'The right side of history' = 'God is on our side'?

You know that many early Christians were Jews, right?

And they were in a first century cult, very arguably an "end times" cult that turned out to be a false expectation.

Such people are not always sensible when using religious texts.

And as that religious movement develops over time, of course we can assess whether it's genuinely consistent with the earlier religious texts that it used.

Jews historically have made that assessment, and noticed that this offshoot of their religion is completely inconsistent with the Hebrew Bible.

If you say that the new offshoot religion was using texts kind of like some other Jews did at the time, you can still end up with bad results.

And that there was not a unified view of things like the meaning of different prophesies

Oh sure, maybe just like today, when you have chaos in the different Christian interpretations.

And while some of the Hebrew Bible may still be difficult to interpret today, the general message about the Torah commands and the promises made for Israel, that kind of Jewish view of future progress isn't going to fit with Christianity, and you need extreme manipulation of texts to try to pretend that it works.

And I didn't say it related to your argument, "that political progressivism adopts a primitive, materialist version of the Christian sense that there is an end of history".

I just commented on your mention of modern literalism. Let us not think that people, especially religious groups, were always sensible in the past.

@Rudderneck

I really don't see what your point is or why you think it relates my argument that political progressivism adopts a primitive, materialist version of the Christian sense that there is an end of history.

My point, is that "modern literalism" isn’t a bad thing, and that early Christian and quite likely early Jewish use of texts was probably not sensible sometimes.

It's an academically illiterate turn of phrase that is built more on the premise of "History is written by the winners" rather than "God is on our side" but shows a stunning lack of understanding of how those writing the History books actually work now. Long gone are the days of history being a celebration of the winning side and a demonisation of the losers. Historians will go to significant lengths to properly investigate both sides of a dispute and think in great detail about the merits of the cause of the eventual "losers" if there was a clear winning side.

Studying History will sometimes disturb or upset you, or make you furious. If studying history makes you proud and hoppy then you probably aren't studying history.

A social history of early 21st century culture, as formulated in the late 21st or early 22nd century, will certainly have a lot of material to disturb upset and make people angry if either side of the current standoff "wins" and xrushes/obliterates the advances made by the other side. The least embarrassing side to be on is probably the peacemakers in the middle trying to square the circle and find acceptavle compromises but that's a difficult balance to find when one side considers anything short of total capitulation and obedience to be tantamount to genocide.

You know that many early Christians were Jews, right? In fact the earliest Christians were all Jews. And that there was not a unified view of things like the meaning of different prophesies even before the Christian period, there were different schools of thought who were often quite loudly opposed to each other.

It's not like a bunch of random people came along with no connection to Judaism, grabbed the scriptural texts from the final authorities who were in charge of them, and started making crazy attempts to "twist" them. What happened was the emergence of a different school or tradition of interpretation, which very much drew on the traditions that were already there, but was also driven by historical events that meant that some started to see them from a different perspective. Initially they were seen as another sect of Judaism, rather than something wholly new or separate. (Much as Islam was initially seen by many as a sect of Christianity.)

I really don't see what your point is or why you think it relates my argument that political progressivism adopts a primitive, materialist version of the Christian sense that there is an end of history.

Just seen this one now. Great observation 👍👍

And yes @ArabellaScott , the anonymous authority being key. An omnipresent all knowing. Right now Stonewall, WPATH et al seem to think that they hold the pen on how it all gets written down in the secular gospels of the Bible equivalent. And they did.... but it is being snatched off them continuously now by the EHRC, Kemi Badenoch and others. There are some who keep passing it back (looking at you Gillian Keegan) but they are becoming fewer and fewer in number.

Here is an early Christian source responding to heresy, which deals with how they twisted texts:

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103108.htm

@Rudderneck

It's not like there haven't been any groups who emerged historically to build on Christianity, either, so no need to imagine, and the response hasn't particularly been to a greater degree of literalism. I also think you will find the Jewish and Christian scholars of the ancient world were not sloppy at noticing "inconsistencies."

I didn't mean that Christians would suddenly become strict and consistent literalists.

I mean that they would understand the importance of using the plain meaning of the text, when it was valuable to their purpose, in defending their religion.

As for Jews and Christians noticing inconsistencies, well the inconsistencies that I'm talking about were certainly noticed by Jews; that's why they rejected the Christian use of the Hebrew Bible.

And yes, a lot of the arguments would depend on the importance of the plain meaning of the text. So Christians are taking things out of context when they claim prophecy fulfillment. Or Jesus didn't fulfill such and such scriptures that Jews understood to be about the messianic age.

Specifically, An appeal to anonymous authority.

Yes, that all makes sense to me. Basically it's an appeal to authority.

This ☝️☝️

Interesting thread, thanks op. Anyone need their glass topping up?

Here are some thoughts about parallels between the phrases:

• they assume a moral judgement in favour of the person and their group, against another person or group
• the source of this moral judgement is an inaccessible powerful other (either a supernatural being or people in the future)
• the judgement helps the person or group to feel more convinced of their righteousness (and perhaps justify certain actions)
• the judgement can be used to shame or threaten those in the outgroup. I read a while back that sex differences have been observed in susceptibility to shaming, with women being more susceptible than men but that's another topic. Sadly for the scolders, not all women...

This just doesn't make sense as a historical analysis, or a theological analysis either - whether of Christianity or Judaism. That's not what happened historically, and I am not even sure why you would think that would be the most logical or inevitable response.

Christian and Jewish theology, over the past 2000 years, have often influenced each other. In some cases both sharing certain ways of thinking or insights between them, or both being influenced by other historical groups or changes, or in other cases seeming to diverge in order to differentiate themselves. There was also not only one stream of Jewish thought before the emergence of Christianity, nor was that the case afterwards.

It's not like there haven't been any groups who emerged historically to build on Christianity, either, so no need to imagine, and the response hasn't particularly been to a greater degree of literalism. I also think you will find the Jewish and Christian scholars of the ancient world were not sloppy at noticing "inconsistencies."

@Rudderneck

The Jewish people of the ancient world and patristic Christian church were not miles apart in their approach to this, compared to the way modern people tend to approach texts.

Well imagine if anyone had tried to build on, and supersede, the Christian religion in the way that the Jewish religion was superseded by Christian theology.

I'm pretty sure, that Christians would have a strong commitment to the literal meaning of the text in fighting against such a heresy.

They aren't going to allow widespread "spiritualizing" of texts to overturn their core doctrines.

Also, I think we should respect modern methods of interpretation, unless perhaps someone could argue that such and such a style of interpretation works well within their religious framework and worldview.

What I would think, is not that we should be more charitable towards Christian use of texts, but rather that they simply weren't rigorous enough in their thinking, and overlooked internal inconsistencies in their religion when it came to their use of building on the Hebrew Bible.

There are modern Christians would argue the same thing, but it's probably not a particularly accurate historical viewpoint, from a Jewish or Christian standpoint. Tbh I am not sure how anyone could read the history of Jewish commentary on the Scriptures and maintain that position.

That isn't to say that no parts are ever seen as having a straightforward sense, in some cases an important one, and sometimes these have been understood differently during different historical periods too, but that is rather different than what modern people mean when they talk about a literal reading of the text. The Jewish people of the ancient world and patristic Christian church were not miles apart in their approach to this, compared to the way modern people tend to approach texts.

Yes, this is exactly what I've just argued. Marxism takes this Christian sense of history and removes God as an end, and makes historical progress an entirely historical-material phenomena.

They all, even the very unorthodox ones, involve a kind of special action by God into the historical timeline, rather than something like the Progressive-Marxist view of history.

I did mention the post mill position above, which involves a kind of human progress in history viewpoint, even if it's supernaturally assisted human progress.

Also presumably Marxism could still be a little bit influenced by the Christian eschatology idea of a goal to history, even if they invented the stuff that it would happen on the level of human progress?

you can hardly accuse Jewish scholars over the centuries of trying to stick to a kind of modern literal approach to the texts, and avoid metaphorical or symbolic ones!

I have spoken to Jewish people about this, and their argument is that while their religion did make non literal use of texts, this is like a special additional purpose. It doesn't cancel out the plain meaning of the texts, in the way that Christian theology tries to do.

So they were very insistent on the literal meaning, and that Christianity was incompatible with it, and misusing the texts.

I think that’s a fair point.

That's not a normal way to think about those kinds of texts though, within their period. It's a modern way to think about them.

It's not just a language issue either, it's also about what the stories are seen to be about. It's also not particularly Christian thing to look at the religious texts that way, you can hardly accuse Jewish scholars over the centuries of trying to stick to a kind of modern literal approach to the texts, and avoid metaphorical or symbolic ones!

There were different views in the early Church about the timing and nature of all of this. Some of these were abandoned over time, others remained as acceptable views within the tradition. But within the context of the OPs question I don't know that any of them are very relevant. They all, even the very unorthodox ones, involve a kind of special action by God into the historical timeline, rather than something like the Progressive-Marxist view of history.

Yes, both outside time and space.

In modern times there have been quite a number of American sects from the early modern period in particular who take a more material historical view, interestingly they also tend to have a rather modern form of literalism about the Bible.

I think that the American Dispensationalism position should be respected for using literal interpretation, which of course doesn't mean everything should be taken "literally" but rather you use ordinary standards of language and consider the genre when interpreting texts.

Other Christian views will just make a complete mockery of the Hebrew Bible, to get it to fit with Christian theology. Maybe Dispensationalism still has that problem to some degree, but at least they are trying.

And while their pre trib rapture beliefs are very questionable as to whether that's really in the Bible, there is support for pre mill in early Christianity I think, or some liberal scholars (non religious) may agree with their interpretation.

That's really interesting, thank you.

Where does 'heaven' and 'hell' come into all this, are they also outwith history?

The Scriptural question is tricky, because it doesn't spell anything like that out. I would say that if you read the parts that are understood to be talking about this, it seems pretty clear that you are no longer in any kind of normal historical situation, you have heavenly thrones with angels full of eyes and all the patriarchs and such singing around them and it's rather surreal.

The orthodox interpretation has been something like, you come to the end of time, when there will presumably be some actual people who are alive and experience this, the final judgement happens for them and also for the dead, and those who don't want to be in the new, perfected world are cast out, and then you have a kind of re-creation of the universe as it would have been had the Fall not occurred , though some would say that actually even better than that. The lion lays down with the lamb, and there is no death, or entropy, and so forth.

This new world is not just spiritual, but a perfect union of the spiritual and material (because in the Christian worldview the material world is fundamentally good.) So the old history will be included, not lost, and perhaps it will have a kind of new history of its own, but that is quite speculative. Lots of theologians did speculate on it, questioned things like how many would be saved and such, but it was seen as stuff that could not be known.

There are Christian sects that have a very materialistic interpretation of this, which is why I was careful to say this was the orthodox interpretation. So the Catholics, Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, and many of the main historical Protestant groups believe something like this. In modern times there have been quite a number of American sects from the early modern period in particular who take a more material historical view, interestingly they also tend to have a rather modern form of literalism about the Bible. The JWs and Mormons fall under that, and in fact in some academic treatments of Christianity they might not even be considered Christian as such, but more like off-shoots of Christianity. Their theological differences are seen as being significant enough that you can't really consider them together.

I think the concept of "minority rights" is fast becoming meaningless.

Just because you are in a minority, that does not mean you are automatically oppressed or vulnerable or that you need to have specific rights which only apply to you and not to other groups.

Paedophiles are a minority.
The landed gentry are a minority.
The privately educated are a minority.
White men are a minority.

(And some people are in all four of those groups.)

Women are not a minority.
On a global level, people of colour are not a minority.

I think it would be more constructive at this stage to refer to the rights of protected groups, rather than minorities. Because literally anyone could self-identify into a minority group on the grounds of either a made up characteristic or a characteristic which doesn't actually need protecting, and start demanding special treatment.

Trans people should have exactly the same rights as the rest of us, including the right to go about their business free from harassment and persecution. (Unfortunately trans activists do not believe gender critical women should have that right.) I wouldn't even be opposed to the Equality Act including "gender identity" (as opposed to "gender reassignment") as a protected characteristic, meaning that it should be unlawful to discriminate against someone due to their gender identity in the same way that it is unlawful to discriminate against someone due to their religion, even if you believe both are a load of nonsense. But the Equality Act also needs clarifying to make sure that sex definitely refers to biological sex, not "legal sex".

Beyond that, if trans people genuinely believe that they cannot use single sex spaces for members of their own sex in the way that, for example, disabled people cannot use non accessible spaces, it is up to them to argue and campaign for third spaces.

Because saying that you, as a male person with a gender identity, cannot possibly be expected to share single sex spaces with other male people with or without gender identities is one thing. Saying that the solution is you being permitted to share single sex spaces with members of the opposite sex instead makes no sense. You're saying, "I cannot share single sex spaces with other male people even though I am male, so female people should be forced to share single sex spaces with male people like me even though they are female." There is no logic to that at all. However you want to argue it, all you're really saying is that what you want should trump what they want because they're just (cis) women, and therefore unimportant.

The fact that trans women are a minority and women are the majority does not mean that it is the trans women who need protecting and the women who are oppressing the poor trans women by not wanting to share their spaces.

Let's be clear about this. "Trans women" is a minority that they have created and self-identified into. If they are genuinely worried about their safety when they present as women, if they feel that, for example, they will not be safe using men's toilets when wearing women's clothes, they have a choice to present as men. They have a choice to simply take their makeup and wig off, take their skirt and heels off, put some trousers and flat shoes on, and blend in.

Now I'm not saying that they should present as men in order to escape oppression. They should be able to wear whatever they like as long as it is appropriate to the situation (i.e. not bondage gear in Tesco's) without being persecuted for it.

The point is that even if they believe themselves to be women, they can disguise themselves as men very easily, given that they, like men, are adult human males, and all the rest is window dressing.

Women do not have the ability to identify out of sex based oppression. And this is something that female people who identify as trans men or non binary people will discover. They do not look like men and the world does not see them as men. They look like women and the world sees them as women. And they are affected by feminist issues such as sex discrimination, abortion, endometriosis and lack of woman-centred research in medicine. Not a single one of us has the ability to disguise ourselves as men and escape sexism by going around wearing men's clothes.

And women as a sex class intersect with many other groups, particularly where race, religion and disability are concerned. Being a woman who is also from one of these minority groups usually makes you even more vulnerable than the average woman.

So I'm not interested in "minority rights". I am interested in identifying groups of people who actually need specific rights, and protecting those. Whether that group is a minority shouldn't come into it.