Johnny Skeptic

And who could blame them? Micah 5:2 mentions someone from Bethlehem Ephratah who would become ruler in Israel. Jesus did not become ruler in Israel, nor is there sufficient evidence that he fulfilled any other Old Testament prophecy.

Regarding the suffering servant mentioned in Isaiah chapter 53, there is no evidence at all that the shed blood of Jesus atoned for the sins of mankind other than what the Gospel writers claimed. Only the return of Jesus could clear up this matter. At present all that Christians have is faith. The Resurrection is of little significance without the return of Jesus. Here we are two millennia after the supposed Resurrection and the Devil is still loose on earth, and we still have sickness, hunger, natural disasters etc. Jesus basically said that when the message of the Gospel of the kingdom had been preached unto all nations, then the end would come. The message of the Gospel of the kingdom "has" been preached unto all nations, but Jesus has not returned to earth.

CJD

This I know. Hence my post.

Irrelevant. My only point is that given the cosmic scope of Jesus' life and death or not, his was a life of suffering servanthood. Not something too many people are willing to follow.

See this recent post on that.

Save your rant for your parents.

CJD

Diogenes the Cynic

A preacher having a handful of followers is not extaraordinary and according to the gospels, they did not follow him unto death, they ran away. There is noevidence that any of them were martyred, if that's what you're getting at, nor is there any proof that any of them ever claimed to have seen Jesus come back from the dead.

As for Messianic expectations...it's not about being "acceptable" or "unacceptable,' it's a question of definition. The Messiah of Hebrew scripture is a human king. An heir to the throne of David (any heir will do) who fulfills the requirements. Messiahship is defined by those requirements, not by birthright and not by any other definition. Jesus did not fulfill the requirements, therefore he was not the Jewish Messiah.

It's not about Messianic expectations anyway, it's about verifying miracles. There was no Jewish belief that only the Messiah can do miracles, so there was no reason to reject them on those grounds. My point was that the vast majority of people who converted to Chrsitianity in the 1st and 2nd centuries were in no position to be able to test or verify the miraculous claims made about Jesus and the overwhelming majority (if not totality) of those who ever were in any such position either never heard about the claims (most likely) or didn't believe them.

I would also reiterate that none of these claims were especially verifiable in any case. At the very best, it comes down to taking somebody's word for something. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable in the best of circumstances and when it comes to assertions of miraculous (i.e. impossible) events, its no evidence at all.

Johnny Skeptic

It is not irrelevant at all. If the death of Jesus did not atone for the sins of mankind, then his suffering was of no consequence whatsoever. This issue can never be solved unless Jesus returns to earth.

CJD

It is not irrelevant to Christian theology; it is irrlevant to the point I made. Careful reading produces careful responses.

Methinks you and I have different conceptions of what proof is. Most of us in the living world rely heavily on what someone else has told us. But you're point is right: the events were not particularly verifiable — in the modern scientific sense of the word.

As far as your point about miracles is concerned, I do not agree. The stories clearly depict a Jesus who does miracles in the sight of many people who still do not go on to embrace his agenda. Miracles simply supported the notion that his agenda was from God. In this, Jesus was not unlike almost every other messiah roaming around the countryside. What we obviously have left, then, is the idea that the majority did not believe because he did not meet their expectations. His way was the way of the cross — not the sword. Moreover, his proposed messiahship is equally viable as that which came to be defined by the masses (if not more so). Do not presume to tell me that messianic expectations in the first century were 1) monolithic and 2) based on some set of quantifiable 'requirements' ripped out of the TNK.

CJD

Johnny Skeptic

There isn't any evidence at all that Jesus actually performed any miracles. In addition, during Jesus' lifetime, there isn't any external evidence at all that many thousands of people believed that he performed lots or miracles.

There isn't any evidence at all that such was the case. Regarding miracle healings, today, millions of Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing. There are not any good reasons at all for anyone to believe that it was any different back then. In the 1900's, evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman convinced millions of gullible Christians that she was healing sick people. Her television crusades were viewed by millions of people.

Regarding the feeding of the 5,000, the claim first appeared in print in the book of Mark decades after supposed fact, making reliable investigation difficult. A good percentage of scholars date the composition of Mark around 70 A.D., but it might not have been released until much later. A good percentage of scholars date the composition of John and Acts well after 70 A.D., so obviously the writers were not interested in meeting a deadline for composing or releasing their writings. Whenever the claim of the feeding of the 5,000 first appeared in print, did most people accept or reject the claim. No one knows.

John 6:14 says "Then those men (the disciples), when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did (the feeding of the 5,000), said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world." I just checked all of the New Testament accounts of the feeding of the 5,000 and there is no mention that anyone except the disciples were aware that miracles were being performed.

CJD

Define 'evidence'.
And I quote: "…miracles in the sight of many people …." Not "thousands." Define for me "external evidence." Remember too that bit about reading carefully and responding slowly.

That what wasn't the case? The purpose of miracles as I described it above? Who are you to deal 'Na-ahs' at whim? Where is your evidence to the contrary?

[Snipped the bit about the gullible people, because it was both a waste of my time and the one who took the time typing it out.]

Again, the point is not the miracle itself. The point is that to which the miracle pointed, namely, that the miracle-worker had an agenda approved of by God. The record is simple: those who were 'eyewitnesses' and believed called on others to believe in their testimonies regarding the events. That's it. It's that simple. I just wrote this in the previous post: "Most of us in the living world rely heavily on what someone else has told us. But you're point is right: the events were not particularly verifiable — in the modern scientific sense of the word."

What do you want? Do you want to challenge something I've written? Then do it! Start by showing me what the purpose of miracles were in this social construct (during the 2nd Temple period in the Syro-Palestinian Levant).

CJD

Diogenes the Cynic

Perhaps that is the case. I define proof as that which actually proves something. How do you define it?
Not when it comes to "miracles," we don't. And in this case, we don't even have a single first hand claim to begin with. Before we decide whether we believe Cephas saw a physically risen Jesus, about proving that Cephas ever made that claim himself?
What other sense is there?
If the stories are made up, then the people in the stories are made up. They do not count as witnesses because they are part of the story. The actions of characters within a story prove absolutely nothing about the historicity of the story.
Actually, it makes him exactly like every other half-assed "Messiah" and magician and exorcist roaming around the countryside. Faith healings and exorcisms are common even now.
No. You still haven't produced any evidence that anyone at all ever made miraculous claims for Jesus, much less that anyone witnessed miracles and still "rejected" Jesus.
In other words, he was a failure. There was no such thing as a "way of the cross." The death of an aspiring Messiah was an ipso facto disqualification.
The Tankakh is exactly what defined the Messiah. What else was there?

While not every detail of the Messiah might have been agreed upon, a few things were definitive. He would be an heir to David and Solomon and he would restore their kingdom. That was the essence of the Annointed. He would be a human king. He was not supposed to be a redeemer of sins and he was most definitely not supposed to be God. There was and is no other definition of the Jewish Messiah. Christianity appropriated the word and redefined to such an extent that it's really a different entity with no relationship to the Hebrew Bible.

I think this is a sidetrack from the thread, though. The discussion here is supposed to be whether the miraculous claims about Jesus were in any way verifiable by the audience they were made to. They were not.

seebs

There's a delightful irony in that the process of adopting beliefs about how people formed their beliefs is likewise largely a matter of accepting totally untestable claims made by people who weren'n even there.

Johnny Skeptic

Now really, CJD, are you going to tell us that the Old Testament "does not" show that God provided the Jews with victories over their adversaries on a number of occasions? Surely they were looking forward to God delivering them from Roman oppression.

Matthew 12:24 says "But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." The verse is preposterous. There is not even one single mention in the Old Testament where the Devil healed people, but there are many mentions that God healed people.