The journey to find or construct the real Jesus. Peril or silver lining??

[firedragon]

The one described in G-Mark, less the additions, trimmings and manipulations.

So you dont believe Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to anyone?

 

[firedragon]

Besides the Quran, Meher Baba and legends in India say that he did not die on the cross so that assumption is a matter of faith and speculation, not proven fact.

But the key question to me is the one you asked. If we look at almost any era, how is it that some such as Krishna, Buddha, Moses and others stand out and are venerated over centuries and more?

Care to speculate?

Many speculations could be made brother.

 

[firedragon]

I honestly don't think anyone will ever know, and I also don't think it matters. Jesus, now, is a character in a mythical religious story that conveys an idea and a promise to humanity. The actual character is of little consequence, now. What is of consequence are the ideals and the promise that the story of his life and death and resurrection present to us.

Sure. But this thread is not to discuss if it matters or not. That would require a lot of research in a whole different point. Another thread.

 

[firedragon]

You might find the work of Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman interesting.

Everyone does.

 

[firedragon]

By the way, I think it is assumed Jesus was a carpenter simply because we are told that his father was one.

The father was also called Tekton. So was the Son. Ho tou tektonos houios.

It doesnt say carpenter.

 

[WhoIsBeast 750]

The Gnostic gospels and lost Gospels paint a different picture of Jesus and one who was married to Mary, so which set of Gospels will you believe? How about The Book Of Mormon or the Catholic bible are they right?

it depends on the interpretation of, for example, names are not literal names, for example antipas (but they are meanings), if it is not worth understanding words, then you do not even read the Bible
it makes no sense for eyes that say miracle and gave three fish and a couple of bread (number I do not know)
fish? and you will be the fishermen of the people (why do they have the pope's clothes in the shape of fish? or bread?
and thou shalt not live with food only, but by the word of God
so much for interpretations that people don't understand
things have happened as they are written, but people do not understand it or rather do not want to understand it
hence the legend of the encoded scroll
where at the end of time everything is shown when it opens and the seals are in the length of the year
so the first seal is one year and according to these thousands of years you will know what happened
and in the seventh year, in the seven thousand years since the book's revelation

 

[Brian2]

The dating we use today is Anno Domini. This is the year 2021. And that's based on the birth of Jesus. Although if the correct birth year of Jesus is to be pursued, it should be as many confess, 2025. This shows one thing, and that is how much of importance this man, or man God has vested upon him.

Finding the real Jesus is not a path that suddenly emerged in the 20th century. Rather, since probably the beginning of all of this. As you all know there were many writings neglected as apocrypha in the Nag Hamadi findings. Oh the writings about Jesus are huge. Yet, who is the real Jesus?

Does the writing of Josephus that passingly mentions Jesus, the brother of James, they called the Messiah signify that there indeed was at least a man people had called the Messiah? Well, how about the well known forged advertisement for Jesus in Josephus and his antiquities when someone tried to insert the miracle worker attribute to Jesus? In order to construct the Jesus they want into history, did not these people actually cause harm by casting doubt when people found out that it was all false?

Some scholars who believe Jesus existed as the majority of them do, do believe that it is almost human creativity to try and construct the real life of Jesus Christ based on the theological writings. Vis a Vis, the New Testament. Some stories like the Pericope Adultarae which is a known interpolation into the Gospel of John have been the point of scrutiny for many theologians and apologists in their effort to make it a true story. Whoever inserted it first, may have taken this story from someone like Eusebius who mentions a woman of sin in a so called gospel hebrews that Papias spoke of in the early 2nd century. But this person tried this insertion too late. And some evangelical apologists use this as an argument. Then you get an argument about the protogospel of James where some people like like W. Petersen argue the Pericope Adultarae existed due to a phrase 16:2. Its not good enough and puts them as "hook or crook attempts". When people make such arguments to try and make a latter insertion valid it puts the authenticity at huge peril.

Critical scholars take the words of Josephus associating James with Jesus who they called the Messiah as the only historically available statement. Which has prompted some scholars like the unorthodox muslim Reza Aslan to take the approach of consulting many many scholars, their works, the recorded history of the Romans, the setting of the time and place and plug Jesus into that in order to figure out a Jesus that is historical. Now this Jesus would obviously contradict the Jesus of Christian Theology or as a matter of fact, any Jesus of any theology.

Jesus is known today by most as a carpenter. Was he? Tekton as anyone knows does not mean carpenter unless you add "wood" into the word. A Tekton of stone would be a stone worker. A Tekton of iron would be an iron worker. Which Jesus is the real Jesus?

While Judaism rejects Jesus, Islam embraces him as a prophet of God. A Messenger. The Quran is a 7th century document, thus being 7 centuries apart from Jesus as a historical document it can be argued that it is not valid. A curious case is the statement in this book that Jesus was not crucified nor killed by them as in the Jews but only made to appear as they did. The usual opposition to this is that "why would God make it appear as if they crucified him"?? Well, the text does not say that it was God who made it appear as such. So that's a cloven assumption. It also denies that the Jews killed him which means it could always be the Romans who did, and that's the position of scholars anyway, that it was the Romans who killed him for sedition.

There were many Christs in that era. Many people called themselves Christ. And many of them were killed by the Romans and their movements crushed. Yep, it was for sedition. Judas the Galilean, Hezekiah, Simon of Peraea, Menahem, Simon son of Kochba, Simonson of Giora, the Samaritan, Theudas, Athronges, etc. Thus, was Jesus a significant figure in comparison to everyone else at that time, or was he just one of them and nothing special?? Well it certainly seems like it because the "decadent" Josephus would make him a little significant if he was wouldn't he? Or did he subdue Jesus on purpose? Also if Jesus was not a significant character how in the world is he the only venerated Christ of the time, though he was also killed in the same manner like everyone else?

Who is the real Jesus?

All this because people don't want to accept the gospels as showing the real Jesus, they would rather make something up.

 

[firedragon]

All this because people don't want to accept the gospels as showing the real Jesus, they would rather make something up.

So your point is that its a conspiracy or a hypocrisy right?

 

[Marcion]

Who is the real Jesus?

I would say the Jesus of the first half of gMark (without the passion narrative) and of the reconstructed Q-lite sayings comes closest to any believable Jesus. The miraculous healings and other magical feats may have been somewhat exaggerated but are in line with the teachings of Q-lite which are basically tantric teachings so nothing to do with religion.

The gnostic gospels are attempts to get back to this original Jesus but they are mostly fictional just like the elaborations in the other parts of the New Testament gospel stories originated in the fantasy of their Christian authors.

 

[firedragon]

I would say the Jesus of the first half of gMark (without the passion narrative) and of the reconstructed Q-lite sayings comes closest to any believable Jesus. The miraculous healings and other magical feats may have been somewhat exaggerated but are in line with the teachings of Q-lite which are basically tantric teachings so nothing to do with religion.

The gnostic gospels are attempts to get back to this original Jesus but they are mostly fictional just like the elaborations in the other parts of the New Testament gospel stories originated in the fantasy of their Christian authors.

You consider Q depicts the real Jesus?

 

[Marcion]

You consider Q depicts the real Jesus?

Not Q based on the two-source theory but rather Q-lite based on the three-source theory. It doesn't depict Jesus but gives his (secret) instructions or teachings for his first missionaries.

Christianity did not respect those teachings but re-used them for another purpose.

 

[blü 2]

Who is the real Jesus?

Was there an historical Jesus? There's no clincher either way. It's possible to account for the gospels without one.

But if we assume there was an historical Jesus then we can say this about him ─

─ no one who ever met him left any record of any kind of the event.
─ correspondingly, none of the NT authors ever met him. Therefore everything in the NT is at second, third, fourth, who knows, hand.
─ as any historian will tell you, reports of supernatural events are not credible; and second-hand reports of supernatural events are even less credible, if that's possible; and second (or more) hand supernatural reports are all the gospels can offer.
─ there are five main versions of Jesus in the NT, those of Paul and the respective authors of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.
─ Paul's Jesus is a gnostic being who pre-existed in heaven with God, and (despite what Genesis says) made the material universe.
─ Mark's Jesus is an ordinary Jew to whom no special qualities are attributed until he's baptized by JtB; and at this point the heavens open and God adopts him as [his] son in the same way [he] adopted David as [his] son in Psalm 2:7.
─ Mark gives the first and in substance only purported earthly biography of Jesus. This is copied, added to, substracted from, and re-edited by the authors of Matthew and of Luke so that those three gospels are called 'synoptic'.
─ The Jesus of Matthew and the Jesus of Mark are each brought into being by the divine insemination of a virgin. These two versions of Jesus would therefore have God's Y-chromosome, unlike the other three versions of Jesus.
─ The Jesus of John is gnostic like Paul's, and accordingly also pre-existed in heaven with God and created the material universe.
─ The Jesus of Mark is not descended from David. The other four versions of Jesus are all said to be descended from David. In the case of those of Matthew and of Luke, that must be nonsense, like the irreconcilable and fictitious genealogies provided for them, since their father is God and the genealogies are for Joseph.

If there is a real Jesus, then the most that can be said about him is that he was an ordinary Jew,
and that probably his message was the same as John the Baptist's, the simple exhortation, Get ready, God's Kingdom on earth is about to be established SOON, in your lifetimes
and that probably he was put to death by the Romans

but note that Paul in Philippians 2:8-10 says Jesus' name was not Jesus (Yehoshua, "God is Salvation") until after he was put to death

and that in 2:8 the words "even death on a cross" are apparently a gloss, since they break the prosodic meter of the verse, raising the possibility that Jesus died in some other manner.

Oh, and as for the resurrection, there are six versions in the NT (counting Paul's, and the mention in Acts 1) and of the six, none is by an eyewitness, none is by an independent reporter, the earliest with any detail (Mark's) is about 45 years after the purported event, and all six contradict the other five in major ways. Which is to say, even were a credible account of an authentic resurrection possible, none would be found in the NT.

 

[oldbadger]

So you dont believe Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to anyone?

Resurrection? No.
Appeared? Yes. Why wouldn't he? He was alive.

 

[firedragon]

Not Q based on the two-source theory but rather Q-lite based on the three-source theory. It doesn't depict Jesus but gives his (secret) instructions or teachings for his first missionaries.

Christianity did not respect those teachings but re-used them for another purpose.

Alright. You believe that including John into the synoptic problem and the so called "possible" explanations of the relationship thus creating a new Q lite has the real Jesus in it??

 

[firedragon]

Resurrection? No.
Appeared? Yes. Why wouldn't he? He was alive.

I meant the appearances after the resurrection mate.

 

[firedragon]

Was there an historical Jesus? There's no clincher either way. It's possible to account for the gospels without one.

But if we assume there was an historical Jesus then we can say this about him ─

─ no one who ever met him left any record of any kind of the event.
─ correspondingly, none of the NT authors ever met him. Therefore everything in the NT is at second, third, fourth, who knows, hand.
─ as any historian will tell you, reports of supernatural events are not credible; and second-hand reports of supernatural events are even less credible, if that's possible; and second (or more) hand supernatural reports are all the gospels can offer.
─ there are five main versions of Jesus in the NT, those of Paul and the respective authors of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.
─ Paul's Jesus is a gnostic being who pre-existed in heaven with God, and (despite what Genesis says) made the material universe.
─ Mark's Jesus is an ordinary Jew to whom no special qualities are attributed until he's baptized by JtB; and at this point the heavens open and God adopts him as [his] son in the same way [he] adopted David as [his] son in Psalm 2:7.
─ Mark gives the first and in substance only purported earthly biography of Jesus. This is copied, added to, substracted from, and re-edited by the authors of Matthew and of Luke so that those three gospels are called 'synoptic'.
─ The Jesus of Matthew and the Jesus of Mark are each brought into being by the divine insemination of a virgin. These two versions of Jesus would therefore have God's Y-chromosome, unlike the other three versions of Jesus.
─ The Jesus of John is gnostic like Paul's, and accordingly also pre-existed in heaven with God and created the material universe.
─ The Jesus of Mark is not descended from David. The other four versions of Jesus are all said to be descended from David. In the case of those of Matthew and of Luke, that must be nonsense, like the irreconcilable and fictitious genealogies provided for them, since their father is God and the genealogies are for Joseph.

If there is a real Jesus, then the most that can be said about him is that he was an ordinary Jew,
and that probably his message was the same as John the Baptist's, the simple exhortation, Get ready, God's Kingdom on earth is about to be established SOON, in your lifetimes
and that probably he was put to death by the Romans

but note that Paul in Philippians 2:8-10 says Jesus' name was not Jesus (Yehoshua, "God is Salvation") until after he was put to death

and that in 2:8 the words "even death on a cross" are apparently a gloss, since they break the prosodic meter of the verse, raising the possibility that Jesus died in some other manner.

Oh, and as for the resurrection, there are six versions in the NT (counting Paul's, and the mention in Acts 1) and of the six, none is by an eyewitness, none is by an independent reporter, the earliest with any detail (Mark's) is about 45 years after the purported event, and all six contradict the other five in major ways. Which is to say, even were a credible account of an authentic resurrection possible, none would be found in the NT.

No. Philippians says "EESOU" which is an address of EESOUS.

So bottomline of your post is that you are not sure if this Jesus existed ever and the rest are just speculation.

 

[oldbadger]

I meant the appearances after the resurrection mate.

Yes.
I answered.
He did not die, was not resurrected, and so sightings of him in Galilee were real. He did not die.

 

[firedragon]

Yes.
I answered.
He did not die, was not resurrected, and so sightings of him in Galilee were real. He did not die.

There are no sightings of him in Galilee in Mark is there?

 

[oldbadger]

There are no sightings of him in Galilee in Mark is there?

No, but in Matthew he appears there and that could be a true account.
If J of A was getting him out of Palestine then they needed to get to the ports of Sidon or Tyre. Whether he reached Gaul, Kashmir or Cornwall I don't know but as you probably know claims exist for all those places having received Jesus.

He certainly did not die that week.

 

[firedragon]

No, but in Matthew he appears there and that could be a true account.

You mean after the crucifixion?