Jesus Christ's Religious School Of Thought (punishment, Earth, Messiah, Kingdom)

[Fluffy]

I don't really know where to put this. Its not really a debate but its not suitable for a DIR either. If people want to debate it then that is fine.

My question is this: Was there a school of thought in established organised religion at the time of Jesus that could be said to have been his main influence?

I am specifically interested in discovering the origin for his concept of hell both where he is likely to have gotten it from and also where the concept itself originated.

I wish to view this from a secular position. Whilst I respect that many people believe he attained these concepts from God or knew them because he was God, I only want to look at secular explanations.

[Quath]

From what I can tell, hell/hades was growing in popularity due to all the other religious groups having a similar concept. The concept of a good afterlife vs a bad one seemed to be mostly for heroes or great warriors.

I think Jesus believed that God was coming back to create an earthly kingdom. God would shake the world upside down in the process. If you were materialistic, God would place you on bottom. If you had nothing, God would value you more. I think Jesus got a lot of his ideas from John the Baptist. They thought this event would happen any day.

I think Jesus secretly wanted to be the Son of Man (a divine judge). Jewish people may have admitted that Jesus was a Son of God (someone who was doing God's work) but they probably would not have thought he was the Son of Man. As Son of Man, he would be in a position of power over earthly lands. I think the betrayl by Juda was revealing what Jesus hoped to happen. This would put him at odds of the established government who did not like people to talk about overthrow of the government (even by a god). Pilate probably thought that Jesus may try to overthrow the city so he could be in power.

After Jesus died, his followers believed he rose from the dead (probably a mixup in knowing where his body was going to be placed). So they assumed that he was the first resurrected (and the rest would shortly follow). Since he was the first, he must have been the Son of Man.

So his followers try to sell this idea to the Jews of the time. They just saw the Christians as perverting the ideas of the messiah just as Christians see Muslims perverting their religion with the Koran. So the Christians loked for new followers from the pagans.

So the religion gets very paganized. Son of God means something new (God as father as opposed to a holy man). Jesus gets many pagan aspects like a virgin mother (which was all the rage for important people at that time). The concept of heaven and hell starts to solidify.

The older religions could punish people with death. For example, if your daughter married as a non-virgin, then she was stoned to death in front of you. New religions did not have that option since the Roman Empire did not allow for such death. So the next level of punishment was afterlife punishment. Since you can make anything up, may as well make up a really bad punishment.

I think it was an evolving idea since other religions were picking up similar concepts.

[Mr. Peanut]

Well, we know he did have the Old Testament scriptures which contain many references to the destruction of the wicked. I will provide just a little, but surely these writings influenced the beliefs and teachings of Jesus?

Daniel wrote, And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Isaiah wrote, The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

This idea of "everlasting" and "everlasting burnings or fire" and that "their worm dieth not" runs throughout Jesus' teachings as well:

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Surely Christ read this in Isaiah, even the phrase "their worm dieth not" is the same, as opposed to "the worm". Isaiah speaks of this carcass, which can be alive, as in, "get your carcass in here!" I wonder if "their worm" is their carcass, which Isaiah says will dwell with everlasting fire and burnings? To dwell, live in this everlasting fire that is never quenched, could this be the "everlasting contempt" Daniel referred to, to which Jesus called everlasting punishment? I'm not sure, I believe the words punishment and contempt translate closely the same, but it seems Jesus regarded Isaiah and Daniels' words as authoritative nonetheless. He echoed these ideas in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus which, being a parable, many believe not to be true. However, some scholars say that Jesus referred to the rich man as a "certain" man but would not name him, perhaps because he recently died and the family or friends may have been present to hear Jesus speak. He did name Lazarus, which would seem to indicate a real person (only time he used a proper name in a story). They believe the word "certain" denoted a real person. Many scholars agree that Jesus told this as a true story, in which the rich man died, and immediately, in Hell, he lifted up his eyes, was thirsty, was in torment in the flame, and remembered his life and wished to warn his brothers. It seems, whatever one may believe about it, that Jesus took Isaiah's writings very literally and seriously.

[BUDDY]

As the son of God, it was not necessary for him to have belonged to a particular religious segment in order to know. Of course he was born jewish, but from scripture it is clear that he knew the scripture and spoke with authority on it at a very early age.

[Don Penguinoini]

Jesus had a school of thought?

[Somkid]

My understanding is that the "devil" concept and hell were borrowed from Babylon which is where Beelzebub hails from however it hard to say exactly as there is very little accuracy in any of the texts.

[Francine]

Originally Posted by penguino

Jesus had a school of thought?

It's called the School of Hard Knocks. We are to take up our cross and follow him through death into life eternal.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Fluffy

My question is this: Was there a school of thought in established organised religion at the time of Jesus that could be said to have been his main influence?

No. The first century religious and philosophical mileu was eclectic. It was a time of Middle Stoicism, Middle Platonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Hellenistic mystery religions, several sects of Judaism, and so on. There were no pure-blood philsophies or religions (at least that we can identify), everyone pretty much borrowed from eachother at some point in their history.

[kai]

well he was a jew wasnt he! or have i missed something

[Quath]

Originally Posted by kai

well he was a jew wasnt he! or have i missed something

Well, he was a Jew living under Roman law in a time when Jews were dividing over what God wanted. For example, did God really mean for people to follow all the laws or could we form exceptions to the laws? Jews were trying really hard to please God but they didn't own their lands. Did God abandon them or was God about to do something REALLY big? Jesus seemed to fall into the latter category. He also seemed to preach that we didn't have to be ultra legalistic about the laws.

So I think there is a lot more to it than just being a Jew.