vergari said
Honestly, I don’t know. We don’t really have much evidence in the way of a “split” as between Jesus and Paul
Are you saying that there isn’t much evidence that Jesus saw himself as the “Jewish Messiah” or that Paul was focused on the formation of a religion that was not tied to Judaism?
vergari said
caljack said
[T]here is evidence that Jesus believed that the Gentiles were inferior to the Jews in the eyes of God, and that his mission was focused on the Jews only.
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” he told the Canaanite woman. (Mathew 15:26)
“I was sent only to help the people of Israel – God’s lost sheep – not the Gentiles.” (Mathew 15:24)You don’t think you might be quoting these passages wildly out of context?
I think the wording of these quotes reflects Jesus’ feeling of Jewish superiority. His decision to help her only reflects his message that we should be merciful to all.
Perhaps this quote better addresses his mission’s focus on the Jews:
“Jesus sent these 12 men out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go to any Gentile territory or any Samaritan towns. Go instead to the lost sheep of the people of Israel. Go and preach, the Kingdom of God is near!’ ” (Matthew 10:5).
Robert, You have made several speculations that are possibilities. Here are some alternative possibilities:
If Mark came first, as is commonly believed, perhaps his perspective was too pro-Jewish, and Matthew had to correct his inaccuracies.
The Matthean priority is a possibility. This has not been resolved, and is still being looked at by some scholars.
It may be that Matthew accepted Jesus’ instructions regardless of the actions of the Jewish authorities.
If we reject Matthew, effectively because Mark came first, then we should probably throw out Luke for coming so late to the party. Then if we pursued this line of reasoning a little further, we should throw out all of the gospels, since Paul’ s letters came first, and probably influenced their writings.
The thing is Robert, we don’t know what was in the minds of the biblical authors, no less the minds of the actual Apostles.
I don’t know if any of them got it right, but at least one of them is saying that this is what Jesus told them to do. We can’t ignore that. Also, since Jesus considered himself to be the Jewish Messiah, it seems likely to me that his focus (as taught to him by John the Baptist) was to prepare his fellow Jews for the coming “Kingdom” and for Jewish rule. Nobody told him to save the Gentiles.
.
caljack said
vergari said
Honestly, I don’t know. We don’t really have much evidence in the way of a “split” as between Jesus and PaulAre you saying that there isn’t much evidence that Jesus saw himself as the “Jewish Messiah” or that Paul was focused on the formation of a religion that was not tied to Judaism?
I’m saying that there isn’t much evidence that Jesus saw himself as the embodiment of what First Century Palestinian Jews believed the Messiah was supposed to be.
The Jesus depicted in the Gospels has a more universal feel, as reflected in his most frequent self-referential title: the Son of Man.
caljack said
[S]ince Jesus considered himself to be the Jewish Messiah, it seems likely to me that his focus was to prepare his fellow Jews for the coming “Kingdom” and for Jewish rule.
What is the very strongest evidence that Jesus’s “focus was to prepare his fellow Jews for the coming ‘Kingdom’ and for Jewish rule”?
vergari said
caljack said
[T]here is evidence that Jesus believed that the Gentiles were inferior to the Jews in the eyes of God, and that his mission was focused on the Jews only.
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” he told the Canaanite woman. (Mathew 15:26)
“I was sent only to help the people of Israel – God’s lost sheep – not the Gentiles.” (Mathew 15:24)You don’t think you might be quoting these passages wildly out of context?
caljack said
I think the wording of these quotes reflects Jesus’ feeling of Jewish superiority. His decision to help her only reflects his message that we should be merciful to all.
The point of the story seems to be that the woman had faith, even though she was a gentile — not that we need to be “merciful to all.” If being “merciful to all” was the point, then the woman’s faith would be irrelevant.
So the story appears to be making the exact opposite point you are arguing.
Same thing goes for Matthew 10:
caljack said
Perhaps this quote better addresses his mission’s focus on the Jews:“Jesus sent these 12 men out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go to any Gentile territory or any Samaritan towns. Go instead to the lost sheep of the people of Israel. Go and preach, the Kingdom of God is near!’ ” (Matthew 10:5).
Your interpretation of this passage as portraying Jewish exclusivity is missing the critical context of a few verses later:
I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues.
What Matthew is doing here is expressing his hostilities toward the Jewish peoples of Israel. The theme is that the Jews must be given the chance to reject Jesus’s Kingdom of Heaven first. And/but Jews are going to treat Jesus’s disciples the worst.
Note how Matthew ends his Gospel, with the instruction of Jesus to his discples:
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.
If you quote single passages out of context, you are missing the themes the author is attempting to convey. He is presenting the exact opposite of what you are selectively quoting as Jewish exclusivism.
Robert said
caljack said
Robert, You have made several speculations that are possibilities. Here are some alternative possibilities:
If Mark came first, as is commonly believed, perhaps his perspective was too pro-Jewish, and Matthew had to correct his inaccuracies.
The Matthean priority is a possibility. This has not been resolved, and is still being looked at by some scholars.
It may be that Matthew accepted Jesus’ instructions regardless of the actions of the Jewish authorities.
If we reject Matthew, effectively because Mark came first, then we should probably throw out Luke for coming so late to the party. Then if we pursued this line of reasoning a little further, we should throw out all of the gospels, since Paul’ s letters came first, and probably influenced their writings.
The thing is Robert, we don’t know what was in the minds of the biblical authors, no less the minds of the actual Apostles.
I don’t know if any of them got it right, but at least one of them is saying that this is what Jesus told them to do. We can’t ignore that. Also, since Jesus considered himself to be the Jewish Messiah, it seems likely to me that his focus (as taught to him by John the Baptist) was to prepare his fellow Jews for the coming “Kingdom” and for Jewish rule. Nobody told him to save the Gentiles.
caljack, it is not a matter of Mark getting it ‘right’ and rejecting Matthew as ‘wrong’ or ‘throwing out’ Luke, but merely trying to understand each of their own respective perspectives. Markan priority is the one virtually certain result of the past 200 years of critical scholarship, but of course he too had his own perspective. You can dismiss Matkan priority and subsequent redaction criticism as speculation, but wouldn’t it be better first to at least read the work of these scholars before rejecting it? Hence my previous yet still unanswered question to you: Have you studied scholars that focus on Matthean redaction of Mark’s gospel? The three volume commentary on Matthew by WD Davies and Dale Allison is a modern classic.
The volume Matthew 8-18 has 38 pages on Instructions for the Missionary Work (starting at page 163) and 20 pages on the Canaanite Woman (start at page 541). Unfortunately, I don’t have access to these pages.
Robert, do you?
It is astounding, honestly, it is almost miraculous to see how easily we cannot see what is right before our eyes.
And a Canaanite woman from that region came to Him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is miserably possessed by a demon.” But Jesus did not answer a word. So His disciples came and urged Him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”“Yes, Lord, she said, “- even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” “O woman,” Jesus answered, “your faith is great! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.…
This is a very simple, straightforward story. Jesus couldn’t tolerate any non-Jew. He had nothing to do with them. He clearly announces His mission was for the lost cats from Israel, exclusively, no exceptions. End of story!
But this chick bugs His disciples and bugs Him and He gets sick of her and relents and heals her kid from a distance. He didn’t want to and promised He wouldn’t, but He was lying. He was a hypocrite, obviously, and went ahead begrudgingly and answered her request.
That’s how the story reads, isn’t it?
And it has nothing to do with what transpired. It is above all things extremely easy to see words on a piece of paper and to be completely oblivious to what they say.
vergari said:
The point of the story seems to be that the woman had faith, even though she was a gentile — not that we need to be “merciful to all.”
—–
I think that Jesus was merciful because the woman had faith. Also, had he not been merciful, it would have made him a hypocrite for not following his teaching that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.
Later verses just explain why they should: “not go to any Gentile territory or any Samaritan towns. Go instead to the lost sheep of the people of Israel.
The Samaritans did not like the teachings of Jesus and his followers.
—–
vergan asked: Have you studied scholars that focus on Matthean redaction of Mark’s gospel?
I have not.
vergari said
.I’m saying that there isn’t much evidence that Jesus saw himself as the embodiment of what First Century Palestinian Jews believed the Messiah was supposed to be.
The Jesus depicted in the Gospels has a more universal feel, as reflected in his most frequent self-referential title: the Son of Man.
The First Century Palestinian Jews did not agree on what the Messiah was supposed to be. Jesus was not a soldier or a King, but he believed that the Kingdom of God was imminent, and that his role was to prepare the Jews for the coming. Many of his followers believed that he was the Messiah.
Re: the “more universal feel” of Jesus. Can you be more specific? He usually used “Son of Man” to refer to himself and not to his followers.
Robert said
caljack said
The Matthean priority is a possibility. This has not been resolved, and is still being looked at by some scholars.
Markan priority is the one virtually certain result of the past 200 years of critical scholarship, but of course he too had his own perspective.
Robert, I wasn’t saying that these were my views, merely that they are speculative possibilities. I am with you on Markan priority. However, here is a book by one scholar who believes otherwise: “Why Four Gospels” by David Alan Black.
caljack said
The First Century Palestinian Jews did not agree on what the Messiah was supposed to be. Jesus was not a soldier or a King, but he believed that the Kingdom of God was imminent …
There were a few different thoughts on what the messiah would look like. None of those were anything like Jesus of Nazareth.
Belief that the Kingdom of God was imminent did not make one the messiah.
caljack said
… and that his role was to prepare the Jews for the coming.
What text are you relying on?
caljack said
Re: the “more universal feel” of Jesus. Can you be more specific? He usually used “Son of Man” to refer to himself and not to his followers.
Yes, I believe that what’s self-referential means.
caljack said
It seems obvious to me that Jesus did not see himself as a God, nor as the founder of a new world religion. Rather, he saw himself as the Jewish Messiah. Also, it was never his intent to include the Gentiles. His life’s mission was to prepare the Jews for the coming Kingdom of God, and to free them from the Roman occupation of Palestine. Even Pontius Pilate and the Roman guards jokingly referred to him as the “King of the Jews.”
When Jesus died, the apostles did exactly what they had been instructed to do. They went out into the world and preached his message to the Jews. If Jesus had wanted an “Apostle of the Gentiles,” he would have chosen one while he was alive and instructed him to preach to the Gentiles. However, Jesus believed in the covenant, which declared that the Jews were God’s chosen ones. Why would he wait until years after his death, and then choose someone to go out and preach to those who were not God’s chosen ones. Or, if that was his intent, why didn’t he tell his apostles that another apostle would arrive in a few years to assume that role.
So, several years after Jesus’ death, along comes this traveling salesman who had never met Jesus, but proceeds to inform the apostles that he had a vision, and that he was chosen by Jesus to be one of his apostles. Oh, and by the way, he wants me to preach to the Gentiles as well.
Well, the bottom line is that Jesus and his chosen apostles failed in their effort to convince the Jewish people that he was their Messiah. Instead, the tent salesman managed to create a world religion made up of Gentiles, who proclaimed Jesus, the Jew, as their God and savior.
Christianity is not so much about the teachings of Jesus, as it is about the teachings of the “Apostle of the Gentiles.” Remember, it was Paul who invited the Gentiles to join the Christian religion. But the Christ of Christianity did not invite the Gentiles to follow him unless, of course, they chose to became a Jew. What we call Christianity today is not the sect of Judaism started by Jesus Christ.
For that reason alone, I cannot accept Christianity (Paul’s teachings) as “the way and the truth.”
I would just also add to this lovely piece that Jesus said he was sent only and ONLY to the lost tribes of Israel, there was a point that the Jews had fallen deep into Idolatry. If they were towing the line why would god send them prophet after prophet. The got to a point where Enough was enough, either they Killed prophet who bought the message of monothesim to them or they changed the words either orally or tampered with the books. So Jesus came to warn that it was the last straw. Mark 21.3 is clear
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“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.
so Jesus came to warn them that they were going to far and that they were going to lose the kingdom of god. That was one of the reasons they wanted him dead, not because he claimed to be god or the son of GOD
The God of the Bible was not concerned about the Gentiles. He had a covenant with the Children of Jacob (Israel) the Gentiles according to the Jews and their books and traditions the gentiles were unclean and abomination. so if Jesus or his disciples had reached out to the gentiles they would have goner against the tradition and the Torah that says the Goyim was unclean and abomination.
Also to be noted that not because God was threatening to take the kingdom away from the Jews that the Gentiles was going to inherit it. Jesus did not come to create a new religion, he came to uphold the Religion of God and the law of Moses. Paul knew that Jesus must have preached that God will take the kingdom away from the Jews and he created a religion for the gentiles.
Christianity was not meant to be Jesus religion, that was not his mission. It was hijacked by Paul. Why did Peter who was meant to be The Rock Jesus said his church was going to be built on or James who was the priest in Jerusalem and who took on the message after Jesus not become the fore bearers of Christianity. They Knew clearly that the message was not for the gentiles but for the Jews.
anyway nice one take care
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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