No. Explain how it’s a “fallacy” that the Jews would give a crap who got rid of the Romans. The Messiah is not an object of worship in Judaism and anyone is welcome to take a shot at fulfilling the requirements. It makes no sense to say that they would want anybody to fail to fulfill the requirements.
This is demonstrably false. John the Baptist is depicted in a most favorable light; in fact, his courage and dedication need no explanation. In chapter 5, the synagogue leader Jairus is depicted as a man of tremendous faith, as was the unnamed woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment. (The hem was considered a Jewish symbol of power, which suggests that she was most likely Jewish.) Peter’s confession of faith was recorded in Chapter 8. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome were all recorded as women who were faithful followers who cared for his needs, and who chose to anoint his dead body as an act of devotion.
There were many others who depicted great devotion or faith, and who were quite likely Jewish as well. If you allow for past patriarchs, then we can also mention Elijah and Moses, both of whom were honored greatly at the Transfiguration. To say that Jesus was the only Jew who was depicted in a positive light is simply ridiculous.
Apparently, you’re choosing the most inflammatory terms possible in assessing Mark’s depiction.
First of all, they were by no means depicted as idiots. They admittedly had difficulty understanding some of Christ’s teachings, but that does not make them idiots… nor did Mark ever suggest that they were.
In addition, Mark did NOT suggest that the Apostles “never [understood] his teachings.” For example, Peter clearly understood Jesus to be the long-promised Messiah (Mark 8:27-30). Mark does record a few instances wherein the Apostles demonstrated a lack of comprehension; however, this does not mean that they never understood. In fact, in most of the passages, Mark simply doesn’t commen on whether the Apostles grasped these teachings or not!
Mark does show that the Apostles lacked courage, but so do the other Gospels. Since the Apostles lacked any sort of military strength, and since they were under Roman oppression, I would not judge them too harshly in this regard. Moreover, this simply means that they were depicted as flawed individuals, rather than reprobate cowards with no redeeming values.
Mark repeatedly characterized them as dunces and offered them no redemption. The most significant part of the book is that apostles are left out of the resurrection. The entire piece is a Pauline polemic against the Jerusalem cult.
I forgot about John the Baptist. It doesn’t really matter. Mark doesn’t have to have hated every single Jew that ever lived for his book to be anti-Jewish. It’s a political and theological bias, not a racial one.
No, it would show that the translation was in Greek. This is not an tape recording of the exchange. My Bible’s in English. That doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t say the words in Hebrew, or that the response, in the context of that exchange, wasn’t interpreted as a claim of divinity.
How are the apostles left out of the resurrection? Jesus meets them after his resurrection, or did you mean something else?
I think it strange that Moses and Elijah were seen with Jesus at the transfiguration as there was to be no salvation until after Jesus was Crucified and died for man’s sins, also that Lazarus, and the dead seen walking around after the death of Jesus and not one of them came forward to tell their story,and why did they have to die again?
This may be a little off the op’s question but it set me to wondering.
Monavis
No, he characterized them as flawed human beings who did not always grasp Christ’s messages. You are deliberately using inflammatory terms (“idiots” and “dunces”) in order to make your point.
I must echo Stratocaster’s question. What do you mean by this?
And a great many others, as I pointed out earlier.
You have yet to demonstrate that Mark hated any of the Jews. He recorded the failings of some Jews, but that does not amount to hatred. Heck, in this forum, you routinely complain about the failings (both real and perceived) of Christian believers. Should we therefore conclude that you are filled with hatred and bile?
Not true, according to Hebrews 11.
The fallacy I’m referring to is the notion that the Jews would have treated Jesus in the same manner that they would have treated any other self-professed Messiah. It simply does not follow. (This is assuming, for the sake of argument, that there WAS a long list of “self-professed Messiahs” at the time. For reasons that have already been discussed, I think that’s a tenuous claim at best.)
Moreover, as Stratocaster and Chronos pointed out, Jesus did not merely claim to be the Messiah. He also claimed divinity, which sets him apart from the other (alleged!) “Messiahs.” This would have given the Jewish mob yet another incentive to demand his death (see Mark 14:60-64, as cited by Chronos).
Not in Mark, which was the first Gospel written. Mark ends with the women running away from the tomb and being too afraid to tell anyone. There are no appearance narratives in Mark. There’s an empty tomb but no one ever sees Jesus. The apostles run away when Jesus is arrested and that’s it…the end. They are never redeemed and never see a risen Jesus.
A long argument can be made that one of the overriding themes in Mark is that the apostles (and the Jews in general) did not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah and Mark was telling his audience that they were privelege to a secret that the apostles (and the Jews) had not been. Unfortunately, I’m going to be driving to North Dakota today and probably won’t be on line for a few days. I can expound after the weekend if anyone is still interested.
Mark gives no indication that Jesus spoke in Hebrew and simply saying the name in Hebrew, per se is not blasphemy anyway. Blasphemy requires that you actually curse the name (and you have to curse it in Hebrew). Even if Mark intended that Ego eimi be read by his audience as an utterance of the name of God, he would still be wrong in his assumption that it would constutute blasphemy under Jewish law.
I don’t think you quite understand what a claim to Messiaship really meant. For one thing, no one is the Messiah unless and until they fulfill the requirements. For another thing, there wasn’t a single requirement that the Jews didn’t want to see fulfilled. Claiming to be the Messiah was kind of claiming that you could cure cancer. The response was “show me,” not “please don’t, we don’t like you.” There is absolutely no reason that they would have wanted any aspiring Messiah to fail.
Jesus did not claim to be God before the sanhedrin. He claimed to be the Messiah. The Jewish Messiah is not God. Even saying the Tetragrammaton is not a claim to BE God, so that interpretation is ridiculous.
I just want to clarify something about this before I go. Hebrew was no longer a commonly spoken language in the time of Jesus. It was a liturgical and scriptural language but not a conversational one (it was somewhat analogous to Church Latin in the Middle Ages) Yes, the Greek is ostensibly a translation but it would be a translation from Aramaic, not Hebrew and Mark does not give any indication that Jesus switched languages in his response to the Sanhedrin.
I have to go. I won’t be able to post any more today but I’ll respond to all rebuttals as soon as I get the chance.
Happy Easter to all the Christian Dopers.
If he was crucified on Friday, then how do we mathematically get three days to rise again…? I heard something once about the inaccuracy of biblical translation, but I’m not sure.
Killed on friday, that’s the first day. Then we have saturday, that’s the second day. poof alive again on sunday, that’s the third day.
Why doesn’t it? Any Jewish man is a potential messiah. The only way to prove that you were the messiah was to fulfill all the prophecies (gathering together all Jews, defeating our oppressors, rebuilding the Temple, a kugel recipe that cooks evenly every time, etc). Any Jewish man claiming to be the messiah, would be told to prove his claim.
I don’t know how long the list was, but there were enough that people would not have said “That’s the guy who says he’s the messiah.” but “There’s another guy claiming to be the messiah.”
Historically, Hillel thought that Bar Koba was the messiah. So did a bunch of other people. Bar Koba’s revolt failed, and the Roman’s punished the Jews.
A few centuries ago, a man named Shabati Zevi claimed to be the messiah. He gained a massive following. Then, he converted to Islam.
Some of Menachem Shneerson’s followers believed him to be the messiah. He died . As he had not fulfilled all the prophecies before dying, he was clearly not the messiah.
What do you mean “yet another”? Claiming to be the messiah is no reason to call for somebody’s death.
You must have different Mark gospel than I do. Jesus appears to all 11 in mine.
Not according to Diogenes. He says that the Jews would have welcomed anyone who claimed to be the Messiah and treated them equally. I see no reason to accept that claim.
Your argument does not refute what I said. If anything, it supports my view. If a self-professed Messiah did not fit their notion of what the deliverer would be like, why would they treat him as they would all the others?
I never said that nobody claimed to be the Messiah apart from Jesus. However, I see no evidence that Josephus recorded any long listings of “self-professed Messiahs.” Nor have I seen any reason to believe that Judea was “crawling” with them.
And even if it were, it still would not logically follow that Jesus would have been treated in exactly the same way as all the others.
Not a rational reason, no… but why should we expect an angry mob to behave rationally?
People sometimes react with great anger or violence when their religious views are challenged. In fact, skeptics often level this accusation against both Christians and Moslems. Why should we expect a Jewish mob to be the epitome of civility and rationality under similar circumstances?
Moreover, I did not claim that Christ’s claim to Messiahship was one of the reasons why he was killed. People (and unruly mobs) seldom have a single motivation for their actions though, and it’s entirely possible that their fury was fueled in part by Christ’s religious claims… claims that ran counter to their understanding of the Old Testament prophecies.
I don’t see Diogenes making any such claim.
Yes, it does. You said ‘They killed Jesus because he claimed to be the messiah.’ I said 'It’s not remotely blasphemous to make such a claim. ’
How do you figure?
Because he either fulfills the prophecies, or he doesn’t. If some strange guy shows up and begins preaching an odd message and claiming to be the messiah, that claim still stands or falls on his gathering all the Jews, throwing out our oppresors, etc.
Of course it follows. “I’m the messiah.” “Yeah? Prove it.”
Why would the mob be angry?
Why was the mob angry?
He could make all the claims he wanted. Either he got rid of the Romans, rebuilt the Temple, and did about a dozen other things or he wasn’t the messiah.
Then there was no reason for Jesus to die.so the New Testement is a contradiction. I know there is a passage in the book Of Wisdom that suggests there was people who were in heaven. Christians believe the way to God is through Jesus.
Monavis