The True Meaning of Christmas

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Has to be a right proper OTF going over of, er, Christianity, if not the "meaning of Christmas" (which is, and always has been, making yourself feel good by buying people stuff and hoping they'll bugger off and leave you alone for another 12 months).

On the Malky Mackay thread on football I wrote:

The Jews were persecuted for over a thousand years in Europe for committing the sin of usury, that was charging interest on the lending and repaying of money (what we would now call "banking"). It was felt completely immoral and repugnant that someone could ask for more money back, just a few days after lending it to someone in the first place. Jesus himself clearly agreed.

The Bible makes no mention of the sin of knocking out shoddy replica football kits and sports clothing in sweatshops in Southeast Asia and selling them on British high streets at huge markup prices. I reckon Jesus would have been absolutely fucking furious at that carry-on.

To which Berbaslug quite reasonably replied,

If jesus came back to earth, he'd be too busy fielding questions like "Where the fuck is this fucking apocalypse you kept saying would happen any fucking minute now? That was 2000 fucking years ago, and don't give us that geological time bullshit. Everything you said is based entirely on the idea that the world is going to be ended in a cataclysmic battle between good and evil, so don't get too tied up in the present. Thank god the romans got a hold of your nonsense and turned it into a weapon of war, otherwise we'd all have died of hunger waiting around for god to come down to sort it all out."

So as to not de-rail that thread, then, come on OTF, what do we think? What WOULD Jesus do?

[Guy Profumo]

The True Meaning of Christmas

Did Jesus really find money-lending repugnant?

I though it was charging a levy on changing one currency into another that He had problems with?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The True Meaning of Christmas

he would be seriously fucking sheepish.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The True Meaning of Christmas

Guy: yes.

[Guy Profumo]

The True Meaning of Christmas

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Guy: yes.

Is that Yes to the first question or the second? (Or both?)

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The True Meaning of Christmas

Well he tipped the tables over of the Travelex guys, but I think it's a fair bet he'd have had a stern word with Wonga.com, too.

[tee rex]

The True Meaning of Christmas

"Move St. John to inside-right ..."

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The True Meaning of Christmas

the people that jesus apparently goes mental with, are people who were making a cut from Sacrifices. He was apparently furious with people who were changing people's money so they were able to buy stuff to sacrifice to god. (which is what mostly went on in the temple)

however the idea that one man, or even a small group of men could drive all of the money changers, and sacrifice sellers out of the outer courtyard of herod's temple without being hacked into tiny little pieces, is perhaps the most implausible thing in the whole bible.

We think of merchants and money lenders and the likes, to be like shopkeepers and bank clerks, but back then, the most fundamental aspect of having things, was the ability to butcher people who tried to take it away from you. And that's before you get to the temple guards.

Judaism at the time was only a couple of hundred years beyond sacrificing humans, and one of the major functions of the temple was to be the place where you sacrificed things. The idea that jesus might come in and disrupt this without being slaughtered on the spot for attacking the mainspring of judaism, or slaughtered the next time he came near jerusalem (in the unlikely event of him escaping) is kind of hilarious.

[G-Man]

The True Meaning of Christmas

SPOILER ALERT

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Towards the end of the book Jesus of Nazareth is crucified after slipping away from his act of public disorder. Except in John, where the tables are overturned earlier in the book.

[Land Waster]

The True Meaning of Christmas

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:

the people that jesus apparently goes mental with, are people who were making a cut from Sacrifices. He was apparently furious with people who were changing people's money so they were able to buy stuff to sacrifice to god. (which is what mostly went on in the temple)

From what other Jewish sources tell us, the rate of exchange offered by the merchants was an extortionate rip off. Hence Jesus' anger.

Would his approach work in airport terminals?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The True Meaning of Christmas

but he doesn't go into hiding though. the gospels say he goes back pretty much the next day and is teaching in the temple.

[Steve GNR]

The True Meaning of Christmas

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: but he doesn't go into hiding though. the gospels say he goes back pretty much the next day and is teaching in the temple.

It would've been great if it had been TEFL. "So, present continuous then...."

[G-Man]

The True Meaning of Christmas

but he doesn't go into hiding though. the gospels say he goes back pretty much the next day and is teaching in the temple.

But you can't just lynch a guy when the city is overflowing with visitors and Roman soldiers. It was not a society of total anarchy. Especially with Pontius Pilate in town, a bit of extrajudicial violence would have been the kind of public disorder which Pilate had paid Caiaphas to prevent.

Besides, Jesus was surrounded by his band of followers and he was a bit of a celebrity. A public lynching would have been more difficult than one might imagine.

Also, many, perhaps most, of the people would have supported Jesus' act of defiance, because it went straight to the heart of the exploitative temple tax, the qorban, which hit the poor especially hard, and which funded all manner of corruption. As a defender of the poor, in a place were the poor were present in huge numbers, Jesus might have received protection from them as well.

Better to pick up the troublemaker discreetly, hang as much shit on him as you can, and hand him over to the Romans, who were the only authority empowered to pass the death sentence. Which Pilate duly did.

[Land Waster]

The True Meaning of Christmas

Of course the idea of a 'true' meaning of Christmas runs into difficulties from the outset.

It's one of those old pagan festivals that the early Church dressed up to make it appear Christian. Which is why some sects don't celebrate it - Jehovah's Witnesses being one.

In any case, theologically speaking, Chrit's death is of far more significance than his birth.

[Reed John]

The True Meaning of Christmas

G-Man wrote:

but he doesn't go into hiding though. the gospels say he goes back pretty much the next day and is teaching in the temple.

But you can't just lynch a guy when the city is overflowing with visitors and Roman soldiers. It was not a society of total anarchy. Especially with Pontius Pilate in town, a bit of extrajudicial violence would have been the kind of public disorder which Pilate had paid Caiaphas to prevent.

Besides, Jesus was surrounded by his band of followers and he was a bit of a celebrity. A public lynching would have been more difficult than one might imagine.

Also, many, perhaps most, of the people would have supported Jesus' act of defiance, because it went straight to the heart of the exploitative temple tax, the qorban, which hit the poor especially hard, and which funded all manner of corruption. As a defender of the poor, in a place were the poor were present in huge numbers, Jesus might have received protection from them as well.

Better to pick up the troublemaker discreetly, hang as much shit on him as you can, and hand him over to the Romans, who were the only authority empowered to pass the death sentence. Which Pilate duly did.

That's right.

[EIM]

The True Meaning of Christmas

Jesus was fucking cool, man.

[Reed John]

The True Meaning of Christmas

Land Waster wrote: Of course the idea of a 'true' meaning of Christmas runs into difficulties from the outset.

It's one of those old pagan festivals that the early Church dressed up to make it appear Christian. Which is why some sects don't celebrate it - Jehovah's Witnesses being one.

In any case, theologically speaking, Chrit's death is of far more significance than his birth.

It runs into difficulties because of the fundamental error of dualistic subject-object thinking. Christmas, like any word or symbol, means whatever a group of people agree that it means for the purposes of their discourse.

If Christmas puts you in the spirit of generosity and gratitude, than that's what it means to you. If if puts you in the spirit of anxiety about aspirational consumerism, then that's what it means to you.

The Puritans in New England also thought Christmas was too garish and/or Pagan and/or Catholic. So they didn't celebrate it. Thus, the end of harvest feast took on greater significance for them, because, to them, that was the logical time to stop work to show God gratitude for the bounty and ask for his protection during winter.

Hence, why we - and the Canadians - have Thanksgiving. The Canadians celebrate it around the true end of harvest time, whereas we've moved back it to also serve as the kickoff to the Christmas season.

It's not so much a pagan holiday that Christians have coopted, but the convergence of different traditions around common themes that naturally come to the fore around the winter solstice.