That is entirely consistent with the existence of a multitude of extraterrestrial Jesuses; there is in fact only one, and he/she/it incarnates in suitable forms elsewhere.
But are there any Christian views on whether he has to die (temporally) on all the other planets he visits, meaning that it takes two tries no matter what?
Are the books of Moses and Abraham among the Mormon scriptures? In which text?
I thought about the same thing, and then I remembered that the Torah is known in Christian circles as the Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deutoronomium), but there’s no single “Book of Moses”, let alone a “Book of Abraham”. So it must be Mormon only scripture.
I’ve read the Torah several times. That passage isn’t from the Torah.
So did I, in a Christian Bible, and of course there are no such passages in it. That’s why I concluded that the “Book of Moses” and the “Book of Abraham” must be Mormon only texts.
I’ve read both Christian and Jewish translations. I’ve only read the first paragraph in Hebrew, back when i was in Hebrew school, a million years ago.
I’ve also read the rest of the Jewish Bible, and the new testament, including several apocrypha. And a lot of the Koran (in an English translation). And a few chunks of the Talmud. I tried to read the book of Mormon, but didn’t get very far. The canonical “translation” is really turgid.
My first exposure to the rapture, as a child who attended a Methodist church, was via my paternal grandmother, who at least at the time believed in astrology, and subscribed to “Fate” magazine, which I know now is/was about the paranormal. (1970s) It had a cover story proposing that this would indeed be how it happened.
Turn it around: would it make a difference if he lived and suffered and died as one of the crab-people on a distant planet but not as a human being on Earth?
Whether or not it made a difference theologically, it would certainly make a difference psychologically, to me and I assume to most people.
Dr. Zoidberg=Jesus? ![]()
Some advanced alien species might be biologically immortal, like amoebas, so Amoeba Jesus probably wouldn’t choose to die in order to facilitate redemption. Other advanced alien species might be hive minds, so the hive mind Jesus would probably devise some other method of atonement. Robot Jesus could just reboot, presumably.
I mean, come on, He is omniscient and omnipotent; why would He only incarnate once on a remote planet in the unfashionable arm of the galaxy?
But I’d be interested in hearing any Christian views on the matter.
The only one I’m aware of is C. S. Lewis, cited above, who speculated that Jesus would need to be redeemed for each species that fell.
Yes, i think it’s reasonable to assume that Christ would need to minister to each planet/world separately.
James Blish wrote about an alien species that didn’t need to be redeemed, threatening the faith of a Jesuit who met them. It’s also an interesting take.
But i don’t think Blish had a following among other Christians to speak of. Whereas Lewis wrote extensively, was read by many Christians, and i think he even did a radio talk show for a while where he answered questions about Christianity. He is a decent “representative” of fairly mainstream Christian thought.
If every world needs a savior to redeem the inhabitants, it seems the creator is not very good at its job. It is telling the same story over and over. Is it incapable of creating something that doesn’t have to “fall”? Or does it just like killing its son? You would think it would try different approaches to creation occasionally, considering that it is eternal. Or, perhaps, that is the way it works and Earth is a one-off.
Or perhaps some worlds don’t fall, and some do but in a variety of different ways, needing a variety of different sorts of redemption.
Emanuel Swedenborg in the 18th century took the unusual (and almost certainly incorrect) view that every planet had a population of people, and that every other planet was less advanced technologically than Earth, but more advanced than Earth spiritually. This means that only Earth had any need for salvation.
Sounds a bit like Lewis, actually.
Most Swedenborgians think of his writings as largely allegorical nowadays, although I don’t think that was his own opinion.
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It seems like the whole debate is twisted by the statement in the Bible that Jesus was God’s only begotten son; if we see this as allegorical the problem goes away. And most of the other problems in the Bible too.
Yes, they’re both LDS scripture. They’re two of the books that are included in Pearl of Great Price.
Thanks!
Another hypothetical.
Humans invent starships and venture out into the galaxy. We find a society of numerous other intelligent alien races. And amazingly all of them have a Genesis story similar to ours about being created by an omnipotent God.
Christians are overjoyed to find this proof of the reality of their religion. So they begin asking for more details.
“So did all you guys have Jesus?”
“Who?”
“You know, Jesus, the son of God who appeared among us to redeem us from our fall.”
“What fall?”
“You know, when God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit and they did and God cast them out of Eden. So God sent Jesus to redeem us.”
“Wait… you guys ate the fruit… after God specifically told you not to…”
Whatever fundamentalist Christians might think about that, at the very least they couldn’t pretend that it’s an absurd question.