Matthew Never Threshed Wheat – The Urban Gospels – “Chaff Farmers” – Cookie Cutter RC Bishops

I look at all the Chaff Farmers, American Bishops raised in farmland and the Midwest that now seem to dominate the once great RC dioceses on the East and West Coast of America.  

These Chaff Farmer/Clerics, had very few choices handed to them in their youth, their only meal ticket choice in Fly Over Country and or Nowhere USA was to either stay on the farm or to go to a seminary.

I am reminded by a comment elsewhere about all the really Chaff Farmers (my term) coming out of, or by their association with states like Wisconsin and Missouri.

I am reminded of my belief that the original gospels were probably not written by actual witnesses of the historic man and or myth of Jesus.

I am reminded that Jesus probably preached to the rural poor, to farmers, to itinerate day labor of farms, something I think Jesus did at one time or another.

I am reminded that Chaff is the part of the Wheat that is unwholesome and hard to digest and not being all that nutritious.

While the metaphor in the gospel of Matthew about God and or a Son of Man figure separating the wheat from the chaff, the unwanted part and throwing it and or they into fire is a metaphor that negates the idea that the very poor that Jesus preached to, like they had the luxury of wasting part of a food product in the day to day battle of survival.

Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Even if the chaff is a byproduct, it can be mixed with other animal feed to sustain those animals. It can be put back into the soil as a form of nutrient. It can also be burned but probably on a cold winter’s night in the corner fire place. It is not wasted. 

All in all, it fits into what I have previously said about the parable of the mustard seed, a product that something the poor of Palestine knew nothing about.  That up until the twentieth century with mechanized farming, modern transportation and marketing did mustard makes its way onto the middle class tables of the west as a cheap condiment.

http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2012/01/fake-mustard-seed-parable-greco-roman.html

Indeed, I feel certain that the Jesus-y feel of the mustard seed parable has an overlaying stink of an urban scholar that knows all the aspects of primitive botany from books and also commodity profits of an earthy sounding farm product that Jesus must have had knowledge of, but probably did not.

In fact, in one of the synoptic passages, the mustard seed parable is preceded by a parable of weeds among wheat. While an urban dweller who wrote this mustard seed parable might stick his nose up at weeds, many weeds are indeed edible and the poor, the starving unentitled poor, Jesus’ poor, would have gathered up many of those weeds separated eventually from the wheat and ate them. Survival makes more sense than urban vested scholarship in the early church’s reconstruction of a holy man who few if any recorded any details about.

Not only eat the weeds, but dry the ones that were not edible and use them as fuel, not burn them up foolishly like waste in an urban middle class garden.

Which puts perhaps puts me at odds with the term Chaff Farmers. But in their case they seem to me of late a waste product interfering in politics and not understanding the delicate nature of the fabric of democracy.  

Indeed, for this modern crop of yokels, wearing thousands of dollars of silk robes they read rules out of a rulebook not unlike a Pennsylvania State Trooper on the Pennsylvania Turnpike but with less enthusiasm than the Trooper.

 

A cookie cutter class of cleric but one that are uniform in shape of their training and non-outlook in life, in their total lack of heart, since they only serve a kingdom not of this world, which might fool some unless they got to see the real balance sheet of the Vatican Bank.

God is not in a rulebook. Not 613 rules of the Torah or 613 odd pages of catechism. A richly dressed class of hypocritical Pharisees is still just a richly bunch of Pharisees in any time, place or culture.

Chaff yes. To be thrown out into fire? Useful? Hardly.

Moral? (rhetorical question) (more like a punch line) LOL

Have a nice day.

. 

Good News of Miriam - Novel - Chapter 17

Having a precious jewel in one’s possession sounds great, the problem is holding onto the jewel.

Unfortunately, after I spent some quality time with Jesus that day, I kept running into what I will call the committee.

Those surrounding Jesus were a mixed bunch of people. There was an outer core of James, his brother, Mary (another Mary), his mother along with assorted cousins and half brothers and half sisters. There was also this Simon person. They also called him Rocky or Peter as a nickname, perhaps as an invention of sarcasm. It takes intelligence to understand and appreciate the dark humor of sarcasm.  I learned that well from my Greek plays, especially the more formal comedies.  In any case, sarcasm was completely lost on this Simon person.  And lost on James too as well I might add. These were the original ones of his hard core Galilee base.

This outer core, with the exception of Rocky, were all family. This family did not seem to be a very close family that I could see.

The closest circle were what I called the worldly ones. They were Matthew the tax collector, and two brothers James (another James) and John.

James and John, the brothers, were called the “sons of thunder”. Whenever they were around, their loudness and boyish enthusiasm centered all attention about themselves and the subjects that they were to talk about or address.

When one brother spoke or preached, the other usually joined in to accent a point of conversation or start a play on words.  And there were many words to choose from with many local dialects.  In a way, if James got silence on any given line of a preaching idea and it went dead in the faces of the local native, it was John that then threw in an assortment of words, local, Hebrew, Greek, Latin or even Persian to finally get a response on the faces of those being preached to.

If I had not known differently I would have thought these two were theatre folk doing short comedies and using plays on words as comedic technique to emphasize some fact stated.  That and using their gesture of the hands waving or slapping each other in the chest as each made points to a story or a debate within a story.  They had the talent but not the polish of the theatre people I had recently met and associated with. 

All in all, the best of them, this Jesus crowd, had a country bumpkin air about them.  Even if the sophisticated Jerusalem urban types would see this country cousin veneer, some could see through to the strength, self confidence and even arrogance of the northern Galilee local culture in these two brothers.

Even Jesus with his charisma could not compete with their energy and this horsing around of James and John once it was ignited. The only time I saw Jesus laugh was when James and John got together into their verbal mischief and childish pranks.  It was they who went ahead of the group and scouted out any town or village that would be willing to welcome Jesus as a visiting preacher.

This Matthew, James and John sub-committee were also the one time followers of the martyred John the Baptist figure.

I have heard lately that Jesus was supposed to have been a cousin of this Baptist fellow. I heard no such thing when I first encountered Jesus.

The next layer surrounding Jesus had to do with the rabbis and scholarly crowd.

It was here that Jesus was most successful. His knowledge of most of the Jewish sacred and semi-sacred texts was phenomenal. He had a perfect memory.

I understood from my old friend Hiram that there were many sacred Jewish texts floating around. Some cults were focused on one or two ancient books. Only a handful of scholars had any idea what the true inventory of sacred books was in the Jewish culture.

There was something Jesus had once disclosed to me. As a recognized child prodigy with a perfect memory, he was made to recite volume after volume of Jewish law. In fact, Jesus looked back with regret. His name and fame as a child was that of someone more like a freak going from town to town and from synagogue to synagogue for a small fee or donation.

Jesus wept. He felt that he had been denied a childhood because of his talents.  And like many children denied a childhood, he had seen too much of the complex and many times corrupt workings of the adult world.

Let us get back to the committee…

For more sample chapters:

Good News of Miriam

Book of Revelation, the Anti-Gospel

Comedienne Harold Camping of recent cancelled Rapture fame is being called a false prophet by many other fundamentalist preachers. Of course their condemnation does not have the same amount of venom they spewed toward Rob Bell. Their condemnation has more of hidden admiration. Something like “Hot damn! Why didn’t I think of that one first?" Or “Hell I could have pocketed part of the 100 million same as dear old Harold supposedly spent on the PR campaign and retired.” Etc.

Indeed, the lack of prosecution for fraud on dear old Harold is evidence of the timidity that now shows when up against the new reality of the powerful and moneyed lunatic classes of church and Wall Street. Money makes right. It is the new secular might. Whatever.

Let me go back to my favorite theme and that is that the Book of Revelation does not belong in the NT; that it is a Greek play styled narrative to promote the new Christianity thing. As such, with its awful injectures (yes, it’s a new word - urban) to die a horrible death here and in the hereafter if you do not join the Christian thingy. Sounds more like a Roman Army recruitment spiel “Join the army mate or get crucified.” (no joke).

As such, and amidst the absolute chaos and tailspin of these last days of Christianity, and perhaps civilization as well, let me once again label this poor piece of doped up writing that Harold Camping is getting his jollies with at age 89.

The Book of Revelation is not so much the anti-Christ as it is the Anti-Gospel.

If you start off with Love your Neighbor in Matthew, Mark, Luke and end up with Damn you Infidels and the violent End of the World shit for your neighbors, then it is reasonable to assume that this ending chapter of the user manual for the Christian church says a great deal about the insanity of the species when it comes to the category of religion.





When were the Gospels written / 120 -140 A.D./C.E. ?

Following my own timeline thing and in my personal quest of a better truth of the founding and evolution of the Christian faith, I am saying, I am believing that the four Gospels were assembled somewhere between 120 and 140 A.D. of the common western era.

I say this in my own Jesus seminar styled search. I say assembled above which a little is bit different than written. I believe that the sayings of Jesus in a Gospel of Thomas like format got expanded into metaphoric descriptive fashion.

As in Jesus, if he said this, he probably said it to a crowd and or to a select few. The elusive “Q” document of nineteenth century Christian scholarly fame was no doubt a bunch of quotes on the back of a lot of envelopes from possible eyewitnesses to the event of that great moral teacher’s life.


Of course they did not have envelopes back then but I think you get the idea and image from what I just said.


The other thing that makes me think that the three synoptic gospels were written between 120 and 140 A.D/C.E. is the fact that Jesus is still Jewish in them. He is folksy and short in speaking style.


Going back to my own blog

Trajan’s demonization of the Jews

and the Kitos genocidal Roman war against the Jews and Semites of North Africa and the Middle East, I see the dividing line between the Jews and Christians in real form if not in written form about this time.


In fact while reading about that holocaust, that it started in Cyrene, present day Libya, North Africa, I went on to see that the first three Gospels mention a Simon of Cyrene, a tourist and or refugee of sorts in Jerusalem on the first Good Friday.

To refresh your memory here are those Simon of Cyrene quotes from the first still Jewish Christian gospels.

“And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.” (Mark 15:2).


“And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.” (Luke 23:26).


“As they went out, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; this man they compelled to carry his cross.” (Matthew 27:32).

Researching the Internet for this common thread/reference to Simon of Cyrene led me to this interesting article and quotation.
 
Gospel Mysteries – Gospel of John

Similarly, many of the stories found in the other gospels, but not in John, probably came from sources known only to their authors. Thus, the use of different sources can easily account for many of the differences between John and the other gospels.


But that explanation doesn't work very well for some differences, especially the difference in how Jesus is depicted. The first three gospels portray him as a teacher, healer, and prophet whose main concerns are the problems of society and the need for people to live more virtuously. In these gospels he shows great compassion for poor, oppressed, and outcast people, and he heals many disabled and demon-possessed individuals. When he teaches, he talks in simple language, draws images from everyday life, and uses parables to make his points.


But the gospel of John depicts him quite differently. In this gospel he talks in a different style, and often uses words and ideas not found in the other gospels. Instead of making short penetrating statements about how people should live, he gives long speeches about why he came to earth and why people must accept him as their savior. He rarely uses parables, and he doesn't cure any cases of demonic possession.

Putting the above quote aside for a few moments, I had already decided that this reference to Simon of Cyrene in the three gospels had some real significance and was possibly in fact a little bit of propaganda and or proselytizing of early Christians toward the surviving Jews of the Kitos War 115-117 C.E..


That is, you have an executed Jesus, you have a crucified Jesus, why not build on it as a recruiting tool to many Jews who survived the recent genocide and show empathy in the way of death. No doubt there were thousands of Jews crucified along the Roman roads that connected North Africa to Jerusalem and onto Syria and Turkey (Asia Minor) after the Kitos War.


Now getting back to the recent quote above, the whole article was quite interesting. From that article I get the sense that the original three gospels are written in a Jesus is a common man mode with simple parables and messages. That the original Christians were survivors of the Great Jewish Revolt 66-70 C.E. and living in rural areas all over the Middle East.


That the reference of Simon of Cyrene sharing a cross with Jesus occurs in Mark and is copied into Matthew and Luke. By this I see that Simon of Cyrene was not haphazardly added to already written gospels but was part of original text. As such, I speculate that the first three synoptic gospels are assembled/written in post 117 A.D. after the Kitos War.


That the scattered communities across the middle east and in perhaps Rome as well were living off legend, oral tradition and the Letters of Paul and were coming together, in a still recruiting from the original Jewish cult thing, and turning into a new sect different than the original Judaism.


In fact I think that the historian Suetonius’ quote of fellow historian Tacitus in the persecution specifically of “Chrestiani” is a retroactive cut and paste job of history. That after the Kitos War, the more sophisticated Jewish Christians in Rome were doing a sudden Public Relations blitz and press release thing to say that their history as Christians (sans the Jewish in Jewish Christian thing) went back many decades before the recent unpleasantness in the African and Middle East provinces.


That to say you were persecuted by a hated dictator like Nero was a positive and not a negative in the early propaganda of the church. That and you were retroactively and consciously separating yourselves from the traditional Judaism thing.


In a way, while a rural populist thing is going on outside of Rome, the urbane, sophisticated Roman Christians came up with an Urban Gospel in the form of John. That these changes within the same movement occurred simultaneously or close to it.


In fact, I see the rural country bumpkin preacher of Jesus transformed into this polished Gnostic like god (small g) in the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John I see as the urban guide to the new Christian cult for the largely Gentile only city dwellers from the Mid East, through Greece and into Rome. This, especially after the final Jewish war by Hadrian 132-135 blew all Jews into definitive and seemingly eternal Diaspora.


I find it incredible that I cannot find much on the last two of these three Jewish wars, that they don’t get much mention on the Internet. It is possible that Jewish scholars have not yet put history from books onto the Net. It is also possible that Judaism prefers to forget the whole matter. That the only much quoted writings of the history of the Jews is from Jewish/Roman writer Josephus Flavius and centering on the destruction of Herod’s greatly altered/remodeled Second Temple is enough to address that period in religious/political history.


In any case, my studies and research continue. I hope in the very least that this crazy theory of mine makes some sense and will in time make more sense as bloated, vested Christian theologians die off and the true spirit of Jesus in the early real Christian church evolves back to not a local pagan level but to a truly first and global belief system.