Murray

I am new to this message board, but it seems to me that much of the discussion here concerning Christianity focuses on the peripheral issues of the faith. I am interested to see what those on this board would say to the foundational question of Christianity: Who is Jesus?

Please explain how you reached your conclusions.

AthenaAwakened

The flippant answer: The guy down the street living in the green house.

The religious answer: the only begotten son of god

My answer: An amalgamation of various mystery cult leaders living and preaching in the Galilee region around the turn of the first millennium BCE combined with various myths, legends and socio-religious movements influencing the Judaism of the day.

Why is that my answer? Because that theory fits the meager facts at my disposal.

Thomas II

Jesus is God,...for Christians.
How do I reach that conclusion? It's in their dogma.

Biff the unclean

I don’t see any parts to the story, Athena, that suggest cult leaders from Galilee. I do see a very strong resemblance to Apollonius of Tyana but he was in the city of Rome. Other than that Jesus is all warmed over God. Something like half a dozen Gods though mostly he’s made out of Dionysus.
Since the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea felt the pressing need to forbid self-castration (you wouldn’t have to ask me twice) I guess we can assume that the original Jesus was made of more than a little Attis. But he doesn’t seem to have lasted past the first editorial meetings.

gurugeorge

"Jesus Christ" was originally a personification of the light of consciousness. That is to say, it's a personification of the "Divine Spark" within us all, that which "lights up" existence and brings it into knowledge. This "lighting up" of stuff, this Primal Awareness, doesn't "belong" exclusively to you the human animal in which it occurs, it also "belongs" to God. It is God's Eye wherewith He canvasses some of His infinite possibilities.

i.e. the true Christian message is "Christ in you", and the original forms of Christianity were more or less like Quakerism or some of the other engaged, non-heirarchical forms of Protestantism: people would gather and honour this Inner Light in ritual, visionary experience, and mystical experience, and there were many different ways of doing this, with many different "takes" on the same concept. There was no priestly heirarchy as such, although of course some Christians were more respected and honoured than others because of their inspirational writings and insights.

The movement started in Judea, as a clever melding of the Jewish Messiah concept with the pagan dying/rising God concept, plus some Platonism. The original inventors of the idea were those represented by the NT "Peter" and "James" (the "Jerusalem" church), then "Paul" (originally the Simon Magus of Acts, the "apostle of the heretics"), then others including all sorts of proto-Gnostics, Gnostics, Marcionites, etc., etc.

In general, in this context, crucifixion (or entombment) was a symbol of this Light's "imprisonment" in the suffering flesh (i.e. when you think that you are merely you, a limited being, with a lifespan, etc.). Resurrection meant what in the East is meant by "enlightenment" - this Divine Spark's coming to know itself in its true nature, in and through you.

What we now know as Catholic Christianity was at first a minority sect within this broad movement, which eventually took an over-literal view of the myth that there was a real, historical person of this name living in Judea roundabout 0-30 CE. The myth had at first been intended as a literary trope, a good story (myth) to emotionally engage and entice the common people, but some took it more literally than others. Eventually this historicisation of an essentially spiritual, mystical concept, became corruputed into the hideous blasphemy that God appeared in the flesh once and once only in Palestine roundabout that time. The sole purpose of this deliberate distortion (which became finalised as the official Roman Church's view roundabout Constantine) was to give the "bishops" of Rome and Alexandria psychological, political and organisational ascendancy over other Christians by the invention of the concept of "apostolic succession".

I have come to this conclusion from studying (as best as I am able to, as an amateur without a lot of spare time! ) biblical criticism and history in general, the modern "Mythical Jesus" stuff (e.g. Earl Doherty, Robert M. Price, Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy), some respected modern biblical scholars with slightly "fringe" views, like Walter Bauer, Bart Ehrman, Herman Detering, and the older "Radical Critics" of the late 19th century. I also have had some mystical experiences that make this view very plausible to me (although of course that means nothing to someone else unless they've had the same kinds of experiences).

Doug Shaver

A figment of the gospel authors' imaginations.

I read this: http://home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/home.htm

funinspace

Well you sure don't ask small questions Well, since the word Jesus is Greek, maybe we should assume he's Greek… ok, ok, I realize you are using a transliteration of Y(J)eshua, the famed person from Galilee. I'll work over that in the next few paragraphs. However, I am always curious as to why Christians would avoid his more proper name, when they worship him? If you respected President George Bush, would you call him Jorge? Why not, it's his name, right?

My view is that he was most probably a heretical Jewish sage, with some level of cult following. I doubt very much that he arose out of any leadership position in the Pharisees or Sadducees. He was probably put to death by the Romans for various charges including treason and generally a rabble rouser. What ever he actually taught, has been dramatically morphed within the NT. I would guess that part of what he taught was apocalyptic. Now what I write in following is from my conclusions, so it will be written in that form, and not so much as an argumentative form. I grew up mainstream Protestant, and in my early 20's moved right to semi-fundy for a dozen years.

Since this Yeshua, is claimed to be not just a man, but a god, I think one has to evaluate who he was in the context of the Yahweh faith from which it is claimed he sprung. This also speaks to the beginning of my downfall in faith. I recognized after much research, that the Deluge, Joshua's solar object demands, and probably most of the Exodus were fairy tales. Once I accepted that I could not trust the Bible to be God-breathed, lots of other snippets that I picked up while looking into what I call the grand miracles of the Hebrew Canon (HC), started pushing me to look further. All this took place during a several year ever growing faith crisis. You can read more here about that part:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...85#post1911585

I realized that most of the prophecies could not be clearly dated to prior to said events; Daniel for example. I realized that most of the passages that are used as predictive of Yeshua, either have their context stretched immensely (ex: Isaiah 7:14) or could have easily been added later as the Yeshua tale grew (ex: born in Bethlehem). The invasion of Canaan has many questions regarding accuracy. The United Kingdom and leaders seams widely overstated/hyperbole. The Gospels do not harmonize in many details no matter the mental gymnastics proffered (ex: Ma vs. Luke on the details of the first couple years of Yeshua's life). The NT few tidbits that do intersect with history, rarely match up other than dates and places. And even then, the dates are often off from the details. Pilot is somewhat known within the Roman Empire and is considered a brutal man who was recalled for his brutality. Doesn't really jive with the Gospels. Paul, strangely almost says nothing regarding the life of Yeshua; like it wouldn't have been a topic of discussion between him and the Apostles.

As we get to writing and collating Canon, we see people willing to revise texts. We see Christians willing to alter other texts, like Flavious' History of the Jews. We see deceptive Apostolic succession claims from various churches, probably to augment their particular views. We see a Christian history that becomes just like anyone else as they gained power. We see many differing canons emerging. God was guiding this? 1100 years after the west settled on 1 canon, it got changed again. We see Christians swept up in superstition just like everyone else. Sickness is from sin; lightening comes from daemons; and the Church of Rome felt the need for 52 exorcists in 250 AD, more than any other leadership grouping.

If there was no Yahweh, who is Yeshua's father? Who was his Lord? Genesis is a bunch of mashed together fables, that does not match history, geology, archeology, et.al. The rest only gets marginally better towards being historical. The trinity is non-sensical. God sacrificed part of himself, to his other part, for the failure of creation he made and knew from time immortal. Huh? This God seams to have a shifting sense of morals, kind of odd for a omni-*. I find some of the Bible's ideas of morality lacking. It found time to condemn homosexuality clearly, but couldn't do the same for slavery. It was truly odd in the Hebrew canon. People with physical defects couldn't be near God's holy toys. He's pretty sexist. The canon is so muddled that humanity has hundreds of major sects. Revelations is barbaric. The idea that 2/3s of humanity will suffer eternal torment by the choices this God made to share his Truth/message is an obscenity in my POV.

So if Yahweh is a crock, then Yeshua is not a demigod. That leaves the question who was he. I'm not particularly taken by the mythical Yeshua idea, though it does have some points. So I fall back to he must have been someone like Moshe, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, et.al. Well that probably covers most of the major things that come to mind.

Godless Raven

Agreed, and I'd add, not so much of any of those parts to equal one actual living human being. In other words...

I believe JC is the most powerful figment of human imagination to ever exist (sorry Santa!)

AthenaAwakened

I'll tell ya why I included the Mystery cults. According to my professor for "Intro to NT", mystery cults shared certain characteristics:

1. Messianic Leader
2. Baptism (in some liquid, not necessarily water)
3. a Resurrection.

Symbolic communal meal (Transubstantiation) was big too.

Dr. Armstrong then went on to say (and I still find it remarkable that a practicing Baptist minister said this in public) "Christianity is a surviving mystery cult."

Funny you should say what you did about the first editoral meeting. I myself have often said, "The writers of the bible were not the problem, but ohhhhhh the editors!"

Peace

Alethias

Jesus is the mythological character that is at the center of the christian myth.

I came to that conclusion because I haven't seen any convincing evidence that would lead me to any other conclusion.

Everyone needs a hero, right? Jesus is the Christian Believer's Hero.