Reena

Everyone usually acknowledges that there is evil in the Old Testament, but Christians say that Jesus is the fulfillment of that, that he is the perfect man, good, just, righteous etc.

But is this belief accurate? I propose that everyone find a little something good and bad about Jesus from the New Testament so that we can all form an accurate picture of him.

My contribution:

Mark 7

6
He responded, "Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
7 In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.'
8 You disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition."
9 He went on to say, "How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition!
10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'Whoever curses father or mother shall die.'
11 Yet you say, 'If a person says to father or mother, "Any support you might have had from me is qorban"' 4 (meaning, dedicated to God),
12 you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.

Here Jesus seems to acknowledge and approve of Moses' "curse your parents and die" rule

And here is something good Jesus did:

John 8

3
Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.
4
They said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.
5
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. 2 So what do you say?"
6
They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. 3
7
4 But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
8
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
9
And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him.
10
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11
She replied, "No one, sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more."

Reena

No responses?

Toto

I don't think that the portrait of Jesus in the gospels was meant to contain any negative or bad things. However you read it, it was still intended tp portray a mythic portrait of a part of the godhead. So I doubt that you can reach your goal of finding an accurate portrain of Jesus this way.

You should note that tastes in human perfection have changed. We now view negatively some things that are portrayed in the gospels and the Bible in general - the anger, the adherence to the law, emphasis on obedience, etc.

jjramsey

I think that's a bit anachronistic, especially in the case of the Synoptics. That exalted claims are made for Jesus is clear. That Paul treated Jesus as at least almost divine is clear. Whether there was a coherent idea of a godhead of which Jesus could be a part is trickier.

But that's a bit offtopic.

That doesn't mean that there aren't any negative things to find. Some might slip through, in part because, as you said, our ideas and the Gospel writers' ideas of what is good don't quite mesh. Finding good things is much trickier, because it is hard to tell whether a good aspect of Jesus in the Gospels is due to something the real Jesus did or due to pious exaggeration.