Would you have believed in Jesus?

Lands Leaving

When he first popped up bout 2000 years ago, round christmas, and started preaching. Or would you think he was a madman?

And would you believe in someone claiming to be him now? Who preached the gospels and said he was the second coming?

SubjectSean

I wasn't around 2000 years ago but if some dude came along saying we've all got to change so turn on, tune in, drop out then undoubtedly I'd have to nail him up to a tree. Humanity must, it simply has to, follow it's destiny to destroy itself and the planet we're on without any interfering long-hairs butting in. It's a really good job the so-called Christians subverted his message before it did any real harm. Imagine a planet where nobody joined in with the crap and the greed, what good would that be?

Humans like Yeshua ben Miriam only come back from the dead in pagan religions like Voodoo AFAIK.

Splendour

Lands Leaving wrote: »

When he first popped up bout 2000 years ago, round christmas, and started preaching. Or would you think he was a madman?

And would you believe in someone claiming to be him now? Who preached the gospels and said he was the second coming?

If I believe now, I can't see why I wouldn't have believed 2,000 years ago.

When Jesus returns ALL will be aware of his divinity be they believers or not.

Romans 14,11
11It is written:
" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' "

SubjectSean

Splendour wrote: »

If I believe now, I can't see why I wouldn't have believed 2,000 years ago.

Because if you had you've have been a Jew

Splendour wrote: »

When Jesus returns ALL will be aware of his divinity be they believers or not.

Romans 14,11
11It is written:
" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' "

The guy who wrote this never met Jesus and was at one time quite happy in his work of murdering people before doing a complete turnabout. Hardly a reliable witness IMHO

User45701

Interesting questions, one of the reasons i have a problem with religion is i believe it was needed and did have at least some purpose in the past when we could not explain some things. but there would have been nothing special about jesus, there is just as much chance as anyone from that time rambling about god to end up with followers. There where so many of them i would not just go "He must be right" i cant say what i would have done but with so many people all ranting about different things im guessing common sense would have told me its not worth the risk of following any of the. But its not fair for me to say that, i dont know what my mental state would be without modern society.

Splendour

SubjectSean wrote: »

Because if you had you've have been a Jew

The guy who wrote this never met Jesus and was at one time quite happy in his work of murdering people before doing a complete turnabout. Hardly a reliable witness IMHO

The world 2,000 wasn't populated by Jews only. The Apostles were all Jewish...

The guy who wrote this (Paul), in fact did meet Jesus on the Damascus road,when he was converted to Christianity. But you are right that prior to this he was a head honcho in the Roman army and had many Jews killed. In fact, he was present at the murder of the first Christian martyr Stephen.

SubjectSean

Splendour wrote: »

The world 2,000 wasn't populated by Jews only. The Apostles were all Jewish...

Yes, and if you'd have heard of Jesus 2000 years ago you wouldn't have been a Christian because there simply weren't any such thing 2000 years ago.

Splendour wrote: »

The guy who wrote this (Paul), in fact did meet Jesus on the Damascus road,when he was converted to Christianity. But you are right that prior to this he was a head honcho in the Roman army and had many Jews killed. In fact, he was present at the murder of the first Christian martyr Stephen.

Did you see Paul meet Jesus? Why do you trust Paul to be telling the truth?

Fanny Cradock

SubjectSean wrote: »

Yes, and if you'd have heard of Jesus 2000 years ago you wouldn't have been a Christian because there simply weren't any such thing 2000 years ago.

Really? So the followers of Christ weren't Christians :eek:

SubjectSean wrote: »

Why do you trust Paul to be telling the truth?

Well, it generally goes hand in hand with being a Christian.

SubjectSean wrote: »

quite happy in his work of murdering people before doing a complete turnabout. Hardly a reliable witness IMHO

One could argue that that would make him all the more reliable a witness.

SubjectSean

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Really? So the followers of Christ weren't Christians :eek:.

No Fanny apparently not. The Bible, insofar as it can be an authority on these things, would seem to be quite insistent that, up until 70AD at least, the followers of Yeshua were Jews who worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem. This as I am sure you can reason does not make them Christian it makes them Jewish.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Well, it generally goes hand in hand with being a Christian.

Again Fanny I believe you are wrong. A group of Christians may be more honset and trustworthy than say a group of pirates. However I would not on that basis recommend that people blindly trust all Christians especially ones I have never met. I still do not understand why you are trusting a Christian you have never met and who's previous occupation was murdering people. It seems a little odd.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

One could argue that that would make him all the more reliable a witness.

Please construct such an argument I would like to see it.

BrianCalgary

SubjectSean wrote: »

No Fanny apparently not. The Bible, insofar as it can be an authority on these things, would seem to be quite insistent that, up until 70AD at least, the followers of Yeshua were Jews who worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem. This as I am sure you can reason does not make them Christian it makes them Jewish..

A couple of things sean. first of all I am Canadian, I follow Jesus Christ as Lord. It makes me a Christian. My parents are Irish, that makes me Irish.

Now to clarify: Canadian by birth, Irish by blood and Christian by faith.

Followers of Christ in the first century: Jewish by race, Jewish by birth and Christian by faith.

Secondly, Paul had started churches in both Rome and Greece throughout the 40's, 50's and 60's.

This means that you had both Greeks and Romans also becoming Christians.
You also had in Judea, Samaritans becoming Christian.

A Christian is a follower of Christ.

Where do you get any biblical support for your understanding that the Christians were all Jewish?

SubjectSean wrote: »

Again Fanny I believe you are wrong. A group of Christians may be more honset and trustworthy than say a group of pirates. However I would not on that basis recommend that people blindly trust all Christians especially ones I have never met. I still do not understand why you are trusting a Christian you have never met and who's previous occupation was murdering people. It seems a little odd.

You are referring to Paul here a presume?
It is even more odd that a man bent on murdering and wiping out Christians should become the most fervent Christian misisonary of his time.

The reason to trust paul is that he had a complete turnaround of life and heart, he then earned the respect of all Christians by suffering and dying for his beliefs, that ran contrary to his former self.

PDN

SubjectSean wrote: »

No Fanny apparently not. The Bible, insofar as it can be an authority on these things, would seem to be quite insistent that, up until 70AD at least, the followers of Yeshua were Jews who worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem. This as I am sure you can reason does not make them Christian it makes them Jewish.

No, the Book of Acts and the epistles of Paul all agree that the Gospel spread rapidly among the Gentiles fairly soon after the death & resurrection of Christ. Certainly long before 70AD.

Strictly speaking, of course, Jesus was still a little boy 2000 years ago (7AD) so there were no Christians.

SubjectSean

BrianCalgary wrote: »

A couple of things sean. first of all I am Canadian, I follow Jesus Christ as Lord. It makes me a Christian. My parents are Irish, that makes me Irish.

Now to clarify: Canadian by birth, Irish by blood and Christian by faith.

Followers of Christ in the first century: Jewish by race, Jewish by birth and Christian by faith.

They held the Torah sacred, kept the sabbath and worshipped in the Temple. This is not Christian IMHO

BrianCalgary wrote: »

Secondly, Paul had started churches in both Rome and Greece throughout the 40's, 50's and 60's.

This means that you had both Greeks and Romans also becoming Christians.
You also had in Judea, Samaritans becoming Christian.

A Christian is a follower of Christ.

Where do you get any biblical support for your understanding that the Christians were all Jewish?

What I am saying is that the first and earlest followers of Jesus. His family and the vast number of people who had known him. These people were Jewish by religion and as I have said they held the Torah sacred, kept the sabbath and worshipped in the Temple. All of this is in Acts.

SubjectSean

PDN wrote: »

No, the Book of Acts and the epistles of Paul all agree that the Gospel spread rapidly among the Gentiles fairly soon after the death & resurrection of Christ. Certainly long before 70AD.

Paul and Acts do agree in this and I do not doubt it really. However the body of people who had actually known Jesus were Jews and not just by birth but by faith. One would also assume that this following was once substantial. It would seem to me highly likely that sects like the Nasoreans and the Ebionites are the actual true inheritors of Jesus's teachings. I believe the church established by Saul of Tarsus to be somewhat removed and paganised.

Fanny Cradock

SubjectSean wrote: »

They held the Torah sacred, kept the sabbath and worshipped in the Temple. This is not Christian IMHO

For me it is quite simple - if they followed Christ they were Christians. However, if you really want to argue the fact, I think the term 'Jews Christians' could be applicable. After all, the Jewish religion rejected Jesus as the Son of God, his followers obviously didn't. There must be a distinction then. As for keeping the Sabbath Holy, I believe there is no mention of this in the NT. Indeed, wasn't Jesus criticised for not keeping the traditional Sabbath Holy?

BrianCalgary

SubjectSean wrote: »

They held the Torah sacred, kept the sabbath and worshipped in the Temple. This is not Christian IMHO.

I hold the Torah sacred, I keep the Sabbath and I worship in a temple.

The Torah is not complete without the rest of teh Bible, the sabbath is a day of rest and the temple that I worship in is anywhere that I am as my body is a temple.

SubjectSean wrote: »

What I am saying is that the first and earlest followers of Jesus. His family and the vast number of people who had known him. These people were Jewish by religion and as I have said they held the Torah sacred, kept the sabbath and worshipped in the Temple. All of this is in Acts.

The disciples yes were Jewish. Jesus family rejected Him and He fraternized with Samaritans. He also healed a relation of a Roman soldier, who wasn't Jewish either.

SubjectSean wrote: »

Paul and Acts do agree in this and I do not doubt it really. However the body of people who had actually known Jesus were Jews and not just by birth but by faith. One would also assume that this following was once substantial. It would seem to me highly likely that sects like the Nasoreans and the Ebionites are the actual true inheritors of Jesus's teachings. I believe the church established by Saul of Tarsus to be somewhat removed and paganised. .

How can you say that the churches established by Paul were paganised?

MDTyKe

I believe Jews who believe Jesus is their Messiah (and of which are allowed to hold on to Jewish law, as Jesus permitted this), are known as Messianic Jews these days? I suppose they would have been 'that' as such, without the title. Jews were almost like a race though, ie: if you're born black you're always black. Minus wacko of course..

SubjectSean

BrianCalgary wrote: »

I hold the Torah sacred, I keep the Sabbath and I worship in a temple.

The Temple I am talking about is like a big synagogue and the Sabbath that you are talking about is on a wholly different day to the one Jesus and his followers celebrated.

BrianCalgary wrote: »

The disciples yes were Jewish. Jesus family rejected Him and He fraternized with Samaritans. He also healed a relation of a Roman soldier, who wasn't Jewish either.

Jesus's family may have rejected him temporarily but his mother and James at the least were reconciled with him. James was reportedly a vocal supporter and authority on his brother after his crucifiction by the Romans. I am not saying that gentiles were wholly unaware of Jesus. Merely that when his fame was first growing that most of his followers were Jews and worshipped as such.

It seems from Acts that there were a group of followers in Jerusalem after his death. It furthermore seems in Acts that there was a split between two sets of followers and one set, the "seven", were run out of Jerusalem and went as far as Antioch and were part of Saul's/Paul's mission. In these times many more gentiles got to hear about Jesus because of Paul's preaching. Paul by his own account became "all things to all men" in order to get his message across. Because of this the following or "church" that Paul so actively nurtured and instigated looked and behaved differently than the following in Jerusalem. After the fall of Jerusalem we never hear any more about the following there. As I have said it seems not too adventurous to conclude that the sects such as the Ebionites and Nasoreans were the remnants of this following. These sects were persecuted out of existence by the followers of Pauls's "gentile" church.

BrianCalgary wrote: »

How can you say that the churches established by Paul were paganised?

The fact that none of their texts are in Hebrew. The lack of the concept of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus in his Hebrew followers. The similarity between the NT Jesus and Mithras. The fact that both the concept of a trinity and god-coming-to-earth-as-his-son are very common concepts in pagan religions especially in the religions around 2000yrs ago in Greece and Rome. The fact that Easter is named after a pagan goddess and that Christmas is based on a pagan festival of light. There are lots of things that make me think the church of Paul and Peter has been paganised I could go on but I won't.

PDN

SubjectSean wrote: »

It seems from Acts that there were a group of followers in Jerusalem after his death. It furthermore seems in Acts that there was a split between two sets of followers and one set, the "seven", were run out of Jerusalem and went as far as Antioch and were part of Saul's/Paul's mission. In these times many more gentiles got to hear about Jesus because of Paul's preaching. Paul by his own account became "all things to all men" in order to get his message across. Because of this the following or "church" that Paul so actively nurtured and instigated looked and behaved differently than the following in Jerusalem. After the fall of Jerusalem we never hear any more about the following there. As I have said it seems not too adventurous to conclude that the sects such as the Ebionites and Nasoreans were the remnants of this following. These sects were persecuted out of existence by the followers of Pauls's "gentile" church.

The 'split' you refer to was where persecution forced thousands of Christians to leave Jerusalem. This was, actually. fully in accordance with the command of Jesus who had told His disciples to preach the Gospel to all the nations (panta ta ethne) and had said that they were, after receiving the Holy Spirit, to go to "Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). This was certainly not a 'split' in the sense of an acrimonious doctrinal dispute, since Peter and John visited Samaria to endorse the mission there, and both Peter and John were active in churches founded among the Gentiles by Paul.

The Gospel was first preached to the Gentiles by Peter, one of Christ's original twelve disciples. The reception of Gentiles into the church was endorsed and approved by the Jerusalem Church, as was Paul's mission to the Gentiles.

It is not true that we never hear anything more of the following in Jerusalem. There is good evidence of the Church in Jerusalem surviving after 70AD. Eusebius, for example, records "there was a very important Church, composed of Jews, which existed until the siege of the city under Hadrian" (The Proof of the Gospel III:5,124[d]) and gives a list of bishops who reigned in the city during that time (EH V:5).

You mention the Nasoreans and the Ebionites. Historians are fairly certain that the Nasoreans, a Gnostic group, had their origins in Mesopotamia or Babylonia, so they are probably not relevant to this thread at all. The Ebionites may well be connected with the Judaizers - the group Paul refers to in Galatians who tried to hinder his mission by insisting that Gentile converts must be circumcised and observe Jewish law. They were a minority group within the Jerusalem Church since the main leadership fully endorsed the conversion of the Gentiles without circumcision. Eusebius tells us that the Church fled Jerusalem shortly before 70AD, guided by prophecy, to escape the destruction of the city (as predicted by Jesus). The Ebionites, unlike the rest of the Church, appear never to returned. Some historians have suggested that, following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, those Christians who were more moderate towards Gentiles would be more acceptable in the region than the hardline Judaizers.

PDN

SubjectSean wrote: »

The fact that none of their texts are in Hebrew. The lack of the concept of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus in his Hebrew followers. The similarity between the NT Jesus and Mithras. The fact that both the concept of a trinity and god-coming-to-earth-as-his-son are very common concepts in pagan religions especially in the religions around 2000yrs ago in Greece and Rome. The fact that Easter is named after a pagan goddess and that Christmas is based on a pagan festival of light. There are lots of things that make me think the church of Paul and Peter has been paganised I could go on but I won't.

The use of Greek texts is hardly an indication of paganism. Most diaspora Jews spoke Greek and used the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Scriptures.

The Mithras thing is an old chestnut that crops up on these boards with monotonous regularity. It is most probable that Mithraism, as practiced by the Romans, borrowed extensively from Christianity. I have yet to see any poster cite pre-Christian evidence of any Mithraist practices similar to Christianity - all they have are inscriptions and texts dating after Christianity.

The Easter and Christmas things date from centuries after Paul.

Suff

BrianCalgary wrote: »

Followers of Christ in the first century: Jewish by race, Jewish by birth and Christian by faith.

Judaism is a religion and not a race. Could you apply your answer to a African Jew? clearly they are of African race but Jewish by faith. also what of Arab Jews, are they arabs or jews? arab christians? you get my point.

If I were alive at the time of Christ, I cannot honestly say I would believe immediately, the human nature is cynical questioning attributes of life and existence and dont take well on critisisum so maybe after much thought I would believe in his message.

marius

Sean,

What have you got against Pirates?

BrianCalgary

Suff wrote: »

Judaism is a religion and not a race. Could you apply your answer to a African Jew? clearly they are of African race but Jewish by faith. also what of Arab Jews, are they arabs or jews? arab christians? you get my point.

If I were alive at the time of Christ, I cannot honestly say I would believe immediately, the human nature is cynical questioning attributes of life and existence and dont take well on critisisum so maybe after much thought I would believe in his message.

Definitely not today, but Jews back in that time where recognised by others and themselves as a seperate people or tribe.

I just used the word race to try and make my point clear.

Suff

BrianCalgary wrote: »

Definitely not today, but Jews back in that time where recognised by others and themselves as a seperate people or tribe.

Yes, since it was the only monotheistic religion at that time.

Pompey Magnus

MDTyKe wrote: »

I believe Jews who believe Jesus is their Messiah (and of which are allowed to hold on to Jewish law, as Jesus permitted this), are known as Messianic Jews these days?

I recently read a Jewish reaction to so called "Messianic Jews" by claiming that they were not Jews at all, just Christians claiming the title of Jews. They claimed that a man-God who arrived to Earth to save humanity has never had any basis in Jewish thought or scripture and is a purely Christian concept.

The concept of the Messiah has been given a status in Christianity which it never had in Judaism, the Moshiach or Messiah simply means "anointed one" and has only ever referred to a human being in Judaism, the idea of God himself being anointed as a moschiach makes no sense in traditional Judaic thought. In fact it is a little odd that Christians took the title of "Christian" at all, because Jesus the Christ was just one of many Christs; King David was a Christ, Joshua was a Christ, Cyrus the Great was a Christ.

The Jews had a specific criteria for defining a Messiah in order to prevent false profits from claiming the title, including that he cannot be killed, should rebuild the Third Temple (Michah 4:1 and Ezekiel 40-45), and should prevail upon all of Israel (Mishnah Torah Kings 11:4). It is fair to say that Jesus failed in all these regards and more, so by Jewish standards he was not a Messiah, and a true believer in the Jewish Bible could not accept him as such. Anyone who contradicts the Torah was immediately identified as a false prophet (Deut. 13:1-4), this was something which Jesus did a number of times in his teachings, so according to the Bible Jesus was a false prophet and it was justifiable for him to be killed.

Whatever criteria early Christians used to assign the title of Christ to Jesus they did not come from the Bible. He was not even close to being a Messiah by Jewish standards.