October 24, 2013
Drinking the Kool-Aid
I’m starting on-line classes again and one of my
text books, written by Robert H. Gundry, is titled A Survey of the New Testament. Putting the NT in historical
context, Gundry describes the varying sects of that day - Sadducees, Pharisees,
and Essenes - and to what extent they followed or manipulated the law.
Apparently the legalism of the Essenes exceeded that of even the Pharisees, and
they were obsessed with ritual purity.
“To maintain ritual purity, they even refrained from bowel movements on the
Sabbath; and to symbolize that purity they wore white robes.” OK…I can
understand someone coming up with such a hair brained idea, but what I don’t
get is their being able to convince 4,000 others to go along with it. “If anyone teaches false doctrines and does
not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly
teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an
unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in
envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant
friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who
think that godliness is a means to financial gain.” (1 Tim 6:3-5 NIV)
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Gail;
-----There was a religious market in Biblical times, too. I take it that much of the false teachings Paul dealt with were effects of this marketplace. Two general effects could be found there. One is from the angst to preserve the ways things have been, to keep the traditions well chiseled in the granite, so to speak. In the Jewish religious camp were the Pharisees, in the Christian camp were the Judaisers. The other satisfies man’s thirst for the new, the novel, the tantalizing. The Sadducees were more this than they were chiselers. But the real examples of its Jewish brand would be those admixtures of Judaism and Canaanite religions which got the Israelites booted from the Holy Land. So, outside of lesser known or unknown, sputtering, little sects in the first century, the Hellenists would be the most well known example of novel Judaism, but not the most informative example. For Hellenism was more a form of cultural blending than novelty chasing. Yet some Jews did chase novelty and became mixed up with magic and speculation. They were a lesser known Jewish brand more akin to what is much better known in the Christian camp as the Gnostics. These had little stomach for the constraints of tradition’s stone inscriptions, and great heart for the secrets wisping around iconic leaders and their penumbra of minions. Of this sort was Simon Magus, and his two chicks. In Christianity, hordes followed these types, because Christianity, by its very nature, was new.
-----The general population is made of people each having a prominent frame of mind towards either the traditional or the speculative. And far, far more people need led than do lead. So novelty leaders make good money, if money‘s what they want, whether in Judaism or Christianity.
-----But, then, there were the Essenes of the Jewish camp and the pillar saints, desert saints, and monastics of the Christian camp. For sure, in all people there is an inward drive to be held in high esteem. It’s part of the drive to be leaders. But that drive can be expressed in some odd, ways, especially when it is turned so excessively towards the Lord that their drive unhealthily excludes any esteem of fellow men. These people treasure religious meanings to the entire exclusion of money or popularity (until they begin receiving popularity.) In fact, their inner-reward system sets to value the rigors of want as the validation of their righteousness.
-----It is interesting that these same categorizations can be made of other religions, including atheism and secularism to boot. For they arise not from religious principles or activities or inclinations, or anything necessarily of religious sorts, but by human nature itself in how the prominences of that nature are expressed in different individuals. So, don’t be surprised that the Essenes were able to find four thousand people to go along with their absurd rigors. Don’t be surprised that David Koresh was able to find a hundred, or Jim Jones a thousand, or Barrack Obama (Oholibama is he!) sixty-six million.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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