…from parties on both sides, eager to demonstrate their superiority and the undeniable correctness of their position.
And it begins…
We are in GD, yes…?
God so loved the world that instead of torturing* humans like they deserve he’s going to instead torture himself, or his son the perfect lamb. If you believe this you go to heaven. If you think that’s nuts, I have bad news for you.
Of course, it’s not God’s choice. It’s our own free will to make decisions here on earth. God can’t make the decision for us. But wait. Who made this torture system and all the rules of who goes where in the first place? Why are we even here? Just like God told us not to eat of the tree of knowledge and we did and then he had to throw us out. He didn’t “have” to do anything. He’s not fighting other gods or under the burden of some cosmic system. He’s God almighty, supreme ruler of the universe. We’re ants; he has the magnifying lens.
God had to sacrifice his only son (who was himself) to change a rule that he himself made up in the first place. And God’s morality is a bit different than ours. Usually most people don’t punish sons for the crimes of their father, or at least, not the great-great-great-x1000-grandson. Not God though. He really holds onto grudges.
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- If you don’t like the word torture then replace it with “thrown into a pit and separated from god, forever, which sucks”
But why didn’t he just, you know, give us eternal life?
We have to beg first. Don’t you play that with your dog?
I can almost see sacrifices as a test of giving up the best for god. What I never got was sacrificing himself, or being forced to do so.
I have a question for you. Is there any research on whether the Jesus as God’s son idea came from the already common deification of Roman emperors and the belief that people such as Alexander were descended from gods? The idea of Jesus as God’s son makes no sense at all from the standpoint of Jewish tradition, but is hardly shocking from that of Greek and Roman tradition.
The title, “Son of God” is an honorific in the Hebrew Bible used to refer to kings of Israel (namely kings in the Davidic line). and so the use of that title to refer to the Messiah is Jewish and predates Christianity. It just wasn’t intended literally. That literalization of Jesus as a demi-god almost certainly does come from Greco-Roman influence and from how gentile would understand that title. It was, as you say, normal for them to take that designation literally with Roman Emperors, and Christianity is essentially a Gentile religion which calved off from the original Jewish Jesus movement after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70.
…So that don’t misunderstand you…
How do you think Jesus thought of himself vis a vis other men…?
How do you think his followers thought of Jesus vis a vis themselves; i.e. other men…?
My honest answer - I don’t know. We don’t gave any direct testimony from either Jesus or his direct followers, so all we can do is speculate. I have changed my opinion on this several times. Currently I think his followers probably thought he was the Jewish Messiah, but not God. I have never been able to make up my mind about whether Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah (and I’m intrigued by Bart Ehrman’s theory that Jesus really only saw himself as a harbinger of the “Son ofMan,” ala John the baptist), but I am virtually certain he did not think himself God, and that the very suggestion probably would have offended him to his core.
I’m currenty attempting to write a novel about Jesus which postulates a naturalistic course of events and is told from Thomas the Doubter’s point of view, but after years of research and trying to get a handle on the Historical Jesus, I have concluded that my novel will necessarily have to be speculative to a tremendous degree. My Jesus will struggle with the question of his Messiaship himself.
ETA I do think his followers very probably did see him as the Messiah after his crucifixion and their visionary experiences of him, but that the original movement of the “Pillars” in Jerusalem still did not see him as literally God. I think that developed among the Gentiles after 70.
Interesting. I know we are of like mind on the issue of hell. I seem to remember we tend to agree on Jesus as one part of a Trinitarian God-head.
Is that so?
Not the latter. I am not a believer.
eta
That there is no biblical basis for the Trinity.
Look, it’s not possible to believe quantum physics and that damn cat thing with a straight face either. Christians believe it with a straight face, some take it as a factual account, some as revelation, some as metaphor, some as a combination of the above.
God works in mysterious ways and we can’t know what he thinks (except for the parts of the Bible that support our views).
For what it’s worth, didn’t Thomas Jefferson satisfy himself with a version of the New Testament that simply left out the miracles? So it’s pretty much the story of a carpenter who gets baptized in the Jordan River and starts preaching a familiar message – remain anonymous when making charitable donations, forgive others their trespasses as you’d wish to be forgiven, and so on – before getting crucified by Roman soldiers; he eventually slumps over as if drugged upon drinking what smells like sour wine, at which point he simply bleeds when poked with a spear to see whether he’s faking, at which point he’s taken down and of course doesn’t actually come back from the dead.
Dio, your book wouldn’t be much more speculative (maybe less) than the original.
TOWP, wouldn’t baptism fit into the miracle category? And I’m not surprised that story never caught on. It’s basically ‘Nice guy nailed to cross, dies’.
Anyway, IMHO, the fundamentalist make a lot of noise, but I don’t think they represent the majority of people who self identify as Christians.
Oh. Ok, yes. I have said that. The Trinity comes from Augustine.
No, it does not come from Augustine. http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/beliefs/trinity.htm It predates Augustine, although he did further expound some theology behind it.
Did I say Augustine? I meant Tertullian. :o
In any case, the point is that it’s not in the Bible.