When you and I were born we started absorbing the beliefs and culture surrounding us. (The word for this is: Ethos.)
As we grew older we absorbed the beliefs and cultures we experienced among our friends. If we moved to a new city or state or country we absorbed the customs and culture and language (ethos) in order to be a part of society.
Jehovah's Witness kids learn a combination of "belief" along with a heavy dose of "disbelief." That is the JW ethos.
But, early in history among Jews and Pagans there was a sharp contrast of culture and belief. Jews were monotheistic. Pagans were inclined toward a pantheon of Gods and Demi-gods.
**** **** ****
DEMI-GOD: a figure who has attained divine status after death, a minor deity, or a mortal who is the offspring of a god and a human.
**** **** ****
How could you ever blend the two polar opposite belief systems? Is it unthinkable?
1.Jews BEFORE the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. were stalwart montheists. After the Diaspora they went underground and Jewish-Christians were outnumbered by Pagan-Christians. These were people saturated with pagan culture and concepts. Jewish type monotheism would be unnatural and unthinkable to them.
2.Christianity was a split 3-ways: Messianic Jews, Gentile-Christians, Pagan-christian hybrids.
The world these three groups lived in was fluent in GREEK and ROMAN religious ideas, culture, practice and belief.
Thus, we come to the idea of the DEMI-GOD and how Jesus might be construed in the pattern of this current belief universal.
**** **** ****
What was a Greek or Roman pagan referring to when he or she spoke about a DEMI-GOD?
A demigod is a half mortal, half God. A demigod posses God like characteristic, in which some are humanly impossible, or exaggerations in which a mortal couldn't obtain; however posses certain mortal characteristics which leaves them vulnerable by mortal standards.
**** **** ****
How do Christians defend against the accusation that Jesus fit the definition of a Demi-God?
Christians shaped their rebuttals over time until, after many debates, arguments and conferences they INVENTED an Ad Hoc definition.
How does this refute the Demi-God definition?
Jesus is asserted out of necessity into being FULLY god and FULLY human BOTH simultaneously!
In the marketplace of "ideas" the Christian sought to have the better product.
A fully god and fully human WINS the contest or competition in that battle of concepts.
**** **** ****
Why would Christians who were originally Jewish ever accept such a pagan definition into their monotheistic religion?
Tribal Jews absorbed into Greek culture against their will just as they were absorbed into Persian and Babylonian culture previously. The Jews born into a new culture cannot help but pick up the language and customs no matter how hard their parents may resist.
Alexander the Great conquered the known world and spread Greek religious ideas along with language. In a relatively short time (a few Centuries) Jews could not even speak Hebrew any longer. This is the main reason their scriptures were forced into the Greek language. (Septuagint).
**** **** ****
What sort of demi-gods were Jews exposed to? What were the stories and characteristics they'd hear about and absorb into their thinking?
**** **** ****
What makes the Christian definition of God, Jesus, Son, Holy Spirit and Trinity so ungraspable in a rational way today is:
the fact it is a definition BY COMMITTEE!
We must ask "When" and "Where" this committee convened, and what THEIR ETHOS was at the time!
As seen above, it was a time and culture and ethos of Demi-gods!
**** **** ****
Think of the Healthcare Debate as an example. In the last few years groups FOR and AGAINST the Health Care Law convened and argued.
Thousands of pages nobody could clearly and fully explain were produced from this argument.
Yet, one side (with the power to vote it through) was ready to rubber-stamp it into law (over protest by the opposition.)
This is how a bureaucracy works.
**** **** ****
Scripture is by committee, canon is by committee, and Jesus is too.
**** **** ****
For 2000 years the Catholic bureaucracy dominated the world with Ad Hoc pronouncements of what was TRUTH and pure worship.
Then, Protestants tore that up and invented their own AD HOC way of shaping Jesus, God, the Bible and pure worship.
Modern Day Christianity is deuces-wild, anything goes, brand name denominational vamping on the same themes.
Christianity is a buffet lunch in a Smorgasbord eatery.
You pick and choose what to put on your plate and you leave the rest behind!
**** **** ****
Christians had to compete with already-existing religious superstar deities!
Jesus is a new and improved, low-fat, extra-crispy, fat-free, low-sodium, three-for-the-price of one fully-god/fully-human brand!
We are parroting a description of the winner in a My-God-Is-Better-than-yours contest where each believer gets to describe the best
imaginative character traits imaginable.
This was not done dishonestly either!
It was AS NEEDED.
**** **** ****
If you needed for Christianity to BE something that would refute your pagan opposers, you simply had to interpret into existence! It is like the magic bag of tricks Felix the Cat has. Scripture was the bag of tricks.
Every time a copyist, translator, scribe or authorizing potentate produced scripture copies IT WAS FILTERED through the necessity of proving or explicating SOME CURRENT PROBLEM of contention.
Remember, the New World Translation put ammunition in the Jehovah's Witness theology for debate/teaching/proof purposes.
The Kabbalah allowed Medieval Jews to reinterpret scripture to meet the needs of the Dark Ages.
Martin Luther wrestled with the Catholic bible and--PRESTO! A new and improved Protestant stream of scripture opened up interpretive possibilities!
Jesus is a malleable character who is much, much different to Christianity today than he was in various epochs in the past. Each had their own proprietary version as needed.
**** **** ****
Well, let's test out my premise by exercising intelligence, shall we?
I'm saying that pagans who believed in demi-gods had a world view that would DEMAND things fit into that world view.
Pagans would INTERPRET what they saw and heard IN TERMS of Gods, demi-gods and (the then) current myth.
Jews interpreted things through the lens of Judaism, Greeks through Greek philosophy, Romans through Greco-Roman ethos.
**** **** ****
Let's give an example of how that might happen.
Turn in your bible to Acts the 14th Chapter and read starting in verse 8.
Paul and Barnabas in Lystra
8 Now in Lystra there was a man sitting down who couldn't use his feet. He had been crippled from birth and had never walked. 9 He was listening to Paul as he spoke. Paul watched him closely, and when he saw that he had faith to be healed, 10 he said in a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet!” Then the man jumped up and began to walk.
11 When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have become like men and have come down to us!”
12 They began to call Barnabas Zeus, and Paul Hermes, because he was the main speaker.
13 The priest of the temple of Zeus, which was just outside the city, brought bulls and garlands to the gates. He and the crowds wanted to offer sacrifices.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting,
15 Men, why are you doing this? We are merely human beings with natures like yours. We are telling you the good news so you’ll turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.
16 In past generations he allowed all the nations to go their own ways,
17 yet he has not abandoned his witness: he continues to do good, to give you rain from heaven, to give you fruitful seasons, to fill you with food and your hearts with joy.” 18 Even by saying this, it was all Paul and Barnabas could do to keep the crowds from offering sacrifices to them.
**** **** ****
It should not surprise us that people who think in terms of THEIR OWN BELIEF SYSTEM interpret according to that belief.
Unlike other cities Paul visited, Lystra apparently had no synagogue, though Timothy and his mother and grandmother were Jewish Perhaps for the first time in his missionary work, Paul was reaching Gentiles with the gospel of Christ without approaching them through the common ground of Judaism.
What about today, in 2014, with almost 40,000 Christian denominations?
Is the Mormon Jesus different from the Jehovah’s Witness’ Jesus? Is the Catholic Jesus different from the Baptist’s Jesus? Is the Christian Science Jesus different from the Methodist’s Jesus? And so on. . .
I rest my argument.