Yom Kippur, Lent, etc.

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Friday, October 11. 2019

As I understand it in my feeble way (not a theologian, so corrections welcome), there were ancient middle eastern atonement rituals designed to re-align oneself to gods or God. Whatever the rules were.

Like the Greeks, the Jews were prone to animal sacrifice. Human sacrifices were not unusual (see Abraham) but when animals were precious possessions, these were real sacrifices too beyond the symbolic.

Christians didn't keep Yom Kippur because Christ's death was taken as the ultimate sacrifice to cleanse all sins for confessors and believers. A final human sacrifice. However, Mother Church kept weekly confession and Lent anyway. Fortunately, because of human need. I do not get the doctrine of that.

I have a personal confessor, but a Jewish pal and his family do group confession over dinner on Yom Kippur. Even his kids and parents speak out about their dark sides and their shameful actions, and their aspirations to be more worthy of G-d. Wow.

Not in a million years can I imagine my Protestant family doing such a thing.

I read this bit: How Christianity Co-Opted Yom Kippur to Explain Jesus’ Death

I welcome any insights into all of this.

Posted by The Barrister in Religion at 15:25 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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If you read "Caesar and Christ" by Will Durant, he presents evidence that in the years 200 BC to Christ's birth that the Jews had dissent in their ranks and there were many Jewish leaders who had misused their positions and were the cause of the rank and file Jews abandoning the religion. To combat this the religious leaders kept promising the return of the Messiah which was a Jewish belief having nothing to do with "Christianity". Over that 200 year period they created the myth three separate times, of this messiah being born to a poor "virgin" along with the wise men following a star etc. The idea was to bring those errant Jews back into the fold. The last time they did this was the event we all know of and although it too, like the other times, was ignored by Jews a new religion was born based on this fabricated story.

#1 Saul on 2019-10-11 16:23 (Reply)

Wow, The Apostles must have been really dedicated to that "fabricated" story. All except one were murdered for propagating that "fabrication".

#1.1 D (Link) on 2019-10-11 20:50 (Reply)

Possibly, or they were fabricated as well.

#1.1.1 Saul on 2019-10-11 21:41 (Reply)

From my readings of the Old Testament, I realized that most animal sacrifices by the Jews were actually eaten except for the priests' portion which was used to support their "church" - and eaten by the priests - and the fat over the kidneys which was God's portion. Only a minority of sacrifices, such as sin offerings, were destroyed.

#2 Freddie Sykes on 2019-10-11 17:30 (Reply)

As a convert to the Catholic church I find the sacrament of confession extremely difficult and unnerving. It certainly will keep you on your toes and wanting to improve. I think it's important psychologically, and I also decided that it's ultimately rooted in scripture.

#3 Jack Walter on 2019-10-11 19:00 (Reply)

The reason one traditionally goes to Confession before taking Communion is found in I Cor. 11:27-31:

QUOTE:

"So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment."

In addition, there is a public confession of sin in the Mass prior to communion.

#3.1 Jim on 2019-10-11 23:40 (Reply)

I too, am a convert to Catholicism. It is interesting that in the Gospel of St. John, where Jesus proclaims that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, establishing the Eucharist, He lost many of his Jewish followers, because, no doubt of their understanding that animal sacrifices are eaten. Everything in the Old Testament is re-imagined and played out in the New Testament. As a Protestant, this was only symbolic, but as a Catholic, this is His True Body and Blood. A hard concept to swallow....so to speak.

#4 Jewel (Link) on 2019-10-11 19:54 (Reply)

Confession was instituted by Christ: he sent his apostles and disciples out to forgive sins. I will trust His judgement on its value.

#5 D (Link) on 2019-10-11 20:52 (Reply)

Catholics confess the sins that they themselves have committed, in private, to a priest. Jews confess every possible sin, in public, even the ones that nobody bothers to commit any longer, on Yom Kippur.

#6 Ken Mitchell (Link) on 2019-10-11 22:23 (Reply)

There are Protestant sects that have public confession.

While there is textual support for both Jewish and Christian public confession, it has been primarily a practical tool for spiritual development. People have found that it is good for you.

As to fabricated Messiahs and apostles, I am reminded of Woody Allen's line about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. "Shakespeare didn't write those plays. it was somebody else named Shakespeare." You may blithely wave away the traditional explanation, Saul, but are then only left with an even more puzzling set of circumstances to explain a century later.

If you have a quick answer to that, it is evidence you haven't really thought about it very hard.

#7 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-10-11 23:17 (Reply)

I think it is Will Durant that you should address your argument to.

#7.1 Saul on 2019-10-11 23:29 (Reply)

Hmm, a quick answer. Not a good sign. Whether Durant is good or bad, you are the one who has adopted him and are then responsible for whatever conclusions derive from his writing. As he is rather dated and a product of his culture, I don't think it's necessary to debate him. You, who are clinging to such, are a better subject for my discussion.

Durant is fine for what he is. It was fashionable in his day to show how independently minded one was by coming up with non-orthodox explanations of Biblical events. That was perhaps useful enough in its time. He did a great deal of research on the texts available at the time. He synthesized the conventional wisdom quite well. It did take a mild amount of courage then, though not as much as advertised.

You can try earlier historians or later ones as a corrective to any era.

#7.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-10-12 00:50 (Reply)

I think you are too worked up over this. People have different opinions and especially in religion where nothing is really known for sure and there are a million variations of the same facts. Will Durant and his wife wrote a series of books on the history of the world and I would not doubt that even many non-religious subjects they covered were controversial. They discovered the fabricated Messiah incidents and they put it in their book as part of the history of that time. In my opinion that is exactly what they should do as historians and a coverup would have been inappropriate.

#7.1.1.1 Saul on 2019-10-12 11:29 (Reply)

Part of this has to do with the prophecy in Daniel 9:24-25:

QUOTE:

"Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times."

I have heard that if you do the calculations in the prophecy, the result is the day on which Jesus made his "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem, now recognized by the church on "Palm Sunday." (I have no idea how this is done, you can Google on how the calculations supposedly work.) But that is why the people were lined up, believing that the prophecy was being fulfilled and Jesus would be the new King who would save the Jews from the Romans, because they were aware of the Daniel prophecy and what it predicted about the Messiah. Other prophecies were fulfilled at the same time (e.g., entering on a donkey--Zechariah 9:9). Of course, things went sour soon after that from an earthly perspective.

Before you pooh-pooh this too much, there is an interesting side-light on this dating back to the days of Lawrence of Arabia. When the Arabs under Lawrence and Emir Faisal and the British defeated the Turks in Palestine, the British Army then entered into Jerusalem. General Allenby made a point of dismounting from his horse with his officers and having everyone enter through the gate of the city on foot. Allenby was aware of these Messianic prophecies and did not want to be seen as considering himself an equivalent of the Messiah.

#8 Jim on 2019-10-11 23:23 (Reply)

Jordan Petersen has an interesting take on sacrifice, a Jungian approach, more or less, typical for him. He thinks it's the only way we can focus our attention to a life-or-death matter for the soul. We humans obviously have a deep need for this kind of ritual, as it's been part of civilizations going back thousands of years. Jesus's approach to it was much like his approach to all rituals: to remind us that if you use it like a magic trick it loses its value. If you adopt it as a sacrament to get your head and heart right with God after a breach, it often helps.

We always screw it up, of course, and start bickering with each other about some detail of the ritual that others are getting wrong, and trying to figure out whether that's an automatic ticket to hell for them and all their co-religionists. Then we become like OCD sufferers stuck on tapping the wall 99 times and floor 100 times in the belief it will ease a crippling anxiety. We're always losing the plot, which is why Jesus died for us. Now, did His death transform the empty ritual of sacrifice into a permanent and universal truth that literally saves us? That's what my church teaches, and what I try to understand: there really is magic, just not the empty silly sort we try to perform.

Before His death, Jesus also taught among us, often explaining that an ancient rule was given to us because of the hardness of our hearts--so it's a good rule, because our hearts really are heard, but our business should be to get our hearts right, not keep fighting about the minutiae of the rules. So go ahead and pull the ass out of the pit on the Sabbath, but don't take that to mean the Sabbath is a good day to go to Vegas and pay children to have sex with dogs or something, for your distraction and entertainment. Treat confession and communion with reverence, not as the newest instructions for a kind of confession that gets guaranteed results for renewal as if you were pressing a button on the latest model of washing machine.

#9 Texan99 on 2019-10-12 08:09 (Reply)

Jordan, that was a nice post. But I don't think that humans are hard-hearted. They suffer because they live in a very badly managed world. A world which doesn't allow people to look inward with real knowledge and understanding. They don't teach kids anything in school about motives, or morality, or the meaning of friendship. So we have a lot of people who believe wrongly that the world is a bad place. Actually, the world is a great place, as long as there is enough discipline, forethought, and planning to make sure that the culture and economy are conducive to human happiness.

But there are many groups who don't want people to be happy.
Psychologists don't. They sell happiness. Doctors don't. They sell health. The Police and the Military don't. They sell safety. The government doesn't. It sells security. The communists don't. They sell justice. So if you want to be happy in America, you have to buy it.

#9.1 Ron B Liebermann on 2019-10-12 13:16 (Reply)

“ Christianity “ immediately following Jesus’ death is a misnomer!

There were many “christianities” not all of whom believed Jesus was a preexistent “divine being” whose death represented an expiation for our sins as the ultimate “paschal lamb” .

That view is found in the Gospel attributed to John, but is absent in the three synoptics.

The Jerusalem Church prior to the destruction of the Temple most certainly continued Torah practice, including Temple sacrifice. Former pagans whose churches were established by Paul, most certainly did not.

#10 Shay Gaetz on 2019-10-12 14:48 (Reply)

A small but very important point: 2,000 years ago Jews were looking for a Messiah, not The Messiah. The Messiah would not be due until the beginning of the Messianic age, at the Jewish year 6,000.

We are now at year 5,780. However there is a counter to the present Jewish calendar (see, Sedar Olam Rabbah) which adjusts the Messianic age to beginning roughly 1997-2000 ce. This difference is taken very seriously by many fundamental Christians and Muslim.

#11 Michael Scott on 2019-10-12 14:55 (Reply)

"Human sacrifices were not unusual (see Abraham)...) Huh? Last I read the passages Abraham did not sacrifice his Isaac.

#12 willful knowledge on 2019-10-13 19:21 (Reply)

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Friday, October 11. 2019

Yom Kippur, Lent, etc.