Was Jesus as smart as Plato?

[badchad]

So, was Jesus as smart as Plato, or Socrates if you prefer, or Aristotle, Epicurus or a bunch of philosophers that predated him (some) by centuries? Is he as smart as a lot of philosophers that postdated him (Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Hume, or Russell)? Is there any reason to think him smarter or more profound than most dopers?

From what I have read of the bible I think whoever wrote Ecclesiastes was an exceptional thinker, Job less so, but I don’t see that with anything attributed to Jesus. Based on what’s in the gospels, what would we guess his IQ to be? I say maybe 110. Certainly he had enough charisma to attract a modest following while alive but this seems no better than David Koresh or Jim Jones. It seems they used similar tactics of appealing to the poor and societal outcasts, who one might reasonably assume were, for the most part, more gullible than average.

I see nothing with regards to Jesus’ dialogs to suggest he was any smarter or more divine than Koresh or Jones. Certainly nothing that would indicate divine wisdom or even mere human genius. More like just a regular preacher, who mostly parroted the parts of the Old Testament that he liked, added or emphasized the afterlife, and had a few other ideas that compared to mainstream Jews were somewhat different, but not amazing. He threw in some stories to emphasis his points but that doesn’t seem much different that what other preachers and public speakers do all the time. It just seems like posterity was disproportionately kind to him.

From what I have read of the philosophers I listed in the first paragraph, I am often amazed by their brilliance, sure they had errors a plenty, particularly the older ones, but their thought processes, reasonings and many of their conclusions were often remarkable. With Jesus I just don’t get that. Rather, Jesus sounds like just another preacher telling us to love god, sometimes claiming to be god, and sometimes claiming not to be. Sometimes saying to follow the OT law and sometimes saying you don’t have to, telling parables that sometimes make sense and sometimes don’t. Promoting morals that even the most beloved liberal Christians on this board have admitted they don’t agree with, and in practice often prefer to follow a moral code that seems more in line with modern day secular humanism than it does with the words of Jesus. Jesus often called god loving, but described him as a beast. He saved a woman from being stoned but seems to have condemned most of humanity to hellfire. I really don’t see anything that would lead me to think it likely he had godly intelligence.

The reason I ask is that it seems that many liberal Christians are comfortable writing off the miracle stories as exaggerations or make believe (save for the resurrection for some reason) while still holding that Jesus was somehow exceptional. Discounting the miracles it seems all we have is Jesus’ say so that he was god and, as mentioned, he even contradicted that. Also I have noted that some sympathetic deists, agnostics, and even atheists hold some reverence for Jesus was at least a great philosopher, if not god. Ignorning the miracles, is there any evidence of otherworldly wisdom? Did he ever say anything so smart that one could rationally conclude that no regular human could come up with anything as good? So what gives?

And no, personal revelations with Jesus, that no one else can see or hear don’t count.

[Apos]

The problem with godly intelligence is that since it can do or say anything at all with any crafty ultimate purpose one might think of after the fact, is that it can't ever be off base. A God beyond human understanding is a God that cannot be trusted to be anything in particular, which can have virtually any motive at all, and is completely obscure. So Jesus could well get everything exactly "right" insofar as whatever God's ultimate purpose for everything is. Of course, by that standard, for all we know, so could Milton Berle.

It's also important to note that intelligence is the thing you've chosen to focus on as a guide to greatness, but not everyone, not even really me, really, agree that THAT is the ultimate most important measure of things. In fact, Jesus and his followers seem to cultivate an attitude of being downright hostile to both skepticism and established intellectual expertise. This makes sense given that they were pretty much outsiders trying to convince people that probably knew a heck of a lot more than they ever would about Scripture that they were 180 degrees wrong about it. But if we want to get less suspicious of these anti-intellectual attitudes, we could also point out that if the point is to assert that Jesus was either the most insightful observer of morals, or just knew everything and had little need for developed argument in order to just tell us what was right, then displayed intelligence seems unnecessary. Of course, asserting those things and then defending them against those that aren't so convinced runs into the first problem I noted.

-------

Those two things said, however, I share with you, however, as with Sam Harris, a deep confusion as to the elaborate claims made about the primacy and superiority of religious texts, their moral declarations, and the figures within them on all sorts of subjects.

The Koran, for instance, seems to assert that it is so perfect that no human being could ever improve on a single sentence. With all due respect to such an arrogant claim, that is, no respect, I beg to differ. Likewise, the Ten Commandments seem woefully both incomplete, at times immoral, themselves and just bizarre despite their reputation as some "ultimate" guide to morality. It would be trivially easy to improve on these supposedly fundamental and perfect things.

Jesus is of the same mold. He is an interesting character who presents the beginnings of a radical re-interpretation of Judiasm that will mostly be fleshed out later by others. His somewhat cryptic reported sayings are very similar to those of similar wandering cynics and sages. His basic guide of "love god and love your neighbor" seems to be a highly lauded idea (though neither unique nor original to him), and yet it is in the end an exceedingly vague commandment which most of the time even his most ardent followers seem to treat as either hopelessly naive, unworkable, or near meaningless.

In short, Jesus certainly is an interesting figure, and has a place in the long history of human thought, but he is neither alpha nor omega, and the idea that he should be the "whole of the law" in any sense seems to be absurd.

That doesn't mean that he should get no notice: but the idea that he should get special notice above all the other great thinkers and contributors and innovators in history is, I think, something that only makes sense in light of a pre-existing belief that this is THE guy, that this theology is THE theology, and so forth: ABOVE and BEYOND just liking what he says. A person who reads and studies only the teachings of Jesus is likely to be, I think, severely impoverished in virtually every respect (morally, intellectually, emotionally, etc.) compared to other human beings who have studied and experienced more widely: all the breadth and depth of thought and expression of other traditions, philosophies, or even things like literature and art. And it would still be true even if we limited it just to a sampling of purely Christian thinkers and theologians: a focus on the Bible or the Gospels alone impoverishes even Christianity.

But we needn't even crow over either other important specific books, or even having read lots and lots of things in and of itself: if just about any modern person at all, even a fundamentalist literalist Christian, sat down to write out plainly, from scratch, a discussion of what is moral and important and so forth on its own terms, they could almost certainly pen a far far more instructive and useful single tome than the Bible, or any of the Gospels. That's because they would be able to pick and choose insights regardless of their origin, and include countless ideas that are, simply foreign to anything in the Bible, or that have developed a long way from their expression in the Bible.

And a person reading THAT tome would likely be FAR less impoverished than the person who had simply read the Bible and nothing else.

[Sapo]

Although there are stories of Jesus teaching at the synagogue and impressing the scholars at a very young age (stories which you are free to believe or doubt as accurate), I don't think straight intelligence is what Jesus was shooting for.

Jesus came to serve as subservient to the Will of God. His "power" was the power to channel the work of God. You can't even pin perfect benevolence on Him (think of the merchants at the temple). He had his caustic moments. Even in those, though, He was acting the Will of God.

Plus, there is what I understand Apos is saying in his first paragraph. As God, He just can't be wrong, ever. If he goes against all logic, then it is logic that is wrong (!).

[JRDelirious]

Right. "Intellectual brilliance" is not what JC's rep and influence are based upon, as well-stated by Apos. And in any case, I don't think that many "sympathetic secularists" place Jesus THAT high in the summit of philosophical rankings; it's more like since the movement that coalesced around his figure became a major philosophical power, and thus the founder WAS a highly influential figure in the end, he looks "bigger" than someone who may have written extraordinary philosophical texts but is only followed by a handful of Grad students; it's fair game to question what if anything made him individually remarkable.

In the end, the documentary record of statements directly attributed to Jesus is quite scant, even compared with such cases as Socrates where we also are mostly limited to relying on secondhand accounts from disciples. Not only that, what we have contains very little of dialogs or debates per se; as pointed out, the man worked in the style of a country preacher, not of a philosopher as commonly understood. The source material is insufficient to pass a judgement on comparative intellectual/scholarly standing in strictly academic terms vs. people who dedicated whole lives and a large corpus of work to the pursuit of academic philosophy. (So providing an "IQ" based on the record is a nice little bit of rhetorical insolence but is meaningless even beyond the depreciated meaning of IQ itself).

Besides, maybe the point of the Christian movement is NOT to intellectually overpower anyone but is based on an emotional appeal, so that becomes secondary.

[Liberal]

It's not about what's in your brain, but what's in your heart.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by Liberal

It's not about what's in your brain, but what's in your heart.

Wasn't that the message of every episode of Touched by an Angel?


B.F. Skinner figured Jesus was more serendipitous than brilliant, discovering the power of passive resistance by accident, and I'm inclined to agree.

[Liberal]

There is also this famous passage:

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

— Luke 10:21

[mack]

Originally Posted by badchad

Discounting the miracles it seems all we have is Jesus’ say so that he was god and, as mentioned, he even contradicted that.

We also have John The Baptist's say so that Jesus was the messiah, which counted for quite a bit back then, apparently. His divinity was recognized and validated by one of leading religious authorities of the day.

[raindog]

The use of the word god is/was never restricted to Jehovah. As Liberal noted in another thread, humans were sometimes referred to as a god. Satan himself is described as a god.

The bible has consistently made a distinction between gods of various flavors and the Sovereign Lord Jehovah God; the one true God. (The capital G God)

From my readings, Jesus never identifies himself as the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. He always identifies himself as subordinate; as the Son of God. He consistently indicates that he has rejected self will, and subordinates himself to his father, and to his God

This is not a minor distinction. Jesus did not say he was God.

[FriarTed]

Originally Posted by the raindog

The use of the word god is/was never restricted to Jehovah. As Liberal noted in another thread, humans were sometimes referred to as a god. Satan himself is described as a god.

The bible has consistently made a distinction between gods of various flavors and the Sovereign Lord Jehovah God; the one true God. (The capital G God)

From my readings, Jesus never identifies himself as the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. He always identifies himself as subordinate; as the Son of God. He consistently indicates that he has rejected self will, and subordinates himself to his father, and to his God

This is not a minor distinction. Jesus did not say he was God.

No, but he did claim to be able to forgive sins & never disputed his enemies' objection that only God could forgive sins, and he did say "Before Abraham was, I am (Greek- Ego eimi, which means "I am", NOT "I already was" or "I have been".)
Also, he accepted Thomas' declaration of him as "My Lord and my God" (which seems to be directed as a declaration about Jesus, NOT just an exclamation or praise to the Father.)

So, how are ya doing? Good to see you back!

(We differ a lot theologically, but I do respect you for standing up for God, Christ & the Bible.)

Re the OP- I don't know how smart Jesus was RE Plato & the Classical Philosophers, but they didn't die for our sins & rise to give us eternal life either.
Brains are good, valuable, to be treasured & nurtured, but they aren't everything.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by Liberal

There is also this famous passage:

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

— Luke 10:21

This is mostly what I was talking about with the anti-thought, anti-skepticism streak. This sort of sentiment is, in fact, the sort of ultimate self-sealing defense of people who don't otherwise have very good arguments. It's certainly possible to see it as justified, of course, if you already pre-believe that so and so has the truth of things, but as a general sentiment it's really quite loathsome as a rhetorical tactic.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by Sapo

Jesus came to serve as subservient to the Will of God. His "power" was the power to channel the work of God. You can't even pin perfect benevolence on Him (think of the merchants at the temple). He had his caustic moments. Even in those, though, He was acting the Will of God.

This is precisely what I mean. If you simply assume right off the bat that someone is working the will of God, they can do literally anything and have it be hand-waved into acts of greatness.

Plus, there is what I understand Apos is saying in his first paragraph. As God, He just can't be wrong, ever. If he goes against all logic, then it is logic that is wrong (!).

Indeed. But this position is deeply dangerous, of course. It is a claim that can be made about ANY position, and in fact, this is precisely why we have so many "true" religions running around that DO, in fact, make precisely these sorts of (competing) sophistries the center of their claims to greatness. In short, it is pretty darn meaningless and useless when you get right down to it, and the more it is used, to more it only underscores how little else Jesus has going for him as an example or interest, not how much.

I stand by my claim in all respects too: Jesus wasn't simply just one among many intellectually, but in the "in your heart" sense as well. Improving on his teachings and ideas today is a perfectly trivial matter. Liberal's accounts of love and its primacy and so forth are far more compelling, for instance, than anything Jesus had to say about the matter, even if they could claim to be a close interpretation of what Jesus taught.

[Thudlow Boink]

Well, Jesus used to regularly beat Socrates at Scrabble...

Some people have deemed Jesus's teachings (or at least some of them) to be pretty brilliant, but that's a YMMV matter of opinion. And certainly some of his parables and sayings have achieved classic status, though that leaves the question if they would still have done so if they had come from someone else.

One point in Jesus's favor is how, whenever he was challenged with a tricky question, he always had a clever answer. Of course you could object that the gospel writers left out the times he wasn't able to come up with a snappy answer. But they at least give the impression that Jesus won every battle of wits he was challenged to. And they never showed him being outsmarted, or lacking the brainpower to do anything he needed to do.

The problem with Jesus (and the same goes for Socrates) is that we don't have anything he wrote himself, just what other people reported him saying, so we can't say for sure how much came straight from him and how much was invented, selected, organized, or tidied up later. And there's a lot he might have said that we don't have. Since the gospel writers weren't primarily interested in Jesus's IQ, there could be lots of evidence for or against that they didn't bother to put down.

[Liberal]

Originally Posted by Apos

This is mostly what I was talking about with the anti-thought, anti-skepticism streak. This sort of sentiment is, in fact, the sort of ultimate self-sealing defense of people who don't otherwise have very good arguments. It's certainly possible to see it as justified, of course, if you already pre-believe that so and so has the truth of things, but as a general sentiment it's really quite loathsome as a rhetorical tactic.

Argument about what? You think Jesus was arguing about something? In case you didn't understand the passage, it was saying that the path to God is not intellectual in nature, but rather aesthetical in nature. God appeals to the child in us. Just because a man is intellectually smart does not mean he is morally good. There have been plenty of evil geniuses.

[According to Pliny]

Originally Posted by badchad

So, was Jesus as smart as Plato, or Socrates if you prefer, or Aristotle, Epicurus or a bunch of philosophers that predated him (some) by centuries?

No, not as smart, but I'd say he was more clever, more like Heron, who helped various oracles and soothsayers fool the masses with his magic tricks.
Rather, I should quickly point out, not as smart as Heron, who was a genius, but as clever as his soothsayer patrons.
But clever soothsayers are rife in all time periods. Jesus was just one of a hoard in his own time and an endless hoard in the long run.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by Liberal

Argument about what? You think Jesus was arguing about something? In case you didn't understand the passage,

In case I don't understand how you interpret the passage, you mean. And I do understand that, as well as other ways others have interpreted it.

it was saying

You just told me Jesus wasn't arguing about something, and yet here you are telling me that he WAS basically making a claim about something? You seem to want to have it both ways: the pleasure of telling me I'm wrong for saying that there is an argument and a motive for making this point, but then also trying to justify the claim.

that the path to God is not intellectual in nature, but rather aesthetical in nature.

The passage says that things are HIDDEN, deliberately, from the wise (i.e., the people whom Jesus was opposing, the scholars who felt he was grossly misinterpreting Scripture) and REVEALED to children. There's nothing in there about aesthetics. If anything, the passage could just as well mean that they ARE intellectual truths, it's just that God isn't going to give them to Mr. fancy-pants rabbi when the populist rabble knows better.

God appeals to the child in us.

Maybe, but this claim can be made about any theology or God, manipulating and playing off the idea of children as being innocent and pure (which itself is somewhat questionable: the simple emotions of children are often grossly amoral and selfish in ways that adults cannot match) to try and make your own philosophy look so as well.

Just because a man is intellectually smart does not mean he is morally good. There have been plenty of evil geniuses.

True, but irrelevant. Being intellectually smart is an enabler of morality just as it can be of immorality, and it is particularly important in the case of people making claims ABOUT what is moral and what is not. Getting rid of people's skepticism is a great start in enabling flim-flam and heck: that's one of the very first thing evil geniuses generally try to do in order to convince people to come along with them! Children and emotions are easier to manipulate. Heck, this is pretty much the appeal of Bill O'Reily's "think of the children!" arguments: it's in the same vein. Likewise, Jesus' bit about pots questioning their master is pretty much akin to: "Shut up," he argued.

The point is, if you want to make the case for these particular teachings being of particular note, it's all well and good to start by denigrating intellectual thought and skepticism. But anyone can play that game and make those appeals, and they are pretty much the last thing from trustworthy.

[Sapo]

Apos, I agree with your point. It makes no sense arguing againt a position where the answer to every question is "because that is what I know is best for you". Only faith can stop you from hating that guy. Take a look at children's relationship with their parents. As early as 2 years old, they start questioning that line of wisdom.

My first paragraph, though, was only meant to point out that Jesus wasn't supposed to be famous for his smarts but only for his obedience. He came here to do a job, no matter what he thought of it.

[Polycarp]

Most of the pertinent points I'd want to make have been already made. But I have two:

1. It's a ... well, not a mistake, but an exercise in speculative deduction, to try to place Jesus in a specific metaphysical role based on his teachings alone. And from the way discussion is going here, what may or may not have been the conclusions of dogmatic theology over the years is not relevant to the question-as-asked. Jesus taught as a rabbi, in what is clearly figurative language, metaphor, parable, haggadah, halacha. What did he mean by "I and the Father are one"? Certainly not identity, when two chapters later he's praying to the Father as man to God. What does "...that you may be in me as I am in the Father" mean? That's either metaphorical, mystical, or completely bonkers.

2. The four canonical Gospels are slanted portraits. Each author is writing with an eye to portraying Jesus in the role in which he sees him. Mark sees him as a man, a wonder-worker to be sure, "Son of God" in the sense in which that phrase is used in the OT, an exceptional individual who exemplifies what being a righteous Yahwist is all about. For Matthew, he's the promised Messiah, and Matthew will stand on his head on a unicycle wearing a clown costume and juggling codfish to make sure he's given you every possible proof, no matter how far-fetched, of that assertion. For John, he's still intensely human, but also something numinous and transcendent, the Word, =the active principle of God, in human form. John's Jesus is given to making cryptic and arcane claims that seem to equate him to being in the godhead -- sorta kinda. Bottom line, though, is that the image of Jesus you work with is heavily colored by those four portraits and how much credence relatively you put into each.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Liberal

It's not about what's in your brain, but what's in your heart.

Why? "In your heart" usually refers to how compassionate or loving a person is. That has nothing to do with intelligence, which is what the OP is asking about. Intelligence, in the sense of the OP, is most definitely in your brain.

But since we have none of Jesus' own writings to compare to the likes of Plato or Aristotle, I don't see how one could even begin to compare him to those folks in any meaningful way.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by Sapo

Apos, I agree with your point. It makes no sense arguing againt a position where the answer to every question is "because that is what I know is best for you". Only faith can stop you from hating that guy. Take a look at children's relationship with their parents. As early as 2 years old, they start questioning that line of wisdom.

I understand what you are doing here: it is essentially emotional manipulation, appealing to the idea of disobedient children and then comparing me (or some hypothetical "you") to an unruly and disdainful child. However, as has been a constant theme for me here, your belief that this particular set of beliefs and ideas are correct is what is blinding you to the fact that the point you are making is, simple put, terrible. Anyone could play the same game. The fact that Jesus can make this point doesn't make the ideas he is trying to justify any more likely to be correct than any other. Anyone can portray their opponents thusly. But as a rhetorical move, doing so is hard to respect.

My first paragraph, though, was only meant to point out that Jesus wasn't supposed to be famous for his smarts but only for his obedience. He came here to do a job, no matter what he thought of it.

That's one interpretation... of virtually any possible interpretation.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by John Mace

But since we have none of Jesus' own writings to compare to the likes of Plato or Aristotle, I don't see how one could even begin to compare him to those folks in any meaningful way.

We don't have any particular reason to believe that Jesus left any writings at all. And given that the only way we know of his teachings are through the edited accounts of others, I would say that this allows his teachings their best case scenario, or at least having the best chance for an editor to clean them up and make them sound as good as possible. The "Jesus" we talk about is the Jesus of the Gospels: any other Jesus is obscure, so I think that, taking that into account, we can certainly compare this figure to other figures in terms of the quality of their insight and reasoning.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Apos

We don't have any particular reason to believe that Jesus left any writings at all. And given that the only way we know of his teachings are through the edited accounts of others, I would say that this allows his teachings their best case scenario, or at least having the best chance for an editor to clean them up and make them sound as good as possible. The "Jesus" we talk about is the Jesus of the Gospels: any other Jesus is obscure, so I think that, taking that into account, we can certainly compare this figure to other figures in terms of the quality of their insight and reasoning.

Except that we don't know that the writers of the Gospels were a) trying to present the intellectual side of Jesus' teachings or b) any good at doing that if they even wanted to. We also have only what seems to be Jesus speaking extemporaneously, whereas for the great Philosophers, we have their carefully laid out writings which, presumably, they edited themselves and refined over time.

Yes, we can compare Jesus' intellect with Plato's, but that doesn't mean we have a level playing field for doing so.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Except that we don't know that the writers of the Gospels were a) trying to present the intellectual side of Jesus' teachings or b) any good at doing that if they even wanted to. We also have only what seems to be Jesus speaking extemporaneously, whereas for the great Philosophers, we have their carefully laid out writings which, presumably, they edited themselves and refined over time.

But the point is that this IS Jesus. The origin of that Jesus is what you say: the gospel writers account of him. But there isn't any other "real" Jesus to compare anything to, and likely never will be. This is the Jesus whose sayings have rung throughout history, these are the ones that many many people claim are pretty much the only things anyone needs to read or know about, period, and so this is the Jesus we deal with and compare to other works. If his stuff doesn't measure up on some scale, there is nothing else to fall back on to make things "more fair" for him. We got what we got from the guy.

Yes, we can compare Jesus' intellect with Plato's, but that doesn't mean we have a level playing field for doing so.

Why not? The point of the comparisons is not some sort of refereed sporting match, but just who came up with the best ideas, moral insights, and so forth, period, in absolute terms. Maybe Jesus was handicapped by poor biographers (though I suspect that the Gospel writers had just as much time to think over and refine their ideas about what Jesus had said), but when we sit down to consider whether to read the Gospels or Theory of Moral sentiments, so what?

The Lindberg baby was severely handicapped by the fact that it was murdered before it had time to edit it's great works on philosophy. But that's just how the cookie crumbles. There are probably folks out there who wrote works of staggering genius and passionate insight into the human condition whom we will never hear of, because they died or had their works destroyed before they ever saw the light of day (something that some followers of Jesus, in fact did quite a lot once upon a time, believing that Jesus' teachings were the final word on everything, and all these witty "learned wise" people with their snooty insights were getting in the way of God's simple childlike truth).

[Sapo]

Originally Posted by Apos

I understand what you are doing here: it is essentially emotional manipulation, appealing to the idea of disobedient children and then comparing me (or some hypothetical "you") to an unruly and disdainful child. However, as has been a constant theme for me here, your belief that this particular set of beliefs and ideas are correct is what is blinding you to the fact that the point you are making is, simple put, terrible. Anyone could play the same game. The fact that Jesus can make this point doesn't make the ideas he is trying to justify any more likely to be correct than any other. Anyone can portray their opponents thusly. But as a rhetorical move, doing so is hard to respect.

As much as it appears you want me to, I am not trying to disagree with you here, at all. All I am saying is that even a two-year old is smart enough to rebel against a voice that tells him to do things he doesn't want to, because the voice claims that's what is best for him, in ways he doesn't understand. Such an argument simply breaks down any attempt at reasoning. That the voice (or parent) might be right or wrong is irrelevant. One wants to make that decision by oneself (I hate onespeak but I am just trying to avoid youing you)

The case of Jesus is particularly hard to defend as he is doing "God's Will" but at the same time he is God. The perfect way to cover all his bases and do whatever he wants.

In His defense, he was very consistent throughout his life (at least according to the story we got). You could say he didn't do what he preached but that he preached what he did. Quite a rare trait in this modern age.

[Liberal]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Why? "In your heart" usually refers to how compassionate or loving a person is. That has nothing to do with intelligence, which is what the OP is asking about. Intelligence, in the sense of the OP, is most definitely in your brain.

Yes, but my point is that the OP is poorly conceived. You might as well ask whether Jesus could have driven a race car faster than Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Or whether he was as good a painter as Picasso. Or a better chess player than Paul Morphy. How about a thread titled, "Was Einstein a better prophet than Jesus?" It's just ridiculous, even setting aside the sheer futility of determining the answer. A more apt thread might compare Aristotle to Plato, or Jesus to Mohammad. At least there would be some handle to hold onto.

[According to Pliny]

So only near comparisons are worthy to ask about?
Not in my experience. The OP is reasonable.

[Lord Ashtar]

Are we talking about book smarts or common sense? I've known a few people who can understand complicated calculus problems without breaking a sweat but make the worst decisions for their personal life I've ever seen. I've also known a few people who are very wise and yet they can't balance their checkbook or understand basic algebra.

[Liberal]

Originally Posted by According to Pliny

So only near comparisons are worthy to ask about?
Not in my experience. The OP is reasonable.

I don't know what you mean by a "near comparison". It's fine by me if you want to compare apples to retread tires. But asking which tastes better or which will get more mileage is just plain dumb.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Apos

But the point is that this IS Jesus. The origin of that Jesus is what you say: the gospel writers account of him. But there isn't any other "real" Jesus to compare anything to, and likely never will be. This is the Jesus whose sayings have rung throughout history, these are the ones that many many people claim are pretty much the only things anyone needs to read or know about, period, and so this is the Jesus we deal with and compare to other works. If his stuff doesn't measure up on some scale, there is nothing else to fall back on to make things "more fair" for him. We got what we got from the guy.

Why not? The point of the comparisons is not some sort of refereed sporting match, but just who came up with the best ideas, moral insights, and so forth, period, in absolute terms. Maybe Jesus was handicapped by poor biographers (though I suspect that the Gospel writers had just as much time to think over and refine their ideas about what Jesus had said), but when we sit down to consider whether to read the Gospels or Theory of Moral sentiments, so what?

The Lindberg baby was severely handicapped by the fact that it was murdered before it had time to edit it's great works on philosophy. But that's just how the cookie crumbles. There are probably folks out there who wrote works of staggering genius and passionate insight into the human condition whom we will never hear of, because they died or had their works destroyed before they ever saw the light of day (something that some followers of Jesus, in fact did quite a lot once upon a time, believing that Jesus' teachings were the final word on everything, and all these witty "learned wise" people with their snooty insights were getting in the way of God's simple childlike truth).

Well, the OP is a bit mushy, so you could be right. I was focusing on the "intelligence" part, in particular the note about Jesus' probable IQ. One can have a very high IQ and yet accomplish nothing. I'm sure there have been geniuses among the Yanomamo India tribe, but none of them discovered F=ma; not because they weren't intelligent, but because they weren't in the right environment. I will defer until we have further input from the OP as to what exactly he's getting at.

Liberal: OK, it seems that we are basically in agreement, although I still stand by my critique of your first post-- what you are saying now is quite different from what you said earlier.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Well, the OP is a bit mushy, so you could be right.

I guess I was focusing mostly on what I saw as the most interesting question, which was the "Is there any reason to think him smarter or more profound than most dopers?" thing, and particularly the profound part. I agree that the question of "what would Jesus score on his SATs" is sort of boring and pointless.

The question that seems interesting to me is whether there is really any compelling reason to treat the Gospel Jesus as especially insightful or interesting as a thinker above and beyond the way we treat most people. As I argued, I think that just by the very nature of the way human culture develops and builds on itself that virtually any person alive today, whether smarter or dumber than Jesus, could write a clearer, better guide to love life and happiness than the Gospels. That's just the nature of humanity, not a particular failing of the Gospel in particular. But it does run in hard contrast against the views that the Jesus of the Gospels demands some special attention in ways that other people before and afterwards do not.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by mack

We also have John The Baptist's say so that Jesus was the messiah, which counted for quite a bit back then, apparently. His divinity was recognized and validated by one of leading religious authorities of the day.

Just to point out that by Jewish tradition then, as well as now, a claim of messiah-hood is not a claim of divinity - in fact the Messiah was recognized as being purely human.

I'm not sure how you would call John a leading religious authority, except retroactively.

[According to Pliny]

Asking who is smarter is not dumb. It is smart. In fact, I think it's the main determinant when deciding whether to pay attention to someone's opinions. Present company excepted

[wolf in second hand clothing]

I never really understood why Thomas Jefferson had such a high opinion of the guy.

[Liberal]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Liberal: OK, it seems that we are basically in agreement, although I still stand by my critique of your first post-- what you are saying now is quite different from what you said earlier.

Well yeah, you too. That's because we moved on.

I stand by my original point as well as the ones that followed. Jesus' message was never intended just for smart people to the exclusion of dumb people. The sweetest person I've ever known was an old black man who had zero formal education but never uttered an unkind word about anyone, and was always the first in line to help with anything you'd need. And smart people like us are frankly mean as spit sometimes. That's true enough. Likewise, the comparison between Jesus and Plato is Neanderthal in its conception. Like a comparison between Moses and Einstein. That's true too.

And now I'll make a third observation; namely, that I hope Poly doesn't take this bait.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by Liberal

I stand by my original point as well as the ones that followed. Jesus' message was never intended just for smart people to the exclusion of dumb people. The sweetest person I've ever known was an old black man who had zero formal education but never uttered an unkind word about anyone, and was always the first in line to help with anything you'd need. And smart people like us are frankly mean as spit sometimes. That's true enough. Likewise, the comparison between Jesus and Plato is Neanderthal in its conception. Like a comparison between Moses and Einstein. That's true too.

You seem in an awful hurry to carefully and narrowly define and limit this thread by only those questions and points which are least interesting and most easily caricatured and dismissed, to the exclusion of all other issues.

[badchad]

Well, so far it seems all opposition has just rolled over conceding that there isn’t anything intellectually impressive left by Jesus. As for those who think I am comparing apples to oranges and that Jesus was just a moral luminary I respond in two ways. First, elsewhere in the bible man’s wisdom is called mere foolishness in comparison to god’s. As such one might think that if Jesus were really one in the same as god, then he might have dropped a few gems of wisdom that would be evidence of such. One might think that his biographers would have thought them gems of wisdom worth remembering. Second, and as Apos pointed out, Jesus didn’t say anything particularly great with regards to morality either. He parroted the golden rule from Leviticus IIRC, and his love god rule is what Jewish preachers have always said. Never mind that he didn’t seem too inclined to do anyone any favors unless they bowed before him, which seems quite selfish to me.

Originally Posted by Thudlow Boink

Some people have deemed Jesus's teachings (or at least some of them) to be pretty brilliant, but that's a YMMV matter of opinion. And certainly some of his parables and sayings have achieved classic status, though that leaves the question if they would still have done so if they had come from someone else.

Any examples that you think are brilliant that you would offer up for analysis?

Originally Posted by Thudlow Boink

One point in Jesus's favor is how, whenever he was challenged with a tricky question, he always had a clever answer. Of course you could object that the gospel writers left out the times he wasn't able to come up with a snappy answer. But they at least give the impression that Jesus won every battle of wits he was challenged to. And they never showed him being outsmarted, or lacking the brainpower to do anything he needed to do.

I would offer that Jesus’ responses often seemed more like excuses. He was sometimes clever but not more so than those typically offered by preachers, psychics and other charlatans to get them out of difficult spots. When asked to produce a sign. The gospels offer evidence Jesus would even resorted to dishonesty in a fix, as when asked for a sign he said none would be given to that generation, and yet the same gospels tell of him doing many signs and wonders. Are there any responses however that you think are beyond that of what dopers write daily. Any that in your opinion hold up to the clever retorts of say, Voltaire?

Originally Posted by Thudlow Boink

The problem with Jesus (and the same goes for Socrates) is that we don't have anything he wrote himself, just what other people reported him saying, so we can't say for sure how much came straight from him and how much was invented, selected, organized, or tidied up later.

I think the comparison with Socrates is good in that we don’t have the direct words of either. However, with Socrates most would agree that brilliance is certainly there, whether it was put forth by himself or his biographer Plato. With Jesus brilliance just doesn’t seem to be there at all, either by him or his biographers. It seems to me that one can latch onto his miracles as evidence of the divine (assuming you believe those miracles, which to me seems irrational) but with regards to anything he said he seemed quite ordinary. With his preaching of hellfire he/god come across as quite selfish and spiteful, so much so as to make Hitler look good.

Originally Posted by Polycarp

1. It's a ... well, not a mistake, but an exercise in speculative deduction, to try to place Jesus in a specific metaphysical role based on his teachings alone. And from the way discussion is going here, what may or may not have been the conclusions of dogmatic theology over the years is not relevant to the question-as-asked. Jesus taught as a rabbi, in what is clearly figurative language, metaphor, parable, haggadah, halacha. What did he mean by "I and the Father are one"? Certainly not identity, when two chapters later he's praying to the Father as man to God. What does "...that you may be in me as I am in the Father" mean? That's either metaphorical, mystical, or completely bonkers.

I’ll take that as a no, that in your opinion Jesus did not in fact say anything impartial observers would think of as brilliant.

Originally Posted by Polycarp

2. The four canonical Gospels are slanted portraits. Each author is writing with an eye to portraying Jesus in the role in which he sees him. Mark sees him as a man, a wonder-worker to be sure, "Son of God" in the sense in which that phrase is used in the OT, an exceptional individual who exemplifies what being a righteous Yahwist is all about. For Matthew, he's the promised Messiah, and Matthew will stand on his head on a unicycle wearing a clown costume and juggling codfish to make sure he's given you every possible proof, no matter how far-fetched, of that assertion. For John, he's still intensely human, but also something numinous and transcendent, the Word, =the active principle of God, in human form. John's Jesus is given to making cryptic and arcane claims that seem to equate him to being in the godhead -- sorta kinda. Bottom line, though, is that the image of Jesus you work with is heavily colored by those four portraits and how much credence relatively you put into each.

I’ll take that as meaning that even if there were evidence of some grand intelligence or wisdom attributed to Jesus, that because of shakyness of the source we couldn’t confidently attribute it to him in the first place. Very good Polycarp, I’ll buy that.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by badchad

Well, so far it seems all opposition has just rolled over conceding that there isn’t anything intellectually impressive left by Jesus.

And as others have noted, it's not like people go around saying Jesus was this incredibly intelligent being. If he's God, then he knows everything-- end of story. If not, then so what if he wasn't "intelligent"? I've never heard anyone try to insist that he was (outside the God = omniscient thing).

[badchad]

Originally Posted by John Mace

And as others have noted, it's not like people go around saying Jesus was this incredibly intelligent being. If he's God, then he knows everything-- end of story. If not, then so what if he wasn't "intelligent"? I've never heard anyone try to insist that he was (outside the God = omniscient thing).

I think the key points are that if Jesus is god and knows everything there is certainly no indication of such per his dialogues. Heck even his prophesies were wrong. As such the liberal Christians who doubt the miracle stories have little else reason to believe. As for if he weren’t god, a lot of people, including a lot of atheists, still hold him in some kind of reverence for him. I’m saying remove the divinity and miracles and all that remains is a ho-hum preacher who’s wisdom and morality were substandard at best.

[Liberal]

Originally Posted by badchad

I think the key points are that if Jesus is god and knows everything there is certainly no indication of such per his dialogues.

Yeah. I don't know why Jesus didn't teach astrophysics and calculus to the weak and hungry people on the Mount, rather than feeding them and lifting their spirits. I reckon the blind man would have appreciated a lesson in occular science, rather than a healing. A lecture on organic chemistry would have been more appropriate at the wedding feast than a bottle of wine. And rather than telling people they were forgiven, He should have given them their genome maps.

Brilliance is most beautiful when it is simple, and rightly applied.

[Stanislaus]

Out of curiosity, badchad, would you rather live in Plato's Republic or Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven?

[Czarcasm]

Originally Posted by amrussell

Out of curiosity, badchad, would you rather live in Plato's Republic or Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven?

Plato's Republic is what it is. Can you give me a thorough description of Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven that most other Christians will agree with?

[Stanislaus]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

Plato's Republic is what it is. Can you give me a thorough description of Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven that most other Christians will agree with?

I imagine people would be as solicitous of their neighbours' welfare as their own, be relatively uninterested in material possessions, put adherence to the letter of the law below actually doing good (something akin to the "Don't be a jerk" rule) and have a strong tendency to forgive wrongdoing. Those who made personal sacrifices to help others would be more highly regarded than those who amassed personal wealth. There'd be quite a lot of loving God too, of course.

(Also, I'm not sure that "most other Christians will agree with" is the right criterion, as opposed to "is consistent with the Gospels". For example, many people who think that Plato is the last word in human intellectual achievment don't realise he advocated an entrenched elite practising eugenics on an deliberately un-informed populace. Nevertheless, that is what he advocated, whether most, many, all or some people agree he did or not.)

Jesus was not, of course, trying to create a political entity in the city- or nation-state sense, so questions about e.g. tax policy, government hierarchies etc. aren't really germane to what you might term the "Jesus Project". I asked the question because (if we're going to have a deathmatch, and I would suggest that we don't) I thought it was the best grounds for comparison between the two men: how did they think people should live?

[Czarcasm]

Originally Posted by amrussell

(Also, I'm not sure that "most other Christians will agree with" is the right criterion, as opposed to "is consistent with the Gospels". For example, many people who think that Plato is the last word in human intellectual achievment don't realise he advocated an entrenched elite practising eugenics on an deliberately un-informed populace. Nevertheless, that is what he advocated, whether most, many, all or some people agree he did or not.)

Actually, the right criterion would be "what most Christians will agree is consistant with the Gospels."

[hereKittyKitty]

Most people are not philosophers. If you think of Jesus as divine and the Son of God, then according to the Bible he was a relational human being. He related to us on all sorts of levels (beside actually committing a sin according to the bible) Why would he want to go over our heads by vomiting out a bunch of philosophical ideas we wouldn't understand.

"Rather, Jesus sounds like just another preacher telling us to love god, sometimes claiming to be god, and sometimes claiming not to be. Sometimes saying to follow the OT law and sometimes saying you don’t have to, telling parables that sometimes make sense and sometimes don’t."

Jesus did claim to be the Son of God but he NEVER went back and contridicted that. (I'm at school and I usually don't carry a Bible around with me, otherwise i'd be copying down some verses )And It's your fault if you can't understand the parables. BUT I do agree with you on the confusion of the Old and New Testament and which one we are to follow. I think we need to use our brains and common sense, like in Leviticus it says women are to never cut their hair and men can never shave their beards. that might have been appropriate more than 2,000 years ago but we live in a completely different time now.

"He saved a woman from being stoned but seems to have condemned most of humanity to hellfire. I really don’t see anything that would lead me to think it likely he had godly intelligence. "

Also, who are any of us to say what godly intelligence is? If he was divine and the son of God I think he would know what he was talking about. Would we actually know it if it hit us right in the face?
Also in my opinion, he does not CONDEMN people to hell. It is a choice for people here on earth where to go when they die (whether they know it or not) He does not send people there.

I wish i had the time to read all these replies.

[Apos]

Also, who are any of us to say what godly intelligence is?

This pretty much sums up your post and exactly what I was talking about. Yes, of course, it's possible to argue that godly intelligence and compassion and so forth are whatever you want them to be. The problem is that I could make the same argument for, say, Hannibal Lecter. It's a completely self-sealing argument: you simply decide right off the bat that whatever he did or said was the best way to say or do it, and since God is so mysterious and all, how can we possibly argue otherwise?

Seems pretty empty as an argument.

Hence, the arguments I made, which were then, of course, largely ignored.

[Stanislaus]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

Actually, the right criterion would be "what most Christians will agree is consistant with the Gospels."

Or maybe just "most people who have read the Gospels agree etc."? I'm an atheist, for example, but I don't think that prevents me judging whether a given set of statements are consistent with an other given set.

In any case, neither you nor I are about to survey the world's Christians (I'm a little rushed just now, otherwise I'd jump at the opportunity, obviously) so why not go with people's own interpretation? If you accept that it's a sensible way of comparing Jesus and Plato (and I'll admit I'm not sure such a thing is possible), there's no reason we can't say: "Based on your own interpretation of the relevant sources, would you rather live in the world as Plato thought it should be, or the world as Jesus thought it should be?" I think that's at least better than: "Plato was better with metaphors", or "Jesus had the edge in crowd psychology" or various other otiose comparisons.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by badchad

I think the key points are that if Jesus is god and knows everything there is certainly no indication of such per his dialogues. Heck even his prophesies were wrong.

Which ones were "wrong". Jesus spoke in parables, so pretty much everything he said is open to interpretation.

As such the liberal Christians who doubt the miracle stories have little else reason to believe. As for if he weren’t god, a lot of people, including a lot of atheists, still hold him in some kind of reverence for him. I’m saying remove the divinity and miracles and all that remains is a ho-hum preacher who’s wisdom and morality were substandard at best.

And yet this "ho-hum" teacher inspired the creation of the largest religion in the world today, against quite a few odds, too. Yoiu seem to be arguing that Jesus' teachings shouldn't have inspired a Great Religion-- and yet they did. So you must be making an incorrect assumption somewhere.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by amrussell

If you accept that it's a sensible way of comparing Jesus and Plato (and I'll admit I'm not sure such a thing is possible), there's no reason we can't say: "Based on your own interpretation of the relevant sources, would you rather live in the world as Plato thought it should be, or the world as Jesus thought it should be?" I think that's at least better than: "Plato was better with metaphors", or "Jesus had the edge in crowd psychology" or various other otiose comparisons.

Seems like a giant waste of time and avoidance of the subject to me. I'd rather live in Chuckee Cheeses magical Cheese land rather than Deathklok's Mordland, but what the holy heck does that have to do with anything?

[Liberal]

Originally Posted by Apos

Seems like a giant waste of time and avoidance of the subject to me. I'd rather live in Chuckee Cheeses magical Cheese land rather than Deathklok's Mordland, but what the holy heck does that have to do with anything?

Absolutely nothing. So why did you waste electrons posting it? The OP is comparing Jesus and Plato. Amrussell is suggesting that if we're going to compare them, we compare something we actually can examine and that is pertinent to both.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by Liberal

Absolutely nothing. So why did you waste electrons posting it? The OP is comparing Jesus and Plato. Amrussell is suggesting that if we're going to compare them, we compare something we actually can examine and that is pertinent to both.

She or he cherry picked something that is not very telling or very interesting and ignored all the rest. Just like you in insisting that the focus be purely on whether or not Jesus informed people about sperm and ova. I wasted electrons to point that sort of rhetorical perfidy out.