would physical perfection not given perfect control over pain, copious amount of self-made morphine? perfect love kills pain too, perfectly. He certainly had perfect control over the procreation pleasure, never even a hint of temptation. wish he had lived past a thousand to prove his "second Adam" status. far worse agonies suffered by so many for so much longer. How about a real impalement, without the nails, from the bottom up?
Did Jesus really suffer? Really?
by purrpurr 42 Replies latest jw friends
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David_Jay
I have to agree that the whole thing sounds silly when we use the Jehovah's Witness exegetical approach.
And before I say this, I want to make it clear I am not encouraging anyone to adopt religion, reject religion, or anything else by the following...
The non-JW view is very different when you consider that most Christians believe Jesus was the incarnation of YHWH. While it was a popular pagan and heathen concept that gods in their incarnate form would rule as kings, the idea that the incarnation of the Jewish God and King would end up experience excommunication, torture, and death as a criminal by the hand of Jewish enemies (they regularly called Gentiles "sinners") is an outstanding invention, if nothing else.
When the theology that Jesus was YHWH in human form is used as a key, the story takes on a different meaning. In it the God of all the universe deigns to be born into poverty, to a woman who conceives this incarnation in morally questionable circumstances.
The birth goes unnoticed except by those marginalized in Jewish society, such as shepherds, and by heathen astrologers. When the Jewish ruler of the time learns of the child, this incarnate God is hunted as a target for slaughter.
Eventually the incarnate God of the Jews gets rejected by his own people, his own leaders of those who worshipped him. He gets excommunicated as a blasphemer and handed over to "Gentiles sinners" to die in nudity, hung on a new type of torture device invented by the Romans, the cross, on the date of the most important anniversary of Judaism, the Passover.
When the story is read from this vantage point rejected by the Jehovah's Witnesses, it is the story of a God that chooses to live among and identify with even the most insignificant among humanity. He purposely chooses a course that would lead to his experiencing suffering that even the worst criminals of the time experienced. God choose to experience what it is like to be poor, to be disbelieved, hated, rejected, as well as loved, to be part of a group, to have friends, to experience hunger, good food, joy, and the fear of death, as well as death itself.
God becomes human in order to raise humanity. He undergoes rejection to stop rejection. He experiences mortality in order to end mortality. God shares the life of man that man may share in the life of God. It is no longer a story about a sacrifice to appease a God who demands a death to cover Adam's sin, as the Witnesses teach. It becomes a story of a God sacrificing his life in order to give it to all his children.
Again this is not a plea to turn people into Trinitarians or get atheists to accept Christian mythology, no. But I do want to show up how poor a story the Witness theology makes of the Christian tale. According to the JW reading, the story is about a blood thirsty Jehovah who demands life for life, blood for blood. The other story is about a God who gives over his life, chooses to suffer, in order that life can be given to people, to end suffering, to stop the demand for sacrifice.
At least one story seems remarkable. The other, the Watchtower version, is a poor cousin, no different from the bloodthirsty demands of the heathen deities.
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cofty
That is a good piece of happy-clappy spin on the christian gospel DJ
The death of Jesus was about vicarious punishment.
The wrath of a capricious god was propitiated by the sight of the bloody corpse of Jesus.
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David_Jay
The intention is to show how bankrupt the Watchtower Christology is, first and foremost.While there is no intention to advocate that what I wrote somehow recommends that non-theists adopt something along the lines of my post, I cannot take credit for the "happy-clappy spin," as you put it.
Having thoroughly imbimbed and promoted the Kool-Aid of the Governing Body of the Jehovah's Witnesses for two decades, from the 1980s onward, I was totally of the opinion that the JWs had the correct and generally accepted view of the Jesus story, that as the JWs served it, this version of the Christian mythology was generally accepted as a ransom story, about providing a dead victim to set the scales of justice aright before the mighty God Jehovah who was doing this becuase someone ruffled his feathers by challenging his sovereignty.
Around ten years after disassociating from the Jehovah's Witnesses, I came across the annual Christmas prayer of the Catholic pope, who at that time was Pope John Paul II. I believe it used to be printed every year in newspapers, if memory serves me right.
Far more poetic than what I described above, the prayer mentioned these points I touched on and more. He said something along the lines of "God became man in order to sacrifice his life so that man can have the eternal life of God," or something along those lines.
I had never been a Trinitarian, not before becoming a Witness or after leaving. So I only knew what the Watchtower had taught us about the subject. But the prayer of the Pope had me curious. What was he talking about? That was nothing like the Incarnation I had learned from the Watchtower (I still held that some of the views of the Witnesses were true, so at that time I had not bothered to revise my education on what Trinitarians believe).
I wrote the above post because it is what the Trinitarian doctrine is about. I learned that the Witnesses were very off base and liars about even that. Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants don't believe that Jesus gave up his life as a sacrifice to cover Adam's sin, as a sacrifice to appease God, but as an act of redemption, as an offering to humanity.
The theology is very ancient, but it goes like this: Adam's life led to the death of humanity, but Jesus' death led to their life. Adam died by eating fruit from a living tree, humanity lives by "eating the flesh and blood" from the dead tree of the cross. Adam, in an attempt to be like God, gave death to his children, but God, in his attempt to become human, gave life to humanity. The sacrifice of the Jews were animals offered to God, but the sacrifice of God was the life of his Incarnate Son as an offering to humans.
Again, I am sure many of you believe it is nonsense, either way. And I would not argue with you nor claim your view wasn't right, I was merely pointing out that what the Witnesses believe is so backward and empty compared to actual Christianity, that their exegesis is more ignorant than the mythology. They can't even understand what many consider little more than a fairy tale right. They are like poor readers, unable to understand even the most rudimentary of simple children's tales.
Essentially they have turned what others see as a beautiful story into one of a bloodthirsty divinity who, becuase of his pride being hurt, has to have the most perfect of humans suffer and die. I came up with neither "spin" on the tale, but I am rather embarrassed that for almost 20 years I peddled the stupid version.
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David_Jay
A well-written article, but my comments are based on the Gospel as explained in the Church Fathers, the pre-New Testament liturgical texts of Orthodoxy, theology and commentary of Catholics, Protestants, and that prayer of Pope John Paul II.
I here go on record that I am not advocating the views, claim that I believe in them at all or in part, nor reject any, nor that they are better or worse than Cofty's.
I am merely pointing out how ignorant I was of the exegesis Christianity was preaching for 2000 years when I was a JW, and how bankrupt their particular take on the story is.
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cofty
the pre-New Testament liturgical texts of Orthodoxy
How would you know what christians taught about the significance of Jesus death before the NT was written?
The kergyma of Paul is about reconciliation with god through faith in Jesus' vicarious punishment.
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David_Jay
You misread me. I stated not before the NT was "written," but before it existed, meaning before its canonization.
What has become known as the Liturgy pre-dates the canonization and perhaps even some of the later compositions of the New Testament. The oldest extant forms are from the Liturgy of St. James, considered the first bishop of Jerusalem, and these predate even the earliest formulations of the Trinity doctrine.
The various liturgical texts used antiphonal formulas, some of which appear in Pauline epistles (which is where Paul may have taken them from). They, along with other ancient non NT texts, contain some of the data I was referring to.
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Witness My Fury
His dad was an absolute bastard, so good job it's all contrived in the minds of men... -
David_Jay
By the way, the theological exegesis I am speaking about has a name: divinization. There is no equivalent to in Watchtower-ism, so as a faithful JW I was unaware of it.
The teaching is very ancient, namely that the atonement of Christ makes it possible for humanity to share in and be raised to the divine nature, sharing the very life of God by means of the sacrifice of Christ. There is even a Wikipedia article about it.
Since JWs don't believe Jesus is God, they offer the "God demands blood to satisfy his own thirst for justice" story. What Christianity has taught since its beginnings are different than what those blind guides known as the Governing Body ignorantly peddle.