Sister Wife

On page 110 chapter 5 section "Person and Place" Crossan explains how male missionaries would have a sister wife or in other words, a female missionary that would travel with a male missionary. He mentions that this tactic offers social protection for females. However, I was wondering if this tactic could have also helped the male missionaries look less intimating given the fact that missionaries could have been traveling during the day when the women and children were home and the men were working in the field?

Jesus' Baptism

           According to Crossan, the Christian religion is uneasy with the idea of John baptizing Jesus because it makes "John superior and Jesus sinful," (Crossan 44). My question is, if John were not to baptize Jesus than who would? From a Christian perspective, is God the only one superior Jesus? Jesus did not realize he was the son of God until his baptism. Therefore, he needed to be baptized and needed someone to do it. John happened to be the person to do the job. John and Jesus worked together and shared the idea of apocalypticism before Jesus went his separate way and moved toward eschatology. I see this as them being team mates, John may have been a leader but not superior. Jesus was a regular person and regular people sin. I think this interpretation would allow more people to connect to Jesus rather spiritually or historically because they can see that he was not this perfect being. My last thought is a comparison between God finally giving Jesus the information that he was his dad while being baptized and the Mediterranean dad holding and accepting their child. Jesus' baptism could be considered as God holding and accepting his child because in a sense that is when Jesus meets his father for the first time.

Faith Over Fact

         In our class discussion it was stated that the gospel writers knew they were writing fiction and their writing was based on interpretations, but also their readers knew this too. However, so many people truly believe in it today. I wonder if they bother to look deeper into their religion to discover the truth instead of just accepting what someone of authority says? Is fear and institutionalization so strong that people do not even bother to question it? Will they just not admit that all the information in the gospels may not be true? Do they just let it be and not bother to say if it is false or true? From my personal experience, it seems as if most strict churches and even families do not allow their members to ask why. The problem they have with their members asking why is that they do not have an answer besides the basic, "it's God's will" or something of the sort. If the church does not have answers, then what do the members make of their life or their purpose on earth? People go to the church for guidance so they cannot just say “I do not know." They have to look powerful. They look powerful by having answers. I think there are many stories out there rather current or from the past that are told so we can have answers to questions such as where do we come from and why do we exist or simpler ones like why this event happened. I personally believe that there has to be scrutiny when we read or hear information because if not we can become simple minded and believe in false ideologies. In this situation we can take interpretations as literal.

I am sorry if my post offends anyone. The purpose of this post is to share ideas and ask questions in order to gain a greater understanding.

Dharma

In the preface of The Bhagavad Gita on page xxvi, Eknath Easwaran describes a story where a sage reaches to save a scorpion that has fallen in the water and in return is stung. Again, the sage sees the same event taking place and saves the scorpion once more to be stung. A bystander is confused by his actions. “Don’t you see that the wretched creature will only sting you in return?" (Easwaran xxvi). The sage replies "It is the dharma of a scorpion is to sting and the dharma of a human is to save,"(Easwaran xxvi). I think most people can relate to this story. For example, you save a cat from a tree, it scratches you, then the next day you find it in the same tree, you save it again and one more you receive a scratch in return.  This is natural, dharma “the essential order of things..." (Easwaran xxvi). I think according to the Hindu religion, we would feel the need to save because of our attachments, the belief in our delusion, and we naturally care about others. “An ancient Sanskrit epigram states, Ahimsa paramo dharma: the highest dharma is ahimsa, nonviolence, universal love for all living creatures…” (Easwaran xxvi).  The scorpion does what it is supposed to do, its dharma. It doesn’t realize that it is going to be saved just that it is in trouble now and it is the same with the cat. We would not give up on the scorpion or cat because it wouldn’t be right to watch it suffer if we can help. This example could possibly be extended to people who we keep saving from danger but he or she keeps going back for more. I wonder if they have a similar dharma to the scorpion