[net.religion] Yet Another Flame from Yirmiyahu

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (11/08/84)

Yirmiyahu's latest attack on Jeff Gillette ought to have appeared in
net.flame; it's almost totally devoid of rational argument, and is largely
devoted to personal attacks on Jeff.  As I understand it, Yirmiyahu is
insisting that a group of pagans, who otherwise had no connections with
the "n'tzarim", heard about this new jewish sect and decided to steal all
their ideas.  Now this may be great conspiracy theory, but all the evidence
in the world is against it.  The true evidence indicates that the members
of the jewish sect actively recruited gentiles and brought them into their
religion as full members, and that when the question of adherence to
Mosaic law arose, the jewish members of this sect chose to abandon the old
law.

He demands that Jeff produce his first century text.  Well, he cannot
produce one of his own, and it wasn't that many years ago that theologians
suspected that the Gospel of John was WRITTEN after 100!  THe fact is that
all the EXISTING texts follow the "Christian" formulation of the faith
rather than the "N'tzarim" formulation, and that the only way to get to
Yirmiyahu's formulation is to edit the existing texts according to his
liking.

  The one thing I really want to  know is what Yirmiyahu thinks these people
really believed.  In all his articles, there does not seem to be a shred of
explanation of what the texts would say if they were "unaltered".  All
he ever says is that we could not understand, because we are not jews.  Give
us a chance; tell us what they say.  We like to believe we are intelligent
people.  One thing is for certain; his current Judaocentric view of the
matter is not going to promote understanding, much less good will.

Charley Wingate    umcp-cs!mangoe