Why did Jesus appear when He did?

Great Debates
1

Standard Christian theology - the short version:

God created the universe, including mankind. God gave mankind one simple rule and they broke it. God placed all of mankind under a state of original sin.

God decides that He may have been a little hard on the Beav. Jesus comes down to Earth to suffer and die so that mankind can be forgiven and redeemed. A happy ending for everyone except the heathens burning in eternal hellfire.

Anyway, here’s my question: considering God is generally perceived as omniscient, didn’t He already know at the time that He was casting Adam and Eve out of Eden that He was eventually going to redeem mankind? And if so, why did He wait so long before actually getting around to doing it? Why wasn’t Jesus sent during Adam and Eve’s lifetime or shortly thereafter? What was so special about the year 753 ab urbe condita that God decided that was the year for Jesus to be born?

2

You will get probably as many answer to that question as there are denominations, perhaps more. Some denominations hold that it was part of God’s plan to put the first humans into a situation where they would disobey him but they’d have to do that in order to obey other commands God gave them and then fast forward a few years to where Jesus appears on the scene in the flesh to do his ministration.

Now, you’ll get many more answers as to what that ministry meant, what it was for, and why it happened then.

3

When thinking about these kinds of things, you’ve got to remember that people just made this shit up.

4

From a sociological / historical perspective, there may well be good reasons why 2000 yrs ago had the right conditions to allow Jesus’ ministry to enter global consciousness on an enduring basis.

Some factors which may be pertinent:

  1. location in middle east is central to trade routes, so allows legends to be spread into europe, africa and asia

  2. this time observed the beginnings of the shift from oral to written tradition, ensuring multiple channels for dissemination / recording

  3. free movement within Roman empire facilitated spread of info across wide areas

5

Well, get the trivial solutions out of the way first:

  1. The Cisco Approach: Jesus Never Existed, They Just Made the Whole Thing Up. The First Century resembles today in many ways: a “global village” cosmopolitanism uniting formerly-isolated cultures and eroding away some basic cultural foundations. So it was pure escapism, the quest for answers to replace the old tribal/cultural ones that have become obsolete. Hence Mithra, Serapis, Christ, etc.

  2. No God, Jesus Existed But Was Deluded. Coincidence. Pure fucking coincidence. Jesus believed in YHWH and was disgusted by what the supposed religious leaders of the day were doing: the Sadducees who controlled Temple and Priesthood, calculatedly turning deals with the Romans and reducing religion to ritual; the Pharisees seeking salvation by keeping an intricate system of rules (which conveniently had exceptions for them but stringencies for others); the Essenes withdrawing to a mystical contemplation of God’s navel. His teaching was very practical – it’s a matter of love, as what a Father bears for His child and the child for the Father, and shown in decent moral treatment of one’s fellow man, following the Golden Rule and the principle of the showing of love and compassion. He may or may not have had an eschatological perspective hung over this – Schweitzer certainly thought so, and the Last Days teachings seem part of the original story, not a later add-on. But on this premise, it was pure self-delusion, the reaction of a decent man who perceived himself as called by God to the crap that passed for religion then.

  3. Salvation History. Entire books could be and have been written around this idea. But to give you a quick summary:

a. God calls all mankind to live by His standards. Man’s reaction? – “Hey, sin’s fun. We’ll repent later, man!”

b. God picks out one family and tells it that it’ll grow into a tribal amphictyony, and that they’ll be His Chosen People. At first they think that means He likes them especially.

c. As things go on over the years, the Chosen People come to realize that He had something different in mind – that He intended them as an example to everyone else.

d. The Chosen People preserve their presence in their homeland and their allegiance to God through a whole slew of foreign rulers.

e. Finally, they fall under the dominion of Rome – which unites most of the Western world and establishes rapid communication for the first time. Note that the Parthians link up most of the remaining civilized areas of the time.

f. See #2 for the cultural-anomie aspects of the First Century. Nobody is happy with their fossilized, ritualized cultural tradition beliefs.

g. Jesus’s life falls smack into place at the precise time when the Jews remain a people with a cultural homeland but there is room for rapid expansion of teachings across much of the civilized world. Another 40 years after his death, and the Jewish Revolt and enforced Diaspora ends the Jewish-homeland tradition. Judaism begins to become what it is today. Forty years earlier, and the unification has not been complete. The Holy Land is under the last of the Hasmoneans, petty kingdoms not yet in subjection or alliance to Rome abound, and the cultural unification of Roman roads and shipping is not yet in place in the Eastern Mediterranean.

So He came to teach His message and to die in atonement for the sins of the world, at the one time in history when there was both a surviving Jewish homeland and a “world-wide” communications network. (Yeah, it wasn’t world-wide, but Goa to Edinburgh is not a bad start, and that demonstrably was a connection that could be made.)

6

Well, gee, why did ***you ***appear when you did? What makes you think Jesus was any different?

7

[QUOTE=panache45]
Well, gee, why did ***you ***appear when you did? What makes you think Jesus was any different?
[/QUOTE]

Because roughly nine months beforehand my parents got busy. No mandate of god or appearing angels were involved, as I understand it. I’d think by 28 I’d have heard that story. :smiley:

Back to factual reality, isn’t there something to be said on this topic about Paul’s deification of Jesus after Jesus’ death? I’ve always thought that JC was just there doing his thing, and then Paul went around telling everyone that he was the son of god afterwards, which would make the timing of the whole thing a matter of Paul’s opinion. I’m sure someone will be along shortly to refute this idea, it’s just the one that I have.

8

[QUOTE=Cluricaun]
Because roughly nine months beforehand my parents got busy. No mandate of god or appearing angels were involved, as I understand it. I’d think by 28 I’d have heard that story. :smiley:
[/QUOTE]

Ah… did you not get the memo??

9

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
Well, get the trivial solutions out of the way first:
[/quote]

What makes you think your initial solutions are trivial?

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
2. No God, Jesus Existed But Was Deluded. Coincidence. Pure fucking coincidence. Jesus believed in YHWH and was disgusted by what the supposed religious leaders of the day were doing: the Sadducees who controlled Temple and Priesthood, calculatedly turning deals with the Romans and reducing religion to ritual; the Pharisees seeking salvation by keeping an intricate system of rules (which conveniently had exceptions for them but stringencies for others); the Essenes withdrawing to a mystical contemplation of God’s navel. His teaching was very practical – it’s a matter of love, as what a Father bears for His child and the child for the Father, and shown in decent moral treatment of one’s fellow man, following the Golden Rule and the principle of the showing of love and compassion. He may or may not have had an eschatological perspective hung over this – Schweitzer certainly thought so, and the Last Days teachings seem part of the original story, not a later add-on. But on this premise, it was pure self-delusion, the reaction of a decent man who perceived himself as called by God to the crap that passed for religion then.
[/quote]

This is almost a good answer, but you left out some things. First all that ritualized stuff, that you say Jesus was against, came directly from what was supposed to be direct instructions from god. If Jesus was god, then direct instructions from Jesus. Jesus did directly endorse the Old Testament law. Second you talk about Jesus’ teachings as being a matter of love like that of a father for his child, but you leave out that Jesus literally taught that fathers should abandon their children (that he would literally bribe fathers with rewards if they did so), that he literally said they should hate their children and that he literally said he came to set enmity between family members. Third you are leaving out a lot of rules that Jesus gave that were anything but practical, like giving away all your stuff, not to divorce and not to marry the divorced, not planning or saving for the future, etc. Not to mention Jesus’ instructions to love him/god or he will torture/murder you. With those caveats I’ll agree that Jesus may have been self deluded but not that he was decent.

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
3. Salvation History. Entire books could be and have been written around this idea. But to give you a quick summary:
[/quote]

This has holes too.

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
a. God calls all mankind to live by His standards. Man’s reaction? – “Hey, sin’s fun. We’ll repent later, man!”
[/quote]

This ignores that god created man with a sinful nature and that all things happen according to god’s will, not our will. One can argue this, but not without contradicting scripture, which then weakens the base of anything you try to assert by scripture.

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
b. God picks out one family and tells it that it’ll grow into a tribal amphictyony, and that they’ll be His Chosen People. At first they think that means He likes them especially.
[/quote]

Reading the Old Testament it sure seems that he likes them especially.

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
c. As things go on over the years, the Chosen People come to realize that He had something different in mind – that He intended them as an example to everyone else.
[/quote]

Cite?

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
g. Jesus’s life falls smack into place at the precise time when the Jews remain a people with a cultural homeland but there is room for rapid expansion of teachings across much of the civilized world. Another 40 years after his death, and the Jewish Revolt and enforced Diaspora ends the Jewish-homeland tradition. Judaism begins to become what it is today. Forty years earlier, and the unification has not been complete. The Holy Land is under the last of the Hasmoneans, petty kingdoms not yet in subjection or alliance to Rome abound, and the cultural unification of Roman roads and shipping is not yet in place in the Eastern Mediterranean.
[/quote]

I think that any time a religious leader is said to have lived his followers can come up with reasons why that time is significant. Doing so just takes a little rationalization, and we all know you do that.

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
So He came to teach His message and to die in atonement for the sins of the world, at the one time in history when there was both a surviving Jewish homeland and a “world-wide” communications network. (Yeah, it wasn’t world-wide, but Goa to Edinburgh is not a bad start, and that demonstrably was a connection that could be made.)
[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, his death didn’t really accomplish anything. All people still sin, and god/Jesus still intend to punish most people for their sins, and if anything, more harshly according to Jesus, than was commonly attributed to the Old Testament god.

Also considering that belief in Jesus is a prerequisite to avoiding hellfire he should have waited till there was a literal “world-wide” communications network, or better yet he should have miracled himself one and while he was at it, he should have miracled himself some movie cameras to record his messages/feats.

10

To put the OP in verse, with a catchy beat…

“You’d have had it better if you had it planned.
Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?
If you’d come today, you would have reached a whole nation.
Israel is 4 B.C. had no mass communication!
Don’cha get me wrong…”

Good Show, Polycarp- now take on the alleged “deification of JC by Paul” (bad, bad naughty Paul!) You can do it far better than I!

11

I suppose it is pointless to discuss the meaning behind it all if you believe in the “Jesus was real but wasn’t God” school. This belief is basically saying that the events occurred randomly and any higher meaning was invented after the fact.

But otherwise I don’t see a need to believe in God in order to discuss His motives. I’ve read debates on what Dracula’s motives were for traveling to England and whether Hawkeye was secretly working for the British. You can accept God as either a real entity or a fictional character and still discuss why He did what He did.

12

Why would god create man with a sinfull nature? How dumb would that be ,if you had options. Kind of like setting them up to be torched later and then blaming it on them.

13

Chad: It was my intention to present the aspects of “Salvation History Theology” that purport to answer the question. I’m not interested in arguing their validity.

14

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
Why would god create man with a sinfull nature? How dumb would that be ,if you had options. Kind of like setting them up to be torched later and then blaming it on them.
[/QUOTE]

I think the most common interpretation is basically that of John Milton. In summary, it begins with God creating Heaven and the angels who dwell in Heaven. Satan gets mad and revolts against god. God defeats Satan and exiles him from Heaven, where he sinks through primordial chaos and finally lands in Hell. To make up for the portions of Heaven destroyed in the battle, God begins making the universe out of primordial chaos. Everything is going fine, with Adam and Eve and all the animals and plants in Eden being perfect and good and happy. Meanwhile, Satan is brooding down in Hell. He wants revenge on God, but he’s knows he’ll lose if he only starts another war. So instead he decides to corrupt part God’s little project.

In short, it was like God made humanity as a nice window on his house, and Satan was the bratty kid next door who threw a brick through the window just to be mean.

15

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
considering God is generally perceived as omniscient, didn’t He already know at the time that He was casting Adam and Eve out of Eden that He was eventually going to redeem mankind? And if so, why did He wait so long before actually getting around to doing it?
[/QUOTE]

Well my take on it is yes God knew what was to happen, actually I think God exists with time as a spatial dimension. But man does not know what is to happen, it is man that disobeyed God, not the other way around, thinking himself capable of running things with out God’s help.

Why God intervened at certain times. Not just for Jesus, but other times, would seem to help mankind against a unfair influence of Satan. Such times is the destruction of Sadam and Gomorra, and the flooding of the world, which killed off a half human/half daemon creature/‘species’. It is possible that the times God did intervene, man has reached a dead end, basically at a point where no further advancement (speaking of spiritual advancement here) was possible, and destruction was unavoidable.

Jesus not only took away the sins of the world, but also took the power of death away from Satan.

16

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
Chad: It was my intention to present the aspects of “Salvation History Theology” that purport to answer the question. I’m not interested in arguing their validity.
[/QUOTE]

That’s fine. I was just making it clear that the validity of “Salvation History Theology” stinks. If I held any of the views that purports to Jesus’ divinity or wisdom I wouldn’t want to argue them either.

17

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
What was so special about the year 753 ab urbe condita that God decided that was the year for Jesus to be born?
[/QUOTE]

One answer I have heard to this is that civilisation had have advanced to the point that would allow the disemination of the “Good News” throughout the world (via the Roman empire and its trade routes). Any earlier and christianity would have remained an obsure jewish cult.

Of course the counter-argument is that there WERE plenty of obscure jewish cults that died out in obscurity and its through an accident of history that Christianity ended up being one of the dominant world religions.

18

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
I think the most common interpretation is basically that of John Milton. In summary, it begins with God creating Heaven and the angels who dwell in Heaven. Satan gets mad and revolts against god. God defeats Satan and exiles him from Heaven, where he sinks through primordial chaos and finally lands in Hell. To make up for the portions of Heaven destroyed in the battle, God begins making the universe out of primordial chaos. Everything is going fine, with Adam and Eve and all the animals and plants in Eden being perfect and good and happy. Meanwhile, Satan is brooding down in Hell. He wants revenge on God, but he’s knows he’ll lose if he only starts another war. So instead he decides to corrupt part God’s little project.
[/quote]

The problems with this, is a lot of the details are made up and it has many fatal logical flaws. Like, why does god punish man for what Satan does? Why does god not just kill Satan or take away his powers. If omnipotent, god easily could do so.

19

[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Jesus not only took away the sins of the world, but also took the power of death away from Satan.
[/QUOTE]

But people still sin, as far as we can tell, no less after Jesus than before Jesus. Also according to Christian theology there is still a lot of power in death, or eternal torture if you prefer.

20

But in most of these situations, mankind had - as you pointed out - reached a dead end. We had been going down the wrong path on our own free will and God realized he had to intervene to point us back in the right direction. Fair enough and we owe him a debt of thanks for helping us out of the mess we had made.

But in the Eden situation, we’re talking about original sin. This isn’t a choice we made to do wrong - the error was committed by Adam and Eve long before we were born. So it wasn’t a situation where we could, if we wished, straighten ourselves out. We needed God’s intervention to solve the problem.

God knew this and knew that we would continue to be guilty of original sin, regardless of how rightously we lived as individuals, until he sent Jesus to redeem us. So knowing that he would have to intervene at some point, why did he wait?

How do we know that we’ve received the final word? Maybe God has plans for further changes. Maybe in the year 3000 he’s going to send another Messiah down to Earth and tell us something new and people will retroactively realize that we here now are living lives that are just as pointless as people in the year 1000 BC were.