05-24-2008, 02:53 PM
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#52
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: mind the time rift, cardiff, wales
Posts: 645
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Originally Posted by TedM
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Originally Posted by jules?
Hi Ted, thanks for the response I will try and clarify my argument and even concede some points.
The bigger issue is whether the saviour was going to be heaven sent and cosmic or a man. Enoch and other prophesies point to a cosmic angel complete with an army of angels to join in the fight, [read the War Scroll]
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I haven't read this. Is it referring clearly to the messiah, and is there any indication that he would have first lived a life as a man in order to save them from their sins? |
The War Scroll is from the Dead Sea cache and feature the 7 battles that the sons of light will have against the sons of darkness, the war is a dead heat till the last engagement heralding the new age. Interestingly the messiah is only hinted at, although other scrolls clearly depict a messiah from heaven who will make the blind see, the lame walk, raise the dead etc. In the War Scroll the army and the battles are both made up of men and angels who would join them in battle. Remember these people had a very different view of reality to us so therefore it was quite possible for the spiritual/ angelic to co exist with man.
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I just don't see how the apocolyptic writings about the end times are relevant to the creation of a Messiah who lived on earth before those events. It seems you are bringing in a lot of irrelevant material to explain Paul and the Gospels. Those apocolypric writings certainly can be used to explain the references by Paul and the Gospels to the FUTURE expectation of Jesus' apocolyptic descent, but it does nothing to explain the life they reference.
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Irrelevant material! Paul is writing about the End Times, Christianity was an end time cult, jesus was to herald the End Time. Tense is the issue, had, is,or will is the question. what changed was the church pushing a faith with a limited shelf life. Jesus brought a new personal message of end time, a new Jerusalem was founded in Rome, the body of crhist returned as the universal church, god's kingdom became spirtual and the Jews killed the saviour.
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Doesn't the fact that he references the 12 disciples and the cross show that the belief of this writer was that the Jesus who had lived and died on earth would be the one returning from the heavens for judgement?
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the apocalyptic groups and others had the passover supper with the two messiahs [star and septre] surrounded by the 12 representatives of the 12 tribes. The new age would be celebrated at passover but to be attended by the real cosmic messiah.
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It depends on who you ask. Christians who believed the gospels would have said that he did succeed because he was resurrected from his crucifixion. That is what broke the curse of death for everyone who believes, according to them.
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And that was a clever move to make an idiotic/misguided prediction that failed to materialise.
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The idea that the servant prophesy was used to "create" a false messiah with no evidence that such a person had actually lived is possible. The problem is in finding evidence that Paul or the gospels did that. One can reasonably conclude that they used it to embellish or fill in aspects of that life, but where is the evidence that the writings were ENTIRELY based on an interpretation of scriptures? The writers dont' say that's what they were doing, but they DO include details that seem unrelated to such scriptures (ie names of disciples, towns, govt figures, set at a specific point in history,etc..and for Paul references to his brothers, the last supper).
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Paul can be read as either beleiving in a historical human or cosmic christ, the gospels, well Mark, is a fascinating subject in its own right. I listerned to a radio documentry on James Bond creator Ian Flemming who wrote letters to fans speaking of James as a real person. Ian served in the secret service, had lots of contacts and the term James Bond features in films/books/media unrelated to the secret service but it is still fiction. Mark could be fiction, it could be a dramatised reconstruction of a little known preacher. We don't know. We do know the church evolved into a faith where a human christ was essential to the extent that history really was made up with letters, forging and even Pilates gospel
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What exactly are you saying here? Who is "the Essene" and why would James have taken on a role as symbolic earthly messiah?
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the Essene were the fundy end of the world branch of Judaism. Pure and zealous they were going to be the crack troops fighting with angels at there side. They were going to be the white robed male virgins mentioned in Revelation whose destiny with paridise was guranteed. The Wiki article is ok to start with but you need to dig deep and wide to get a full picture.
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Your points make me think. I think the Jesus story is unique in that expectation of a messiah drove a revolution, generated many wannabes, interpretations but the messiah never came for the end time. That was the main event, Jesus was the warm up act.
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Interesting, but what a disproportionate focus on the warm-up act in the early Christian literature, wouldn't you agree?
ted
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Yes i agree. But that is the nature of religion.
thxs jules
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