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Mystic Power
admin THC-Ministry YahooGroup
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3605
Location: Key West
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 Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 12:31 pm Post subject: Chris Bennett's SEX, DRUGS AND VIOLENCE IN THE BIBLE Intro |
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Introduction
Here in the bi-millenial year of the most popular individual in history, Jesus Christ, it is the perfect time to take an honest and hard look at the book that pivoted him to popularity. We say this is the perfect time for this endeavor, not only because we likely won't be burnt at the stake or imprisoned for doing so, but also because here in the "Age of Information", access to the historical material that is relevant to the subject, is unquestionably more available than ever before. It is only by coming to understand the world and time in which the Bible itself developed, that we can ever understand the Bible itself.
The Holy Bible is by far the most widely known and circulated book in the history of the world, and the stories it contains are held to be literally Gospel truth by over a Billion faithful believers around the globe. No matter where a person lives on this vast planet we call home, they cannot help but be affected by its doctrine, and moreover, by its faithful adherents, who have zealously propagated the religion of Christianity the world over.
The parent of Christianity, is for the most part, Judaism, a faith that came from even more humble roots than its child. Thus the Hebrew Torah, makes up much of the first part of the Christian Old Testament, and as divided as Jews and Christians have been throughout the many intervening centuries, the Old Testament's earlier texts unite them both. Only a few scant centuries after it had begun, Christianity surpassed its parent in popularity because of its open acceptance of almost anyone through conversion, (whereas the Hebraic religion, although open in its beginnings, had become limited only to those who were born into the faith).
Originally, the Hebrew people were a small and insignificant clan of desert nomads, who watched with envious awe, the more advanced and sedentary agricultural towns that developed around them. In order to maintain an identity amongst the many larger kingdoms that came and went about them and not be absorbed, the ancient Jews had to maintain a very strict religious and cultural code, one that has survived into the modern-day. A fact which makes them a particularly interesting and at the same time sensitive group to study.
These severe attempts to separate themselves from other cultures were only moderately successful. Even at its earliest beginnings, Judaism, like the Christianity afterwards, was a composite religion that came from longstanding Near Eastern theological beliefs. Neither the religion nor the people originated in a vacuum, but clearly developed out of preexisting traditions and continually adopted new and foreign aspects to their religion. A fact acknowledged in the Bible itself, through the words of Ezekiel concerning his fellow Israelites; "Thy birth and thy nativity, is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite"(Ezekiel 16:3).
Indeed, such unavoidable elements of foreign theological influences amongst the Hebrews lead to the birth of their rebellious child, Christianity. Elements such as a coming savior, the end of the world, Heaven and Hell and many other so-called Christian beliefs, first entered the Jewish psyche during the years of Persian domination.
Besides these strong elements of foreign influence, like all people, the compilers of the Bible were strongly influenced by humanity's basic struggle for survival and striving for fertility. In line with this, and probably surprising to most people, of the many influences that contributed to the theological development of the Bible, and religion in general, in the ancient world, the most profound were without a doubt the three topics named in our title, Sex, Drugs, and Violence.
SEX...
In sex, humanity can find what is widely considered its most physically pleasurable experience. Thus it is not surprising that sex was at the very core of religious experience in the ancient world. As humanity comprehended that it was sex which ensured through their seed the continued propagation of their descendants, the act of love-making became sacred, and its performance thought to magically affect all sorts of areas of life, and even the movements of the gods themselves. The Old Testament is rife with references to such religio-erotic practices taking place in the ancient Near East, not only with foreign cults and peoples such as the Canaanites, but even amongst the Israelites themselves. "History demonstrates that so far as sex is concerned the so-called Chosen People were no better nor worse than their detractors. They set the highest moral example and stood among the lowest in amorality..."(Edwardes 1967). Likewise with Christianity of the first few centuries AD, where certain orgiastic practices were seen as modes of worship among a variety of little remembered Christian sects.
Curiously, the religio-erotic practices of the ancient Hebrews, Christians and other Near Eastern peoples is seldom discussed in modern biblical scholarship, and books on the ancient world in general, a fact likely attributed to the surviving anti-sex Christian bias of many academically trained scholars. As shall be demonstrated, many of the Biblical taboos concerning sexuality, have nothing to do with divine edicts of good and evil. They developed out of prejudices against foreign forms of worship, as a means of social control, and interestingly, to combat the spread of venereal disease.
In our own time and through history, the Bible has been used to justify the most archaic tribal beliefs and regulations about sexuality, and these views have been forced on millions of unwilling people, often by the most brutal means. The homophobic, anti-women views of Judaism, compounded by the even more anti-sex ideals of Christianity, or more pointedly Roman Catholicism, poisoned with sin what was once a sacred and holy act for much of the ancient world. Ironically, as we shall amply demonstrate, the Bible itself is filled with more X-rated material than any single book which the Biblical fundamentalist have successfully had pulled off the school library's shelf. The Old Testament is replete with stories of rape, prostitution, masturbation, child-molestation, incest, adultery, orgies, anal-sex and homosexuality, further, many of these accounts involving key biblical figures. As well, many such events occur at pivotal points in the Old Testament narrative, influencing beliefs in the developing faith immensely.
Considering the Religious Right's fight against pornography...
Continues with FOOTNOTES, etc: http://www.forbiddenfruitpublishing.com/sexdrugs/intro.html |
Follow Your Bliss,
Ben
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~Hopi Elder ~
"In Lak'ech"
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viper
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 19 Feb 2004
Posts: 572
Location: U.K.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:48 pm Post subject: |
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LOL, nice follow up .........
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