Jeffrey Gibson

Leaving aside the question of whether you are equivocating when you speak of "deity", what makes you think that Mark -- or any of the Gospel writers for that matter, wrote -- or were in any way concerned to write -- anything about "the deity" of Jesus?

Jeffrey

John Kesler

Apologists, of course, will argue that when Yahweh gets angry, it is not a sign of weakness, but is a "righteous indignation" which is justified. I like Exodus 33; I will first quote from Exodus 32 to provide some context:

Leaving aside the issue of how an allegedly omniscient being can "change his mind," there is still the dilemma posed by chapter 33's statement that Yahweh wouldn't accompany the Israelites because he might destroy them. If his anger were righteous, and the outcome of that anger--destroying the Israelites--were justified, then why would Yahweh need to avoid accompanying the Israelites for fear of acting on that righteous anger? These verses seem to suggest that Yahweh knew that he wouldn't be able to control himself if he became angry, and that is a human weakness, with nothing "righteous" about it.

enoch007

My take of jesus's ass...easy...the donkey was a plant. Look at it this way; there was already strife connected with that particular Passover festival, witness the incarcerated, the most famous of whom was Barabass. The Jesus clan where well underway and it was no mystery to anyone who would notice where they were headed and for what reason. After arriving they surely had partisans and fellow travelers already in the city so...it would not have been so difficult for Jesus or one of his boys to signal ahead and have an ass waiting for him (the First century equivalent of hailing a cab). So...when the J man gets close to the gates he tells his fellas "Look... there's this ass up ahead..go fetch him here" Looks like a big miracle, but easily arranged.

The temple affair seems a little more obtuse, but I would not solely attribute it to pique or ill manners. It seems to be more staged, orchestrated demonstration. And it probably was not solely anti-money or material, was not money changing and the sale of sacrificial doves essential to the operation of the temple (they couldn't accept craven image coins and/or any manner of barnyard sacrifice, there were standards involved).. So would it not follow that the commotion was a demonstration of some sort. This idea is not unique at all to myself, I read it inm, and to my shame I forgot the scholar, Saunders, I believe, with Two initials for a first name. He attributed the Temple incident to an eschatological demonstration, a symblolic gesture, because one guy and a handful of rabble did not pose any serious threat to an edifice as imposing as the Temple of Jerusalem (as the Romans could attest to some decades later).

Gamera

Whatever, Christians (like myself) don't see this as a conundrum about the nature of diviity. So half-life may have some point to make about theism in general, but not historical Christianity, which last time I looked the gospels were Christian texts by any standard.

Gamera

It certainly is relevant that Mark seems to have little or no interest in systematic theology, which arguable is a much later development.

Half-life might want to direct his discomfort against Augustine or Aquinas instead of the gospels. Last time I checked, the gospels were narratives, not theological tracts.

Toto

Let's not try to drag this off topic.

Paul predated the Council of Chalcedon. I think that Paul speaks of Christ Jesus as a divine intermediary between god and man. The later Christians had problems reconciling this intermediary with monotheism, and their attempts to force the two requirements together gave rise to the various doctrines on the nature of Christ, which I find too confused and boring to try to sort through. But I don't see any early Christians who describe a simple human Jesus, with no divine powers or divine mission.

Jeffrey Gibson

And let's note that it was you, not I, who not only brought the issue up but presented it as something that was relevant to the topic of Mark's presentation of Jesus was. If you don't want to back up your claims, fine. But don't make it sound as if I was the one diverting the discussion.

You don't say.

But where Paul stood chronologically with respect to the Council of Chalcedon is not the point. The point is whether Paul's (or Mark's) christology was one and the same as that which comes to be expressed at Chalcedon.

Several responses.

1. You engage in the fallacy of bifurcation when you limit what early Christians thought/described Jesus to be only to the alternatives of either a "simple human" (whatever that means) or someone with "divine" powers and a "divine" mission.

2. You not only equivocate in your use of the term "divine", but you assume what needs to be proved -- that your understanding of what it means to say that someone had "divine" powers and a "divine" mission (what ever that might be) is the same as what a first century Jew would have understood the implications of such attributions to be, let alone that their concept of "the divine" is the same as the modern one.

3. There were any number of people whom Jews thought would be -- or to have actually been -- given "divine" powers and a "divine" mission (i.e., the prophets, Cyrus, Joshua, the judges, the anointed of the Lord in Ps. Sol. 17, Honi, Judas Maccabeus, Theudas, Moses, Solomon, the DSS Messiahs of Aaron and of David, the Teacher of Righteousness, etc.). There is no indication that these figures were thought of as being divine in the sense of being a god, let alone, God, or as non human in any way.

4. It's a far cry from claiming that Christians presented Jesus as someone who had been given "divine" powers and a "divine" mission, or even that he was an intermediary between God and humankind (so was Moses and the High Priest) to claiming, as "Half Life" claimed, that Mark thought of/believed Jesus to be God, let alone the "most holy and perfect God". So even if it is admitted that early Christians described Jesus not as a "simple human" (which, BTW, I never claimed they did) but as one having "divine" powers and a "divine" mission, it does nothing to validate "Half Life's" premise that Mark presents Jesus as God.

So I say again, the conclusion arrived at by "Half Life" and others is rubbish. It is founded upon an absolutely false -- and woefully anachronistic and exceeding ill informed -- premise. It is nothing more that rank eisegesis and it shows that when it comes to matters Biblical, Half life doesn't know what he's talking about.

Jeffrey

Net2004

according to marks account jesus cleansed the temple once

11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.
13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.
14 He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it.
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves;
16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

hjalti

Was Cege talking about first century Christians?

Toto

I don't think that was Half-Life's point, nor does it answer his question.

IMHO "Christology" is just a way of trying to make some sort of sense of a subject that is inherently irrational. It really adds nothing to the discussion, except for a hidden assumption that Jesus started out as a human and was elevated to Godhood. But first century, second century, fifth century, and 21st century Christians alike have not produced a coherent theory of who Jesus was or how he can be man and god. They all have to retreat behind the "mystery" explanation, or "Jesus touched my heart."

Do you think that Paul was a first century Christian, or a first century Jew, or something else? Does Paul exhibit a "high Christology?" Did Paul's Jesus precede Mark's Jesus? How do you resolve this apparent contradiction - Doherty resolves it by hypothesizing that Jesus was originally a god, who was later turned into a person who walked on earth.

God or not? Where is the fallacy? Is Mark's Jesus a supernatural being or a mere human?

Are you trying to say that Mark's Jesus is just another Jewish prophet, slightly mythologized? That's one possibility, but I don't think it answers Half-Life's question.

Besides, did any of these gentlemen walk on water and rise from the dead?

Half-Life is presenting a dilemma from his point of view as a modern believing Christian about to lose his faith. You are trying to treat this as an intellectual problem in interpreting the text, as if Half-Life were a seminary graduate student being tested on some arcane historical theory with no real relevance to a current belief. There is a basic disconnect here.

You have proposed a solution - that the Jesus described in Mark is not God, and should not be judged by Godly standards. I don't see how this helps him, because Jesus does act very godlike, if your god is the OT god of rage. And if Jesus is not presented as God, he is presented as the ideal man in some sense, and the actions of Jesus somehow fall short of the ideal, whether god or man.