But Jesus is God. Not God’s representative, but actually God himself. Which means he is always in heaven. In fact, he should be everywhere at all times. No?
Eh, that’s stepping into the whole non-transitive Trinity thing (the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit). The Holy Spirit is often attributed to be everywhere, not so much the Father or the Son.
It got him clean. Can you imagine the stench of a carpenter in the middle of the desert with no AC? No one is following that. Phew.
Seriously, I always thought he did it because he never claimed to be special. For him it was always ‘we are all God’s children’ and if you respect your father, then you honor him no matter how special he considers you. He wants his children baptized so you get baptized.
He did say anything I can do you can do and more or something like it. He showed the respect that the bible required of him.
I don’t think that part of Acts you quote makes any difference, here. Jesus could equally have been dead for weeks before his return, and the lack of corruption of the body be a miracle rather than a factor of brevity of death. I think three days would be enough to start some decay, anyway. If we’re talking in terms of God (which it looks like we are) being the judge, then it’d be immediate.
A finite number times infinity is infinity. But that holds for Jesus’ suffering as well as his death time. If it’s Jesus’ crucifixion that’s the “bad part”, as soon as a nail had touched his skin or the thorns his head and caused pain, he would’ve “paid” for those sins.
That doesn’t help. All that does is make it Jesus-as-god- instead of Jesus-as-God, and that doesn’t solve this particular problem; Jesus needs to be separated from any kind of godly power and authority for this to work, not any kind of personal relationship.
But I pointed out that there are several different points, some being revealed here, that could easily prompt Jesus’ statement. There’s no particular reason to pick one out of the set. And, even if there were, that still doesn’t eliminate the problem; Jesus could simply find the man worth remembering because of his words. As well, Luke being at odds with Mark is interesting but he’s also at odds with himself. He doesn’t describe his own description correctly, and that suggests we should be careful with the other things he says, too. If he’s capable of describing a plea for help as hurling insults in consecutive sentences, I’d be very wary of drawing any certain conclusions from what he writes about this scene.
And, as an aside point, I find it hard to imagine what kind of crime would have crucifixion as a “just” punishment.
Personally I’m not entirely convinced by the theory that Jesus endured punishment for others’ sins on the cross (in technical terms, called penal substitutionary atonement) – I’d like to do some more reading in this area first. Like I’ve said, there have been other ways of understanding Jesus’ death in Christian history, and there is no one Christian view on this. So what you point out could be an inconsistency with this way of understanding Jesus’ death.
On the other hand, I’m sure the view’s defenders could offer counter-arguments. A couple points that come to mind are, first, given that time is an aspect of our physical universe and not (necessarily) a property of any separate spiritual realm, any elapsed time when Jesus is dead would not (necessarily) affect Jesus’s own experience, but would only be relevant to our own world, i.e. the impact of Jesus being dead on the perceptions and experiences of people in this world. In this vein, someone could argue that God could have let Jesus remain dead long enough so that it was clear he was indeed dead (not just near death but managed to survive).
In traditional Christian theology, Jesus’ Incarnation already involves him giving up godly power and authority, temporarily. But why would godly power and authority be the key issue? (I am reminded of C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, where people living in hell can manifest houses or anything else they need just by their thoughts, but have separated themselves from God and have poor relationships with their neighbours).
I assume you mean Luke 23:39:
One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” (NRSV)
There is an “and” there, so the “deriding” or “hurling insults” is not solely or even necessarily partially comprised of the phrases given. Fortunately for you I know some ancient Greek, so let me point out that the word used can mean to slander, revile, or defame (so doesn’t necessarily imply direct insults like, “You’re a loser!,” as the translation “hurling insults” suggests). I take the phrases in the second half of the verse in a mocking sense, i.e. the criminal does not really believe Jesus is the Messiah, he’s just ridiculing the idea that he could be the Messiah.
Well, I can’t hold you to explain something that you don’t personally believe in. Hopefully someone who does feel that way is interested with providing how they work it out.
I’m usually wary of answers that involve not associating Godly matters with physical matters. They tend to cause more problems than they solve, in my experience.
Because it’s that that the “infinite” part to this whole thing comes from. If Jesus is Godly (or godly), then his death can be an infinite “payment”. If he’s a man, or he’s had that godliness temporarily stripped from him, then it can’t.
Sorry, I should have quoted the verse. And yep, to add to that, the King James Version makes it “railed on him” and the NKJV upgrades that to “blasphemed”, so there’s a lot of different interpretations available here. We can certainly suggest that the “insults” refer to words not recorded here, but that’s a slippery slope; we could use that inference for a lot of what’s said in the Bible and call them into question.
Regardless, I can’t see it working that way. The guy is being crucified, after all. Perhaps it’s just my cowardliness talking, but I imagine if I were being crucified, desperately begging for help would be uppermost in my mind, not ridiculing another.
The Bible is very symbolic It is not known if the baptism took place assuming that it did, John was preaching about the coming of the Messiah, the arrival of Jesus was the fulfilment of Johns preaching. I believe that the baptism symbolised the handing over of Johns ministry to Jesus and in time the disciples received the Holy Spirit symbolising Jesus handing his ministry over to them. We now have the ordination of priests charging them to continue the ministry.
Does that mean that, since that handing over, Jesus doesn’t from that point on have any authority over that ministry?
Jesus is not a relative. He is specifically cited as an authority figure. And this authority figure is being asked to remember him, and specifically mentions “in his kingdom.” Yes, the guy is saying “Jesus, remember me, even though it will do me absolutely no good and won’t serve any purpose.”
Your interpretation is that Jesus was also being random when he responded back, saying something completely unrelated to the request. That makes no sense. Obviously Jesus was answering the guy, which means his answer tells you about what the guy was actually asking.
You are trying to argue that nonsense is the better interpretation. That’ just absolutely ridiculous.
And, yes, his repentance has relevance as well. Does that in any way change anything I said? He repented and then showed belief. Those are the salvation requirements as given in the Bible. Those specific elements were highlighted, so we know they are relevant to the response. Why else would the author point it out? It’s not as if the Gospel writers give indiscriminate detail–they always have an underlying message.
Your interpretation just falls flat. It does not make a cohesive whole. It’s a bunch of nitpicks that don’t connect with each other and work only to try and remove any meaning. That’s probably why that interpretation did not catch on with nearly 2000 years of study.
I suspect that the Bible mentions that John baptised Jesus because that actually happened, and contemporaries knew that.
As to why John was baptizing, or why Jesus would ask him to…
Judaism has a tradition of ritual cleaning. Orthodox Jews still dunk themselves in a mikveh (ritual bath) from time to time to clean themselves, not exactly of sin, but of ritual impurities. So a man who has a wet dream, or a woman who has her period, or anyone who has been in contact with a dead body will not only bathe in a practical way, but also dunk themselves (full immersion) in the mikveh.
There is ample archeological evidence to know that Jews at the time of Jesus were practicing this custom. And the Jordan River satisfies the ritual requirements to be a proper mikveh.
So John was practicing a common Jewish custom, although he may have endowed it with additional layers of meaning, as well as using the Greek word “baptism”.
Oops, hit “send” instead of “carriage return”
Why did Jesus ask John to dunk him? I would guess that Jesus sought ritual purity, and felt he wasn’t in a ritually pure state, for whatever reason. But also, I suspect that Jesus initially was a follower of John, and the stuff about John recognizing Jesus to be God was a later redaction.
I’d be astonished to learn that Jesus saw that baptism as being fundamentally different than being cleansed in a mikveh, however.
I see you mention relatives there but not also that I put “friends”. Or “the deaths of those killed unjustly”. Not that this random criminal was friends was Jesus (I presume), but certainly there are occasions where we’re asked to remember people who we know of but aren’t related to, or people we only know of very distantly.
The purpose would seem to be the same as that. People seem to feel that remembering the dead is important in a lot of cases. But aside from that, there could easily be a purpose in what Jesus does with that memory.
No, I’m not. My interpretation is that Jesus was answering the question literally; he was asked if he would be remembered, Jesus replied that he would indeed remember the guy. That’s about as on point as it gets. * Your* interpretation is that Jesus is saying something unrelated to the request, although I wouldn’t call it “random”, since it’s the same general subject.
Except, as I pointed out, other specific elements are also highlighted. Beyond that, you’re also not just pointing out that there’s meaning, but explicitly linking the specific point to a particular meaning. For all we know, that specific point might be there for some other - but still perhaps important - reason. And certainly you can use other parts of the Bible to justify why a specific point is the one to remember and for what reason, but you’re going to actually have to quote the part(s) you mean to do so. I’m sure your knowledge of the text of the Bible is greater than mine.
You’ve misunderstood my interpretation; it makes a cohesive whole; it’s a bunch of literal understandings that work to conclude to a different meaning, not none.
I certainly hope that your view isn’t why it didn’t catch on. I’d much prefer that it’s something that’s been rejected from Christian theology on the basis of reasonable and accurate arguments.
While I agree that there is much in the Bible that is symbolic and not literal history, it is highly likely that Jesus was in fact baptized by John. The main reason is that Jesus’ baptism by John would have caused embarrassment in the early church, and therefore was probably not made up. It would have raised uncomfortable questions: If Jesus was superior to John, why was he baptized by him? If John’s baptism was “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4), does that mean Jesus had sins he had to repent of? We can see the gospel writers trying to spin things a bit to avoid the embarrassment. If we take Mark as the first New Testament gospel to be written, as most scholars do, then we can compare the accounts in Mark 1:9-11 and Matthew 3:13-17 and see that Matthew tries to soften the embarrassment by adding to the account this exchange:
John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. (Matthew 3:14-15)
Luke, also copying Mark, tries to hurry over Jesus’ baptism a bit more quickly by changing the grammar to use a subordinate clause (just three words in Greek, including “and”). The Gospel of John takes the cake, though: He has John the Baptist say great things about Jesus when he comes to the Jordan, but the actual baptism of Jesus is not narrated at all! (See especially John 1:29-34). If Jesus hadn’t been baptized by John, why would the early church have caused trouble for themselves by inventing the baptism story in the first place?
The same does not apply to other aspects of the account. The Holy Spirit descending on Jesus in the form of a dove, and the voice from heaven saying, “You are my beloved son,” would not have created embarrassment. One cannot prove they didn’t happen, but in my view they could easily have been created by early Christians in order to make theological affirmations about Jesus’ significance.
I’m not sure this quite works; for a start, of course, there’s the issue of conflating the beliefs of the early church and reality. That aside, I can think of a good few alternative reasons for this sequence of events, the most obvious of which is that it was a story that (true or not) was already widely accepted at the time, and though taking it and “adjusting” it to make it more in-line with the current church views would be a negative, it would be an even greater negative to deny it outright or create a more “acceptable” story instead. Perhaps it was a sop to a particular faction of the early church. There’s considerable alternatives.
But that part isn’t in John.
Comparing this same section in the four gospels, it’s also interesting to see the word choice for what God says. In Mark(1:11) and Luke (2:22), the word choice (“You are”) seems to suggest that he’s speaking personally to Jesus, while Matthew (3:17) (“This is”) seems to suggest that it’s something all around heard. And, again, not present in John, so far as I can tell. You suggest these things wouldn’t have caused embarrassment - yet, they’re still altered in the retelling. That suggests that at the very least there are reasons other than uneasiness with particular parts of the theology that can result in these differences; I’d very much hesitate to put down the changes with baptism down to embarrassment with such assuredness.
Yes, Mark may have simply told the story because it was already around. But that just pushes the question back further — at some point, someone either invented the story of Jesus’ baptism, or told it because it really happened. So which is more likely? For historians, the preservation of a story that would cause some embrarassment to those who passed it on is an important piece of evidence for the story’s grounding in historical fact. This is one of the key criteria that historians use when they seek to determine, using historical methodology, what Jesus said or did — including historians who are not Christians.
The argument is not air tight, of course (history is a matter of probabilities, not certainties). I read of one scholar who argued that some group of early Christians may have wanted to enhance Jesus’ prestige by inventing the story of his baptism by John, who was a popular figure for many Jews at the time. But almost all Jesus historians accept the story as genuine, even those who are otherwise fairly skeptical about the historical reliability of the gospels. The discomfort that the gospel authors show with the story is one reason. Moreover, there continued to be disciples of John the Baptist after his death, and the early church would have wanted to win converts from among them. The way to do that would not have been to invent a story which made John look superior to Jesus.
Certainly, there are many reasons for the various changes that the gospel writers made to the stories they inherited, and I wouldn’t want to claim embarrassment as the reason for the change from “You are” to “This is.” (It is possible to read Mark’s version as though Jesus is seeing the dove in a vision, so one could wonder if only Jesus heard the voice from heaven; Matthew may have wanted to portray the scene as a public event). My point was simply that, whereas the bare event of Jesus’ baptism by John can be established with high probability by appealing to arguments about the story’s embarrassment, one cannot establish other aspects of the baptism account on the same grounds. (This does not mean they did not happen, only that they are less certain as far as historical criteria are concerned).
But you’re presuming that the people who originally created it, or who passed it on because it actually happened, was in that same group of early church figures for whom it was embarrassing to admit. It could easily have been a detail that was a major part of an oral tradition of some faction for whom it was not embarrassing, or even helpful, which ended up being included in the overall canon simply due to the widespread nature of it (or as a loose “deal” sort of situation).
Superior? No. But temporarily in authority? Sure, absolutely. If John had been treated as entirely superior to Jesus, you’d have a point. But he gets to do this one thing - after which, in two of the three gospels which mention it, God himself turns up to point out that Jesus is son and is generally great. That’s a perfect story to entice disciples of John the Baptist; “Jesus was an awesome guy and certainly the best, God himself said so, but hey, John was a pretty great guy, too, we admit that. Care to come discuss matters?”
FWIW, this is how I’d probably interpret the phrasing as suggesting.
I disagree still with your assignment of probability, especially “high” probability, when there’s so many other options. On a meta level, too, there’s the problem of whether the negative admission idea was something known then, too.
But my point in bringing up the other differences in those specific sections was to point that out in part - I agree with you that those differences don’t seem to be something we could theoretically put down to embarrassment. Thus, there certainly are other reasons for changes; and the John baptism differences may well be down to those just as the surrounding elements are.
I may respond re John the Baptist later, but I wanted to reply about your interpretation of the scene about Jesus and the two criminals crucified with him in Luke 23:39–43.
I think your interpretation “makes sense,” but is not the most probable. Jesus, when the second criminal says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” responds, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” You argue that Jesus’s answer simply means, “Yes, I will remember you,” and does not promise the criminal that he will literally be in Paradise.
One problem with this interpretation, as I see it, is that Jesus’ response does not obviously mean that. Luke could have been clearer, and had Jesus say, “today I will remember you in Paradise” or “your memory will be with me in Paradise,” but he does not. If Luke had wanted to convey nothing more than that Jesus’ would remember the criminal, why would he have used terminology that can so easily be taken as implying that the criminal would himself be in Paradise?
Related to this, very often in the Bible to “remember” involves much more than a sentimental or cognitive act, but rather involves concrete action. In Luke 1:72, when God is praised because “has remembered his holy covenant,” it is because this involves God sending the Messiah to bring salvation to his people. In Acts 10, Cornelius’ alms are “remembered before God” (v. 31), so God sends Peter to him to preach the gospel. The criminal’s request in Luke 23:42 that Jesus “remember” him, then, can easily (even probably) be read as a request that Jesus would take some sort of measure to ensure the criminal’s salvation, and Jesus’ response can then be understood as responding to this very request with an affirmation that he would be saved, simultaneously with a particular promise about what form that would take. If Luke had not wanted to say this, he could have phrased things differently to make it clearer that he meant something else.
Furthermore, whereas in English we commonly say someone will “be with” us in the sense that they will be remembered by us, was this idiom used in Greek in the first century? The Greek word for “with” used here is meta, and the leading Greek-English lexicon used by biblical scholars (known as BDAG) lists some 22 different nuances of usage of this word (to be even more technical, 16 of them are with the genitive case, which is used in Luke 23:43). None of them as far as I can tell fits with the sense your interpretation requires (I can list them if you’re curious). Now, you could argue that the sense of personal accompaniment could be used metaphorically in Luke 23:43, but then the question would arise: How could we distinguish between a literal and metaphorical use here? If Luke meant the word metaphorically, why would he not have clarified this? For he leaves the literal interpretation (arguably the most natural) quite available to us.
On a personal note I see Jesus as Gods messenger and that God is the ultimate authority. God leaves man to get on with and hopefully will step in as he did with Jesus to put us back on track when we really get it wrong
Apologies for the lateness of this reply; it’s been something of a week.
This argument works just as well for my suggested interpretation as yours, though. I can turn it back on you; If Luke had wanted to convey nothing more than that Jesus was saying the criminal would be with him in heaven, why would he have used terminology that can so easily be taken as implying he was simply answering the question about remembering him? Why not have him say, “I won’t need to remember you, you’ll be there.” or “You’ll be there alongside me in person, don’t worry.” But, as you put it; he does not.
No, it isn’t.
[QUOTE=Luke 1:72-75 NIV]
72 to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
[/QUOTE]
The section mentions Jesus before that point (at least, that’s what I’m guessing the “horn of salvation” from the house of David in Luke 1:69 is about), but it seems fairly clear to me that that’s not the worthiness of the covenant that’s being praised in this instance.
Again, inaccurate;
[QUOTE=Acts 10:31-33 NIV]
30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
[/QUOTE]
God actually just tells Cornelius to send for Peter; he doesn’t send him personally (and for that matter, it’s an angel, but we’ll presume working on behalf of God).
That said, the inaccuracy doesn’t ruin your point, but what does is the rarity of the situation. If God remembering Cornelius’ prayer and alms was all it took for him to send an angel to get him to summon Peter, then this would have happened for all people who prayed and offered alms. Per the Bible, this is not so; therefore there must be some other factor, or factors, at play here which single out Cornelius for this attention. What they are is besides the point to the question of whether it’s remembrance that triggers the act, but reading on it looks like the point of it was so that God (or Peter) could make a point about the righteousness of Gentiles. Regardless; there is something at play here beyond just the memory, and assigning action to the memory alone or even in part is not supported by the text.
You’ve quoted two example of remembering meaning more than just remembering in the Bible; even putting aside that I don’t agree with them, two examples from the entirety of the Bible doesn’t seem like it would mean much. Certainly not enough for you to add “probably” in there. There’s also the issue that you’re adding a new complication to this situation now; that Jesus must be taking some action, in accordance with and because of the memory, for this interpretation to be correct. What action, as a result of the memory, is Jesus going to take?
Add the problem I’ve already mentioned that he could have phrased what he said to make it clearer that he meant your meaning, too.
Furthermore, whereas in English we commonly say someone will “be with” us in the sense that they will be remembered by us, was this idiom used in Greek in the first century? The Greek word for “with” used here is meta, and the leading Greek-English lexicon used by biblical scholars (known as BDAG) lists some 22 different nuances of usage of this word (to be even more technical, 16 of them are with the genitive case, which is used in Luke 23:43). None of them as far as I can tell fits with the sense your interpretation requires (I can list them if you’re curious).
[/quote]
To be honest, I’d be interested, though it seems like a lot of work.
And he leaves the metaphorical interpretation quite available to us; and I would argue that is the most natural. Again, this is not a point which only props up your side, but works just as well for both interpretations.
I guess your interpretation of “really get it wrong” and mine are very different; I see plenty of situations where I’d like a deity to step in and help out.