounts after his death. I'm not sure what source criticism has been done on the Sparticus account, but I'm quite sure there are probably only one or two sources which the ancient historians used.The High Priest Ciaphas, Ponteus Pilate, and so on.We would expect MUCH MORE evidence for those guys than we would for Jesus (given that during his lifetime Jesus was just another rabble rousing prophet, most of whome we don't know anything about, and a few who get a passing mention in Josephus).For Jesus we have many indepentant sources (Q, Mark, Paul, John, Matthew and Lukes individual sources) with varying degrees of historicity all of which agree on the basics, and the basics fit with everything else we know about second temple Judaism.
Eye witness accounts are unreliable, but aphorisms are likely to be studiously learned, so their consistency is telling.But the point is that the historical biological entity called may well have existed, but he is utterly irrelevent behind the mythical construct, much like Pythagoras – or, indeed, Spartacus: we know his name, and reputation (though I believe there is some archaeological evidence for the slave revolt as well — e.g. http://www.um.es/cepoat/pantarei/?p=6751).Jesus wasn't a king, left little by way of material monuments (only his cult remained, and there is a lot of evidence for that, but we know its doctorines and narratives were highly adaptive).We can look at mohammed also, the written account of his life came, IIRC, about 60 years after his death, except his community engaged in strict authority control over the text, and also there is archaeological evidence of Arab conquest and war.The most we can reliably say is that there was a teacher in Judeah, who was probably executed by crucifixion. We can say for certain that there was a school of thoughht around that teacher, and with a high probability, we know some of the things he was teaching.
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