Vicar Philip

My apologies for helping to derail the thread. I do appreciate your polite responses, Not_Registered; I will stick to the OP.

In regards to how it was Jesus was portrayed as wise, I would have to reiterate what someone said earlier: writers of fiction can make the characters heroic in whatever way they choose!

Not_Registered

Yes, this is what I should have done. I appologize for the confusion.


I guess I should have thought of that. The case for my wisdom continually shrinks.


I appologize. I was distracted.


Well I never said it was any different from other instances of natural wisdom. As a matter of fact I gave another example of wisdom, thus I can't think that Jesus is the only wise person ever. That's foolish. The only point I made that could distinguish Jesus' wisdom from the Cynic sages (who I am not familiar with) is that Jesus was a carpenter and His wisdom wasn't derived from years of study at a superlative institution. I don't know how the Cynic sages came about their wisom. But, I never said that others didn't have natural wisdom as well. I was just attempting to note that Jesus was a carpenter who had wisdom that surpassed others around him who spent their lives trying to attain His level of wisdom.


Well I did touch on the conclusion I draw from that, if it is true. I said I was making no real conclusion. I was just trying to create a realization that, as a conclusion, would have a chance of allowing someone to "see the picture in a different light." Like I said, I'm not saying this shows Jesus was God. That's idiotic and not what I'm concluding from this.

I also touched on why I was hesitant to provide specific examples from the bible. Even if there was a verse, and I quoted it, that had Jesus speaking to the masses and then all the people saying "Jesus is wise and His wisdom surpasses all wisdom" then, if people didn't reply saying "that doesnt prove He's wise" and "Just showing that a couple of people said Jesus was wise means nothing", they would at least say "well how do we know the people ever said that." And the discussion would be turned to the accuracy of the gospels. No matter what it's a lost cause for me. Basically, if you've read the gospels for yourself and don't believe Jesus to be wise, no excerpt I give is going to change that.

Toto

There were no institutions in those days that taught wisdom - there were teachers and wandering sages.

You have yet to establish that Jesus was a carpenter. Even if you accept the gospels, they are ambiguous. Mark says he was a carpenter in one off hand comment, which might be a metaphor. Matthew says that he was the son of a carpenter. No gospels desribe him as actually building anything or working with his hands. The gospels are silent as to what Jesus did in his 20's - he might have been a rabbinical student for all we know. He might have hung out with wandering sages or Pharisees and absorbed their teaching.

Not_Registered

Response to the tale is fiction:
Many have stated that, as Vicar Philip restated, "writers of fiction can make the characters heroic in whatever way they choose." Well yes, if the bible is fiction then I have no argument (and an empty faith, but that's another issue). So, I will do as Toto advised me, and clarify that my original question is "relating to the portrait of Jesus in the Bible."

Response to Jesus showing an ordinary level of wisdom:
I think the discrepancies in the level of wisdom is a semantics issue. I did not clarify, but when I say wisdom I am not talking about the wisdom your grandmother, grandfather, or mentor has. I am talking about, for lack of a better word, "unearthly" wisdom. Widsom that surpasses any normal or average level of understanding and knowledge.

I reference to a TV special about a handicapped child earlier, and I said he was wise. This child wasn't just smart or knowledgable, just you might say about your relatives who have a kid who can add or multiply better than the other kids in his/her grade. This child had a wisdom quality about him that was unexplainable. He spoke and acted as if he had experienced a significantly greater amount of things than his aged permitted him to experience. The wisdom I am speaking of is unlike the smartness of an advanced child or the "ordinary" wisdom of a "wise" man who always seems to know what to say; it is a wisdom that is unexplainable, where one cannot fathom how He seems to speak how he speaks or have the insight he does. Many people may have an "ordinary" wisdom, but I can think of few who have the "unearthly" (for lack of a better word) wisdom that I am speaking of.

I said all that above at the risk of sounding fantasy-like, but I really meant it. I'm sure there have been people you've read about of mabye a couple you've seen that have a wisdom that you cannot explain. I'm also not saying all the people with wisdom are Christians or believers. I don't even know if the little kid was. I'm sure there were many ancient philosophers ya'll may know of who had a natural wisdom, which can't be learned, that was just unexplainable. An example might be the knowledge that Einstein had. Knowledge doesn't always equate to wisdom, so I don't know if you can call it wisdom, but it's unexplainable how, without extensive training that Einstein just seemed to know and be able figure out things as he did. Also could be the composer who wrote symphonies at like the age of 6 or something like that. That is unearthly.

Vicar Philip

From this article, an interesting examination of Einstein's brain. I would buy a physical explanation any day over a supposed god-given skill. Unearthly? Perhaps if it happened to only one person in history and was well documented. However, we hear of child prodigies in all fields quite often. Exceptional, yes; unearthly, no.

Not_Registered

"We hear of child prodigies in all fields quite often"???.....We do?...Where do you live? I need to start drinking the water out there.

Your usage of the term exceptional seems to be a little skewed. Individual finishes college at 16....exceptional. Toddler writes a symphony.....exceptional?....No, FAR beyond exceptional. Use whatever word you like if you don't prefer unearthly, but exceptional isn't it.

Toto

Child Prodigies are common enough to be the subject of studies.

In any case, the Jesus of the gospels was a late bloomer, not a child prodigy (except for the obviously fictional story found only in Luke, which was probably lifted from Jospehus, who probably exaggerated a bit himself.)

Mathetes

Not to derail, but being the annoying nitpicker that I am, I should mention that the Greek word that is used, τέκτων may describe any kind of skilled worker, not only a carpenter, but a mason, an sculptor of even a poet.

On the topic: writers use a variety of mechanisms to enhance their hero's charisma. I do not think that anybody that reads Plato will believe that the dialogues happened word-by-word as transcribed. The dialogue is completely smooth. Socrates always has a quick answer, or a convincing argument. Not only that: his opponents have the right question that will allow Socrates to advance his point when answered. Does this mean that it happened this way? Of course not. Plato is describing his own ideas through the dialogs, and part of the elements of building the drama are these characters in the conflict that play together to advance the writer's ideas.

Was Socrates character totally imaginary? Possibly not. Was he exactly as described by Plato? Surely not. At some point he must have doubted. At some point he must have been caught in an argument and looked foolish. But Plato makes all this much more smooth and terse because the final goal is to describe some philosophical ideas. Of course, we can obviously see his sympathy for Socrates.

So are the Gospels: the dialog is written to make the hero look cool, and of course part of it is making him be clever, and part making everyone around him look like idiots. Even his disciples, that he had chosen, fail all the time to understand him, and are so stupid that they cannot remember the bread-and-fish miracle even after he performs it twice. Are we to believe that they were such a bunch of jerks? No. They are just there as characters whose purpose in the tale is to advance the story, in particular to make Jesus look good by contrast.

Besides, this "wisdom" of Jesus is clearly seen through the rose glasses of indoctrination. Is the "to Caesar what is Caesar's" very wise? It rather looks like a sophistic way of dodging the question. Is the episode "how can David call the Messiah his son" wise? I think it is very lame excuse to get Messiah credentials. What about saying "Elijah is supposed to come, but he has come already and nobody noticed". Man, that is a poor argument indeed. Is the commandment "do not care about what you will eat and what you will wear" wise? It is incredibly careless. Try to tell that to a father/mother of three that is trying to give his/her kids some education and save for retirement.

Not to talk about making prophecies that never happened...

Not_Registered

Milleniums are common enough to be the subject of studies.

Vicar Philip

By "we" I meant humans, not my small town. Yes, I've heard of quite a few child prodigies. Even seen a couple on Oprah. I'm sorry if you haven't. Here is a nice bibliography of a few examples for you. BTW, you wouldn't like our well water! Too much damn iron in it.

So now a toddler is a 6-year old? That's not what you said earlier. Since you apparently want to engage in a semantics argument, how about "rare" to describe young musical talent? Here is a good (IMO) description of genetic influence concerning musical tendencies, note the last section. I think your claim that youthful musical genius is "unearthly" is unsubstantiated.