logician
Well-Known Member
Really, is that why he went on a rampage in dealing with people that were hawking their wares in the temple?
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What Jesus existed?
- Thread starter logician
- Start date
Really, is that why he went on a rampage in dealing with people that were hawking their wares in the temple?
arthra
Baha'i
His teaching to the people about how to deal with the Romans was to go along with the regulations and pay the taxes and carry the extra burden... His teaching about the Temple was how He dealt with the scribes and Pharisees...The religious establishment feared Him because He would have disestablished their power and wealth...
Actually you should read the Gospel accounts of that carefully...this was no "rampage" but a righteous dealing with those who were exploiiting religion for their own advantage... One account has Jesus using a cord and this is found quite early in the Gospel of John 2:15 and is headed "Jesus cleanses the Temple" ...The earliest account of the incident can be found in the Gospel of Mark 11:15 where He drove them out without a cord.. He quoted scripture on that occasion:
"You have made it a den of robbers"
The chief priests and their scribes were afraid of Him..
It was I believe the charisma of His presence in the Temple that was enough... He needed no cord.
This is drama my friend! And as it is recorded generally in the Gospels it has the ring of truth...
- Art
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
I agree and disagree..... Jesus was no punk... that's why he had his followers purchase swords..... and one of them actually used his sword. Seeing that he guards were more than a match for him and his followeres he went with them without further resistance......
Popeyesays
Well-Known Member
It wasn't the hawkers so much as the Temple Money Changers who were using their monopoly to gouge believers.
You probably don't understand what money changers were doing there, so I'll explain. It was not allowed for those making sacrifice at the Temple to use coinage from anywhere else than Israel. Shekels were the only coinage that was religiously legal. Since the government of Palestine was not minting money anymore under the Roman occupation people would have to take Roman and Greek coinage to the money lenders to get old coinage shekels in exchange. The rate was usorious.
It was clerical privilege and excess that triggered Jesus' response.
Regards,
Scott
arthra
Baha'i
Just as the discussion shows above... Jesus was not without controversy and it still stirs people today to even talk about it! My vote is that Jesus existed and wasn't some figment of imagination... Legends and beliefs grew around the historical figure... There were too many people involved in this for it to be mere legend or solely myth.
- Art
- Art
I use to think that Jesus was a myth. The Jesus stories for the most part seemed to have too many contradictions and copied too much from other religions, beliefs and myths to sound real. However, I did hear some good lectures on the historical Jesus.
After listening to them, I lean more toward Jesus really existing as a real person. I see Jesus as a convert to John the Baptist theology. He goes out and preaches in the country. Not too much of a following, but enough to have some regulars. After 1 to 3 years of this, he heads out of the country into the city. He irritates some people.
He seemed to believe that God was going to flip society upside down. The rich would be poor and the poor rich. He seemed to hope that God would make him the Son of Man, so he could become a divine judge. I don't think Jesus ever thought he was the direct offspring of God. Son of God seems to mean you are a good person, not fathered directly by God. But Son of Man was a stringer claim. Maybe Judas let it slip. The problem was that it made Jesus out to be someone plotting the overthrow of the Roman government.
Jesus was tried as an insurgent (not fair by today's standards but common for their standards). His followers hid (so they would not be killed). He was crucified and probably buried in a mass grave. His followers probably assumed he was going to be put into a tomb and found an empty one. They assume the time of God's Kingdom had come as John the Baptist and Jesus had been saying it was real soon (tm). Jesus was seen as the first resurrected.
But it changed to a religion about Jesus.
Anyway, that is my take on it.
After listening to them, I lean more toward Jesus really existing as a real person. I see Jesus as a convert to John the Baptist theology. He goes out and preaches in the country. Not too much of a following, but enough to have some regulars. After 1 to 3 years of this, he heads out of the country into the city. He irritates some people.
He seemed to believe that God was going to flip society upside down. The rich would be poor and the poor rich. He seemed to hope that God would make him the Son of Man, so he could become a divine judge. I don't think Jesus ever thought he was the direct offspring of God. Son of God seems to mean you are a good person, not fathered directly by God. But Son of Man was a stringer claim. Maybe Judas let it slip. The problem was that it made Jesus out to be someone plotting the overthrow of the Roman government.
Jesus was tried as an insurgent (not fair by today's standards but common for their standards). His followers hid (so they would not be killed). He was crucified and probably buried in a mass grave. His followers probably assumed he was going to be put into a tomb and found an empty one. They assume the time of God's Kingdom had come as John the Baptist and Jesus had been saying it was real soon (tm). Jesus was seen as the first resurrected.
But it changed to a religion about Jesus.
Anyway, that is my take on it.
Popeyesays
Well-Known Member
It is possible that the son of a carpenter, for 2000 years ago, could read and write?
This seems to me more mythology than a real history.But the miracles in my opinion reduce all credibility to history.
He was called "Rabbi" quite often. A rabbi that could NOT read and write would inconceivable.
The ability to read the Torah and the Prophets is mandatory to be a "teacher", a Rabbi IS a teacher.
This same reasoning says Jesus must have had a wife , or at least a betrothed since a Rabbi must also be a "man" of maturity.
So, reading and writing were part of the qualifications for the job of Rabbi and no one would have recognized Him as such if He did not meet the qualifications.
Regards,
Scott
logician
Well-Known Member
As pointed out in another excellent post, Jesus, or Hesus, was an invented personage, after the
First Council of Nicaea , by request of Constantine.
See
NEXUS: Forged Origins of the New Testament
First Council of Nicaea , by request of Constantine.
See
NEXUS: Forged Origins of the New Testament
Popeyesays
Well-Known Member
That's patent nonsense.
Christianity was composed of those who followed the teachings of Christ. They had to be following something and someone before Constantine.
Regards,
Scott
logician
Well-Known Member
Please prove that it is nonsense.
Popeyesays
Well-Known Member
I am as bound to answer your request as you are to answer mine.
All I have to do is impugn your statement, not support my own. I offered a rebuttal, not a debate case.
Regards,
Scott
-- 2nd Temple Period Hasid --
Popeyesays was far too kind. For someone to claim that there was no Jesus movement prior to the 4th Century borders on the obscenely ignorant and requires a near pathological commitment to the most absurd conspiracy theory wherein virtually every item referenced here is some clever and massive forgery. This is not the reasoned inference of a logician but, rather, the mantra of a zealot.
PureX
Veteran Member
I think someone existed that did something exceptional, that then became the catylist for a new religious paradigm. I don't believe that person was God, but it's obvious that whatever he did and said, his life became the canvas upon which a new religious architype was created, and through which millions of people have come to see themselves and their relationship to their wrold differently.
We must give credit where credit is due.
We must give credit where credit is due.
Then perhaps you should give credit to Paul. There is no evidence that Jesus "did something exceptional".
Yes it is. It is also entirely different than claiming that he did something exceptional.