He was also referred to, in his Messianic role, as “son of David” – with equal license. One normally reads “son of” as “heir of” or “agent plenipotentiary for”
As for your first two sentences, I think to be totally fair we need to inject a “probably” there. Mark, almost certainly the author of his book, is traditionally held to have known Him while a young boy. Re: the Gospels of Matthew and John, you know as well as I the snitty debates that have gone on there.
And the Catholic perspective that doctrines implicit in what is originally taught are drawn out as argumentation and necessity call for them, may well be applicable here. Whatever objectively happened in Judea in the spring of 33 AD (or whatever the right date is) were events that caused a new, strong, life-altering belief in a whole group of people. That does not in and of itself prove that the beliefs were accurate, but it is evidence for something highly extraordinary having occurred in their lives. I think the “Jesus is Lord” mantra of the first Christians implied some Christological and Trinitarian thought, the implications of which they were only forced to think through as people took “wrong” (i.e., contrarian) views. Remember that “Kyrie” was a standard title of respect outside Judaism, but that Jews would apply it only to YHWH. For a Jew to proclaim “Jesus is Lord” is not merely a title of honor, but an ascription of respect and commitment to Him that effectively awards Him a title due only to God.
That of course does not mean that they thought through to Athanasian doctrine, rejecting Docetism, Sabellianism, Nestorianism, and Fictionalism along the way. It means merely that they held a view about Jesus, without thinking through the implications of it, that would eventually result in Trinitarian doctrine when somebody did think it through.
Getting back to the OP, Jesus never taught that He was God. In fact He corrected a questioner who called Him a good man, with “I am not good, only God is good.”
He stated He was the Son of Man throughout His life as we know it.
He became famous because of His teachings, the path to enlightenment and peace, and His miracles. Healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water, etc.
Not true. What he said was “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one–God” (Mark 10:18). This was a rhetorical device. Nowhere did Jesus deny his own goodness; rather, he was urging the fellow who praised Him to explore the significance and ultimate implications of his own wording.
Or maybe you need to consider the implications of that rhetorical device. No man is intrinsically good, except as the grace of God enables him to participate in His righeousness – that’s a fundamental of Christianity shared by nearly every faith communion. Even those which focus most heavily on the imago Dei concept are quite ready to admit it is damaged by sin.
“No one is good save God alone.” Any goodness that we have is from participation in His goodness. (Note to non-Christians: No, that’s not playing the Christians vs. others game with some smug assertion of only Christians being good. It’s saying that, on the presumption that the Christian God is the sole creator and ruler of the universe, your sense of ethics, your impulses to altruism, etc., are all derived ultimately from Him, even if you choose not to acknowledge Him as Head Honcho.)
You and I, as orthodox Trinitarian Christians, would say that goodness comes from participation in God, and that Jesus, being Himself truly God and truly man, participates fully in the Father and is competely good.
However, the passage in question does not directly infer that, but rather ascribes goodness to God alone. Jesus is saying, “Any goodness that you or I have, friend, is solely from Him, for He alone is good.”
I think it’s important to note that in Mark, and to a lesser extent in Luke and the other two Gospels, He makes a sincere effort to distance Himself from efforts to put Him on a pedestal. It might be worth thinking through why that might be.
Actually, I like JThunder’s interpretation. There is no reason for Jesus to deny that He is good. After all, He challenged people to find any sin in Him. “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?” — John 8:46
To say that Jesus did not believe in his own teachings would be preposterous at best, insulting at worst, considering you never met the guy nor have viable information that he was really a spiteful, mean dude who drowned puppies in his spare time. You know what they call negative statements against another person that are paraded as true without factual support? Yeah. They call it slander… or libel in your case.
As for the godhead thing… there’s always been some dispute over the nature of Jesus’ divinity, even whether it existed at all. Was Jesus a separate figure from God (Arianism)? Was Jesus purely divine in nature (Monophysitism)? Was he purely human in nature (Nestorians)? Was he both divine and human (“orthodox”)? Does the Holy Spirit proceed from both the Father and the Son (the filioque controversy that, in part, split Eastern and Western orthodoxy)? You name it and Christians have wrangled over it.
In the spiritual realms, God is the whole, and we are parts of the whole attemping to learn about the whole. Jesus was far advanced in His knowledge of the Whole, and able to do things we have not learned yet. His teachings were to help us on the way to learning about the whole.
He said many things to show us the path.
Paraphrasing:
He said “I and the Father are One.” Each of us could say the same.
He said “Why do you marvel, you can do as I do and even more.”
He said “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” Each of us could say the same.
He said nothing to indicate He was God incarnate. That, of course, would be impossible.
What I say here is not Bible doctrine, but experience.
Sigh Look, even if we accept your interpretation of Mark 10:18 – and I think it’s a decidedly strained interpretation – that’s still irrelevant to the topic at hand. lekatt’s claim is that Jesus said, “I am not good,” but that is not at all what Mark 10:18 says. Nowhere did Jesus say “I am not good.”
Just a point to make here. It is an open question as to whether Jesus was the greatest performing artist ever, or if instead the authors of what is now called the New Testament were the greatest propagandists ever? Jesus could have been a rather poor performing artist. So poor, in fact, he managed to piss off the wrong people and get himself killed rather early on. Those who knew him and continued on afterward may have been the greatest spin doctors of all time.
Contrary to the thesis advanced by the OP, there are a lot of people who subscribe to the concept that Jesus was and is pretty much whom He is portrayed to be. For a fair chunk of them, that does not conflict with the well-supported theory that the documents themselves date from 20-70 years after His death.
However, what you have to say here has some point to it. In virtually his only excursion into matters theological, the estimable Cecil Adams pointed out that Paul was the ideal marketer for Christianity – he had all the skills and personal privilege to bring the Christian message across to nearly everyone in the oikumené, and the insight as to how to go about doing that. (My Internet connection is running so slow today that I will not search for the appropriate column; if someone else would be so kind as to link, I’d be grateful.)
I don’t have a copy of the Mahabharata or Bhagavad Gita at the moment but IIRC- Krishna gives Thritarashtra sight long enough to reveal his true nature as an avatar to the man. During the long chat with Arjuna, Krishna also reveals his divine nature.
Both Rama and Krishna are explicitly identified as avatars of Vishnu by the Ramayana and the Bhagavad-Gita respectively. Unlike Jesus, however, neither of them was actually a real person.
First, as will be obvious from below, I am not a Christian.
On the assumption that Jesus was a mere human being, then that means that the early church writers intentionally added in some “exaggerations” to the truth. Most notably, the miracles of Jesus, him rising from the dead, etc. However, it just doesn’t make sense the early church writers totally made up the Jesus character. It seems most plausible that there was a Jesus, and that he was a charismatic religious leader. Jesus must have been playing the role that would be expected of a Messiah. And, he had a message that appealed. All humans, no matter how badly they had sinned, could live forever in paradise simply by changing their ways, and living a virtuous life. This is a message listeneners would want to believe, and thus Jesus in life accumulated a number of followers.
However, Jesus ended up pissing off the Jewish leaders at the time by challenging their authority. Thus I’ll assume that the account in the Bible that they conspired to have Jesus killed is true. They just managed to somehow convince the Romans to accomodate them. Unless the early church writers seriously twisted what Jesus had said, there was nothing Jesus did that would have angered the Romans. To the Romans, all Jews were just pagans. The Romans had little interest in the local beliefs of the people the conquered, so long as the religious leaders didn’t advocate overthrowing the Romans. The Romans most definitely didn’t evangelize their gods to those they conquered. In fact, the attributed their success to worshipping the right gods, unlike those who they conquered.
I’ll assume then the apostles after the death of Jesus tossed in the stuff about the miracles, etc. so as to better market the message of Jesus. They also cleverly made Jesus the savior of all mankind, rather than just the Jews. Wise strategy. Christianity never did catch on amongst the Jews. It was elsewhere in the Roman empire that Christianity caught on big. Eventually becoming the state religion of Rome. Ironically, leading to the downfall of the empire.
To Jews the role of the messiah is a king who will unite us to defeat our enemies and claim a whole lot of land. If Jesus was indeed playing that role, the Romans had good reason to see him as the leader of rebellion.
The role of the Messiah was that of a human king who would liberate Israel and restore the unified kingdom. Jesus made no attempt to fit that mold. The Christian definition of the Messiah is different than the Jewish one.
That wasn’t reeally Jesus’ message. What was appealing was his reinterpretation of Jewish law whicgh focused on compassion and the spirit of the law rather than strict legalism and things like ritual purity. He was also inclusive and took his ministry to people who were basically on the fringes of society.
Cite? The Bible doesn’t say that. At no time do any of the Godspels say that Jesus attempted to abrogatew Jewish authority. The closest he may have come was his tantrum at the temple.
That would be an erroneous assumption. Jesus had done nothing wrong under Jewish law. The blame placed on the Sanhedrin in the synoptics is an apologetic interpolation of events designed to take the exculpate Pilate.
Nope. The Romans didn’t care a damn about internal Jewish religious problems and would not have crucified sanyone for defying Jewish authority. If the crucified Jesus, they did it because they percieved him as a threat to themselves not to Jewish priests. Causing a ruckus at the temple at Passover was probably enough to get him crucified as a way to prevent or a possible uprising.
Unless the early church writers seriously twisted what Jesus had said,
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They did. Jesus probably only said about a quarter of what is atributed to him in the Gospels.
The Romans were paranoid about riots during Passover. They didn’t care much what Jesus said but if they thought he could cause an uprising that would be enough to get him nailed up. The ostensible Roman charge in the Gospels is that Jesus claimed to be the “King of the Jews” which was a direct challenge to Jewish authority.
It wasn’t so much the apostles as the Pauline cult and its gentile converts. We don’t know what the apostles thought since they never wrote anything.
Performance artist? Jeez, I dunno. I would say that doing stuff like walking on water, curing lepers just by touching them, and rising from the dead would qualify Jesus as perhaps the greatest magician in all of human history. Even if these acts were faked, the impact is undeniable, so you’re talking about a performance without rival.
The trouble is, how many of these stories about miracles are reliable? Maybe the evangelists just got bad info, or made it all up. In that case, Jesus doesn’t seem to me to be very entertaining.
Respectfully, I disagree. He made quite plain that all authority, including the authority to judge morality and the authority to forgive sin, were His, given to Him by His Father to do with as He pleased.
