aa5874

According to the unconfirmed authors of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus never publicly revealed his true identity. If you look at Matthew 16:13-20, Mark 8:27-30 and Luke 9:18-21, Jesus asked his disciples, 'Who do the people say I am? The disciples answered, 'Some say John the Baptist, some say Elias, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
But what is striking is that Jesus clearly, in all three accounts, warns his disciples not to tell anyone of his identity, after Peter claims that Jesus is the Son of God.

There are other cases where Jesus is claimed to have warned persons not to reveal his identity, after being healed or raised from the dead, inspite of the claims that Jesus had done numerous miracles in full view of large crowds. See Matthew 8:4, 9:30, 11:27, 17:9.

The only entities that appear to recognise Jesus as the Son of God, while supposedly on earth, were the Devil and Evil Spirits or Ghosts. Matthew 8:29, 'and behold they cried out, saying, What have they to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God....'

Jesus constantly refered to himself as the 'son of man, or the son of david when addressing the public and the crowds generally called him likewise.

Now, strange enough, Jesus is asked if he is the Christ, and is crucified because he implied the affirmative, and is guilty of blasphemy.

If the NT is to be believed, then Jesus survival on earth was directly due to the concealment of his identity.

pharoah

Did you note that not in a single verse you quoted did Jesus say that HE forgave their sins? What he said was really no different than what a priest may have said to a temple worshipper. Furthermore, there is good reason to suspect that John the Baptist's mission involved forgiveness of sins.

Solo

Oh, I am sorry, I did not know that you were speaking for the scholarly community.

And which "text" are you referring to, may I ask ? Would that be Codex Bezae, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Peshitta, Constantinopolitan ? Or perhaps one of the Coptic versions ? Armenian, or Georgian, Ethiopian, Sogdian, or Old Slavic perhaps ? Does the scholarly community for which you speak know that in the old Irish version of Diatessaron known as The Magdalene Gospel (tr. by Yuri Kuchinsky), Peter and Andrew ignore the first call of Jesus to join him ? How would that be explained without speculation ?

Formgeschichte, Redaktionsgeschichte,... warum sollen wir as einfach machen wenn wir es komplizieren koennen......come to think of it, though:

how can saying anything about the texts, short of simply reciting them, not involve "speculation" ? I am puzzled.

Technically, you are right, nothing is impossible. Jesus could have declared himself Ahura Mazda, or Boddhisatwa, but it is far, far more likely that, if he was mad, he would have communicated his delusions of grandeur using the conceptual framework that was available to him, i.e. seeing himself as a prophetic heir of Elijah (whose traditions were very strong in the North), to fulfill Zechariah's prophecy of the Apocalyptic birth of new Israel, possessing for the task not more than unaffected child-like trust, that that was what "Abba" really wanted of him.

Jiri

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

That’s pretty cute. Amazing too, how all the parts they disagree with are fabrications, and the parts they agree with, are not?

Well, people interpreted his words that way!

Mark 2:7 "Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?"

And Jesus did not correct them, so the deduction here would be…

That would mean it is easier to say “your sins are forgiven,” than it is to say “rise and walk” (Mt. 9:5), if what was meant is what a priest would do. However, I think Jesus meant for us to come to the opposite conclusion.

And Jesus did claim divinity more directly, even:

Matthew 14:33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

John 9:38 And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him.

And this continued after the resurrection:

Matthew 28:9 Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.

And here is what Jesus’ disciples did when people attempted to worship them:

Acts 14:14-15 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: "Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you.”

Not to mention angels:

Revelation 19:10 At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

And this is practically a claim that Jesus is God here, as well.

So allowing worship would involve a claim to be God.

Blessings,
Lee

P.S. See also the book "Jesus as God" by Murray Harris for a thorough investigation of all the NT (and some OT) verses that could say or imply that Jesus is said by Scripture to be God.

gnosis92

what you say makes sense, but i'm surprised you regard GOT to be early, since you seem to regard HJ to be apocalptic, wheres GOT the theme is realized eschatology.

in GOT, jesus dissasociates himself from the old testament prophets

52 His disciples said to him, "Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you."

He said to them, "You have disregarded the living one who is in your presence, and have spoken of the dead."

Solo

HJ was an apocalyptic figure; he believed that the Kingdom would be realized by individual spiritual transformation (repentance) and, evidently, through some "signs" that never came. It appears from the contexts that he believed strongly in the day of judgement.

After Jesus death, the believer core recruited by and large from Hellenic Jews in Jerusalem. I think of James' Church as a larger coalition of Jewish apocalyptic believers, which accepted Jesus as a martyred prophet but purged the more radically gnostic Hellenic elements which Peter & Co. attracted, early on. The Thomasian community likely started in Jerusalem but would have been expelled, given its dislike of orthodox ways, and apocalyptic vistas. The "Jesus" of GT I see as mostly guiding Spirit, cherry-picked from HJ traditions (those stressing individual salvation) but mostly created by the mystics themselves.

As for eschatology, I do not see any sort of preterism in GT. The eschatological model that operates in the canon, is transformed into individual experience of "trouble" after the unio mystica. 51-52 deny Pauline resurrection of the dead, or its relevance, and re-affirm the living Spirit (of Jesus). I do not see in those sayings or anywhere else the least concern for the fulflment of an eschatological plan. In the Thomasian belief which looks like metempsychosis (transmigration of souls) - death exists but is immaterial to those who "wrestle down the strong man". The string of sayings that follow (to 61) seem to be re-inforcing the message that Paul did not get at Corinth (1 Cr 15): "For Chrissake, man, get a life !".

Jiri

blip

I am in the father and the father is in me. Now that's the mystic speaking.

Loomis

Can you give us an example?

Can you site a verse?

I just did a phrase search over at biblegateway.com and it returned 83 hits. But I still can’t find a verse where Jesus referred to himself as the 'son of man’. It looks to me like the Jesus character thought that the 'son of man' was someone else.

All the best,

Loomis

Loomis

In an environment where some believers want their Jesus character to be God, and where other believers want their Jesus character to be a son of God, and where even other believers just ‘get off’ from all the confusion and mystery, which stories will enjoy the highest readership?

1. Stories where the Jesus character thinks he is only a son of God?
   
   
2. Stories where the Jesus character thinks he both a son of God and God?
   
   
3. Stories where the issue of if ‘Jesus thought he was God’ is supposed to be some big intriguing mystery?

Perhaps some of you will enjoy bowing down to your creator in hours of relentless unanswered prayer for some sort of sign to unravel this issue, but IMO common sense can go a long way.

All the best,

Loomis

lee_merrill

Not at all:

Matthew 8:19-20 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

Matthew 9:5-7 Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." And the man got up and went home.

These are clearly references where Jesus is referring to himself as the Son of man, there are a multitude of others.

One problem however was that the gospels were initially decidedly unpopular, believing this could get you martyred. So let's not paint this like some aspiring author for the NY Times best-seller list ...

Regards,
Lee