Scorned for positive image...?

[Couchrocket]

Scott,

Thanks for your thoughtful posts.

 

Blush ... there used to be a little emoticon with a pink face and a coy smile...

 

Thanks ...

[Couchrocket]

Bottom line for me is Jesus was a heck of a good teacher on how we should lead our lives. One of a number of people thought recorded history with some darn good ideas. But nothing more.

 

Again, I need to comment here, for clarification. This is another popular idea that comports well with the “telephone game” in terms of being just wrong-headed (innocently so) due to less than adequate knowledge of what the documents actually say, and a lack of critical thinking about what they say. The following analysis assumes what you’ve stipulated in your post. He existed. The writers wrote what they honestly observed. Your last point about what they observed being some sort of illusion becomes a non sequitur – because if that is a “held position” then there’s nothing to talk about and it renders the texts worthless. (Including Jesus’ “great teachings” by the way.) It is a package deal, so to speak, and goes back to my earlier comments on the reliability of the texts. It is OK to read them, and reject the message. It is specious to go to the texts and create something that isn’t there.

 

Jesus as just “great teacher, but nothing more” is silly on the face of it. From a plain reading of the texts, we really have only three choices re the kind of person Jesus was:

 

• A liar and charlatan

• Insane with tendencies toward megalomania

• He actually was who he said he was

 

It only takes one example to illustrate why this is true (though there are dozens of examples as powerful as the one I share here, and they are spread throughout the texts of the NT sufficiently to not have to worry about “proof texting” from a single place).

 

John’s gospel, Chapter 8: 34-51. I’ll be brief. Jesus it talking with some “religious leaders” here. He’s challenging them to see spirituality and man’s relationship with God differently. He’s also claiming to speak for God, directly.

 

To make matters worse, he’s telling them that while his father is God, their father is the Devil. Hyperbole, for sure, intended to shake them up and think differently. They respond by claiming a relationship to God through the line of decadency of the “first Hebrew” Abraham. That was an important part of Jewish thinking. Jesus then makes this startling claim that Abraham, “Rejoiced to see my day, and saw it and was glad.” (For those who may not know, Abraham predates Jesus’ time by roughly a thousand years.)

 

At this statement the folk he was talking to went ballistic. They said in essence, “You’re not even 50, how the heck could you have seen Abraham?” They understood that what he was claiming was absurd. But the best is yet to come. Jesus responds to these guys saying, “Honestly, guys, before Abraham was born, I am.” Get the picture? Perhaps, but looked what happened next. Those guys picked up rocks to stone him! Why? Because Jesus saying “I am” wasn’t just bad grammar. It was a reference to “the name of God” and a reference more specifically to a passage in Exodus where Moses asks God what his name is. God says His name is “I AM.” The guys Jesus was talking to knew exactly what he meant, he’s claiming to be God and "pre-existant," they recognized it as blasphemous and made an appropriate response.

 

Does this qualify as merely “heck of a good teacher?” One of three things has to be true of his statement: he’s lying through his teeth and is a charlatan of the worst kind; he’s loonier than a fruit cake with delusions of grandeur; or he’s telling the truth. There isn’t much room for another choice. “Nice guy and good teacher” isn’t even in the ballpark.

 

All of “the teachings” that you admire are circumscribed by his claims of deity and of exclusivity as the means for reconciliation. To read either more into the text, or to try to make the text say something less, is intellectually dishonest.

 

Again, this is clearly what the text says, and my argument is on that basis. It is perfectly intellectually honest to reject the text and everything it says. I respect that view when honestly held. But I think it is disingenuous when we pervert the text to make it say something it clearly does not say. This happens most often when someone is speaking from too little familiarity with the content of the text, and is often just repeating things they’ve heard “about the text” without having taken a thorough look for themselves.

 

It isn't my intent here to "preach" - I think that would be inappropriate in this setting. What I've set about to do is clarify what I think is an inaccurate representation of the text, and how it relates to the larger question of textual criticism.

[Ken H.]

Well to be a bit clearer, when I said ‘heck of a good teacher’ I was referring more to the value of what he said about how people should lead their lives, than a statement of his true nature.

 

Even if one narrows the choices (of his nature) down to your three, I don’t see why being forced to choose one of them invalidates his advice? I.e. still be a good teacher of men. I’ve always thought the Jefferson Bible was a heck of a good attempt to distil out the usable stuff from the ‘I am God’ noise.

 

ISFA choosing which of the three (heck what’s the problem with baring one’s self on the Internet?) , I’ll let it pass.

 

[Aluminum_Butt]

Even if one narrows the choices (of his nature) down to your three, I don’t see why being forced to choose one of them invalidates his advice?

 

Trying to run this into a modern example: Let's say you know an apparently brilliant guy - great debater. He runs around claiming he is god. He lays hands on people and appears to heal them, but you're sure he's a phoney - after all, nobody can really do that. Most of what he says is encoded in stories, and he throws in a lot of references to how the previous generations predicted he'd be coming. He's got a dozen guys who've literally dropped everything - jobs, families, money - to follow him around - likely some kind of Jim Jones Kool Aid cult brewing you're thinking.

 

If you throw the deity aside, this is what you're left with. Are you really willing to take advice from this man? Or are you really just saying that you and he agree on some things?

[Bud]

I've never seen such a civil discussion of religion on the internet.

 

Discussions of faith often turn ugly and become personal attacks.

 

This really is MRN.

[beemerman2k]

I've never seen such a civil discussion of religion on the internet.

 

Discussions of faith often turn ugly and become personal attacks.

 

This really is MRN.

 

I agree 100%. This has been a fantastic discussion and I am very pleased and impressed with the level of maturity all have brought to the conversation

[moshe_levy]

A timely article on Yahoo this morning about the growing influence of religious troops in Israel's traditionally secular armed forces: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-israeli-military-growing-orthodoxy-112453826.html

 

Summary quote: "In my time, the skullcap-wearers came to the military and served alongside me. They lived their lives as they pleased, we respected them, and they also respected our lifestyle," said Daniel, who is 64 and secular. "Today's generation, to a degree, joins up with the object of imposing its lifestyle on others - to dictate how to behave. It's a crawling annexation."

 

I add this to show it's not a Christian / non-Christian divide. It's a secular / religious divide, even in a country like Israel.

 

-MKL

 

 

[beemerman2k]

Trying to run this into a modern example: Let's say you know an apparently brilliant guy - great debater. He runs around claiming he is god. He lays hands on people and appears to heal them, but you're sure he's a phoney - after all, nobody can really do that. Most of what he says is encoded in stories, and he throws in a lot of references to how the previous generations predicted he'd be coming. He's got a dozen guys who've literally dropped everything - jobs, families, money - to follow him around - likely some kind of Jim Jones Kool Aid cult brewing you're thinking.

 

Among the many problems we have today is how do we know this ever really happened?

 

You can visit museums all over the world and see relics from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, Babylon, but nothing from any Biblical accounts! No hand written parchments from people who were healed, no Roman documents making mention of a messiah, no nothing. Not even a display of relics found at the bottom of the Red Sea!

 

And in fact, has the natural world learned anything from this man from God? For instance, did Jesus reveal any knowledge about our world that we didnt already know? "Oh Israel, just as the planets revolve around the sun, so you must revolve around me". A statement like that would have been revolutionary as Jesus would have revealed knowledge that was completely unknown to humans at that time. Or, "Oh Israel, you wash the cup, but germs are the true source of illness and disease". Again, given that we were unaware if germs at that time, that would have changed the world as we knew it. Science today would have to admit that modern medicine is based upon the knowledge revealed to us by the Son of God! "Oh Israel, these people suffer from cancer and diabetes and this is how such is cured..."

 

But this isnt the case, is it? The knowledge base of the Gods spokespersons is no greater than anyone else of their day, "God made all creatures, including kangaroos!". Why no mention of animals not common to Israel, even in the tale of Noahs Ark?

[beemerman2k]

In fact, why no mention of dinosaurs or of Ice Age life? It's as if these periods in history never happened from the point of view of the Bibles authors. I remember hearing one preacher contend that dinosaurs were a man made invention designed to discredit the bible! Could it be that the prophets, apostles, and the Messiah was no more enlightened than anyone else in their day and age? So if God created all of this, and that same God spoke to people, don't you think certain facts would simply slip in as a side effect of the conversation?

 

"By the way, oh Israel, lighting and thunder is not me yelling at you! No, it's simply what happens when...>"

[Couchrocket]

I add this to show it's not a Christian / non-Christian divide. It's a secular / religious divide, even in a country like Israel.

 

I think you're quite correct. World views.

[Dave McReynolds]

I see nothing incompatible in saying that I may appreciate or approve of Jesus's secular message while not being convinced that he was the son of God. For example, I'm able to separate Wagner's music from his politics. At some point, it would become difficult or impossible to separate one aspect of a person's life from another; for example, I would find it difficult to have an objective discussion of Hitler's art. But the fact that Jesus maintained that he was the son of God, on which I have no opinion, doesn't make it impossible for me to appreciate other aspects of his life.

[Dave McReynolds]

Among the many problems we have today is how do we know this ever really happened?

 

There are two possibilities: either Jesus was the son of God, or he wasn't.

 

If he wasn't, then whether he really existed, and if he did, whether we have a more-or-less true account of his life, is only important in an academic sense, since he was an important historical figure, but not of any importance in a spiritual sense. It seems to me that the points James are raising as to whether Jesus really lived are only significant if Jesus either didn't ever live, or if he was just a man.

 

On the other hand, if he was the son of God, then his life was a unique event in the history of the world, and clearly the usual rules don't apply. It isn't important if there is any evidence of his existence or not; the only important thing is whatever message God wanted to convey. It is entirely conceivable to me that God may have wanted to erase all physical evidence of Jesus's life for God's own purposes, whatever those may be.

 

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

[Couchrocket]

I see nothing incompatible in saying that I may appreciate or approve of Jesus's secular message

 

And it is my contention, based on some knowledge of the texts that there is no "secular message." The message is entirely about a rescue mission and inextricable for secular purposes. To do so stands the whole of the intended message on its head.

 

[Couchrocket]

Among the many problems we have today is how do we know this ever really happened?

 

There are two possibilities: either Jesus was the son of God, or he wasn't.

 

...

 

On the other hand, if he was the son of God, then his life was a unique event in the history of the world, and clearly the usual rules don't apply. It isn't important if there is any evidence of his existence or not; the only important thing is whatever message God wanted to convey. It is entirely conceivable to me that God may have wanted to erase all physical evidence of Jesus's life for God's own purposes, whatever those may be.

 

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

 

Titus Flavius Josephus' extra-biblical references may be of interest.