Let cut JWs some slack on Christ's status. They might be right.

by Spectrum 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Fleshybirdfodder

  I agree Hellrider,

  It's really a pandora's box. Christianity as an independant religion could not have existed without Paul's hellenistic interpretation (all sanctimonious "scales over the eyes" aside). Paul was the one who kept Jesus from being just another nuisance/social reformer/little prophet. Without Paul in all probability Christianity would just be assimilated into the annals of Judaic history. This is the dilemma that religions like the JW's find themselves in. How do we reconcile a schizophrenic monotheistic genocidal God with the teachings of Jesus? I maintain that if the JW's are right about anything, it is a complete fluke.
• 

  gumby

  
  Spectrum...I'll post this link, but I doubt you or anyone else will click on it.

  Who Jesus actually was...god or his son, was my big dilema that made me question christianity for the most part. I feel the dubs have his identity correct in that he is not "god the father", but at the same time they take away his role as a mediator for ALL, they demote him as to his significance, and they certainly have his message distorted as to how a person "gains salvation".

  Here is the link of a thread I started in which ALANF puts forth a great effort in clarifing matters.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/26044/1.ashx

  Hope this helps........now read it ya bastard!

  Gumby
• 

  Leolaia

  The pluriform nature of early Christianity is a direct continuation of the pluriform nature of ancient Judaism. In fact, most of the early christological motifs in the NT drew on various different concepts already in place in the diversity that was Judaism (such as the Logos theology of Philo of Alexandria, the "Son of Man" eschatology of the Book of Parables of 1 Enoch and Daniel, the Wisdom/Sophia speculation in Sirach and Wisdom, the Melchizedek priestly messiah figure from 11QMelch, the "two powers in heaven" heresy in first-second century Judaism, etc.). This diversity is even dramatized in the synoptic gospels, in portraying the people as having different understandings of who Jesus really is. It should thus be no surprise that there were manifold christologies in the early stages. What is clear is that a "high christology" according deity to Jesus (however that is to be understood in the particular) emerged relatively early....almost surprisingly early, within the first century. Moreover, christological developments in the second century are not discontinuous from those of the first, but rather developed further the christological trends already in place.
• 

  lovelylil

  I agree with greendawn and Leolaia makes good points too.

  The Witnesses while they say Christ is the head of their church - do not submit to his authority at all and this is wrong because everything is subjected under him at this time.

  Another good point brought out is that Jesus name is above every name - the WT inserts the word "other" in this text with no ability to do so as it is not in the original greek.

  The WT also changes the word "worship" to "obeisance" when it applies to Jesus and this is also wrong. The original greek said worship.

  The whole NT is about how Christ is exalted over all, has authority over all, is head of the church, is worshipped and prayed to by the church and is coming again to gather his church.
• 

  Carmel

  Jehovah is the box and Jesus the sand!

  caveman
• 

  peacefulpete

  
  Leolaia, excellent comment (as were others') but even in your effort to demonstrate the 'pluriform' origins of Christianity you fogot the essential unifying characteistic of the faith is the concept of descending god/son of god. All the divers Jewish conceptions that facilitated the Jewish acceptance of this core doctrine could be viewed as secondary. At its most essential core Christianity was therefore a child of Greek thought and cult. It was clothed with Judaism at its birth. It was the way the various Jewish camps adopted/adapted the Greek concept that resulted its 'pluriform' appearance. Ironically some of these Jewish camps rebelled against the very idea that spawned the movement, leaving their form of Christianity without a descending Christ. IMO its this reconstruction that best explains the "surprisingly early" high Christology.
• 

  Kenneson

  Greendawn,

  Paul also always refers to women as subject to their husbands. Does that somehow make her less human than her husband? Does she have a different nature from her husband? Likewise, since Jesus is subject to God, does that make him less God than God?
• 

  Leolaia

  At its most essential core Christianity was therefore a child of Greek thought and cult. It was clothed with Judaism at its birth.

  Yeah, I have reservations about such a generalization. I don't think it really accounts for forms of Jewish Christianity with low christologies that construed Jesus in a rather different frame. I feel a more adequate assumption is that the movement was wider at the base, such that the Hellenistic "descending god" mytheme for example was influential in some quarters but not in others. I would be hard-pressed to regard the Christianity of the non-Markan portions of Matthew or the Didache as "a child of Greek thought". This is not to minimize the obvious import of Greek mythic thought, or its very early impact, or the Hellenized nature of Second Temple Judaism, but I just don't view the whole movement in toto as originating as a Greek-style mystery cult the way Freke & Gandy do...the Judaism is at the core rather than being a veneer. For instance, it is striking how Paul in the 50s had to go against the grain and explain to the Gentiles in Achaia the foreign Jewish concept of resurrection, when it would have been easier to just talk about post-mortem vindication and life in Platonic terms (in fact, he seems to adapt to Platonic concepts between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians). The impression I get is that Paul had already inherited a resurrection theology that he was stuck with but tried to ease into a non-Jewish conceptual background.
• 

  gumby

  Greendawn,

  1. Paul also always refers to women as subject to their husbands. Does that somehow make her less human than her husband? 2. Does she have a different nature from her husband? 3. Likewise, since Jesus is subject to God, does that make him less God than God?

  1. Who said anything about Jesus not being the same as gods substance or having an inferior type of that substance?

  2. Again, who said Jesus is not made out of whatever god is made out of?

  3.Jesus sure thought he was. It was his later followers who made him equal to god.

  Gumby....who has said his piece and ain't gettin into no damn triune debates.

  *slaps self for going as far as he did*
• 

  daniel-p

  Did Jerezelikimelah have the Spagetti God's sauce?