Who was Jesus?

[Storyteller]

How one can read the Gospel and come out with this view:

IMHO, a man fluffed up to heroic proportions by story tellers.

Is beyond me.

There is nothing heroic about what Jesus did UNLESS He actually did it because He didn't save anyone in a DIRECT ACT ( ie: take a bullet, kill 100's of people to save his country men, etc).
Jesus did NOTHING that would be considered heroic by the standards of His time ( or any time when you think of it) and as a matter of fact, they way He died was considered a very shameful death, one of the worse ( if not the worse).
Unless of course His act of sacrifice DID INDEED save ALL who believe in Him.

For a start, one needs to know what is meant by / what I meant by "heroic proportions"


a. Impressive in size or scope; grand: heroic undertakings.
b. Of a size or scale that is larger than life: heroic sculpture.


the scope and scale of the Jesus story is that of one who is "larger than life'.

But lets not get bogged in points of style here.

The part in bold will do. He became something else in the retelling, my opinion, of course. You have your opinion, neither of us has a time machine.

It's one hell of a story then, to have reached so many people. I love stories, some have a really powerful message but people died to tell this one. I.think it merits, at least, the possibility of it being true.

[Audie]

How one can read the Gospel and come out with this view:

IMHO, a man fluffed up to heroic proportions by story tellers.

Is beyond me.

There is nothing heroic about what Jesus did UNLESS He actually did it because He didn't save anyone in a DIRECT ACT ( ie: take a bullet, kill 100's of people to save his country men, etc).
Jesus did NOTHING that would be considered heroic by the standards of His time ( or any time when you think of it) and as a matter of fact, they way He died was considered a very shameful death, one of the worse ( if not the worse).
Unless of course His act of sacrifice DID INDEED save ALL who believe in Him.

For a start, one needs to know what is meant by / what I meant by "heroic proportions"


a. Impressive in size or scope; grand: heroic undertakings.
b. Of a size or scale that is larger than life: heroic sculpture.


the scope and scale of the Jesus story is that of one who is "larger than life'.

But lets not get bogged in points of style here.

The part in bold will do. He became something else in the retelling, my opinion, of course. You have your opinion, neither of us has a time machine.

It's one hell of a story then, to have reached so many people. I love stories, some have a really powerful message but people died to tell this one. I.think it merits, at least, the possibility of it being true.

Of course it could be true. I dont think it is, but, thats me.


The "prophet" Mohammed reached even more. J Smith is making amazing inroads. People have died for many faiths.

[Storyteller]

Many have died for a faith, yes. Jesus didn't. He died because He was the faith.

[Jac3510]

People die for a faith for one of two reasons: 1. they think it is true, or 2. the faith was only a proxy for what they were really dying for (i.e, the money/fame/respect) they get through that faith. J. Smith died in a gun fight "defending the faith." In fact, he was becoming very rich off his little scam. Mohammed became quite the king as well. Jesus' death isn't particularly difficult think ask about, historically speaking. A guy who honestly thinks he is the Messiah is a danger to the Roman authorities. He's one step away from either starting a revolt or else having one started in His name. If you're a Roman, you kill such people. The only assumption in this story is that Jesus thought and/or told people He was that Messiah. Take that assumption away, and it is very difficult to come up with a reason for why the Romans would have executed Him.

The deaths of countless Christians in the first couple of centuries isn't hard, either. They all thought that Jesus really is God, so they were dying for their Savior. The historical problem is the death of men like Paul, Peter, and the other people who knew Jesus first hand. Immediately, we might want to exclude Paul from that list because he didn't meet Jesus. But it's clear that he thinks he did. And he convinced those who knew Jesus personally that he did. Paul is an interesting case because you have to wonder what makes a person who was so anti-Christian, who was actually having them executed, become the faith's primary defender. What happened, historically speaking, to cause that mutation? Paul's own answer was that he finally met Jesus face to face. I'll let those who think he didn't really meet Jesus propose their own ideas, and we can analyze them.

The other apostles, though. That's the real rub. People die for a faith because they think that it is true (or because they are making money on the scam). The apostles certainly didn't make any money on the scam. On the contrary, they lost everything. They lost their homes, their possessions, their families. They were beaten and tortured. They died horrendous deaths. Some were boiled in oil. Some were sawed in half. Some were stoned. Some were decapitated. Crucified upside down. And what did they get that they thought was worth that sort of suffering? Again, martyrdom isn't difficult to understand. People die for things they believe in all the time. But the moment you give Paul and Peter the status of martyrs, you have a HUGE historical problem.

They BELIEVED that Jesus was and is God. They BELIEVED that Jesus had physically risen from the dead. How did THEY come to that belief? Audie's explanation of legendary development doesn't cut it. These people knew Jesus personally. They are the ones who told those stories. I mean, this is a massively important point for historians. And across the board, historians grant that the first apostles really believed that Jesus physically rose from the dead. Let me just give two bits of historical data to prove that:

• For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve

That's from 1 Cor 15:3-5. It is a creed of the early church. The letter itself was penned in the 60s (which, by itself, is waaaaaaaaaaaaay to early to be a legendary embellishment). But further this creed recites what Paul taught that church when he founded that church, and we know he founded that church in the 50s. But that means that the creed preexisted the church's founding. Now, there is solid reason to think that it goes all the way back to 33-36 AD (since Paul says he received the creed, not that he made it up), but let's just date it to the late 40s. The point is, the creed is being taught within the first 20 years of Jesus' death, and within the living memory of those who knew Jesus, most importantly, within the living memory of the apostles themselves. This is even before the writing of Mark, which is usually considered the first gospel written (although I happen to think that an aramaic version of Matthew came first, but I'm in a tiny minority here).

The second bit comes out of 1 Clement 24:1. The text says:

• Let us understand, dearly beloved, how the Master continually showeth unto us the resurrection that shall be hereafter; whereof He made the Lord Jesus Christ the firstfruit, when He raised Him from the dead.

Again we have a reference to Jesus' resurrection. This was written between 80 and 140 AD. The important thing here is that the author knew several of the disciples of Christ Himself, and his letter shows that belief in Jesus' physical resurrection was a standard--not a new--piece of Christian theology. So where does that piece of Christian theology come from? It comes from its very origins. Which means it is not a legendary development (there's not enough time for that). Perhaps Clement can die for his faith since he is basing his belief on the testimony of Peter and Paul. But that only highlights the historical problem I'm raising here.

How do we account for the belief of Peter and Paul? There is absolutely NO question that those men truly believed that Jesus had physically raised from the dead. That means they couldn't have stolen the body. It means that they knew Jesus died. It means that they saw the empty tomb. It means that they believed that they saw Him in the flesh. So how do we account for that? It's easy to account for their belief in Jesus' death. Pilate crucified him. But what about the empty tomb? Where did the body go? Who took it? And what do we do with their seeing him alive after the fact?

I could say a LOT more. This really is only a tiny tip of the iceberg. Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide looked at the historical evidence and wrote a book concluding that Jesus physically rose from the dead. He said it was the only plausible historical explanation. He, though, rejected Jesus as Messiah because he thought that Jesus didn't do what the Messiah is promised to do (deliver Israel from Gentile domination). It just goes to show, for me, that people who appeal to legendary development to explain away Jesus just haven't looked at the evidence. In a word, they don't know what they are talking about.

[Kurieuo]

Everyone knows Jesus was an illiterate peasant from Galilee who zealously set himself against Roman governor to try become Israel's king.
That's why Pilate put him to death because one lowly peasant threatened to topple Roman rule. And this also makes sense of why his followers died for their faith in him, since he was condemned as worthy of death by the Sanhedrin as a blaspheming false prophet as it is written in the Law.

[PaulSacramento]

How one can read the Gospel and come out with this view:

IMHO, a man fluffed up to heroic proportions by story tellers.

Is beyond me.

There is nothing heroic about what Jesus did UNLESS He actually did it because He didn't save anyone in a DIRECT ACT ( ie: take a bullet, kill 100's of people to save his country men, etc).
Jesus did NOTHING that would be considered heroic by the standards of His time ( or any time when you think of it) and as a matter of fact, they way He died was considered a very shameful death, one of the worse ( if not the worse).
Unless of course His act of sacrifice DID INDEED save ALL who believe in Him.

For a start, one needs to know what is meant by / what I meant by "heroic proportions"


a. Impressive in size or scope; grand: heroic undertakings.
b. Of a size or scale that is larger than life: heroic sculpture.


the scope and scale of the Jesus story is that of one who is "larger than life'.

But lets not get bogged in points of style here.

The part in bold will do. He became something else in the retelling, my opinion, of course. You have your opinion, neither of us has a time machine.

Audie, if 1st century Jews were gonna "invent" or "blow out of proportions" that life and deeds of their so-called saviour, they would NOT have written the Gospels.
They would have written the typical "propaganda" of their time and those were NOTHING like the Gospel accounts we have.

Lets not forget that Christians were persecuted for centuries BECAUSE of those gospels, the beliefs put forth in those Gospel, to believe that God came in the Flesh and all one had to do was believe in HIM.
There was no call to resist authorities, there was no call for rebellion, there was no mention of rewards in this life, no call for heroic deeds at all.
The shining example set forth by the "saviour of the world" was to "love others as He loved Us" and that the greatest love was "giving up of one's life for a brother".

People do NOT invent that kind of "hero" in 1st century Palestine under the rule of Rome.
People do not exaggerate the exploits of their saviour by saying He died like a common criminal and then highlight the exploits of His followers by showing they were a bunch of cowards and that their professed leader, Peter, denied The Son of God not once, not twice but THREE times !.

Honestly...

[Audie]

How one can read the Gospel and come out with this view:

IMHO, a man fluffed up to heroic proportions by story tellers.

Is beyond me.

There is nothing heroic about what Jesus did UNLESS He actually did it because He didn't save anyone in a DIRECT ACT ( ie: take a bullet, kill 100's of people to save his country men, etc).
Jesus did NOTHING that would be considered heroic by the standards of His time ( or any time when you think of it) and as a matter of fact, they way He died was considered a very shameful death, one of the worse ( if not the worse).
Unless of course His act of sacrifice DID INDEED save ALL who believe in Him.

For a start, one needs to know what is meant by / what I meant by "heroic proportions"


a. Impressive in size or scope; grand: heroic undertakings.
b. Of a size or scale that is larger than life: heroic sculpture.


the scope and scale of the Jesus story is that of one who is "larger than life'.

But lets not get bogged in points of style here.

The part in bold will do. He became something else in the retelling, my opinion, of course. You have your opinion, neither of us has a time machine.

Audie, if 1st century Jews were gonna "invent" or "blow out of proportions" that life and deeds of their so-called saviour, they would NOT have written the Gospels.
They would have written the typical "propaganda" of their time and those were NOTHING like the Gospel accounts we have.

Lets not forget that Christians were persecuted for centuries BECAUSE of those gospels, the beliefs put forth in those Gospel, to believe that God came in the Flesh and all one had to do was believe in HIM.
There was no call to resist authorities, there was no call for rebellion, there was no mention of rewards in this life, no call for heroic deeds at all.
The shining example set forth by the "saviour of the world" was to "love others as He loved Us" and that the greatest love was "giving up of one's life for a brother".

People do NOT invent that kind of "hero" in 1st century Palestine under the rule of Rome.
People do not exaggerate the exploits of their saviour by saying He died like a common criminal and then highlight the exploits of His followers by showing they were a bunch of cowards and that their professed leader, Peter, denied The Son of God not once, not twice but THREE times !.

Honestly...

I dont doubt you see things that way.

Im sure you dont doubt that Mormons and Moslems can be most articulate about their faiths.

Im going to bow out of discussions about the reality of Jesus as son of God, as
its a fixed thing for you guys, and often an emotional one.

I will leave the ones who got their book from gold tablets or the prophet Mohammed to their devices too.

[Rob]

Mormons and Moslems aint got nothing on us when it comes to the historicity of their faiths.

Islam has very little source material to pull from since in 650 AD in order to combat the different readings, Caliph Uthman had all Koran writings gathered, a definitive reading was chosen, and the rest were destroyed. (about 99% of Muslims don't know about this for some reason). They make fun of our footnotes, but they'd have them too if they were honest. At least we can be much more certain of our earliest content. Since according to them Mohammed was the last inspired prophet and Uthman is not inspired...you can see where the difficulty lies.

Mormonism is probably the most polytheistic religion on the planet. Joseph Smith was a known charlatan too. His apparent "translations" of Egyptian tablets were shown to be completely bogus much later. Really there's just too much wackiness in general. I can't see a good reason for being a Mormon and usually when people are it's because they were raised that way.

Very few people convert to Mormonism from something else.

[PaulSacramento]

How one can read the Gospel and come out with this view:

IMHO, a man fluffed up to heroic proportions by story tellers.

Is beyond me.

There is nothing heroic about what Jesus did UNLESS He actually did it because He didn't save anyone in a DIRECT ACT ( ie: take a bullet, kill 100's of people to save his country men, etc).
Jesus did NOTHING that would be considered heroic by the standards of His time ( or any time when you think of it) and as a matter of fact, they way He died was considered a very shameful death, one of the worse ( if not the worse).
Unless of course His act of sacrifice DID INDEED save ALL who believe in Him.

For a start, one needs to know what is meant by / what I meant by "heroic proportions"


a. Impressive in size or scope; grand: heroic undertakings.
b. Of a size or scale that is larger than life: heroic sculpture.


the scope and scale of the Jesus story is that of one who is "larger than life'.

But lets not get bogged in points of style here.

The part in bold will do. He became something else in the retelling, my opinion, of course. You have your opinion, neither of us has a time machine.

Audie, if 1st century Jews were gonna "invent" or "blow out of proportions" that life and deeds of their so-called saviour, they would NOT have written the Gospels.
They would have written the typical "propaganda" of their time and those were NOTHING like the Gospel accounts we have.

Lets not forget that Christians were persecuted for centuries BECAUSE of those gospels, the beliefs put forth in those Gospel, to believe that God came in the Flesh and all one had to do was believe in HIM.
There was no call to resist authorities, there was no call for rebellion, there was no mention of rewards in this life, no call for heroic deeds at all.
The shining example set forth by the "saviour of the world" was to "love others as He loved Us" and that the greatest love was "giving up of one's life for a brother".

People do NOT invent that kind of "hero" in 1st century Palestine under the rule of Rome.
People do not exaggerate the exploits of their saviour by saying He died like a common criminal and then highlight the exploits of His followers by showing they were a bunch of cowards and that their professed leader, Peter, denied The Son of God not once, not twice but THREE times !.

Honestly...

I dont doubt you see things that way.

Im sure you dont doubt that Mormons and Moslems can be most articulate about their faiths.

Im going to bow out of discussions about the reality of Jesus as son of God, as
its a fixed thing for you guys, and often an emotional one.

I will leave the ones who got their book from gold tablets or the prophet Mohammed to their devices too.

Audie, it has very little to do with me seeing it that way.
It simply is what the historical studies show.
It has zero to do with wither or not people of other faiths can articulate their faith.
It is simply a statement of fact that, based on the writings of that time in their literary genres, the gospels would NOT be seen as "hero worship" or Heroic propaganda", they would have been viewed as biographical in the style of that era.

[Audie]

Mormons and Moslems aint got nothing on us when it comes to the historicity of their faiths.

Islam has very little source material to pull from since in 650 AD in order to combat the different readings, Caliph Uthman had all Koran writings gathered, a definitive reading was chosen, and the rest were destroyed. (about 99% of Muslims don't know about this for some reason). They make fun of our footnotes, but they'd have them too if they were honest. At least we can be much more certain of our earliest content. Since according to them Mohammed was the last inspired prophet and Uthman is not inspired...you can see where the difficulty lies.

Mormonism is probably the most polytheistic religion on the planet. Joseph Smith was a known charlatan too. His apparent "translations" of Egyptian tablets were shown to be completely bogus much later. Really there's just too much wackiness in general. I can't see a good reason for being a Mormon and usually when people are it's because they were raised that way.

Very few people convert to Mormonism from something else.

Originally, they all did.

I see comparable wackiness in all of the middle eastern sky god religions.

[Audie]

Paulsac, we ran out of quote-embedding.

I see the world thru very different eyes than yours.

Regardless, I think it may be best to stand clear of this topic.

[PaulSacramento]

Paulsac, we ran out of quote-embedding.

I see the world thru very different eyes than yours.

Regardless, I think it may be best to stand clear of this topic.

That's fine.

[Rob]

I see comparable wackiness in all of the middle eastern sky god religions.

I can see how you would. IMO Mormonism is in a whole class of its own.

[Audie]

I see comparable wackiness in all of the middle eastern sky god religions.

I can see how you would. IMO Mormonism is in a whole class of its own.

In theory, yes, but also in theory, no.

[Kurieuo]

I see comparable wackiness in all of the middle eastern sky god religions.

I can see how you would. IMO Mormonism is in a whole class of its own.

In theory, yes, but also in theory, no.

Methinks Audie will one day be Mormon.
She seems of have a soft spot for them.