Gregg

I don't understand why. How are Jesus' claims any more believable than Smith's? As far as I know, Smith never claimed to be "the resurrection and the life" or told people "whoever believes in me shall never die." There's no more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Smith found the Book of Mormon etched on a set of metal disks, along with the holy spectacles (Urim and Thummim?) that allowed him to read it.

Now you'll probably say, "Well, people were martyred for believing Jesus' claims, so they must be true because nobody would die for a lie." Of course, not only do you have no evidence that any early Christians were persecuted or killed specifically because of what they believed, but plenty of followers of other faiths, including Mormonism, have been "martyred." Why isn't this evidence that these other faiths are true?

Gregg

malookiemaloo

Just to clarify the martyr point.

Plenty peole will die for a lie, if they believe it to be true. But no-one will die for a lie knowing it to be a lie.

Anyway to return to your main point. Why Jesus over Joseph Smith or anyone else.

To me it all comes down to credibility. The picture of the Messiah emerging in the OT, the accounts of Jesus's life, what He said and did, His death and resurrection. 'God coming in the flesh'.

Perhaps simplistic and naive to some but I cannot answer any
other way.


m

malookiemaloo

Just to clarify the martyr point.

Plenty peole will die for a lie, if they believe it to be true. But no-one will die for a lie knowing it to be a lie.

Anyway to return to your main point. Why Jesus over Joseph Smith or anyone else.

To me it all comes down to credibility. The picture of the Messiah emerging in the OT, the accounts of Jesus's life, what He said and did, His death and resurrection. 'God coming in the flesh'.

Perhaps simplistic and naive to some but I cannot answer any
other way.


m

Gregg

What makes you so sure? People might know deep down that something they believe in is a lie, but choose to believe it anyway--even in the face of death--if it gives hope and meaning to their lives.

But, this topic has been covered many times, maloo, and it has yet to sink into your head:

1. There's no evidence that any of the original apostles were martyred.
2. Stephen was supposedly martyred, but not for believing in Jesus' resurrection. Besides, we aren't told that Stephen was a first-hand witness to the resurrected Jesus, so he, like Mormons or Roswell UFO nuts, could simply have believed a story he was told without any evidence.You have it backwards. The apostles were not witness to a historical life that supposedly fulfilled OT "prophecies," a life that a few people finally got around to writing about 35 or 40 years later. The apostles, including Paul, influenced by Greek teachings about the Logos--a spiritual intermediary between God and man--and by dying/rising savior god mythology, "found" Yeshua Christos in the Jewish scriptures. He was the "mystery hidden for ages and generations" now being made manifest--through Scripture and revelation--to apostles like Paul. His saving act had taken place in a spiritual dimension, hidden from human sight.

The Gospel "accounts" are allegories, not histories. They are based largely on scripture and were DELIBERATELY WRITTEN to, among other things, show a humanized Christ Jesus fulfilling scripture "prophecies." (Many of which were, and are, "prophecies" of Jesus solely in the minds of Christians.)

In other words, there is no earthly life intervening between the OT and the NT. The "picture of the Messiah emerging in the OT," a picture only Christians see, IS the story that the Epistles and the Gospels tell--along with a heaping helping of Greek theology and dying/rising savior god mythology.Thanks for the admission!

Gregg

NOGO

John M Allegro was a "linguistic scholar" as you put it.
I would even call him a philologist.
Most drivel that I hear comes from Christian apologists.

John M Allegro claimed that a name like peter was in fact a play on word to pitra which in Hebrew would be written in the same way without the vowels. Pitra was the word for mushroom and in particular referred to the Amanita Muscaria which is an hallucinogen. People who ate the mushroom got the feeling that they had seen the Kingdom of God etc ...

Where is the fertility cults is all this?

As I remember it, it had nothing to do with disciple's names.
Something about the fact that the mushroom with a cut on one side looks like a penis.

Jobar

Xeren, let me offer two short arguments with which you can do serious damage to your roommate's naive trust in things Biblical.

Get a Bible and show him the two separate geneologies for Jesus. They differ wildly. If they can't be trusted for something as simple as a list of Jesus' forefathers, which would not be miraculous in the least, why trust them for something which *is* miraculous?

For the second, I'll ask some assistance from the Biblical experts here. Where is the statement by Paul to the effect that Christ was "unknown in the world"? As a teenager, reading the Bible, I still remember reading that- and being quite shocked at how it utterly contradicted the claims of the Gospels that Jesus led a very public life, filled with extraordinary happenings. Read him chapter and verse on that, and again ask him why the letters of Paul, which were written before the Gospels, should have him believe that Christ performed no miracles, and was in fact *unknown*!

Vinnie

I would need to see Paul's comments to see if you are exegeting him correctly. And Jesus could be unknown to the larger Roman world and still lead a public miracle working life.

I think Paul might also have had to explain why the Jews were rejecting Jesus post Calvary. The Christian movement was more successful with Gentiles and Paul, a Jew, might have had difficulty with why God's chosen people would be denying Jesus? Just some speculation. Paul talks about something to this effect of this in one of his epistles.

One aspect similar to what you are getting at might be the messianic secret.

Taken from
here

Who Does Jesus Say He Is?

Mark 1:34 Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Brown [Intro NT p 129] may be correct that the “simplest meaning in the narrative is that demonic knowledge of him, although it invokes a true title, does not catch the mystery of his person . . . which . . . involves suffering and death.” But even if he is there is still a silence here. Jesus does not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. This implies that he did not openly proclaim his identity.

In this light see Luke 4:41 which has the same material framed slightly differently: “Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.”

Here Luke tells us that the demons were shouting that Jesus was the Son of God but he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak. Those of you familiar with GJohn should already notice that this hardly seems compatible with its contents.

Mark 8:27-30 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Christ." Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

This is the primary example of what scholars call Mark’s “Messianic Secret.” We see here that Jesus has to ask his followers who people think he is. The people had all sorts of different answers which indicates that Jesus, up until this point, did not openly proclaim his identity. Jesus then asked his followers who they thought he was and Peter said he was the Christ. Jesus then warned them not to tell anyone about him. There is clear evidence of a public silence concerning Jesus’ identity as Messiah and Son of God.

Matthew 16:13-20 has the same event but adds to it: “When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Luke 9:18-21 as well: “Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Peter answered, "The Christ of God." Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone.”

We could further look at the trial of Jesus as outlined in the synoptic Gospels and his response to questioning there but the verses I presented should suffice at this point. In GJohn, the situation is much different: the majority of Jesus’ sayings in GJohn center on himself and his relationship to his followers and His relationship to the Father. Jesus publicly and explicitly proclaims himself as the Son of God in GJohn. This is not consistent with the synoptic view. Down below a bunch of relevant passages will be cited when further comparing the sayings material of GJohn with the SynG.

There is a notable silence in the SynG regarding Jesus’ identity and there is a notable non-silence regarding this in GJohn. Given such a short ministry [see above], it is hardly conceivable that Jesus both openly proclaimed himself and did not openly proclaim himself—meaning—it is unreasonable to think that John reported all the incidents where Jesus openly proclaimed himself and the synoptic authors reported on the silence and that both were part of his ministry.

On a historical level, given that all three synoptic authors thought of Jesus as the Messiah but could cite little direct evidence attesting to this fact we should probably favor their portrait on this basis (and for other reasons) rather than GJohn’s which is clearly post-Easter in its outlook and fails claims to “authenticity”. Either Jesus didn’t think of himself as the Messiah and Son of God or he did not openly proclaim this during his public ministry. Jesus’ self-proclamation in GJohn, as we can see, is hardly of any worth in reconstructing the historical Jesus. It is of more use in regards to reconstructing what that specific community thought of the living and resurrected Jesus. That is a very noble and worthwhile task but our concern here is on GJohn vs. the SynG and the historical Jesus.

Vinnie

Benjamin Franklin

The problem with this is that the apologist would give the usual explanation of one being Mary's genealogy and it would turn into another long argument of why it can/cannot be Mary's genealogy.


BF

CX

No, not really. First off what is so astounding about Jesus' claims that they merit special consideration? Secondly how do you know what Jesus' claims actually were given the fact that he apparently left nothing in writing, virtually no information of consequence exists outside the biblical record about Jesus and that our knowledge of early Xian belief (in the form of the Xian text legacy) is nontrivially constratined by the MSS evidence available?

xeren

Thank you, everyone, these have all been very good suggestions, and I'm currently reading the material that was recommended to me.

How about this rebuttal?

"No matter how much one wants it to be, the Bible simply isn't evidence for any NT resurrection miracles. When there is, at the least, 40 years in between the supposed miraculous event and any documentation of the event, there is no way to say that what is recored is accurate."

Can anyone see any glaring holes in this (admittedly simple) argument?

It seems to me that if one is to believe the Bible is accurate, they must have faith in God, but the only way to have faith in God is if you believe the Bible is accurate!

-xeren