Imnotspecial

This is not in any way meant to denigrate Jesus. Rather it is an attempt to separate the Jesus of the gospels from the Jesus of piety.
The gopels claim that Jesus had pre-existence and came from heaven. Should he not have been able to give us a few details about that place? There are very few utterances regarding heaven. "There are many mansions" a pretty meaningless detail. "They will be neither male nor female, but like the angles in heaven". That one seems to have been an answer to a trick guestion. Then his response about his second coming. Also very vague.
Did he know that he was going to die? It seems that he was hoping until the very end that god would save him.
These are a few examples that come quickly to my mind. Perhaps others have more.

Gunter

judge

Perhaps He did?

Why don't we have a record of His words if he did might be the real question?



Which comments in particular?

Seems so from the gospels

Thomas II

The problem,Gunter,is that we don't really know if there was ONE person who said all these things, or there were more than one person saying them and they were all attributed to "Jesus"...
And if they were said at all,were they said like the gospels say they were said,or did someone fabricate all or part of it?:huh:

Imnotspecial

For the sake of this discussion I am presuming that we take the gospel accounts at face value. This is what believers generally do. They conclude from there that Jesus had pre-knowledge of events. My attempt here is to analyze the text and show that one can draw different conclusions, i.e. that Jesus did not know as much as the first impression might be.
Another example is perhaps that Jesus did not really know about the betrayal of Judas much before hand. Why would he select someone who will betray him? This would not have been necessary for the redemption to take place. (Again from a Christian perspective)
It would seem then, that Jesus was no more than a devout Jew who had no real news to dispense. It appears to me also that the gospel writers did make up things to make it match with Old Testament prophesies.

Imnotspecial

It is quite possible that he never said anything about his second coming. Whatever the gospel writers attributed to him has not come true. But if he said something along those lines, he would certainly have been wrong.

Mountain Man

They're both the same - neither ever existed. The bible is NOT a historical record; it's a religious text by unknown authors.

Imnotspecial

I know that it is a religious document. I also know that most scholars think that Jesus did exist. For the purpose of this discussion, it does not really matter one way or the other. It is meant to make those who believe in the text to analyze it more critically. And then conclude whether any of the claims are reasonable.

RUmike

I find it annoying when people state this like it's a fact.

Chris Weimer

No matter how you feel about, that doesn't change how true it is. And contrary to what you may think, I still think that an historical Jesus existed.

Watcher

Yeah a historical person with the name of 'Jesus' probably did exist. I'll go along with that.

But in the text concerning what 'Jesus' was reported to have stated, that some of those that were there listening to him would not have tasted death before the second coming occured.

I'm pretty sure that all the humans that personally saw Jesus when he walked this planet have 'tasted' death and are nothing but dust by now. It's been about 2 thousand years. Still no second coming that I'm aware of.