John Newman: Countdown to Darkness available soon

[Sandy Larsen]

Lance,

Have you ever noticed how abruptly Mark's Gospel ends? (Basically the part after Jesus's resurrection, IIRC). I think it consumes like one page. And did you know that there are actually two extant versions of that ending? It's as though somebody removed the real ending and then put in its place one that said what they wanted it to say. That's the impression I got when I first read the Gospel.

In addition there are a couple of other oddities in Mark that also make one feel like information was removed. The story of the boy wearing only a linen cloth running away when the Romans apprehended Jesus. It's there for some reason, but not elaborated upon. (I think his cloth falls off or is pulled off.)

If you're interested, you should check out Secret Mark (a.k.a. the Secret Gospel of Mark). It is apparently a version of Mark that was meant only for spiritually advanced members of the Church. When I first learned about Secret Mark, it made me wonder if it was what was originally written by Mark. And if that the Mark we know today is a stripped down version.

Unfortunately Secret Mark isn't extant. It is only commented on and quoted by Clement of Alexandria in a document known as the Mar Saba Letter.

I personally like to think that we have the whole story in our New Testament. But Secret Mark does make me wonder if the early Catholic Church had a hand in purging material that sounded too gnostic for its tastes.

Mar Saba Letter - English Translation

 

[Guest]

I just noticed that my little blurb about Newman had actually generated some responses.  Sorry about that.  I admit to having no great expertise in regard to the JFK assassination.  I am probably better informed than 97% of Americans, but I have never been fascinated by topics such as whether the Zapruder film was altered.  I do, however, have great expertise in certain other subjects - UFOs, the Shroud of Turin, a large variety of anomalous phenomena, and the history of Christianity.  Just as an example - I have almost 300 books on my Kindle, and 230 of them are serious, in-depth Christian history and theology.  I do know the difference between serious, mainstream Christian scholarship and the lunatic fringe.  Within the mainstream, there are wide differences of opinion on any number of key topics, including the ending of Mark's gospel.  (As fate would have it, I just finished the recently published The Synoptic Problem: Four Views, https://www.amazon.com/Synoptic-Problem-Four-Views/dp/0801049504, which is fascinating reading for anyone who thinks the position that Mark was the earliest gospel is a settled matter - and for anyone who thinks the Gospel of Thomas is an early document.)  The point being, when we are talking about a subject with such a vast amount of diverse literature as Christianity, to be consigned to the lunatic fringe and generate no scholarly commentary, you have to be way, way out there.  Newman's work on Jesus is way, way out there.

This is not to suggest that Newman's work on JFK is worthless by any means.  But I do think it is important in every case to ask, "Who is this author?"  If he is way, way out there in one instance, how far out there is he in this instance?  There is no question that there is a mindset that prefers the weird to the mundane and that tends to interpret any given set of facts in the most bizarre way possible.  All of the subjects in which I am interested are littered with these characters.  Often their books span several of my areas of interest.  Whether Newman is one of them, I don't know - but I do know he has authored one that is way, way out there.  If I were going to consider his work on JFK, I would want to know this.

I saw on another recent thread a discussion about IQ.  I have noticed that within the fields of weirdness in which I operate there is a preponderance of clearly high-IQ individuals.  My own father had an extremely high IQ but was an irresponsible, self-destructive wreck; the diagnosis at the time (1950s) was that he was simply unable to cope with the mundane nature of day-to-day living.  Folks like this are often attracted to the weird - they want life to be more exciting and mysterious than it actually is (which is mysterious enough for most of us).  William Manchester, of all people, made an excellent point when he said that in the case of JFK there is no balance between the Good that was destroyed (i.e., JFK and all the dreams that died with him) and the Evil that accomplished the destruction (a disturbed, minimum-wage character with a cheap rifle).  Even those of us who don't live in the ozone find a vast conspiracy appealing; it gives the assassination a deep meaning and importance that an assassination by LHO simply does not.

I am perhaps the only person on this forum capable of reading Case Closed and General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy at the same time and not having either one raise my blood pressure.  I actually just finished reading Case Closed from start to finish and am jumping around in General Walker.  I am aware of the criticisms leveled at Case Closed, but in all honesty it presents an entirely believable case from start to finish, factually and psychologically (i.e., in terms of LHO's and Ruby's respective motivations).  (I am also reading The Mind of Oswald, which collects pretty much everything LHO ever wrote, and will then move on to DVP's book.)  General Walker, on the other hand, strikes me as Harvey & Lee Revisited.  It is a massive work, but it relies on the most dubious of sources and the most incredible speculation.  As a sane human being, I do not believe for one second that LHO was a "fake Marxist," a "fake defector," a CIA asset or in any other respect The Most Interesting Man In the World (with Ruby a close second).  It is possible, after his return from Minsk, that some group viewed this sad loser as the perfect patsy either to actually commit the assassination or to allow himself to be framed as the assassin, but there is really just no credible evidence of this.  I'm not trying to persuade anyone here, just as I would not waste my time trying to convince Richard Hoagland and his followers that the vast crystalline structures they see on the moon are not really there.  I'm merely pointing out that most of the conspiracy literature relating to JFK seems to me to fall squarely within the same vein as the fringe literature in fields where I do have greater expertise.  Yes, many of the proponents are highly intelligent.  Yes, the theories are appealing in the way Manchester talked about.  Yes, they have a superficial appeal because many different persons and groups would have been delighted to see JFK dead.  Yes, they are fun and can become a consuming hobby or religion.  But, alas, they do not square with the known facts and rely almost entirely on dubious evidence and wild speculation.

And thus, I will not be buying Newman's book on JFK - although I may buy the one on Jesus because it does sound kind of interesting even if the basic premise is entirely implausible.

[James DiEugenio]

If you don't know who Lance is by now and why he is here, then you still need your mom to show you the way to the local drugstore.

The author of JFK and Vietnam is part of the Lunatic Fringe. 

Thanks for coming out Lance.

Edited January 24, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Guest]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

If you don't know who Lance is by now and why he is here, then you still need your mom to show you the way to the local drugstore.

The author of JFK and Vietnam is part of the Lunatic Fringe. 

Thanks for coming out Lance.

Insofar as Christian theology is concerned, he is indeed part of the lunatic fringe.  I don't believe there is a mainstream scholar on the planet who would disagree with that.  The extent to which this fact should be taken into consideration by readers of his other books is for them to decide.  I am not suggesting he is a raving lunatic who is incapable of serious work.  I am suggesting his book on Jesus demonstrates a willingness to jettison hundreds of years and mountains of serious scholarship in favor of a theory that is too bizarre to be taken seriously, a fact which to me does not seem to me entirely irrelevant to his work on JFK.  Your mileage may vary.

[Paul Brancato]

Your definitions of lunatic fringe and mainstream are your own fantasy.

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Your definitions of lunatic fringe and mainstream are your own fantasy.

Well, certainly, personal views come into play to some extent.  To me, something like the notion that Greer shot JFK would be the lunatic fringe of the JFK assassination community - but not the Lone Nut theory, Jim's Deep Politics theory or even Harvey & Lee.  All of the latter are worthy of discussion and consideration.  To the New Atheists, any Christian is a member of the lunatic fringe of humanity, regardless of whether he is a Flat Earther, a Young Earth Creationist or a world-class scholar like Alvin Plantinga.  When one chooses to engage with Christianity as Newman has done, "mainstream" would at least mean "within the scope of what the vast majority of recognized Christian scholars consider even worth discussing" - a very broad category that encompasses a wide variety of positions and some bitter disagreements.  "Lunatic fringe" would be "so completely at odds with the historical record and traditional understanding of Jesus and his teachings that the vast majority of Christian scholars do not even consider it worth discussing."  "Jesus never existed" - bingo, you have strayed into the lunatic fringe.  "Jesus was a yogic master who tried to teach First Century Jews the practice of marveling, but he was completely misunderstood until I wrote my book" ... well, yeah.  No, I don't think it's a fantasy on my part or even unfair to characterize this as a lunatic fringe position; I suppose we could omit "lunatic" and insert "extreme" or whatever would make the notion more palatable.  What is the nerve I've struck here, anyway?  I have simply pointed out that Newman has authored a book about Jesus that is definitely at odds with a literal mountain of scholarship.  This tells one something about him that may or may not be relevant to his work on the assassination but that is at least worth knowing.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Guest

[Guest]

Through the Miracle of Google, I actually found (on my third attempt) some scholarly discussion of Newman's Jesus thesis.  This is from the abstract of a paper presented in 2016 to the American Academy of Religion by Matthew J. Dillon of the Religious Studies Department at Rice University.  This is all quite interesting (to me, anyway), and I have ordered the Kindle edition of Newman's book.  If it turns out to be the Case Closed of Christianity, I will be the first to admit it.

In December 1945, twelve codices (and leaves of a thirteenth) dating from the 4^th century were found just outside the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. The fifty-three texts within them are translations of Greek originals into Coptic.  From the time these Nag Hammadi Codices (NHC) became available they have been seen as a new window onto the historical Jesus.  ...

That is, readers utilize the NHC in order to challenge orthodox constructions of history and legitimize their own new readings of the past. In three case studies – Bagwan Shree Rajneesh or Osho (1931-1990), John M. Newman (B: 1952), and Jonathan Talat Phillips (B: 1975) – I examine how readers utilize The Gospel of Thomas to assert that the historical Jesus advocated a ‘Tantric’ cosmology, anthropology, and practice (White 2000).   ,,,

 

John M. Newman, PhD in East Asian Studies, worked for fifteen years as a forensic documentary specialist in the Army and National Security Agency. As an author he is best known for his studies of Lee Harvey Oswald and the John F. Kennedy assassination (Newman 1992; Newman 1995). Recently, he produced the most rigorously researched non-academic study of Thomas I am aware of (Newman 2011). Utilizing his facility in both Greek and Coptic, Newman inserts his readings into the academic debates on Thomas conducted by scholars such as Robert Funk and Stephen Patterson. He argues that the historical Jesus had discovered the “perennial” system of “yogic mysticism” found in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Jesus’ disciples misunderstood him so severely that his yogic teaching was lost to the historical record – even misunderstood him so severely that his yogic teaching was lost to the historical record – even Thomas. Newman reconstructs this system from logion two of Thomas by emending the Coptic to reflect similar passages in Clement’s quotations of The Gospel of the Hebrews. I will briefly touch on his Greek and Coptic analysis prior to examining Newman’s primary hypothesis: Jesus taught the struggle of the “true self” with the “ego” through psycho-physical discipline. Once the disciple learns and practices yogic techniques (jnana, hatha and bhakti), they will begin to “marvel,” that is, recognize consciousness is eternal. Marveling, the disciple realizes “the Kingdom of Heaven” is the realization of conscious awareness pervading the finite world.

 

I conclude these case studies exhibit something fundamental about the religious reception of the NHC. The histories and readings of these cases cannot be justified by original meanings of The Gospel of Thomas. Nevertheless, they exhibit how the NHC is providing a new resource in cultural memory through which individuals re-imagine Christianity beyond the pews. Each of these authors avers that Orthodox Christianities are ill-suited to the (post-)modern West. They produce counter-memories in order to draw the Christian symbolic into a horizon of reference that encompasses humanism, democracy, disenchantment, and unprecedented pluralism. Each of these case studies promotes Jesus as a mouthpiece of “Tantric” wisdom (as understood by the reader). Each offers a Jesus who suggests that every human is fundamentally divine, regardless of sex or gender. In distinct but overlapping ways, the Jesus of Osho, Newman, and Phillips respond to the problem disenchantment by enchanting the human body and framing the Kingdom of Heaven in psychological discourse. Such cases suggest tracing the reception of the NHC will illuminate further radical reformulations of Christian symbols.

[James DiEugenio]

YAWN.

[James DiEugenio]

Will you now address the reversal of NSAM 263, which expressed Kennedy's decision to withdraw from Vietnam, with NSAM 288 which reversed that order and presented for the first time a whole array of attack formations, by land and air, against the north.

Something which Kennedy would not even look at the whole three years in the White House, Johnson was now getting ready  to fire up in just three months.

Geez, I wonder how that happened?

Oh, forgot, 11/22/63.

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Clark]

It's a book I will have to read. 

I've been absorbed in academic religious studies since my second year of college. After graduation I no longer spent much time on the eastern relogions that so fascinated me in college. My focus has been on Roman and Greek Pagan, Abrahammic and Egyptian Religion. The discussion in earlier posts, especially about the Gospel of Thomas, is riveting for me. I did not see the "Q" document, Markan priority or two-source theories for the gospels mentioned, but it's fascinating, and you don't get paranoid about Lance's angry UFC relatives and mobsters coming after you for dissing their ancestors on the internet.

Regarding the role of the early church in shaping Christian Dogma, my deep and detailed studies of Roman religion put that and my own experience growing up as a Catholic into a manageable and coherent perspective. I though I was a good rebel as a teen while still maintaining an open mind towards religion and religious community and it's place in my life. I found that I was wrong, and only recently have I truly separated the wheat from the chaffe of my religious upbringing.

It was suggested that perhaps this conversation move elsewhere and I am interested in reading and being part of that. I would definitely follow the conversation, and I would be glad to lead and get it started but I would bet that I would find myself hanging out their alone. The Gospel of Thomas is a great place to start.

 

Cheers, Mike

[Sandy Larsen]

13 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

Insofar as Christian theology is concerned, [John Newman] is indeed part of the lunatic fringe.

According to atheists, ALL Christians are on the lunatic fringe. Mainstream Christian scholars disagree widely amongst themselves. So who should we believe? Personally I like to study what they all believe (as far as is practical) and choose for myself what to believe.

John Newman is an intellectual and a scholar. Everything points to that. His career, his resume, and his writings. I haven't read all his books, but I've read one. I would trust this man's assessment of some complicated situation over 98% of other people's assessments. Maybe more.

I might very well disagree with Newman on his book regarding Jesus' secret teachings and yogic mysticism. But then I disagree with most people regarding Christianity. Christianity isn't exactly a hard science. (BTW FWIW, I was agnostic most my adult life. And very comfortably so.)

Meanwhile Lance will never know how trustworthy Newman's analyses are because he will never give him a chance.

 

I want to say one more thing. Lance talks about people who find life mundane or whatever, and who see conspiracies as exciting or whatever. I can only speak for myself. I don't find life mundane. I don't find conspiracies exciting. I am here because I am a born 1) truth-seeker and 2) troubleshooter. Those are my two strong character traits. They are what defined my career, from junior high school when I began repairing televisions (which required great troubleshooting skills in those days), to becoming a research & development engineer, to doing part-time troubleshooting of high-tech medical systems (MRI and CT machines, etc.) in retirement.

I'm sure that a lot of assassination researchers here are like me. Truth-seekers and  troubleshooters. Not just folks fascinated with conspiracies.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

11 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

I suppose we could omit "lunatic"

Yes, you should. Then what you are saying comes across as more credible. Especially for those of us familiar with Newman's writings.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Guest]

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Will you now address the reversal of NSAM 263, which expressed Kennedy's decision to withdraw from Vietnam, with NSAM 288 which reversed that order and presented for the first time a whole array of attack formations, by land and air, against the north.

Something which Kennedy would not even look at the whole three years in the White House, Johnson was now getting ready  to fire up in just three months.

Geez, I wonder how that happened?

Oh, forgot, 11/22/63.

 

With all due respect - and I mean that - this again is conspiracy logic.  It's the classic "post hoc" ("confusing cause and effect") fallacy.  Yes, many different people and groups benefitted from the assassination of JFK.  This is why a host of different conspiracy theories are plausible.  The logical fallacy is to assume that because these people and groups benefitted from the assassination, one or more of them must have caused the assassination.  It assumes a connection that is not necessarily there.  I can't tell you how many people have said to me, "Want to know who killed JFK?  Look at who benefitted."  Wrong.  Your post is one small example, but most of the conspiracy theories are riddled with this "dot connecting" logical fallacy.  I realize that even mentioning the Lone Nut theory is like waving a red flag in front of a bull around here, but this is one thing that impresses me about the theory - it does flow from point A to B to C with a minimum of speculation and logical fallacies.  This is precisely why people are fans of murder mysteries - they invite you to commit the post hoc fallacy and reach an "obvious" conclusion, only to find out at the end you were dead wrong.

[Guest]

Michael and Sandy, I appreciate your comments, but I realize any further discussion of Christianity or Newman's book on Jesus would be inappropriate here.  christianforums.com is one of the most active sites on the Internet and has so many forums and sub-forums that almost any subject is fair game for discussion.  My point here, which I realize has been beaten to death and beyond, was simply that taking a scholarly but extremely fringe position on one subject may be relevant when one takes a scholarly but fringe position on another.  What if Posner or Bugliosi had written the same book Newman has - think that would have been highlighted here?

Perhaps I have spent so much time in the world of weirdness that the term "lunatic fringe" is second nature to me.  It actually does have a dictionary definition and is not typically understood as having any connection to mental illness or anything of that sort:

lu·na·tic fringe

ˈˌlo͞onəˌtik ˈfrinj/

noun

noun: lunatic fringe; plural noun: lunatic fringes

1. an extreme or eccentric minority within society or a group.

 

[Michael Clark]

9 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

With all due respect - and I mean that - this again is conspiracy logic.  It's the classic "post hoc" ("confusing cause and effect") fallacy.  Yes, many different people and groups benefitted from the assassination of JFK.  This is why a host of different conspiracy theories are plausible.  The logical fallacy is to assume that because these people and groups benefitted from the assassination, one or more of them must have caused the assassination.  It assumes a connection that is not necessarily there.  I can't tell you how many people have said to me, "Want to know who killed JFK?  Look at who benefitted."  Wrong.  Your post is one small example, but most of the conspiracy theories are riddled with this "dot connecting" logical fallacy.  I realize that even mentioning the Lone Nut theory is like waving a red flag in front of a bull around here, but this is one thing that impresses me about the theory - it does flow from point A to B to C with a minimum of speculation and logical fallacies.  This is precisely why people are fans of murder mysteries - they invite you to commit the post hoc fallacy and reach an "obvious" conclusion, only to find out at the end you were dead wrong.

The follow the money logic is not conspiratorial logic. It is a simple excercise to develop leads. Few if any people say that everyone that benefited from the assassination are guilty unless it is just a notional based on the fact that we have a cover-up and the beneficiaries turn a blind eye. Indeed it is a fair charge that anyone with a responsibility to expose the truth that does not do so, is complicit in a Coup. The impossibility of the SBT, the urtter inadequacy of  WC investigation, the fact that the WC stated up front that they reserved the right to alter and delete testimony, the fact that the FBI altered witness accounts and numerous other facts spell-out that there was a conspiracy. It's not a virus of weak minded people infecting their logic. It is the fact that we are being lied to about a seminal, nay, terminal event in US history. Of course the LN/WC/SBT theory nicely "flows from point A to B to C with the minimum of speculation..". That's the point. It was pre-packaged for mass consumption.

LBJ didn't believe the SBT, neither did Hoover, Boggs, Richard Russell, Conally and the vast majority of the American people. The LBJ tapes are a great source because you can hear these men, in their own voice saying that it's impossible. So CT'ers have the principals in the cover-up, the beneficiaries and possibly even the players saying it just ain't so. There is no flawed logic necissarily in the thinking of CT'ers.

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited January 25, 2017 by Michael Clark