Gurdur

Dang, Toto, I wish you hadn't spoilt the game - I was quite enjoying watching it.
One has to admire Vinnie's humour.


[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Ok, since James Still seems serious, let me take this up with him. The rest of you guys gifted with a rich sense of humour can join Ilgwamh and entertain yourselves. Have fun!

James, I noticed that you used U've heavily used the NT in your argument about Jesus being Lord and God. I will use the OT to refute your arguments.
I am only doing this because I have met christians who argue that Lord means Jesus and God means God in the OT.
First of all, I have no problem with your affirmation that the term "Lord" was a title of respect.
I only disagree with you when you say that Lord is not to be confused with God. I assert that on The OT, Lord and God are used Synonymously. I will provide some passages to illustrate this:
Exodus 20:5 ".....for I the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me." (NIV)

In the passage above "Lord" does not refer to Jesus.

Deuteronomy 6:4
"Hear O Israel: The LORD (JEHOVAH) our GOD is ONE LORD"

Exodus:3: 16 Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt:
Deut :2
That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

and hundreds of other passages.
In summary, Jesus is Lord God is also Lord, BUT Jesus is Not God.

I hope my position is distinctly different from your earlier position.

James Still

I'm really serious. Dead serious. We're here dealing with your eternal soul, which once detached from your body might sink to Hades rather than float up to the aether (if you're not careful and it's too heavy).

If you've met some jokers in the past who thought that "Lord" in the Hebrew Scriptures was a referent for Jesus why don't you take it up with them? I certainly didn't make that argument. I argued that there was a confusion in the use of the word because Mark uses it in two different ways. And although I'm not an expert in Greek, I agree with Phillip Sellew's translation of Mark (Scholar's Version) in which he translates kyrios as "Sir" in those cases where the word is used as a title of respect. This makes the text much clearer.


I agree with your assertion.

I don't think this follows from your examination of the passages, which I snipped for space. Jesus isn't even mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures so it is rather odd to conclude, based on those passages, that Jesus is not God. There's no data to warrant such a conclusion. I'd feel more comfortable if you said that at some point in the post-Easter situation the Jesus movement began to see Jesus as a divine being but that he probably did not believe that about himself.

Terracotta

I remember studying this very topic in my "Life of Christ" course in college. My professor had made up this nifty-looking flow chart about it. But his had one other option - Legend. Legend, Liar, Lunatic, or LORD? The refutation of the "legend" argument was basically that so many people have died in the name of Jeebus that it has to be true - who would die for a lie?

I was a believer during that time in my life, and even then I thought that whole "LLLorL" thing to be too simplistic, even though I never said anything about it nor felt brave enough to try to challenge it with my professor.

Koyaanisqatsi

Is everyone forgetting our good buddy John?

He says "I and the Father are one" and then tries to weasel around it all with incoherent semantics games (so as not to be killed by stoning), that the Jews don't buy, so, like a coward, he runs away.

philechat

I think Joseph Campbell said Jesus was trying to practice the eastern sort of religious ideal...that the person was the same as God (Being) and that there was no distinction between the identity of the person and the Unity.

Both Jews and later Christians misunderstood his stance. The Jews thought a person and God could never be one, and the identity of humans and God must be seperate (Jesus committed blasphamy). On the other hand, the Christians (such as Paul) treated Jesus as God himself, but also preached identity seperation between the believers and God.

This stance immediately breaks apart the "Lord, Liar or Lunatic" trilemma, and Jesus could be treated as a mystic when he said "I and the Father are one."

Assuming a historical Jesus exists (which I doubted), then he was misrepresented by the later writers of the NT.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

ishalon

the line between real christians and "christians" is blurry but i find both of them equally amusing

James Still

There are two things to conclude from this brief exchange. Either Jesus is laughably inept as a rabbinic scholar or his redactor (John) has pored over the Hebrew Scriptures as a proof text, looking for anything that he might be able to twist into an argument for Jesus' divinity.

Jesus is interpreting Psalm 82, which reads:

Yahweh has taken his place in the divine council of El (heaven?); in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: "How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I say, "You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince".

Gasp! Yahweh was in a council with other gods in heaven? Well, Judaism wasn't always monotheistic. King Solomon worshipped El, Astarte, Yahweh, and a bunch of others. This Psalm harkens back to the good old days when there were many gods -- and in fact Second Temple Judaism never denied the existence of other gods, Jews just pledged their allegience to Yahweh alone. (No other gods before me...) So Jesus (or John) has misinterpreted the passage, thinking that Yahweh is speaking to human beings instead of the divine council.

Koyaanisqatsi

Interesting take, but irrelevant.

The story told by John is that Jesus claimed to be God and the "jews" tried to stone him to death for blasphemy. Jesus then tries to qualify his blasphemy in the manner you suggest, which doesn't work and is rejected as further blasphemy, thus there is biblical support for Jesus' blasphemy.

What is Jesus' response, by the way? To run away like a coward.

Actions speak louder than words, I'm afraid.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

King Arthur

Dude! Don't you know Christians have an answer for everything?

Here's what the commentary I have reads:

34. Is it not written...'I have said, you are gods'?: This answer, with its appeal to Ps. 82:6, is a ?!*typical rabbinic argument*!?. It seems to imply "I have given you the truth in allegorical form. You cannot accept that. Very well, I will now meet you with the kind of argument you do appreciate" (cf. 7:15-24;Mk 12:35ff) The psalm refers to Israel's judges - sometimes called 'princes' - who, even though they failed, were designated 'gods' because they administered justice as part of their divine commission. How then can they charge Jesus with blasphemy if He is evidently sent from God?

Thay'i'tis! There's no hope is there?

I'm just learning Hebrew, so I'm going to be overly picky. Psalm 82 does not use Yahweh. It uses Elohim. It also uses Elohim where you use the singular El (which means God).

Check me here:
<a href="http://www1.snunit.k12.il/kodesh/bible/mthil082.html#1" target="_blank">http://www1.snunit.k12.il/kodesh/bible/mthil082.html#1</a>

However, Elohim also appears to mean singular God also. Thus, all the translations seem to screw up this first verse. Go take a look somewhere. They each have something just a little different.