Posted by pancho from ? (63.164.145.161) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 at 3:06PM :
In Reply to: Re: Why Muslim Assyrians can't exist...... posted by sankho from ? (139.134.58.153) on Friday, November 15, 2002 at 11:40PM :
Yes indeedy, Paul really set the tone and direction...and he was also a Roman citizen. He was the one who had the presence of mind to insist that non-Jews could become Christian...and the Jews nearly killed him for it. He was also no friend to women...which, aside for the Madonna/whore thing, Christianity wasn't either.
But...there just is no escaping the fact that Jesus was seen as the Jewish Messiah and he said himself he came to fulfill the Mosaic Law, not break it. He was radical certainly for his day, as a friend reminds me that Jesus associated with unclean people...but so do I.
My point was that Christianity was as foreign to BetNahrain as Islam was. Remember it was the Roman style of kick-ass Christianity that has survived...our own "get kicked" kind was declared a heresy...and not just because of internal squabbles...no one could run a State then, or now, if the people within it were "true" Christians...as we like to brag we were. That is preposterous for you'd get exactly what Jesus got. If for no other reason than your neighbors would merely waltz in and take what you were anxious to leave behind anyway...in your mad rush to get to heaven.
And THAT...is about as foreign a concept to the vigorous Assyrians as I can imagine. In fact...given what we know of the Assyrians, I'd say Islam, with its military component, was far closer in temperament and civility and civic duty, to what we know of the ancient Assyrians. Turn our cheek?...are you crazy!!! Down on our knees??? "Try it fella"!
To this day we've kept that most lovely of all suggestions to go visit someone..."Azakh Kha Reesha Makhakh"...literally, "let's Go Hit A Head". Now THERE is a guest to be reckoned with! My kind of people, all the way.
-- pancho
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