[MD] What's missing

[Case]

> [Case]
> This is simply misinformed. Jesus's teaching were straight from the
> Jewish law. From the greatest commandment (Deuteronomy) to the golden
> rule (Leviticus) to his statement that he came to fulfill the law not
> to abolish it, Jesus was a true blue Jew.

I have the suffocating feeling of being drawn into some detail jungle by
you. It's a fact that Jesus was in conflict with the establishment - and in
that region such meant religious conflict (it still does) His agenda had the
air of things to come, and it's no coincidence that he came to spawn a new
"sect" of Judaism that at first was much like the "parent" but by and by
came to oppose it strongly and hopefully will break totally free some day.


[Case]
I did not raise this matter you did. The question of Jesus' conception of
himself and his mission is somewhat controversial. The gospels give
conflicting accounts and the events that ultimately shaped modern
Christianity occurred after his death. During his life time his beef was
with the Romans who control the kingdom and installed quislings in priestly
office. Claiming that he was in conflict with religious authority amounts to
the same thing as saying he was in conflict with secular authority.

[Bo]
Yes, this is well known, but I apply the MOQ and as usual it sheds a new and
revealing light on history  ... as it does on our own times.

[Case]
Agreed.

[Bo]
Well, that of making the Law an inner, subjective thing ("heart" was
equivalent to our "mind") may be significant and shows the shape of things
to come.  Neither Judaism nor Islam bothers much with that distinction if
people just observe the rules and regulations all is well. 

[Case]
I think that is a pretty simplistic view of Judaism and Islam.

[Bo]
Regarding the said parable, it may have HAD the meaning you suggest - Jesus
weren't able to free himself from his times completely -  but at least it
has become the known one of love and compassion.  

[Case]
I think the parable means that love and compassion are to be found in deeds
not in words. I am not sure how this has changed over the intervening
centuries.

[Bo]
OK, but look at it this way, Martin Luther's OWN mission was to cleanse
Christendom of the Church's many vices, but by doing so he inadvertently
started a movement that led to (the old type's) fall from power. I think
Jesus influence can be seen the same way, he surely didn't visualize any
"Christendom" but wanted to shake up the bigot establishment and thus
"inadvertently" started a new religion that - after some centuries of being
"in the service of the old" - took off on a purpose of its own.      

[Case]
As near as we can tell from his own words Jesus sought to hasten the coming
of the Kingdom of God. In doing so he pissed off the Romans. He actually did
little or nothing to affect conditions during or even after his lifetime in
this regard. The Romans got feed up with Jewish resistance and basically
wiped them out in a sense destroying what Jesus wanted to reform. Jesus'
impact that you see today is the result of reinterpretations of his mission
that occurred centuries after his death. But this is more about a religion
started by Paul than by Jesus.

[Bo]
Your "social" is the trite one of a country or a nation , but it's better
displayed by the Jews who do not belong to anything but religion - exactly
as the Muslims do (the one major social pattern according to Pirsig) The
orthodox Jew doesn't even belong to Israel. 

[Case]
Jews are best thought of as belonging to a culture. But their religion and
culture are but directed to strengthening the family and preserving their
way of life.
     
[Bo]
My point was that Christendom  was such before the said watershed. The
pioneers of the re-born intellectual level had to watch out as Bruno's case
shows. It was not until the Enlightenment that the said level began to
dominate the social level (religious)  If Augustine and Aquinas were
intellectual LEVEL thinkers ...?      

[Case]
It seems to me that by insisting that "intellect" only occurs with a
particular style of thinking, you narrow it down to something insignificant
in the large scheme of things.

[Bo]
The resentment theory is false, the Japanese had the bomb dropped on them,
were occupied and humiliated in every conceivable way. But this did not
result in resentment but a will to beat the victors in their own field -
technology and economy - and now China - humiliated by both the West and
East - is coming along the same track. It's plain as day that the Islamist
terror has nothing to do with invasion or looting, rather their notorious
purists again out to cleanse themselves by showing so much devotion and will
to sacrifice.      

[Case]
The Japanese were dealt their greatest humiliation when Commodore Perry
steamed into Tokyo in 1852. The realization that others were masters of the
planet and they were just backwater fisherman shocked the Japanese. In less
than 100 years they absorbed 2000 years of western culture and spit it back
in the face of the west. They went from swords to Zeros in less then four
generations. This is unprecedented in human history. With their defeat of
the Russians in Manchuria in 1905 they may have been the only indigenous
people to have defeated a western power during the colonial period.

But let's face it Bo, all this speculation about the meaning of history and
the forces that shape the present is just reading of tea leaves. You see
this, I see that, so what? It only serves to illustrate a point I have often
made: the past is no less probabilistic than the future.

Especially in the case of early Christianity, what we believe about those
historical events is of far larger significance than the events themselves.