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C.S. Lewis said, "...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 the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the 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 patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Well that's a great story for which no evidence actually exists. Even if your story is coherent, you must imply some kind of historical evidence to support it. Some evidence that is contrary to what Jesus actually said.
My point was just that since I don't believe that the exact words of the Bible are perfectly inerrant Divine revelation, I have no way of knowing "what Jesus actually said".
But never mind. What he is reported to have said seems to me consistent with the view that our Divine nature and origin is not fundamentally different from his.
"Of, relating to, emanating from, or being the expression of a deity". Neither apples nor oranges.
Yet, you seemed to be equating humanity with God. As though we are all Gods? Are you saying that we are all expressions of God? That is to say, His creatures?
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You toe an orthodox line, I'm sure: Divinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Even the Christian faith, which holds Christ to be identical to God, distinguishes between God the father and Christ the begotten son.[4]
I do my best to preach orthodox Catholicism.
My source is not the Wikipedia but the Catholic Catechism. CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 460
460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":"For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."
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I'm more inclined to the following:
There are, however, certain esoteric and mystical schools of thought, present in many faiths — Sufis in Islam, Gnostics in Christianity, Advaitan Hindus, Zen Buddhists, as well as several non-specific perspectives developed in new age philosophy — which hold that all humans are in essence divine, or unified with the Divine in a non-trivial way.
It sounds nice. But then, I would think if we were more than simply expressions of the divine, we could do more than we can do. But as it is, we can hardly control our own passions.
So for me, it is evident that we are expressions that is creations of the Divine. And we seek union with the Divine. And Jesus came to give us union with the Divine. He clearly says that He give eternal life. Not that we already possess it. And I would think divine beings would already possess eternal life.
John 17 2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him.
Therefore, Catholic doctrine fits what I perceive very well.
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Nothing in the Biblical account persuades me that Jesus taught or believed otherwise.
The problem with getting your information from the Bible is the simple fact that NO ONE has ever offered valid proof that the Bible is the INERRANT, INSPIRED word of any God.
If you are willing to go over a detailed discussion of each item you believe is false. Otherwise, I am forced to respond with the general, "that isn't true."
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Not one single original document (from the Bible) has been preserved....
The fact is, we don't know. We know we have many ancient manuscripts. We assume they are copies. The Syriacs believe they have an original in the Pesshta text. But most scholars disagree.
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What we have are copies of copies of copies of translations of translations of translations, that have been edited over a couple centuries to reflect the specific beliefs of who ever is doing the editing.
If you can obtain a Bible which is significantly different from any other let me know. All the Bibles I've seen give the same message. Differences I've noted are only grammatical but the meaning remains the same.
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We have no certain proof that any of the AUTHORS whose names appear on the books of the bible are actually their authors.....
The Church can verify all the authors historically.
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In the case of the New Testament, the names of the Apostles were not added to the Gospels until the beginning of the Second Century. For a full study, read: "WHO WROTE THE BIBLE" by Richard Freedman....or "Understanding the Bible" by Stephen Harris.
There is, therefore, no way to determine whether the Jesus of the bible WAS a liar, a lunatic or Lord. It is entirely up to the individual to believe or reject.
The problem with getting your information from the Bible is the simple fact that NO ONE has ever offered valid proof that the Bible is the INERRANT, INSPIRED word of any God. Not one single original document (from the Bible) has been preserved....What we have are copies of copies of copies of translations of translations of translations, that have been edited over a couple centuries to reflect the specific beliefs of who ever is doing the editing. We have no certain proof that any of the AUTHORS whose names appear on the books of the bible are actually their authors.....In the case of the New Testament, the names of the Apostles were not added to the Gospels until the beginning of the Second Century. For a full study, read: "WHO WROTE THE BIBLE" by Richard Freedman....or "Understanding the Bible" by Stephen Harris.
There is, therefore, no way to determine whether the Jesus of the bible WAS a liar, a lunatic or Lord. It is entirely up to the individual to believe or reject.
The original New Testament manuscripts were written in Greek. Every New Testament translation that is in existence today was derived from the 5,000 original Greek manuscripts. So, we don't have copies of copies of copies of translations of translations..... if you hold an English Bible, say the King James version, in your hand, that is one copy - one translation.
Please, it is not helpful to write about things for which you have little or no knowledge. Try reading up on some New Testament scholars like, N.T. Wright, Gary Habermans, Craig Evans, or William Lane Craig. Freedman and Harris are not New Testament scholars and their materials are nice theories without much support from the New Testament community, both liberal and orthodox.
This article below, complete with scholarly references and external links, calls into question the citations of Jesus Christ's existence attributed to Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius, as well as questions the identity of Thalus:
To address citations of Jesus in Talmudic writings, Josephus also pointed out that the ancient Jewish writers exaggerated the actual height of Goliath of Gath. According to Josephus, Goliath was more like 7' 8" instead of over 9' as mentioned in the Bible story.
If a Josephus can point up to errors of fact in Jewish holy works, this also holds out the possibility that these works can be in error about the existence of Jesus Christ as well.
I am open to other sources of Jesus' existence if I am in error here. However, even if the existence of Jesus Christ was independently corroborated by non-Christian sources, it still does not mean that the supernatural miracles and resurrection attributed to him are true and it still wouldn't establish him as a deity incarnate.
I might add, if Jesus did exist and didn't perform miracles and wasn't divine, it wouldn't necessarily make him a liar or a lunatic either. Hey, a man can't always help his publicity. Jesus simply could have been another "Jack The Giant-Killer" that people spun tall tales about throughout the Holy Land.
*Whew!* So far so good. No stones, no pitchforks, and no bundles of sticks!
]; -{)>
Seriously, I'm glad we can have this discussion without rancor and with mutual respect, even if we may never agree. This thread may make for a fine example to show the Islamic world that words aren't worth the taking of innocent lives.
Your standard of evidence is quite irrational. By your standard of evidence, we could pretty much deny most of history. Let's come back down to reality.
Greetings, Veritas!
In addition to primary sources of documentation, I would also be open to actual physical artifacts that were demonstrably made by or belonged to Jesus Christ as proof of his existence. Living human beings, after all, leave behind artifacts.
Alas, those are nowhere to be found either, and Jesus was supposed to have been a carpenter's son and to have known a thing or two about boating and fishing.
There are no "JC" engraved or monogrammed tools, no signs in the Holy Land saying "This Deck Made By Joseph & Son Carpentry"...not even an autographed fishing lure or a *ahem!* Christ-ened sailboat.
Moreover, the fragments of wood supposedly belonging to his cross have been found to be fakes, And 23 years ago, I read that the so-called "Shroud of Turin" was found to have been a 13th Century forgery made with red ocre and vermillion.
No hard feelings, but somebody has to come correct somewhere to get me to know for sure.
Actually our own posts prove Jesus more real, since Josephus ( if he did) point out issues of the height of Goliath ( of which I see no way he would have had facts to that) but if he did write on such a minor issue, one would also see that he did support Jesus and would have written he was ot real if he had not been, the fact is his writings support Christ.
Thanks for mentioning it, it really only proves the point he was real, not twisting it around to make it sound unreal.
And of course since Jesus was considered a criminal by the Romans It is not surprising, but yes, there are evidence of him all over the holy land, like a tomb sorta like jesus slept here.
You know the facts but for some reason wish to try and make them say something you know they don't ( or should if you are studied in the least as you say you are) It is far different than to cut and past anti christian material than to really know it
And of course few beleive in the real pieces of the cross, there would be 100 tons if all those pieces were put together. Parts of the real cross may exist but where and who has them ??
And you do know about the study and the material put on the back that was determined to cause that reading, of course you do if you studied the shoud writings
This article below, complete with scholarly references and external links, calls into question the citations of Jesus Christ's existence attributed to Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius, as well as questions the identity of Thalus:
To address citations of Jesus in Talmudic writings, Josephus also pointed out that the ancient Jewish writers exaggerated the actual height of Goliath of Gath. According to Josephus, Goliath was more like 7' 8" instead of over 9' as mentioned in the Bible story.
If a Josephus can point up to errors of fact in Jewish holy works, this also holds out the possibility that these works can be in error about the existence of Jesus Christ as well.
I am open to other sources of Jesus' existence if I am in error here. However, even if the existence of Jesus Christ was independently corroborated by non-Christian sources, it still does not mean that the supernatural miracles and resurrection attributed to him are true and it still wouldn't establish him as a deity incarnate.
I might add, if Jesus did exist and didn't perform miracles and wasn't divine, it wouldn't necessarily make him a liar or a lunatic either. Hey, a man can't always help his publicity. Jesus simply could have been another "Jack The Giant-Killer" that people spun tall tales about throughout the Holy Land.
*Whew!* So far so good. No stones, no pitchforks, and no bundles of sticks!
]; -{)>
Seriously, I'm glad we can have this discussion without rancor and with mutual respect, even if we may never agree. This thread may make for a fine example to show the Islamic world that words aren't worth the taking of innocent lives.
Again, how hard must we try to explain away the existence of Jesus? Please, hunt down the serious New Testament scholars and you'll see that to deny His existence is to take such a far-fetched position as to really separate yourself from serious consideration. Even the radical Jesus Seminar affirms Jesus' existence AND His crucifixion. Save yourself the embarrassment of denying such things and at least grant His existence.
Secondly, I honestly enjoy hearing everyone's thoughts on who they think Jesus was. But remember, if you posit a position, it must be grounded in historical evidence. Our imaginations can lead us to all sorts of conclusions but to simply imagine something, however logical it might sound, does not make it a plausible option to consider.
Finally, one must examine the Gospels and the writings of Paul as historical writings. These documents should be treated as any other historical document.
Great string of thoughts and debates. I'm officially unsubscribing. Thanks for the civilized discussion.
Did not notice that someone actually refereced WIKI as a scholarly reference.
Still laughting everyone knows it has not true reference value for true facts, since it is easily alters and written to fit a writers beleif.
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