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The National Geographic channel, in what I assume is an attempt to show a Balanced View of Christmas, has been running "omg Gnostic Gospels!" docs all evening. A while back they were going on about one of the Gnostic versions of his childhood in which there are several variants on "kid harasses Jesus, gets fatally zapped":
greentrilobite: Ah yes, Earth Prime Jesus.
Narrator: ...but why would early Christians want to hear about this violent version of Jesus?
me: Um, because all their stories were more violent? I mean, have you read the stuff that *did* make it into the Bible? God sends bears to eat a bunch of kids who laugh at a prophet! Bears! If it comes to that, have you read any children's literature from before, oh say, the early twentieth century? "Kids who do bad things die horribly" is kind of a recurring theme.
[admits to having a certain guilty fondness for stories in which God smites childhood bullies]
greentrilobite: Ah yes, Earth Prime Jesus.
Narrator: ...but why would early Christians want to hear about this violent version of Jesus?
me: Um, because all their stories were more violent? I mean, have you read the stuff that *did* make it into the Bible? God sends bears to eat a bunch of kids who laugh at a prophet! Bears! If it comes to that, have you read any children's literature from before, oh say, the early twentieth century? "Kids who do bad things die horribly" is kind of a recurring theme.
[admits to having a certain guilty fondness for stories in which God smites childhood bullies]
