Chris_Hansen said
“Greater” would be a matter of subjective opinion. Second Temple Messianic teachings are that the Messiah would be a divinely chosen hand of God, meant to establish the laws of Moses, conquer and defeat Israel’s enemies, and free them from captivity, thus placing the world at the hands of an enormous theocracy. He would then return all the Jews from exile, be King, destroy all weapons of war, all the dead would rise up, death would end forever, he would grant any worthy wish of your heart, etc.
In short, the Messiah would bring around ultimate paradise on Earth itself. Whereas Jesus was claiming it would be in Heaven after death.
One could easily argue the Jewish Messiah to be far superior in acts and ideas than Jesus was.
The idea of Jesus’ divine qualities, especially once the concept of the trinity came about, merely made him far more complicated in a theological sense.
Yes. Strictly “greater” in the sense of divinity, not in the sense of earthly power.
“As Dr. Ehrman has pointed out in his books, there were many different levels and ideas of divinity in ancient times. I definitely think it to be the case that some early followers still thought of him as divine. Did they think of him as a god? Some of them might have. Did they think of him as equal to god the father? No. I doubt it entirely.”
That’s why the the men who offed him, religious leaders, picked up marshmallows and tried to play marshmallow tag with him.
prestonp said
“As Dr. Ehrman has pointed out in his books, there were many different levels and ideas of divinity in ancient times. I definitely think it to be the case that some early followers still thought of him as divine. Did they think of him as a god? Some of them might have. Did they think of him as equal to god the father? No. I doubt it entirely.”That’s why the the men who offed him, religious leaders, picked up marshmallows and tried to play marshmallow tag with him.
The irrelevant and incoherence of this response has utterly befuddled me.
Where do all the anti-literalists go when they could add a thing or three to the discussion?
“One could easily argue the Jewish Messiah to be far superior in acts and ideas than Jesus was.” Wait. What did he come for again?
“Greater” would be a matter of subjective opinion. Second Temple Messianic teachings are that the Messiah would be a divinely chosen hand of God, meant to establish the laws of Moses, conquer and defeat Israel’s enemies, and free them from captivity, thus placing the world at the hands of an enormous theocracy.”
He was God’s Chosen One, that’s for sure. “This is my beloved Son…” Oh, He was greater than Moe, bro. In fact, loving as He loved more than fulfilled Moe. He conquered and defeated Israel’s enemies alright, yours and mine too. You got that right bro. He who commits sin is its servant. If He withheld the Holy Spirit from our midst, we would last about 9 seconds.
prestonp said
Chris_Hansen said
The irrelevant and incoherence of this response has utterly befuddled me.
after whipping Him 39 times with a cat o nine tails, they pounded 16″ pole barn nails through His arms and legs to affix Him to wooden timbers for the heck of it?
You realize that under Pontius Pilate, both Josephus and Philo record that he was ruthless and cruel to the point that this would have been practical commonplace.
I’d add that the Romans crucified people for much less. A man causing civil unrest, as Jesus did, would be considered an enemy of the state, tortured, and crucified. Didn’t matter whether or not he claimed to be god, and Jesus probably never claimed that anyways (never does in the Gospel of Mark, the first biography of his life).
Tiberius was known for using cruel generals and leaders to institute a reign of terror. The leaders that followed him, like Domitian, Caligula, and Nero were even more cruel.
But to make my point at how Roman prefects in the Ancient Near East acted:
Aulus Avilius Flaccus (as recorded by Philo) allowed mobs to erect statues of Caligula for worship inside Jewish synagogues. He subsequently allowed the mobs to slaughter the Jews by the thousands (again according to Philo), and when the Jews resisted, Aulus had hundreds of them crucified.
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So if Jesus caused any unrest, to the point that all Jewish authorities were losing their minds, he would have been most certainly crucified without hesitation.
Your religious bias has been noted though.
You got it bro. That’s what I said. Pontius and the gang pelted Him with Marshmallows. O wait, “religious leaders” you say?
It was all for that fracas He caused healing mom’s daughters on a holy day. They had every right to butcher him. He was a very bad fellow, very bad.
Thank God my bias be showin bro
Which god said this: Blessed are you boys when they hate your guts cause of me. Dig it!
You got it bro. For years Jesus wasn’t God in the synoptics, not in Bart’s infallible opinion. Only recently did Pope Bart recognize the error of his ways.
The problem is, God is God, ain’t never begun and will never end. They have a word for it: eternal. Jesus’ kingdom of heaven is inside those who love him. No need to wait for it to unfold. The drunk knows there’s a heaven cause he’s got hell inside his heart.
I don’t know how to make it clearer. Please don’t read or look at anything I write. It is very disturbing for some of my more ardent fans to hang on my every word. Better to let go of your obsession with me now.
“As Dr. Ehrman has pointed out in his books, there were many different levels and ideas of divinity in ancient times. I definitely think it to be the case that some early followers still thought of him as divine. Did they think of him as a god? Some of them might have. Did they think of him as equal to god the father? No. I doubt it entirely.”
No. They thought he was a pizza delivery man. Mom had him pegged. He was nuts. No hopes for someone that far gone.
See, it is sort of a secret. That’s why they chose him to be an apocalyptic preacher, cause he was already half-baked. He had all the makings of a John The Baptist second coming. Once John was gone, they realized it was a perfect opportunity to promote Jesus to take his place and to develop into this God-Like God. I mean, some wanted him to be 64% God and 12% myth and 45% cool dude from the big city. They had many fights over it and after 2,700 men lost their lives in bloody conflict, they ended up with some strange hypochondriac from Madagascar. The dude represented in our modern version of the N.T. evolved through thousands of years of playing pin the tail on the donkey.
The stuff you find in John 15 came from the screen writers guild of Athens in 46 B.C. It was originally produced as a comedy skit featuring several Pharaohs and Julius Caesar but they beheaded the treasurer who was stealing funds from the union. It went nowhere., UNTIL 3 Jewish Scribes parlayed an option for it and boom! It is quite a story, let me tell you!
Anyway, as I was saying, they stole the final draft of this comedy gig and converted it into what we now call the N.T. All the parables and everything Jesus said is word for word from the third act of the play. Can you believe it? The book that is the foundation for Western civilization was originally an off, off, off Broadway comedy focusing on a few conflicted ancient kings looking for redemption through humor!
Indeed.
Reading the opinions offered by many of the folks on this blog leave me wondering the same thing. That was my point. The most bizarre, outlandish, ridiculous theories about the N.T. are quite fashionable here for some reason.
Mark doesn’t think Jesus was God. His gospel was first. Ego, Jesus wasn’t God.
The ancients had many definitions for divinity. Ergo Jesus wasn’t divine like we think he was.
He got whacked cause he caused civil unrest! (What civil unrest?) Everybody got whacked for far less than what Jesus had been doing! And, we can’t remember almost anything, don’t forget! So we have no idea what really happened! We do know that miracles never took place. Just get that idea out of your mind now, bucko!
So, let’s see. What are we left with?
We don’t know anything.
Except, miracles did not occur.
Jesus got what he deserved.
He was a rabble-rouser.
He wasn’t divine. Mark said so.
There you go!
We know this didn’t happen:
“Hey dudes, why are you picking up stones to try to kill me?” Guess Who?
“What’s up? I healed somebody. Problem?” Guess Who?
“Yea. Problem for you! You broke the sabbath and you think your God!” Religious Atheists. Many devout religious atheists back in the day, just like today.
Religious Atheist is a nonsensical term. If you believe in a god, you are not an atheist. And given that Jesus was crucified by pagans and Jews, they weren’t atheists.
Dude, how about you go back to the Bible belt and sit in a church. It is where you belong, not talking about things which require mental energy.
nongeneric said
1. “Before Abraham, I am”That is, before tradition, before the Name was given, the Lord existed. Law > Tradition, an important part of Jesus ideology and actions: that the Pharisees are blinded to the Law by their tradition. I do not think that Jesus was referring to himself, but that this is more the result of a (purposeful?) corruption in the translation of phrasing.
An interesting suggestion, can you develop it? I think the problems as formulated include: 1) John’s Jesus is famous for all the “I am” sayings. All the others are quite clearly self-referential. Why would this one be different? 2) You would need to explain v. 59. No reason for anyone to stone Jesus if all he were claiming was that God existed prior to the revelation of the Law. I doubt any Jew would have a problem with such a claim. 3) What evidence do you have that these verses are corrupt? If your only reason for suggesting they are corrupt is your unique interpretation of the verses, well that’s not the best reason as I’m sure you appreciate.
Chris_Hansen: as I am very interested in eschatological ideas held by Jews in the Second Temple period, I just wanted to make a couple of comments. I generally agree with the way you described messianic expectations of the period with the qualification that there was a lot of variety of thought in the period. Having been exposed to works such as the Psalms of Solomon, 4 Ezra, Dead Sea literature, 1 Maccabees and others I am amazed at how many different ideas there were which seem to deal with the same question: how does Israel refind its righteousness, re-establish itself as a holy nation and benefit from God’s promises? Some of those answers include a messiah or Son of Man figure, but others don’t. Some envision some level of violence, some don’t.
I thought the point was worth making because discussions around Second Temple expectations sometimes get too focussed on the question about why many Jews rejected Jesus as messiah. The reality is that Jesus had quite a bit in common with other Jews of his time when we consider his goals which included Israel’s repentance, proper interpretation of Torah, the in-gathering of all Jews, etc. Jesus was another expression of hope for Israel amongst a huge variety of expressions.
A last point: I don’t think Jesus actually spoke a lot about heaven as a place to go immediately after death. I think his focus, especially in the Synoptics, was a union of heaven and earth where earth will be reigned over by God. So I agree with your point that Jewish expectations were for a reversal of conditions on earth and Jesus was consistent with that expectation.
Kitsune said
Chris_Hansen: as I am very interested in eschatological ideas held by Jews in the Second Temple period, I just wanted to make a couple of comments. I generally agree with the way you described messianic expectations of the period with the qualification that there was a lot of variety of thought in the period. Having been exposed to works such as the Psalms of Solomon, 4 Ezra, Dead Sea literature, 1 Maccabees and others I am amazed at how many different ideas there were which seem to deal with the same question: how does Israel refind its righteousness, re-establish itself as a holy nation and benefit from God’s promises? Some of those answers include a messiah or Son of Man figure, but others don’t. Some envision some level of violence, some don’t.I thought the point was worth making because discussions around Second Temple expectations sometimes get too focussed on the question about why many Jews rejected Jesus as messiah. The reality is that Jesus had quite a bit in common with other Jews of his time when we consider his goals which included Israel’s repentance, proper interpretation of Torah, the in-gathering of all Jews, etc. Jesus was another expression of hope for Israel amongst a huge variety of expressions.
A last point: I don’t think Jesus actually spoke a lot about heaven as a place to go immediately after death. I think his focus, especially in the Synoptics, was a union of heaven and earth where earth will be reigned over by God. So I agree with your point that Jewish expectations were for a reversal of conditions on earth and Jesus was consistent with that expectation.
I don’t personally think that Jesus was consistent with that, however. Because he wasn’t really preaching a union between Heaven and Earth, but talked more about how Earth would be forcibly remade in the end (Matthew and Luke in particular). I think you could possibly make your argument with the Gospel of Mark, but with the other two synoptic gospels I am more inclined to think that the Jesus being portrayed there was more talking of a divide. Now I definitely think that his concept of resurrection and ascension and all were physical (not trying to imply Gnosticism at all, that would be ridiculous), but that the realms of Heaven and Earth were distinct and separate, and I don’t think he was preaching a union of them, but more a way to get from one to the other.
That being said, I am not that well versed in Messianic or Second Temple Judaism. I am much more a Proto-Israel and First Temple era enthusiast (though my current focus is the Book of Job).
I don’t personally think that Jesus was consistent with that, however. Because he wasn’t really preaching a union between Heaven and Earth, but talked more about how Earth would be forcibly remade in the end (Matthew and Luke in particular). I think you could possibly make your argument with the Gospel of Mark, but with the other two synoptic gospels I am more inclined to think that the Jesus being portrayed there was more talking of a divide. Now I definitely think that his concept of resurrection and ascension and all were physical (not trying to imply Gnosticism at all, that would be ridiculous), but that the realms of Heaven and Earth were distinct and separate, and I don’t think he was preaching a union of them, but more a way to get from one to the other.
That being said, I am not that well versed in Messianic or Second Temple Judaism. I am much more a Proto-Israel and First Temple era enthusiast (though my current focus is the Book of Job).
LOL. Brilliant. This boob has no idea what he’s talking about. None. You have no idea what He preached. “…he wasn’t really preaching a union between Heaven and Earth…” Good point bro! Excellent! Bart, your disciples need a few refresher courses.
BenZoma said
An interesting suggestion, can you develop it? I think the problems as formulated include: 1) John’s Jesus is famous for all the “I am” sayings. All the others are quite clearly self-referential. Why would this one be different? 2) You would need to explain v. 59. No reason for anyone to stone Jesus if all he were claiming was that God existed prior to the revelation of the Law. I doubt any Jew would have a problem with such a claim. 3) What evidence do you have that these verses are corrupt? If your only reason for suggesting they are corrupt is your unique interpretation of the verses, well that’s not the best reason as I’m sure you appreciate.
2. Jesus was no Talmudist or Pharisee, and where there tradition did not intersect with the Law, Jesus was more than glad to break it. John, IMO, is written as hope for Jewish conversion is lost and hope for Gentile conversion skyrocketing. Jesus is still keeping the Law in the Gospel, he is just going against Pharisaic tradition. As you may know of Orthodox Jews today (I am acquainted), tradition(al interpretation) is everything, and even if they don’t admit it, it is equal to Law. From what I understand of the 1st century, Pharisees were the more pro-Roman faction, letting them in where the Sadducees would not. Rome brought trade, wealth, etc, and Jesus with his anti-Roman preaching was a threat. So I do not think it is necessary to ask why Pharisees would try to stone Jesus. Politics has always been more of a prime driver than religion in my opinion. I stand by my Psalm-82 understanding of how Jesus viewed the world. The Israelites were gods themselves, all of them, and all needed to be like God on Earth. Jesus was glad to make himself out that way, given that his apocalypse was imminent and the people needed a savior (as always).
1 & 3. You are right. I have no evidence. I feel strongly from my reading that the message Jesus brought was that of the “moral theory of atonement”, and that the others were cop-outs. As the Gospels progress, it gets harder and harder to justify, which is where I found Bart. I am mostly struck by the quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10, where Jesus justifies calling himself God by saying that all Israelites are gods and children of the Most High. And yet people use this to justify that he God’s Only Begotton Son.
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