Part 2 - again about the film mentioned in post 175 (Bodhi):
I have one question. When they are so ready to jump on a <i>mere one-century-old book</i> that is not even an apocryphal gospel, why don't they instead opt for an actual apocryphal one instead? One of those authentic, real, original fictions called 'gospels' in other words - that mass 'literature' that was written by the gospel scribbling people during the centuries of gospel scribbling.
All the gospels of the early centuries are frauds and forgeries of course (not written by any of the 4 Gospelers, or Thomas; nor were they even written in the alleged jeebus' time), as major scholars and historians have documented - but then, so is jeebus. But filming the original gospel frauds certainly wouldn't infringe on the moviemakers' conscience.
<b>So why not make a movie on that "Gospel of Infancy of Jesus" - the one where charming young jeebus goes around striking other kids dead:</b>
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/...4/4devol94.html via
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As a boy, Jesus was playing on a river bank on the Sabbath. Another boy came along and saw young Jesus making fish pools and became righteously indignant over Jesus' breaking of the Sabbath laws. The boy set about destroying the pools, whereupon Jesus struck him dead. In the same chapter, Jesus struck another boy dead for bumping into him while running in the street (I Infancy 19).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->They should really film this gospel, which - going by its early age - is far and away more 'authentic' than the one-century-old aquarian gawdspell. Can you imagine how audiences would emote with the boyhood jeebus and his 'benevolent' antics towards other kids? It would certainly start making sense to them how his homicidal non-existent boyhood led to his non-existent adulthood and how that led to the very real homicidal historic record of christianism.
http://www.cygnus-study.com/pageinf.html has the original translated:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"The Gospel of Infancy Thomas" - as translated by Harold Attridge & Ronald F. Hock in the book
The Complete Gospels, Harper Collins, ©1992<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is the source from which India's Syrian christians always told their story of "jesus clapped his hands and the birds he had drawn flew away". Well it has other stories too, not just those of random acts of healing and bringing to life (common motifs in that region in those days), but also of jesus suddenly striking down people with death (rather like jehovallah's whimsical is-he-a-friend-or-foe routine with gawd smiting people and populations down left and right):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->3 The son of Annas the scholar, standing there with <b>Jesus</b>, took a willow branch and drained the water Jesus had collected. (2)Jesus, however, saw what had happened and became angry, saying to him, "<b>Damn you</b>, you irreverent fool! What harm did the ponds of water do to you? From this moment you, too, will dry up like a tree, and you'll never produce leaves or root or bear fruit."
(3) In an instant the boy had completely withered away. Then Jesus departed and left for the house of Joseph. (4)<b>The parents of the boy who had withered away picked him up and were carrying him out, sad because he was so young.</b> And they came to Joseph and accused him: "It's your fault - your boy did this."
<b>4 Later he was going through the village again when a boy ran and bumped him on the shoulder. Jesus got angry and said to him, "You won't continue your journey." (2)And all of a sudden, he fell down and died.</b>
(3)Some people saw what had happened and said, "Where has this boy come from? Everything he says happens instantly!"
(4)The parents of the dead boy came to Joseph and blamed him saying, "Because you have such a boy, you can't live with us in the village, or else teach him to bless and not curse. <b>He's killing our children!</b>"<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Isn't that a beautiful bed-time story? "Homicide-Boy Jeebus will come and get you, My Pretty... Good night, sleep tight."
And here's jesus, staunchly remaining illiterate:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->14 When Joseph saw the child's aptitude, and his great intelligence for his age, he again <b>resolved that Jesus should not remain illiterate</b>. So he took him and handed him over to another teacher. (2)The teacher said to Joseph, "First I'll teach him Greek, then Hebrew." This teacher, of course, knew of the child's previous experience (with a teacher) and was afraid of him. Still, he wrote out the alphabet and instructed him for quite a while, though Jesus was unresponsive.
(3)Then Jesus spoke: "If you're really a teacher, and if you know the letters well, tell me the meaning of the letter alpha, and I'll tell you the meaning of beta."
(4)The teacher became exasperated and hit him on the head. <b>Jesus got angry and cursed him, and the teacher immediately lost consciousness and fell facedown on the ground.</b>
(5)The Child returned to Joseph's house. But Joseph was upset and gave instruction to his mother: <b>"Don't let him go outside, because those who annoy him end up dead."</b>
15 After some time another teacher, a close friend of Joseph, said to him, "Send the child to my schoolroom. Perhaps with some flattery I can teach him his letters."
(2)Joseph replied, "If you can muster the courage, brother, take him with you." And so he took him along with much fear and trepidation, but the child was happy to go.
(3)Jesus strode boldly into the schoolroom and found a book lying on the desk. <b>He took the book but did not read the letters in it. Rather, he opened his mouth and spoke by (the power of) the holy spirit and taught the law to those standing there.</b>
(4)A large crowd gathered and stood listening to him, and they marveled at the maturity of his teaching and his readiness of speech - a mere child able to say such things.
(5)When Joseph heard about this he feared the worst and ran to the schoolroom, imagining that this teacher was having trouble with Jesus.
(6)But the teacher said to Joseph, "Brother, please know that I accepted this child as a student, but already he's full of grace and wisdom. So I'm asking you, brother, to take him back home."
(7)When the child heard this, he immediately smiled at him and said, "Because you have spoken and testified rightly, that other teacher who was struck down will be healed." And right away he was. Joseph took his child and went home.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Bold bits above:
(1) Why did they want to teach Greek <i>then</i> Hebrew? Interesting. Probably because the people who penned this apocryphal nonsense were either late Greek christians or christians living in Hellenised lands.
(2) So in this gospel, non-existent boy jeebus memorised the OT's confusion on "Jewish Law" and just regurgitated it to them. (Freethought Mecca calls this sort of behaviour Divine Parroting, I believe.) And he remained proudly illiterate. If neither non-existentent jeebus nor any of his apostles could read, why would he want anyone to read the Vedas? But christians never stop fictionising, and so too these filmmakers.
<b>Anyway, it's perhaps right that these moviemakers feel a bit trepidatious about the "Gospel of Infancy of Jesus"</b> credited to "Thomas". After all,
- It involves infant jeebus going about murdering children.
- And the source - like the accepted canon - is "more authentic" because it's far more ancient than the just-one-century-old Aquarian gawdspell.
That would make it a particularly nasty combination for jeebus' PR on the cinema screens. No, no. We must find something better.
Oooh, how about this one: Morton Smith's alleged discovery of <b>"The Secret Gospel of Mark"</b> in the 1950s or something. Some (especially christian) scholars accuse the author (Professor Smith) of having forged it himself. (But that needn't detain the filmmakers either, because it is <i>known</i> the Aquarian gospel nonsense was written but a century back and they're eager to film <i>that</i>!) Other scholars, though, believe the Secret Gospel of Mark which Morton Smith found in the ME is actually authentic - these scholars include Gnostic Gospels expert Elaine Pagels who wrote the foreword to Smith's book on it, and Scott G. Brown (whose written for Biblical Archaeological Review and other biblical journals).
<b>So there <i>is</i> some significant scholarly support for this Gospel. (The discovered/disputed text (quite short) is at http://www.cygnus-study.com/pagesecm.html )According to the accepted interpretation of this gospel: Jeebus is gay here</b>. In any case, in spite of the church having always been so severely against the particular sexual orientation non-existent jeebus reveals in this entry, I just <i>know</i> a movie about this gospel would most definitely endear the christian church and its flock to jeebus. Don't you?
On that note, look what I found! Hysterical:
<b>"Was Jesus Gay", part of "Pat Condell's Godless Comedy"</b>
- mp3 version of it at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/
- video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReYfDlIa-Z8
(from the mp3 listing there, he does a lot on islam and christianity - he's even got one funnily titled as "United States of Jesus")
I have one question. When they are so ready to jump on a <i>mere one-century-old book</i> that is not even an apocryphal gospel, why don't they instead opt for an actual apocryphal one instead? One of those authentic, real, original fictions called 'gospels' in other words - that mass 'literature' that was written by the gospel scribbling people during the centuries of gospel scribbling.
All the gospels of the early centuries are frauds and forgeries of course (not written by any of the 4 Gospelers, or Thomas; nor were they even written in the alleged jeebus' time), as major scholars and historians have documented - but then, so is jeebus. But filming the original gospel frauds certainly wouldn't infringe on the moviemakers' conscience.
<b>So why not make a movie on that "Gospel of Infancy of Jesus" - the one where charming young jeebus goes around striking other kids dead:</b>
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/...4/4devol94.html via
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As a boy, Jesus was playing on a river bank on the Sabbath. Another boy came along and saw young Jesus making fish pools and became righteously indignant over Jesus' breaking of the Sabbath laws. The boy set about destroying the pools, whereupon Jesus struck him dead. In the same chapter, Jesus struck another boy dead for bumping into him while running in the street (I Infancy 19).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->They should really film this gospel, which - going by its early age - is far and away more 'authentic' than the one-century-old aquarian gawdspell. Can you imagine how audiences would emote with the boyhood jeebus and his 'benevolent' antics towards other kids? It would certainly start making sense to them how his homicidal non-existent boyhood led to his non-existent adulthood and how that led to the very real homicidal historic record of christianism.
http://www.cygnus-study.com/pageinf.html has the original translated:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"The Gospel of Infancy Thomas" - as translated by Harold Attridge & Ronald F. Hock in the book
The Complete Gospels, Harper Collins, ©1992<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is the source from which India's Syrian christians always told their story of "jesus clapped his hands and the birds he had drawn flew away". Well it has other stories too, not just those of random acts of healing and bringing to life (common motifs in that region in those days), but also of jesus suddenly striking down people with death (rather like jehovallah's whimsical is-he-a-friend-or-foe routine with gawd smiting people and populations down left and right):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->3 The son of Annas the scholar, standing there with <b>Jesus</b>, took a willow branch and drained the water Jesus had collected. (2)Jesus, however, saw what had happened and became angry, saying to him, "<b>Damn you</b>, you irreverent fool! What harm did the ponds of water do to you? From this moment you, too, will dry up like a tree, and you'll never produce leaves or root or bear fruit."
(3) In an instant the boy had completely withered away. Then Jesus departed and left for the house of Joseph. (4)<b>The parents of the boy who had withered away picked him up and were carrying him out, sad because he was so young.</b> And they came to Joseph and accused him: "It's your fault - your boy did this."
<b>4 Later he was going through the village again when a boy ran and bumped him on the shoulder. Jesus got angry and said to him, "You won't continue your journey." (2)And all of a sudden, he fell down and died.</b>
(3)Some people saw what had happened and said, "Where has this boy come from? Everything he says happens instantly!"
(4)The parents of the dead boy came to Joseph and blamed him saying, "Because you have such a boy, you can't live with us in the village, or else teach him to bless and not curse. <b>He's killing our children!</b>"<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Isn't that a beautiful bed-time story? "Homicide-Boy Jeebus will come and get you, My Pretty... Good night, sleep tight."
And here's jesus, staunchly remaining illiterate:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->14 When Joseph saw the child's aptitude, and his great intelligence for his age, he again <b>resolved that Jesus should not remain illiterate</b>. So he took him and handed him over to another teacher. (2)The teacher said to Joseph, "First I'll teach him Greek, then Hebrew." This teacher, of course, knew of the child's previous experience (with a teacher) and was afraid of him. Still, he wrote out the alphabet and instructed him for quite a while, though Jesus was unresponsive.
(3)Then Jesus spoke: "If you're really a teacher, and if you know the letters well, tell me the meaning of the letter alpha, and I'll tell you the meaning of beta."
(4)The teacher became exasperated and hit him on the head. <b>Jesus got angry and cursed him, and the teacher immediately lost consciousness and fell facedown on the ground.</b>
(5)The Child returned to Joseph's house. But Joseph was upset and gave instruction to his mother: <b>"Don't let him go outside, because those who annoy him end up dead."</b>
15 After some time another teacher, a close friend of Joseph, said to him, "Send the child to my schoolroom. Perhaps with some flattery I can teach him his letters."
(2)Joseph replied, "If you can muster the courage, brother, take him with you." And so he took him along with much fear and trepidation, but the child was happy to go.
(3)Jesus strode boldly into the schoolroom and found a book lying on the desk. <b>He took the book but did not read the letters in it. Rather, he opened his mouth and spoke by (the power of) the holy spirit and taught the law to those standing there.</b>
(4)A large crowd gathered and stood listening to him, and they marveled at the maturity of his teaching and his readiness of speech - a mere child able to say such things.
(5)When Joseph heard about this he feared the worst and ran to the schoolroom, imagining that this teacher was having trouble with Jesus.
(6)But the teacher said to Joseph, "Brother, please know that I accepted this child as a student, but already he's full of grace and wisdom. So I'm asking you, brother, to take him back home."
(7)When the child heard this, he immediately smiled at him and said, "Because you have spoken and testified rightly, that other teacher who was struck down will be healed." And right away he was. Joseph took his child and went home.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Bold bits above:
(1) Why did they want to teach Greek <i>then</i> Hebrew? Interesting. Probably because the people who penned this apocryphal nonsense were either late Greek christians or christians living in Hellenised lands.
(2) So in this gospel, non-existent boy jeebus memorised the OT's confusion on "Jewish Law" and just regurgitated it to them. (Freethought Mecca calls this sort of behaviour Divine Parroting, I believe.) And he remained proudly illiterate. If neither non-existentent jeebus nor any of his apostles could read, why would he want anyone to read the Vedas? But christians never stop fictionising, and so too these filmmakers.
<b>Anyway, it's perhaps right that these moviemakers feel a bit trepidatious about the "Gospel of Infancy of Jesus"</b> credited to "Thomas". After all,
- It involves infant jeebus going about murdering children.
- And the source - like the accepted canon - is "more authentic" because it's far more ancient than the just-one-century-old Aquarian gawdspell.
That would make it a particularly nasty combination for jeebus' PR on the cinema screens. No, no. We must find something better.
Oooh, how about this one: Morton Smith's alleged discovery of <b>"The Secret Gospel of Mark"</b> in the 1950s or something. Some (especially christian) scholars accuse the author (Professor Smith) of having forged it himself. (But that needn't detain the filmmakers either, because it is <i>known</i> the Aquarian gospel nonsense was written but a century back and they're eager to film <i>that</i>!) Other scholars, though, believe the Secret Gospel of Mark which Morton Smith found in the ME is actually authentic - these scholars include Gnostic Gospels expert Elaine Pagels who wrote the foreword to Smith's book on it, and Scott G. Brown (whose written for Biblical Archaeological Review and other biblical journals).
<b>So there <i>is</i> some significant scholarly support for this Gospel. (The discovered/disputed text (quite short) is at http://www.cygnus-study.com/pagesecm.html )According to the accepted interpretation of this gospel: Jeebus is gay here</b>. In any case, in spite of the church having always been so severely against the particular sexual orientation non-existent jeebus reveals in this entry, I just <i>know</i> a movie about this gospel would most definitely endear the christian church and its flock to jeebus. Don't you?
On that note, look what I found! Hysterical:
<b>"Was Jesus Gay", part of "Pat Condell's Godless Comedy"</b>
- mp3 version of it at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/
- video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReYfDlIa-Z8
(from the mp3 listing there, he does a lot on islam and christianity - he's even got one funnily titled as "United States of Jesus")