Thread: Christianity Buff

Great clip by the way. She's not my type, but the classy jazz,the deep cognitive nature of the poem, coupled with a hot model is a sure fire way to grab my attention.

Originally Posted by Potemkine

So in other words, Elaine Paigel wrote a more academic work breaking down and explaining the book of revelations. And essentially coming to an almost paternalistic conclusion that the work was actually a product of the times that it was created, and not written by any of the original "supposed" disciples.

Basically another book that shows how Christians really don't bother to read and ACTUALLY try to understand the context OR the history of the bible.

That pretty much sums it up, right?

I guess that's one way to sum it up. That's not what I got out of it, though.

John's writings read like the ravings of a madman (if you don't have faith), or the apocalyptic sermon of a prophet speaking his visions in tongues. That's how most people I know approach it - as a prophetic vision.

I'd never before heard Pagels' interpretation put quite that way before - that Revelations is the perfectly rational product of the events and forces at play in that era. Being, ourselves, removed by a couple millennia and a few translations, we're not primed to catch the metaphors and representations. We don't "get it", because we don't have the cultural cues. For us, it reads like zany mythology. But to the people of that time (according to Pagels), it read like thinly-veiled political commentary.

...sort of like how we read 1984 or Animal Farm and see that they are cautionary tale and commentary on the political forces working in our era. Two thousand years form now, Animal Farm might read like an insane story about evil pigs; with no real point, just fucked up pigs who can talk.

So that's partly what I see. I think there are other things going on there that are at least as interesting. I didn't want to iterate them all. I'm already too pedantic. If someone else found any of it interesting, I'd want to let them go first.

The video is, to me, both fascinating and sad.

Cheers,


AetheLove

Originally Posted by AetheLove

I guess that's one way to sum it up. That's not what I got out of it, though.

John's writings read like the ravings of a madman (if you don't have faith)

And that's precisely how I interpreted it.