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August 25, 2008 | 12:55 pm

Atheists ask: ‘Jesus Christ had a homosexual relationship?’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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My article this week about anti-Semitism on college campuses discusses at length how the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine often pushes the limits of civil discourse in criticizing Israel. We already know that Muslims feel any critical depiction of the prophet Muhammad goes too far, and, to prove that each of the Abrahamic faiths is at times the target of criticism it finds offensive to the point that censorship or condemnation would be warranted, I present this drama from Ohio.

There the Activists for Atheism club at a community college has incited a lot of ire over a flier questioning whether Jesus was gay.

The question, which seems like the latests iteration of “The Da Vinci Code,” was drawn from the non-canonical Secret Gospel of Mark. Not surprisingly, the image offended a whole lot of people. The local Chronicle-Telegram filed this report, a significant chunk of which I’ve posted after the jump.

Many of the comments are irrelevant to whether the atheist club had the constitutional right to post the flier, though it violated the student code of conduct, and no one quoted does anything to explain that the secret gospel is not accepted as authentic. Offended Christians should have addressed the latter. The Secret Gospel of Mark is a joke, along the lines of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which dismissed women as undeserving of life.

Now, back to the Chronicle-Telegram:

Christopher Burns is the secretary and treasurer of the campus Activists for Atheism club, which put up the poster.

He said it wasn’t intended to mock religion. Instead, the poster was meant to stir debate about Christianity by referencing a passage of the Bible that was allegedly cut out by early Christians.

Burns said most Christians have never heard of the Secret Gospel of Mark, which was found inscribed in a letter by Greek historian Clement of Alexandria. The letter has been disputed for decades and is now lost, with only photographs of the passages remaining for study.

One text from the letter hints that the Bible’s account of Mark’s gospel originally told the tale of Jesus raising a man from the dead and then having an intimate relationship with him, said Aaron Weaver, a senior at LCCC and president of the college atheist club.

“The purpose of the poster is to get students to see something they haven’t seen before,” he said. “The chances are it challenges them to challenge something they thought they knew.”

Sure, the poster was attention-seeking, but ultimately Weaver said he just wanted to create enough buzz to get people debating and thinking about why they believe what they believe.

“I understand that people will be offended. People will sometimes be offended for the most ridiculous of reasons,” he said.

He said his fellow students have the right to practice their religions and to express themselves in any way they choose.

He said he was shocked to learn the college had a policy that bans students from mocking religion, or any idea, for that matter. The policy is a clear violation of the First Amendment, Weaver said.

Sophomore Dejoune Grantham said the poster is libelous and blasphemous, and in her opinion it isn’t protected by the First Amendment.

“I don’t want my children walking through here and seeing that. It’s filthy,” she said.

Another sophomore, Amber Cales, said the poster was in a public place, and it was easily seen by anyone who passed. She said that took away her right as a parent to shield her children from controversial ideas.

She said she also felt the poster was just taking a pot-shot at Christianity instead of protesting all religious expression.

“You know if it was something about Judaism or Islam, it wouldn’t be tolerated,” she said.

Not true, it turns out. The atheist club, Weaver said, is an equal-opportunity ridiculer.

On Wednesday, he put up a picture of the prophet Mohammed — an act strictly forbidden in the Islamic faith.

He said that about 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, he received a death threat in response to the picture, which read, “With love and missiles.” He took the picture down, turned over the note to campus security officers and went home.

“I put myself at risk, but I do so freely. I don’t let fear or the threat of death stop me from speaking my mind freely,” he said.

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Well! I can certainly see why this Gospel got a thumbs-down at the Council of Nicea. By the way, when is a gospel not a gospel? When it’s the first century version of The Onion?

Comment by Ben Plonie on 8/25/08 at 10:33 pm

why not type TORIQ EFETZ STELL M into google, go to the 7th entry (a prophecy web site) then go to the 189th entry = 7 x 7 x 7 x 9 = 189. tell me what you think…

Comment by james kahelin on 10/06/08 at 7:30 pm

Must be a typo. This is what I got

Did you mean: TARIQ HEIFETZ STELLA M

No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found.

Your search - TORIQ EFETZ STELL M - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.

Say, are you related to Kato Kaelin? Sorry, I bet everybody asks you that.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 10/06/08 at 10:14 pm

the literal meaning of the syllables TORIQ EFETZ STELL M
means “TO PLACE A ZERO (NOTHING) THEREUPON, ELSE…”
often when we hear RUACH HAKODESH uttering we do not know what its intended audience is but afterward we can discern the meaning. at the time when i heard these syllables as a proper name i had no idea they constituted actual words in hebrew. when i tried to do a transliterate translation of the individual words i came up with the above “expression”. the topic of this blog and all who read it is the target.

Comment by james kahelin on 10/13/08 at 10:45 am

I’ve often wondered if Christ was gay, I know that His disciples were often seen naked as the Bible states, this makes one ask or wonder if Christ had any gay or homosexual activity with any of his disciples.

Comment by Mark on 11/05/08 at 3:49 am

Mark,

You wrote, “His disciples were often seen naked as the Bible states…”  Where exactly is that stated?  I’ve been a student of the Bible for some time now and can tell you that you are certainly mistaken.  Please don’t make assertions that are not factual and hope your readers will just follow along blindly… because too many of them will.

Comment by Nick Carter on 11/05/08 at 6:48 pm

i am glad that this discourse is generating so much interest, that is what any of us are to be about. yet for believers in Yeshua we are to “be about my father’s business” as in Luke 2:49. most scholars agree that Luke was probably a gentile, not a jew, yet a physician none the less. Yeshua is the product of at least 2 gentiles in his lineage by the way. this scripture is a bit deeper than “be in the moment” type of stuff seen in self realized theologies. and that is probably the single greatest distinction. one cannot read the bible, one must have it revealed to them. that is why the term Spirit is capitalized in the books written by Paul, regardless of where in the sentence it is found. the subject of nakedness as found in Genesis is given in both a physical as well as spiritual context so we might ponder the difference. originally Ben ADAM (mankind) had the spiritual first and the physical secondly but that was reversed by a choice undertaken. yet the subject is visited again by ADONAI in the verse Job 29:14 or Isaiah 61:10. this begs the question - how are any of these scriptures being revealed to you? which is your predisposition? the physical or the spirtual and are you happy with that choice?

Comment by james kahelin on 11/06/08 at 10:43 am

I heard these syllables as a proper name i had no idea they constituted actual words in hebrew. when i tried to do a transliterate translation of the individual words i came up with the above expression. I know that His disciples were often seen naked as the Bible states, this makes one ask or wonder if Christ had any gay or homosexual?

Comment by Dating Site Malaysia on 11/13/08 at 6:00 am

there are many mysteries in the bible. if you are messianic (which is what i am) then you note the most important mystery thusly: 1 Tim 3:16 “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” this is truly a mystery (and not just for gentiles). yet there is another mystery in the TORAH seen as a bible code that was found by a jewish mathematician in israel. i shared this with a rabbi who found it “very mysterious, indeed”. using the hebrew alphabet as spacing the code reads thusly: genesis forms TORAH, exodus TORAH, numbers HAROT, deuteronomy HAROT. so this forward and backward “pointing” of this code focuses on leviticus. going to approximately the center of leviticus (chaps 13 and 14) we find the protocol for the “cleansing of the leper”. all the elements used by the high priest were also used in John 19:29 thusly: “Now there was set
a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put [it] upon hyssop.” reading from the original hebrew/greek of this verse indicates it probably was not “wine”, nor a “sponge” but grape juice and passover bread. if that was the case, this constitutes Christ’s actual last “passover meal”. why is this important? because leprosy is a typology of sin, not a particular disease. people entering a room were required to yell out “UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN” to notify the priests and others that they were in their midst. the high priest takes the “elements” and places them in an earthen jar with water in it, turning their hands over 3 times to complete the protocol. Yeshua was in the center of the earth for 3 days. tell my how much more mysterious can you get?

Comment by james kahelin on 11/13/08 at 1:11 pm

I’m messianic myself, pre-messianic that is. The code thing is a little more involved but I will stick to a more straightforward aspect.

Genesis/Exodus and Deuteronomy/Numbers bookend Leviticus, but following a similar pattern Leviticus contains the code for the Eternal name of God as follows (using English equivalent letters and left to right) in a sort of a Menorah pattern:

torh torh YHVH hrot hrot
---> ---> God  <--- <--- 

(We also know that the lateral flames of the Menorah in the Temple were inclined to the center flame. Maybe significant, maybe not. Just a thing)

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/13/08 at 4:39 pm

hi again,
this weekend i had the pleasure (politically correct statement choice of words) to encounter the ANTI-PROPOSITION 8 constituency’s protest gathering after i left a place of business. i saw many signs that said:
“get out of my marriage” or “where is the separation between church and state”. i would like to address PROP 8 otherwise known as the MARRIAGE PROTECTION act of CALIFORNIA. the reason i am doing this is because many ANTI PROP 8 protestors continued to pester me for my opinion (which i initially told them they would not be interested in so why bother). here is what i told them:
1) i will not make reference to the bible during this
2) are you trained to allow PROP 8 to fail?
  a) they said “what kind of training”?
      i answered:
      1) to decide on another group similar to yours
        to have empathy with me in permitting your
        opinions even if i do not believe in them
        a) i asked them: “of the following situations which one’s are felonies”? 1) reading the bible out loud, 2) sodomy, 3) polygamy
in new jersey only the first is a felony (a hate crime statute). it was passed by a JEW !!!!! (homosexual one if you can believe it).
          b) i said “can you rightly judge polygamists like you are asking me not to judge you, because bisexuals like you want rights for will claim a partner of both sexes simultaneously and say G_d made them that way” yeah right….
          c) if PROP 8 were to fail (Obama will by the way override it, he said so in gaining the homosexual vote - McCain said he would say anything to get elected and Obama did). if 8 were to fail then shouldnt EVOLUTION no longer be taught in schools? afterall same sex marriage cannot be found in Darwinism, only in Creationism (which is not allowed to be taught eventhough in this case it is the truth). moreover, the only failure Darwin ever accomplished was at being an ATHEIST. for he would have promoted his atheism, yet his theories and same sex marriage will actually do what he did not want to happen - prove that G_d was right all along.
          c) same sex oriented people will no doubt want children. any TORAH abiding heterosexual who gives up their genetic material to cause this to happen comes under an even greater penalty than that of causing an abortion. there are 8 wraths for christians - can you name all of them? if you could then you might consider disavowing your claim to be a christian, it is easier to do nothing than to do the TORAH. for same sex people to have children means they believe in “foster parenthood”. i have nothing against same sex people, just the models they are introducing into society for the rest of us to have to swallow. their model of foster parenthood if it were correct should come from the common foster parents we all have in HEAVEN. and they don’t like any of our behaviors (heterosexual or homosexual). get on your knees before you protest either side of this issue…..

james

Comment by james kahelin on 11/17/08 at 1:23 pm

here are the wraths/judgements against “people who call themselves christians”:
1) blasphemy of the holy spirit
2) grieving the holy spirit
3) lukewarmness
4) frustration of grace (resulting in G_d blinding them)
5) reprobation
6) debasement (G_d’s complete form of reprobation)
7) causing another believer to fall
8)  why not add one you think should be here….

can you find the scriptures for each of the above?

Comment by james kahelin on 11/18/08 at 12:30 pm

This is the true word:

All humans are gay. 

It’s the absolute truth.
Your angst at this statement is proof.

Those in Power have been using Your desire, to control You, and Your upset at being capable of both heterosexual and homosexual desire, which YOU know in Your heart of hearts is the truth, makes You angry because You have spent Your adult life fighting off this desire so You can prove You are worthy to be controlled by their power over You.  The more You believe in their Power over You, the more You have to deny Your humanity and Your own desire. 

Jesus, got this.  He could spend his life just with his men.  And He did not have to have children.  And he did not have to get married.  He stepped outside of the bounds of the Power, and he was killed for it. 

Christ belongs more to the truth of gay children, then to the demand for absolute heterosexuality.  And YOU know it’s true.  That’s why You have to fight so hard against Your desire, and why the Power had to turn Jesus into something else, to regain Power over You, before You discovered Yourself.  The Power must control You.  You also know that Power isn’t from God.  That Power is from angry men who had to give up their desire, thus You will be forced to give up Your personal desire as well.  They mixed it with ethical concepts about harming others, and they really got You, didn’t they.

Comment by word on 2/06/09 at 8:11 pm

if man had a counterpart that was not G_d then who is it? another man? scripture clearly states this is not the case.

Comment by james kahelin on 2/07/09 at 5:26 pm

To ‘word’
Saying all humans are gay is like saying all human are diabetic. As with homosexuality, there are a tiny number of Type 1 diabetics that unfortunately have a natural defect or vulnerability, and a far greater number who choose or are acculturated into an unhealthy lifestyle resulting in Type 2 diabetes growth.

I recommend a recent article in the New York Times Magazine called ‘What do Women Want?’, found (at least for now) here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html

You can analyze the details yourself but briefly, it described research by sexologist Meredith Chivers demonstrating that men’s desires are hard-wired and women’s are more in software. Not only that, but men (but not women) really do consciously report what their bodies react to involuntarily, meaning that they do not fool themselves.

So that if 99% of men think they are straight, they are really straight, and your 1% think they are gay, they are really gay. This tells us something about the truth. If you want to love yourself go ahead, but you are not normal and most people are not like you.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 2/08/09 at 5:01 pm

hi,
i hadn’t really considered this subject a scientific one eventhough i am a scientist. i was more interested in searching for G_d in the scriptures (no matter what you believe or put your faith in). to that end consider this:
the bible says that man’s counterpart as defined by G_d is not flesh. the bible tells us this when it says
“those who worship him must do so in spirit and truth”. did you notice my error in the previous sentence? it should read “those who worship him must do so in Spirit and truth”. this means it is not the spirit of a man but an impregnation of another one. look at ecclesiastes 4:12 which says that a “three corded knot cannot be easily broken”. G_d has designed the structure of 3 to be important. the number of biblical illustrations are numerous. the most important one is in Acts 19:15 where something that is not G_d confronts someone who is trying to imitate Christ and his works. seeing that the person is not 3 folded he is overcome. the voice asks for 3 references and discovers they don’t exist in this person. what about the verse that says “let us make man in our image” as found in Genesis 1:26. this tells me that man’s counterpart is not man, nor is it singular. man’s counterpart is Spirit (with the correct capitalization).

Comment by james kahelin on 2/09/09 at 12:20 am

The divide between religion and science is artificial. If both of these are a pursuit of the truth than both of these have to be saying the same thing in different terms. The dismissal of the poetic and allegorical statements of faith is also pedantic and artificial.

The Jewish tradition is loaded with references to ‘threes’ although not to the particluar one referred to in Christianity. I call the unity of ‘God, Torah and Israel’ the Jewish trinity, although Abraham, Isaac and Jacob also represent essential traits and the oft-repeated ‘Israel/House of Aaron/God-fearers’ recounted in POsams has its own essential insight to impart.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 2/09/09 at 1:58 am

Psalms

Comment by Ben Plonie on 2/09/09 at 1:59 am

hi again,
Jesus said “where 2 or more are gathered in my name there am i in the midst of them”. two flesh and a third which is not flesh, yet they make the essential 3. in our messianic synagogue we are taught Yeshua is identified as (being created) on the 3rd festival day Yom HaBikkurim aka First Fruits. in our solar system the only planet sustainining life (flesh, not counting G_d’s intention to place Spirit in there too) is the 3rd one from the sun. hmm….

Comment by james kahelin on 2/09/09 at 1:54 pm

Hold on just a minute! On a blog entry about Jesus having homosexual relationships you are calling Jesus and his disciples ‘First Fruits’? I’m speechless! Nobody can follow that act!

Comment by Ben Plonie on 2/09/09 at 11:54 pm

that’s the reason why we do everything in Hebrew and use the scriptures as our guidebook. english is a poor translation for any concept or terminology that the bible expounds on. i’m sure you know there are many words for “love” both in hebrew as well as greek. none of them are corrupted or defiled that i know of. a concordance is very important as you can see.
when you think of parables they for the most part are contextless, essentially timeless therefore. can you imagine someone like Daniel describing his visions with a limited vocabulary. and what about Yeshua’s speeches. we feel that way ourselves much of the time when communicating. that very character defect in me is what i depend on when i am with jewish people. they are keen to recognize the Spirit, not me and my flesh and for that i appreciate them no matter whether they accept what i believe in or not.

Comment by james kahelin on 2/10/09 at 1:50 am

lately i have been hearing negative comments about the recently famous tabloid personality, Ms. Nadya Suleman from same sex oriented people. they incorporate money and cost in their argument against her intentions, including the notion of procreation. i guess they want to manage the process of procreation, even to the point of stopping it completely by lifestyle choice that without proxy conception renders it terminated.  natural selection, natural unselection, unnatural selection or unnatural unselection. that sounds like a pot calling the kettle black which if i initiated this against a same sex oriented person would be labelled a hate crime. go figure….

Comment by james kahelin on 2/21/09 at 6:51 pm

This is a very touchy subject. Lots of reaction as well. Good article.

Comment by solar power on 3/08/09 at 4:07 pm

tough people take on tough subjects and try not to be tough about any of it. QUESTION: is there a physical marker for G_d’s wrath? in the world of autoimmune diseases the common symptom for attempts at undoing autoimmune destruction is itself a destructive consequence known as lipoatrophy.

Comment by james kahelin on 3/10/09 at 10:21 am

consider autoimmunity in G_d’s creation (man); beginning in the spiritual realm and actually crossing over into the physical realm where it becomes manifested. Galatians 5:16-17, Romans 7:23-25, Romans 8:6, 1 Peter 2:11

Comment by james kahelin on 3/10/09 at 10:43 am

scripture points us to the notion of “changing from glory to glory” as part of our spiritual maturity cycle. if this be the true case then one must realize that there are entities which perform the opposite. call them what you want, the hebrews referred to them as
“Shedim”. their existence is not from glory to glory but rather from deathly to deathly with gestation cycles that go backwards. if you pray for elevation of your own spirit to further levels of glory then you must necessarily pray to induce abortion in the fetal life cycle of Shedim. one way to do this in private communication to Adonai is to pray in glossolalia or using the strict Hebrew manifestation of the Spirit as breath then draw in air as if to breathe in Ruach HaKodesh and at the same time exhale ever so slightly prayers in between gasps for air.

Comment by james kahelin on 8/05/09 at 12:08 pm

Don’t get me wrong, but I’m sure that even he who calls himself atheist won’t appreciate this poster just for the one simple reason. It was designed not to provoke discussions and thoughts, but to inflame indignation and controversy. Why not just mention about the lost books of the Bible? Because it wouldn’t generate that amount of clicks!

Comment by dildo on 9/30/09 at 9:05 am

there is no purpose in inflaming and i did not pick the subject of this blog, someone else thought WAS JESUS A HOMOSEXUAL? was an appropriate topic for a jewish journal.

Comment by james kahelin on 9/30/09 at 12:24 pm

hahaha gay??? jesus? no no no dont fool your selfs… notice that in the scripture yall found it states that jesus rose a man from the dead…. then it says some disgusting things…. but how? how could a man raise anouther man from the dead??? its because he is alpha and omega and then theres the dead sea scrolls and the bible and many completed prophesies from the bible and also the robe jesus was wraped in before his resurection and the journals written by other people like ceasar, yes even the emperor was writting about jesus christ and also in the bible it states that god sees being gay as an abomination…. so what what you say… well all have to answer to him… do your research just like i have oh and dont come at me with science because not all of science has been proven and theres a flaw in the scientific law ” something cannot come from nothing” think back ok what if we were tiny cells… where did cells come from? then where did that come from? then that? bottom line it has to end therefore leaving a creator…

Comment by marin on 9/14/11 at 1:31 pm

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