Mary is the most important figure in Christianity

[Pegg]

I don't want to argue this anymore. This is what I was taught, not just in my Church but in other places as well. They may have been followers of Jesus, but they were NOT called Christians, at that point. That is what I have been trying to say. I know it's semantics, to you.

Hi, just though this verse clears up at least 'when' christians were first called by that name:

Acts 11:1 Now the apostles and the brothers who were in Ju·de′a heard that people of the nations had also accepted the word of God...
19 Now those who had been scattered by the tribulation that arose over Stephen went as far as Phoe·ni′cia, Cy′prus, and Antioch, but they spoke the word only to the Jews....
22 The report about them reached the ears of the congregation in Jerusalem, and they sent out Bar′na·bas as far as Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw the undeserved kindness of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all to continue in the Lord with heartfelt resolve; 24 for he was a good man and full of holy spirit and faith. And a considerable crowd was added to the Lord. 25 So he went to Tarsus to make a thorough search for Saul. 26 After he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year they assembled with them in the congregation and taught quite a crowd, and it was first in Antioch that the disciples were by divine providence called Christians.


Prior to Pauls conversion to christianity, the teachings of Christ were called 'The Way'
Acts 9:1 But Saul, still breathing threat and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that he might bring bound to Jerusalem any whom he found who belonged to The Way, both men and women.


Im not sure if this means that they were called christians 'after' Pauls conversion or before... but there were certainly already several congregations outside of jerusalem before Paul converted.

 

[ChristineES]

Hi, just though this verse clears up at least 'when' christians were first called by that name:

Acts 11:1 Now the apostles and the brothers who were in Ju·de′a heard that people of the nations had also accepted the word of God...
19 Now those who had been scattered by the tribulation that arose over Stephen went as far as Phoe·ni′cia, Cy′prus, and Antioch, but they spoke the word only to the Jews....
22 The report about them reached the ears of the congregation in Jerusalem, and they sent out Bar′na·bas as far as Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw the undeserved kindness of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all to continue in the Lord with heartfelt resolve; 24 for he was a good man and full of holy spirit and faith. And a considerable crowd was added to the Lord. 25 So he went to Tarsus to make a thorough search for Saul. 26 After he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year they assembled with them in the congregation and taught quite a crowd, and it was first in Antioch that the disciples were by divine providence called Christians.


It would appear from this that the term 'christians' came to be used 'before' Paul became a christian himself.

It was first in Antioch through the preaching of the disciple Barnabas that the term was coined... he then went to find 'Saul' (pauls name before his conversion)

Thank you, Pegg.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Jesus himself said:

Mark 10:45 For even the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his life as a ransom in exchange for many.”

Of what is mankind held to ransom?

The Ransom theory of Atonement is not the same as the Penal Substitution theory, which was made up by Calvinists.

http://www.theopedia.com/Atonement_of_Christ

 

[Windwalker]

Thanks. We are on the same page here.

I think one huge mistake that's almost universally made is that we are taught to view The Way (Xy) as something external that is imposed upon us, rather than as something within us that we birth into the physical world. That perspective obfuscates the journey toward wholeness that we are enjoined to make.

That is something I am acutely aware of and it pains me to see. I think we could have an entire discussion topic on this alone. The issues I've had with the church is that is says 'get close to God', but not too close.... It's like that other topic right now about how if you tell yourself something is impossible, it blocks you from it. This sort of unity with God, this sort of identification with God, where you or I or anyone can say with Jesus, "I and my Father are One," is withheld from us as I've heard someone say, "Jesus got kicked upstairs". He became the "2nd person of the Trinity", in the sense of a purely radical theistic God. God, and Jesus become "up there", outside of themselves you pray for a drop of blessing down from on high to your empty needy hands. That's tragic.

I honestly believe the Trinity formulation to be fully panenthesitic expression, not a theistic one. God is in fact immanent in the world, in us. My personal experience has shown this to be what the case truly is. It is also strewn throughout the scriptures, yet people for whatever reason need to put God "upstairs". I see that need to be an avoidance through fear, actually. An avoidance of God, through imagining him 'up there'. It keeps us safely alive in our small self, "down here", away from having our skin ripped off and becoming fully exposed, naked in the Light. The incarnation smashes that, until we make Jesus a deity in the sky, and not a human like us, despite mouthing all the words he was "fully human". Does that truly pan out in how people envision him? I don't think so.

Hmmm... Not sure how you're seeing Mary as an archetype for reconciliation with God (at least in the traditional view and use of the Marian archetype)?

I'm thinking in terms of how someone would see her as an expression of the divine in feminine form. To come to Mary, would be to approach God in feminine expression. To approach the divine feminine, allows someone access to themselves in their femininity (be that male or female in gender). Xy (I like the easy abbreviation, thanks), really is patriarchally heavy with God as masculine; He, Him, Father, etc,. It alienates aspects of ourselves from wholeness, as you recognize. We need to bring together the opposites, the masculine and the feminine within all ourselves. And holding up Mary this way serves in some fashion an approach to the Divine in ourselves. The Protestants have zero to offer in this, and is quite lopsided, and I believe lacking in what it needs in this regard.

Personally, Jesus' mother Mary, I can see how people see her as access to Jesus through the feminine. But in all honesty, the better feminine is the tragically dismissed Apostle to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene. I honestly believe that Jesus, being fully human like all of us, had his own path to finding that nondual realization where he declares, "I and my Father are One.". I don't find much value in mythologizing him as some angelic like figure who was born with full knowledge of the divine in himself, like Lao Tzu being born 900 years old. I far rather see him having struggled to find Truth through the human form, exactly like us. "I have overcome the world", really, really means that. If he was born fully awakened, he overcame nothing! He grew. And, it is here that I see his relationship with Mary Magdalene to be part of his coming to Self Knowledge. We all learn about ourselves though others. God knows, I have my Mary Magdalene in my life! Without her, would I truly become who I am becoming?

So if we step back from the patriarchal system of the male-dominant church which marginalized Mary Magdalene, despite her prominence within the scriptures, it is her who has a greater knowledge and access to Jesus than his mother! You follow? I love my mother, but she is not part of my becoming as my soul-mate is. The question is, would Jesus have been Jesus without her? I don't believe so. Just the same as any of us are not the same without our intimate other. I think what awakened in Jesus is tied to her, not his mother as much.

So, there's the feminine for you.

A bit of a thought dump here, but hopefully I've made some points to provoke good thoughts.

 

[Pegg]

Thank you, Pegg.

just note i did change that a little.


im not sure if it was before or after Pauls conversion... i need to do some more research into that.

 

[ChristineES]

just note i did change that a little.


im not sure if it was before or after Pauls conversion... i need to do some more research into that.

I've always assumed it was after Paul's conversion and that it was Paul and his followers who came up with the term and I've others tell me that the term came from Paul's people, as well. I didn't really question it.

I am not a Bible scholar, I read the Bible and I study the Bible but not as a scholar.

 

[sojourner]

That is something I am acutely aware of and it pains me to see. I think we could have an entire discussion topic on this alone. The issues I've had with the church is that is says 'get close to God', but not too close.... It's like that other topic right now about how if you tell yourself something is impossible, it blocks you from it. This sort of unity with God, this sort of identification with God, where you or I or anyone can say with Jesus, "I and my Father are One," is withheld from us as I've heard someone say, "Jesus got kicked upstairs". He became the "2nd person of the Trinity", in the sense of a purely radical theistic God. God, and Jesus become "up there", outside of themselves you pray for a drop of blessing down from on high to your empty needy hands. That's tragic.

I honestly believe the Trinity formulation to be fully panenthesitic expression, not a theistic one. God is in fact immanent in the world, in us. My personal experience has shown this to be what the case truly is. It is also strewn throughout the scriptures, yet people for whatever reason need to put God "upstairs". I see that need to be an avoidance through fear, actually. An avoidance of God, through imagining him 'up there'. It keeps us safely alive in our small self, "down here", away from having our skin ripped off and becoming fully exposed, naked in the Light. The incarnation smashes that, until we make Jesus a deity in the sky, and not a human like us, despite mouthing all the words he was "fully human". Does that truly pan out in how people envision him? I don't think so.


I'm thinking in terms of how someone would see her as an expression of the divine in feminine form. To come to Mary, would be to approach God in feminine expression. To approach the divine feminine, allows someone access to themselves in their femininity (be that male or female in gender). Xy (I like the easy abbreviation, thanks), really is patriarchally heavy with God as masculine; He, Him, Father, etc,. It alienates aspects of ourselves from wholeness, as you recognize. We need to bring together the opposites, the masculine and the feminine within all ourselves. And holding up Mary this way serves in some fashion an approach to the Divine in ourselves. The Protestants have zero to offer in this, and is quite lopsided, and I believe lacking in what it needs in this regard.

Personally, Jesus' mother Mary, I can see how people see her as access to Jesus through the feminine. But in all honesty, the better feminine is the tragically dismissed Apostle to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene. I honestly believe that Jesus, being fully human like all of us, had his own path to finding that nondual realization where he declares, "I and my Father are One.". I don't find much value in mythologizing him as some angelic like figure who was born with full knowledge of the divine in himself, like Lao Tzu being born 900 years old. I far rather see him having struggled to find Truth through the human form, exactly like us. "I have overcome the world", really, really means that. If he was born fully awakened, he overcame nothing! He grew. And, it is here that I see his relationship with Mary Magdalene to be part of his coming to Self Knowledge. We all learn about ourselves though others. God knows, I have my Mary Magdalene in my life! Without her, would I truly become who I am becoming?

So if we step back from the patriarchal system of the male-dominant church which marginalized Mary Magdalene, despite her prominence within the scriptures, it is her who has a greater knowledge and access to Jesus than his mother! You follow? I love my mother, but she is not part of my becoming as my soul-mate is. The question is, would Jesus have been Jesus without her? I don't believe so. Just the same as any of us are not the same without our intimate other. I think what awakened in Jesus is tied to her, not his mother as much.

So, there's the feminine for you.

A bit of a thought dump here, but hopefully I've made some points to provoke good thoughts.

I really like what you have to say about Mary of Magdala as the sacred feminine.

And with regard to the first part of your post, I think that there's always that tension between God-as-imminent and God-as-transcendent. Likewise, there's the tension between God-as-particular and God-as-singularity. I think we have to hold those visions in tension, because God is both. And when God is "sent upstairs" to "God's room," it does create a safe distance, because when God becomes too imminent, God will burn you, just as the tongues of fire lit on the disciples' heads.

 

[Pegg]

I've always assumed it was after Paul's conversion and that it was Paul and his followers who came up with the term and I've others tell me that the term came from Paul's people, as well. I didn't really question it.

I am not a Bible scholar, I read the Bible and I study the Bible but not as a scholar.

I dont think there is quite enough information given about who first coined the term, but the scripture does say that it was given 'by divine providence'... so it may have been inspired... but to who it first came is uncertain. It may have been through Saul or Barnabas while they were in Antioch.


I found this point from the WT

Called Christians by Divine Providence

For a whole year, Barnabas and Saul “taught quite a crowd, and it was first in Antioch that the disciples were by divine providence called Christians.” It is unlikely that the Jews were the first to call Jesus’ followers Christians (Greek) or Messianists (Hebrew), for they rejected Jesus as the Messiah, or Christ, and therefore would not tacitly recognize him as such by calling his followers Christians. Some think that the heathen population may have nicknamed them Christians in jest or out of scorn. The Bible, however, shows that the name Christians was God-given.—Acts 11:26.

In the Christian Greek Scriptures, the verb used in connection with the new name, generally translated “were called,” is always associated with something supernatural, oracular, or divine. Scholars thus render it “to utter an oracle,” “divinely intimate,” or “to give a divine command or admonition, to teach from heaven.” Since Jesus’ followers were called Christians “by divine providence,” it is possible that Jehovah directed Saul and Barnabas to give the name.

The new name stuck. Jesus’ disciples could no longer be mistaken for a sect of Judaism, from which they were quite distinct. By about 58*C.E., Roman officials knew very well who the Christians were. (Acts 26:28) According to the historian Tacitus, by 64*C.E., the name was current among the masses in Rome too.

So i guess its not known exactly who God first revealed the phrase to, but it was certainly first heard in Antioch where Barnabas and Saul/Paul were preaching. It certainly came from one of them.

 

[Windwalker]

I really like what you have to say about Mary of Magdala as the sacred feminine.

Cool. It give some pause for reflection I feel.

And with regard to the first part of your post, I think that there's always that tension between God-as-imminent and God-as-transcendent. Likewise, there's the tension between God-as-particular and God-as-singularity. I think we have to hold those visions in tension, because God is both.

Yes, and that is what panentheism expresses. That that paradox. But as I've said, nonduality renders that unproblematic. But nonduality isn't a conceptual framework, which does do as you say create this tension. Nonduality is a open-handed realization that can hold both perspectives comfortable, and freely explore both without tension. It's nothing one 'grasps', just like one cannot grasp God.

And when God is "sent upstairs" to "God's room," it does create a safe distance, because when God becomes too imminent, God will burn you, just as the tongues of fire lit on the disciples' heads.

Oh yes, but that burn is purifying. And my point is that most people are more comfortable just having God safely away. But is that truly salvation then?

 

[sojourner]

Oh yes, but that burn is purifying.

Since when does your Average Joe want to be pure?

 

[Windwalker]

Since when does your Average Joe want to be pure?

When is when they face an existential crisis and finally give up.

 

[blueman]

We Catholics are often accused of worshiping Mary as a divinity.
Mary was not a divinity: she was the daughter of two normal people. So she was human. But she is the protagonist of Christianity because it was her who erased sin from human nature, that is, in her heart.
She "challenged" God because she wanted to show him that a human being can be sinless and pure. And she was sinless and pure.

But not because God had made her sinless (impossible, there is the free will)
She, with her free will decided to be sinless. Because she conceived sin as incompatible with human nature. That's how she was able to incarnate God. (Immaculate conception)

Because God and her became one only thing.

This woman saw Mary when she was seven and she told her all these things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAqP4sNbwE

Mary was not sinless. She had a sinful nature because she was conceived through a sinful man (her earthly father). Mary was obedient, not without sin and was used as a conduit to conceive a sinless savior in Jesus Christ. She was an important figure in Christianity, but don't make her out to be more than she really was.

 

[paarsurrey]

The idea that Jesus came to pay the penalty for sin is a purely Protestant concept. Neither Catholics nor the Orthodox believe such a thing and neither did the early Christians and Church Fathers.

It is Catholic dogma that Mary was entirely sinless for her entire life. She was full of God's grace and saved from the stain of Original Sin.

The Catholic assertion is also totally wrong.

Please quote from Jesus that G-d's grace saved Mary from the stain of Original Sin to prove your point of view.

Being born of Mary even makes Jesus more sinful than a normal man, if we follow the Christian creed of Original Sin.

As per Bible; it was Eve who induced Adam to eat the apple. So Eve committed two units of original sin while Adam committed one unit of it. Their off-spring inherits 1 + 1/2 units of original sin.

Since Jesus was born of Mary only so Jesus becomes sinful of two units; which is more than an ordinary christian will inherit the original sin.

I don't believe that any child inherits any sin by birth; this Christian creed is disrespectful for humanity and also to G-d. G-d creates every child as innocent.

Regards

 

[blueman]

The Catholic assertion is also totally wrong.

Please quote from Jesus that G-d's grace saved Mary from the stain of Original Sin to prove your point of view.

Being born of Mary even makes Jesus more sinful than a normal man, if we follow the Christian creed of Original Sin.

As per Bible; it was Eve who induced Adam to eat the apple. So Eve committed two units of original sin while Adam committed one unit of it. Their off-spring inherits 1 + 1/2 units of original sin.

Since Jesus was born of Mary only so Jesus becomes sinful of two units; which is more than an ordinary christian will inherit the original sin.

I don't believe that any child inherits any sin by birth; this Christian creed is disrespectful for humanity and also to G-d. G-d creates every child as innocent.

Regards

False doctrine. The curse of sin came through the seed of man (Romans 5:12), we (creation) were cursed with a sinful nature. Jesus was not born through the tainted seed of man, but through divine intervention (immaculate conception). He was without sin, but bore the sinful condemnation for creation on the cross.

 

[paarsurrey]

False doctrine. The curse of sin came through the seed of man (Romans 5:12), we (creation) were cursed with a sinful nature. Jesus was not born through the tainted seed of man, but through divine intervention (immaculate conception). He was without sin, but bore the sinful condemnation for creation on the cross.

Jesus was born of Mary; a normal delivery; nothing abnormal about it. Why should one make Jesus an abnormal human being? There was no divine intervention; just normal delivery.

We understand that some Buddhists believe that Buddha was born in a miraculous manner. Without womb obscuration he appeared from the right side of his mother's ribs. Instantly Indra, King of the Gods, appeared and offered the infant Buddha clothes to wear.

Nothing like this happened for Jesus.

Regards

 

[Sleeppy]

The Catholic assertion is also totally wrong.

Please quote from Jesus that G-d's grace saved Mary from the stain of Original Sin to prove your point of view.

Being born of Mary even makes Jesus more sinful than a normal man, if we follow the Christian creed of Original Sin.

As per Bible; it was Eve who induced Adam to eat the apple. So Eve committed two units of original sin while Adam committed one unit of it. Their off-spring inherits 1 + 1/2 units of original sin.

Since Jesus was born of Mary only so Jesus becomes sinful of two units; which is more than an ordinary christian will inherit the original sin.

I don't believe that any child inherits any sin by birth; this Christian creed is disrespectful for humanity and also to G-d. G-d creates every child as innocent.

Regards

Where did you receive this information?

 

[blueman]

Jesus was born of Mary; a normal delivery; nothing abnormal about it. Why should one make Jesus an abnormal human being? There was no divine intervention; just normal delivery.

We understand that some Buddhists denomination believe that Buddha was born from the mouth of his mother; nothing like it for Jesus.

Regards

Jesus was not born of a natural conception (man and woman having sexual intercourse). That's what makes it supernatural. There was no seed of a man that tainted Jesus in any way. Jesus was God in the flesh. His birth, sinless life, miracles, death and resurrection (empty tomb) validate His claims.

 

[paarsurrey]

Where did you receive this information?

Which one?

Regards

 

[outhouse]

Jesus was not born of a natural conception (man and woman having sexual intercourse).
.

That is not susbstantiated.

By all historical accounts, he was born normal.

That's what makes it supernatural.

What makes it supernatural is the unknown authors who wrote using rhetoric and mythology. That and a possibly purposeful tranlation error, that of maiden to virgin.

The reality is these authors were far removed from the birth of jesus, most scholars claim no historicity to any aspect of the birth of the man.

There was no seed of a man that tainted Jesus in any way.

There is no tainting with seed. It is no sin.

I think people have problems if they make that claim. It is a natural and normal human function required of life.

Jesus was God in the flesh. His birth, sinless life, miracles, death and resurrection (empty tomb) validate His claims

I can write a book and claim my plastic yellow ducky has all that attributed to him, and it validates nothing.

Your claim is another unsubstantiated claim.

 

[Sleeppy]

Which one?

Regards

All of it.