godspell said
I see no reason to be disappointed with Jesus, UNLESS you need him to be perfect. His achievements become all the more impressive if you think of him as a mortal being. And it’s pretty clear, even from the increasingly deified image of him presented in the gospels, that he still said our future depends on the choices we make. He certainly never believed that accepting him as your personal savior meant everything was copacetic. That is a gloss superimposed over his teachings, to distract us from them.
Perfection, like divinity, pre-existence, the veracity of the miracles and the personal saviour stuff are stipulations I hadn’t raised. I could cope without perfection, divinity, pre-existence etc. It’s delusion and failure that I can’t cope with.
Robert said
Re:
- Did you really say to Peter “Get thee behind me, Satan” and if so, wasn’t that a bit harsh, insensitive and un-loving?
- Did you think that that people living at the time of your ministry would see the ‘the son of man coming in the clouds with great glory’ and all the apocalyptic events you said would happen before that?
- Did you somehow know in advance that you were going to be crucified, if so when?
Robert said
I agree that the complexus of implied questions can indeed be derived from your 2nd and 3rd questions, but those are not really “one question.” But to the extent that all of the questions are inter-related about Jesus of history, maybe I can ask 100 questions and claim they are all inter-related.
Don’t forget Q1 was in response to Peter opposing Jesus telling his disciples: ‘how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day’. If the historical Jesus gave me an answer to 2 & 3, all my other questions would be answered and maybe I would get the reason for the harshness I queried in Q1.
Robert said
godspell said
A question of fact worth asking would be “Did you know Judas would betray you, and if so, is that because you told him to?”Make sure not to ask him this beforehand or you may interfere with the timeline and reboot the whole story. Actually, that might be cool.
On a more serious note, it seems unlikely that Jesus would have known much in advance, let alone that he would tell Judas to do this. But perhaps he suspected at some point late in the game that Judas was becoming disaffected, which might have been a sign to him that the wheels were coming off the bus and the movement, whatever its nature, was becoming fragmented.
If Judas was a ‘man of Kriyot’ (א’ש קריות, ish qryot), he was either a Judean (Josh 15,25) or possibly even from the land of Moab (Jer 48,24 Amos 2,2), at any rate not a Galilean like the rest of the disciples, thus more likely to become disaffected from the Gallilean group. Or, if Mark or the pre-Markan tradition has in mind ‘one of the sicarii‘ (ish sicariot), a rebel assassin of the Judean War against Rome, then we have even less information available fromthe time of Jesus about the historical person of Judas.
godspell said
But if we’re asking him this back then, are we sure he’d answer honestly? He could just refuse to answer at all.
You mean this whole thread would be for naught?
Like every other thread in the history of online discourse? Heaven forfend.
I don’t think Jesus knew exactly what would happen, but there are people in this world good at seeing around corners. And in some cases, forcing the hand of fate.
I’m far from clear why Judas’ betrayal would even be necessary, if Jesus was causing such a row about the place. Because they didn’t want to arrest him during the day, and risk causing a riot? That implies a pretty large following, which Bart is skeptical was the case. But assuming that was the case, they needed Judas to take them to wherever he was spending the night, and point him out? He was probably not in any way remarkable in his overall appearance and mode of dress. How much of this is stuff that early Christian writers came up with, in the absence of many details? Not all of it, but some, definitely.
In my mind, I’m asking him these questions in-between his arrest and cruxifixion.
Robert said
I’m beginning to think Jesus is not going to post any responses in this thread.
The wifi at the right hand of God is awful, I hear. Though (and this is true) I did once check my email atop a smallish mountain in County Tipperary, where there’s a rather ugly statue of Christ the King (crown and all) dating from the 20th century. I found to my surprise there was good wifi right next to the statue. Not actually emanating from the statue (I could see the wifi thingy nearby), but I enjoyed imagining it was.
Neurotheologian said
Perfection, like divinity, pre-existence, the veracity of the miracles and the personal saviour stuff are stipulations I hadn’t raised. I could cope without perfection, divinity, pre-existence etc. It’s delusion and failure that I can’t cope with.
Sounds like it’s humanity you can’t cope with, if you don’t mind my saying.
Some bloody choice we’ve got in the matter.
I’m still wondering how those of you whose questions presuppose the crucifixion has already taken place are going to pull that interview off exactly?
I suppose I should state my biases. I don’t think hardly any of the details of the stories reported in the gospels are historical. The most historical lines in the gospels are Mark 1:14-15. This gives a précis of Jesus’ ministry and his message. I think he had some kind of relationship with John the Baptist and was executed by Pontius Pilate. The rest is up for grabs.
This is why if I could interview the historical Jesus I would have no interest in the circumstances of his death and what came after. I want to hear him talk about his own concerns.
“I don’t think hardly any of the details reported in the gospels are historical.”
That means you think most of them are historical. Double negative. 🙂
I think a lot of the stories we have about Jesus happened, and a lot of them didn’t. It makes no sense to say this man was so well-remembered, but they forgot everything he did and said. It also makes sense that they’d embellish the true stories, while creating new stories to make points. We know this is how it works, and there are more modern examples to point to. They started writing about him not long after his death, and we just don’t have the first drafts in Aramaic, but no doubt some of them are there in the Greek, all the same.
I don’t believe there were literal miracles, and probably the flashier ones (walking on the water) weren’t believed to have happened in his lifetime (but after you’ve come to believe somebody rose from the dead, nothing’s all that improbable.) The people who originally told those later stories didn’t always mean them literally, but they came to be taken as such, got mixed in with genuine recollections.
But there are genuine recollections there, and lots of them. You can pare away so much in the quest for objective facts (which you must realize are damned near impossible to find for ancient history), you end up not understanding why he was remembered, when so many others weren’t. Why he inspired such an enduring movement, against almost inconceivable odds. There was a real Jesus, and he was really something. And history–or something–conspired to make sure he’d be remembered.
I agree though, that if you did somehow have a chance to talk to him, it would be better to find out what he really believed, than who did what to whom. He’d agree with that too. Because that’s the kind of man he was.
Question–we see story after story that indicates Jesus was deeply interested in the have-nots of his society–the outcasts, the poor, the sick–and women. He treated women as if they weren’t just there to cook and clean and make babies. He tells Martha, running around trying to get the meal ready, that Mary, who is sitting there listening to him, asking questions, has chosen the better path. The path of learning and self-knowledge.
Do you believe that?
Stephen said
I’m still wondering how those of you whose questions presuppose the crucifixion has already taken place are going to pull that interview off exactly?
My Q3. Did you somehow know in advance that you were going to be crucified, if so when?
Good point because I did say the questions were for the ‘historical Jesus’. So the only way my Q3 has validity is to ask it when Jesus was on the cross, or possibly just before. This might be seen as insensitive and unloving, but I don’t believe would be. I think this is still within my rules of asking the ‘historical Jesus’ 3 questions, however your point brings focus to my Question 3 along with more sub-questions (sorry Robert :-)). Did you know at the last supper that you would be crucified (and did you know exactly what Judas was going to do?) Did you know at the triumphal entry when the crowd were allegedly on your side? Did you know for certain in Gesthemene? Did you know at your trial? Did you know you were going to actually die on the cross or did you beleive you would be rescued miraculously? If you knew, then why did you say Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani? (which, by the criterion of embarassment, is probably a genuine fragment of your speech). In short, when did you first know you were going to be crucified and die on the cross?
godspell said
Sounds like it’s humanity you can’t cope with, if you don’t mind my saying.
Some bloody choice we’ve got in the matter.
Re: …….It’s delusion and failure that I can’t cope with [as regards to the minsitry and mission of Jesus].
It’s not humanity, or even Jesus’s humanity that I can’t cope with. It’s the notion that in his humanity, Jesus was mistaken in what he beleived and said about the coming Kingdom of God, deluded about his own person and mission and ended his life in failure, surprise, disappointment and a tragic death with no meaning or purpsose. By not coping, I mean that I would be deeply disappointed in Jesus and find myself having to turn away like Judas did. Many of you would argue that it was just this terrible conclusion which spurred his followers to ‘invent’ the resurrection, but I am not convinced.
Robert said
Was Socrates a failure because he was found guilty and worthy of death for corrupting the youth with his philosophical questions?As for delusion, he held opinions that were common to many people at the time. Don’t we all do this? How many people believed the world was flat at the time? Are we better because we believe in quantum mechanics without really understanding the basic equations? Would Jesus be better and more deserving of our respect if he welded political and military power in a cynical and ruthless manner like Pilate? Or cooperated as a sycophant as perhaps Caiaphas did? Are not your expectations for Jesus unreasonably high, based perhaps on what some want to expect from the divine founder of a world religion, something which Jesus did not claim for himself?
Maybe my expectations are too high because they have, as you hint, been raised by the influence of Christianity or ‘collective memories’ as Bart would say. But I have have not said I needed divinity and Jesus’s teaching about the coming Kingdom, though influenced undoubtedly by JtheB, Daniel, Enoch, Isaiah and other scriptures, was new and taught ‘with authority’ in the way that it was applied. We rate Socrates a success because of his courage in voluntarily drinking the volunary hemlock; for his wisdom as described by Plato (we have little of what he actually said, although he was clearly wise) and for the fact that he was also a soldier and a general at that. He didn’t predict things that didn’t happen, or adopt a role he couldn’t fullfill, neither was he apparently suprised when his end came. Also, it is clear from his actions, that Judas was disappointed and my guess is that his suicide was not mainly because he felt guilty for his betrayal, but that he was deeply disappointed in Jesus and I suspect the other disciples were too – they may all have been on the verge of suicide! The welcoming crowd at the triumphal entry were also proabably deeply diappointed, which is I suspect, why they turned on Jesus only hours later. But 11/12 diciples had a change of heart and then went on like Socrates to face death for their new found purpose – wow! That’s why I have not turned away from Jesus, but as I have said, it’s not easy and I am tempted to – I feel a bit like Thomas: Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief. That’s why I want to ask my 3 questions – there are still some nagging doubts. For now, I beleive Jesus did somehow know his destiny from early on in his ministry, that he was to be the lamb of God, that his Kingdom ‘was not of the world’, that he was indeed tempted to be traditional messiah like leader (hence his ‘Satan rebuke’ to Peter) and that he had a premonition that Jerusalem was going to be utterly destroyed and his nation of the Jews would suffer terribly. If we can say that the Gospel writers misquoted Jesus, then we can also understand that his propehecies about the destruction of Jersusealem may have been conflated with his prophecies about ‘the coming of the Son of Man’ and ‘the coming of the Kingdom in power’.
Socrates was old and infirm, and may have welcomed death (painful as hemlock poisoning is known to have been), but remember, we don’t know how he really faced that end. We have Plato and Xenophon’s testimony–neither of them were there. Obviously he was going to have the poison administered, whether he willed it or not. And most scholars today reject the notion he was sitting there quietly discussing philosophy–while his guts were turned inside out. It was not a peaceful death. Plato may have believed in total honesty, but he didn’t always practice what he preached.
I believe Jesus faced the far worse end of crucifixion with at least equal composure, and I furthermore believe he did in some sense bring about his death–he went willingly to Jerusalem and defied both the religious and secular authority, knowing what had happened to John the Baptist. There are hints here and there that he intentionally created a situation that he knew would lead to crucifixion. We can’t be certain of this, no. But our evidence is probably better than that for the death of Socrates, which is attested to entirely by two ardent disciples of his, who were not present (and good thing for them).
Many interesting parallels–but to me, Socrates is a very mixed bag–he hated Democracy, despised women, and no doubt at all he did help inspire the men who temporarily imposed a dictatorship on Athens. Maybe they misunderstood him, but shouldn’t a great philosopher be better at explaining his ideas? It took much longer for Jesus’ ideas to be corrupted. I rank him above Socrates–and can’t consider either a failure. Neither of them achieved all his ambitions–and by that standard, there has never been a success–or at least not an interesting one.
Robert said
Are you sure that it was specific teachings of Jesus about the timing of the coming apocalyptic events that were new and especially authoritative. A case can be made that there were already issues of a delay in the expected apocalyptic events in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Against that backdrop, one can speculate that John the Baptist and/or John advocated for a renewed expectation for an imminent end. Certainly such can be attributed to the earliest ‘Christians’ trying to make sense of their belief in Jesus’ resurrection as the first fruits of the expected general resurrection. But was that something emphasized already by Jesus? Or was his emphasis more upon explaining and realizing the ethical demands of the kingdom of God right now? Some of the teachings of Jesus as preserved by his followers emphasize not the absolute imminence of the coming kingdom but rather the unknowable aspect of when it would come and thus the need to always behave justly. These could function either as a way of dealing with the delay of the parousia of Jesus or as Jesus’ own wondering about when the end would come (or both), as others did, for example, some of the authors and earliest interpreters of the Dead Sea Scrolls, even some living around the time of Jesus. In the Habakkuk Pesher, the Teacher of Righteousness is first portrayed as having received a revelation of when the end times would come that Habakkuk himself was not given. Did Jesus himself think that he too had been given such a revelation? Or did he adopt a more scriptural view of Habakkuk in hoping for God to act soon without knowing when this would be? I don’t think we can say for sure. Perhaps this could be one of your fourth, implied questions? But, regardless of the answer, I think the real import of the teaching of Jesus (for us anyway) are the ethical demands persuant to belief in a kingdom of God, whenever or even whether or not it ever comes.
Thank you Robert, there are some insights here, which show me up as an amateur (I’m a Neurologist, with amateur interest in theology and philosophy). I am fascinated by what you say about there already being a percieved delay in the expected apocalyptic events in the Dead Sea Scrolls and I thus accept that Jesus’s teachings about the coming Kingdom may not be as novel as I thought! Of course, I also whole-heartedly agree that Jesus’s emphasized more the ethical demands of the kingdom of God right now and I also agree that Jesus emphasized the unknowable aspect of when the Kingdom would come more than it’s absolute imminence: ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’; ‘keep watch for you know neither the day nor the hour’; the parable of the 7 virgins etc. Coming back to my Question 3. ‘Did you somehow know in advance that you were going to be crucified, if so when?’, I have come across a few more verses in Mark which, although could be interpreted as after-the fact ‘distorted memories’, are nevertheless encouraging: Mk 10:33 Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles; Mk 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many; Mk 14:41 And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Question–we see story after story that indicates Jesus was deeply interested in the have-nots of his society–the outcasts, the poor, the sick–and women. He treated women as if they weren’t just there to cook and clean and make babies. He tells Martha, running around trying to get the meal ready, that Mary, who is sitting there listening to him, asking questions, has chosen the better path. The path of learning and self-knowledge.
Do you believe that?
Yes that attitude of privileging the poor seems central to the tradition and probably goes back to Jesus. Makes sense since his natural audience would have been the lower class. And it fits into the whole apocalyptic view of reversal of roles in the kingdom. But it doesn’t follow that it means the story about Mary and Martha actually happened. You should read Prof Ehrman’s book Jesus Before the Gospel, especially his discussion of so-called “gist memories”.
You should not assume what people have or have not read. 🙂
Nor should we assume any expert, no matter how erudite, can say anything with certainty on this subject. Probably Jesus said things like that fairly often–it’s remarkable how often he interacts with women, takes what they have to say seriously–we probably don’t have more than a small fraction of such encounters, and of course there’s a gist aspect to it, but that’s true of much later historical figures as well. Endless stories about Lincoln and animals, some of which are clearly made up, but the gist is–he cared about them. People didn’t make that up. They just added to the pile. Because people were hungry to hear all they could about him, after he was gone. Lincoln became a myth after his death, but the real man is still there, and he’s not so very different from the myth–just more complex, and often disappointing to people who only know the iconography.
How does it make sense that Jesus would reach out to women, who were treated as second class citizens in the Jewish and pagan communities? It only makes sense if he really did see them as equals before God, and was looking for good souls–finding the sheep, whatever body they’d been born into. Not all apocalyptic preachers have done this, to say the least. Many have gone very much the other way with it. And sadly, so did many of the early Christian leaders, but it took a while for patriarchy to fully reassert itself–so strong was the recollection of how Jesus had behaved towards women. As if they mattered. (And that is something nobody can say about Socrates.)
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert