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Bach and Luther

69K views 175 replies 17 participants last post by  Victor Redseal 
G
#1 ·
[This thread will be in installments. Before we can really talk about the role of Bach and Luther in Germanic culture, we'll have to get into some background to gain historical perspective.]

Background

The nation of Germany is really a relatively recent development. As far back as 100 BCE, the Romans listed a region of central Europe they called Germania but it was little more than a territory populated by various tribes the Romans were always trying to conquer. One of those tribes was called the Cherusci among whom the Romans discovered a seemingly invincible warrior they called Arminius. The Cherusci tribe came from the region known as Germania Magna. There were two other regions sharing the name Germania-Germania Inferior and Germania Superior-which were held by the Romans while Germania Magna was was as yet unconquered and populated by the Germanic tribes as well as Gauls. Celts, Slavs and others.



Julius Caesar understood the warlike tribes in the area called themselves Germani although the meaning of the name is not clear. Tacitus detailed the war between the Romans and Germani in his accounts. The Cherusci had united other tribes in Germania Magna against the Romans. Arminius had lived in Rome when he was younger and was given a Roman education and trained in the Roman martial arts. He was the son of a chieftain name Segimir. The Romans took Arminius and his brother, Flavus, to Rome to serve as hostages. They would be shown and treated to the best Rome had to offer including Roman schooling and citizenship as well as the rank of petty noble but their presence was to ensure that the Germani behaved themselves. Any uprisings or acts of war would result in the deaths of Segimir's sons.

Arminius, however, proved to be a brave soldier and an able commander and was given control of his own Roman detachment in Germania Magna. When the Romans began pushing into lands east of the Rhine under the command of Varus, appointed governor by Augustus, Arminius secretly began uniting tribes against the Roman encroachment. In 9 CE, with a major rebellion in the Balkans that required eight of the eleven legions in Germania, Varus had only three legions left to fight off any attacking Germani. Arminius then baited a trap for Varus and his men by luring them out to Kalkriese Hill in the Teutoburg Forest where they were ambushed by superior Germanic forces and defeated. It would be a good five years before the Romans would be able to defeat Arminius but Tiberius decided to keep the border of the Roman-occupied region at the Rhine River in 17 CE which was essentially a victory for Arminus who died fours years later, murdered by some of his fellow tribesmen who feared he was becoming too powerful. Arminus is also known as Hermann but this appears to be a 19th century name change. Despite the similarity of "German" and "Hermann," Germany was not named after him. The defeat of the Romans in the Teutoburg Forest has far-reaching implications. The Romans lost their appetite for conquest of Germania Magna which would eventually give birth to the country of Germany.

By the third century CE, the Roman Empire had divided into western and eastern halves on the orders of Diocletian. The year is given as 284 CE. The empire was simply too vast to be run from only one seat of power. Diocletian would govern the Western Empire (which spoke Latin) from Milan and Maximian would govern the Eastern Empire (which spoke Greek) from Byzantium and so the Eastern Empire is more famously known to history as the Byzantine Empire (although they called themselves Romans). Migrations to and assaults on the Western Empire were carried out mainly of Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Franks and Vandals which pushed the Empire to the brink of dissolution. For example, prior to Diocletian's order to split the empire, Rome was already fracturing. The army had taken on so many Goths and Germani and what not that much of the army was mercenary and these mercenaries were only loyal to their commanders rather than to Rome (which few of them had ever visited). Meanwhile, the Eastern Empire got along nicely and, in 324, the emperor, Constantine, renamed Byzantium after himself-Constantinople-and the city was consecrated in 330. Constantine declared it the new capital of the entire empire and moved there.

The numerous invasions of the Western Empire were taking a toll on its finances. The wars were expensive and this resulted in very high taxation rates among the citizenry which was hard pressed trying to keep up with the payments. Plus the mercenary army had to be paid in gold or they would mutiny. Generals became warlords and proclaimed themselves emperor. There were literally dozens of these warlords with sizable mercenary armies all insisting that they were emperor of Rome. Corruption within the government was rife and the military was angry about it which affected morale. In 410, the Visigoths under Alaric sacked Rome. Then the Vandals took the city in 455 leaving the bureaucracy teetering. In 476, Odoacer, a Germanic king, deposed Romulus Augustus, who had been proclaimed emperor less than a year before and took his place as emperor and sending Romulus into exile and no Roman ruler would ever return to reclaim the throne. The Empire collapsed and Western Europe, for the first time in centuries, had no emperor (although the Byzantine Empire would continue strong for another thousand years). The period after the collapse is often referred to as the Dark Ages.

Although we have been conditioned to regard the Dark Ages as this period when Europe fell into anti-intellectualism and superstition, there is not much evidence to support this. In fact, many historians refuse to use this term to describe that period preferring instead to call it the Early Middle Ages. There was serfdom but slavery was abolished during this period while the Romans had been over-reliant on slavery (it was one of the many things that destroyed the Western Empire). Public health organizations and charities started during this time. Reading and writing actually flourished comparatively speaking and there was much leisure time for everything from card-playing to archery competitions to pitching horseshoes. Wars were small and usually over very quickly because armies were necessarily small, there not being much money to raise large ones.

In the wake of the collapse of Western Empire, a tribe from the Middle and Lower Rhine flourished in that region. They were called the Franks. Being a very large tribe, some Frankish groups were Roman allies while other antagonized them. Still others were mercenaries in the Roman army. The Romans recognized the Frankish Kingdom (Regnum Francorum) in 357. After the collapse, the Franks found themselves under constant assault by Vikings and were united under the Merovingian rulers a.k.a the Meerwings. The Meerwings were Salian Franks. They believed their lineage began after a fish-man or lizard-man raped a human maiden and impregnated her and she gave birth to the Merovingian line. The first Meerwing ruler was Clovis I, who was crowned King in 496. The Meerwing Dynasty ruled for the next three centuries but, as time wore on, the Merovingian kings exercised less and less power. The real power behind the throne were the Carolingians who consolidated their power under Charles Martel, the Mayor of the Palace (Maior Domus) and Duke of the Franks in 718. Martel called all the shots until his death in 741.

Martel was mainly concerned about encroachment from the Muslims whom he defeated at the Battle of Tours in 732. Martel had two sons, Pepin III and Carloman. Upon his death, Pepin became Mayor of the Palace and he and Carloman ran things behind the scenes until 752 when Childeric III, a mere figurehead and last of the Meerwings, was deposed by Pope Zachary at the behest of Pepin and Carloman (who installed him in the first place). By that time, the Frankish Empire encompassed nearly all of Western Europe. Two years later, Pope Stephen II named Pepin the king and he ruled under the moniker of Pepin the Short until his death in 768.

Upon the death of Pepin the Short, his sons, Charles and Carloman were co-rulers. Carloman died mysteriously in 771 and King Charles I became the sole King of the Franks. In 774, Charles, a devout Catholic, defeated then declared himself king of the Lombards of Northern Italy to prevent them from opposing the pope. On Christmas Day in 800, Charles was declared the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III while Charles was visiting Rome. Apparently, he did not want this title but was tricked into accepting it by Leo. Charles expanded the Empire and converted pagan areas to Christianity. He never learned to read nor write (although he constantly practiced his letters) but championed education and had schools built throughout the empire.

Charles became known to history as Karolus Magnus, Charlemagne or Charles the Great. The Germans call him Karl der Grosse. His biographer, Eginhard (some sources say Einhard), gave a good profile of the man. While the later medieval period depicted him with long, unruly, white hair and a long beard and mustache and adorned in long flowing robes, Eginhard described Charlemagne as wearing short close-cropped, black hair that he sometimes grew to his shoulders but no longer. He was usually clean-shaven but often sported a pencil-thin mustache. He spurned elegant clothing and preferred rugged hunting attire.


Charlemagne's monogram. He practiced his letters although he remained illiterate throughout his life. KRLS stands for "Karolus." This was his official mark.

He was married four times and had at least three children although only one, Louis, survived him. Culture flourished well under Charlemagne who ruled from his court in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in what is now in North Rhine-Westphalia. There are lots of stories about him which may or may not be true. One such story is that Charlemagne championed education and so once dropped in on a children's school unannounced and observed a boy misbehaving and so grabbed the child and spanked him soundly. In another case, he bade his courtiers go hunting with him dressed as they were-in their fine, expensive clothing. When they returned, their clothes were filthy and tattered. Charlemagne then admonished them for spending inordinate amounts of money on clothing that had no practical value.

Charlemagne died in 814 and became recognized as first true emperor in Western Europe since the collapse of the Roman Empire. Supposedly, Charlemagne loved music and had an open door policy at the palace where people could go in and play songs they knew or had written themselves. If Charlemagne liked the song, he would have a scribe skilled in musical notation write it down and it would then be preserved in the court's library. Many of these songs were quite ribald but Charlemagne was apparently quite fond of such songs. By the time of his death, there were reportedly thousands of these songs in the library. His son, Louis the Pious, as his name suggests disliked the profane pieces and, upon becoming emperor, had this sheet music burned. If true, the world was deprived of an invaluable source of music from the Dark Ages.




Charlemagne as remembered for posterity. He is shown wearing the "hoop crown" of the Holy Roman Empire but this crown did not exist until the 11th century. What crown Leo III allegedly placed on Charlemagne's head on Christmas Day in 800 is not known.


Charlemagne on a Frankish coin depicting him as a Roman emperor but the likeness is probably closer to his true appearance.


The Frankish Empire

Louis's reign was an unsteady one. He had to put down rebellions a fair amount and jailed King Bernard of Italy in 817 for leading a rebellion against him (Bernard died in prison a year later). Louis probably only maintained the empire simply because he was the son of the greatest ruler of Western Europe. In those days, the Franks did not yet practice primogeniture where the only eldest son inherits his father's throne so, to maintain control of the empire, Louis made his three sons co-rulers by splitting the empire into three slices. His eldest son, Lothair was King of Italy and co-emperor, Pepin was King of Aquitaine and Louis the German was King of Bavaria.

In 823, Louis attempted to bring his fourth son, Charles the Bald, into the co-rulership but his other sons objected. They didn't like splitting the kingdom anymore than it already had been. Six years later, Lothair was stripped of his titles and exiled to Italy apparently by his father. His sons then attacked and dethroned Louis in 830. The following year, Louis attacked his sons and again stripped Lothair of his titles and gave Italy to Charles the Bald. Lothair, Pepin and Louis the German then revolted in 832 and dethroned and imprisoned by Louis and Charles. In 835, family peace broke out and Louis was returned to the throne. When Pepin died in 838, Louis declared Charles the Bald as King of Aquitaine even though others wanted Pepin's son, Pepin II, to succeed his father.

Louis the Pious died in 840 and Lothair declared himself the emperor of the entire Frankish Empire. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with his brothers who joined forces and attacked Lothair's army at Fontenoy-en-Puisaye in 841. Lothair's army was defeated and so he retreated to Aachen. When Louis and Charles caught up to Lothair, he was trying to raise an army against them but he was no match for the combined forces of his two brothers. Louis and Charles declared Lothair unfit to hold the titles of emperor of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor. On February 12, 842, Louis, Charles and their respective armies met in Strasbourg. The Oaths of Strasbourg were drawn up with Louis representing the kingdom of East Francia and Charles of West Francia. The Oaths were written in Caroline miniscule in Medieval Latin, Old Gallo-Romance and Old High German. Charles's kingdom spoke Gallo-Romance, Louis's kingdom spoke Old High German and Latin was the lingua franca of that time.

Each ruler addressed the assembly and gave the same speech pledging allegiance to his brother and condemning Lothair. Each brother spoke in the language of his brother's kingdom. But then the oaths also extended to the soldiers themselves. Each had to swear that if his ruler broke the oath and tried to move against his brother, they would be honor-bound not to assist him in any way.

Rather than find himself locked out of rulership, Lothair gave in and in August of 843, the Treaty of Verdun was drawn up between Lothair, Louis and Charles. Lothair was named king of Middle Francia including Aachen and Rome, Louis was given East Francia, Charles received West Francia and he granted Aquitaine to Pepin II. At this point, historians agree, France and Germany were formed although the borders would shift significantly over the years.

Not until 962 would the Holy Roman Empire be established in a succession that would last centuries. That year, Otto I was crowned as the emperor by Pope John XII. The Holy Roman Empire was, for all intents and purposes, Germany. Different parts of the Empire were under the control of different families as the Hohenstaufens of Swabia, the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg-Prussia and the Hapsburgs of Austria and Spain (the Hapsburgs actually had their own empire which was both within and without the Holy Roman Empire).
 
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#68 · (Edited)
On Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena:
https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Bach-Anna-Magdalena.htm

"Anna Magdalena Bach was an invaluable aide to J.S. Bach's duties as Kantor of Leipzig, copying and transcribing the reams of music he wrote for the city's five major churches; a number of his manuscripts exist only in her hand. J.S. Bach expressed his gratitude by dedicating several keyboard and chamber pieces to her, including the famous collection "The Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach" (two volumes, 1722 and 1725), and organized informal concerts at their home so she could have a performing outlet."

Behind certain great men is a great woman. ;) It's no wonder he could be so productive.
 
#71 ·
What about the less savory aspects of Luther and his views? Or is this verboten territory?
 
#72 ·
I read the following savory excerpt on wikipedia earlier...:

In 1543 Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies in which he says that the Jews are a "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."[14] They are full of the "devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine."[15] The synagogue was a "defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible ***** and an evil **** ..."[16] He argues that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness,[17] afforded no legal protection,[18] and these "poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time.[19] He also seems to advocate their murder, writing "[w]e are at fault in not slaying them".[20]
Puts Hitler to shame, I think. This, of course, led me to question the moral ground of our beloved JS Bach on the subject... Does anyone know of Bach's views on the Jewish people? Perhaps we are better off not knowing the specifics...?
 
#73 ·
My 2 cents from my observations, and I acknowledge I don't have all the answers:

I'm not aware of any anti-Semitic comments by Bach. As far as Martin Luther, I think he was essentially just a pawn in a power struggle between the Catholic church and the Freemasons. Ironically masonry around that time many suspect had already been subverted by Jewish bankers, and is to this day just a tool of the same banking families as are many other secret societies, that start off with good intentions and are later subverted by individuals who infuse money into them and subvert them to their will. Similar power struggles exist today but it appears the Vatican and Jews work together now. To be clear Khazarian Satanists who converted to Judaism for geo-political reasons work with the Vatican.

These Satanists are responsible for much of the political correctness today and all the hyper sensitivity around the concept of "anti-Semitism", and try to continually broaden the definition of that term to anything critical of their activities. It has nothing to do with caring about racism (they are not Jews and hate Jews) it is just a method of censorship.
 
#75 · (Edited)
...Ironically masonry around that time many suspect had already been subverted by Jewish bankers, and is to this day just a tool of the same banking families as are many other secret societies, that start off with good intentions and are later subverted by individuals who infuse money into them and subvert them to their will.
Hmm? This is starting to go towards the fringe...

Similar power struggles exist today but it appears the Vatican and Jews work together now. To be clear Khazarian Satanists who converted to Judaism for geo-political reasons work with the Vatican. These Satanists are responsible for much of the political correctness today and all the hyper sensitivity around the concept of "anti-Semitism", and try to continually broaden the definition of that term to anything critical of their activities. It has nothing to do with caring about racism (they are not Jews and hate Jews) it is just a method of censorship.
I don't know, man, I have my doubts. I do believe what was said about Luther.

...if I was really, really tired and freaked-out, I might believe some of this, if I stayed up all night...then in the morning I'd wake up and realize it was just a bad dream. Don't forget to take some vitamins, and say hello to deprofundis for me...
 
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#74 ·
All I have read indicates that Bach exhibited no known anti-Semitism. Of course what he felt privately nobody knows.

Luther developed his extreme views late in life. Lutherans often opine that it would really have been better had he died in a more timely manner. There is no doubt that his views late in life were far more extreme than (say) Wagner's, and unlike Wagner he advocated direct and vicious action against Jews.
 
#81 · (Edited)
One aspect of this is that Bach chose to engage with The Gospel according to John in his music, because passages from John look very contemptuous of Jews. Take, for example, John 3:18

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
3:18 is expanded on elsewhere in that book, in ways which may not be very nice to Jews. Take for example 3:36

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
and 12:48

There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.
Now listen to the stern way Bach sets John 3:18 in the closing chorus of cantata 68

 
#79 · (Edited)
What I think is true is that academics reveal religious symbolism in Bach's music, in places where naively you wouldn't expect it. I went to a talk by Richard Egarr on the 6th partita earlier this year, which was about the numerology, encodings about the trinity, messages telling you that themes represent events in the passion of christ, his stumbling etc. Egarr, if I remember rightly, had similar ideas about the sequence of gigues in the English Suites. And indeed Suzuki was inspired by Michael Marissen's work on the theological character of Opfer. And I believe that there are ideas like this about WTC also.

What intrigues me is that I've never seen this done for Bach's contemporaries or indeed for those who influenced him -- for Scarlatti or Buxtehude or Pachelbel or Bohm or Grigny for example, or for Frescobaldi.

The only other composer for whom I've head it suggested that arcane religious ideas are encoded into the music's structure like this is Josquin. But don't ask me to provide any details -- I believe there are essays on it in Richard Sherr's The Josquin Companion, but I can't afford a copy!
 
#82 · (Edited)
An equally thought provoking example is in Cantata 44, which opens with John 16:2

They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God
The they here are the Jews.

The cantata, which we have seen opens with a prediction of Jewish violence against Christians, responds to that threat with an aria and recitative

Ah, God, how much heartache
do I encounter at this time!
The narrow path is full of trouble
that I shall follow to heaven.

The Antichrist,
the great monster,
seeks with sword and fire
to persecute the members of Christ,
since their teachings are against him.
He makes it appear
that his deeds must be pleasing to God.
However, Christians must resemble palm fronds,
which, when laden, only climb higher.

It is and remains the comfort of Christians,
that God watches over His church.
For even though the storms rage,
yet after the winds of trouble
the sun of joy soon smiled.
Jews seem to be being assimilated to the Antichrist in the extraordinary echo of John's

anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God
in the lines

He makes it appear
that his deeds must be pleasing to God.
You can imagine how the Jews living in Leipzig at the time must have felt about this.
 
#86 · (Edited)
Interesting. From the description:

Bach & God explores the religious character of Bach's vocal and instrumental music in seven interrelated essays. Noted musicologist Michael Marissen offers wide-ranging interpretive insights from careful biblical and theological scrutiny of the librettos. Yet he also shows how Bach's pitches, rhythms, and tone colors can make contributions to a work's plausible meanings that go beyond setting texts in an aesthetically satisfying manner. In some of Bach's vocal repertory, the music puts a "spin" on the words in a way that turns out to be explainable as orthodox Lutheran in its orientation. In a few of Bach's vocal works, his otherwise puzzlingly fierce musical settings serve to underscore now unrecognized or unacknowledged verbal polemics, most unsettlingly so in the case of his church cantatas that express contempt for Jews and Judaism. Finally, even Bach's secular instrumental music, particularly the late collections of "abstract" learned counterpoint, can powerfully project certain elements of traditional Lutheran theology. Bach's music is inexhaustible, and Bach & God suggests that through close contextual study there is always more to discover and learn.
 
#87 ·
So much for the constant repetition of "Music is abstract and can't express things like..." It can sure enhance a text setting, and put a spin on it.

"But I just listen to the music..." Wake up, people, this is ART, and a culture's art expresses its beliefs, mythology, and hubris.
 
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#91 ·
There is a difference between "a culture's art" and what it expresses; and what an individual piece of music can and cannot express. Music is abstract and can't readily express anything but itself, unless it is assisted by the extra-musical (eg accompanying text; the composer's pronouncements).
 
#89 · (Edited)
From my reading, and remember I'm no scholar really, I think a prevalent view about Bach at the moment is that he was very much engaged in exploring ideas, both musical and theological, but he wasn't comfortable using words to explain his ideas. On the other hand, he was comfortable expressing himself with music. Where a tract, an article, was deemed to be necessary in order to respond to critics or to propose a conjecture, he used friends and students. This is something I've got both from Marissen and from David Yearsley.
 
#105 ·
David, the issue here isn’t so much about anti semitism in John, it’s about anti semitism in Bach’s presentation of John in the cantatas, passions etc.


I would very much like to see Bach’s annotations in his bible, there is a facsimile with translation published and distributed in the US, but import charges make it too expensive to buy here in the UK.
 
#106 · (Edited)
David, the issue here isn't so much about anti semitism in John, it's about anti semitism in Bach's presentation of John in the cantatas, passions etc.

I would very much like to see Bach's annotations in his bible, there is a facsimile with translation published and distributed in the US, but import charges make it too expensive to buy here in the UK.
It's interesting this alleged anti-Semitism obviously comes from some utterly regrettable tracks by Martin Luther which were written by the end of his life and are full of his usual explosive invective and which admirers fervently wish had never been written. Sometimes alleged anti-Semitism in John comes from the confusion that John often uses the term 'the Jews' for the Jewish ruling classes ie the priestly factions, with whom Jesus had the discussions and the disagreements, not the general Jewish populous. It was 'the Jews' and not the common people who plotted to put Jesus to death, Something that John makes quite clear. The common people wanted to make him king. The Priestley factions plotted his death.
I found an interesting comment in the New Yorker which is helpful I think to quote:
'Is the Passion's savage depiction of the Jews simply the work of a master storyteller? It is surely that, but not simply that. Bach's own attitude becomes clearer in his music and in the poetry of the choruses and arias with which he surrounds John's narrative.
An early chorale, for example, "Wer hat dich so geschlagen," asks of the wounded Jesus, "Who has struck you so?" The second verse answers, "Ich, ich und meine SĂĽnden": "I" - we all, that is Protestant, Catholic and Jew alike - "I and my sins."
Here, as Mr. Marissen notes in his book "Bach & God" (2016), "Bach moves the focus away from the perfidy of 'the Jews' and onto the sins of Christian believers." And the work as a whole moves in an epic arc from turmoil to profound fellow-feeling and consolation, from inhumanity for the sake of effect, as it were, to a humanity deeply felt and registered.'
This of course fits in well with Christian theology which believes that although it was the Jewish rulers with the agreement of the Roman authorities who put Jesus to death, it was in fact our sins that nailed him to the cross. Early in Johns Gospel the statement "behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world " makes the point. So JSB is just following normal Christian theological tradition. There is no anti-Semitism about it just because JSB sets it in a tremendous drama
 
#109 ·
I personally don't believe we would have something "equally glorious", if Bach had been an atheist. J.S. Bach was not just a Christian he was also a Freemason, in Freemasonry he would have been exposed to occult (or hidden) knowledge.

So, we have the greatest classical composers --> all Freemasons. Duke Ellington was a mason. Led Zeppelin, huge occult element in their music. Robert Johnson if legend is correct into the dark occult. All this great music connected to spirituality and the occult, people do you really think that is just coincidence? It's not.

Scientific breakthroughs can also be traced to the occult, the Nazis were heavily into the occult and highly advanced technologically. We took on their best scientists to work at NASA after WWII. Look up "Operation Paperclip".

Speaking of NASA, do people know the occult origins of our space program? Well here is one of the most important figures in the U.S. space program, his name is Jack Parsons and much of his knowledge came as a direct result of doing occult rituals in the desert and communicating with other dimensional entities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)
 
#110 ·
I personally don't believe we would have something "equally glorious", if Bach had been an atheist. J.S. Bach was not just a Christian he was also a Freemason, in Freemasonry he would have been exposed to occult (or hidden) knowledge.

So, we have the greatest classical composers --> all Freemasons. Duke Ellington was a mason. Led Zeppelin, huge occult element in their music. Robert Johnson if legend is correct into the dark occult. All this great music connected to spirituality and the occult, people do you really think that is just coincidence? It's not.

Scientific breakthroughs can also be traced to the occult, the Nazis were heavily into the occult and highly advanced technologically. We took on their best scientists to work at NASA after WWII. Look up "Operation Paperclip".

Speaking of NASA, do people know the occult origins of our space program? Well here is one of the most important figures in the U.S. space program, his name is Jack Parsons and much of his knowledge came as a direct result of doing occult rituals in the desert and communicating with other dimensional entities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)
JS Bach was not a freemason. JC Bach was attracted to it
 
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#111 · (Edited)
Bach was not a freemason. Mozart was but not Bach. Robert Johnson only knew about hoodoo--the folk magic that Southern blacks grew up on. Many blacks from that period believed and practiced some form of hoodoo. There is no evidence that Johnson was any sort of adept. Jack Parsons was a member of the OTO, the only branch still operating after the war. He was a pioneer in solid fuel rocketry and that was why his work was so important to NASA. It had nothing to do with his occult beliefs. All those beliefs got him was getting his wives stolen from him--one of the culprits being L. Ron Hubbard.
 
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#116 ·
St. John's Passion (BWV 245)

This oratorio was performed on Good Friday Vespers of 1724 at St. Nicholas Church, an early Leipzig work. Bach was not the first composer in the city to compose a Good Friday passion there. Gottfried Vogler started the tradition on Good Friday in 1717 performing Brocke's Passion there at the Neue Kirche. Bach's predecessor, Johann Kuhnau, performed his St. Mark Passion on Good Friday of 1721 at St. Thomas. A resolution by the Leipzig city council was passed stipulating that a Passion be performed every Good Friday starting 1724 to be performed either at St. Thomas or St. Nikolai. Bach's Passion, in fact, was originally to be performed at St. Thomas but the music council changed the location at the last moment but still had everything set up to Bach's specifications in time. Although today we usually hear the 1724 version, Bach revised it at least three times over the years adding in extra pieces. The libretto, written anonymously, covers chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel of John in Luther's bible at the point where Jesus and entourage enter the Garden of Gethsemane. This is undoubtedly one of the greatest of Bach's works scarcely matched by any other composer before or since. Every device in his musical arsenal was brought to bear.

We can't be sure how early Bach had begun to study oratorios-possibly as early as 1708-but certainly by 1713 when he copied Reinhard Keiser's St. Mark Passion using it to arrange a performance of the work. He may have run across it as early as 1705. He learned a great deal from it using as a model for his own Passions which he began writing around 1717 while at Gotha standing in for Christian Friedrich Witt, Hofkapellmeister, who was on his deathbed at the time and soon to die. This work has been mostly lost and the libretto is entirely gone. We do know that Bach was paid twelve thalers. The music survives in fragments. One fragment turns up in the second version of the St. John Passion and another turns up in Cantata 55.

The problem of using John's gospel story for Bach was the lack of places in the work in which to insert contemplative material due how John's narrative is constructed. Bach tried several times to open such spaces but could never do it to his full satisfaction and we surmise this why he has Jesus sing in recitativo secco and the choir frequently does as well. Because they sing with this sparse accompaniment of the continuo only, they have more freedom and perhaps come across a bit more personally to the listener thereby increasing the emotive reaction. As for the choir, it has great power and is the most salient vehicle in the entire work for conveying emotion because it is turba, i.e. spoken by crowds, soldiers, disciples and the like and so Bach has them also sing against the backdrop of the continuo to emphasize the choral power for the same reason as his Jesus does: the listener would find this more dramatic and contemplative, more personal, more emotive.

Bach resorts to other devices with which to engage the listener. For example, the sufferings of Jesus are expressed in the flat keys and the benefits of those sufferings to the world are expressed in sharp keys. These are divided into nine principal sections:

1. Jesus as messiah (two flats)
2. Peter's Denial (three sharps)
3. Roman trial, Pt. 1 (natural)
4. Roman trial, Pt. 2 (three flats)
5. Roman trial, Pt. 3 (three sharps)
6. Crucifixion (two flats)
7. Soldier's dividing the garments (natural)
8. Death of Jesus (three sharps)
9. Burial (four flats)

These nine sections wrap around the Musicalische Circul or Circle of Keys developed by Johann David Heinichen in 1711 which immediately preceded the 24 major/minor keys of well-temperament so significant in Bach's time. These nine sections form an ambitus or a going-around in progression by which Bach could control this most ambitious work and also mark off the opposing theological points presented in John's gospel.

 
G
#118 ·
While appreciating Bach’s music purely for aesthetic purposes, we cannot understand this Passion without understanding the religious underpinnings. To really understand Bach is to understand what it is to be a Christian. Masaaki Suzuki of the Bach Collegium Japan stated of St. Matthew Passion but is equally true of St. John, “We Christians should make effort to come closer to God. Religious communication with Jesus Christ is required in St. Matthew Passion.” I don’t think this puts it out of the range of understanding for, say, a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist, for that matter. The concepts expressed are universal—the betrayal, the arrest, the trial, the crowd turning against the one who tried to save them, the scourging, the mockery, the execution, the burial—all of these can be understood and are indeed understood by every culture around the globe.

What is problematic for me is my inability to comprehend the Christian scheme of salvation which appears to me to be silly and completely unnecessary. Indeed, even many Christian scholars admit to the problem and have no clear way to reconcile it with the observations of non-believers. The problem is this: the entire salvation scheme derives from a single act committed in the Garden of Eden (we are going to buy its existence for the sake of argument) that St. Augustine called “Original Sin.” This was an act of disobedience to the will of God whereupon God put a certain tree in this garden and then told this mortal couple—Adam and Eve—not to eat the fruit of this tree lest they die. Then a talking snake happens along and tells Eve to eat the fruit and she first refuses saying she will die if she partakes. The snake tells her that’s nonsense and that, in fact, her eyes will be opened once she eats the fruit. So Eve eats the fruit and her eyes are opened, she brings the fruit to Adam and he also eats of it and his eyes are likewise opened. When God finds out they ate this fruit that he told them not to eat, he expels them from Eden and humanity has ever since been plagued with sin. So thousands of years later, God decides to forgive humanity for its sin and somehow makes himself to be born incarnate on the earth and then follow a plan that he had set in motion. In this plan, the incarnate god must be killed by his people—the Jews—in order that the sins of humanity be forgiven.

I hardly know where to begin critiquing this. First, why does God put a tree in the Garden of Eden and then specifically draw the human couple’s attention to it? Sounds like a setup to me. God is supposed to be omniscient so wouldn’t he have known all this was going to happen? Okay, let’s set that aside for now. The talking snake comes along and tells the humans they will not die if they eat this forbidden fruit as God had told them but instead their eyes will be opened. It’s amazing how Christians do not see the problem here: the snake was right and that means God lied to them! They did not die when they ate the fruit and their eyes were indeed opened and the text of Genesis specifically affirms this! So who is the villain here? The snake, who did not put the tree in the Garden and who told them the truth about it, is somehow the devil (which the text never asserts) but the God who put the tree in the Garden, draws attention to it and then lies and says they will die if they eat its fruit and causes humanity to be saddled with sin ever afterward is the good guy. Then, many centuries later, Jesus, who is in some bizarre way, God himself, is born to free us from this sinfulness. First, why did God wait so long to free humanity of sin? I suppose if Adam and Eve had spilled 20 million gallons of toxic sludge in the Garden, God would let it sit there for 5000 years before deciding to clean it up. If sin was this horrible thing, God should have swung into damage control mode immediately and cleared that up right away—nip it in the bud—by correcting the problem with Adam and Eve instead of driving them out of the Garden and letting their sinfulness remain intact. So now, after innumerable generations are born in sin that God caused and then failed to correct, He decides to forgive us by impregnating a human woman who then bears Him incarnate (even though he somehow continues to commune with himself in heaven). According to His divine plan, He must now be murdered as a sacrifice to…well…Himself. Wouldn’t it have just been easier if God just forgave the world by simply forgiving the world? Doesn’t all this drama seem just a bit unnecessary? And how is humanity to be improved through the act of murder? And how does murder cancel out the sin of eating a forbidden fruit? Not to mention that this original sin was committed thousands of years earlier and could hardly be the fault of anyone living now or in Jesus’s day. We can add on top of this that the Synoptic Gospels do not say that Jesus died for our sins, only John’s gospel and Paul’s epistles say that.

If Jesus died for our sins, what was the need of the Resurrection? Some Christians tell me that was to show he had broken the hold of death. Well…he’s God. Assuming he did die for our sins, how does that absolve me of sin? I committed them so I have to pay for them. How can someone pay for an act they didn’t commit without a gross injustice being perpetrated? Moreover, I never asked Jesus to pay for my sins. Why should I owe him for paying a debt I never asked nor wanted him to pay even if such a thing were possible? Christians have told me that Adam and Eve were immortal but lost this quality upon committing the first sin and the resurrection shows us that this immortality has been restored. Genesis, however, does not agree, After God expels Adam and Eve from Eden, He tells some other heavenly entities (who they are has never been satisfactorily explained) that He had to do lest they also partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life and live forever and “become like us.” So, we can see from this that humans never lived forever and were not meant to. Christians often confuse which tree that Adam and Even ate from. Frequently, I hear it was the Tree of Life. No, it wasn’t. It was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Humanity never ate from the Tree of Life and were specifically thrown out of Eden to prevent it. I can understand that God may not have wanted humanity to eat from this tree and become like him but how is knowing the difference between good and evil a bad thing? Should we not know the difference?

It seems to me that the Garden story is just a metaphor for the nuclear family. We are born innocent, blind and naked while our parents try to shield us from the evils of the world outside by created a Eden of Childhood pleasures. At a certain point, however, we sexually explore (in my case, it was a girl down the street who loved touching and handling penises)—we have eaten that fruit. We realize we are naked and we cover it up. We are innocent no more. Our eyes are opened because we have grown up. It is now time for us to leave the Eden we grew up in and we can never return to it as much as we may remember it and wish life could still be like that. Eventually, we marry and create a new Eden for our children except we are now the God who must protect them. And so on. Seen this way, it doesn’t matter where Cain got his wife because Adam and Eve were never the original two humans, they were just the originators of a certain typical family. Christians have told me this idea is “stupid.”

Then there is this Rapture business. I cannot get a firm answer of whether the Lutherans believe in the Rapture. Some sources say that they do and some say that they don’t. The problem is compounded by the fact that many Christians who claim to believe in the Rapture don’t seem to know what it is. They think Revelation describes the Rapture. It does not. The Rapture is described by Paul in 1 Thessalonians. Some have told me it’s both Revelation and 1 Thessalonians. Well…which is it? Can’t be both. So we have at least two eschatologies given in the bible with each being confused for the other.

Then how do the Jews figure in all of this? Seems to me that they are just in the way. Christians clearly believe that they themselves are God’s chosen and yet their scriptures make clear that the Jews are. This seems to be a sticking point. Christians figure that if they make themselves into quasi-Jews, pseudo-Jews, then they somehow usurp the place of the real Jews and become God’s chosen. However, in their hearts, they seem to know this is nonsense. After all, God would know who is a true Jew and who isn’t. A resentment and jealousy builds up and antisemitism results. This has caused all manner of ridiculous scenarios where God was talking about the Christians all along and never the Jews. This resulted in the idea that the white race are the remnants of the Ten Lost Tribes and those calling themselves Jews today are the real usurpers created by Satan who must be eliminated.

Luther believed that his style of Christianity would convince to Jews to convert. When it did not, he became incensed and he let them know it in no uncertain terms. So when I hear that I must be a Christian and specifically a Lutheran to truly understand Bach's oratorio, I don't know how I can do that. I simply have no ability nor desire to become a Christian and I have just explained why. The religion really makes no sense and cannot be truth. Truth, after all, has to be comprehensible and Christianity is not.

So let us see how all this relates to Bach.
 
#119 · (Edited)
What is problematic for me is my inability to comprehend the Christian scheme of salvation which appears to me to be silly and completely unnecessary. .
You are merely quoting what St Paul said himself: 'The message about the cross doesn't make any sense to unbelieving people. But for those of us who are being saved, it is God's power at work.'

You are in fact confirming the gospel by your statements!
 
#120 ·
Ultimately the Bible can only be truly understood by faith. But as you can imagine, these issues have come up before. Most people believe in Biblical Inerrancy. That is, the Bible is without fault. There is another method of biblical interpretation that I hold to be at least partially true. But I would like to emphasize that the true meaning of scripture is spiritual and can only be truly understood by faith.

The historical-critical method believes that to understand scripture, it is not to be understood by how we perceive it in this day and age, but how it would have been perceived to the audience to which it was written.

Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". While often discussed in terms of Jewish and Christian writings from ancient times, historical criticism has also been applied to other religious and secular writings from various parts of the world and periods of history. The primary goal of historical criticism is to discover the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense or sensus literalis historicus. The secondary goal seeks to establish a reconstruction of the historical situation of the author and recipients of the text. That may be accomplished by reconstructing the true nature of the events that the text describes. An ancient text may also serve as a document, record or source for reconstructing the ancient past, which may also serve as a chief interest to the historical critic. In regard to Semitic biblical interpretation, the historical critic would be able to interpret the literature of Israel as well as the history of Israel. In 18th century Biblical criticism, the term "higher criticism" was commonly used in mainstream scholarship in contrast with "lower criticism". In the 21st century, historical criticism is the more commonly used term for higher criticism, and textual criticism is more common than the loose expression "lower criticism".
 
#122 · (Edited)
Ultimately the Bible can only be truly understood by faith. But as you can imagine, these issues have come up before. Most people believe in Biblical Inerrancy. That is, the Bible is without fault. There is another method of biblical interpretation that I hold to be at least partially true. But I would like to emphasize that the true meaning of scripture is spiritual and can only be truly understood by faith.

The historical-critical method believes that to understand scripture, it is not to be understood by how we perceive it in this day and age, but how it would have been perceived to the audience to which it was written.
Yes I believe that too but the faith that the Christian has is not blind faith (as supposed by certain of the new atheists) but informed, historical faith, eg in the veracity of the texts and in the resurrection of Jesus.
 
#121 ·
Victor, those are all very good theological questions. You seem to have a genuine interest in Christianity and are challenging/struggling with its basic assumptions. I think your essays on Bach show a good understanding of the relationship between his music and the Christian worldview (for a thesis paper last year, I wrote on the exact same topic). Being a theology/philosophy nerd, I would love to talk with you about all these questions, but all I will say is that I believe your inability to grasp why the world would need a savior is exactly the biblical interpretation. God never needed to save humanity after the Fall, but he chose to out of his benevolence. It is completely illogical, the most illogical act in history. But, the Bible argues, pure, Godly love is illogical since we cannot comprehend its breadth. But Christ's act of atonement is the core of Christianity and it informs the thoughts and actions of all authentic Christians. Chesterton said something like "the world has been saved from catastrophe - that is why we celebrate." (you might really enjoy Orthodoxy, actually). And though I am a believer, I agree with your assessment of the Rapture - I think it is an unbiblical fancy that can only serve to confuse. It is very true that the Bible is full of concepts that seem worrisome, befuddling, and contradictory. But I firmly believe that the closer we study it (both as literature and history), the closer we come to understanding the vision it lays out for humanity. I think, at the very least, we can agree on one more thing - Bach's music is sublime:)
 
#123 ·
Victor, those are all very good theological questions. You seem to have a genuine interest in Christianity and are challenging/struggling with its basic assumptions. I think your essays on Bach show a good understanding of the relationship between his music and the Christian worldview (for a thesis paper last year, I wrote on the exact same topic). Being a theology/philosophy nerd, I would love to talk with you about all these questions, but all I will say is that I believe your inability to grasp why the world would need a savior is exactly the biblical interpretation. God never needed to save humanity after the Fall, but he chose to out of his benevolence. It is completely illogical, the most illogical act in history. But, the Bible argues, pure, Godly love is illogical since we cannot comprehend its breadth. But Christ's act of atonement is the core of Christianity and it informs the thoughts and actions of all authentic Christians. Chesterton said something like "the world has been saved from catastrophe - that is why we celebrate." (you might really enjoy Orthodoxy, actually). And though I am a believer, I agree with your assessment of the Rapture - I think it is an unbiblical fancy that can only serve to confuse. It is very true that the Bible is full of concepts that seem worrisome, befuddling, and contradictory. But I firmly believe that the closer we study it (both as literature and history), the closer we come to understanding the vision it lays out for humanity. I think, at the very least, we can agree on one more thing - Bach's music is sublime:)
I met a couple the other day who have adopted two very needed, disabled children. Why when these children are so demanding? It is totally illogical? The answer is only in their complete love for these children which parallels somewhat God's love for us in saving us.
 
G
#124 ·
Oooookay...so now that I got that out of my system, I'll say a few words about Bach's antisemitism: he didn't exhibit any. He certainly could have. He had plenty of chances but he didn't take the bait so I'll just take this opportunity to say that Bach was not an antisemite. Now, it is true that sometimes he quoted some of the Lutheran scholars that exhibited a good bit of antisemitism but it should be remembered that these men were also scholars of high repute in Bach's time and everybody quoted them at some point or other. Bach never quoted their antisemitic stuff. And because all this got hashed out before, there's no need to do that again, I just wanted to say that Bach was not an antisemite and we're done. So, with that, we'll be continuing on now with our examination of St. John's oratorio.
 
G
#125 ·
So why did I bring up a seemingly a needless religious discussion concerning Bach's music? It developed out of the following statement Bach made concerning the basso continuo: "[It makes] a well-sounding harmony to the honor of God and to the sanctioned enjoyment of the spirit; the aim and final reason, as with all music, so of the basso continuo, should be none else but the honor of God and the refreshing of the mind." This is not the way I have ever approached the basso continuo for obvious reasons. Bach, of course, relies heavily on the basso continuo in his two surviving Passions (it is generally believed there was at least a Markan Passion at one time). So, while I had thought that the basso continuo was used extensively in John's Passion for the sake of clarity or personalization, this may not be the primary reason or may not have been a reason at all: Bach felt it honored God and cleared the mind. Hence, he must have seen it as meditative and cathartic in some way. I'm not sure what it means in this case to honor god except to regard the music of the continuo consciously as a prayer or something similar. This then would preclude listening to the music for the sheer pleasure of it-something that people in Bach's day were not doing with his music anyway.

Bach was writing music for his audiences to actively, consciously contemplate on and praise God. However, that statement also let's us know that Bach felt that this was the purpose of "all music." Couple this with his statement in his Calov Bible that music has a divine source and we can see that Bach felt that all music is made to honor God because that is where it emanates (as an aside, concerning the Calov commentary, while we might think it is housed somewhere in Germany, it is actually to be found in the Concordia Seminary Library in St. Louis, Missouri).

Another thing to bear in mind is that when Bach accepted his title in Leipzig he was contractually bound not to compose anything that was like opera. What this meant is that operas were big musical extravaganzas and the vocal parts were written for the big stars of that city where it was being premiered. Opera was meant to showcase the vocal capabilities and highlight the talent of the singers. Bach had to promise that his cantatas and oratorios would not resort to this. The vocals were simply to be part of the music. When we speak of the music of Bach's work, we speak of the words as well as the notes. They are one. The libretto consists of the actual gospel of John from the Luther Bible and the music was simply meant to deepen an expand on these passages by formatting them as arias, chorales, recitatives and so on.

While we may conclude that Bach's words about the basso continuo were simply a justification for the fact that he was bound by his duties, there is no reason to think this was the case. He was likely fulfilling his duties by using those musical devices that he thought did the best job at fulfilling them.

So, we need now to ask who was Jesus to the author of John? One thing to bear in mind that very few Christians ever understand about the Gospels is that they don't tell the story of Jesus-they tell the story of that community and their relationship to Jesus. Why, for example, are Jesus's miracles as recounted in Mark always in duplicate while the other gospels only has them perform his miracles once? That was telling us nothing about Jesus, it was telling us about the Markan community. John differs greatly from the evangelists greatly from the very beginning when we are told that Jesus was the Logos Made Flesh. The Logos concept came from Philo of Alexandria who combined Jewish and pagan principles. He is often referred to as the Father of Christian Theology. This gives us an important clue: we know John is not a true story. There is no way a group of poor Jewish followers and fishermen could have decided to adopt Philo's conception of the Logos Made Flesh. He was a contemporary and it would be extremely unlikely that they ever heard of him. He certainly never heard of them. He never mentioned them in any of his writings. Of he had, he would have attacked the idea of a single person being the Logos Made Flesh-that wasn't how he conceived of it. Philo's Logos was a being that bridged the transcendent, divine world to the world of humanity. He thought of it as single being, a shadow of God, but was the reflection of God in man rather than being a single human individual. Philo never wrote of Jesus and so never attached the appellation of Logos Made Flesh to him.

So we can surmise that John's gospel was certainly written in the second century. The oldest Johannine manuscript we have is from the second century. There are only 11 second-century fragments available for study. Most of the NT manuscripts don't date before the third century. For example, the oldest manuscript of Mark, supposedly the first gospel, only dates from 150 CE at the earliest and is probably after 200 CE. Some place it as late as 250. Christians who want to find manuscripts from an earlier period are dreaming. The oldest copy of Pliny's Natural History comes from the fifth century or about 400 years after it was written. The idea that we're going to find a gospel fragment within a few decades after the original manuscript is ridiculous. It will never happen. The other problem is that archaeologists can find no evidence of a Jerusalem church in operation after the death of Christ but before the sacking of that city by the Romans in 70 CE. According to Acts, it existed. Where was it then? What was it doing? One would think it would have housed manuscripts and settled disputes between various communities. The truth is, this church did none of those things. Acts even states that this church was open and operating during the time that Saul of Tarsus was persecuting Christians but there is no explanation of how that could be or what it would have been doing during that time. We don't know what it was doing and that very strongly suggests that it did not exist. If these manuscripts were not housed and preserved in a church before 70, how then did they come down to us-especially after the Romans attacked and destroyed the city and its temple? What then was John's gospel based on? Nothing. It was based on nothing-not even the earlier gospels that appear in the NT because those are synoptic and John is not meaning that it did not use them as sources or rely on the same sources as these earlier gospels. I doubt very much that Philo's conceptions were much known before well into the second century and so could not have appeared in John before then. So contrary to the biblical scholars' belief that John was written around 90 CE, I find this highly suspect. I would find 190 CE a more probable date than 90.

What John's gospel tells us is what the Johannine community was like and what it believed about Jesus and how it viewed itself among the Christian population of that period. It was clearly interested in casting itself in a contemporary Hellenistic light. It was touting Philo's cosmopolitan concepts rather than some old, rigid Jewish view and it sought to distance itself from groups as that. So the Johannine community was likely composed of younger people, more pagan than Jewish and not interested in becoming more Jewish. We can see a parallel today of younger Americans seeking a more liberal and free-thinking church than the stuffy, uptight evangelical churches. They would rather see aspects of Buddhism or Taoism brought into the church than the Ten Commandments. We can surmise that John's community was something like this. Therefore updating Christianity with Philo's concepts didn't really matter to them if it was an obvious latter-day, modern development. It suited their disposition and that's all that mattered.
 
#126 · (Edited)
The sort of stuff you are writing about John what is the sort of stuff that was pedalled when I was at Theological College years ago and it was out of date then. It is based on sheer supposition. The earliest fragment of John has been dated 125AD which makes the original a first not a second century document. Johns Gospel actually describes what Jesus was like not what the community was like. I'm always interested how are man living at a desk 2000 years later can better work out what life was like and the person who was actually there writing it down for the apostle John and he actually said that it is this apostle who bears witness. Your reasoning is totally faulty in this
 
G
#127 ·
I said the earliest fragment containing anything found in John is 2nd century. The last I looked, 125 CE belonged to the second century. The problem with Christian scholarship is that it is a joke. We don't know that this fragment is John. All we know is that it is found in John. As an example, you tear Matthew out of the NT in your bible, cut it up with a pair of scissors into tiny pieces, fish out 5 or 10 pieces and chances are good that you will be reading something from Mark--often word for word. Now suppose we never had Mark but that we did have Matthew but we suddenly found a fragment or two of Mark dated significantly earlier than Matthew. We read the fragment and note it is word-for-word a passage from Matthew and we conclude a-ha! Matthew is much older than we previously thought!! Would we be right? No! So how do we know a mere fragment found in John in 125 CE means John existed that early? We can't. Yes, I read about that fragment a good many years ago but I completely disagree about the conclusions of these ridiculous scholars. And I don't buy that 125 date either. These people use extremely questionable methods of dating to try and get it as close as they can to their gospelic Jesus. Some of these people use Acts to date these fragments. Not only is Acts entirely fraudulent, you can't use the NT to prove the NT is true. Not to mention many books of the NT directly contradict each other. Paul's own epistles contradict what Acts says about him and he doesn't appear to know anything about the gospelic Jesus.
 
#128 · (Edited)
If you actually go and see the fragment in the Rylands Library Manchester you would know it belongs to John's gospel and more knowledgeable souls have dated it 125 AD. You can read how the dating was done. As this is a fragment (ie copy) made later than the original it is logical to date the original to the first century. You can deny history as much as you like with obtuse argument but it doesn't alter the facts about the gospels. Your statement about Acts being 'entirely fraudulent' is not one many scholars would take seriously these days. It belongs to a criticism whose fashion has long since passed and whose ridiculous statements like Paul's own epistles contradict Acts are based on its own misreading of both Paul and Acts. I would point out that what you have said about the NT also applies to any other ancient document whose historicity scholars cheerfully accept and whose textual evidence is not nearly so ancient or worthy as the NT documents we have. So if you're going to wipe out the history of the NT documents you'd better wipe out most of ancient history from around that period
 
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