Hello JK. (I wonder if you'll be back?)
Try this for a Jesus thing........
Who is Jesus?
by Jarred K 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
venus
smiddy3, shepherdless
Once I was watching a movie. When the king-designate was announced, his relatives wanted to bow down before him. He prevented them from doing so saying: “It’s enough relatives have lave, not respect.”
This made me think that God would not beg/command for worship from His children, for which Bible itself has proof in Mathew 5:44-48. Between the lines lies the commandment: “Don’t worship me, but become worship-worthy by imitating sun which is a giver (of light and warmth) and never receives anything from anybody—a quality that has its source in God Himself. When you imitate qualities of sun, you become like your heavenly father.”
That means Writers just thought what God, prophets or Jesus could have spoken or done if they were to and wrote them down. That is why we find a God with human style of functioning, illogical stories, and also things like God saying one thing in one place, yet in other place saying he did not say so. (Jeremiah 7:22; 8:8)
-
Onager
I like Christopher Hitchin's reasoning that there probably was a real person that the Jesus story is based on because if it was being made up wholesale then the writer wouldn't have invented a census that can be proved not to have happened just to make a man who was known as Jesus of Nazareth somehow be born in Bethlehem.
If it was completely made up then you'd just have your man be from Bethlehem.
Also, the resurrection account is only attested to by women. If the story was completely made up then you wouldn't have the key event that proves that your man is more than a man verified by the least regarded members of society at the time.
This coupled with the fact that the rest of the story does fit into the mythological format that was widely used points (conclusively to me) to an actual historical person being fitted into a mythological story narrative.
-
venus
Onager
If Jesus really lived, then problems are more because it would mean the subject of what is called redemption by the death of the Son of God originated from God. Without any conditioning, anyone would revolt at the recollection of what he reads in the Bible that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man who killed his son when he could not revenge himself in any other way. I am sure a man who did such a thing would be hanged.
God is too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system. But the Biblical concept of God the Father putting his son to death, or employing people to do it, cannot be told by a parent to a child with conviction; and to tell him that it was done to make mankind better is making the story still worse—as if something greater would be achieved through the murder of the innocent [a logic today’s terrorists resort to]; and to tell our children that all this is a mystery is only making an excuse for the incredibility of it.
-
Onager
Hi Venus, I think we're saying the same thing? That the gospels are stories made up by men? The point I was making is that the story is probably based around a real human being who would have been a wandering prophet (of which there were many) and who probably ran foul of the Roman law (also not uncommon) and may even said some memorable stuff but who was definitely not the son of god or possessed of magical powers.
-
venus
Hi Onager,
Yes I agree with you, there could have been somebody like a sage by name Jesus who spoke great truths such as those found in Luke 17:21; Mathew 5:44-48 ..etc. But he was used by commercially minded religious leaders making him a mystic and miracle worker. Mysticism is repugnant to human comprehension and runs against the very purpose of communication, hence God would not use mysticism.
God also would not use miracles. Great miracle is resurrection, yet this is not a greater miracle than a tiny mustard seed in which memories of billions and billions of its future generation remain protected.
-
Finkelstein
The Jesus god was probably the most sensitive and passionate concerning god who realized the enduring strife and perils of the human condition.
His greatest commandant was to love one another after all.
There was so much appealing attributes created around this god that humanity still to this day a couple thousand years later on from his original inception to the human consciousness are still worshiping and holding to his social directions.
-
tor1500
Hi,
Jesus is the guy who died for our sins (again, if this is true)...he didn't do nothing just took the hit for us humans...
JW's believe that he was the son of God...Matt. 10:16-17:After being baptized, Jesus immediately came up from the water; and look! the heavens were opened up,+ and he saw God’s spirit descending like a dove and coming upon him.+ 17 Look! Also, a voice from the heavens+ said: “This is my Son,+ the beloved, whom I have approved.”+. So if Jesus and God are the same, whose voice was that coming from Heaven...Didn't know Jesus could throw his voice...
Jesus was about Love...I would rather believe he was real, what a great pattern he left to follow...how many of us would wash the feet of our betrayer???
Tor
-
EverApostate
The Biblical Jesus would have been an Ordinary guy who might have been impaled by the Romans for rebelling.
All other miracle and supernatural stuffs are made up, IMO.
-
smiddy3
His greatest commandant was to love one another after all.
How does that fit with Matt.10 :34-36 "Do not think I came to put peace upon the earth ,I came to not put peace but a sword ,for I came to cause division ,with a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a young wife against her mother in law ,indeed a mans enemies will be persons of his own household".
That doesn`t sound like you were to love one another to me !