Who Was Jesus?
So I've heard about this Washington Post "On Faith" thing and decided to go over and have a look around. I appreciate the people commenting there, including the greatest religious experts of our time, and all that. And who am I? Just a simple man with a blog and borrowed opinions. Still, maybe as I'm still recovering from the honor bestowed upon me by Time Magazine, let me just say: Are you seriously asking me if Jesus was the son of God? Is that how you plan to pull readers away from blogs and back into the warm bosom of MSM?
Still, I'm there so I might as well answer their question:
Do you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God? If so, what exactly does that mean? If not, who was he?
Is this question for real? I mean, I see some point in asking what we think about the philosophy of the New Testament or what we should learn from this or from any other book of mythology. I can imagine a question about the link between practiced Christianity and the actual words ascribed to Jesus, but are you seriously asking if I think he was the son of God?
Even strict Christians consider Jesus the son of God only in a symbolic way (like we are all God's children, etc.), so the only thing left is to stretch this metaphor slightly further and then what do we have?
Some people didn't get Stoic philosophy; it was too complicated. So they needed an example. That's all there is to it.
Now, if you want to tell me Merry Christmas, I don't care; I take that as a compliment. If you want to pray to God to bless me when I sneeze, I'm still grateful. But don't expect me to take that book literally. To argue about the history of Jesus would be to miss the point of the philosophy he supposedly preached.
Read The Golden Sayings of Epictetus. He said the same things Jesus did. But for some reason, as Epictetus was never witnessed walking on water, Jesus received all the glory...
10 comments:
Hmmm, I gotcha, those questions kind of miss the point of the philosophy, or so it seems. I need to learn more philosophy stuff, I'm so in the dark on that subject, and it's quite an important subject.
As for religion, I have a lot to learn, I'd like to read some of the Old Testament, seems a bit more interesting than the New Testament (not to be insulting, the stories in the Old one just seem more interesting to me!).
I'm with C.S. Lewis on this one. To make Jesus teachings the focus of who he was is erroneous. As you yourself pointed out, others came before him and preached similar things to Jesus. However none of them identified themselves with God himself... none would dare to in that culture... but Jesus did.
Lewis argues that:
'I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.'
and:
'There was a man born among these Jews who claimed to be, or to be the son of, or to be 'one with' the Something which is at once the haunter of nature and the giver of the natural law. The claim is so shocking—a paradox, and even a horror, which we may easily be lulled into taking lightly—that only two views of this man are possible. Either he was a raving lunatic of an unusually abominable type, or else He was, and is, precisely what He said. There is no middle way. If the records make the first hypothesis unacceptable, you must submit to the second.'
I submit to the second hypothesis.
I myself love the Old Testament, but not so much the obvious stories. It's primarily the prophets and the Psalms that talk about the emotions God feels for his people.
At Christmas in more traditional churches, you have an OT reading an NT reading and a Gospel reading. Usually the OT reading is a prophecy attributed to Jesus... it is these I find fascinating, they are written centuries before Jesus and yet point to events that we know happened in Jesus life/death. I recommend reading Isaiah 53, Psalm 22... and then there's this little gem from Zechariah... in the context of the passage, the character speaking in the oracle is God(pre-Jesus), make of it what you will:
And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
"Look upon me, the one they have pierced". So, long before Jesus identified himself with God... it would appear that God himself indentified himself with someone a lot like Jesus.
Wowsers, sorry if I've taken up so much space in this comment... I just wanted to add to the debate and got a bit carried away. I hope you have a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year... especially in terms of blogging.
regards
N
In Israel, we didn't read Shakespeare in school, so when I took a Shakespeare class in College I was the only one who actually enjoyed the class. The same is probably true for the Old testament. Since I was ten, I was told to read it, memorize parts of it, paraphrase it, and analyze the stories, the heroes, the anti-heroes, the poetic devices, and the related history of it all. Then came the exams. So I'm not a big fan.
The OT and the NT often have very conflicting teachings. The OT tells you humans are all corrupt at the core. Some will reach greatness but eventually will sin. It also tells you revenge is God's way. When Saul wants to spare the life of his enemy, Samuel chops off the enemy's head and says it's not up to him to be merciful.
The NT took these things to the opposite end. Humans are still born sinners, but a model of righteous behavior is presented in human form, for us to follow and emulate as much as we sinners can. As for revenge, the NT famously calls for showing the other cheek, not so much because we need to be submissive or even simply forgiving, but because a person's malicious action toward us has nothing to do with us. God will not judge us by our reactions, but only by our actions.
There. Not to make my comment longer than Nick's (by the way, thanks for that. A comment can never be too long), I'll just say that this is all great, deep philosophy, but as long as it asks me to believe in miracles I'll have to pass and revert to Atheism.
It's not so empty and sad out here. Hey, we're Post Modern. This gives us the right to pick and choose whatever we want from history, philosophy, and popular culture. It's not very coherent, but we can't pretend the world, even with an all-encompassing philosophy like Christianity, is a very coherent place.
I'll just add a quick note about the OT mentions of Jesus. I feel people often see in these two books what they want to see. Only five years ago people were talking about the amazing prophecies of Bladan Benladan destroying the towers of Babylon. And then you have The Bible Code. And then you also have people throughout history using selected quotes to justify horrible things. So I'm not so sure about the OT-Jesus connection.
Sorry, got carried away there. Thanks for the comments.
Hey, thanks for the comment in turn.
Have a great one!
N
"Strict Christians" certainly do believe Jesus is literally the Son of God. Nothing symbolic about it for us.
Thanks, Nick. You too.
Now, Marie, by "strict Christians" I mean the minority of Christians who take every word in the Bible literally. Didn't mean to sound condescending.
There may be different meanings to the word Son, and if you believe Jesus said he was the son of God, and even if you choose to believe every other word in the book, It's still a possibility that Jesus and the authors meant that in a symbolic way. Only if you believe in an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud, can the idea of Son take a biological nature. Otherwise it must be a symbol, even if you believe it to be a real symbol.
Hi...
Maybe the more vital question is whether YOU are the Son of God. If Jesus was, you are, too. You and everyone. There can only be one Self, one Mind.
For me there is a single Source of Reality which makes the idea of separation or differences aburd and impossible. There is no gap where the Father ends and the Son begins. Of course, this terminology has nothing to do with biology. Maybe look at it in terms of Cause and Effect.
Of course, this world is the complete rejection of the idea of wholeness. By its very nature and many forms it misleads us to accept the idea of separation. Yet throughout the centuries people have had mystical experiences showing them a reality very different from what their physical eyes were reporting to them.
To me miracles happen every day. To be able to shift in my experience from depression and fear to happiness and joy is a miracle. Formerly I used to follow the creed that happiness depends on outer circumstances. Yet it certainly does not in my experience. I am free. I find that I am not bound to my body. I am not a body at all. It is just an old idea that I made up to limit myself. To find love in my heart for someone whom I hated and despised, is a miracle to me.
I love and practice A Course In Miracles. I really think, everyone reading it would have to say, if he is honest, that this cannot come from a human mind. And yet, to admit to that is the last thing anyone would want to do. It leave you no choice anymore. You would have to look at it. As it says, it is a required course.
Cheers,
Alban
Alban, first of all, thanks for reading one of the older posts. And in turn, I'm glad you found something here that pushed you to comment at length.
Now, as for the comment itself, I'm not going to argue with anything you say. Obviously, I have a different view of things, which means nothing--everyone who commented here seemed to have a different view of "The Big Questions" in general, and of Jesus' role in guiding us toward an answer in particular.
Which seems to go with what I was saying. These questions you try to answer with A Course in Miracles, Marie tries to answer with a literal understanding of the Bible, and I try to answer by banging my head on the wall, looking for patterns in my headaches. These questions have existed since humans were first burdened with a conscious mind, and Jesus' teachings and example, and maybe even God, were and still are ways for us to try to understand why we live and why we die. And whether He was the son of God, I am the son of God, or whether God even exists... well, maybe all three are true; maybe none. Hopefully the human race, even the one who gave us Dick Cheney, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Joan Collins, and movies starring Sean Penn, will still exist a few thousand years from now. And if it does, these questions will still be asked, only to remain unanswered.
Thanks for your straight and honest answer. I also like your point about Epictetus and Jesus. It is a good question. I don't know about Epictetus, but about Jesus, I would say, he walked his talk.
Anyone truly walking a talk like that of Jesus must and will have radically different experiences from an ordinary human being like most of us. While most of the Christian believers adhere to an idea that Jesus was special or different than other human beings and themselves, I claim that the ideas Jesus taught can only be true, if they are true for everyone, at all circumstances. That then makes us truly equal despite all the seeming differences we see in our world. If they are true. But that would be up to me to find out, individually and personally, without the requirement of anything else. Coming from a mind set where none of it seems true, I would have to be determined to really see for myself, in other words, to see differently.
Isn't the main question for anyone objecting (or not objecting!!!) against what Jesus taught, this: Would you want to be true what he said and taught?
You seem to be very tolerant or willing to put up with of a lot of crap when you say, "Hopefully the human race, even the one who gave us Dick Cheney, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Joan Collins, and movies starring Sean Penn, will still exist a few thousand years from now."
I lost that. I want nothing to do with this place. I want to go home. And that is not through death. That is why Jesus is my friend. He showed me a way out.
Imagine one day without any judgment of anyone or anything. How free you would feel. These are the kind of thoughts I look at. The hell-fire concept has nothing to do with what Jesus was and is.
Cheers,
Alban
Alban, thanks for the comment.
All of us have the opportunity (the gift or the curse) to go on a spiritual journey, but very few people do. Certainly I need a few more personal traumas before I see myself ready for the next step. This is kind of what "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is about. If only we could see the pain we're in and the delusion we feed we would immediately begin our journey toward some kind of truth. But we do nothing.
So I admire your determination. It can't be the easiest thing to travel a spiritual path on the web. A lot of distractions in here, you know?
Good luck.
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