Book of the Day

[kippurbird]

Book of the Day: Christ was Not a Jew: An epistle to the Gentiles, By Jacob Elon Conner. Published 1936

Inside copy:

This book is addressed to all Gentiles, whether Christians or otherwise.

The words "Catholic" and "Protestant" are not to be found in it.

It is historical and analytical in treatment, not doctrinal.

It is not "preachy" - it is not irreverent. It is factual.

It is not iconoclastic; but it does draw a line of demarcation between Christianity and the primitiveness of Judaism.

Those who say, "It makes no difference from what race Christ came," are wrong, for that is only a personal attitude, ignoring the historical truth, and "Half truth is whole error."

It is the Jewish writers who insist that Christ was of their race.

Reason tells us that Christ was not a Jew, history confirms the dictates of reason, and Christ said, "We do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles."

This book shows how and why that error originated, and why it must be rectified. It is vital to Christianity.

Comments

[christinathena.livejournal.com]

He wasn't? Say what?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Um, so how big of a dent did it make in the wall?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Not that big. It is paperback and in need of repair.

I shall have to copy out the inside book about text too.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Nope! Not at all.

Inside text copy coming at lunch.

[yattara.livejournal.com]

Bzuh? Makes me wonder what he was instead. American?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Galilean.

[ashen_key]

It is the Jewish writers who insist that Christ was of their race.

Apparently I'm Jewish, then. I NEVER KNEW.

*facepalms, facepalms, facepalms*

[emily-goddess.livejournal.com]

Ew.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

"Me do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles."

Ah, I see. Apparently Christ was a caveman.

[ravenswept.livejournal.com]

Atlantian.

[kd7sov]

"Reason tells us"?

Reason tells me that if his mother was of Jewish ancestry and faith, he would have been also of Jewish ancestry, and if I understand the customs correctly would have been considered a Jew regardless of his father's identity.

[kjtaylor.livejournal.com]

What a strange book.
I don't believe there was any such person as Jesus. Sure, they make it sound plausible, but ancient mythology from all over the world is packed with messianic figures born of virgin mothers who rose from the grave after three days. Hell of a coincidence, don't you think?

Personally, I'd rather worship the Greek gods if I had to be religious. The modern day gods are just giant Mary Sues in the sky; the Green deities, on the other hand, are much more well developed and believeable.

(Yes, I'm judging people's religions by their literary merit. What of it?).

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

AH. But she was not of Jewish Decent. At least, I think that's what he'll be saying.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Jews generally believe that there was this guy, you know, and his name was Jesus, you know and he was a rabbi, you know and his cult - there were a lot of them back then - just got lucky you know.

But other than that, he was just this guy. Original translations say it was a 'maiden' not a 'virgin' too.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Isn't that funny how it works?

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

I don't want to start an argument, but the general concensus of scholars is that Jesus existed. I would refer you to Bart Ehrman's Truth and Fiction Behind the Da Vinci Code which, obviously, debunks the Da Vinci code but also does a good job on other myths.

[kjtaylor.livejournal.com]

Hey! You're not allowed to argue with me; that's religious discrimination or something!

Yes, there may have been a real person behind all the stories, but I was referring to the magical super-guy version. But I'm not really in the mood for a debate, so let's just leave it at that.

[kjtaylor.livejournal.com]

"We believe he was a very well-designed robot, but he wasn't the robot Messiah". :)

I heard about the "maiden" thing. I also heard that the 72 virgins of Islam may be a mistranslation of "raisins". Really. (OMGs, they get dried fruit in the afterlife! I'm converting immediately!).

[jessaj.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with this, all those stories and all were propaganda spread by his followers after his death.
Which sounds better, a rabbi with this to say, or the son of God with this to say?

[(Anonymous)]

I heard somewhere that they got the definition of virgin wrong, that it actually meant a woman of marriageable age and not someone who hadn't had sex.

[autarkhos.livejournal.com]

Well, pretty much everyone admits there was a man (probably called Joshua) who preached a bunch of stuff and got quite a few people riled up. Most of the faiths also admit that he was, at least, a prophet of god. The issue comes when you take into account the claims that he was the Son of God.

And we don't have religious freedom. :( We're atheists.

[kjtaylor.livejournal.com]

Nobody cares about offending us athiests. But that's probably because we don't murder people for it, or start wars.
*smug*

Well, I've come across a school of thought which says that there was no such person at all, because of the complete absence of any contemporary reports. Most likely the stories that sprang up later on were based upon an amalgamation of several different people (apparently there were a lot of self-proclaimed "prophets" back then), with some mythology added for spice. Hell, there are plenty of modern-day "messiahs", and their own followers make all sorts of claims about their supposed powers. It just goes to show that this sort of thing has been going on for a long time.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Pffft. Galileo wasn't even around then.