by AK - Jeff 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
He was a martyr. He had wonderful moral teaching [if we can attribute it to him honestly]. He drew a crowd.
Could have said any of that about Ghandi. Yet no one [yet] has created a religion for him, to worship him.
Could it be that Jesus just wanted Jews to live better as Jews?
Jeff
Most people want to have an identity, a feeling of belonging to the "right" group - the ones who have the answer. Being a christian gives them that.
Identity trap.
Chrisitian is a "label", it lables one as a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Ghandi was a Hindu and even though he embraced all the religions of the world that advocated peace, he said a few times that he was a Jew, a muslim, a christian, etc, He never created a set of principles apart from Hinuisim or ushered in a "New Covenant" like Jesus did.
Since the writings were recorded long after Jesus' death, I doubt there's much accuracy in them. So there's no telling what Jesus wanted.
My thought is that Jesus was, at first, a pawn of rebels wanting to start the revolution against Roman rule. Jesus probably actually did go around seeking followers and staged a donkey ride into Jerusalem to fulfill a scripture. He probably figured out that he was a pawn and tried to get out of the inevitable death by execution by stabbing his rebel buddies in the back when he said to "pay back Ceasar's things to Ceasar." They didn't like that, but too late for Jesus. It was simpler to execute him anyway.
I am confident that the stories were written long after 70 C.E., but that many of Jesus' actual words were available to incorporate into them.
I am confident that the stories were written long after 70 C.E., but that many of Jesus' actual words were available to incorporate into them.
I have read so much that my brain is fuzzy. They did find a "gospel" of Jesus' words (without a story- just statements). I believe this was found at Nag Hammadi. The traditional Gospels would have incorporated those words and created a story to them.
Now, if your statements were written down as you were making them, someone had big plans for you. I mean, everything a politician goes around saying can be found on video or in print if he/she is important enough- BUT everything an ordinary citizen like you or me says is not to be found. And writing these things was difficult back then- just getting ink and paper was tough. There had to be an expectation of a following.
I honestly think that for some (especially the conservative & therefore repressed) Christians, the 'love' for Jesus is a kind of sexual perversion.
In formal Catholic Theology there are some explicit discussions of God being inside Mary, not in the human way but the intimacy of the act is an interesting read.
Hi Jeff,
Jesus' claims we fairly unique
63 But Jesus remained silent.
The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God."
64 "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
65 Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy.
30 I and the Father are one."
31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
33 "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
JWs neatly side step these verses. Others faiths claim Jesus was a prophet or a wise man. The question remains, was Jesus "God with us" as the scriptures claim? Matthew 1:23 That is still the question to us all Matthew 16:15 Mark 8:29 Luke 9:20 Blessings, Stephen
Come to think of it, he didn't actually say much against the jewish written laws, did he? He taught how to follow it better.
S
OTWO hits the nail IMO. Jesus would not be considered a 'normal' man, in the sense that he [or the legend created around him] did attract a crowd. As far as his 'creating a new covenant' - just words claimed to come from him, written decades after the fact. Once the legend was there, it was probably added to profusely by those seeking to establish a new way.
We have seen it happen in modern history. Men are made bigger than life after death. I lived in the Kennedy era, and though he was a man I respect in many ways, he was not the giant he has become. Others have been so glorified in other cultures, taking on a life bigger than what they were in real life.
This is what I believe happened to Jesus. He was a Rabbi of the people. He was an instigator against the Romans. This made him popular among the more radical Jewish populace. He knew the Hebrew texts that he could expoit to make himself a legend. Likely he never intended to be the center of a religion. That happened based on what later followers contrived - like Paul and the writers of the so called Gospels. Like Ghandi, he only wanted to better the Jewish people. Christians today want a 'salvation'. They want to go to heaven. They want to live forever. So did the 2nd and 3rd century founders of their religion. So they found a masthead and painted salvation on it. Sorted thru a few hundred letters and books about Jesus by those who wanted to make him bigger than life, like Ghandi. And picked a canon of books that set the doctrinal stage for a religion that fit the rhetoric they liked at the time.
Interesting to me is that most Christians have no trouble attributing the start of other religions around similar conclusions, but when it is Christianity that is questioned it gets quickly moved to the 'blasphemy' catalog. I find this unfortunate.
Jeff
