Would Jesus condemn or condone Yahweh for his crimes against

You’ve got your definition and I’ve got mine.

I don’t presume to know. A historical reading of the texts suggests that Jesus regarded himself as the messiah in the normal Jewish sense of the term. In other words he thought of himself as a human leader who would restore the Jewish monarchy, drive out the Roman occupiers, set up a Jewish state, and inaugurate an era of world peace, justice and prosperity. This is what it meant to be Messiah according to many Jews based on the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible.

Jesus was apparently not a militarist. He didn’t build up an army to fight the Romans since he believed that God would perform a great miracle to break the power of Rome. According to Zechariah 14:4 the miracle would take place on the Mount of Olives. That may be what Jesus was praying for In The Garden of Gethsemane. If God had initiated the “day of the Lord” on the Mount of Olives the cup of crucifixion may have indeed passed from him.

By the time of his prayer in the garden, Jesus had already drawn negative attention to himself from Jewish and Roman authorities by disrupting order in the temple and he may have sensed that the end was near. When God did not intervene his messianic dream failed.

After his death it was up to his followers to reimagine his mission. The New Testament record shows that Paul of Tarsus was instrumental in this project. According to tradition at least 10 of the 12 apostles were martyred. Some say Matthew was not martyred others say he was stabbed to death in Ethiopia. Only John is generally thought to have died a natural death from old age. But the documentation on this is questionable. Only the deaths of Judas and James the son of Zebedee are recounted in New Testament texts.

The historical basis for the last supper story is questionable. The preponderance of the evidence I’ve seen suggests that Jews in the first century were not expecting a crucified messiah. If Jesus had expected to become the messiah/king/savior of an earthly Israel, Jesus’ followers would have needed to reimagine Jesus’ mission in order for the movement to continue when his expectation failed. The video you linked is interesting. However, as the video’s narrator notes and is further documented here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel%27s_Revelation the meaning and provenance of the writing on the stone is inconclusive.

I don’t know anything about Islam and far too much about Christianity.

Before we get too carried away nuancing every bump n wiggle throughout the life of Jesus, have we established that he even existed?

Don’t watch this video from 5:00 to 30:00 if you want to preserve your faith.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbIu8Zeqp0[/youtube]

“The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.” Thomas Paine.

What blows my mind is how someone living in the 1700’s could know that.

I know too much about both. Have a chuckle on me.

youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4

Regards
DL

Yeah I love that video :slight_smile:

If Jesus was a myth, then discussing whether he would have condemned or condone Yahweh is absurd. I think it’s more likely that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person whose story was mythologized by the church after he died.

Hello Felix

I agree, but, the experiences of Marcion differ greatly from the common jew I was talking about. He inherited Christianity much more than judaism. He is the product of the Gospel of John than the Gospel of Mark. For him, in my opinion, religion was not a way of life because it was still for him an object of study and subject, in need of correction.
Ortega y Gasset described the distinction as “Creer y Pensar”. Think about “creed” as unconscious beliefs that are necessary for our current life to flow. Through them we arrive at “pensar”, thoughts about belief that have been abstracted into ideas, facsimiles though they be of those unreflective beliefs. So, I hold the opinion, that there were many God fearers who could be the potential converts of early Christianity, though many of them saw Christianity as one in a forrest of other possible alternatives, other mystery religions still available. Christianity at that point had not yet coalesced and the reason perhaps was that the religion was often much more an object of thought than of that sort of belief that exist from ingrained tradition.

Sacred History is the answer. The idea of a Messiah, of a restitution to glory, goes back perhaps as far as the Babylonian captivity period. The idea is that human beings were the ones who earned God’s wrath. The future was always in their hands to affect, to repent and return to his good graces. The kingdom of god Jesus was preaching about held this idea at heart. Through the virtuous life of one, the community would be saved. Jesus’ last gasp in Mark reflects that he expected something to happen that didn’t happen. The world around him, as bad as it was, was animated by that “creencia”, that underlying and unquestioned belief that what we do still could change it all in a flash.
You are right about the original role of Satan. A lot of its evolution resulted from Persian influences it received from Zoroastrianism. The world however was not that much worse overall. Yahweh’s followers doggedly held to a principled monotheism which is why Yahweh was as terrible. It was not a fault to be corrected but a feature of their belief. I believe that even the super-Satan of Christianity was not su much a feature of judaism but an exceptional belief that flourished in the polytheistic garden in which Christianity grew.

I disagree about a unified response. There were many, evident in the controversy recorded in Galatians. Once the center in Jerusalem was lost, Christianities flourished in the resulting diaspora.

I wasn’t implying that there was a unified response. Modern archaeological work has recovered a number of texts that reveal religious diversity in the early years that has provided the basis for revising the traditional view of a unified response as presented in the Book of Acts.

The emerging picture of early Jesus movement is of one awash with contending beliefs. The competing “Christianities” each insisted that they upheld the true teachings of Jesus and that they possessed writings of apostles that supported their claims.

But, history gets written by the winners. In this case it was the so-called “proto-orthodox Christians”–those who eventually compiled the canonical books of the New Testament and standardized what became orthodoxy i.e. “The Christian Faith” codified in the official church creeds.

The scriptural basis for The Faith began with the theology of Paul who transmogrified the Jesus of history into the Christ of Faith. The other “Christianities” were the groups that the emerging orthodoxy denounced as heretics and persecuted accordingly.

Too true for comfort.

Regards
DL

This question, be you a believer or not, is designed to have the reader show his moral position.

Not mythologized, literalized, stupidly, as he began as a myth.

youtube.com/watch?v=oR02cia … =PLCBF574D

Regards
DL

I think we can discuss whether fictional characters would have done this or that. What would Frasier Crane say about it? That’s why I said “the jesus character is the opposite of the father character while the holy spirit character is rarely, if ever, personified.” Whether they are real or not is inconsequential to whether they are the same personality.

Maybe so, but it would be awfully coincidental that so many others were: born of a virgin, had 12 disciples, died on a cross, resurrected 3 days later. There also isn’t much historical evidence supporting the existence of Jesus.

But whoever created the words of Jesus was pretty smart and whoever distorted them, wasn’t.

This one is hilariously funny. Uploaded 2010, I don’t know why it took so long for me to find it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk[/youtube]

There were Pagan gods who were said to die and rise again. So, I get the idea that Jesus was made up as a Jewish god who died and rose again. The problem is that we have these ancient letters written in the first century by this guy Paul who mentions in passing that he knew Jesus’ brother, James, and he knew his closest disciple, Peter and he talks about things they did. If Jesus didn’t exist, you would think his brother would know about it, so I think Paul is probably pretty good evidence that Jesus at least existed.

Another reason for supposing Jesus existed is that if someone invented Jesus, they would not have created a messiah who was so easily overcome. The Messiah was supposed to overthrow the enemies of Israel. So if you’re going to make up a messiah, you’d make up a powerful messiah. You wouldn’t make up somebody who was humiliated, tortured and the killed by the enemies.

But, the mythicists are right that the NT Gospels do portray Jesus in ways that are non-historical. The historical Jesus was mythologized. In the gospel texts there is evidence of editing. But, embarrassing facts remain that run counter to the mythic narrative that wouldn’t be there if Jesus were invented whole cloth. And those facts are further evidence that he really existed.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion … arrassment

And oh yeah it is possible to discuss what fictional characters might do in different hypothetical situations. So we could talk about Jesus that way. But, there are so many versions of Jesus that it gets complicated right off. For example, based on their interpretation of the Bible some Christians think Jesus was Yahweh so the question whether he would condemn or condone Yahweh would be about whether he would condemn or condone himself. In the Hebrew Bible it does say that Yahweh repented of his actions from time to time. But, that’s absurd if one assumes that God is omniscient. So, it all seems to depend on what is presupposed. Garbage in, garbage out, so to speak.

I like how you decide for God what he can do and feel, Felix.
He needs you.

Glad I could help.

I think the ancient wrote the bible and intentionally put contradictions is as the bible was created to activate thinking and not to be taken literally. Those contradictions were designed to be debated, not believed as real.

Most have forgotten that and ignore the brighter ancient ways.

I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental trash that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Further.

pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, “The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it.”

Please listen as to what is said about literal reading.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, “God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning.”

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Regards
DL

I get your point, but how do we know any of those people existed? I could say I read the writings of a guy who knew Niles Crane, the brother of Frasier, but it would be a tv script.

We couldn’t make up a messiah that defeated the enemies of Israel because that obviously didn’t happen. I think the theory is that those types of gods that were “humiliated, tortured and the killed by their enemies” had been successful in the past and was simply copied and renamed into Jesus rather than Horace et al.

That presupposes what is considered embarrassing.

Reminds me of: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=192850&start=50#p2676344

What most people regard as powerful is actually weakness and the bravest warriors are the most terrified (hence why they are warriors). So I don’t see a powerful god laying its powers down as anything to be embarrassed by.

Mom is a fundamentalist and when I was a kid, we’d patronize Pentecostal churches exclusively. I’ve witnessed a lot of wild stuff and thought it was normal. No snakes or drinking poison, but not far from it. Anyway, the Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists and pretty much all bible-belt churches teach the trinity where the Father, Jesus, and Holy Ghost are all God, but separate persons (whatever sense you can make from that). They cite John 1:1 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So they say Jesus was the Word who became man while God (Father) stayed in heaven. They are two separate persons, but also the same God. They also point to the fact that Jesus had to be God because no man could have accomplished what Jesus did (defeat death).

A few years ago it became increasingly a problem to me that Jesus and Father were not the same personality and I couldn’t make sense of why the Father seemed to pass judgement and kill while Jesus forgave and revived who the Father had killed (or allowed to die). How could the same God be polar opposite to itself?

The Father says vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord. But Jesus says forgive 70 x 7 and turn the other cheek because the meek will inherit the earth. The Father causes the earth to open and swallow people for making a golden cow, but Jesus forgives those nailing him to a cross by simply pointing out that they’re confused and don’t realize what they are doing. Well aren’t the people with the golden cow also confused? So is the Father not as smart/perceptive as Jesus or is he less divine? Ultimately I decided the Father is just a natural aspect of the universe that cannot be reasoned with (a non-person force like gravity).

What the supernatural/divine had represented to me was that which is not natural, such as turning the other cheek instead of fighting back or desiring vengeance. I consider that a divine principle exceeding displays of power to defeat enemies because, ultimately, all displays of power are evidence of fear/insecurity and not divine at all! What Jesus preached was exceedingly wise, to the point of being divine, and a quantum leap beyond what evolution had instilled in the animal; above natural = supernatural. But I’ve not seen anything by the Father worth writing home about, nevermind being divine/supernatural, but more animalistic and representative of what an ancient, uneducated, animal-like people would do/say. And here I agree with Christopher Hitchens that if a God were to reveal himself, why pick some of the dumbest people in ancient history? If he had waited 100,000 years, then why not wait another 2000 until now when we have the capability to substantiate with evidence? Or why not appear to the chinese who were more intelligent than the desert people? The Father was created by a weak and stupid people who wished they were powerful, but Jesus is something else and whoever created his words was clearly genius.

That would require an unbelievable amount of foresight to intentionally include contradictions which would have the known effect of causing people to dig deeper rather than reject the text due to the contradictions. And one doesn’t need contradictions to make folks perceive hidden messages.

As soon as we open the door for allegorical interpretation we’ve removed all authority from it because truth could be gleaned in a way that wasn’t intended, like people do to songs all the time. For instance the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was theorized to mean LSD or the band KISS was Knights in Satan’s Service. That’s off the top of my head and probably not the best examples, but hopefully you can see that interpretation is quite different than intention of the authors.

On the other hand, Jesus’ main strategy for conveyance of nonceptual information was through allegory and it is indeed a powerful tool to speak by analogy, but I don’t see why they needed to make the text factually incorrect or inconsistent with itself in order to implement allegory.

Regarding the intelligence of the ancients, I think the Indians (from India) and Chinese were ahead the Arabs in terms of enlightenment, profundity and scientific progress. I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised if I were.

As Alan Watts used to say, the Arabs would stone anyone claiming to be god, but the Hindus would have laughed and said “Of course! It’s about time you found out! LOL” He says the good news (gospel) is not that Jesus is god, but that you are too.

The whole presentation is here:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdnZiv24fLc[/youtube]

At least start at 36:30 where he substantiates the claim that we are all the sons of god.