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I'm not picking verses though, I'm talking about the overall theme of the gospels.
The narrative consistently has Jesus praising the poor and shunned while condemning the religious and rich. He tells people to lay off a prostitute, interacts face to face with lepers, and talks about how a friendly foreigner is better than indifferent countrymen. And he constantly calls out the hypocritical religious people.
I'm not Christian, but I think Jesus' actions and teachings are worth following in these regards. Helping the poor, telling religious zealots to fuck off, and providing food for everyone. A political party that actually embodies what Jesus does would effectively be a communist + socialist group.
I highly recommend reading through the gospels as literature, if only to throw it back at evangelicals in their face. Remind them how Jesus promised damnation to those who don't help the poor, when they start going on about entitlement programs and policies that hurt the poor.
You are picking and choosing verses. I can do it as well. In Matthew we are told that he is for the lost sheep of Israel, only. Sure charity is great but for your tribe. In John we are told that he (and this the church) is more important than charity. In Mark sure he cures the leper but only after yelling at him*.
You mention that he tells religious leaders to fuck off but you fail to mention that he told the leper to go to a Rabbi right after curing him so he could go through the repentance ritual. In Matthew again he tells his followers that not one particular of the law will be removed.
Of course you probably think the stoning of the adulteress story was in the original text, but whatever. Go read the Sermon on the Mount again and tell me that is the same guy who was sex positive.
Everyone reinvents Jesus in their own image. You want him to be a hippie communist so you pick verses that make him one. The evangelicals want him to only be concerned with his own tribe and to hell with the rest (quite literally says as much in Mark 4:11-12) so they got their verses. Like warfare? Jesus tells his followers to cast his dead enemies bodies in front of him. Like fascism? He tells his followers to follow the government. The man is a Rorschach test.
Go ahead and read the Gospels as literature. I encourage it. Mark invented the empty tomb and we find other Roman writers using empty tombs as a motif to signify that some mortal ascended to godhead. Last supper? We got a novel (predating Paul) of a Greek guy hosting a dinner party and telling everyone there how he is going to die tomorrow.
*They viewed that disease how we view STDs but even more so. It was considered a direct punishment from God for bad actions.
Good points. We agree, they're good literature, and like any literature, there are themes and messages you can take home from it. I suppose you're right though that you can interpret the gospels to fit whatever your existing ideology is. I have interpret most of the passages you present differently -- but, I agree your viewpoint is valid and has merit.
I very much prefer discussing this academically vs religiously. It's rather fascinating how it's written to be acceptable to almost all viewpoints.
Well the thing is these stories didn't happen. They were the picked by the authors from various other literature works. The total lack of a unified voice means that you can slap archetypes on rapidly. Part of the reason you will see that people who believe in the historical Jesus will insist that they alone have culled through the layers to find the actual man.
It is like the Joker. Over his near century run the Joker has become every possible villain. From a gutter junkie, to an urban terrorist, to a Mafia kingpin, to a harmless trickster, to a gimmick serial killer, to a literal evil godlike being, to an immortal force, to a very mortal criminal, to a fourth wall breaking super genius, to a rent a terrorist, to a gang leader, to a victim pushed too far, to a chemist and failed comedian, to a former special ops rogue, to emo BDSM, to gay for Batman wearing makeup dandy.......
Since Jesus never existed he could be whatever people needed him to be and since the Roman-Greek/Jewish world was highly prolific at store writing it was possible for writers to dip into the rich traditions and pull out stories that everyone had some familiarity with. The NT is derivative and the older the chapter the more obvious the derivative.
Yeah, and then you've got things like the virgin birth which features in a lot of religions. Plus as it grew more popular, it took over some pagan traditions as well.
I'm not sure what the latest scholarly consensus is on if he even existed or not, but if he did, he wasn't born around Christmas. The date was chosen to match a pagan holiday.
Scholary consensus is that he did exist however scholary consensus is that the resurrection was a true event and a man named Mark wrote the first gospel. So yeah turns out the majority of people who make a living studying the Bible believe in accuracy of the Bible, big surprise.
I prefer to look at evidence and see where it goes.
I guess it would come down to what historians in general think. Although part of that also requires us to know the historians religions.