@TonyB #85
@vk #92
Christianity has very much evolved.
A few examples of the major changes:
1) Catholicism didn't used to have a pope, as in the single head of all Catholic dogma. There were regional Patriarchs. It wasn't until the Quartodeciman controversy that Papal primacy was asserted. The "trick" used in official Church Papal lineage is tracking the Patriarch of Rome's history backwards even before papal primacy.
This is also why there are many Christians who aren't either Protestant or Roman Catholic: not just the Eastern Orthodox - split off when Rome was divided but the earlier schism with the Oriental Orthodox: the Middle Eastern Christians such as in Lebanon and Syria.
2) Indulgences. The Church created the idea of being able to pay for having sinned - the practice was called indulgence. This was abused so badly that it was later banned. Full circle like Prohibition in the US.
3) Protestantism. Martin Luther, John Calvin, etc. Seems like a pretty major evolution.
4) Translation of the Bible. Another major change.
5) Clerical celibacy (Catholicism). Even disregarding the first apostles, there is very little evidence that clerical celibacy was dogma before the 4th century. Among other things, there is an apostolic constitution circa 400 which excommunicates priests or bishops who leave their wives under pretense of piety!
6) Even the ceremonies of belief have changed over time. Mixed race marriages is one example.
There are many more well documented examples of both the substance and the form of Christianity changing - though not the core concept of faith.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 26 2019 17:01 utc | 101

Back around the year 180, Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyon wrote the definitive work on heresy called simply "Against Heresy", a monster work of five volumes. This was several hundred years before the papacy as we know it was established.

The Church considers Peter as the first Pope, but this was decided retroactively, sometime in the 300's.

I suspect that if Irenaeus was alive to-day, that he would have considered all the Popes and the entirety of Christianity as we know it to-day as abject heresy.

Antoinetta III

Posted by: Antoinetta III | Dec 26 2019 17:22 utc | 102

Since the insane impeachment vote whose sole purpose was to try and save Joe Biden For President and which made suckers out of the progressives by fooling them into supporting it, because Tulsi Gabbard didn't vote for the impeachment calling it the obvious BS it is, the liberal media and their enablers in left twitter and youtube have gone crazy in trying to smear Tulsi with neo-McCarthyism. Or as an incomprehensible lunatic as they do, since they have all been trained like dogs with incessant psy-ops by willing pseudo-progressive elites. People from all side of the political fence need to be woken up to see how they are being conned by elites pretending to be whatever they are pretending to be in any political posturing they use.

Happy New Year Everyone.

Posted by: Kali | Dec 26 2019 18:08 utc | 103

Dear Bernard.
Thank you .
All true. Altho as I watch the 'gifts' -toys- of plastic transformers turning into F16's for the boys
with cluster munitions
I can see the need to begin the discussion early.
Wonderful Photograph at header. The prison camp. The Ghetto wall. Old habits die hard.
But who is the real prisoner ?

Seasons Greetings to all and thank you for your work.
rogermorris

Posted by: rm | Dec 26 2019 18:59 utc | 104

VK @ 98:

The notion of the Prophet Mohammed being a Jewish prophet who adapted Judaism to the class needs of merchants in Mecca needs a lot of chutzpah to support, much less prove.

I have not read the Koran but I believe there is a chapter there named after Mary, the mother of Jesus. Some members of Mohammed's family (or in his clan within the Quraysh tribe) were known to be Christian and one of these people may have been his uncle who became his guardian when Mohammed was orphaned at about the age of 8 years.

Apparently in the Koran there is a prohibition against women being married to their fathers' brothers. This is a custom that was common in Jewish communities in Mohammed's time. Curiously the custom persists in many Muslim communities and has even spread wherever Islam has gone.

I've heard that in one US state (Rhode Island), incest prohibitions don't extend to women marrying their paternal uncles and this exception was inserted into that state's laws at the time it became a state (in the late 1700s) to cater for the customs of the Jewish community there.

Also the Meccans persecuted Mohammed when he first began preaching and he had to flee to Medina. The Islamic calendar dates back to when he fled to Medina. The Meccans only accepted Islam when Mohammed had built up enough alliances among various tribes to defend his followers and to march on the city.

While Mohammed was the 7th-century equivalent of a car salesman, there seem to be enough rules in Islam regarding usury and business practices to suggest the religion originally aimed at treating people fairly. Some of the restrictions on women might be seen in the light of a context in which women had less education than men and were more prone to being exploited by others who also fed them lies and superstition.

Posted by: Jen | Dec 26 2019 20:16 utc | 105

@ Posted by: Jen | Dec 26 2019 20:16 utc | 105

True: no evidence Mohammad was Jewish (probably he wasn't). But, from the scarce and very circumstancial evidence we have today, the most honest interpretation is that his Islamism was essentially a form of Judaism adapted for aggressive commercial expansion.

Islamism, as Christianism, was born and shaped by accident. There wasn't some kind of master plan when they were invented.

Christianism unexpectedly spreaded in the Roman Empire because it was at the right place, the right time (when the Empire was at its apex and travelling within its confines was cheap and safe). Christianism was born in the center of power and it is no surprise it is the dominant religion until today.

Islamism spreaded by accident. It expanded through griding, slowly and painfully. It was invented as some religion for the merchants of Mecca and, by dumb luck, those merchants ascended precisely at a time when the Byzantine and Parthian empires were destroying each other. Specialized in desert warfare, they expanded through Persia by chance, after it was depleted by its war against the Romans. From raid to raid, opportunity to opportunity, the also conquered North Africa until the Iberian Peninsula. This is called by modern historians as the Muslim Conquests, but the name is misleading: it would be centuries until the caliphates had an Islamic majority, and there was no attempt of conversion to Islamism by the conquered peoples of the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean. Lastly, it is a myth the Muslim Conquest happened for religious reasons: as mentioned before, they were essentially desert Vikings who got lucky to pick apart its much larger enemies when they were at their weakest.

The Muslim Conquests marked the end of the Persian Empire, but also the end of the Byzantine Empire as an empire. It continued to be a very strong and rich kingdom (arguably the most powerful one) - but just one more kingdom in a sea of kingdoms in the Middle Ages, essentially a Greek kingdom. The Fourth Crusade ended the Byzantine Empire as a powerful kingdom. By the time of its fall, in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was essentially just the city of Constantinople, a city-state.

Posted by: vk | Dec 26 2019 20:44 utc | 106

" if Jesus was reborn today, he certainly would not recognize the religion attributed to him."

Posted by: vk | Dec 26 2019 16:49 utc | 100

Absolutely!!

Make up your own religion, they did.

Posted by: ben | Dec 26 2019 21:35 utc | 107

A rather frightening panopticon, indeed an unusually sinister image from Bethlehem. Not the coy little overhead "bubble" video surveillance cameras throughout London and The West...

Posted by: Thom Prentice | Dec 26 2019 23:00 utc | 108

Thank you for your labors on this blog to illuminate what is happening in the world, and may you blessed to continue in 2020 and protected from all attacks.

A number of comments here represent the success of not only anti-Christian propaganda but also the failure of Christianity in the West to hold to the Apostolic Faith, which has done much to give the Christian faith a bad name and encourage many in the West who live in a civilization built by Christianity to abandon the foundational faith, which has provided for a growing civilizational crisis. Undermined is the basic respect for the human being, which derives from the Christian doctrine of man being made in the image of God, of God not respecting persons, and the universal application of the Ten Commandments and the Cross of Christ. Without this foundation, much we hold dear in the West will collapse, as we have seen already in Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany, and see increasingly in the foreign policies of the American hegemon and the divisiveness of identity politics at home.

We Orthodox Christians pray for the peace of the world and its peaceful enlightenment through Christ. Our task is not to argue but simply to live the Faith and show that it does transform the human being for good when it is consistently lived.

Posted by: Brian Frederick | Dec 26 2019 23:30 utc | 109

Thanks Bernhard for this very symbolic picture from Bethlehem which not only described a reality fact but also leads to the state of how "the son of god" is treated currently.
The solution to the crux of the matter is in the name "Bethlehem" itself.
Since the oldest physical script of the "Bible" is from the 8th century...the whole story is something like when Shakespeare wrote "the merchant from Venice". The scenery as Mathew created it is that three wise man came to Jerusalem and asked where is the newborn king of the Jews?. So when Herod heared about that he asked all priests and scribes: "where could that messiah be born" so they told him "the prophet mentioned Bethlehem".

Bethlehem is in all of us.....but there is also this "Herod" who tried to kill the newborn (higher self?).

Posted by: Adrian | Dec 27 2019 0:05 utc | 110

Who or what is the common element to the 3 Abrahamic faiths and is a mystery I would like to solve?
Gabriel.

-Interpreter and revealer of Daniel's visions in Judaism.
-Announces that Mary shall have a son in Christianity.
-Brings revelation to Muhammad in Islam.

It seems there needs to be a "channel" through which God's work is manifested, thus a middleman is needed.
Probably to enable affiliation from one version of the "Truth" to the next one. Busy guy..

Posted by: Lozion | Dec 27 2019 0:54 utc | 111

Muslims, following the Koran, regard Isa (Jesus), while not God, as the Messiah (Masih), something no follower of Rabbinic Judaism would do.

Posted by: lysias | Dec 27 2019 1:44 utc | 112

Muslims, following the Koran, regard Isa (Jesus), while not God, as the Messiah (Masih), something no follower of Rabbinic Judaism would do.

Posted by: lysias | Dec 27 2019 1:44 utc | 113

vk@92, and others who say that Christianity has evolved.

No, really, it hasn't. You can believe it or not, but it has been very consistent in its form since it first became a public faith, commencing with the calling of the disciples, and then the baptism of Christ, which is called Theophany by the Orthodox and will be remembered at almost the same date as the western church remembers Epiphany. The same consistency as has, I imagine, Buddhism and also the faith of Islam. There is so much written about Christianity from its own 'birth' that it is unfathomable to me that so much could be stated here so definitively to contradict -
not the faith itself - but its historical origins.

It is true that the earliest of its writings are from the four evangelists, followed by Paul. But Paul did not invent what he preached - which was Christ crucified and risen from the dead. And the following centuries of writings and traditions are simply that message, with many beautiful renderings of the Gospel story in art and music and literature.

I went with what to me was the very most beautiful, Russian Orthodoxy. All I can recommend, if you don't wish to enter a Russian church, is read "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoievski. You'll get a glimpse of it there, in my view the best novel of modern times.

"Except a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." [The Gospel according to Saint John]

Posted by: juliania | Dec 27 2019 3:08 utc | 114

For all those looking for a different take on spirituality/religion explore here;

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/907676.There_is_a_River

It's been said; "the search for spirituality is holy, religion is crowd control".

Posted by: ben | Dec 27 2019 4:56 utc | 115

yes, the messenger is not important. It's the message that counts.

Posted by: Phil | Dec 27 2019 5:24 utc | 116

@116 phil

It is all fine to debate the historical account, but you are indeed correct.

The most important thing is taking Christ into your life.

We have eyes, so we can see beyond them, and we have the man who was Christ, so we could have God visit us in the flesh.

I call some here on the carpet because their worldview allows no room for spirit/geist. And yet they are so obsessed with Christ, the man who led other men in his lifetime and seek to keep his power there, locked in the material.

I say do not talk about God the way you do about other historical figures. And you do this because it is respectful. Or do they also wonder why calling people idiots to their face for voting for Trump will make them switch to democrats?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 27 2019 6:07 utc | 117

@vk #106
It is important to note the Mohammed created Islam some 40 years after Jesus.
There are those who say that the spread of Islam was so rapid in significant part because of the Oriental Orthodox situation: essentially Oriental Orthodox Christians were heretics after the Council of Chalcedon in the 5th century. And being "people of the book", Oriental Orthodox Christians were not heretics under Islam but rather "dhimmi" - literally protected.
Certainly the historical record is clear: despite very large Christian populations in Syria, Egypt and other parts of the Middle East - Islam swept through that entire area very quickly in the 7th and 8th centuries.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 27 2019 7:36 utc | 118

Clue @118 I think Mohammed realized that his people could not fight in war against either the Christian Armies or the Jewish Armies because their fighters were controlled by, directed by, and committed to their religions so he invented a religion that took on characteristics of both. From what I have read, it seems Mohammed envisioned religion as a necessity to educate his people and to bring them to be people of one mind.
Religions are about behavior on earth, as a ticket to life hereafter.. but
democracy is about your short 80 years of life on earth.

All over the globe people are fighting organizing against and otherwise refusing to be a controlled dictated to member of the herd. This humanistic demand for democracy is in progress all over the world in different forms but every instance it is the people against one or more member nations of the nation state system. The problem in the world today is the nation state system; it is organized as a feudal system, doling out to a few, and taking from the many.

humans are refusing top down rule everywhere

Posted by: snake | Dec 27 2019 9:51 utc | 119

American news about betlehem

Posted by: gary | Dec 27 2019 10:14 utc | 120

VK @ 106:

How onw can say that Islam is a form of Judaism adapted for aggressive commercial expansion seems rather odd.

As Lysias notes @ 112, Muslims acknowledge Jesus as a prophet and accept that his mother was a virgin when she conceived him. Judaism does not go this far.

One reason for the rapid spread of Islam in Sassanid Persia (though it is not the only reason) was that people there were dissatisfied with the Zoroastrian religion as it was at the time. Being the state religion of the Sassanids, its priests were probably very heavily involved in the empire's politics and neglecting the spiritual needs of the people. In those days also Zoroastrianism was a hierarchical religion with a caste system similar to what exists in India. (Some centuries later, the Zoroastrian communities in Persia and India dumped the caste system and now only distinguish between priests and non-priests.) The attraction of Islam for Persians then would have been its message of brotherhood, equality and justice for the poor and weak, especially the orphaned (Mohammed himself having been a child orphan).

Once Muslims established empires in the Middle East and Spain, if they traded or dealt with non-Muslims at all, they often did so using Jewish traders as intermediaries and diplomats, especially when dealing with Christian kingdoms in Europe. Perhaps this explains the confusion of Islam as a form of Judaism. One might extend this strand of thinking further and say that Judaism is a form of Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrianism a form of Hinduism.

Posted by: Jen | Dec 27 2019 10:50 utc | 121

Hi all, happy whatever you celebrate. Unhappy whatever you don't like. Onward League of the Militant Godless if that's your thing, too. Big up Yahweh Mohammed Jesus or the voices one hears in their head. Personally, I like Yemaya from the Yoruba religion and its syncretic Santaria counterpart out west in the African diaspora community. She's the goddess of the sea. I find religion fascinating. 
I read the bible. I preferred the old testament to the new. I totally missed the prince of peace business though. Jesus just seemed so angry, and I thought it really needed some character development. He was nice to the old lady and the hooker, but the rest, please point me to the right part. It was a while back. The blood and guts of the old testament was quite a bit more engaging. Especially Jerimiah and Dueteronomy 27 - by far the best chapter in the book, imho. Leviticus was a major yawn. Numbers, ugh. I liked proverbs. Psalms was awful.
Honestly, christianity seems like some ghost story you tell someone with developmental disabilites. Turn the other cheek. Be christian while i take from you. Love the guy who is about to kill you, take your land and rape the females in your life. Your kingdom will come after it's curtains. I find the glorification of meekness to be an exhortation to victimhood told to not super smart people by a bunch of crooks.
I also read some of the tidbits from the talmud posted here by deathevokation. That is some truly twisted Epstein level stuff. Serious. just do a search - Sanhedrin 54b. A Jew may have sex with a child as long as the child is less than nine years old. - Thanks deathevokation. I had no idea. Seriously cemented my utter disdain for any Abrahamic stuff. Especially the male genital mutilating Jewish religion. ( how is it okay to genitally mutilate infant XY humans?)
I also read the Koran, which was a much better read. I like how they use a lot more organic metaphors. Bees was a good chapter. I also found it to be much more affirming of the female humans. In the bible the XX were hardly present. The koran actually gave the XX rights. Like divorce. If that was in the bible, forgive me. I missed it. I'm sure I will be lectured about all my mistakes by someone way smarter than me who also types better.

As of late I have been reading Will to Power by Nietzsche. I'm punching out of my weight with him, (as well as feeling that I have anything to add at MoA, since all the heavies here are like college professors or state actors or whoever you all are...) but when I don't get it, it try to treat it as poetry. I like it that he sees nihilism as a European Buddhism. From my super know very little, raised as a weed and "educated" in California perspective, I get the feeling that when the christian world killed god through modern ways of thinking, we lost our anchor and our way.
I don't know. I don't even know why I have taken the time to write this. But I guess I have a right to mouth off at the bar. I'm trying to be funny as well as find my way through this miserable yet beautiful life.
I have learned so much at this website. I don't know what I would do without it.
Thank you B and everyone else here. In the word of the mighty Slayer from Huntington Beach CA, God hates us all. 

Sail Hatan!
( the 'puter spazzed out a moment ago when i hit post. sorry if this shows up more than once. )

Posted by: lex talionis | Dec 27 2019 10:58 utc | 122

Jen,
you are the star on my christmas tree. my absolute, most favorite, i wish i knew you in real life, thank you for making me not buy the party line, commenter here. where did you get your smarts?
everyone else rules here, too.

Posted by: lex talionis | Dec 27 2019 11:17 utc | 123

It seems like many readers are interested in the Christian / religious history. I can recommend watching the Zeitgeist movie from approximately 13:00 for an interesting background story on this. It is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHeg77LF4Y&feature=plcp

Posted by: Georg | Dec 27 2019 11:18 utc | 124

Happy Christmas ‘b’ and all the barflys !
We survived ! (So far)

Posted by: Mark2 | Dec 27 2019 11:34 utc | 125

@ Posted by: Jen | Dec 27 2019 10:50 utc | 121

I said it was probably an adapted form of Judaism. We will never know for sure since the definitive evidence is simply not there.

And although it probably was, it later evolved. Today's Islamism is completely different from the one taught by Mohammand; the same is true for Christianism.

We have to keep in mind that those major religions we have nowadays weren't born ready, isntitutionalized. It would take some centuries before they took the form we could recognize.

And it is no surprise the Islamics recognize Jesus Christ as a legitimate prophet. Religion was a very serious issue in those times: people discussed it as they were in our modern scientific symposium. They debated it word by word. They lived in a pre-science era: religion was the nearest thing they had that could explains the universe and nature on a macro level. They were the quantum physicists of their times.

So, when Islamism rose, Christianism already was a geopolitical reality. It would be fool by their part to simply refute Christianism as a complete farce. Besides, it is a myth the peoples of the Ancient and Early Middle Ages didn't know their history: the Islamics certainly knew Christianism descended from Judaism, and they certainly knew they all believed in the same God. The Crusades didn't happen for religious reasons, but for purely geopolitical ones.

The Islamists knew they were the youngest of the Judaic family tree. Hence their narrative that Mohammad was the last and definitive prophet (Jesus Christ being the penultimate, therefore not definite, one).

Posted by: vk | Dec 27 2019 14:46 utc | 126

@snake #119
That may well be.
Your views on "democracy" are a lot less clear.
Not that I disagree that most people want some degree of self-determination, but there is very much a line between self-determination and selfishness - one which the "powers that be" exploit by redirecting energy within classes rather than against the oligarchs.
Then there's the question of when.
When does 51% majority constitute agreement as opposed to division? Personally, my view is that this is a function of prosperity. When things are going well, people don't care as much about the details.
In the US, the majority of the population has seen its life get worse, year after year, for decades now. It isn't surprising to me that people are angry and that this anger is directly in all directions. Trump is president today because of this, and it sure looks like he's going to be President for 4 more years because he understands this and mobilizes it.
The only opponent which also seems to understand this, from a different ideological viewpoint, and who can also mobilize it, is being blocked by his own party.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 27 2019 15:32 utc | 127

@ c1ue Dec 27 2019 7:36 utc | 118

”It is important to note the Mohammed created Islam some 40 years after Jesus.”

Mohammed was not born until 570 AD, so that would have been rather difficult. He did not start cobbling together his religion (largely stories taken from the Torah and twisted almost out of recognition) until 609 AD.

“Oriental Orthodox Christians were not heretics under Islam but rather "dhimmi" - literally protected.”

“Protected?” The life of a dhimmi (a christian or jew who refused to convert to Islam) was one of brutality, demeaning and robust inequality. It was intended to wear down the spirits of any christian or jew who had refused to convert, until they gave up and converted out of sheer desperation. The only sense in which it might be said that they were “protected” (as people of the Book) is that, unlike members of other religions who refused to convert, they were not gruesomely tortured to death (“ . . .they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides . . ..” Koran 5:33)

Posted by: AntiSpin | Dec 27 2019 21:27 utc | 128

I should have mentioned that even the Jews did not always get off easy.

From The Sira (the Life of Mohammed, one of Islam's three sacred texts) from verse 1690:

”The captives (Jews) were taken into Medina. They dug trenches in the marketplace of Medina. It was a long day but 600 – 700 Jews were beheaded that day. Mohammed and his 12-year-old wife, Aisha, sat and watched the slaughter the entire day and into the night. The Apostle of Allah had every male Jew killed.
. . .
1693: Mohammed took the property, wives and children of the Jews, and divided it up among the Muslims. Mohammed took his one-fifth of the slaves and sent a Muslim with the female Jewish slaves to a nearby city where the women were sold for pleasure. Mohammed invested the money from the sale of the female slaves for horses and weapons. There was one last share of the slaves for Mohammed. The most beautiful Jewess became his slave for pleasure."

Posted by: AntiSpin | Dec 27 2019 22:19 utc | 129

Thumbs up to Mark2, indeed we did.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Dec 28 2019 4:24 utc | 130

@AntiSpin #128
The Koran, like the Bible, contains any number of directly oppositional views and can be mined to justify pretty much anything.
The facts are: Jews and Christians lived in significant numbers under the various Muslim Caliphates throughout the Caliphates' existence. There are an estimated 60 million to 70 million Oriental Orthodox Christians - the majority of which live in the Middle East still.
AS for the Jews - there have been Jewish communities in the Middle East forever. In fact, there were early migrations of Jews into the Middle East, under the Caliphates during periods of Jewish persecution in Europe.
The major reason why the Jewish populations in the Muslim nations of the Middle East are lower now is due to the post World War 2 exodus - to Israel.
As for inequality: dhimmi were 2nd class citizens, true. However, it is impossible to reconcile the existence of so many, for so long, with the treatment you describe.
It absolutely happened somewhere, but it clearly did not occur as a societal function - either secular or religious.
As for Mohammed - yes, he wasn't born until later, but the Islamic tradition traces itself back to Jesus explicitly, much like Papal infallibility.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 28 2019 17:51 utc | 131

@ c1ue | Dec 28 2019 17:51 utc | 131

"The Koran, like the Bible, contains any number of directly oppositional views and can be mined to justify pretty much anything."

True. There are more than 550 direct contradictions in the Koran alone. The more peaceful portions were from Mohammed's Meccan period, when he only managed to convert about 10 persons per year, but when he moved to Medina he made a 180-degree turn and developed his savage jihadi period, which turned out to be spectacularly successful.

The Islamic "abrogation" doctrine holds that each statement in an oppositional pair is true, but that "the latter is the stronger." So, the violent Medina chapters are preferable to the mild Meccan chapters.

Unfortunately, one of Mohammed's successors -- whose name escapes me at the moment -- scrambled the order of the chapters of the Koran, taking them out of chronological order and putting them in order of chapter length. This is a major reason why so many devout Muslims have so much difficulty dealing with logic and reason, and operate entirely on belief.

I have a list of the Koranic chapters, in their original chronological order, if you'd like a copy.

Posted by: AntiSpin | Dec 28 2019 19:48 utc | 132

@ c1ue | Dec 28 2019 17:51 utc | 131

You seem quite adept at revealing obscure information, stats and the like. I've seen bandied about a curious statistic, some 5 largest 'banks' hold some 50% of accounts in the U.S.; is that 50% of accounts or 50% of deposits? It was never clear and there would be significant difference since the largest accounts contain the greatest largess in dollars. How do those statistics stand: a half decade ago; a decade ago; two decades ago; three decades ago? Third question: what has changed during those three decades (a timeline) in the following categories: Law | Regulation | Government | Labour employment/unemployment | Credit availability | Private Debt (and structure [mortgage, plastic, vehicle, education]) | Public Debt (and structure [govt. annual deficits, treasury bonds, national debt]) | Change in Population/Population profile | Trade Balance | Income | Income/Asset disparity | Currency Purchasing Power Parity (current) | other.

The list is likely incomplete but it would show through decadal measurements the drift of the economy and the five year may reveal accelerations occurring. Shadow stats would likely give constant indexes for the three decades where government stats tend to politically morph into fiction. Do this for yourself and rely on your lying eyes rather than public propaganda, you will be well served the long run and arrive at sounder conclusions, just what your favourite government is trying to prevent.

Best ever Hogmanay.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Dec 28 2019 20:34 utc | 133

@Formerly T-Bear #133
Is this a request?
If so, it is a pretty easy one. The FDIC keeps statistics via its annual "Summary of Deposit Market Share" reports: link
The data only goes back to 1994, but that's good enough for your purpose?
I've captured the top 20 institutions, by deposit share, at 5 year intervals: 2019, 2015, 2010...1995 in an Excel.
Here's the #1 market share bank over this period, by market share plus #20 for comparison sake:

____2019__2015___2010___2005__2000___1995
1___32.88%_34.78%_33.62%_26.31%_22.32%_13.23%
20__0.72%__0.68%_0.50%__0.69%__0.91%__1.20%

Here is the overall deposit share of these top 20 institutions over the same time span

2019___2015___2010__2005___2000__1995
87.90%_87.12%_85.35%_86.27%_79.51%_69.48%

There is very much a consolidation that went on early in the 2000s - I can see many of the large individual institutions early in this timeline merging into JP Morgan Chase.

Without going into the many areas you list above, it is clearly mergers&acquisitions as to why deposit market share consolidated. I would be surprised if laws weren't changed to enable/facilitate this.

Let me know how to send the raw data, if you desire it.

In the meantime, the top 20 lists for 2019 and 1995, respectively in order largest to smallest
2019
JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association
The Bank of New York Mellon
Citibank, National Association
HSBC Bank USA, National Association
Goldman Sachs Bank USA
Bank of America, National Association
Morgan Stanley Private Bank, National Association
Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company
Capital One, National Association
TD Bank, National Association
Signature Bank
KeyBank National Association
Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas
New York Community Bank
Wells Fargo Bank, National Association
Sterling National Bank
Bank of China
First Republic Bank
Apple Bank for Savings
Citizens Bank, National Association

1995
Chemical Bank
Citibank, N. A.
The Chase Manhattan Bank (National Association)
The Bank of New York
Marine Midland Bank
Key Bank of New York
The Dime Savings Bank of New York, FSB
Fleet Bank
Home Savings of America, FSB
Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company
Natwest Bank, National Association
Bankers Trust Company
Emigrant Savings Bank
Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York
GreenPoint Bank
Republic National Bank of New York
European American Bank
Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association
Republic Bank for Savings
First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Rochester

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 29 2019 15:32 utc | 134

@Formerly T-Bear
I should also clarify that the numbers above are for New York.
The data captured actually also includes overall deposit numbers in the system for each institution.
Here's the data for outside deposits (for the NY top 20) vs. inside:

_______2019________2015_______2010_______2005_______2000_____1995
Outside_4,521,425,780_3,695,787,899_2,391,632,498_1,284,301,312_253,759,236_54,266,780
Inside__1,533,239,625_1,203,120,464__729,566,041__599,883,995__352,990,587__242,187,331

As can be seen here, the ratio of top 20 NY deposit institutions, outside vs. inside New York changed dramatically.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 29 2019 15:44 utc | 135

@ c1ue | Dec 29 2019 15:32 utc | 134

What a wonderful blizzard of information your #134! A slow motion acquisition of the control of a nation's idle currency by appearance. The position of the top five is not by those figures not a lot different from my earlier stated commentary based upon memory, at this scale a rounding error would be a king's ransom. It is interesting to note the current top 'banks' were nowhere to be seen (for the most part) in the 1995 top positions. What event or events occurred since 1995 that would cause the change? Are the top positions really banks at all, but financial holding companies controlling their subsidiary wholly 'owned banks'?

J.P. Morgan whose efforts just saved the 1907 economy from illiquidity and disaster produced 5 major financial/banking enterprises still in business today, some are high ranking on today's list but were not 'banks' on the earlier list. This is why that lengthy but not exhausted list was mentioned, the devil's footprints will be found in those details. Today's world did not for the most part exist in 1990 but its roots were fertilised in the 1980's in grounds tilled in the late 1960's, 1970's and the architecture for landscape was devised, tracked even earlier. If 'banking/finance' is the enemy, its identity will be found in those designers and their provenance.

I was trying to provide an idea of the information necessary to have a command of if these interests are to be engaged or maybe controlled. Without that knowledge, Dante's notice of the gates to the underworld pertain: Abandon Hope, all ye entering here. No more memory would be needed to mentally keep tract of that loci of subjects that what is used in memorisation of sport statistics, just not so emotionally entertaining. In a way that comment was rhetorical but appreciate your reply. Thanks again.

Have an interesting as well as prosperous New Year.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Dec 29 2019 16:51 utc | 136

@Formerly T-Bear #136
Looking into the historical records:

Chemical bank acquired Chase Manhattan and the Morgan Guaranty Trust - and changed its name to JP Morgan Chase.

Citibank acquired European American Bank

Banker's Trust acquired Alex Brown, then was acquired by Deutsche Bank

Marine Midland Bank, Republic National Bank of New York, First Federal Savings and Loan
Association of Rochester and were all acquired into HSBC

Greenpoint was acquired by CapitalOne

Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association was acquired by Sterling Bank

Fleet Bank was acquired by Bank of America

So at least 12 of the top 20 in 1995 became 7 in 2019.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 30 2019 0:08 utc | 137