What Jesus Claimed about Himself

by Bilbo

For people who want to discuss the question of what Jesus claimed about himself. I changed the title from "Open Thread" to the above, to avoid confusion with Joy's "Open Thread."

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

78 Responses to “What Jesus Claimed about Himself”

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Thank You Bilbo and I'm sorry for continuing the off topic subject in the other thread.

I have a habit of looking up biblical snippets that other people think are significant to get a feel for what was being said in context.

Since I made the effort, I thought I would share what I found.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 2:54 pm

Todd Berkebile Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Personally I expected people to jump in with some John 10:30, I always felt John 8:58 was a pretty weak justification for dreaming up the bizarre notion of the holy trinity. From John 8:58 you might conclude that Jesus was simply like Dick Clark, older than dirt but still looked like he was under fifty. Still, seems weird to me that Jesus was very clear that he's the Son of God but very vague on whether he's actually god.

Comment by Todd Berkebile — July 29, 2008 @ 3:45 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
From John 8:58 you might conclude that Jesus was simply like Dick Clark, older than dirt but still looked like he was under fifty.

This is the extent of your exegesis?

I didn't know being like Dick Clark was a stoneable offense in the first century.

Comment by chunkdz — July 29, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

Bradford Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Todd: I always felt John 8:58 was a pretty weak justification for dreaming up the bizarre notion of the holy trinity.

The trinity is not the main focus of that passage. The OT Jews knew God by several descriptive phrases including I am. Conjoined with before Abraham and the implication is clear to all but atheists determined to close their minds to the most reasonable deduction.

Still, seems weird to me that Jesus was very clear that he's the Son of God but very vague on whether he's actually god.

That's better evidence for the trinity than your previous citation. A virgin birth, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is aptly portrayed by the Son of God title.

Comment by Bradford — July 29, 2008 @ 5:54 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
The best evidence for how the idea of the trinity got started can be found by studying history starting around 325 AD paying particular attention to the towns of Nicea, Alexandria and, of course, Rome.

From How the Council of Nicea Changed the World…

When Constantine became the first Christian leader of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, his vast territory was populated by a hodgepodge of beliefs and religions.

Within his own young religion, there was also dissent, with one major question threatening to cleave the popular cult — as it was at the time — into warring factions: Was Jesus divine, and how?

It's hard to imagine riots in the streets, pamphlet wars and vicious rhetoric spawned by such a question, but that was the nature of things in A.D. 325, when Constantine was forced to take action to quell the controversy.

That summer, 318 bishops from across the empire were invited to the Turkish town of Nicea, where Constantine had a vacation house, in an attempt to find common ground on what historians now refer to as the Arian Controversy. It was the first ever worldwide gathering of the Church.

The Christianity we know today is a result of what those men agreed upon over that sticky month, including the timing of the religion's most important holiday, Easter, which celebrates Jesus rising from the dead.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 6:53 pm

Bradford Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
TP, the idea of a multiple faceted God is found in the first chapter of Genesis. It is also found throughout the NT. The idea was around centuries before the CoN. But if you are into spin, articles like the one you linked to are good fodder.

Comment by Bradford — July 29, 2008 @ 7:06 pm

Todd Berkebile Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
TP, the idea of a multiple faceted God is found in the first chapter of Genesis.

Multiple faceted, eh? I would have said schizophrenic, but I guess multi-faceted works too.

Comment by Todd Berkebile — July 29, 2008 @ 8:01 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Hi Bradford,

By all means, provide your quotes, including biblical ones.

Surely you can best this poor, ignorant heretic in a religious discussion.

After all, I'm just a simpleton who believes Jesus was a divinely inspired man preaching about love because God is love.

1st John, 4:7-8

7:Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8: He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

There is a scene in Monty Python's The Life of Brian where Brian's misguided followers were convinced Brian was the messiah because Brian denies being the messiah. The brings to mind Mark 10:17-18…

17: And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
18: And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

And when you get done with that, you may want to explain why adding the filioque ("and the son") was so controversial if the biblical support of the trinity was unquestionably compelling.

Come to think of it, if all early Christians agreed on the divine nature of the man called Jesus, where did all the heretics come from and how did they become significant leaders of Christian churches?

Could your view of history be colored by how the victors have tried to spin history to cover up the unchristian-like method they used to consolidate their power starting around 325AD?

Love thy neighbor as thyself unless he offends thee then burn his CHRISTIAN churches and rend his flesh from his body to inflict as much pain as possible.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 8:05 pm

Joy Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Well, I sure as heck don't know if there's a God (I believe so, but I could be wrong). I do believe there was once a Jewish man with a legitimate claim to Messiah-hood, named Jesus. And he in all likelihood had a Jewish mother.

But I've never been big on the whole Incarnation/Avatar thing. You know, the Krishnas of the Eastern world, distinguished primarily by blue skin and more wives than anybody needs, as well as a propensity to play with goats and kill people with feathers for being rude. I don't have a problem with there being a single deity, never born and everlasting, not of material substance yet speaking through spirit (and mind).

Just not inclined toward polytheism, I guess. Too much trouble to keep 'em straight. And I've always thought the whole trinity add-on was just another of those early Pagan pay-offs (like Easter and Winter Solstice). They needed more gods (and a goddess or two) than just one. And an avatar would be nice too. It's not like any real god worth his salt would mind a few doctrinal give-aways for the sake of social unity and international peace…

…at least, until they started slaughtering people for holding to the original scripture and tradition. At that point political power (and earthly wealth) killed revelation with dogmatic corruption and "saving the world" became an insider euphemism for "robbing the world." They've been really, really successful at it.

Now, that's just me. I feel no overwhelming need to become a bitter jerk like PZ Myers or a charming cad like Richard Dawkins. Nobody's going to pay me money to either insult them or tell them what to believe. Everybody's got to have their act, something they can do to get paid. If being an overgrown juvenile delinquent pays (and it does, or Ozzie Osborn and Gene Simmons wouldn't have their own reality TV shows), go for it. Lots of people these days who can do honest, useful work can't get decent jobs. But if I've got a soul (and I hope I do, since it's hard to be me), I don't want to sell it for mammon. Caesar's coins are shiny, but you can't eat them, wear them or live in them. Mostly good for holding your eyes closed when you're dead.

I'm not an "orthodox" Christian. I don't belong to a church, or a denomination. I've never been baptized, can't take communion. Tend to have bonfires for the solstices and equinoxes, like Easter eggs and decorated fir trees. Christianity as "Pagan Lite," which it (quite honestly) *is*. I've more Bibles in more versions than some preachers I know. Also have collected works of some of the most interesting theologians. Also have the Mormon version, all the Upanishads and works of the great Buddhist masters, some guru-stuff from my brother-in-law the Sikh, and two translations of the Koran. Lao Tsu, a bunch of Native African and American traditions, and the entire Celtic collection. Not to mention Carlos Castenada and Baba Ram Das.

They've all got something true to say (enmeshed in a sea of culturally irrelevant horseradish), some pearls of wisdom that can be useful in life.

I don't know if God is One, or if God is Many-In-One. It's okay for God to be who s/he/them/it is, I don't mind. I think any particular version of that question isn't worth dying for, since I'll die of something soon enough, sure as I'm born. I'm in no hurry, and I've never been fond of violence.

The one thing atheists have right is that if there is a God, and s/he/they/it are all-powerful, we could all know it very surely and not be fighting about it all the time. If God wanted us to know it very surely. Obviously, that's not what's real here on planet Earth. Unlike atheists, I don't begrudge God any invisibility cloak s/he/they/it wishes to use to keep us all confused. I'm just a measly human, not a god, I've no desire to *be* a god (especially not to dumb-struck acolytes).

Nor do I have any desire whatsoever to 'convert' anybody into my own state of non-surety. Bah, humbug! I don't need no bazillion star-struck hippies camping in the yard, don't even like company that much when I'm related to 'em! But I do suppose this type of argument keeps evangelicals on both sides of the fence interested and engaged. It's not going to change anybody's mind, and it's not going to answer perennial questions humans have about spiritual things.

…but whatever floats your boat. Carry on!

Comment by Joy — July 29, 2008 @ 8:38 pm

fifth monarchy man Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Now this is my kind of thread to bad I'm going to miss it.

TP I would sugest you look into the Jewish belief in two powers in heaven

I also would hope you would look into the early church fathers who wrote shortly after the NT to see what they thought about the divinity of Christ.

The best thing to do is read The NT itself. The Trinity drips from every page if you have an open mind.

Peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — July 29, 2008 @ 9:09 pm

Bradford Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
TP:

Hi Bradford,

By all means, provide your quotes, including biblical ones.

TP, Jesus' references to his Father in heaven and references to the Holy Spirit are multiple and are included in the epistles as well as the Gospels. The belief in the trinity was widespread prior to the Council and church fathers are numbered among those believing in it.

What interests me more is the obsession atheists have with trying to debunk Christianity. It stands in stark contrast to the eagerness of Westerners to show their tolerance and respect for diversity which manifests itself in the different way other religious groups are spoken of. Among the mainstream media it is taboo to speak of Muslim Fundamentalists although it is OK to use the same term with respect to Christianity. What's that about TP? I have some idea as to what drives this. Do you?

Comment by Bradford — July 29, 2008 @ 9:27 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Hi Joy,

I liked what you wrote. A lot.

Do you want to join forces and start a new religious movement?
(Just kidding).

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 9:34 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Hi Fifth Monarchy Man,

I had hoped you would show up. I was extremely doubtful anyone else could or would provide significant counter balance.

But alas, it is not to be. Maybe later.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 9:37 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Hi Bradford,

I realize I am just a slave to reality-based thinking.

But just saying something doesn't make it true.

And trying to change the subject to general stone throwing at the typical right-wing strawmen isn't impressive either.

Let me know when you find an opinion you are ready to back up with something more than just your opinion.

Job 38:1-3

1: Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2: Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
3: Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 9:51 pm

Bradford Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Hi Bradford,

I realize I am just a slave to reality-based thinking.

But that's your self-delusion TP. You are as subjective as anyone else.

But just saying something doesn't make it true.

That goes for you too.

Comment by Bradford — July 29, 2008 @ 9:58 pm

Bradford Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
TP quoting God:

3: Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

LOL. Let me know when you acquire divine powers TP.

Comment by Bradford — July 29, 2008 @ 10:22 pm

Pez Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Hi TP,

Hi Fifth Monarchy Man,

I had hoped you would show up. I was extremely doubtful anyone else could or would provide significant counter balance.

Counter balance to what?

After all, I'm just a simpleton who believes Jesus was a divinely inspired man preaching about love because God is love.

Did you tell the truth here?

Comment by Pez — July 29, 2008 @ 10:23 pm

Bradford Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
And trying to change the subject to general stone throwing at the typical right-wing strawmen isn't impressive either.

There's nothing right wing about asking why reporters are under instruction to avoid the term Muslim Fundamentalist but not Christian Fundamentalist. Anyone with concern for freedom of the press should find that repugnant.

Comment by Bradford — July 29, 2008 @ 10:24 pm

Jaceppe Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Todd:
Below are some of Jesus Christ’s Divinity claims as recorded in the Bible:

John 5:17-23 – Jesus makes claims about His unique relationship to the Father and the Jews clearly understood His meaning and wanted to kill Him for His blasphemy… He also claims to be able to give life to whomever He wishes (and someone besides God can do this you think?)… and He claims the He must be honored just as the Father is honored…. If you have read any of the Old Testament it is quite clear that God shares glory with no one… for Jesus to claim that He must be Honored like God is an unmistakable reference to Divinity.

John 10:17-18 He claims to have both authority and power to lay down His life AND take it back up again (again, you think someone besides God has this power?)

John 10:28-39 He claims to give eternal life to all who follow Him and claims that He and the Father are one, to which the Jews want to stone Him [i.e. for blasphemy]. He does not lessen the tension but reiterates it in verses 34-36 by saying the prophets in the OT were called sons of God (because they received revelatory words from God) how much more appropriate is it then for He to be know as Son of God since he IS the one sanctified and sent into the world by God (refer to Jn 1 or Heb 1 to see references of God speaking the 'Word'). An traditional Christian understanding of the relationship between the Father and the Son is that the Father has been speaking the fullness of His Being from all eternity and what He has spoken is the eternal Word (what both Jn and Heb 1 allude to, i.e. the speaking forth of the Word from God). Thus Jesus is underscoring that it is right for Him to say He is both one with the Father and the Son of God (or more to the point in this text, the actual INCARNATION of the word of God). It is clear from the passage that the implication is not lost on the listeners. If it is lost on us it is because we are looking at the text with 21st century-colored glasses.

John 11:25 He claims not just that He can resurrect Lazarus but that He IS the Resurrection and the Life and that He who believes in Him will live even if he dies. (once again, you think this applies to someone else besides God?) Seriously, He is either rather deluded, a deceiver, or making some rather extraordinary claims about Himself…. I believe the latter.

Matt 9:1-8 Jesus heals a paralytic but before He does He claims the power to be able to forgive his sins… the scribes said to themselves that He was blaspheming… He challenges them to believe He that He really does have such authority and then heals the paralytic… The text clearly indicates that Jesus can forgive sins (finally, whom but God do you think has this authority?)

Matt 26:63-66 And many other references to the title “Son of Man” throughout the Gospels. But, here He is directly charged by the high priest and He claims the title for Himself and says that He will be sitting at the right hand of God. The high preist rips his garments and charges Him with Blasphemy (as indeed he should if Jesus is mistaken in any way). To sit at the right had of God is no small thing… it means that you are at sitting in the place of worship and being worshipped by created beings… again, remember that this is not an honor that God bestows to any created thing, yet Jesus claims it for Himself.

…I could go on… but I’ll end by simply saying that one reason why His claims may seem unclear to us is that we are not 1st century Jews. To them His claims carry a clear meaning. And keep in mind in the Matt 26 chapter (which I cited) that the charge brought against Him which led to His crucifixion was blasphemy… the only charge they could make stick. Quite ironic indeed if your trying to make the claim that He never claimed Divinity.

Here’s a decent link if you are interested in a scholarly treatment of Scriptural teaching on Jesus Divinity

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/jesusclaimshub.html

Comment by Jaceppe — July 29, 2008 @ 10:47 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Hi Bradford,

To my suggestion that an unsupported personal opinons wasn't very convincing, you wrote…

That goes for you too.

I appreciate the motivation to provide even more quotes from sources you might be compelled to take seriously…

John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Galations 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

1 Thessalonians 3:12 And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:

Hebrews 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

James 2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

1 John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

"God is love" so simple, yet so complete.

However, it isn't very helpful to those wishing to control others through organized religions, capital punishment and pre-emptive wars.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 11:10 pm

Todd Berkebile Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Bradford: There's nothing right wing about asking why reporters are under instruction to avoid the term Muslim Fundamentalist but not Christian Fundamentalist. Anyone with concern for freedom of the press should find that repugnant.

I agree that its a shame that our media is too afraid to call out Islam for all of its faults. I just wish more people could realize that Christianity is almost as absurd. I'm amazed how some christians can throw stones at Islam from inside their glass houses well not seeing the same weaknesses among their own kind. At least Jesus wasn't a known pedophile like Muhammed, so I guess Christianity is on slightly better footing.

Comment by Todd Berkebile — July 29, 2008 @ 11:10 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Hi Pez,

You asked…

Did you tell the truth here?

I do believe someone called "Yeshua ben Yosef" or something similar was motivated by love of his fellow man to preach what he thought was right.

To me "divinely inspired" means motivated by altruistic love because I believe God is Love.

As for calling myself a "simpleton", I don't take that as much of an insult as others might. I find it often helpful to strive to the K.I.S.S. principle even when exploring complex subjects like Quantum Mechanics. I have often been accused of over simplifying things with some justification.

That being said, I might have been engaging in a little sarcastic flourish with that particular adjective (in the spirit of openness and honesty).

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 11:23 pm

Bradford Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Todd, my point was not to bash Islam. Skewed press coverage endangers the reporting of everything including religion and science.

Comment by Bradford — July 29, 2008 @ 11:25 pm

Pez Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Hi TP,

I do believe someone called "Yeshua ben Yosef" or something similar was motivated by love of his fellow man to preach what he thought was right.

But I was asking whether He was divinely-inspired.

To me "divinely inspired" means motivated by altruistic love because I believe God is Love.

That's a funny definition of "divinely inspired".

So you've removed "liar" from our choices in our trilemma.
It would be disingenuous to claim that you accept that He is God in the sense that God is love and Jesus was motivated by love, so I will presume that in any sense understandable to normal listeners that you also deny that Jesus was God incarnate.
So, was He mad?
When He claimed to have pre-existed the creation of the world, to have been with the Father before descending to Earth, to have been before the patriarchs – was He merely mistaken?
How about when He said that no man may come to the Father but through Him?

Comment by Pez — July 29, 2008 @ 11:42 pm

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Folks, the point of the Trilemma is not to be a sound argument in itself, but to insist that people engage with what Jesus actually said, rather than sentimental ideas about what we believe and so therefore suppose he probably would have said. But the question of the divinity of Jesus is far more complex than simply stating "Jesus said he was God".

It is true that, in his context of first-century Jewish monotheism, his words and actions were remarkable. To call himself "lord of the Sabbath" is to ascribe to himself the authority of God himself. To forgive sins on his own authority is to do the same. To call himself the Temple is to say that he himself is the place where God and man, heaven and earth, meet. It is this "teaching with authority" that is said to have astonished and scandalized the people – with good reason.

And Todd, for a Jewish person to say "before Abraham was, I AM" is to use the name of God – "I AM". It's no coincidence – that was exactly the subject of conversation. What on Earth this could possibly mean is a deep question indeed. But Lewis is simply right that this is something far beyond good moral platitudes – this is a claim to the highest authority known to man.

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — July 30, 2008 @ 12:30 am

Thought Provoker Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Hi Pez,
You wrote…

That's a funny definition of "divinely inspired".

It fits for someone who thinks God is Love.

…I will presume that in any sense understandable to normal listeners that you also deny that Jesus was God incarnate.
So, was He mad?

I am not material, I am spiritual.

I am who I am. I am not the physical person. I am love.

Love transcends time. The love that makes me who I am comes from before man walked the Earth. It always was and always will be.

Does having such an opinion make me mad or just a heretic that needs to be silenced.

Maybe nailed to a cross?

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 30, 2008 @ 12:48 am

Pez Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Hi TP,

It fits for someone who thinks God is Love.

Not really.
It fits better for someone who thinks that love is God.

I am who I am. I am not the physical person. I am love.

Are you love, now? I thought you said you were arrogant. Is love arrogant?

Does having such an opinion make me mad or just a heretic that needs to be silenced.

I think it makes you an obscurantist and disingenuous dialogue partner.

We'd have to elicit definitions from you for everything you're discussing here, specifically, "spiritual" and "love", to know if you were actually saying anything.

Do you think what you are saying would get you stoned or crucified by Pharisees? Would your testimony withstand their interrogation or would it break down into nothing?
When you say "I am" do you realize you are saying nothing like I AM (ego eimi)?
http://vintage.aomin.org/EGO.html

The great expositor J. C. Ryle noted,

"Let us carefully note what a strong proof we have here of the pre-existence and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He applies to Himself the very name by which God made Himself known when He undertook to redeem Israel. It was "I AM" who brought them out of the land of Egypt. It was "I AM" who died for us upon the cross. The amazing strength of the foundation of a sinner's hope appears here. Believing on Jesus we rest on divinity, on One who is God as well as man.
There is a difference in the Greek verbs here employed which we should carefully notice. The Greek for "was" is quite different from the Greek for "am." It is as if our Lord said, "Before Abraham has born, I have an existence individual and eternal." "22

Luther, like Augustine before him, wrote in no uncertain terms:

"The Lord Christ is angry below the surface and says: "Do you want to know who I am? I am God, and that in the fullest sense. Do as you please. If you do not believe that I am He, then you are nothing, and you must die in your sin." No prophet, apostle, or evangelist may proclaim and say: "Believe in God, and also believe that I am God; otherwise you are damned." "23

As before, these are not the claims of a great human teacher – "inspired" by "love" or not.
And you've already ruled out liar.

Comment by Pez — July 30, 2008 @ 1:51 am

lcd Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 9:38 am
When dealing with God and the Trinity, I would like to remind everyone that God is in many ways unknown to us. This is not a way out but to truly know who God and the Trinity truly is, we would be God.

Last time I checked, I couldn't walk on water or bring back the dead so my understanding of God will always be limited by my being a mere mortal man.

Comment by lcd — July 30, 2008 @ 9:38 am

Thought Provoker Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Since both Todd Berkebile and Jaceppe suggested John 10:30 was significant I thought it would be helpful to provide it in context.

25: Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
26: But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
27: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
29: My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
30: I and my Father are one.
31: Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32: Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
33: The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
34: Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
35: If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
36: Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37: If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38: But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.

I suggest this is consistent with other teachings of Jesus. We all are the children of God (Love). We are all at one with God when we love.

Matthew 5:44-48

44: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
45: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
46: For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
47: And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

What I am saying here isn't something I recently dreamed up. It is the foundation of my philosophical outlook that was established over 40 years ago.

The lessons I took away from my religious training was that Jesus was a man and Christ was the ideal. Jesus taught that loving everyone, including your enemies, was the path to being at one with God.

These religious ideas go back a lot longer than 40 years. As far back as 325AD and farther.

It continues to amaze me how people are willing to expend a great deal of energy defending a man (whose real name they aren't even sure of) instead of his ideas.

Reducing the commandment, to love everyone including your enemies, to the status of "good moral platitudes" misses the point. These divine ideas could have been muttered by the lowliest beggar and it wouldn't diminish the idea’s significance in the slightest.

I find it frustrating to watch people who call themselves "good Christians" dismiss concerns about capital punishment, questions about the ethics of denying needs of immigrants and outrage over pre-emptive war. However, let it be known that I doubt Jesus was/is God incarnate who physically ascended to heaven and that instantly condemns me to be "not a Christian" who will forever rot in hell.

God is Love, Love is God.

I offer this not to be antagonistic, but to provoke thought.
I do this because I am spiritual, not physical. My true self is composed out of love (in the image and likeness of God).

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 30, 2008 @ 8:09 pm

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Hi TP,

As a devout, traditional Christian, I have much to applaud in what you are saying. In the words of Jesus, "you are not far from the kingdom of God." I daresay such a formulation is far truer to the nature of God and Christ than what many Christians who pay lip service to the divinity of Christ actually believe.

But I think you are missing an important piece of the picture. For these are more than platonic truths about the nature of things – though they are certainly that as well. Yet they are part of a larger story. True as all this is, it does matter that it was Jesus and not someone else who said them. If we are to go by John, we need to take on board the theology of the divine logos – that Jesus was the embodiment of divine love – that to look on him is to see the Father. It is in Jesus himself, not the words that he said, but the life that he lived, the death that he died, and the victory over death that he achieved, that shows us what love is.

This is not in any way to diminish that we are sons of God. Rather, it is in looking at Jesus – THE son of God – that we ourselves are born again (another Johannine term) as sons of God.

Being spiritual in the Christian sense does not mean being non-physical. It means being eternal. In the resurrection of Jesus, we see the affirmation of the goodness of the created order, as well as hope to be free from the bondage to death and decay that plague creation, as well as the hatred and manipulative impulses which enslave our instincts. Our embodied, physical existence has a future.

All this hope we can have because Jesus did more than say what he said. He – as the embodiment of God and therefore the most truly human being that ever lived – fulfilled the vocation of love. He then bids us to "follow him" and "go, and do likewise".

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — July 30, 2008 @ 10:03 pm

Jaceppe Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Thought Provoker,

Clearly, according to Scripture we all are children of God in the sense that we all owe our very existence and being to His creative and sustaining power. However, Jesus had some rather harsh words for the religious leaders of His day and even called them children of the Devil in John 8:44; so, there exists the possibility that we are not ALL children of God in the sense that Jesus is alluding to and we become children of God through Christ; John 14:6. But, I am a bit confused by your comment connecting ‘love’ to John 10:

T.P. states:
I suggest this is consistent with other teachings of Jesus. We all are the children of God (Love). We are all at one with God when we love.

Well, I don’t actually see Jesus discussing ‘love’ here in John 10; rather He seems to be discussing Himself, things He has said, claims He has made, and dialoging with the religious leaders on these matters. Also, when Jesus discusses love in the Gospels I don’t think there is a single occurrence where people pick up stones in an attempt to kill Him because of that teaching; however, that is exactly the response of the religious leaders here in this passage so I am curious why you think ‘love’ is really the topic being addressed here. I think the passage is fairly clear that they are irritated by the audacity of His Divinity claims.

Additionally, I don’t understand how your focus on ‘love’ and 'we are at one with God when we love' addresses the uniqueness of the claims which Christ makes of Himself (which I attempted to illustrate in the Scriptures I cited in my previous post). Do you think all those same statements He makes of Himself, all those same powers He has in Himself, and all those same authorities He claims for Himself also rest with you? Since you too are a son of God (or love as you say)? Would you stand before the religious leaders of 1st century Judea and make those claims?

There are many extraordinary claims made by Christ throughout the Gospel of John and he talks often about ‘my Father’ and ‘your Father’ there. However, I don’t believe there is a single instance where he uses the phrase ‘our Father’ where He is including both Himself AND His listeners. Instead, He distinctively uses ‘my Father’ when talking about His relationship to the Father and ‘your Father’ when talking about his listeners (us by extension). [I think exceptions to this are in the Lord’s Prayer in Matt 6 and Luke 11… but there He is instructing the disciples how THEY should pray and it is not suggested that He is including Himself. Also, He may point to our oneness with each other and with God in John 17 but the backdrop for this section is the imminent crucifixion He is about to submit Himself to… i.e. the very means by which OUR oneness with God is purchased by HIM.] My point is that He repeatedly makes a distinction between Himself and His listeners. …So…, when WE are given power to become sons of God (as in John 1:12) it is only because of faith in Him as the only Begotten Son and in the power of His life, death, and resurrection on our behalf… and when WE are called children of God (as in 1 John 3:2) it is after the writer has spent the first 2 chapters of 1 John talking about Christ, how He was proclaimed to us, His position of honor with the Father, the reality that forgiveness and that eternal life etc. are in Him, and that our hope rests fully in Him. There is much in this epistle about love, but there is also much about the uniqueness of Christ, and 1 John 5:5 says:

“Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God”

So, he to whom John is speaking in this epistle is he who has embraced the person of Jesus Christ and all that He claims to be.

I guess I would ask you in your philosophical outlook regarding love and God’s children the following:

What do you say of the doctrines of human sin, and the righteousness of Christ, and the necessity and efficacy of the crucifixion (redemption) and the forgiveness available through His shed blood, and His resurrection from the dead? Are these doctrines incorporated into your outlook? And, if so, how?

Comment by Jaceppe — July 30, 2008 @ 10:14 pm

Pez Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Hi TP,
Thanks for your thoughts here.
A few (thought-provoking) opinions of my own:
Jesus was not presenting "ideas". He wasn't merely a thinker but one who taught with His own authority/the authority of the Father. He was neither speculating nor telling us what the great rabbis had thought. He was telling us what the Father said and showing us what the Father was doing.

You seem to have great respect for what Jesus said. What do you do with the fact that He said He came down from Heaven, had existed with the Father before the Creation, was returning to the Father, but would send a Comforter to the disciples, etc.?

You seem to think He was merely telling us how to live. How is it that knowing how to live would give us eternal life? Hadn't the Pharisees already mastered legalistic living and yet were not righteous enough to enter the Kingdom of God?
Why is it that we all fall short of Jesus' example? Then what good is His example given our inevitable failure?

If you are "Love" and made in the image and likeness of God why are you arrogant, boastful, impatient, self-seeking, frequently wrong and contentious?
Why am I an even greater sinner?
Do you have a definition in which these are characteristic traits of "Love"?

Your Dan Brownish repetition of the inuendo of 325 AD does nothing to refute the point, made by Bradford and others, that, before Nicea, Jesus claimed to be God, that the Church Fathers interpreted Him (as did His opponents) and taught Him as saying such, that they found the concept of the Trinity in the Bible, taught the Trinity, used the term Trinity, and that they had a very well established canon of authoritative apostolic writings which supported their teaching.
Jesus' divinity, as such, was not up for grabs at Nicea and addressing Arianism gave the bishops a chance to confirm "this is not what we've been teaching."

That other groups – who did not read or rejected the Holy Scriptures and were also not familiar with the Apostolic writings – interpreted Jesus' life and Resurrection in another manner only shows that there was a life and Resurrection to interpret. That they did so without authority or reference to Jesus' background and intent explains why they got it so wrong.

Jesus did not teach that there was a path to being with God. Jesus taught that He came that we all might have eternal life, that He was that way, the truth and the life, and that He was going to prepare a place for us. He did not teach a method. He did not impart secret knowledge. He did not give us rules or a path to follow to enlightenment. He took our sins on Himself, took us into His Holy body, made us branches of His vine, justified us before the Father and gave us the promised access.

Otherwise I appreciate your points and agree with you. Jesus certainly told us that the greatest commandment is to love. The brilliant Jewish pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, confirmed this and told us that all of the Law was wrapped up in this kind of love.
So how do we get that kind of love in our hearts? What happens when we fail to live up to it? How is it even possible that we, being composed of Love, fail to love perfectly in the first place?

edit:
Oh, in light of WFO's and Jaceppe's comments you can ignore my questions if you like. Their posts are so much better.

Comment by Pez — July 30, 2008 @ 10:29 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 12:32 am
It's late, I will try to answer your questions tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here is something I learned as a child…

Love is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Love maketh me to lie down in green pastures: Love leadeth me beside the still waters.
Love restoreth my soul: Love leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for Love's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Love is in me; Love's rod and staff comfort me.
Love preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of Love for ever.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 31, 2008 @ 12:32 am

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 12:44 am
TP – great stuff.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — July 31, 2008 @ 12:44 am

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 1:17 am
TP,

I think, despite your aversion to the trinity, it is perhaps the most powerful theological expression of what it means that "God is love". Love poured out, received, and returned is something that defines God's very being. God is love, in his divine nature, before all worlds.

John's gospel is particularly trinitarian – the Father loves the Son, having life in himself, and giving the Son life in himself. The Spirit proceeds from the Father through the work of the Son, and his role is to bring all of mankind to Christ in the love of the Father and the Son before all worlds. This is all straight out of the gospel of John.

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — July 31, 2008 @ 1:17 am

Jaceppe Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Thought Provoker,

Like both Wonders For Oyarsa and Pez, I too appreciate your focus on love and I agree with you that love emanates from God and is in His very essence. And, as Jesus has told his followers, fulfilling the law is to love God and to love our neighbors. Additionally in John 17, he said that love would be the mark of those who follow Him. Where Christians have been poor examples of this (and 2000 years of history gives quite a # of these I might add; including my own regular gaffaws [sins]) we are missing the mark of His high calling. However, let me ask you to consider what the very phrase:

T.P. states:
“God is Love, …”

actually means from an ontological standpoint. Love expresses itself in action; in treating other persons as one desires to be treated (at least this is how Jesus explains it to us in our human relationships). In other words, for it even to be expressed (possibly even to exist at all) there must be entities capable of being in relationship with one another in order for love to be in operation. Wonders For Oyarsa speaks to this fact in his recent post regarding the Trinity. If God is not a Being consisting of more than one person how then IS He Love? It is not just that you say above that God acts lovingly, it is that He actually IS Love (and Scripture agrees with your very accurate rendering). That is, in His very nature (ontological essence) Love is defined, in operation, and being expressed. It’s not just that He wants to express it, it is that Love is actully being expressed IN God. If there are no other Persons for the Father to express love towards, then how was it expressed prior to the creation of the universe (or more specifically, the creation of relational beings such as angels or us)? Did it go unexpressed until we were created (if “until” is a proper means of expressing this question)? Does this mean that God lacked something? That He “needed” creation to exist for His own essence to be fully expressed? That would be tantamount to saying that God wanted to express it and couldn't, or at least couldn't yet since there was nothing to express it towards. I think honestly that you will search the Scriptures in vain to find verses which say that God lacks anything at all. Alternatively, maybe He didn't want to express it until He created proper receptacles of love; by implication then it didn't exist IN Him 'til the angels or we came along (whatever "'til" means there). How then, again, IS He Love?; 'cause such an understanding would suggest that at some point in eternity He wasn't. Scripture describes God as a Being whose essential essence does not change and of Jesus it says in Hebrews that He is the same yesterday today and forever. So, the idea that God wasn't something and then became that something is difficult (if not impossible) to support from Scripture. I think the doctrine of the Trinity answers these questions by explaining how God can actually BE Love. Because, the relationship among the Persons of the Godhead allows Love to exist and be expressed apart from any created thing. God is complete in His own perfections. He does not need us for Love to be expressed and He has been expressing Love in His own Being from eternity past. If you are able to see that there are ample places in Scripture that testify to Jesus Divinity (including Jesus on words) contrasted with the fact that Scripture does not define us as Divinity, then the Trinity is not far removed and the idea that God IS love makes sense. The fact that He created us and allows us to experience and participate in His Love is quite marvelous. I’m just glad that He did…

Comment by Jaceppe — July 31, 2008 @ 12:51 pm

kornbelt888 Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I think you can go too far with this "God is love" business, as if "agape" is some kind of timeless substance. Firstly, there's that little statement about "God is a consuming fire", and "Yahweh is a man of war", sending Israel to kill Midianites, etc. Obvious, the God of the Bible is willing to kick some royal butt and take no prisoners, under certain circumstances. Secondly, agape in Greek refers to something on the order of "self-less caretaking", that is, taking care of the needs of others without regarding how you will be compensated. A statement like "God is love" means something akin "God is in the business of taking care of others without concern for how he will be 'paid back'" Jesus insisted that we as humans live the same way, "be, therefore, perfect, i.e, complete, as your Father is in this agape lifestyle. Then you will really be his sons. Just being descendants of old Abraham isn't going to cut it." Jesus is far away from any ontological philosophy here. It's boots to the road lifestyle he's concerned with that any eight year old can understand.

Comment by kornbelt888 — July 31, 2008 @ 7:20 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Hi Jaceppe,

I really liked your last comment. It shows a lot of depth and touches on some of the ways I see "God is Love" is more involved than some might have thought.

Thank you for sharing it.

I will point out that I believe Love is timeless. Which means Love didn't (and doesn't) require humans to exist. A minor example is that animals express love. I suggest the origin of life came about because of love. IOW, God (Love) created life.

Meanwhile, I promised to answer questions so, here goes…

You asked…

What do you say of the doctrines of human sin, and the righteousness of Christ, and the necessity and efficacy of the crucifixion (redemption) and the forgiveness available through His shed blood, and His resurrection from the dead? Are these doctrines incorporated into your outlook? And, if so, how?

I generally consider the idea of original sin and other religiously motivated guilt trips to be mostly one of the ways religious leaders throughout history controlled the masses. And, before you start quoting Jesus on this, yes I consider him to have been a less than perfect religious leader too. He was divinely inspired (altruist Love), he had the best of intentions, but Jesus (or whatever name he went by) was still a man. Christ was the ideal. At least this is my belief.

Stories about coming back from the dead was certainly not unique to only one of many cults that sprung up just prior to the Jewish rebellion that resulted in the destruction of their Temple. Did the man now known as "Jesus" physically come back from the dead? Maybe, but chances are that it was part of the myth fed by his best intentioned followers. If Yeshua Ben Yosef’s intent was actually to show the world (including future generations) that he had risen, he could have simply appeared before Pontius Pilate and asked “care to try again?”. I suggest this would have resulted in something more than just a minor footnote in official records.

Being prepared to die so others may live is generally very noble. Being prepared to die to relieve the guilt (original sin) of others is a gray area for me. I think Yeshua Ben Yosef was one of many people who died as a direct result of sticking to principles.

My "outlook" on all of this is that it makes me rather sad that Yeshua Ben Yosef's sacrifice resulted in having religious leaders get an even firmer control of a larger group of people (Gentiles) by making him an icon to be worshipped instead of a man to be emulated.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 31, 2008 @ 8:45 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Hi Pez,

As always, I enjoy our back and forth discussions. However, I am a little uncertain whether or not you want me to respond to your questions based on your post script. I will play it by ear.

You seem to have great respect for what Jesus said. What do you do with the fact that He said He came down from Heaven, had existed with the Father before the Creation, was returning to the Father, but would send a Comforter to the disciples, etc.?

I quote Jesus and the bible because you and others have "great respect" of these as authoritative sources. Like I said, the words would still have the same significance if spoken by a beggar in the street. It is my opinion that the bible is fallible and contains a lot of fiction. It has its uses as a historical reference, but it's most significant value is in provoking thoughts about larger subjects. It doesn't need to be the literal truth to do that. In fact, it would probably diminish its effectiveness if it was.

I believe Jesus (or whatever he called himself) was a man. Christ was the ideal. We can trade biblical quotes if you want, but I somehow I think you would be more uncomfortable with the inconsistencies presented than I would.

How is it that knowing how to live would give us eternal life?

Isn't knowing how to live reward enough?

Why is it that we all fall short of Jesus' example?

Why do religious leaders insist that we all MUST "…fall short of Jesus' example?"

Then what good is His example given our inevitable failure?

I disagree with the premise.

If you are "Love" and made in the image and likeness of God why are you arrogant, boastful, impatient, self-seeking, frequently wrong and contentious?

I don't feel that love is passive and weak. Quite the opposite.

Why am I an even greater sinner?

Your efforts show that you love me even as you struggle to deny the feeling's existence.

I love you.

So how do we get that kind of love in our hearts? What happens when we fail to live up to it? How is it even possible that we, being composed of Love, fail to love perfectly in the first place?

Why is there darkness and shadows even in the presence of light?

The existence of matter is a strong illusion. We live, we love, we try.

All we can do is try our best to think and understanding for ourselves.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 31, 2008 @ 9:23 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Hi Wonders For Oyarsa,

You didn't directly ask me any questions, but I wanted to respond to you.

You wrote…

I think, despite your aversion to the trinity, it is perhaps the most powerful theological expression of what it means that "God is love".

When it comes to philosophy and religion, I don't know the Truth.

If I knew it, I couldn't tell you. Even the ancient Chinese knew "the way" named isn't the way.

To some, the name of the way is "Trinity". If it helps you find your true path to thinking and understanding for yourself, then I'm not going to argue.

However, my love of others compels me to interfere with attempts to force conformance of thought, thus my moniker and "hidden" agenda of provoking independent thinking.

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 31, 2008 @ 9:41 pm

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I generally consider the idea of original sin and other religiously motivated guilt trips to be mostly one of the ways religious leaders throughout history controlled the masses.

That's a rather cynical way of approaching the issue, don't you think? What about looking at sin and guilt through the lens of love? Have you ever read The Brothers Karamazov?

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — July 31, 2008 @ 10:43 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Hi Wonders For Oyarsa,

You asked…

That's a rather cynical way of approaching the issue, don't you think?

How is thinking people are fundamentally full of love and goodness being cynical?

What about looking at sin and guilt through the lens of love?

Thinking people are fundamentally full of love and goodness IS looking through the lens of love. Encouraging people them to trust themselves enough to think for themselves is also looking through the lens of love.

Sin is the absence of Love. Through the lens of love there is nothing to see because sin and evil are as darkness is to light.

Imposed guilt is almost always a mechanism for manipulation. A way to take advantage of the love inherent in all of God's children.

Have you ever read The Brothers Karamazov?

No, I haven't. Have you read Fathers and Sons?

Comment by Thought Provoker — July 31, 2008 @ 11:21 pm

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I haven't read Fathers and Sons, I admit. But what I'm getting at is the human solidarity found in love. For the truest deepest love has a character of defiance to it – looking at all the darkness and evil in the world and choosing to love anyway. It is love that says "I am guilty of all, on behalf of all". It is the delusional isolationism of sin that acts as if we are the beginning and end of all things in ourselves, and are only responsible for ourselves – it is love that asks forgiveness for the sins of our fathers.

It is cynical to assume that Christian concern about inherited guilt is only a ruse to control people – in it's most radically distorted form, yes, it could be that, but at it's heart it is setting its sights on a far higher love.

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — July 31, 2008 @ 11:36 pm

Pez Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Hi TP,
Thanks for your answers.
Yes, I enjoy our round-abouts as well.

I quote Jesus and the bible because you and others have "great respect" of these as authoritative source

As I thought.
You quote Jesus when His words accommodate your point of view and wave them away as fiction when they don't.
Of course you'll now want to pull out a quote, a "command" of Jesus', to show that we are all hypocrites and can't/don't/choose not to follow all of His commands, but that will be rather beside the point.
The first point, the issue being addressed, is the C.S. Lewis trilemma.
Intrinsic to the question of this trilemma is the statement that we are taking Jesus seriously. When we examine Jesus and His claims we find that we have to take Him as divine, as an evil liar, or as being deluded.
He is not a great moral teacher if He is deluded or evil.
So you can deny that He said what He said, but then you are left with no reason to believe He said the things you want Him to have said – you've cut off the legs of the "great teacher" argument.

We can trade biblical quotes if you want, but I somehow I think you would be more uncomfortable with the inconsistencies presented than I would.

Another example of your unfounded bravado. If you've got quotes you want to discuss let's see them. I prefer actually to read the entire Bible and the entire New Testament for continuity and message rather than just quotes. Since I'm sure you'll call off the dogs and leave me a modicum of my ignorant faith, out of love, sure, let's see your complaints about blind men and fig trees.

Me:How is it that knowing how to live would give us eternal life?

TP:Isn't knowing how to live reward enough?

It would contradict what you claimed previously. You provided a long quote of Jesus' (John 10), providing us with context, and said that it was consistent with His other teachings (I should hope so) and with your views. In it Jesus said He came to bring us eternal life. He didn't say "I come to show you how to live, and that ought to be enough." So is the part about eternal life just another of those fictions? And you say this fiction is consistent with His other teachings?

Me:Why is it that we all fall short of Jesus' example?

TP: Why do religious leaders insist that we all MUST "…fall short of Jesus' example?"

I'm not a religious leader and I didn't say you MUST fall short. I said you DO. But you are Love, made by God out of Love, so you should act like Love.

Then again, it appears you think you do…

Me: If you are "Love" and made in the image and likeness of God why are you arrogant, boastful, impatient, self-seeking, frequently wrong and contentious?

TP: I don't feel that love is passive and weak. Quite the opposite.

I don't think love is passive or weak, either. Neither do I think it is arrogant, boastful, etc.
Apparently you do.
When you say that Jesus was divinely inspired all you really mean is that he is speaking out of love.
When I said this was an odd way to apply "divine inspiration" you said that it wasn't odd if one thought of God as Love.
So I expressed wonder about what you meant by love. I'm still wondering. There's a famous passage in Corinthians describing what love is. WfO alos gave us a description above.
Yours seems to include arrogance, boastfulness, impatience, contentiousness, etc.
It's easy to have spiritual/religious discussions when you treat the matter as subjective opinion and treat words the same way.

I love you.

Hmmm. What does this mean? You feel arrogant and like to boast when you talk to me?

Why is there darkness and shadows even in the presence of light?

The existence of matter is a strong illusion. We live, we love, we try.

All we can do is try our best to think and understanding for ourselves.

There are not shadows and darkness in the light. Why do we need to try our best when we are exactly composed of the divine love that is God? I know we do struggle, the question is, how is it that we struggle given your ontology?

You at least acknowledge that there was a person known as Jesus so let me ask you this. Why do you even believe that much? Let's see if we can go anywhere from there.

Comment by Pez — July 31, 2008 @ 11:44 pm

Jaceppe Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Kornbelt888,

I think you can go too far with this "God is love" business, as if "agape" is some kind of timeless substance.

Well, I’m not trying to imply that love (or ‘agape’ as you say in the Greek) is some kind of ethereal, timeless substance. I am simply trying to ground love in God. And, the idea that “God is love” can make sense by the realization that God needs no other created being in order for the attribute of love to be expressed.

Jesus is far away from any ontological philosophy here. It's boots to the road lifestyle he's concerned with that any eight year old can understand.

Amen to that! Love acts! And when it acts it does things like “walking 2 miles when only being demanded to walk 1” or “loving your enemies and praying for those who mistreat you” (Matt 5). So, I fully agree with you that Love DOES, and what it does is not hard for a child to understand; even though I believe this is impossible for any of us in our own power to do all the time (and even when we do it we still fall short of the purity of God’s love): Hence the need for us to rely daily on Christ to live through us (Gal 2:20). So, my digression into ontology was not to make love into some kind of intangible feeling or an amorphous substance. Rather, it was to ground love in the very Being of God but in a way that allows the “IS” part of “God is Love” to mean something.

Firstly, there's that little statement about "God is a consuming fire", and "Yahweh is a man of war", sending Israel to kill Midianites, etc. Obvious, the God of the Bible is willing to kick some royal butt and take no prisoners, under certain circumstances.

Yes, also, God is a consuming fire (Deut 4:24 & Heb 12:29). I think I’ll let Mathew Henry comment on this instead of me…

That he is a consuming fire, a jealous God, v. 24. Take heed of offending him, for, First, He has a jealous eye to discern an affront; he must have your entire affection and adoration, and will by no means endure a rival. God’s jealousy over us is a good reason for our godly jealousy over ourselves. Secondly, He has a heavy hand to punish an affront, especially in his worship, for therein he is in a special manner jealous. He is a consuming fire; his wrath against sinners is so; it is dreadful and destroying, it is a fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries, Heb. 10:27. Fire consumes that only which is fuel for it, so the wrath of God fastens upon those only who, by their own sin, have fitted themselves for destruction, 1. Cor. 3:13; Isa. 27:4. Even in the New Testament we find the same argument urged upon us as a reason why we should serve God with reverence (Heb. 12:28, 29), because though he is our God, and a rejoicing light to those that serve him faithfully, yet he is a consuming fire to those that trifle with him. Mathew Henry Commentary on Deut 4:24

And, yes, He is a man of war. Another from Henry:

The Lord is a man of war, that is, well able to deal with all those that strive with their Maker, and will certainly be too hard for them. Matthew Henry Commentary on Exodus 15:3

Remember that the “man of war” description occurs in a song of victory which the Hebrews are singing after the defeat of the Egyptian army. It is not to be taken as wooden doctrine, rather a declaration that God is capable of defeating those who oppose Him.

As far as the “kill Midianites; etc”. Well, God has spoken to us most supremely in His Son (Heb 1) and all that transpires in the History of Israel is leading up to Christ. Christ is the focal point of history and of the Scriptures (John 5:39). When we look back at Scripture we must look first at what is revealed to us in Christ in order to have a context for understanding the History of Israel. I think there are Old Testament stories which are challenging to understand. But, I interpret what is difficult to understand by what I already understand and when I see God show up on the scene in Christ what I see is a demonstration of love and forgiveness that is matchless in history… the ‘boots to the road lifestyle’ you refer to and indescribable gift of mercy to us. I think the question is “Is God justified to let any of us perish?” I believe Scripture says that He is, YET He chooses not to because of His great love for us and offers to us Salvation in Christ freely of His own volition. We cannot demand it from Him nor call Him unjust if He were to withhold it. I am not an Old Testament historian so I know little about the practices and culture of the various peoples living in the fertile crescent thousands of years ago. But I do believe that God is “just” and the Midianites were not; for no human is (save Christ). The precise details of God’s mercy being extended to people outside of the Israelites in the Old Testament I am not qualified to comment on but we know from Scripture that it does occur: (e.g. Rahab, Ruth)

Comment by Jaceppe — August 1, 2008 @ 5:20 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Hi Pez,

Thank you for your response. I think I will start with your last question first since I believe it will help inform other points I will be making.

You asked…

You at least acknowledge that there was a person known as Jesus so let me ask you this. Why do you even believe that much? Let's see if we can go anywhere from there.

I believe the modern day "Jesus" is a myth. However, like most successful myths, it has some factual history behind it. The reason I think there was a wandering rabbi with a name similar to "Yeshua ben Yosef" is due to some supporting historical evidence and that the basics of Yeshua's life and teachings wasn't that unusual for the time. For example, Rabbi Hillel was very well known and said things like "Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.” And then there is Saul/Paul. It is really hard to doubt his existence. It is unlikely that a man of his background and training would have chosen a purely fictional person as the basis for his reformation. Paul's decision to include Gentiles into the small Jewish cult was key to making Christianity the phenomenon it is today.

Intrinsic to the question of this trilemma is the statement that we are taking Jesus seriously. When we examine Jesus and His claims we find that we have to take Him as divine, as an evil liar, or as being deluded.
He is not a great moral teacher if He is deluded or evil.
So you can deny that He said what He said, but then you are left with no reason to believe He said the things you want Him to have said – you've cut off the legs of the "great teacher" argument.

Which is why I said it didn't matter if the words were spoken by a beggar in the street. The idea holds up on its own merit. I believe Yeshua was motivated by altruistic love. While you scoff at me calling this "divinely inspired", that is what falls out of believing God is Love, Love is God.

I see no dilemma or "trilemma" here.

If you've got quotes you want to discuss let's see them.

Mark 10:17-18
17: And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
18: And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

Since I'm sure you'll call off the dogs and leave me a modicum of my ignorant faith, out of love, sure, let's see your complaints about blind men and fig trees.

Maybe Bartimaeus was schizophrenic and didn't know whether he was coming or going. As I said, chances are you would be more concerned about biblical inconsistencies than I.

This kind of frankness wouldn't be appropriate with all people. There are some that, out of love, I would back away from.

I could be wrong, but I expect and hope these exchanges are doing us both more good than harm.

To my affirmation of loving you, you responded with…

What does this mean? You feel arrogant and like to boast when you talk to me?

I do onto you as I would have you do onto me.

Through mutual love and respect we both become stronger for it.

There are not shadows and darkness in the light. Why do we need to try our best when we are exactly composed of the divine love that is God? I know we do struggle, the question is, how is it that we struggle given your ontology?

We struggle from ignorance of our inherent goodness. We are like the children we are. We must strive to think and comprehend for ourselves. We can try to help each other, but ultimately we must each, individually, find our own path to understanding.

I do not know the Truth, but I believe "the way" named is not the way.

Words and rituals get in the way of understanding.

Ideas are what are important. That and love.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 1, 2008 @ 11:52 pm

Jaceppe Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:22 am
Thought Provoker,

More comments to your comments…

I generally consider the idea of original sin and other religiously motivated guilt trips to be mostly one of the ways religious leaders throughout history controlled the masses. And, before you start quoting Jesus on this, yes I consider him to have been a less than perfect religious leader too. He was divinely inspired (altruist Love), he had the best of intentions, but Jesus (or whatever name he went by) was still a man. Christ was the ideal. At least this is my belief.

Am I one of these religious leaders trying to control you by talking to you about sin and guilt? I am a software engineer with no religious degree whatsoever, no denominational ordination, nothing to be gained, I expect you to send me NO money nor donate to any cause I am involved in … we will most likely never meet in this life.

Also what do you make of the following Scriptures then regarding the sinlessness of Jesus:

Jesus speaking in John 8:46: “Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?”

And Paul writing in 2 Cor 5:21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Paul, whose existence you said is hard to argue against writes that Christ is sinless.

Stories about coming back from the dead was certainly not unique to only one of many cults that sprung up just prior to the Jewish rebellion that resulted in the destruction of their Temple. Did the man now known as "Jesus" physically come back from the dead? Maybe, but chances are that it was part of the myth fed by his best intentioned followers. If Yeshua Ben Yosef’s intent was actually to show the world (including future generations) that he had risen, he could have simply appeared before Pontius Pilate and asked “care to try again?”. I suggest this would have resulted in something more than just a minor footnote in official records.
Are you suggesting that Christ should have made the evidence for His resurrection more dramatic? More compelling? More undeniable? And, are you sure that would really be enough for you?

So, what of Paul writing in I Cor 15:3-19

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them–yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

Is he one of these best intentioned followers? … What do you make of his writings here? Were the followers so well-intentioned that they believed what they preached or did they know it was a lie?

Being prepared to die so others may live is generally very noble. Being prepared to die to relieve the guilt (original sin) of others is a gray area for me. I think Yeshua Ben Yosef was one of many people who died as a direct result of sticking to principles.

What is gray about it?…. And, if you recall from my previous post Matt 26:63-66 states that the crime leading to His crucifixtion which Jesus was accused of was blasphemy… what principle then are you referring to?

And how about this from 1 Peter:

18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you 21 who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

It appears that you and Peter have vastly different ideas about why Christ died… Hmmm… Peter personally knew Christ, you didn’t… hmmm… who am I gonna believe on this? I think I’ll go with Peter

My "outlook" on all of this is that it makes me rather sad that Yeshua Ben Yosef's sacrifice resulted in having religious leaders get an even firmer control of a larger group of people (Gentiles) by making him an icon to be worshipped instead of a man to be emulated.

And which religious leaders would those be? A doutber like Thomas? A tax collector like Matthew? Fisherman such as Peter, etc? An outcast rabbi and former persecutor of the church like Saul (Paul)? Just who in that particular group do you think was motivated from a position of religious power?

T.P., if I may be so bold, when you remove the Cross and Resurrection from the Gospel you eviscerate it… it becomes powerless. Scripture is a story of Redemption, but your rendition of it removes both the disease (sin) and the cure (the Cross).

Jesus said in Mark 2:17 “When Jesus heard it, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

If you don't think you are sick you will never come to Christ to be healed… not the "ideal" of Christ of which you speak. Rather, Christ, the God-man, who bore the wrath of God on your behalf. It appears you don't think that person existed nor do you think you need Him.

Comment by Jaceppe — August 2, 2008 @ 1:22 am

Pez Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:20 am
Hi TP,
Thanks again for your continuing dialogue on this.

I believe the modern day "Jesus" is a myth.

If there is a modern day Jesus that differs from the historical Jesus of the Gospels, Acts and Epistles I would agree that that presentation would be mythological.

And then there is Saul/Paul. It is really hard to doubt his existence.

I agree, but why do you say so?

It is unlikely that a man of his background and training would have chosen a purely fictional person as the basis for his reformation.

This is a very good point. The Gospels are full of such "it is very unlikely they'd invent such and such" evidences (women discovering the tomb, Joseph burying the body, etc.)
While you use Saul/Paul as evidence for the historical Jesus, however, I must ask why you think that Paul existed.
Also, as you refer to Saul's background, just what was his background and training and why do you believe so?

Mark 10:17-18
17: And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
18: And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

I love that quote. What is your issue with it? Being a free-thinking thought-provoker have you already looked yourself for answers to whatever your issue might be? They are probably easy to find.
But that you won't get angry that I am just posing more and more questions to you, I will discuss this one in terms of what the classic complaint is and presume it is yours as well.
With this example you may realize why your so-called inconsistencies are not going to frighten me. Having read the New Testament many times (dozens?) I am not expecting any surprises.
Here, as in Matthew, Jesus is presenting the young man with the very dilemma we are discussing. He is neither denying His goodness nor His divinity, but asking the young man to examine the implications of his own statement. He is asking him, "are you sure you mean that? Do you know what you are saying?" He is saying that if He is good, then He is God. He was telling the young man that He is either a good God or a bad man – same choices as Lewis presents (save the lunatic option). There is no such thing as a Good Master, as the young man called Him, who isn't also God. Since the young man thought that Jesus was merely a religious teacher this was a mild rebuke and a teaching moment. Since the young man is about to demonstrate that he thinks he, himself, is good, Jesus is nipping this thinking in the bud as well.

Blind Bartimaeus with a split personality? Very subtle. The solutions are many but first let us note that this has nothing to do with your veiled challenge:

I believe Jesus (or whatever he called himself) was a man. Christ was the ideal. We can trade biblical quotes if you want, but I somehow I think you would be more uncomfortable with the inconsistencies presented than I would.

As I expected, you are merely dredging for any so-called contradictions in the New Testament (I presume you intend to limit yourself to the NT) rather than what you implied was your target – something vaguely to do with Jesus' claims, what He said of Himself and why you could point to certain of His claims and deny others.
Nonetheless, for as long as this entertains you we can solve these little problems as well. Presuming that I really would feel "uncomfortable" that any of the Gospel writers placed a healing at Jericho as Jesus entered town and another placed that healing at Jericho as Jesus left town let us proceed with the simplest solution (as we proceed through similar challenges, however, we will also find that strict chronology is not a trademark of the writers – as demonstrated without contradiction from one verse to the next in a single author's writings):
Bartimaeus and an unknown companion were healed as Jesus left the Roman city of Jericho (Mark and Matthew) and approached the location of Herod's palace, also called Jericho (Luke). With no affront to logic each author could reference a different Jericho based upon the presumed knowledge of his intended audience. Luke would emphasize the approach to the Herodian city as he was also recording the next event there.

We struggle from ignorance of our inherent goodness. We are like the children we are. We must strive to think and comprehend for ourselves. We can try to help each other, but ultimately we must each, individually, find our own path to understanding.

You keep repeating that we have a problem with ignorance and that we need to try our best but you do not address the nature or source of this problem. If we are fashioned out of God-Love whence our problems and our ignorance?
Why would Love itself be ignorant of its own goodness? How is it possible that the same substance that is God would suddenly (a la Hinduism) lose touch with its own Godliness?
The question was:

How is it even possible that we, being composed of Love, fail to love perfectly in the first place?

Which you've answered with more questions and a repetition of the premise. But what is the solution? Why are we now children when we are Love and God is Love?

re: what it means to say you love me:

Me: What does this mean? You feel arrogant and like to boast when you talk to me?

You: I do onto you as I would have you do onto me.

Well done. Good answer.

Except … does that mean you are denying any objectivity to what Love is?
As long as you would like receiving the action you consider yourself loving in administering it? Does that work for masochists as well?

Comment by Pez — August 2, 2008 @ 2:20 am

Pez Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 am
Missed this:

Me:Intrinsic to the question of this trilemma is the statement that we are taking Jesus seriously. When we examine Jesus and His claims we find that we have to take Him as divine, as an evil liar, or as being deluded.
He is not a great moral teacher if He is deluded or evil.
So you can deny that He said what He said, but then you are left with no reason to believe He said the things you want Him to have said – you've cut off the legs of the "great teacher" argument.
You: Which is why I said it didn't matter if the words were spoken by a beggar in the street. The idea holds up on its own merit. I believe Yeshua was motivated by altruistic love. While you scoff at me calling this "divinely inspired", that is what falls out of believing God is Love, Love is God.

So while the question which prompted your providing "context" had to do with the trilemma you deny that question any significance.
You needn't conclude that Jesus was liar, lunatic or God because you can deny He said anything you don't want Him to have said. Actually, you can even deny He said what you do want Him to have said.
So what was the point of providing further context to His words, not once, but at least twice?
Since that context only buried your position if you were to take Jesus seriously (as the trilemma would require) you edit out for your own consumption only those phrases you happen to like and don't even address the Person making the claims, as you can put those phrases in anybody's mouth.
The question becomes a big "so what?" then.
To you,whoever said "love your neighbors as yourself" was divinely inspired. Which means " spoke lovingly" if, as by your definition, love is doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.
So you are not addressing the trilemma, Jesus, His words or claims, the context you provided, or anything otherwise related. You are merely affirming that you like the variations of the Golden Rule.
That didn't really warrant your leaping in and boldly challenging the participants here to provide counter-balance.

Comment by Pez — August 2, 2008 @ 2:38 am

Pez Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:53 am
p.s.
As of tomorrow evening I will be entertaining company and won't be able to respond to your next comment.
Please don't take my delay as disrespect or a loss of interest but it will take me a few days to get back to anything that appears after noon or so.

By the way, as you asked, I do love you.
By wanting for you the well-being I want for myself I pray for your salvation, your entering into God's kingdom, your personal relationship with Jesus and your eternal life.

Comment by Pez — August 2, 2008 @ 2:53 am

Thought Provoker Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Hi Jaceppe,

Thank you for your response and questions.

You asked…

Am I one of these religious leaders trying to control you by talking to you about sin and guilt?

I'm not sure how much you have read Telic Thoughts. A while ago I presented the term "Shield Bashing" as a common tactic used in the Culture War. In short, it is intentionally framing opposing view points as attacks that must be vigorously defended against. This is used to justifying counter-attacks. Visualize someone getting smashed in the face by a "defensive" shield.

In a previous comment you also asked me…

What do you say of the doctrines of human sin, and the righteousness of Christ, and the necessity and efficacy of the crucifixion (redemption) and the forgiveness available through His shed blood, and His resurrection from the dead? Are these doctrines incorporated into your outlook? And, if so, how?

I had presumed you wanted my open and honest answer. That is the answer I gave. I had no intent to malign any individual, especially not you.

Also what do you make of the following Scriptures then regarding the sinlessness of Jesus: Jesus speaking in John 8:46: “Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?”

In context John 8:1-59…

1: Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
2: And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3: And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4: They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5: Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6: This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7: So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
…
46: Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?
47: He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
48: Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?
49: Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.
…
58: Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
59: Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

I take this as an interesting biblical story which probably has some factual basis mixed in with inaccurate details (The stone throwing mob had both left and stayed).

You also asked about…

And Paul writing in 2 Cor 5:21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Paul was the apostle who only met Christ once as a vision on the road to Damascus. It is my understanding that at the time Paul was having some trouble convincing the Corinthians that he should be accepted as a valid messenger for Christ's teachings. These words were part of the letters he wrote in preparation for a return visit.

I believe Paul had an agenda. A divinely inspired agenda, but an agenda still the same.

Is [Paul] one of these best intentioned followers?

yes

… What do you make of his writings here? Were the followers so well-intentioned that they believed what they preached or did they know it was a lie?

In Paul's case, he didn't have any more direct access to Christ than any other person Christ chose to visit after his assent to heaven.

As I indicated before, it's my impression that Paul was too savvy to push something he knew to be an out-and-out lie and was verifiable as such.

…if you recall from my previous post Matt 26:63-66 states that the crime leading to His crucifixtion which Jesus was accused of was blasphemy… what principle then are you referring to?

As I understand it, the biblical accounts have a sign indicating that the "King of the Jews" was who was being crucified. Jesus was found guilty of a political crime. I have no doubt that the religious leaders were manipulating the political machinery. I also have no doubt that Jesus (or whatever he called himself) was aware of the dangers but continued doing what he believed in.

Sticking to that principle is what eventually got him killed.

When I answered your previous question about my outlook with…
My "outlook" on all of this is that it makes me rather sad that Yeshua Ben Yosef's sacrifice resulted in having religious leaders get an even firmer control of a larger group of people (Gentiles) by making him an icon to be worshipped instead of a man to be emulated.

You responded to this by asking…

And which religious leaders would those be?

Various Popes, right wing preachers and others over a couple millennia.

You also asked…

A doutber like Thomas? A tax collector like Matthew? Fisherman such as Peter, etc? An outcast rabbi and former persecutor of the church like Saul (Paul)? Just who in that particular group do you think was motivated from a position of religious power?

First of all, I understand that after Yeshua Ben Yosef's execution, his brother Ya’akov (James) took over leading the Jewish Cult with the presumption that the mashiach (messiah) would return to lead the Jews and free them from Roman rule. In other words, Christ was to become"King of the Jews". The propheses indicate the mashiach would/will rule from the Temple in Jerusalem

"Belief in the eventual coming of the mashiach is a basic and fundamental part of traditional Judaism.
…
The term "mashiach" literally means the anointed one, and refers to the ancient practice of anointing kings with oil when they took the throne. The mashiach is the one who will be anointed as king in the Latter Days." link

Christ is the English term for the Greek Χριστός (Khristós) meaning "the anointed". link

For a look at the this time in history…
"Archelaus … was deposed by the Roman Emperor in A.D. 6, and for the next sixty years Judæa was governed by procurators appointed by the Emperor, except for three years (A.D. 41-44) when a grandson of Herod, Agrippa 1, reigned over Judæa as king. From the beginning of Herod’s reign the high priests, who were henceforth appointed by Herod and his descendants, or else by Roman governors, counted for less and less, although by virtue of their office they continued to preside over the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jewish nation.

Misrule by Roman procurators, combined with an increasing intolerance of Gentile control on the part of Jewish nationalists, led to the Jewish revolt of A.D. 66 and the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Roman forces in A.D. 70. With the fall of the temple, the last vestiges of the temple constitution, together with the high-priestly office, came to an end. Judæa was placed under firmer military control than before." (link)

Ya’akov was murdered in 65 AD, five years before the destruction of the Temple. To call the Temple's destruction a blow to the Jews would be an extreme understatement. It demoralized all Jews, including those involved in one of many cults believing in their particular mashiach.

I suggest the young Christian religion would have ceased to exist at that point in history if not for Saul/Paul allowing Gentiles to join.

So, to answer your question. Yes, I presume Ya’akov and Paul were religious leaders. I believe they were divinely motivated (alteristic love) to lead the masses.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 2, 2008 @ 3:15 pm

Jaceppe Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Though Provoker,

Well first things first… you quoted me saying:

Am I one of these religious leaders trying to control you by talking to you about sin and guilt?

Then you responded with:

I'm not sure how much you have read Telic Thoughts. A while ago I presented the term "Shield Bashing" as a common tactic used in the Culture War. In short, it is intentionally framing opposing view points as attacks that must be vigorously defended against. This is used to justifying counter-attacks. Visualize someone getting smashed in the face by a "defensive" shield.

If my question conveyed the appearance of a "counter attack" please forgive me… it was not intentional. I guess asking the question as I did conveyed something different than I intended.

Second, you said:

I had presumed you wanted my open and honest answer. That is the answer I gave. I had no intent to malign any individual, especially not you.

I am very interested in your responses. … At the moment, I have relatives visiting thru afternoon tomorrow so it may be later in the day when I am able to contemplate your answers more fully and return my thoughts…

Comment by Jaceppe — August 2, 2008 @ 11:49 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Hi Jaceppe,

No offense was taken or intended on my part.

By all means, take your time in responding. I suspect we all give this more priority than we should. I know I do.

Family comes first.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 2, 2008 @ 11:58 pm

Jaceppe Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Thought Provoker,

Thank you for your kind response to my last post.

Picking up where we left off… there are 4 areas I would like to discuss with you in regard to your most recent posts. However, I will post each area separately to allow more easy discourse on each topic.

First,

You state:

Being prepared to die so others may live is generally very noble. Being prepared to die to relieve the guilt (original sin) of others is a gray area for me. I think Yeshua Ben Yosef was one of many people who died as a direct result of sticking to principles.

I didn't quite see a description in your recent posts of what you mean above by "gray area"

Could you please articulate what you mean by this; what is gray about it?

Thanks…

p.s. The other 3 areas are forthcoming but will take some time due to commitments today…

Comment by Jaceppe — August 3, 2008 @ 1:22 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Hi Pez,

You asked why I believe Paul actually existed. My immediate answer is that both religious and non-religious historians presume he existed. We have letters written by him (in his own handwriting). As a practical matter, if Paul and his followers (e.g. Luke) didn't exist then the origin of half of the New Testament (NT) is up for grabs. It is very difficult to have a discussion or even a debate without at least some common ground. Meanwhile, here is a link to The Paul Quest: The Renewed Search

Speaking of common ground. Do you agree to stipulate that the NT authors were humans and not deities? Granted, they were divinely inspired humans, but still basic humans like the rest of us.

Also, as you refer to Saul's background, just what was his background and training and why do you believe so?

I believe Saul/Paul was a highly educated Roman Citizen who was also a Jew. His Greek background strongly suggests that he would have been taught the philosophies of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

I hold this view because, considering the evidence, it is hard to believe otherwise. Do you have anything to suggest this view is wrong?

I love that quote. What is your issue with it? Being a free-thinking thought-provoker have you already looked yourself for answers to whatever your issue might be?

I'm glad you love the quote. I don't have any issues with it. I'm neither surprised nor angry with your counter-interpretation. It just seems a stretch. What makes sense to me is that Yeshua Ben Yosef was discouraging people from focusing only on him instead of his message.

Since you love this quote, here is more of it (Mark 10:17-27)…

17And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?

18And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

19Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.

20And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.

21Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

22And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

23And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

24And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

26And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved?

27And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

Note, I read the last part as "…with Love all things are possible." I believe that was also something taught to me as a young child.

That being said, I highly doubt that Yeshua Ben Yosef would have actually said "take up the cross". Even if he knew what was in store for him in the future, it would have detracted from the message he was trying to give.

Those around him wouldn't have understood what he meant at the time. However, I could be wrong on this and would be interested in hearing your take on it even though it is a minor point.

You keep repeating that we have a problem with ignorance and that we need to try our best but you do not address the nature or source of this problem. If we are fashioned out of God-Love whence our problems and our ignorance?
Why would Love itself be ignorant of its own goodness? How is it possible that the same substance that is God would suddenly (a la Hinduism) lose touch with its own Godliness?

I don't know the Truth but…

I think of love as similar to the quala of consciousness. Our consciousness fills the void of a lack of consciousness. Our love fills the void of a lack of love.

I thought your "a la Hinduism" was a good remark. However, I think your expectations of completeness doesn't conform to observations. If consciousness was complete, there would be no individuals, all would be one mind. Likewise with love but in this case if there are no struggles and no individuals to love, then love would cease to exist. That would be sad.

My modification of Descartes becomes…

We think and love.

Therefore we are.

The more we think and love, the stronger our existence becomes.

(I will post more later)

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 3, 2008 @ 2:51 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Hi Jaceppe,

You asked…

I didn't quite see a description in your recent posts of what you mean above by "gray area"

Could you please articulate what you mean by this; what is gray about it?

The first time you asked, it was a compound question so a hedged a little and acted like the first part was rhetorical and answered the second part.

I hedged because, believe it or not, I can be sensitive to the fact that my opinions may be disturbing to others.

I believe Yeshua Ben Yosef thought the message he was teaching important enough to risk dying for. So it could be said that he died because he loved his fellow man.

However, because some people felt Yeshua Ben Yosef's death needed more significance than that. The "he died for our sins" meme started.

If we look past the emotional baggage, this becomes to situation where he died so we can quit feeling guilty about being sinners but ONLY if we feel guilty about him dying for us.

I called it a gray area because it didn't alleviate guilt, it transferred it.

To punctuate the point…

Are you willing to agree I can be a "true Christian" with no feeling of guilt if I believe in a dual nature of Christ (Jesus as a mortal man, Christ as the spiritual ideal)?

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 3, 2008 @ 3:37 pm

fifth monarchy man Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hey TP

I’ve only got a second but I would like to know how you define love and how you determined what your definition would be.

The reason I ask is because I also believe that God is love but I’m sure that my conception of
Love is different than yours. I believe that love is only defined by the kind of sacrificial gift that
Christ gave me by dying in my place. IOW

No cross no love
Know the cross know love.

Do you agree?

Comment by fifth monarchy man — August 3, 2008 @ 3:47 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Hi Pez,

Continuing, you asked…

…does that mean you are denying any objectivity to what Love is? As long as you would like receiving the action you consider yourself loving in administering it? Does that work for masochists as well?

I would say love and consciousness have similar problems with objectivity.

While I have been presenting a lot of my philosophical thoughts in this thread, I still embrace Gould's NOMA and fully expect that no one will "objectively" arrive at a one and only Truth.

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao" Lao Tzu

This is the first line in The Tao Te Ching, sixth century BC Eastern philosophy. It basically says that the Truth isn't something that can be objectively presented.

Two centuries later Socrates demonstrated the same thing for Western philosophy. And after two millennia of very smart people trying to show otherwise, these basic philosophical tenets still stand.

I may be arrogant, but I am not arrogant enough to think I can objectively present a Truth that can't be presented.

So what was the point of providing further context to His words, not once, but at least twice?

When people offer quotes I tend to look for context. When I find the context I tend to offer it to all. I have done this a lot more than twice. I will continue to do it. I think it helps people think for themselves.

The question becomes a big "so what?" then.
To you,whoever said "love your neighbors as yourself" was divinely inspired. Which means " spoke lovingly" if, as by your definition, love is doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.
So you are not addressing the trilemma, Jesus, His words or claims, the context you provided, or anything otherwise related. You are merely affirming that you like the variations of the Golden Rule.
That didn't really warrant your leaping in and boldly challenging the participants here to provide counter-balance.

The "leaping in and boldly challenging" that caused Bilbo to start this thread was this comment. where I simply quoted bible verses John 8:48-59 in response to Chuckdz stating the "John 8:58" is where Jesus claimed to be God.

After that, I have been mostly answering questions/requests posed to me.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 3, 2008 @ 4:46 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Hi Fifth Monarchy Man,

You wrote…

I’ve only got a second but I would like to know how you define love and how you determined what your definition would be.

The reason I ask is because I also believe that God is love but I’m sure that my conception of Love is different than yours. I believe that love is only defined by the kind of sacrificial gift that Christ gave me by dying in my place. IOW

No cross no love
Know the cross know love.

Do you agree?

In a word "no".

I know you disagree with my thoughts about NOMA. May I suggest you read my last response to Pez. I think it goes to a fundamental difference in our outlooks. After that, we can explore my fuzzy definitions surrounding God is Love.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 3, 2008 @ 4:51 pm

Joy Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
TP:

I believe Yeshua Ben Yosef thought the message he was teaching important enough to risk dying for. So it could be said that he died because he loved his fellow man.

Love God, Love each other. If you can grok that 'message' (and neither you nor Jesus were the first to come up with it), then it's not very obscure. Human beings throughout history have risked their lives for less (or more, depending on how you look at it). Why, just in my lifetime there have been folks like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, numerous political figures (including a couple of Kennedys, a Nasser, a Rabin, a Bhutto, and others), and even oddballs like Jim Jones and David Koresh. Along with scores of people you never heard of. Risking your life for your 'cause' is nothing new, Jesus didn't invent it, and it didn't end with him either. Why, I've even been known to do it.

…and everyone defines their quest in terms of love/care/concern for their fellow man (generic), even when that love is painfully xenophobic (as was Jesus' on occasion, as duly expressed by witnesses who wrote the gospels). Why, even good ol' PZ Myers risks his life for his cause. At least, to hear him tell it.

Jesus' sacrifice didn't end human sacrifice and it didn't end gnarly torture and death either. Heck, the Church itself has enough blood on its hands to make that simplistic notion a joke.

However, because some people felt Yeshua Ben Yosef's death needed more significance than that. The "he died for our sins" meme started.

Then you'd think people dying for other people's sins would have ended 2,000 years ago. Along with torture, wrongful death and kangaroo courts. Since that's obviously not true either, you might be missing something more than just what "some people" say about it.

If we look past the emotional baggage, this becomes to situation where he died so we can quit feeling guilty about being sinners but ONLY if we feel guilty about him dying for us.

We're all still sinners and guilt is the stick everyone from our gods to our parents (and spouses and kids, etc.) wields against us. The #1 best social approbation tool ever invented, it's still with us. So is suffering, so is death. Nothing about the human condition has changed.

I called it a gray area because it didn't alleviate guilt, it transferred it.

Consider the theodicy position in all this…

Guilt for my own transgressions is enough to convict me, I'm not in the market for anybody else's. Hitler still managed to slaughter 6 million of Jesus' fellow religionists, long after the atonement for human sin was supposedly done. Maybe if someone claiming to be God (or a unique Son of God) wanted to sacrifice himself to atone for God's guilt people could take it seriously. But only if God stopped being evil when the atoning sacrifice was done. Life is still full of suffering and the death rate is still 100% in all generations. Nothing has changed.

People in the modern western world might be more 'loving' than they ever were before, but every time a Hitler or a Milosevic or a Bush gains political power, we're reminded that we're still greedy, megalomaniacal, bloodthirsty barbarians under the skin. It doesn't take much to turn us from comfortable, intermarrying friends and neighbors into "Ethnic Cleansers." The appeal to hate still holds more power to cause great upheaval than any appeal to love.

Maybe love is like gravity. It holds the whole sheebang together, even though it's the weakest force in existence.

Are you willing to agree I can be a "true Christian" with no feeling of guilt if I believe in a dual nature of Christ (Jesus as a mortal man, Christ as the spiritual ideal)?

I'm afraid the old 'True Scotsman' argument is still just a defense mechanism. I'd say no, you are not a "true Christian" by a majority of the definitions floating these days. Neither, I assure you, am I.

Now if anybody asks, I am a mere follower of Jesus. Not Paul, or James, not Luther or Calvin. Not any of the Vatican councils, not Elizabeth's clever ruse. Enough people have died for that sort of silliness. If I have to go to church, I quietly sit and enjoy it for what it is, because I wouldn't be there unless I loved someone for whom it's important that I be there.

I have risked my life to save others, though. Why? Because I intensely disapproved of the government deliberately sacrificing thousands of innocent lives on the altar of Absolute Power and organized crime. Complete with outrageous lies and insane mitigations that put pregnant women and young children directly in the line of fire. Just because they knew they'd get away with it.

Nothing I struggled so hard to do, none of the lives ruined or wrongly lost along the way made the least bit of difference. Except to slow the juggernaut for a little while (and that was its own doing, not mine). It's back now, unrepentant and still chock full of death and lies, a new generation has to field its own sacrifices. I'm old enough to know better.

Comment by Joy — August 3, 2008 @ 6:51 pm

fifth monarchy man Says:
August 4th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Joy

again I have just a second I just can’t resist

Maybe if someone claiming to be God (or a unique Son of God) wanted to sacrifice himself to atone for God's guilt people could take it seriously.

In a sense that is in fact what I (and Paul) assert .

But only if God stopped being evil when the atoning sacrifice was done.

The problem is that God’s guilt consists of his not immediately punishing those who do evil so his great sin is also how he shows his love to us. So for him to stop being "evil" would mean that he stopped being loving . A sticky wicket indeed .

That is unless God is timeless and Christ was “slain from the foundation of the world”

peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — August 4, 2008 @ 8:14 am

Pez Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Hi TP,

, You asked why I believe Paul actually existed. My immediate answer is that both religious and non-religious historians presume he existed. We have letters written by him (in his own handwriting).

I agree with your sentiment and affirm that the NT is a reliable source of information on the historical Paul (as well as Jesus) but, unfortunately, we do not have any extant mss in Paul's hand.

As a practical matter, if Paul and his followers (e.g. Luke) didn't exist then the origin of half of the New Testament (NT) is up for grabs.

Exactly. If they didn't exist we would not be where we are today. Luke alone wrote 2/5 of the New Testament.

Speaking of common ground. Do you agree to stipulate that the NT authors were humans and not deities?
Granted, they were divinely inspired humans, but still basic humans like the rest of us.

Yes, divinely inspired humans. Nobody ever claimed they were deities and, in fact, when the people of Lystra thought to worship Paul as Hermes he affirmed just this point.
The only person who accepted worship in the NT as a deity (angels included) was Jesus Christ.

 I believe Saul/Paul was a highly educated Roman Citizen who was also a Jew. His Greek background strongly suggests that he would have been taught the philosophies of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

Think so? I'll stipulate to this with the caveat that he disagreed with them on many points, did not reason from their principles, and did not take them as foundational to his view.

 I hold this view because, considering the evidence, it is hard to believe otherwise. Do you have anything to suggest this view is wrong?

Nothing at all, except to add that it is very incomplete. Paul, by the age of probably 21 had the equivalent of 2 Ph.Ds. As he said, and his knowledge of Judaism attests, he was a "pharisee among pharisees", brought up on the Torah, and an expert educated by Rabban Gamaliel, the greatest Jewish teacher of his day.
You allude to his knowledge of Greek (which works for me) but ignore his knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. As Joseph Klausner says of his knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, he "obviously … was not a Septuagint Jew."
He did not rely on the Midrash, either, but was a Jew born and bred and was a creative and independent master of the genre from its source.

This Paul is the man, then, well schooled and historically-attested to, who made his message "Jesus Christ and Him crucified".
http://www.ligonier.org/docs/The_Truth_of_the_Cross_1stChapterPW.pdf

Not only so, but Paul passes on creedal information that he received not decades but merely a few years after Jesus' death (and which goes back as a belief, if not in formulation, to the event itself) that Jesus was risen and seen by the Apostles. Corinthians 15:3-7
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3817/is_200606/ai_n17176289

According to Michael L. Brown in What Do Jewish People Think About Jesus ( the source of the above information), "There is every reason, then, to take Paul's testimony in Acts seriously, and for all those who have sought to plumb the depths of Paul's quotations from the Tanakh, it is clear that not only was he taught by the finest Jewish teachers of his day, he was taught by the Lord Himself."

 I love that quote. What is your issue with it? Being a free-thinking thought-provoker have you already looked yourself for answers to whatever your issue might be? 
 I'm glad you love the quote. I don't have any issues with it. I'm neither surprised nor angry with your counter-interpretation. It just seems a stretch.

Does it? Well, it is in keeping with all of the commentaries I have by Biblical scholars. As you can see, it causes me no discomfort – regardless of your intent.

What makes sense to me is that Yeshua Ben Yosef was discouraging people from focusing only on him instead of his message.

Not to me. Jesus was focusing on not the message but the Father. He didn't say, "why call me good, only the message is good…".
His focus was on the fact that He was the Way the Truth and the Life, …

Since you love this quote, here is more of it (Mark 10:17-27)…  27And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
 Note, I read the last part as "…with Love all things are possible."

Note that in order to do so you have to ignore the very words you quote. Adding context and then changing the text undermines the entire purpose of providing quotes.
In one statement you say the words are so important that even if they came from a beggar they would be profound and in the next you change the words to suit your own needs. You demonstrate the necessary respect for the NT when it comes to accepting the existence of Paul and Luke and the aspects that you are happy to admit are demonstrated therein but then continue to pick, choose and alter to insert your own, limited, message.

I believe that was also something taught to me as a young child. That being said, I highly doubt that Yeshua Ben Yosef would have actually said "take up the cross".

Why not? It was a common linguistic theme of his time and crucifixion had come to Republic 300 years prior to Jesus' birth.

Even if he knew what was in store for him in the future, it would have detracted from the message he was trying to give.

You mean the message you wish to put in His mouth. His message was not "God is love" – although He certainly affirms that as well.

… I thought your "a la Hinduism" was a good remark. However, I think your expectations of completeness doesn't conform to observations. If consciousness was complete, there would be no individuals, all would be one mind.

Exactly. One obvious and blatant failure of the worldview. Another is your inability to say why those of us fashioned out of Love fail to love.

Likewise with love but in this case if there are no struggles and no individuals to love, then love would cease to exist. That would be sad.

Why is struggle a prerequisite for love? Are you coming near to defining what you mean by "love"?

However, because some people felt Yeshua Ben Yosef's death needed more significance than that. The "he died for our sins" meme started.

Meme. I can hardly wait fort he meme meme to die its rightful death.
The fact that Jesus was to die for our sins started hundreds of years before His birth.

 If we look past the emotional baggage, this becomes to situation where he died so we can quit feeling guilty about being sinners but ONLY if we feel guilty about him dying for us.

Grateful, not guilty. You've got this part of the message wrong as well.

Continuing, you asked… …does that mean you are denying any objectivity to what Love is? As long as you would like receiving the action you consider yourself loving in administering it? Does that work for masochists as well? 
 I would say love and consciousness have similar problems with objectivity. …

Does it work for masochists as well?

.So what was the point of providing further context to His words, not once, but at least twice? 
 When people offer quotes I tend to look for context. When I find the context I tend to offer it to all. I have done this a lot more than twice. I will continue to do it. I think it helps people think for themselves.

I meant in reference to the point being made and which you were, presumably, addressing.

 That didn't really warrant your leaping in and boldly challenging the participants here to provide counter-balance.  
The "leaping in and boldly challenging" that caused Bilbo to start this thread was this comment. where I simply quoted bible verses John 8:48-59 in response to Chuckdz stating the "John 8:58" is where Jesus claimed to be God. After that, I have been mostly answering questions/requests posed to me.

Actually, the leaping in and boldly challenging was your (repeated) nose-thumbing at Bradford and the rest of us with this comment and the one that followed it.
http://telicthoughts.com/open-thread-3/#comment-198853

Comment by Pez — August 5, 2008 @ 2:05 am

Jaceppe Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Thought Provoker,

Thanks for your response to my “gray area” question. I have been busy with the duties of life the past couple of days so I have been unable to respond until now…

You said:

I believe Yeshua Ben Yosef thought the message he was teaching important enough to risk dying for. So it could be said that he died because he loved his fellow man.

However, because some people felt Yeshua Ben Yosef's death needed more significance than that. The "he died for our sins" meme started.
If we look past the emotional baggage, this becomes to situation where he died so we can quit feeling guilty about being sinners but ONLY if we feel guilty about him dying for us.

And also regarding Paul you said:

And then there is Saul/Paul. It is really hard to doubt his existence…

and this:

Paul was the apostle who only met Christ once as a vision on the road to Damascus. It is my understanding that at the time Paul was having some trouble convincing the Corinthians that he should be accepted as a valid messenger for Christ's teachings. These words were part of the letters he wrote in preparation for a return visit.
I believe Paul had an agenda. A divinely inspired agenda, but an agenda still the same.

and this:

As I indicated before, it's my impression that Paul was too savvy to push something he knew to be an out-and-out lie and was verifiable as such.

and this:

So, to answer your question. Yes, I presume Ya’akov and Paul were religious leaders. I believe they were divinely motivated (alteristic love) to lead the masses.

Well, Paul wrote much regarding the crucifixion of Christ and not just to the Corinthians, to many churches. I will quote several such instances below (but by no means is this an exhaustive listing even of Paul's thoughts on the matter).

Ro 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

1 Cor 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1 Cor 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Gal 3:10b… for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them." 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "the just shall live by faith." 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but "the man who does them shall live by them." 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"*),

Gal 6:14 But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,…

Col 1:12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

It is clear from these Scriptures that Paul himself was one who thought that “Yeshua Ben Yosef's death needed more significance”(from your words above). If he believed as you do (we are one with God when we love, etc.) what could possibly be “divinely inspired” (again your words) about these aspects of his message and why would he push such nonsense that he knew to be “an out-and-out lie” (again, your words)?

T.P. You can't simply "rip" the Cross out of Paul's message. The preaching of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and all that it means for believers is essential to the message of Paul.

You said,

I called it a gray area because it didn't alleviate guilt, it transferred it.

You are exactly right! It transferred guilt from us to Christ, for all who believe.
Finally, you asked:

Are you willing to agree I can be a "true Christian" with no feeling of guilt if I believe in a dual nature of Christ (Jesus as a mortal man, Christ as the spiritual ideal)?

I need a more clear definition of the "dual nature" you mention above. However, I believe you can be a “true Christian” if (again, sticking with Paul):

Rom 3:22b…through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

Rom 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For "whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

It’s really as simple as “Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ”… but this is something more than academic mental assent that we associate with the word "believe" and more than just valuing the message of moral excellence Jesus Christ espouses. It is recognition of one’s own sinfulness, recognition that God has made a way of escape from this condition, recognition that the way of escape is found in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross wherein the Lord was crucified for you, and recognition that He now lives forever more since He is resurrected from the dead. In these things “believing” means placing our reliance upon Jesus Christ and following Him.

Regarding guilt, I could say several things but I’ll just leave you with this quote from the late British journalist (et.al.) Malcolm Muggeridge:

“The depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of the Christian doctrines and yet the most empirically verifiable” Malcolm Muggeridge

Comment by Jaceppe — August 5, 2008 @ 9:09 am

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 10:57 am
However, because some people felt Yeshua Ben Yosef's death needed more significance than that. The "he died for our sins" meme started.

If we look past the emotional baggage, this becomes to situation where he died so we can quit feeling guilty about being sinners but ONLY if we feel guilty about him dying for us.

I called it a gray area because it didn't alleviate guilt, it transferred it.

TP, I don't want to imply that I agree with all that is said above – and here especially I would take a different approach. For all your insistence on the pronunciation of his name, I think you are making a fundamental mistake in looking at Jesus through the lens of modern western concerns rather than ancient Jewish ones. You're acting as if the story of Israel was of no consequence to Jesus. It has nothing to do with people "feeling guilty". It has to do with the nature of human solidarity, and the futility of man's wayward heart.

It was always meant to be the role of the king of Israel to take the sins of the people upon his heart. To do this on behalf of the entire world is the fullness of love. Love takes guilt upon itself – it says "I am willing to unite myself to the other, and take on all of it's shame and guilt and everything undesirable upon myself". This solidarity is deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition – witness the way Moses pleads for the people, or David for Israel, or the three children in the furnace for their exiled nation.

To brush all this aside as "people trying to mitigate feelings of guilt" is shallow and obtuse indeed.

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — August 5, 2008 @ 10:57 am

Thought Provoker Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Hi Joy,

You wrote…

Love God, Love each other. If you can grok that 'message' (and neither you nor Jesus were the first to come up with it), then it's not very obscure.

I wonder how many people reading your words understand the depth I think you meant.

I wonder how many people have even read Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

From Heinlein's book…
"The Martian seems to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer acts with observed through the process of observation. 'Grok' means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed–to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science-and it means as little to us as color does to a blind man."

Just because an idea comes from sources considered fictional, or even mythical, doesn't mean it idea is without merit. For example, the Bible doesn't have to be inerrent or even true to be useful.

Now if anybody asks, I am a mere follower of Jesus. Not Paul, or James, not Luther or Calvin. Not any of the Vatican councils, not Elizabeth's clever ruse. Enough people have died for that sort of silliness. If I have to go to church, I quietly sit and enjoy it for what it is, because I wouldn't be there unless I loved someone for whom it's important that I be there.

We have similar outlooks, but I wouldn't even say I am a "follower" of Jesus any more than I am follower of Lao Tzu, Gautama Buddha, Socrates or Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh. All these people had interesting things to say that has helped me Grok a philosophical outlook.

I agree that most people would say that I am not a true Christian for a variety of reasons. Chances are that bothers me less than those who feel that being a Christian is some kind of badge of rightousness. Or, better yet, a ticket to heaven.

Nothing I struggled so hard to do, none of the lives ruined or wrongly lost along the way made the least bit of difference. Except to slow the juggernaut for a little while (and that was its own doing, not mine). It's back now, unrepentant and still chock full of death and lies, a new generation has to field its own sacrifices. I'm old enough to know better.

You are going to have to do a lot more than that to convince me you have stopped trying. All we can do is try. We might be "old enough to know" our efforts are futile, but we keep trying all the same because of love.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 5, 2008 @ 1:32 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Hi Pez,

For the first half of your comment I didn't see much contradiction to what I said with maybe a side comments or two and asking a rhetorical "does it?".

Even your challenging "Why not?" was over something I indicated was minor point I wasn't sure of. While you seem sure the phrase "take up the cross" predated Jesus' crucifiction, you didn't provide anything besides your assertion.

Why is struggle a prerequisite for love? Are you coming near to defining what you mean by "love"?

I have no objective definition for a metaphysical concept. Philosophers have be explaining this long before Yeshua Ben Yosef walked the Earth.

BTW, I am not trying to convince you that my Truth is your Truth. I have no interest in starting a religious movement.

The fact that Jesus was to die for our sins started hundreds of years before His birth.

I would be interested in understanding this. Is this concerning the Jewish prophesies concerning the "mashiach"?

Concerning Yeshua Ben Yosef's sacrifice causing guilt you wrote…

Grateful, not guilty. You've got this part of the message wrong as well.

I wasn't suggesting Yeshua Ben Yosef's message was that we should feel guilty for his sacrifice.

I am grateful for the sacrifices of people like Socrates, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and other people Joy mentioned along with Yeshua Ben Yosef. We are all better for the fact they lived.

To me saying "I would say love and consciousness have similar problems with objectivity." For some reason, you asked…

Does it work for masochists as well?

Interesting question. What is the standard Christian answer for that?

Actually, the leaping in and boldly challenging was your (repeated) nose-thumbing at Bradford and the rest of us with this comment and the one that followed it.

This is a fair critique. However, I happen to think it would help Bradford to confront things he says he believes. I actually thought I could get him to come out of his protective shell on this one.

I was also truthful that I was hoping Fifth Monarchy Man would join in the conversation. (he did manage to make a couple short comments).

I am glad you chose to contribute to this thread. (Likewise, Jaceppe, Wonders For Oyarsa and, of course, Joy)

It is my hope and expectation that our back and forth as helped provoke some independent thinking in others listening in.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 5, 2008 @ 7:48 pm

Joy Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
TP:

We have similar outlooks, but I wouldn't even say I am a "follower" of Jesus any more than I am follower of Lao Tzu, Gautama Buddha, Socrates or Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh. All these people had interesting things to say that has helped me Grok a philosophical outlook.

Ah, TP. You've hit me right at home. First, you can't imagine how eagerly I embraced Stranger… when I first found it. I might have been 12, but probably 14. I'd read only one short story by Heinlein (The Color Out of Space) in… I think it was Analogue, but maybe some other Sci-Fi rag back when my brother and I had to keep all our X-Men and Fantastic Four comic books in our refrigerator box fort in the woods so Mom wouldn't find them. Reading comic books – or Sci-Fi – was a sin punishable by whipping and grounding at my house. Didn't stop us, of course, we both became "Mad Scientists"…

See, I was always the one who could see the 'color from out of space', and was the 'stranger in a strange land'. As a certified synesthete I qualified as highly weird to everyone but my own family. And the Navy doctors who seemed to think I was some kind of REAL alien… Worse, I had a photographic memory, and could "see through" my eyelids if I tried (aware even if blindfolded or in another room). But I got a grip on it as soon as I realized what they wanted from me, and told 'em it went away. Oops… puberty! They soon lost interest and I was free. Now I only get "Indian Night Vision" [thanx, bro] when I intend to.

I never got much into Heinlein's latter stuff, the whole Lazarus Long saga was way too stretched for me to follow. Kind of like when Superman (and then everybody else) went into triple-edition Bizarro Worlds. Was never big on alternative universes.

I've looked around. Am taking the back door outta here, thanks. I don't regret my life, or any of the struggle or sorrow – or joy – it's entailed. I want to feel it all as acutely at 100 as I did at the moment of raw experience, not forget a thing, because it's love that makes struggle worthwhile and sorrow bearable and joy the most desirous last-moment-of-my-life (I'd die happy). I don't want heaven (hell looks to be more fun, but I don't want that either). Don't want Nirvana, don't want to get born again as a grasshopper or a queen, and don't want nothingness. That would be a waste. I want my freedom. Think I'll go exploring…

My ticket outta here is to gladly accept what Christ offers (if He chooses to accept me, I won't take up any room), because of the pure quality of the experience. I want it all now. Don't ever intend to come back and do it all over again, like I 'forgot' or 'neglected' to experience anything. Or overstay my welcome. I'm familiar with death, it's not my enemy.

Comment by Joy — August 5, 2008 @ 10:07 pm

Joy Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Paul Tibbets died a few years ago. During his funeral, as he was interred in the solemn National Veteran's graveyard in Swannanoa, a refurbished B-29 painted to be the show-copy of the bad ol' Enola Gay circled these mountains surrounding the valley, and it was…

…creepy to the max as it buzzed the homestead, let me tell you. The Bombs of August. Because just an hour from now it'll be August 6th. "Little Boy" has his birthday, "Fat Man" gets his on Sunday.

Today I’m no longer ten, and I am no longer happy when bombs fall. And the names Fat Man and Little Boy no longer make me smile because I now know the devastation and horror of burned bodies and twisted metal that result from the mushroom clouds. And I am ashamed that on this day Americans don’t stop to remember what was done. And I am horrified that my government has just killed thousands of defenseless men and women and children and animals who were not the enemy, and that the silence of America is deafening.

Today, I am so very sad that many young people don’t even know about the Enola Gay and the mission of its crew. And I am so terribly ashamed that the war we have just waged has been so devoid of the reality of death and pain. They haven’t told us about the thousands of civilians they have killed. They haven’t shown us the devastation they have caused. They withhold the true numbers of our own military who die each day. They never mention the hundreds who have been terribly wounded. War is surgical and sanitized, they tell us, and a very effective way to liberate people. They speak to us as if we all were ten.

Who would Jesus bomb?

Comment by Joy — August 5, 2008 @ 11:20 pm

Joy Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Oh, by the way…

I have a Regis Neptunis on the wall right above my computer. There's a note scribbled in the lower right margin from my Dad to my Grandmother. The award was Dad's (first crossing of the equator, a regular big deal in the Navy). Not to worry – he ended up at the Pentagon, then teaching nuclear engineering at the Citadel before retiring and doing much more fun things…

From the USS Indianapolis, an NIS vessel which had a rather unique role in the bombing of Hiroshima. For those of you who remember "Jaws," pleasant nightmares! §;o)

Comment by Joy — August 5, 2008 @ 11:56 pm

Pez Says:
August 6th, 2008 at 11:43 am
So we both take the Bible as a reliable record insofar that we know that Paul existed, that he was highly educated, that he was an expert in Judaism, that he wasn't freely making up fictions … and that he preached Jesus Christ crucified for our sins and resurrected and that he had personal instruction from the resurrected and glorified Savior.
He also knew the other Apostles and knew that his view of Jesus agreed with theirs.
I'll add and remind you, although here I'm sure we disagree, that he didn't receive his gospel from the Apostles but that it was revealed by Jesus Himself.

We also know that this same reliable source offers us the testimony of a first rate historian in Luke (perhaps the finest of ancient times) , who wrote more of the NT than even Paul did. These two highly educated men, whose historicity and general honesty you admit, had a very high view of Christology and had it early and before legendary embellishment had time to set it.

As you admit that Jesus really existed, and that His followers and greatest chroniclers were not making up stories wholesale all you have to do now is ask yourself why these people believed as they did, worshiped this "man" and suffered and or died for their taking up their crosses in His name.

Why did Christianity come into being?

While you seem sure the phrase "take up the cross" predated Jesus' crucifiction, you didn't provide anything besides your assertion.

True. That's because as I peruse my shelves I can't for the life of me recall the source.
I hate to use a blog as a reference, but at least this has a discussion of the use of the phrase. It doesn't make the exact point I wish to (that others used the phrase, pre-Jesus) but it does show the literal meaning before it took on the added symbolism deriving from Jesus' Crucifixion (and anticipated and directly prophesied by Jesus). The point being, Jesus would have had a deeper meaning pertaining to coming events, and that meaning would be clear to those looking back later, but the phrase still had its own popular meaning to those listening with no knowledge (or at least no thorough understanding) of its portent.
http://practicaljesus.blogspot.com/2007/03/take-up-you-cross-daily-luke-9-23-25.html
Another look at why this saying was not a distraction from Jesus' message but was a clear statement to His listeners at a very accessible level ( although it would soon have greater significance even – which context He had already expounded immediately prior to these words anyway):

This is not the way Jesus used the phrase, "…take his cross…" To understand Jesus' use of the figure, one must place himself on the streets of Jerusalem during the first century. Imagine standing on a street corner talking to a friend, when you hear a commotion down the street. You turn and look to see a squad of Roman soldiers coming toward you. In the midst of them is a man struggling with a cross. This was a common sight. It was not unusual and you had seen it before. You knew what was to happen. Soon the man you were watching would be outside the gates of the city. He would be forced to the ground and nailed to the very cross he was carrying. The cross would then be raised to an upright position and he would hang there until he was dead. This was the picture created in the minds of those who heard Jesus. Jesus was not asking for a token commitment. Jesus was asking for total commitment. Jesus was saying that he wanted your life. Just as you knew that the life of the man who was carrying that cross no longer belonged to him, but belonged to Rome, so Jesus is saying that in order for one to be his disciple, their life will not belong to them but will belong to Him! Just as the life of the one struggling down the streets of Jerusalem with a cross was forfeit to Rome, so the one who would become the disciple of Jesus will forfeit his life to Jesus. Jesus will be the one to determine how that life will be conducted.

http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-matthew-10-24-39.htm
You commend yourself for the depth of your thinking and understanding when it comes to your vague use of the word love but why not challenge yourself to plumb the depths of not only the sayings of Jesus but the very profound writings about them? God has not written a one-dimensional story but one that resonates in layer after layer – in history.
http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/9_22-26.htm
===

I would be interested in understanding this. Is this concerning the Jewish prophesies concerning the "mashiach"?

Correct. Jesus saw Himself as the Messiah, consciously and unconsciously fulfilled the prophecies regarding this claim ( according to our the two very credible historical figures discussed above) found in such places as Psalms 22 and Isaiah 52 and 53 (among other places), and was neither mad or bad. We are still left with the third choice – God.
On the other hand, I presume you continue with your fourth choice, that the NT authors were liars. But the plausibility of that position is fast fading (further illustrated above) as we look into even your acceptance of their veracity and find that common ground you established earlier. We are establishing more and more the veracity of the writers and the early (pre-100 AD, let alone 325) existence of these beliefs.

To me saying "I would say love and consciousness have similar problems with objectivity." For some reason, you asked…

"Does it work for masochists as well?"

Not quite. I asked this question because you claim to be Love, fashioned out of Love. To determine what you meant by "Love" I asked about certain attributes you either demonstrate or have admitted to and wondered if they were aspects of your idea of "Love".
You defended your claim by saying that said behaviour (including arrogance, boastfulness, impatience, etc.) was loving – as though by definition – because you were "doing unto others…".

But if this kind of relativism reigns then a masochist, as an example, could follow your lead and do unto others as he would like them to do unto him.
By other standards, however, he would be considered cruel. Does your definition of "love" allow that he has as much right to define loving behaviours as you do?

Interesting question.

Which you've avoided twice. Will you answer it this third time?

What is the standard Christian answer for that?

As for me, I can answer your pushback on the first try. No, the definition of love is not this far up for grabs. Boastfulness is not love; neither is arrogance, pride, impatience, deceit, burning with cigarettes, punching in the face ….
Regardless of whether or not the person doing such things would like it if others were to do the same unto him.

Actually, the leaping in and boldly challenging was your (repeated) nose-thumbing at Bradford and the rest of us with this comment and the one that followed it.

This is a fair critique.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

It is my hope and expectation that our back and forth as helped provoke some independent thinking in others listening in.

Yes, mine as well. If they have been fooled by popularized skepticism and faux scholarship on the issues of, for instance, the Council of Nicea, the Trinity in early belief, Jesus' claims to equality with God, the nature of His mission, what His disciples claimed, what Paul believed, the Jewishness of Paul and the Apostles, etc., I would hope to be able to do some small service to liberate them from such culturally-dependent misconceptions.

Comment by Pez — August 6, 2008 @ 11:43 am

Pez Says:
August 6th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Hello moderators.

I guess I have two versions of a comment stuck in the filter.
If you wouldn't mind posting the second one (with my attempted html tags) I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.

Comment by Pez — August 6, 2008 @ 12:11 pm

Pez Says:
August 6th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Thank you.

For some reason that version lost its opening.
Here it is …

Hi TP,
Forgive me for the repetition here if this posts twice.
It disappeared upon posting and when I retrieved it much was missing. I'm going to try to recreate what was missing.

For the first half of your comment I didn't see much contradiction to what I said with maybe a side comments or two and asking a rhetorical "does it?".

I'm glad to hear it. Here are some of the clarifications I added in that half that you say did not contradict your posting and which you have not disputed here:
Jesus' claim to divinity was revealed again.
We don't need the original autographs in order to accept that the Bible presents a reliable historical record.
Pauline philosophy was not an extension of Greek teaching.
The record indicates that Christians were worshipping Jesus as God and were preaching His Crucifixion and Resurrection from the earliest of times – these were not later legendary accretions.
Monism fails as a philosophy in its various forms for its failure to account for the individual and non-unity.

Comment by Pez — August 6, 2008 @ 3:25 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Hi Joy,

Thank you for your comments.

I am glad I reminded you of some happier moments.

Your understanding has a rather demotivating effect when dealing with other people who do not Grok science fiction.

Why doesn't everyone see the value in exploring and embracing multiple independent thoughts and concepts?

Again, I am glad to have met you.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 7, 2008 @ 6:40 pm

Thought Provoker Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Hi Pez, Jaceppe, Wonders For Oyarsa and Fifth Monarchy Man.

Sorry about my absence for the last couple of days, but real life priorities kept me away and will continue to distract me for a while.

Thank you for this interesting discussion. I am optimistic that it provoked some independent thinking in the listening audience.

It is a good bet that will have more opportunities to discuss this in the future.

Meanwhile, I will look more into the possibility that "take up the cross" predated Yeshua Ben Yosef's execution along with the "no cross, no love" concept FMM has suggested.

I have also come to better understand just how much of the New Testament is dependent on Paul and his followers. Thank you for bringing this to light. This warrant's further understanding in Paul's Hellenistic upbringing.

Thank you all again for providing the counter balance to this exercise in independent thinking. I look forward to the next time.

Comment by Thought Provoker — August 7, 2008 @ 7:05 pm

Pez Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Hi TP,
Thanks for the discussion.
I am hopeful that as you go out to further your knowledge on this subject you will seek the truth and not just new ways to undermine Christian belief – as your parting innuendo seems to indicate to me would be the case.

Before you get too carried away with the supposed Hellenism of Paul (I presume you are thinking there might be undue Pagan influences) and his knowledge of the Stoics, recall that he was primarily a Jew among Jews, a Pharisee's Pharisee, the last of the Apostles, and not the first, and even followed Peter in reaching out to the Gentiles.Ben Witherington, What Have They Done With Jesus? page 230
He continued after his conversion to reckon time by the Jewish festivals and advanced much further in Judaism than others of his age. 231
He was probably a member of an extreme faction of Pharisees who were trying to emulate the Elijah or Phineas. 234
Although many want to paint Paul as a Hellenized Jew of the Diaspora "we must assume that Paul's formative years were spent in the Holy Land, and in fact mainly in Jerusalem", born inTarsus but raised in Jerusalem, the son of a Pharisee. "Paul could well have gottent he rudiments of a good Greco-Roman as well as Jewish education right in Jerusalem." 235
"He would not claim to be a Hebrew of Hebrews if in fact he had grown up in the Diaspora and did not know the sacred language." 236
"No one disputes the notion that Paul's Jewishness was more a primary factor in determining his identity than was his roman citizenship." 245

Before Paul, there were the brothers of our Lord:
James the Just (Jacob), the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ, was a pious a observant Jew, respected by Jewish Christians and very strict Jews alike.
Ben Witherington,What Have They Done With Jesus, page 212
Jesus' other brother, Jude (Judas, Judah) also (obviously) knew Hebrew, Aramaic and some Greek. He had great rhetorical skills a good Greek vocabulary and oral skill in Greek, but his syntax was not honed – it was not his native language. He and James both make use in their letters of extra-canonical Hebrew works not part of the Septuagint.
220
His letter can be conceived of as a midrash on the Old Testament. His book is also more evidence of an early high Christology and the Biblical use of the Trinity. 221

All of the inner circle of Jesus were Jews advocating what they took to be a Christological reformulation of Jewish monotheism with the premise that the Old Testament was God's good revelation for God's people , including his Christian ones – … Jesus was confessed, worshipped, and proclaimed as the risen Lord in all of the communities addressed in the New Testament era that we know of.

224

A late take on a high Christology is historically false. … the earliest Christologies were some of the highest ones, seeing Jesus as both human and divine. This is because those who knew him best and earliest knew that this was a fair representation of how he presented himself, what he taught and did, and what the implications of his resurrection were. Such ideas characterized Jude's theology just as much as they characterized Paul's. Thus, Paul cannot be seen as the inventor of such ideas about Jesus, as we shall now see.

225

"I don't think, then, that we can talk about Pauline Christology or Pauline eschatology as if he had somehow invented these ideas. Although Paul was their most able and clear exponent, and in some cases the first exponent, other early Christians were equally prepared to talk about the preexistence of the Son of God, and to call Christ God."
249

Likewise we never see in the New Testament any arguments against a Q community or a community that thought Jesus was merely a teacher or sage – because there were no such communities then to argue against.
250
We also don't see any arguments against or traces of what really happens when Jesus teachings are given a Hellenistic spin – as in the Gosepl of Thomas.

Lastly, from this book,
"Paul … was right when he said already in his earliest letter, Galations, that there is no other gospel than the one originally proclaimed by the inner circle of Jesus. There seems not to have been any major Christological dispute among members of that circle."
273

Comment by Pez — August 7, 2008 @ 10:30 pm

Pez Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
A reminder (am I repeating myself?) from What Do Jewish People Think Of Jesus?pages 191 – :

"It would be difficult to find more typically Talmudic expositions of Scriptures than those in the Epistles of Paul.
…
Truly Paul was a Jew not only in his physical appearance, but he was also a typical Jew in his thinking and in his entire inner life. For Saul-Paul was not only 'a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees', but also one of those discipoles of the Tannaim who were brought up on the exegesis of the Torah, and did not cease to cherish it to the end of their days.
Paul lived by Jewish law like a proper Jew; also he knew the Old Testament in its Hebrew original and meditated much upon it … Hence there are Semitisms and Hebraisms in the language of the Epistles, in spite of the richness of their Greek.
…
Hebrew of Hebrews' and 'a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees', educated in Jerusalem and able to make speeches in Hebrew (or Aramaic), obviously not a 'Septuagint Jew'"
…
"Paul is a trained Pharisee who became an apostle to the Gentiles."
…
"Paul was a scholar, an attendant of Rabban Gamaliel the Elder, well-versed in the laws of the Torah."
…
"Paul had an openly avowed knowledge of Hebrew and of Pharisaic tradition
…
proves an independent and creative master of the genre (Midrash)
…
"Paul's use of Scripture, of midrashic techniques and of contemporary exegetical traditions in Romans 9:6-29 yielded a highly sophisticated composition. It cannot have been the product of an uneducated mind. If he was not trained by Gamaliel, then he was taught by some other Jewish master. In any case it seems clear that Paul received a formal education in the Judaism of the time"

By the same token, Jesus and His brothers also spoke Aramaic and taught in Hebrew while being conversant in Greek.

Comment by Pez — August 7, 2008 @ 10:46 pm

Jaceppe Says:
August 8th, 2008 at 8:30 am
All,

I too have enjoyed this thread. I have only recently been following telicthoughts but have been intrigued by the information presented on this site. My background is in Software Engineering so I don't have the physical or biological sciences education that many on this site have. However, I do find the dialogues interesting and simply had to get engaged in this particular thread. I agree with Pez's post above regarding the N.T. view of "high Christology" in that other N.T. writers besides Paul record for us this view.

Thanks for the dialogue. I look forward to being involved in others.

P.s.
Thought Provoker, if you wish, there is one other question I would like to ask you regarding Christ's claims. But, I will leave it alone unless you wish to pursue that dialogue…

Comment by Jaceppe — August 8, 2008 @ 8:30 am

Pez Says:
August 8th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Thanks Jaceppe, WFO and FMM for your enlightening and encouraging comments.
I empathize with TP for going it alone against such thoughtful responses.

Comment by Pez — August 8, 2008 @ 10:40 am

What Jesus Claimed about Himself

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