leonarde

Posted by Skeptical:[trying once again and failing miserably to capture my beliefs/position] No. No. No. A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!!!!!
I said that what was "meaningless" was, NOT
the (hypothetical) work by Jesus per se, but the use of the vagueest of terms to describe such a book since the nature and CONTENTS of the book are what determine how "useful" it is. Or as I said before:
[bold emphasis by leonarde second time around]

But anyway, we are getting nowhere fast. If you're
interested in my ideas just read my very first post (but much slower). If you're not interested,
that's fine. Tata. Happy hypothesizing.

wdog

leonarde,

I'll take a shot at a few of your points.

I find (1) pretty ridiculous, if he was a 'son' of god born of a virgin birth and could turn water into wine etc. then being given writing skills by his omnipotent father would be pretty trivial.

(2) Why not? he knew exactly what was going to happen

(3) But the gospels are written for believers, so what if they would be doubted? That argument seems pretty empty, it seems to boil down to "It would be doubted by some anyway, so why bother". that argument goes for the whole flippen bible, so why then was it written?

Vanderzyden

Skeptical,

Surely you are not saying that expections do not contribute to your inquiry. Indeed, you insist that it is natural to expect that Jesus should have left his own writings.

Furthermore, you justify the expectation as follows. Jesus:

-- is the one and only "son of God" (whatever that means)
-- teachings and beliefs were vitally important
-- teachings had to last for thousands of years
-- required belief in his teachings for salvation

This is your assessment, correct?

Some observations:

1. You admit that you don't know the meaning of "son of God", so why do you set up that concept as one item in support of your expectation?

2. Considering that you've not undertaken to study the meaning of "son of God", then how do you know that you understand that his teachings were "vitally important"? What do you mean by his "teachings"? How do know that something else isn't much more important?

3. What in your reading of the NT persuades you that Jesus requires belief in his teachings for salvation? (It seems that you are at least partially in error here.)

In another post, you indicate:

By this, you make it clear that you don't understand what he came to do, and how he would do it. If you don't understand his purpose, then it may not practical to expect that he should leave writings in his own hand. So, if you don't mind, please answer this question directly:

Is it possible that his mission did not include writing anything?

Please explain.

Take care to note that I am asking about the possibility. Is it possible that he knew it was unnecessary to write anything down?

A clarification: I'm not saying that Jesus didn't leave writings because that is what many would expect. Rather, I am saying that his life is the most radical on record (presuming the gospel accounts are true). He is the most extraordinary person that has ever walked the earth. He understood himself to have an equally extraordinary mission. This mission did not require that he write anything. A thorough reading of just one gospel account will provide anyone with this basic knowledge (unless of course, inflexible preconceptions and presuppositions cause the reader to reject him out-of-hand).

Again, I ask: If what is recorded in the gospels is true, then why should you expect that he leave any writings?


Vanderzyden

[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Baidarka

Since Q is thought to have been the "Sayings Gospel" behind the Jesus quotes in Matthew and Luke, it purports to be the words of Jesus. It is conceivable that Q was actually written or dictated by Jesus and then incorporated into the NT.
BTW if Jesus was a 1st century Rabbi then he was by definition literate.

Baidarka

That will teach me to read the entire thread before adding my 2 cents. After posting my reply I read Tristan Scott's post from Sept 13th
"It is also possible that Jesus did write, or maybe had some influence in the writing of a book of his sayings. I refer to the so-called Q gospel that many modern scholars believe was, along with the Gospel of Mark used to write Matthew and Luke."

I didn't mean to steal your thunder Tristan.

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Baidarka

If Jesus was a radical and violent anti- Roman revolutionary then it is quite possible that his real teachings were in direct opposition to the theology and politics developed by the early Church. It is quite possible that his writings would have been considered heretical and would have been burned along with all the other "objectionable" literature that the church destroyed.
Successful religions are totally unsentimental, pragmatic political beasts and Christianity is one of the most successful.

Skeptical

Ah yes. Of course my failure is entirely due to my own misunderstanding and not to your constant dancing around the simple questions I have posed to you. I notice that you chose not to address the fact that you clearly either misunderstood what I meant when I asked you "a simple question" or you purposely tried to distort what I asked. Your silence speaks volumes. Yep, it's definitely my problem and not due to you muddying the waters and trying to just be argumentative.


</strong>

If that is what you meant, your meaning was as unclear on this as on everything else. You said:

"A Jesus gospel would be something like the gospels we have: a narrative of Jesus ministry..."

and also:

"(I assume unless someone can indicate otherwise)"

I indicated other possibilities. You thought I was somehow changing the subject by bringing it up. You indicated that if such a document did not resemble the gospel narratives then "...otherwise the "hypothetical" work is completely meaningless".

You can say you meant whatever you want, what you said is clearly not what you are now trying to say, but oh yes, it's clearly my fault for not understanding your erudite responses.

I doubt it will make much more sense the 3rd time around. It's also clear your only interested in hearing the sound of your own typing, which is apparently only cogent to yourself. So bye, don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

[ September 24, 2002: Message edited by: Skeptical ]</p>

Skeptical

I do expect that he would have left his own writings, but my expectations could be wrong. If they are wrong, why are they wrong? That is the question.

For the most part, yes.

Actually what I meant was that I don't know what other people may mean by this term. In any case, whatever someone means it sounds pretty important, meaning Jesus is supposed to have been the most important person who ever lived. That is why I listed it.

I have undertaken to understand the meaning, I have ideas about what it means to me, others have other opinions. In any case, it sounds very important which was my point. The idea that his teachings would have been important follows naturally.

As I understand the Christian position, if you don't believe Jesus was the "son of God", you aren't saved and you aren't going to heaven. Are you saying this is incorrect?

Really. So your saying his primary mission wasn't to be sacrificed to save humanity from its sins? Ok, what do you think his mission was?

Sure, it's possible, there's not much that isn't.

The problem is that if he thought it was unnecessary, he was apparently as wrong on that as he was on how long it would be before he returned. There are clearly issues that would have been cleared up in the early Christian community if he had left even some basic writings about his views on his own mission, divinity, etc. (i.e. the Marcion controversy just to point to one)

One only gets this impression if one assumes that he thought the world was about to end. If you agree that he thought the end was near, I agree that he probably would have thought that leaving his own writing was superfluous.

Because:

1) There are important questions that aren't answered in the gospels (i.e. Marcion, slavery, etc)
2) Getting information from the source is infinitely better than getting it 2nd and 3rd hand

lpetrich

He was supposed to have had Great Ideas, yet he never bothered to write them down. So all we have on him (if he existed) was what his early followers had to say about him. And what comes down from them can only be described as hagiography.

How much of Plato's Socrates was really Socrates and how much was Plato using Socrates as a literary sock puppet is a question that is difficult to answer.

However, they do not usually have lots of Great Ideas to write about. But even so, some presidents have actually been willing to write at length, like Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon.

Julius Caesar had written a book about his military adventures in Gaul, which is a pleasant surprise, since political leaders do not often write books.

(VZ's gaping-minded acceptance of the literal historicity of the Gospels snipped for brevity)

ishalon

Don't know if this was posted and didn't look, but Jesus "said" several times that what he was preaching would happen before those living had died.