Juststeve

What exactly is the highly advanced social justice reasoning displayed by Jesus? The best of what Jesus is reputed to have said seems like garden variety Judaism to me, in the mold of Hillel for example.

Steve

No Robots

The importance of Jesus lay in that he gave another expression and was another incarnation of that great principle which the Jewish soul at its best has continually impressed upon the world — the prophetic principle, the principles of idealism and spirituality, of godliness and goodness, as against materialism and earthiness. In Jesus we find a fresh exemplification of Jewish characteristics, of those traits which the Prophets eternalized, and which have made for the immortality of the Jew. Thus, he exemplified the eternal struggle in Israel between what Charles Peguy, with remarkable insight, has called the mysticism and the politics of Israel. "There is a Jewish politics," says Peguy, "but there is also a Jewish mysticism. And the whole mysticism of Israel is that Israel pursues in the world his tenacious and tragic mission. Hence, the anguish, the most doleful of antagonisms that can exist between politics and mysticism. A people of merchants, and also a people of prophets. The ones know for the others what calamity means."--A Jewish View of Jesus / Hyman Gerson Enelow.

RareBird

You have to discount anything Jesus is purported to have "said" and look only to the general implications of his actions. In neither case--words or actions should it be assumed that anyone can come close to the truth. And by truth I mean either if Jesus actually lived the story out at all of the who thing was a fiction with a message. Every look at what "Old English" looks like. Well, the new testament went from Greek to Latin to Old English and filtered down through the ages to the languages we speak today. Just one word changes the meaning of things so it makes no sense to assert that anything is exact. Here's a for instance: suppose in a speech to his followers Jesus was talking about his example of breaking with the beliefs of the times (the Jewish orthodoxy and Roman Paganism) and was implying that by following no blind tradition and following his example that his way is the way to truth and the realizations men (and women) must make in order for the future to have a fulfillment other than endless clashing of continued hierarchies. He could have said words to the effect that mine (meaning my way) is the truth, the way and the life--implying that the traditional way was the way to falsehood, conflict and unsustainable domination.

Through the 2,000 year translation mill, evolution of languages themselves and the liberties various parties may have taken along the way (remember, no one could simply translate from Greek to Latin and then to Old English without a patron commissioning the work because it cost a lot of money and time to do something like that. I wouldn't take much for it to come out "I am the way, the truth and the life" which would completely reverse the hypothesized scenario I painted above. That would set Jesus up to be object of blind worship instead of conveying that his example of non-violent protest is the way to a better future.

Steven Carr

I'll fill in some of the blanks.

Before the death of Jesus, Messianic Jews believed the Messiah was to be a king who raised an army, expelled the foreign rulers from Israel, and established Jewish reign in the region.

After the death of Jesus, Messianic Jews believed that the Romans were God's agents, sent to punish wrong doers and 'who did not bear the sword for nothing' and who held no terror for the innocent.

mountainman

You dont seem very interested mentioning, let alone discussng, the fictional Jesus. But the best was of explaining Christianity without Jesus is that Jesus was a fictional character cobbled together from literature available to a late century in antiquity.

JonA

Good. Then why not fill the blanks in with that? 'Before someone combined X, Y, Z Scriptural/pagan worship references together... ... '

The only rule is that your explanation cannot be: 'historical Jesus' or 'ahistorical Jesus'. Anything else is fair game, including explanations that have these things as their consequences.

With so few rules, I'm wondering why this game is proving so difficult for folk to play.

Jon

mountainman

OK. I'll play. The new testament is composite fiction and was commissioned, fabricated, authored and edited between the years of 312 and 324 CE in or near Rome. Constantrine was unsuccesful in Canonizing the Constantine Bible at Nicaea in 325 CE, but this was accomplished after Emperor Julian's death. The so-called "Gnostic Gospels" are reactions of the the 4th century to the appearance and the monotheistic state authority given to the Constantine Bible. It was a military backed authority, an Emperor Cult. It was made very attractive by its tax exemptions, and Constantine personally appointed his bishops throughout the dioceses already established under the Diocletian reforms. The orthodox Christians of the 4th century burnt books and destroyed evidence. Every Christian source of the 4th century is a heresiologist. They were covering over the history of disbelief.

JonA

But that didn't answer any of the questions :frown:

mountainman

OK let's start with this:

Belief in Jesus


Before ___The Revolution of the 4th Century______, there was no one who believed that a Jewish man named Jesus had lived and had been crucified and raised from the dead.

After ____The Revolution of the 4th Century______, there were people who believed that a Jewish man named Jesus had lived and had been crucified and raised from the dead.

Steven Carr

Jon continues to ignore answers to his questions, and continues to ignore any requests that he support his claim that the very earliest Christians expected Jesus to appear for a 'second' time.

Before the arrival of Jesus, Jews believed they were chosen people and were immensely proud of the scriptures God had given to them.

After the arrival of Jesus, Jews would write, boasting about the Hebrew scriptures, 'What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.'


Before the arrival of Jesus, Jews believed the best example of the unfaithfulness of Israel was recorded in the Bible.

After the rejection of Jesus by Israel, Jews could write 'Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?'

What could explain all this except the seismic, world-shattering impact Jesus had made on his followers?