He never ...

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let's raise a more difficult issue: the seemingly stronger parallels between Jesus and a historical figure named Apollonius of Tyana, here's someone from the 1st century who was said to have healed people and to have exorcised demons; who may have raised a young girl from the dead; and who appeared to some of his followers after he died, people point to that and say, "aha! if you're going to admit that the Apollonius story is legendary, why not say the same thing about the Jesus story?" initially, this sounds impressive, but if you do the historical work calmly and objectively, you find the alleged parallels just don't stand up, first, his biographer, Philostratus, was writing a century and a half after Apollonius lived, whereas the gospels were written within a generation of Jesus, the closer proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development, for error or for memories to get confused, another thing is that we have 4 gospels, corroborated with Paul, that can be cross-checked to some degree with nonbiblical authors, like Josehpus and others, with Apollonius, we're dealing with one source, plus the gospels pass the standard tests used to assess historical reliability, but we can't say that about the stories of Apollonius, on top of that, Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography in order to dedicate a temple to Apollonius, she was a follower of Apollonius, so Philostratus would have had a financial motive to embellish the story and give the empress what she wanted, on the other hand, the writers of the gospels had nothing to gain - and much to lose - by writing Jesus' story, and they didn't have ulterior motives such as financial gain, also, the way Philostratus writes is very different than the gospels, the gospels have a very confident eyewitness perspective, as if they had a camera there, but Philostratus includes alot of tentative statements, like "It is reported that ..." or "some say this young girl had died; others say she was just ill ...", to his credit, he backs off and treats stories like stories, and here's a biggie: Philostratus was writing in the early 3rd century in Cappadocia, where Christianity had already been present for quite a while, so any borrowing would have been done by him, not by Christians, you can imagine the followers of Apollonius seeing Christianity as competition and saying, "oh yeah? well, Apollonius did the same things Jesus did!" sort of like "my dad can beat up your dad!" one final point, Apollonius may have done some amazing things or at least tricked people into thinking he did, but that doesn't in any way compromise the evidence for Jesus, even if you grant the evidence for Apollonius, you're still left with having to deal with the evidence for Christ

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a lot of college students are taught that many of the themes seen in the life of Jesus are merely echoes of ancient "mystery religions", in which there are stories about gods dying and rising, and rituals of baptism and communion, what about those parallels? that was a very popular argument at the beginning of the century, but it generally died off because it was so discredited, for one thing, given the timing involved, if you're going to argue for borrowing, it should be from the direction of Christianity to the mysterious religions, not vice versa, also, the mystery religions were do-your-own-thing religions that freely borrowed ideas from various places, however, the Jews carefully guarded their beliefs from outside influences, they saw themselves as a separate people and strongly resisted pagan ideas and rituals, the most interesting potential parallels were the mythological tales of gods dying and rising, aren't those stories similar to Christian beliefs? while it's true that some mystery religions had stories of gods dying and rising, these stories always revolved around the natural life cycle of death and rebirth, crops die in the fall and come to life in the spring, people express the wonder of this ongoing phenomenon through mythological stories about gods dying and rising, these stories were always cast in a legendary form, they depicted events that happened "once upon a time", contrast that with the depiction of Jesus Christ in the gospels, they talk about someone who actually lived several decades earlier, and they name names - crucified under Pontius Pilate, when Caiaphas was the high priest, and the father of Alexander and Rufus carried his cross - for example, that's concrete historical stuff, it has nothing in common with stories about what supposedly happened "once upon a time", and Christianity has nothing to do with life cycles or the harvest, it has to do with a very Jewish belief - which is absent from the mystery religions - about the resurrection of the dead and about life eternal and reconciliation with God, as for the suggestion that the New Testament doctrines of baptism or communion come from mystery religions, that's just nonsense, for one thing, the evidence for these supposed parallels comes after the second century, so any borrowing would have come from Christianity, not the other way around, and when you look carefully, the similarities vanish, for instance, to get to a higher level in the Mithra cult, followers had to stand under a bull while it was slain, so they could be bathed in it's blood and guts, then they'd join the others in eating the bull, now, to suggest that Jews woud find anything attractive about this and want to model baptism and communion after this barbaric practice is extremely implausible, which is why most scholars don't go for it ...

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there has been alot written in the popular press about the Gospel of Thomas, Secret Mark, the Cross Gospel and Q, have there really been any new discoveries that change the way we should think about Jesus? no there are no new discoveries that tell us anything new about Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas was discovered long ago, but it's only now being used to create an alternative Jesus, some theories about the Gospel of Thomas may be new, but the gospel itself is not, as for Q, it's not a discovery but a theory that has been around for 1 and 1/2 centuries, which tries to account for the material that Matthew and Luke have in common, what's new is the highly questionable way that left-wing scholars are using their presuppositions to slice this hypothetical Q into various layers of legendary development to back up their preconceived theories, John Dominic Crossan, perhaps the most influential scholar in the Jesus Seminar, has made strong claims about a gospel called Secret Mark, in fact, he asserts that Secret Mark may actually be an uncensored version of the gospel of Mark, containing confidential matters for spiritual insiders, some have used it to claim that Jesus was actually a magician or that a number of early Christians practiced homosexuality, this conspiratorial scenario has captured the media's attention, what proof is there for this? none, you see, we don't have a Secret Mark, what we have is one scholar how found a quote from Clement of Alexandria, from late in the 2nd century, that supposedly comes from this gospel, and now, mysteriously, even that is gone, disappeared, we don't have it, we don't have a quote from it, and even if we did have a quote from it, w don't have any reason to think that it has given us any valid information about the historical Jesus or what early Christians thought about him, on top of that, we already know that Clement had a track record of being very gullible in accepting spurious writings, so Secret Mark is a nonexistant work cited now by a nonexistant text by a 2nd century writer who's known for being naive about these things, the vast majority of scholars don't give this any credibility, unfortunately, those who do, get alot of press, because they media love the sensational, Crossan also gives credence to what he calls the Cross Gospel, most scholars don't give it any credibility, because it includes such outlandishly legendary material, for instance, Jesus comes out of his tomb and he's huge - he goes up beyond the sky - and the cross comes out of the tomb and actually talks! obviously, the much more sober gospels are more reliable than anything found in this account, it fits better with later apocryphal writings, in fact, it's dependent on biblical material, so it should be dated later, unlike the overwhelming majority of biblical experts, the Jesus Seminar has accorded extremely high status to the Gospel of Thomas, elevating it to a place alongside the 4 traditional gospels, why shouldn't Thomas be given that kind of honor? everyone concedes that this gospel has been significantly influenced by Gnosticism, which was a religious movement in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries that supposedly had secret insights, knowledge or revelations that would allow people to know the key to the universe, salvation was by what you knew - gnosis is greek for "know", so most scholars date the gospel of Thomas to the mid-second century, in which it fits well into the cultural milieu, example: Jesus is quoted as saying, "every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven", that contradicts the attitude that we know Jesus had toward women, but it fits well with the Gnostic mind set, however, the Jesus Seminar has arbitrarily latched onto certain passages of the Gospel of Thomas and has argued that these passages represent an early strand of tradition about Jesus, even earlier than the canonical gospels, because none of these passages include Jesus making exalted claims for himself or doing supernatural feats, they argue that the earliest view of Jesus was that he was only a great teacher, but the whole line of reasoning is circular, the only reason for thinking these passages in Thomas are early in the first place is because they contain a view of Jesus that these scholars already believed was the original Jesus, in truth there is no good reason for preferring the 2nd century Gospel of Thomas over the 1st century gospels of the New Testament

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the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith: the Jesus Seminar believes there's a big gulf between the two, in it's view the historical Jesus was a bright, witty, countercultural man who never claimed to be the Son of God, while the Jesus of faith is a cluster of feel-good ideas that help people live right but are ultimately based on wishful thinking, there's not just a gulf between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith, if you discredit everything that says Jesus is divine and reconciles people with God, there's an outright contradiction between the two, generally speaking, they define the Jesus of faith this way: there are religious symbols that are quite meaningful to people - the symbol of Jesus being divine, of the cross, of self-sacrificial love, of the Resurrection, even though people don't really believe that those things actually happened, they nevertheless can inspire people to live a good life, to overcome existential angst, to realize new potentialities, to resurrect hope in the midst of despair - so these liberals say historical research can't possibly discover the Jesus of faith, because the Jesus of faith is not rooted in history, he's merely a symbol, but listen: Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he is rooted in history, the Nicene Creed doesn't say, "We wish these things were true", it says, "Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and the third day he rose again from the dead" and it goes on from there, the theological truth is based on historical truth, that's the way the New Testament talks, look at the sermon of Peter in the second chapter of Acts, he stands up and says, "you guys are a witness of these things; they weren't done in secret, David's tomb is still with us, but God has raised Jesus from the dead, therefore we proclaim him to be the Son of God." take away miracles and you take away the Resurrection, and then you've got nothing to proclaim, Paul said that if Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, then our faith is futile, it's useless, it's empty, we don't want to base our lives on a symbol, we want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality, what's not rooted in reality is the faith of liberal scholars, they're the ones who are following a pipe dream, but Christianity is not a pipe dream

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Jesus, the one Christians relate to, is both a Jesus of history and a Jesus of faith, it's like this; if you love a person, your love goes beyond the facts of that person, but it's rooted in the facts about that person, for example, you love your wife because she's gorgeous, she's nice, she's sweet, she's kind, all these things are facts about your wife, and therefore, you love her, but your love goes beyond that, you can know all these things about your wife and not be in love with her and put your trust in her, but you do, so the decision goes beyond the evidence, yet it is there also on the basis of evidence, so it is with falling in love with Jesus, to have a relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing the historical facts about him, yet it's rooted in the historical facts about him, people believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence, they have to put their trust in him and walk with him on a daily basis, do we ackowledge that Christianity makes some claims about Jesus that are just plain hard to believe? of course we do, that's why we're glad that we have such incredibly strong evidence to show us they're true, it comes down to this: there's no competition, the evidence for Jesus being who the disciples said he was - for having done the miracles that he did, for rising from the dead, for making the claims that he did - is just light years beyond our reasons for thinking that the left-wing scholarship of the Jesus Seminar is correct, what do these scholars have? well, there's a brief allusion to a lost 'secret' gospel in a late-second-century letter that has unfortunately only been seen by one person and has now itself been lost, there's a 3rd century account of the Crucifixion and Resurrection that stars a talking cross and that less than a handful of scholars think predates the gospels, there's a 2nd century Gnostic document, parts of which some scholars now want to date early to back up their own preconceptions, and there is a hypothetical document built on shaky assumptions that is being sliced thinner and thinner by using circular reasoning, it's far more reasonable to put our trust in the gospels - which pass the tests of historical scrutiny with flying colors - than to put our hope in what the Jesus Seminar is saying

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without dialoguing him, how can we possibly delve into Jesus' mind to determine what his motivations, intentions, and self understanding were? how do we know who he thought he was and what he understood his mission to be? if we want to figure out whether Jesus thought he was the Messiah or Son of God - or merely considered himself to be a rabbi or prophet - we need to look at what he did, what he said and how he related to others, the question of what Jesus thought of himself is a critical issue, some professors maintain taht they myth of Jesus' deity was superimposed on the Jesus tradition by overzealous supporters years after his death, the real Jesus, these professors believe, would roll over in his grave if he knew people were worshipping him, if you strip away the legends and go back to the earliest material about him, they say you'll find he never aspired to be anything more than an itinerant teacher and occasional rabble-rouser, but is the evidence on their side? the truth is that Jesus was a bit mysterious about his identity, wasn't he? he tended to shy away from forthrightly proclaiming himself to be the Messiah or Son of God, was that because he didn't think of himself in those terms or because he had other reasons? no, it's not because he didn't think of himself in those terms, if he had simply announced, "Hi folks, I'm the Son of God", it would have been counterproductive to Jesus in his efforts to get people to listen to his message, there were already a host of expectations about what the Messiah would look like, and Jesus didn't want to be pigeonholed into somebody else's categories, consequently, he was very careful about what he said publicly, in private with his disciples - that was a different story, but the gospels primarily tell us about what he did in public

Ben Witherington III, PH.D.

[ABUELA]

Originally Posted by squirt

Scripture: Matthew 21:42
“Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner” KJV

He never wrote a book --- yet libraries can not hold all the books about him

He never wrote a song --- yet more songs are written about him than anyone

He never founded a college --- yet he has more students than all the schools

He never practiced psychiatry --- yet healed more broken hearts than doctors

He never boasted for notoriety --- yet abounds more than all philosophers

He never asked to die --- yet the grave could not hold him

He never joined the religious leaders of the time --- yet angels acknowledge him

He never joined the religious leaders of the time --- yet demons fear his name

He never went to medical school --- yet he healed multitudes

He never traveled far --- yet is known throughout the entire universe

VERY NICE!!!

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Originally Posted by ABUELA

VERY NICE!!!

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it was a 1977 book by British theologian John Hick and a half dozen like-minded colleagues that prompted a firestorm of controversy by charging that Jesus never thought of himself as God incarnate or the Messiah, these concepts, they wrote, developed later and were written into the gospels so it appeared that Jesus was making these claims about himself, to explore that allegation, Witherington has gone back to the very earliest traditions about Jesus - the most primitive material, unquestionably safe from legendary development - and discovered persuasive clues concerning how Jesus really regarded himself, he wanted to delve into that research, starting with this question: "What clues can we find out about Jesus' self-understanding from the way he related to others?" look at his relationship with his disciples, Jesus had 12 disciples, yet notice that he is not one of the 12, while that may sound like a detail without difference, Witherington said it's quite significant, if the 12 represent a renewed Israel, where does Jesus fit in? he's not just part of Israel, not merely part of the redeemed group, he's forming the group - just as God in the Old Testament formed his people and set up the 12 tribes of Israel, that's a clue about what Jesus thought about himself, Witherington went on to describe a clue that can be found in Jesus' relationship with John the Baptist, Jesus says, "of all people born of woman, John is the greatest man on earth." having said that, he then goes on even further in his ministry than the Baptist did - by doing miracles for example, what does that say about what he thinks of himself? and his relationship with the religious leaders is perhaps the most revealing, Jesus makes the truly radical statement that it's not what enters a person that defiles him but what comes out of his heart, frankly, this sets aside huge portions of the Old Testament book Leviticus, with it's meticulous rules concerning purity, now, the Pharisees didn't like this message, they wanted to keep things as they were, but Jesus said, "No, God has further plans. He's doing a new thing." we have to ask, what kind of person thinks he has the authority to set aside the divinely inspired Jewish Scriptures and supplant them with his own teaching? and what about his relationship - if we can call it that - with the Roman authorities? we have to ask why they crucified him, if he had merely been an innocuous sage telling nice little parables, how did he end up on a cross, especially at a Passover season, when no Jew wants any Jew to be executed? there had to be a reason why the sign above his head said, "This is the King of the Jews", either Jesus had made that verbal claim or someone clearly thought he did

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while Jesus' relationships provide one window into his self-understanding, Witherington said that Jesus' deeds - especially his miracles - offer additional insights, however, certainly you can't say that Jesus' miracles establish that he thought he was the Son of God, since later his own disciples went out and did the same things - and certainly they weren't making claims of deity, no, it's not the fact that Jesus did miracles that illuminates his self-understanding, what's important is how he interprets his miracles, Jesus says, "If I, by the finger of God, cast out demons, then you will know that the kingdom of God has come upon you." He's not like other miracle workers who do amazing things and then life proceeds as it always has, no - to Jesus, his miracles are a sign indicating the coming of the kingdom of God, they are a foretaste of what the kingdom is going to be like, and that sets Jesus apart, how does it set him apart? Jesus sees his miracles as bringing about something unprecedented - the coming of God's dominion, he doesn't merely see himself as a worker of miracles, he sees himself as the one in whom and through whom the promises of God come to pass, and that's a not-too-thinly-veiled claim of transcendence, he was called Rabbouni or "Rabbi" by his followers, does this imply that he merely taught like the other rabbis of his day? actually, Jesus taught in a radical new way, he begins his teachings with the phrase "Amen I say to you", which is to say, "I swear in advance to the truthfulness of what I'm about to say." this was absolutely revolutionary, how so? in Judaism, you needed the testimony of 2 witnesses, so witness A could witness the truth of witness B and vice versa, but Jesus witnesses to the truth of his own sayings, instead of basing his teaching on the authority of others, he speaks on his own authority, so here is someone who considered himself to have authority above and beyond what the Old Testament prophets had, he believed he possessed not only divine inspiration, as King David did, but also divine authority and the power of direct divine utterance, in addition to employing the "Amen" phrase in his teaching, Jesus used the term "Abba" when he was relating to God, what does that tell us about what he thought about himself? "Abba" connotes intimacy in a relationship between a child and his father, interestingly, it's also the term disciples used for a beloved teacher in early Judaism, but Jesus used it of God - and as far as we can tell, he and his followers were the only ones praying to God that way, expanding on the importance of this, in the context in which Jesus operated, it was customary for Jews to work around having to say the name of God, His name was the most holy word you could speak, and they even feared mispronouncing it, if they were going to address God, they might say something like, "The Holy One, blessed He be" but they were not going to use his personal name, and "Abba" is a personal term, it's the term of endearment in which a child would say to his parent, "Father Dearest, what would you have me do?" praying "Abba" must not imply that Jesus thinks he's God, because he taught his disciples to use the same term in their own prayers, and they're not God, the significance of "Abba" is that Jesus is the initiator of an intimate relationship that was previously unavailable, the question is, what kind of person can change the terms of relating to God? what kind of person can initiate a new covenental relationship with God? how significant do we consider Jesus' use of "Abba" to be? quite significant, it implies that Jesus had a degree of intimacy with God that is unlike anything in the Judaism of his day, and here's the kicker: Jesus is saying that only through having a relationship with him does this kind of prayer language - this kind of "Abba" relationship with God - become possible, that says volumes about how he regarded himself, another important clue, Jesus' reference to himself as the "Son of Man" was a reference to Daniel 7, this term is extremely important in revealing Jesus' messianic or transcendent self-understanding, when we put together the clues from Jesus' relationships, miracles and words, his perception of his identity comes into sharp focus, there seems little question, based upon the earliest evidence, that Jesus considered himself to be more than a doer of great deeds, more than a teacher, more than another prophet in a line of many, there was ample evidence to conclude that he thought of himself in unique and supreme terms - but exactly how sweeping was this self-understanding?