A good speaker, teacher, etc.

by free2beme 8 Replies latest jw friends

  • free2beme
    free2beme

    Answer this and think about it ...

    If I was an amazing speaker, and taught in ways you never saw before and touched your heart deeply. How would you explain to others if you had, no internet, no phone, no USPS and the roads were nothing more then dirt paths between locations. Also, keep in mind that the people you tell it to are unable to read or write and have to share what you said from their own memories and only after days had passed or longer. How would that experience you had listening to me, come across when ten or twenty people down the chain of communication?

    Perhaps, it was not a Jesus Christ, as much as it was just someone who knew how to speak and was intelligent. Have to face it, the church ceremonies, robes, churches, temples, etc. Sales better then simply saying, 'this was someone who may have offered some thoughts to help a uncivilized people.' Son of God? Maybe not, but son of God sales much better then ... Smart person with some good thoughts.

  • wobble
    wobble

    The search for the historical Jesus will go on and on. The Jesus that the gospels, and Paul, created may be very different from the real preacher.

    We will probably never know, both what he was like, and what he actually said.

    The marketing campaign to sell the new cult began with Paul and was given impetus by the Gospels, it was a damn good campaign too, not quite as good as Mohammad's, his has many more adherents, but to still be selling 2000 years later is good going.

  • Franklin Massey
    Franklin Massey

    Good point. Even with the abundance of ways to verify accounts today, many still get twisted. Imagine the lack of control over stories back then.

    Let me play, pardon the expression, Devil's Advocate, and give this reply, "But we know the accounts about Jesus are accurate because the Bible is God's Word. Holy Spirit both directed its writing and protected its accuracy down to our day."

  • brotherdan
    brotherdan

    The Bible is not the only source to speak about Jesus. We can track his sayings back to believers in the 2nd century. If you research some of the teachings of the early church fathers, they preached much of what is preached today. There are differences, of course, as there are today.

    How can I claim to know ANYTHING about Alexander the Great. The first biography done about him didn't get written until 400 years after he died. Much of history was passed down through word of mouth. The Jews practiced GREAT care in passing down the things that they heard. Using the "telephone" game senerio does not quite work when you learn all that went into passing down history from generation to generation.

    We live 2000 years after Jesus, so taking a broad outlook, you may think that things have HAD to have changed greatly. But going back to the early church fathers, Jesus was viewed very much in the same way as we view him today.

    I suggest reading some Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc... to see how close their views of WHO Jesus was matches to who WE view Jesus as being.

  • brotherdan
    brotherdan

    The problem too with the thought that he was just a good man, is that you get into the pointless feuds of the Jesus Seminar people. They have muddled the gospels so much that there are only a handfull of sayings that they've desided can be attributed to Jesus.

  • designs
    designs

    'the teachings of the early church fathers'. That is the point of demarcation, Bishops all trying to get their story coordinated. They almost pulled it off......

  • free2beme
    free2beme

    One thing you can not ignore about Jesus though, is that he was basically teaching some common threads of the Buddha. Be good to each other, make things right and seek kindness, respect your neighbor and treat them with love. These were not new thoughts in the world, but new thoughts in the region. For the most part, due to the old testiment, the people of that day only knew of a God of hate and vengence. His thoughts, who ever this person or person(s) might have been. Brought a new thought in to the region and in a time of less then educated and civilized people, new thoughts were godlike.

  • brotherdan
    brotherdan
    basically teaching some common threads of the Buddha.

    Yes, much of what Jesus preached appealed to our God given nature to love fellow humans. Buddah did not originate love and compassion for others.

    Also, the thought that the apostles were trying to recreate the God of the OT just isn't true. Matthew focused his gospel on showing how Christ fulfilled the OT. Many of the things attributed to "Jehovah" or "YHWH" are said to be speaking of Jesus. That is where the conclusion comes that Jesus IS the Jehovah of the Bible.

    Instead of distancing himself from the OT, He showed how He was that God and He was NOT a hateful, vengeful God. He was a God of love.

    But please...I don't mean to hijack the thread and get into the overly debated "God is a monster" discussion with agnostics and atheists. It's been done to death. But I'm sure one (or more) of you will not be able to help themselves and say it.

  • free2beme
    free2beme

    You are not hijacking it. It goes in line with what I am talking about.

    Now, you mentioned that it talks about how much prophecy was fulfilled. Yet, when I read about Jesus I see teachings. Which makes me wonder, were these teachings (which people of the time seeing as value) justified by adding on supposed prophecy fulfillments? If you are talking to an uneducated mind, and trying to get a point across. Would you agree, that adding in super-natural elements, would make them all the more appealing and worth listening too?

    The churches, have shown by example that they know and value the concept of adding on to make the power of their authority and word something to listen too. Does a preist seem powerful, in common threads or in the robes and colors of the church? With this in mind, it shows through generations of growth. That the church knows the super-natural element and the teachings themselves, must go hand and hand or else they loss that value of 'I want to listen.'

    If mankind knew the teacher of these thoughts was just a man, not a God, it would have been seen as opinion and not law. Buddha was a man too, but you let centuries pass and people passing along his positive thoughts and guess what, 'He is godlike too.' You just have to simply acknowledge on thing about all world religions and even Christianity. These were not born in universites of today, the common era, these were born in the primitive times of man. Times in which people still saw the Sun as god, the earth as flat and were confused by the death of the body. I know it feels good to accept otherwise, to feel inside that he is a savior.

    A savior means, this time of hardship in pain has purpose and promised future! As a parent, I know the value of telling a child that if they do something they really dislike, they get a reward. It motivates them, encourages them in hard times and gives me the control I need at the time. Why would we not think that churches would be any different.

    Now do not get me wrong, I believe in a divine. I just do not think we view how the thoughts of Jesus are heard, versus how they are empowered. We want to see what the church tells us, as it is the church, just look deeper and you chip away logic on the idea of Jesus. Perhaps in time you start to see a simple man with positive thoughts, who was simply used to make people do what people in authority wanted. I think the divine has spoke many times thoughtout human history, and still to this day. Some of those who spoke, wrote and taught ... we turned in to gods and religions. It was just the primitive of man, and we have to see that.

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