What Did Jesus Actually Do?

[Spartan]

And my answer to that answer is that the very God you credit was -- according to the Bible itself -- the instigator of war, and of genocide, and of rape. I am not referring to what "some people" in "some groups" do. I am referring exactly to what the Bible itself says about God.

Nonsense. You confuse divine justice with criminal behavior, etc.

And that should tell you, in no uncertain terms, why I do not believe in the Christianity of the Bible -- nor Judaism nor Islam, neither. If you start off by getting God wrong, why on earth should I pay any attention to the rest of it?

Pay attention to whatever you want. Or don't.

 

[Rival]

What Jesus did you cannot believe.

What..?

 

[Spartan]

It would be easier if someone could tell me why Jesus is so famous. He did nothing compared to the likes of Napoleon, Kahn, Pankhurst, Curie, Stalin...

Nuts. He healed the sick, raised the dead, resurrected from the dead, taught what Thomas Jefferson called "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man," offered a way of eternal life, and began a benevolent revolution that has changed the world for the better. That for starters.

 

[Aniiz]

What Jesus actually did was to seal the fate of all of you. To which all of you are unaware.

 

[sojourner]

Did you get all that out of Mad Magazine? It sounds like it.

The Gospel of Thomas wasn't written by Thomas. It's a redacted, 2nd century pseudepgrapha. It always amuses me how folks like you bad-mouth the four original New Testament Gospels because they ALLEGEDLY weren't written early enough or by the traditional authors. Then you prop up this 2nd century "Gospel" of Thomas as if it came down from Mount Sinai. It's horse manure. What a bizarre agenda you have.

As for Q, no one had ever heard of it before the HYPOTHESIS of it was invented. There's no manuscript evidence for it. No one in early times ever mentioned it. You say it doesn't speak of the resurrection? How would you even begin to know unless you had some manuscript or historical attestations as evidence? And you don't. There's more:

The Case Against Q: Fallacies at the Heart of Q

The Case Against Q: Ten Reasons

Your romper-room theology should be buried in a cats litter box with the sign, "Do not disturb this disturbing pile of manure."

I never knew that someone who identified as a Christian could hate the oral tradition and written texts of the faith as much as you appear to.

Someone must be weally scawed that the Faith might just be bigger and different than he can imagine.

 

[Aniiz]

I never knew that someone who identified as a Christian could hate the oral tradition and written texts of the faith as much as you appear to.

Someone must be weally scawed that the Faith might just be bigger and different than he can imagine.

John 6:70
Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?

 

[Spartan]

I never knew that someone who identified as a Christian could hate the oral tradition and written texts of the faith as much as you appear to.

I don't hate the real thing, just your twisted versions of them.

 

[1213]

...None of the wisdom ascribed to "Jesus" is anything
new different special. We learn the same ethos in
China, it is what is expected of civilized people.
...

Sorry, I don’t see that China thing to be true. But, it is true that the teachings are old and Jesus told he speaks what God had commanded him to speak.

For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
John 12:49-50

Lot of it has been already said in the Old Testament. New thing seems to be this:

But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
Mat. 5:44-45

Others don’t seem to have that and especially others don’t seem to follow that.

...We don't, though, recommend such foolish
economic advice as this..
Therefore don't be anxious, saying, 'What will we eat?', 'What will we drink?' or, 'With what will we be clothed?

And I bet you do not follow that!

Yes, I have not seen that worrying helps in anything. What have you achieved by worrying?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Nonsense. You confuse divine justice with criminal behavior, etc.

Nothing in this world, or in any other, will convince me that the slaughter of innocents (as infant and young boys certainly are, along with most everybody else in any community), nor the purposeful setting aside of young, virgin females for you own "purposes," is anything other than criminal behaviour. And if it is ordained by God, then God is a criminal.

Pay attention to whatever you want. Or don't.

As you do. What I pay attention to, however, I with a critical eye. I don't gloss over obvious errors when they contradict my personal preferences. I pay attention, in other words, for the purpose of learning something.

 

[Audie]

Sorry, I don’t see that China thing to be true. But, it is true that the teachings are old and Jesus told he speaks what God had commanded him to speak.

For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
John 12:49-50

Lot of it has been already said in the Old Testament. New thing seems to be this:

But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
Mat. 5:44-45

Others don’t seem to have that and especially others don’t seem to follow that.



Yes, I have not seen that worrying helps in anything. What have you achieved by worrying?

You know nothing of Chinese culture but of course,
dont take my word for it.

Advice on how to get good with god is in every religion.
Of course each is diff.

As for the "love enemy..." etc, the 99% that is just
a recitation-for-dummies of how to implement the
golden rule-so is the other 1%. ALL cultures recognize
golden rule. Chridtians seem little interested in
following it. Japanese do way better. Way better.

Is your reading of the passage I cited REALLY so shallow
that all you see is "dont do no good to worry"?

Im not "Satan" but he is said to know his scrip.

And so do I, far better than most "christians".

 

[Spartan]

Nothing in this world, or in any other, will convince me that the slaughter of innocents (as infant and young boys certainly are, along with most everybody else in any community), nor the purposeful setting aside of young, virgin females for you own "purposes," is anything other than criminal behaviour. And if it is ordained by God, then God is a criminal.

You believe in God? If so, which one?

If not, then humanity is all you have left, correct?

 

[sojourner]

I don't hate the real thing, just your twisted versions of them.

Sure sounds like it to me. You refuse to accept scholastic findings about them. You insist on wishful thinking about them. You disparage Thomas, which is authentic and extremely important in the exegetical process. You completely dismiss proper exegesis. In the process, you miss out on what they might be trying to tell you. I’m not at all convinced that you know what the “real thing” is — or care, just so long as what the apologists tell you agrees with your confirmation bias. You don’t appear to want to explore information that may be new to you; you’re too busy building walls around what you believe to be true.

 

[oldbadger]

What..?

The above was posted to another member.......

I offered to start from a foundation of fact that you could identify with. We could then see how far we could take the Jesus history before you could tell me that we had reached 'belief'

The foundation I offered was the early 1st century Great Temple half and Full shekel coins (obverse and reverse images) but you never replied.

I chose to start there because Jesus was clearly so upset with these and the exchange system that ripped off the working people.

Do you want to start at a foundation of fact, or not?

 

[Rival]

The above was posted to another member.......

I offered to start from a foundation of fact that you could identify with. We could then see how far we could take the Jesus history before you could tell me that we had reached 'belief'

The foundation I offered was the early 1st century Great Temple half and Full shekel coins (obverse and reverse images) but you never replied.

I chose to start there because Jesus was clearly so upset with these and the exchange system that ripped off the working people.

Do you want to start at a foundation of fact, or not?

It should be easy to tell me why he is the most famous man in the world that people are talking about him 2,000 years later, without needing an elaborate backstory. You can explain it if you want, but from dealing with other posters it looks as though I will stay unconvinced. My point here is not that Jesus did nothing at all - there must have been some reason people wrote about him - but I want to know what he did that should propel him to such fame for so long a time. I can explain in a few sentences what makes Stalin, Marie Curie or any other such figure so famous, but if Jesus is one of the most written about persons ever, who is a household name in nearly every country (in fact probably every country), surely it should be simple to tell me what he did to earn that it should have been so amazing?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

You believe in God? If so, which one?

If not, then humanity is all you have left, correct?

No belief in any gods of any sort, no.

I have no idea what you mean when you ask if humanity is all I have left. I have a universe, and it contains a great deal more than humanity.

But of course, you are trying to suggest that I'm missing something important. Let me assure you, not believing in what is not true is no sort of loss at all. In fact, I rather think that believing things that are not true is a negative, as it leaves a person with an impoverished store of truth.

 

[sojourner]

It should be easy to tell me why he is the most famous man in the world that people are talking about him 2,000 years later, without needing an elaborate backstory. You can explain it if you want, but from dealing with other posters it looks as though I will stay unconvinced. My point here is not that Jesus did nothing at all - there must have been some reason people wrote about him - but I want to know what he did that should propel him to such fame for so long a time. I can explain in a few sentences what makes Stalin, Marie Curie or any other such figure so famous, but if Jesus is one of the most written about persons ever, who is a household name in nearly every country (in fact probably every country), surely it should be simple to tell me what he did to earn that it should have been so amazing?

Why do you think it should be so easy to do that? I’m not convinced that his celebrity was due to specific acts. I don’t think we should seek to convince you. I think Jesus largely stands or falls on his own merits. And I don’t think that spiritual wholeness depends on convincing argument.

 

[steveb1]

Why do you think it should be so easy to do that? I’m not convinced that his celebrity was due to specific acts. I don’t think we should seek to convince you. I think Jesus largely stands or falls on his own merits. And I don’t think that spiritual wholeness depends on convincing argument.

The supreme irony is that in all likelihood Jesus never existed as a historical figure. There is no contemporary evidence for his existence. The Gospels are not eyewitness testimony, and Josephus, Pliny-Tacitus-Celsus have either been debunked or are simply too late to give valid historical evidence.

So we are left with the claimed transcendent heavenly Jesus of Paul, who has no teaching, and with the mythical Jesus of the Gospels. Jesus's attitude and teaching varies and contradicts itself among the Gospels.

Jesus became "famous" when people took the Gospels as literal history and when the Church Councils, based on the Gospels, turned Jesus into the "perfect man" and the incarnate "God-Man". There was no historical Jesus whose words were remembered and disseminated by disciples. The first disciples, like Paul, disseminated information only about their revelations and visions which they believed they had received from the mystical Jesus of private experience. They knew nothing about a Gospel Jesus or a historical Jesus.

 

[steveb1]

From a historical standpoint, what, in his own lifetime, did Jesus of Nazareth achieve? I am having trouble figuring this out, because I can see objectively that Muhammad had a huge impact upon not only his own society but others, all within his lifetime. That the impact was either good or bad is not my point here, but that had had one. Baha'u'llah had some direct impacts, if small, upon his society. In contrast, I can't think of anything Jesus did that no-one else could have done.

He was born, he preached, he was executed.

This is probably going to turn into an 'It was all Paul not Jesus' thread, but have at it anyway.

He was not conceived, born, he didn't preach and Pilate never executed him. That's all Gospel myth that invented a historical Jesus. The original, "real" Jesus was conceived to be a spiritual preexistent heavenly entity who had no career on geophysical earth. His Passion, death and resurrection were conceived to have happened in the lower heavens where he was "handed over" by God or by Satan to the "Powers and Principalities", and then raised up by God. He never had historical existence.

 

[sojourner]

The supreme irony is that in all likelihood Jesus never existed as a historical figure. There is no contemporary evidence for his existence. The Gospels are not eyewitness testimony, and Josephus, Pliny-Tacitus-Celsus have either been debunked or are simply too late to give valid historical evidence.

So we are left with the claimed transcendent heavenly Jesus of Paul, who has no teaching, and with the mythical Jesus of the Gospels. Jesus's attitude and teaching varies and contradicts itself among the Gospels.

Jesus became "famous" when people took the Gospels as literal history and when the Church Councils, based on the Gospels, turned Jesus into the "perfect man" and the incarnate "God-Man". There was no historical Jesus whose words were remembered and disseminated by disciples. The first disciples, like Paul, disseminated information only about their revelations and visions which they believed they had received from the mystical Jesus of private experience. They knew nothing about a Gospel Jesus or a historical Jesus.

I disagree. The fact that anything was written about him in that time and culture is amazing. The majority of actual written material was usually reserved for oral decrees, imperial documents, etc. illiteracy was the order of the day and writing materials were expensive.

Added to that are quotations that originate less than 7 years after the crucifixion. In all likelihood Jesus was an actual, historic figure. But likely not as presented in the gospels.

 

[Spartan]

No belief in any gods of any sort, no.

Well, then here's for you:

Richard Dawkins vs. Ravi Zacharias

Dawkins: “What do I think about God? The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” – Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Ravi Zacharias responds: “Now, he (Dawkins) just finished telling us God’s a fictional character! That’s half of the point. The other half of the point is what he thinks about humanity. He goes on to say that basically, he believes in the goodness of humanity without God watching over. Either I’m confused or he is. If God doesn’t exist and all these descriptions apply, then who did these things? Who wrote the Old Testament if God didn’t inspire the words? That would be his answer. And who ordered all these things? That would be humanity. Why are you (Dawkins) so positive about humanity and so down on God when it was humanity who manufactured the God that you deny?” And who killed all those people throughout history – hundreds of millions of them, if God is fictional? It was humanity. And you – Dawkins – believe humanity is ‘good’! Atheists….