leonarde

From page 1, post 3:"Good lines" do not, in my opinion NECESSARILY translate into profound observations. Not all of Jesus' observations were profound, but surely an inordinate number of them were. If his "lines" were merely invented by this or that Gospel writer we would probably have something like the 1st Century equivalent of the pseudo-wise pronouncements of characters in 20th Century films: the Yoda of the Star Wars movies, perhaps the 'Extra Terrestrial'. Most observers give Jesus more credit than that. Socrates would be close.

Cheers!

Not_Registered

I already addressed the accuracy of the gospels issue. I have added, as Toto advised, that I am framing my original question as relating to the portrait of Jesus in the Bible as a supplementary statement to by original post. Also, as you imply that Jesus was somewhere in the range of fool to average Joe, I wonder how a such a fool or average Joe got so many people to think He was so "cool." I wish I would have known what Jesus knew in high school. Then I would have had more friends.


First, you pull out several instances from the bible that don't accurately reflect the man Jesus was portrayed as in the bible. I'm not talking about His being divine, but the man He was portrayed as - you distort this image. I'm sure I could put together a collage of phrases or montage of actions you, or anybody for that matter, had uttered or did and create an image that portrayed you, or anybody, as a blithering, inept moron.

Secondly, by pulling out several instances you remove the context with which they were in. Everybody is aware that removing the context of a phrase can completely change the meaning of the phrase or the perceived logic behind it. For example, if the same father/mother of three you spoke of found themselves in a situation where one of their kids was self-conscious of their appearance and the parent might say "do not care about how you will look". But, if you remove all the context that phrase was said in it would look as if that parent cares nothing about hygiene, or looking respectful. Does that appear to be sound advice for a child. No. Not when the context is removed.

DMB

Not_Registered: If I understand your later posts in this thread, you do think that the character of Jesus as described in the gospels displays a quite extraordinary wisdom (perhaps with the implication that it is so extraordinary that it must have been a special divine gift?). Just asking people if they see it that way is almost bound to evoke the answer "no" if you ask it on an atheist board like this one. Since most of us come from countries where xianity is the predominant religion, it would be very unlikely for us not to have had some exposure to the bible. If Jesus's reported wisdom had struck us all of a heap, would we be likely to have remained or become atheist?

If you want a meaningful discussion on this topic, I think you are going to have to give instances of occurrences of this special wisdom so that we can comment on them. I haven't read a lot of the bible for several years; I found it rather indigestible after a great deal of indoctrination. But I can't recall ever having been struck by Jesus's display of great wisdom. I didn't think he was stupid either. He was just this iconic figure . And I'm afraid that questions of the sort you pose still come across to me as similar to "Was Hamlet mad?" or other speculations about interesting fictional characters.

Not_Registered

Oh, you saw some on Oprah. I see how that strengthens your argument.

You make it seem as though child prodigies are common. There are what?.....like a few billion people in the world. Okay, so lets say that there are currently 1,000 individuals with astounding, I'll use that term since you don't like unearthly, wisdom in the world currently. The number I'm using is a complete over-estimate, but I'll use it anyway. That puts the percentage of people to the astoundingly wise in the world at .0001%.

Yeah, its raining astoundingly wise people. That phrase doesn't flow so good, but you get my drift.

Of course your going to reply saying I never said there were a lot of astoundingly wise people. No you didn't, but by using phrases such as "quite a few" and "quite often" I can only assume that you were attempting to imply that child prodigies or astoundingly wise people are a common occurrence.

Vicar Philip

Actually, the link I provided strengthens my argument, but you conveniently chose to ignore it. I must have missed your post with a link describing this "unearthly" quality with which you seem to be so enamored.

You have yet to demonstrate how Jesus' wisdom is anything more than a third-hand account supported by a grand total of one book. Will this be forthcoming anytime soon?

Not_Registered

The following contains a reference to the Mel Gibson movie Payback, so if you haven't seen it then you probably wont understand what I'm talking about, which (by the way this thread has been going) wont be new.

So, in the movie, Mel Gibson's character is seeking to regain $70,000 which was stolen from him. All the criminals he comes in contact with keep misquoting the price as $130,000 or something like that. Mel Gibson continually corrects them, but by the end of the movie he has become weary of all the misconstruing of his words and gives up on correcting those who misquote the price he seeks for. The same is with me.

Over and over I have said, and for the last time I have said, I am not attempting to force any concluding belief on anyone as a result of the realization of Jesus being wise. I have said that I am just stating what I believe to be (Jesus being wise) and allowing each individual to do what he pleases with it. Ultimately, I hope that it might allow someone to see the picture of Jesus in a different light. That is it. If you don't believe Jesus to be wise, as long as it's a sincere belief, that is fine. If you believe Jesus to be wise and you say "So what, that means nothing to me", then so be it. That is a legitimate option. But someone might say "hmmmmmmmm....I never thought of it like that". That, for the last time is the reason I raised this topic. So, DMB, I'm not asking people to see it my way.

Toto

I gave you a link where someone in the 3rd century argued that Jesus was a wise man, and there were theological discussions as to whether this was a good thing or not - was he merely a wise man (one among many such wise men), or did viewing him this way diminish his divinity? Or would viewing him as a wise man lead people to think that he was so wise he might have been divine?

Do you honestly think that there are people who know anything about Jesus who have not heard this description of him and would gain a new insight by your repeating the words (even though you cannot give specifics??)

Has their been no progress in the past 17 (more or less) centuries in Christian thinking?

Gawen

Ok.
Jesus the man may or may not have been be wise. Why he may have even been quite a dunce. How could we possibly know? But momentarily accepting biblical miracles...for the sake of argument, the Holy Ghost could very well have made him 'normal' if he were indeed a dunce. But the man in the gospels was filled with the spirit. Was it the spirit that was wise or the man? Was it the spirit doing all the talking or the man?
Of course, I'm not saying that any person who thinks/believes he is under whatever spirit is automatically wise. Many people throughout the ages have been labeled as 'wise' that have not been 'moved' by a 'spirit'.

Steven Carr

We certainly must distrust what is credited to Socrates.

I'm not up on American history, being British. Are they any past presidents for whom we have nothing that they have personally written - no letters, no speeches recorded in Congress?

There is a famous saying by George Washington 'I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down that cherry tree.' Is that correctly recorded?

Amaleq13

Good movie, IMO, but the books (Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark) are better. I think the one that Payback is based on (The Hunter) was rereleased with a new cover to directly relate to the movie but I recommend the entire Parker series. I have no idea why they chose to change Gibson's character's name from the books. Damned annoying.

So, less of a desire to spark a discussion than a desire to offer your opinion in the hopes of someone else changing their mind? That seems to suggest this was never the appropriate forum since you really weren't interested in discussing the Bible on the subject of Jesus' wisdom. In fact, it seems like an indirect method of preaching which isn't really appropriate in any of the forums (or fora, I guess).

Well, I've read the stories assuming Jesus was a real guy and through the eyes of faith and I've read the stories as an atheist and I've read the stories assuming Jesus was a myth and I've read the stories as deliberate efforts to express the faith of the authors with no intention to teach a history lesson. I've also read examples of depictions of other wise men from around the same time and earlier.

After all that reading and rereading, I just don't see any reason to consider the wisdom with which Jesus is depicted in the Gospels as "unearthly". In fact, that depiction seems to me to be entirely consistent with the depictions of other wise men with which I am familiar.

I think your impression has more to do with the faith you wish to share than it does anything in the stories, themselves.

Also, gifted children and/or "prodigies" are, by definition, unusual but entirely expected given a large enough population. Given the completed expected nature of this phenomenon, the term "unearthly" would seem inappropriate.