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Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ
I basically agree with what you're saying here. I wouldn't say that Islam is an offshoot of Christianity, but it does position Mohammed as a kind of restorer of Jesus' corrupted teachings (does that idea sound familiar? It should). Mohammed was influenced by the Gnostic Christians--Sura 5 that's being discussed draws on material that is also present in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas--so I think you're on firm ground.
Your point also touches on a real sore spot in Christianity, and one that ALWAYS gets passed over by CES types and evangelicals: Paul was in the business of opposing other Christian missionaries--specifically "Judeizers,"--over the hold the Hebrew Law should have over Christians (and especially over male Christian converts who didn't want to be circumcised). His epistle to the Romans was written with these concerns in mind and cannot be completely reconciled with either the epistle of James or the Gospel according to Matthew (neither of which were written by their purported authors but which were held in high regard by James-focused sects of Christianity such as the Ebionites and the Nazareans). Paul did draw on Greek philosophy to reconcile the Law to Christianity and this point is obvious to anyone who has seriously studied the subject.
I would suggest though, that some of the Hellenization of Christianity attributed to Paul isn't exactly deserved (whether for good or ill). Only seven of the epistles attributed to him in the NT were certainly written by him (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon--although they have been tinkered with by scribes), and several most assuredly were not (the epistle to the Hebrews, the pastoral epistles of Timothy 1 and 2 and Titus. The remaining epistles are in dispute).
I agree with you on this as well. Talmage's "The Great Apostasy" has some good points, but it's marred by a reactionary anti-Catholic bias that I don't think is justified. Any number of works on the Apostasy are superior to it. I've noticed an anti-Catholic bias amongst Mormons at different times and hope someone who really knows the subject will publish on it.
Bloom deserves more attention than he gets and than I have given him.
Good post, SU!
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What is more facinating than this subject? In my opinion, it explains almost everything. West of the steppes, what exists today is traceable to the Hebrews and the Greeks. Yes, Marathon, Salamis and Platea were the most pivotal battles in the history of the world; had the ancient Persian empire crushed the incipient Greek city states, all would look very different today.
For most of the past 2,000 years Christianity has represented a fusion of the Hebrew and Greek models for explaining the world. But these are odd bedfellows, despite their symbiotic relationship. For most of the past 2,000 years certain peoples and individuals have reacted with striking similarity to the Hellenistic element of Christianity. Jesus' brother James the Just was perhaps the first to reject the Hellenistic element; the Church divided but the Hellenized branch, wrought by Paul himself, prospered while James' branch died out, perhaps becuase it was fortified by Rome's state apparatus.
Yes, Muhamed's and Joseph Smith's similar characterizations of the creeds they founded as respectively a return to the creed of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isiah and Jesus, since corrupted by man, is no coincidence. Muhamed even described a sort of first vision involving the angel Gabriel strikingly reminiscent to Joseph's first vision. No, I don't think Joseph borrowed from Muhammed's experience; he may not have even known about it. But at a gut level he experienced a similar revulsion to a certain quality of ancient Christianity that motivated Muhammed.
In the fifteenth century the Hellenistic element of Christianity, long nearly dormant except in a few isolated areas of Western Europe, mutated and began inexorably to dominate its host (query: why did the the Hellenistic element not die off as it did further east?). Martin Luther reacted with the same revulsion that James and Muhammed did to Paul's Christianity, and schism ensued.
The trauma of the Reformation only increased the Hellenistic element's pace of cell division, hence growth of the part of our culture that it represented (a result of the Reformation unforeseen by Luther and that he would have considered most unfortunate had he lived long enough to appreciate what his movement accelarated); soon the Hellenistic element broke free of its host, and modern society was born. Joseph Smith and his successors in the Church followed in the footsteps of James the Just, Martin Luther and Muhammed, as did the founders of the American Protestant movement--they acted upon revulsion at Hellenism's permissiveness, elevation of the material and the flesh as objects of beauty, and critical inquiry about everything, including what is most "sacred." Militant Islam represents an extreme such reaction.
Here is a quotation from Lawrence Wright's splendid new book "The Looming Tower" describing the ambivalence experienced by a Western educated and Western acculturated Muslim, who would go on to become the founder of modern militant Islam, as in 1948 he travelled to America from his homeland in Egypt to attend graduate school:
"As he prayed in his stateroom, Sayyid Qutb was still uncertain of his own identity. Should he be 'normal' or 'special'? Should he resist temptations or indulge them? Should he hang on tightly to his Islamic beliefs or cast them aside for the materialism and sinfulness of the West? Like all pilgrims, he was making two journeys: one outward, into the larger world, and another inward, into his own soul. 'I have decided to be a true Muslim!' he resolved. But almost immediately he second-guessed himself. 'Am I being truthful or was that just a whim?'"
What devout and wordly Mormon has not experienced similar soul searching, similar internal conflict?
The foregoing is "The Great Apostasy" as re-written by SeattleUte.