Yes, you did indeed mean Tertullian, and of course it is not in the Bible. Tertullian was the first to come up with the catchy phrase, but the Gospel of John is what he based it on, and that was earlier.
I liked Voyager’s answer better, so much so that I’m going to repeat it here:
This seems chillingly accurate to me.
Roddy
Let me take a whack at this.
In most Christian cosmologies, it was His son, not Himself.
He was murdered.
And all subsequent ones.
I like the cut of your jib, scamartistry; you remind me of that wonderful line in Portnoy’s Complaint about goys having “beliefs that would embarrass a gorilla.” Nevertheless, your question is on the level of one of those “Who’d win in a fight between Jesus and Superman?” discussions.
Christ’s importance wasn’t that He had demigod superpowers or could walk on water and change it into wine, steal your girlfriend and make you look like a punk. He was a radical teacher who intended His example to be followed. Up until His time, one could reasonably think one had found God’s favor by mumbling the right incantations and performing the requisite sacrifices. You want to treat others badly? Cheat your brother out of his birthright for a mess of pottage? Bond one son into slavery to another because he saw you naked? Send your subordinate into battle and then fuck his wife when nobody’s looking? Go ahead, you’re special and chosen and they aren’t.
Jesus introduced this unknown concept: You cannot treat your fellow man badly and still think you have God’s favor. You have to treat them well, even if they’re not of your tribe or religion. Be good to each other and spread the word. (The stuff about miracles, the virgin birth and the Holy Trinity was added later, sometimes a LOT later.)
You want to get incredulous about the Bad Sci-Fi aspects of the Bible? I can’t stop you, but I think you’re missing its true significance.
Is that anything like “The Last Temptation of Christ”?
Why? Don’t plenty of people get baptized every year? They get dunked in water and then don’t walk on it or turn it to wine or whatever, but only ever get observed doing utterly mundane stuff while making the occasional comment about lilies of the field or a prodigal son or whatever; nothing miraculous about that, as far as I can see.
The Psalmist in Psalm 82 KJV says,“I say you are gods and sons of the most high”. It sounds to me the the word ‘god’ in those day’s meant something different than it does now or in later centuries.
Acording to John 10 verse 34 Jesus quotes the Psalmist,“Isn’t it not written in your law “I said you are gods’? He used this when accused of Blasphmey for calling God His father. So I do not see that he considered himself to be any different than any other human and said many times ,'My father and Yours,” meaning all humans were sons of god, and he was no different! He taught his followers to say"Our Father”.
Are you gobsmacked also? How about befuddled? And perhaps having a touch of the vapors?
Hey, Odin sacrificed himself to himself as well. Gods are always doing weird stuff like that. It’s par for the course.
Sorry, this is exactly wrong. It is almost the most wrong thing ever uttered. Frankly, if Jesus was simply another teacher, then who gives a shit? You might like the message or not, but it’s totally irrelevant. Mankind has never lacked for good advice, and he wouldn’t be any more interesting or relevant than any other. No, what sets him apart is that he wasn’t Greco-Roman or precisely Jewish. He was God Incarnate. The miracles* may, ultimately, be only a symbol of his power and being, but they are what makes him a prophet and not a philosopher.
Jesus brought a moral revolution which was also a restoration. People who only do the former create nightmares. People who only do the latter are universally obnoxious and hidebound. But he did both at once, something I’ve never seen outside of the Christian tradition (and rarely inside it, but c’est la vie).
*I initially wrote moracles. I like that. Moral-cles.
Who are the same being.
By His own plan.
So before Jesus there were no Ten Commandments?
Are they doing it because they need a bath? They’re supposed to be having the sin that they magically inherited washed away magically. I understand that it can be purely symbolic though. I was just referring to the significance of John the Baptist in the Jefferson account. This is no big deal. I think Jefferson must have, like many people, had beliefs that changed over time. For an 18th century man, he was remarkably enlightened. In that time, to discard the notion of miracles in general must have been a remarkable thing. Of course there might have been just as many ‘silent atheists’ as there are now (proportionally that is).
No. That book presumed a Christian definition and identity for Jesus, an focused mainly on his struggle to accept his identity and go through with it. My Jesus only wonders if he’s the Jewish Messiah, which has a different set of criteria. He won’t wonder if he’s God, and he won’t think he’s supposed to die.
Jesus wasn’t the first or the last religious teacher who people people thought was a god, or thought did miracles. People believed both of those things about the Roman Emperors at the time. Obviously, Jesus didn’t actually do any miracles, so you can’t use them as evidence for his "importance’ (unless you can actually prove he did miracles, which you can’t).
What moral revolution are you referring to? What “restoration?” What changed morally among human beings after Jesus? He taught nothing new, after all. The Golden Rule pre-existed Jesus not only in Judaism (Leviticus, Rabbi Hillel), but is also found in Greek philosphy, Buddhism, Chinese philosphy and elsewhere. Confucius taught a very similar ethos regarding the importance of compassion over written rules. Socrates and Buddha both said to return good for evil. What did Jesus say that was new, and how did it change anybody?
Christianity became popular in its first couple of centuries not because of its ethical teachings (which few have ever really followed), but because of the promise that Jesus would return and reverse the social order. That was the promise that resonated with the poor, with the slaves, with the peasantry, et al, that an oppressive social and economic system would be reversed, that the “firts would be last, and the last would be first,” that the “rich” would get what was coming to them andthe poor were going to party like it was 1999.
What ever actually changed about people ethically, though?
The texts you’re citing throw a bucket of cold water on the Trinity Doctrine (to whit, anyone reading the Gospels unencumbered with a prior belief in the Trinity will drown in cold water) but do not say what you’re claiming.
In other words, when Jesus says [essentially] says, “look, the use of the word “god” is not restricted to describing the Supreme God Jehovah. In fact, in some contexts even men are described as god”, he’s not also saying “and I’m just like you.”
The bible uses god to describe inanimate objects, men, a belly and other things as “gods.” In every instance where “Jehovah” (YHWH) is concerned, a distinction is made.
It’s quite possible that the Jews talking to him are making the exact same mistake you’re making (and that millions who see him as Capital G God are making). Maybe Jesus is just who he claims to be: not God, but God’s son, born of God through Mary without the benefit a human male donor.
And so sure, Jesus is apparently disavowing that he’s God, something that would be consistent with every word ever attributed to him. But he is definitely not saying “I’m not an extraordinary human being, sent directly by God to redeem mankind from Adamic sin and to whip the House of Israel into shape.”
It isn’t obvious to me that Jesus didn’t perform miracles. What is obvious to me is that while I can’t prove he did, you can’t prove he didn’t.
It’s also obvious to me that your burden is no less in proving the texts that say he did perform miracles are untrue, and that the methods you might use to do so are either a form of witnessing, or a misuse of science, or both.
Isn’t that true?
In other words, I’m comfortable with my faith. Can you say the same?
Do you actually believe that the possibility that laws of nature are broken via “miracles” is 50%? That a person who claims that he saw ghosts is on an equal footing with someone who says it didn’t happen? What you seem to be comfortable with is a massive case of false equivalency-“I can believe anything if you can’t prove to me that it isn’t true.”
That isn’t how logic works. You need to support your claim of supernatural fiddle-faddle, not have everyone else support that it didn’t happen.
The texts Jesus is mentioned in are full of things that are not true. Why do you assume specifically that the supernatural elements are true when much of the rest of it isn’t?
Atheism isn’t a faith. You really ought to commit that to memory if you’re gonna debate religious stuff.
Do you honestly think these burdens are equal? That all claims that physical laws have been violated automatically have a 50% chance of being true, and that disbelievers have a burden to disprove them?
First I would say that miracles are, by definition, physically impossible (i.e they violate the laws of physics), and that impossible claims can safely be assumed to be impossible until proven otherwise.
Secondly, I would say that the Bible can be demonstrated not to be a reliable record of history, that some of the claims in the Gospels can be proven to be ahistorical, and that if the source is impeachable as literal history (which the gospels assuredly are, though I don’t believe they ever intended to represent themselves as journalistic history), then the supernatural claims within them have even less credibility.
Ah, witnessing ensues!
Can I get a witness?
If the Super-Duper High Octane God exists I would suggest the scientific sampling is small enough (read: one) that its going to defy your attempt at laying odds.
Further, the case for a “ghost” (among presumably any number of ghosts…) isn’t the argument. The argument is: Is there a singular personage in the universe who’s responsible for all this?
There is no responsible non-witnessing way to quantify the odds.