The Divinity of Jesus

Playboy

I would like to know in which passages of the new testament does Jesus claim divinity in the sense that most Christian churches understand him to be divine. I would also like to know why these passages are unable to be interpreted in any other way. Thank you

Excelsior

Starting from the end, obviously Jesus' divinity is understood in a vast number of ways from not actually existed right up a Christ-exclusivist divinity that cult leaders find useful with every new generation.

Reading Atlantic Monthly last night I saw a small ad for "The Second Coming of CHRIST" which is a revelatory commentary on the original teachings of Christ by Paramahansa Yogananda permitting the resurrection of the Christ within you. If that appeals to you, you can purchase the books from the Self Realization Fellowship for $58. So obviously other interpretations of Jesus can and do exist. As an atheist I came into contact with the arguments for the orthodox position on Jesus' divinity and it remains the best explanation of the data provided for me.

It is a massive, gigantically important thing to remember that Jesus never claimed "divinity". He was Jewish. He didn't just claim to be divine the way that Octavian who became Augustus eventually claimed to be Lord . Within the pluralistic and pagan Roman world, Jesus stood as a Jew not claiming to be divine, but to be God. He doesn't think that he is a god or godly, he believes he is The God, that all of existence began because he felt like speaking it into being.

I thought about this one before getting up this morning and I think there are 3 ways that Jesus claims divinity:

1. Fulfillment of prophecy
2. Reference to Jewish tradition
3. Implicit within teaching

1. The clearest example of fulfillment of prophecy is when Jesus arrives back for his homecoming gig in his town of Nazareth . He is honoured by the opportunity to read from Scripture in synagogue so he unfolds the scrolls to Isaiah and reads:

Isaiah wrote:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn

Then he sat down as Rabbis do before beginning their sermon and begins with the famous sentence, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing". Within 5 sentences, the local boy made good has lost his audience. Because of his apparent blasphemy, "All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff."

As we read it, largely ignorant of the Old Testament and how it was read, it doesn't seem like such a bold claim. Yet his neighbours and old friends knew full well what this man, Joseph's son was claiming to be- God.

2. In Jesus' time, Israel, the promised land, was occupied by pagan Romans. The people of God were in exile. Against this setting, Judaism became fascinated by the prophecy that had been revealed increasingly through the scriptures of a Messiah, an annointed one. The Pharisees of which Saul was a member were not just priests, but revolutionaries and the whole culture was bursting to rebel. We have references to over 90 other "Messiah" figures who rose up and tried to start a religious uprising against Rome in the 100 years before and after Jesus. Only one of those Messiah figures had any followers after he was killed because only one of those Messiah figures claimed to have come back after he died. All but one of those Messiah figures sought a violent revolution to cleanse the Promised Land of idolatry. That sole one died for the crime of sedition charged by the High Priests who were disgusted by his blasphemous idolatry.

So the Messiah thing is important. And we see that Jesus intended himself to be viewed as the Annointed One by his favourite title for himself, "Son of Man", which I think off the top of my head is used 101 times in the Gospels. This phrase is a quote from Daniel 7 and would be clear to any adult Jew brought up well on a diet of Scripture that he was claiming to be the Christ.

John 8 is a long chapter but worth looking at. In the 58th verse we see Jesus say a somewhat meaningless and apparently innocuous thing that incites such wrath from those questioning him that they pick up stones to kill him there and then.

When Moses first encountered God in the burning bush he asked for a name for God. God said, "I AM". Abraham was the first recipient of the Covenant between God and the Jews. There is no Jew before Abraham. Jesus is saying not only that he is a great prophet, but that he existed prior to Judaism and finally, that he created the world.

3. Implicit in Jesus' teaching is the claim that he is God. A large amount of his interactions are plainly preposterous if he isn't who he claims to be. The Pharisees are constantly asking him "By what authority are you saying these things" not simply because he hasn't got credentials from the Temple but because some of his advice is bat**** crazy unless he is truly who he says he is. Like the other 2 categories, there are a bunch of examples to cite but I'm going with the interaction with the Rich Young Man.

Lots of people are familiar with this story and it has often been treated at book length because its insights into Jesus and if you are a Christian, into God, are immensely deep. The rich guy comes and says what can I do to inherit eternal life and he and Jesus have a fascinating discussion about being good, who is good and what is good but ultimately Jesus tells him to do two things:
1) Sell everything and give it away so he can have treasure in heaven
2) Leave everything and follow him

The commands are complete. They are not rational unless they come from the one who can make such complete claims on a person's life. What man knows about the bank accounts of heaven? In point 1 we see Jesus espouse a morality that is based upon the assumption that he has a right to claim so completely and that we are wise to trust him. In point 2 these assumptions are brought right into the open when Jesus says he is so important that the young man should leave his life behind him and join Jesus' disciples. Within the Jewish culture at the time, Jesus is saying that "I am so important that you, rich, happy and successful young man would be wiser throwing everything away to eat my dust as I walk around Israel".

Jesus's whole encounter here makes sense only when you consider him speaking from the position of believing he is the fullness of God embodied in human form.

There are a great deal of examples in each of these 3 categories and there is a lot more that could be said in each of the examples I have given but I hope they go some way to showing that orthodox Christian belief about Jesus is well-grounded.

Playboy

Thank you for replying in such detail Excelsior

What do you think of Rudolf Karl Bultmann and his opinion that we should replace traditional theology with the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Personally for me when i read the Bible I try and apply what I have learned in my life to the texts. I cannot but reject the supernatural aspects of the story as it just doesnt seem believable to me. I do believe that there was a person called Jesus and he was a man of great wisdom. I believe that the social, political and religious turmoil that existed from the time Jesus lived right up to the The First Council of Nicaea will prevent us from ever truely understanding who Jesus was and what he meant by the Kingdom of God. I have to apply my own reasoning to the stories and when I do I see the problems of Constantine and his motives for converting to Christianity, the validity of Paul's visions and the supposed fact that The Council of Nicea was guided by the Holy Spirit. All of these reasons and more that I havent mentioned would prevent me from taking the orthodox position but I do try and embrace the core elements of the message such as "love your neighbour as yourself". I suppose believe in his divinity is where faith comes in.

Excelsior

Playboy wrote:

Thank you for replying in such detail Excelsior

My verbose pleasure.

Playboy wrote:

What do you think of Rudolf Karl Bultmann and his opinion that we should replace traditional theology with the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger.

I think Bultmann has had a very large impact on biblical studies but the problems within form criticism and the assumptions that come with the project mean that as I read in a Pauline study this morning, "he is most commonly known second hand".

I'm a passionate amateur theologian but whatever research I am able to do is only ever to support my pastoral responsibilities (maybe that is the best way?) and so I am no expert in Bultmann.

Playboy wrote:

Personally for me when i read the Bible I try and apply what I have learned in my life to the texts. I cannot but reject the supernatural aspects of the story as it just doesnt seem believable to me.

I think the very best way to approach the Bible is to read it responsibly and ultimately to hope to apply it to your life. I guess there is a complex interplay between applying your life to the text to help the text apply to your life.

I would tentatively propose that your faith in a materialistic, unsupernatural world might not be the strongest position.

Playboy wrote:

I do believe that there was a person called Jesus and he was a man of great wisdom. I believe that the social, political and religious turmoil that existed from the time Jesus lived right up to the First Council of Nicaea will prevent us from ever truely understanding who Jesus was and what he meant by the Kingdom of God.

There were almost 300 years between Easter and Nicea. The world has only entered the modern era of democracies and all that jazz in the last 300 years (250 years even). Heck there is more trauma in the last 100 years than all other eras added up. The difficulty in understanding who Jesus was and what his Kingdom of God was would actually come down to two different things for me:
1) It is a long time ago. Trauma, tumult or no, records are thin on the ground.
2) What records we have seem to suggest a message most sane people would really want to reject. Yet this Gospel thing doesn't seem like going away so we try to reinterpret it to make more sense to our modern mind.

On the wisdom of Jesus, again, I have to cite C.S. Lewis . For me, Jesus is actually wisdom personified or someone we should quickly disregard.

Playboy wrote:

I have to apply my own reasoning to the stories and when I do I see the problems of Constantine and his motives for converting to Christianity, the validity of Paul's visions and the supposed fact that The Council of Nicea was guided by the Holy Spirit.

Constantine isn't much of a factor on coptic papyri from the mid 2nd century of books written 100 years previous to that. The Council of Nicea, as I have written elsewhere, was much more a statement on that which was already agreed over rather than a statment of that which from then on will be believed.

But fundamentally, I spend all my time trying to apply my reason to the texts and to encourage my students to do the same. Its the only way to claim with any credibility that you actually believe something as oppossed to just feeling it.

Again, I'd quietly propose that the position you have on Nicea and Constantine's influence and all that Dan Brown stuff is very firmly in the land of faith. It is a claim that the shoulders of history simply can't support.

Playboy wrote:

but I do try and embrace the core elements of the message such as "love your neighbour as yourself". I suppose believe in his divinity is where faith comes in.

I just have never seen an argument that can present "love your neighbour as yourself" as the core message of Christianity, the Bible or the living ministry of Christ.

I'd love for you to take that thorny issue up if you felt so motivated.

I am interested to get any feedback from you on what you make of my divinity arguments?

Playboy

Excelsior wrote:

I just have never seen an argument that can present "love your neighbour as yourself" as the core message of Christianity, the Bible or the living ministry of Christ.

I'd love for you to take that thorny issue up if you felt so motivated.

I am interested to get any feedback from you on what you make of my divinity arguments?

Jesus wrote:

'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these"

Saint Paul wrote:

"He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

I would consider "love your neighbour as yourself" as ONE of the core messages of Christianity or The Bible.

Playboy

Excelsior I am by no means a biblical scholar so please forgive me if I make any rather juvenile mistakes. From what I can gather the quote you used is from Luke?

Excelsior wrote:

1. The clearest example of fulfillment of prophecy is when Jesus arrives back for his homecoming gig in his town of Nazareth . He is honoured by the opportunity to read from Scripture in synagogue so he unfolds the scrolls to Isaiah and reads:

Originally Posted by Isaiah
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn



Then he sat down as Rabbis do before beginning their sermon and begins with the famous sentence, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing". Within 5 sentences, the local boy made good has lost his audience. Because of his apparent blasphemy, "All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff."

As we read it, largely ignorant of the Old Testament and how it was read, it doesn't seem like such a bold claim. Yet his neighbours and old friends knew full well what this man, Joseph's son was claiming to be- God.

Wikipedia wrote:

The critical view, expressed by Udo Schnelle, is that "the extensive linguistic and theological agreements and cross-references between the Gospel of Luke and the Acts indicate that both works derive from the same author" (The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings).

The evangelist does not claim to have been an eyewitness of Jesus's life, but to have investigated everything carefully and to have written an orderly narrative of the facts (Luke 1:1-4). The authors of the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and John, probably used similar sources. According to the two-source hypothesis, the most commonly accepted solution to the synoptic problem, Luke's sources included the Gospel of Mark and another collection of lost sayings known by scholars as Q, the Quelle or "source" document.

How can we accept this passage to be true if it is not an eye-witness account? Does anyone really know what the true motivations of Luke were? If he used Mark as a source and Mark was not an eye-witness either then how realible is the source. The other source he supposedly used isnt in existence anymore so again another problem on the realibility of the material. If people were to think of Jesus as God then there would have been a much greater impact politically and religiously.

Playboy

Excelsior wrote:

2. In Jesus' time, Israel, the promised land, was occupied by pagan Romans. The people of God were in exile. Against this setting, Judaism became fascinated by the prophecy that had been revealed increasingly through the scriptures of a Messiah, an annointed one. The Pharisees of which Saul was a member were not just priests, but revolutionaries and the whole culture was bursting to rebel. We have references to over 90 other "Messiah" figures who rose up and tried to start a religious uprising against Rome in the 100 years before and after Jesus. Only one of those Messiah figures had any followers after he was killed because only one of those Messiah figures claimed to have come back after he died. All but one of those Messiah figures sought a violent revolution to cleanse the Promised Land of idolatry. That sole one died for the crime of sedition charged by the High Priests who were disgusted by his blasphemous idolatry.

So the Messiah thing is important. And we see that Jesus intended himself to be viewed as the Annointed One by his favourite title for himself, "Son of Man", which I think off the top of my head is used 101 times in the Gospels. This phrase is a quote from Daniel 7 and would be clear to any adult Jew brought up well on a diet of Scripture that he was claiming to be the Christ.

John 8 is a long chapter but worth looking at. In the 58th verse we see Jesus say a somewhat meaningless and apparently innocuous thing that incites such wrath from those questioning him that they pick up stones to kill him there and then.

When Moses first encountered God in the burning bush he asked for a name for God. God said, "I AM". Abraham was the first recipient of the Covenant between God and the Jews. There is no Jew before Abraham. Jesus is saying not only that he is a great prophet, but that he existed prior to Judaism and finally, that he created the world.

Ok .. We can see that there was political turmoil at the time of Christ. The Jewish people were screaming out for a "Messiah" and that there were many other "fake Messiah's". Could Jesus's motivations have been some what political. Could Jesus have used prophecy in an attempt to rally the people to rise up against the Roman Empire and the oppresive High Priests in a Ghandi type revolution?

theLegend

I'll keep this short because i have vwork tomorrow and i'm a timezone ahead of you. I have read "the holy blood and holy grail" by baignet, lincoln and leigh and I think it puts forward good arguments to suggest jesus was more of a priest-king than an actual god. I was wondering if you could recommend any books (besided the new testament) that have good arguments for the opposite i.e. the divinity of Jesus

Playboy

Excelsior wrote:

3. Implicit in Jesus' teaching is the claim that he is God. A large amount of his interactions are plainly preposterous if he isn't who he claims to be. The Pharisees are constantly asking him "By what authority are you saying these things" not simply because he hasn't got credentials from the Temple but because some of his advice is bat**** crazy unless he is truly who he says he is. Like the other 2 categories, there are a bunch of examples to cite but I'm going with the interaction with the Rich Young Man.

Lots of people are familiar with this story and it has often been treated at book length because its insights into Jesus and if you are a Christian, into God, are immensely deep. The rich guy comes and says what can I do to inherit eternal life and he and Jesus have a fascinating discussion about being good, who is good and what is good but ultimately Jesus tells him to do two things:
1) Sell everything and give it away so he can have treasure in heaven
2) Leave everything and follow him

The commands are complete. They are not rational unless they come from the one who can make such complete claims on a person's life. What man knows about the bank accounts of heaven? In point 1 we see Jesus espouse a morality that is based upon the assumption that he has a right to claim so completely and that we are wise to trust him. In point 2 these assumptions are brought right into the open when Jesus says he is so important that the young man should leave his life behind him and join Jesus' disciples. Within the Jewish culture at the time, Jesus is saying that "I am so important that you, rich, happy and successful young man would be wiser throwing everything away to eat my dust as I walk around Israel".

Jesus's whole encounter here makes sense only when you consider him speaking from the position of believing he is the fullness of God embodied in human form.

I disagree. If you take the "Kingdom of God" as an attempt by a man to make the world a better place then I think the story of the "Rich Young Man" takes on a different meaning. In Jesus's time surely there was large gap between the rich and poor. Jesus's advice for the young man to give up all his material belongings and give to them to the poor is indicative of a person who is concerned with problems of poverty in his society. Maybe Jesus realised that material possesions outside of your basic living needs don't provide any real fufuillment but offer only a distraction to people. By telling the rich young man to follow him and leave his material possesions behind he is telling the young man that people can only gain true fufillment by helping other people around you and living a good life.

Wikipedia wrote:

In essence, liberation theology explores the relationship between Christian theology (usually Roman Catholic) and political activism, particularly in areas of social justice and human rights. The main methodological innovation of liberation theology is to do theology, i.e., speak of God, from the viewpoint of the economically poor and oppressed of the human community. According to Jon Sobrino, S.J., the poor are a privileged channel of God's grace. According to Phillip Berryman (see the bibliography), liberation theology is "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor."

Again as none of the authors of the New Testament claim to be eye-witnesses to these events, how sure can we be of their accuracy?

Excelsior

The passage you quoted from Jesus is in response to questioning from the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 22.

Jesus answers the question about commandments by stating his Judaism with a double prayer- the shema and then the golden rule.

Look at what Jesus does right then. He asks them for their opinion of the promised Christ and makes such an accurate interpretation of scripture that they are left speechless and confronted with his primary claim- it isn't a message of love but rather momentous news about God becoming man in Christ and therefore we should love.

As far as Paul is concerned, your quoting from Romans 13 is illuminated further by looking at what comes directly after. Paul is making these observations about the law knowing full well, as he has spent the letter pointing out, that the Law has failed. Israel has gone astray and astray and astray. Now the Isianic promises regarding Israel are fulfilled not in the law and the people of God, but in God's son Jesus. The final sentence of Romans 13 leaves the reader in no doubt about the new response to morality.

Where once the people of God wore the law around their wrists, now they are to clothe themselves in the Grace of Christ, which is directly wholly towards loving, but which is grounded in who Christ is. The dawn is here, Paul is saying, so accept this light.

Love is an over-riding and massive pre-occupation of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. In 1 John we can read the clear proposition that God is love. But my point, which might seem like hair-splitting to you but is vital to orthodoxy (how dare I speak for it! ) is that the love of Christianity must be sourced in the being of God and not our own efforts.

So to put it another way, grace incarnated as Christ means that we are liberated from the shackles of loving for self-righteous reasons- loving to look good and feel moral which bound even the best within the law. We can't boast even in our love because it happens only because of who Jesus is and who God is.

Excelsior

Playboy wrote:

Excelsior I am by no means a biblical scholar so please forgive me if I make any rather juvenile mistakes.

As long as you offer me the same security because I'm in the same boat.

Playboy wrote:

From what I can gather the quote you used is from Luke?

Luke 4. I try to link to the biblical passages instead of adding any more length to my already obese posts.

Playboy wrote:

How can we accept this passage to be true if it is not an eye-witness account? Does anyone really know what the true motivations of Luke were?

Luke joined Paul on some of his missionary activity. We can trust him because at the time of writing, 1000s if not 10000s of people who were familiar with the teaching of Jesus and the events in Jerusalem of that final Passover celebration of Jesus' life were still alive and kicking all over the Mediterranean when it started to be shared amongst the churches. Luke was not an inner-apostle, but that doesn't mean his testimony is invalid since there is the most potent of all critical tests- the experience of large numbers of normal people- which this book passed.

I have in front of me on the table at the moment Michael Burleigh's The Third Reich and although he wasn't actually an eye-witness to the events we trust his account, primarilly because it is supported by the accounts of 1st hand witnesses. If first hand witnesses disputed it, then we'd doubt the veracity of the book. Luke and all the 4 Gospels are valid classical history (of course they are not written in the same way as Burleigh approaches his history (but Luke is the closest of all to a modern historian's approach)) and the argument that only eye-witnesses can write history is bogus.

I would tend to take Luke's word on his motivations.

Playboy wrote:

If he used Mark as a source and Mark was not an eye-witness either then how realible is the source.

Mark is John Mark. You'll find him later on in Acts. There is good evidence to suggest that he would have been a disciple of Jesus- or maybe like a young man attracted to movements who dipped in and out of this Nazarene Messiah character but who, like 1000s others, was transformed by the Easter events.

Mark also went on missionary journeys, meeting Christians who had dispersed over the Empire and collecting their stories into one short, banging, easy-to-read version of events.

Playboy wrote:

The other source he supposedly used isnt in existence anymore so again another problem on the realibility of the material.

Q hasn't been found, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. What is undoubted is that the 3 synoptic writers shared an even earlier source. What that means is that they are drawing on a written account of Jesus that is even closer to the events.

I am interested that Wikipedia puts it "The authors of the other three Gospels... probably used similar sources." That is just what you would expect from historically valid material. The Gospels are drawn from the recollections and memories of the survivors of the ministry of Jesus. They are by and away the best attested and most trustworthy historical documents from the classical era and anywhere outside the obfuscating world of popular spirituality books, that is an aggreed upon observation.

Playboy wrote:

If people were to think of Jesus as God then there would have been a much greater impact politically and religiously.

Come on Playboy! Passover, Jerusalem, ~33AD. The Romans and the Chief Priests deal with a blasphemous revolutionary the best way possible. By killing him. Like they killed the other 90+ Messiah figures.

Within 30 years this movement had spread and grown to be of such significance that in Rome, over 1400 miles away, Nero can blame these Christians for the destruction of the city.

Christianity hit the world with a social and political force the like of which has been seen before or since. In fact, the major problem for a Jesus as Moral Teacher reading of the Christian movement is that it doesn't begin to explain how it would then have such an impact on its adherents. That argument is currently setting the theological world alight and this book is causing the non-divine reading of Jesus huge problems.

Excelsior

Playboy wrote:

Could Jesus have used prophecy in an attempt to rally the people to rise up against the Roman Empire and the oppresive High Priests in a Ghandi type revolution?

He could have but he didn't, obviously to the exasperation of many followers. Jesus isn't regarded at any point in the New Testament as calling for a political revolution but an undercurrent from many of the conversations he has is that people keep expecting him to drop the airy-fairy kingdom of God ****e and get going with kicking the Romans out.

He differs from the false Messiahs in 2 notable ways- he didn't call for a political revolution and his cause lived on after he died (because the people who followed him claimed he had come back after he died).

Excelsior

theLegend wrote:

I have read "the holy blood and holy grail" by baignet, lincoln and leigh and I think it puts forward good arguments to suggest jesus was more of a priest-king than an actual god.

Baigent et al have admitted their work to be one of fancy. They brought an intellectual theft case against Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code fame. You can't claim historical fact as intellectual property, only fiction. Details here: http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/03/wvinci03.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/03/ixnewstop.html

theLegend wrote:

I was wondering if you could recommend any books (besided the new testament) that have good arguments for the opposite i.e. the divinity of Jesus

A good scholarly introduction to the issue is NT Wright's Challenge of Jesus, although it isn't my bag, journalist Lee Strobel has a very successful popular treatment of the issues but if you want to get an introduction to Christianity that isn't the Bible, then it has to be the best thing to ever come out of Belfast, C.S. Lewis and his Mere Christianity.

Excelsior

Playboy wrote:

Maybe Jesus realised that material possesions outside of your basic living needs don't provide any real fufuillment but offer only a distraction to people.

You don't have to be a genius to realise that. Jesus however doesn't say, give up all but the basics. He demands that all his followers leave everything, including family.

Jesus is much more complex than you are giving him credit for. He leaves no room for a stachel with some fresh underwear even, nor time for a funeral.

By telling the rich young man to follow him and leave all his material possesions behind he is telling the young man that people can only gain true fufillment by trusting that God really does love him and so he can rely on him without any external aids like material comfort. As a result of this security and healing love, he will be freed up to dedicate themselves to helping other people around them and living a good life.


Over-riding even the love teachings of the Bible is the call for social justice. I once heard Rev Steve Stockman claim that there are over 2,000 references to social justice in the Old and New Testament (compared to less than a 100 directed towards sexual morality). There is a large weight on people to care for the weak in society and alongside the hypocritical teaching of sex, one can see attitudes to wealth as being the great crimes of the Western churches. But I still think that what Jesus says to the Rich Young Man only makes sense if you consider his words to have the authority of God. I think that when you then consider the text and and the historical facts of what his teaching produced, the evidence demands an assessment of Jesus as someone who believed himself divine.

Playboy wrote:

Again as none of the authors of the New Testament claim to be eye-witnesses to these events, how sure can we be of their accuracy?

John claims to be an eye-witness, although that is debated fiercely. John Mark probably saw bits of it. Paul was almost certainly an eye-witness, but from the angry mob side of the audience. James and Peter both wrote New Testament books and both were apostles. The New Testament is not history as solid as we have it today but it is a faith proposition if one claims that they simply can't be trusted.

Asiaprod

"The Gospels are drawn from the recollections and memories of the survivors of the ministry of Jesus. They are by and away the best attested and most trustworthy historical documents from the classical era and anywhere outside the obfuscating world of popular spirituality books, that is an agreed upon observation"

I think you need to study some more. There are many examples of instances where these books have been shown to have been heavily edited, and even added to. The 4 Gospels were the only major works that the Council of Nicea chose to use. They were the books that most suited the story they wished to push. Have you ever read any of the other Coptic works (Nag Hammadi) for example the Gospel of Thomas?
You will find the contents of these books to be very different from the 4 main works accepted by the Church. Also take an internet trip to Kashmir (India) research Roza Ball the tomb of St Issa , better know to you as the tomb of Jesus Christ. I was a catholic for 30 years before I got sense and started to research all these lies I had been brought up to believe. I now know the Church to be full of corruption, lies and misleading information. They took the words and actions of a wise man, not a divine son of god, and deliberately distorted these facts to create one of the worlds largest religions.

For 20 years I have now been a Buddhist, I have studied the life of the person you called Christ growing up in Kashmir from the time he was 13 to 30. I have seen copies of documents relating to him and read his sermons, all of which I might add rely very heavily on Buddhist teachings. I have also research deeply into the role of John the Baptist and what part he had to play in all this. There is a whole world of information out there which will amaze you, just be sure you really want to know the truth before you look. It is both frightening and enlightening.
By the way this is a great thread.
Peter Kearney (ex Dublin now Tokyo)

Excelsior

Asiaprod, it sounds to me like you have taken the search for truth seriously to an inspirationally admirable degree. And I agree that I have to study more. Yet I disagree with your theories.

The Council of Nicea accepted 4 texts because 4 texts were in use amongst the churches. The only non-canonical document that has anything of an exacting historical merit is the Thomas text. But even calling that a Gospel is a shambolic mistake since its 113 aphorisms without any narrative. The Gospel, as the post-moderns in the emerging church constantly remind us, are narrative for a reason.

I went over this at length in this thread and that explains why a Buddhist-Jesus theory has never come close to convincing me.

However, if the tomb of Jesus were actually to be found and we could prove the bones to be his, I would be the first to hang Christianity out to dry and eat drink and be merry. Why, the Bible positively commands me to do it:

St. Paul in the 1st Letter to Corinthians, Chapter 15 wrote:

...If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men...If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."..."

Asiaprod

Hello Excelsior,
very nice making a connection with you, and this group, its so nice to be able to have meaningful discussions.
Firstly, my apologies, I did not mean to imply that you need to study, I actually meant to direct that comment to Playboy (no offense Playboy).

Excelsior, I have to disagree with the comment "The Council of Nicea accepted 4 texts because 4 texts were in use amongst the churches." This is incorrect, there were lots of individual texts in use at that time, not to mention that fact that the old Jewish tradition was an Oral tradition and there were hundreds of oral teachings in circulation. What I believe happened is: In AD 325, Constantine the Great called the First Council of Nicaea, composed of 318 religious leaders. Three centuries after Jesus lived, this council was given the task of separating divinely inspired writings from those of questionable origin.The actual compilation of the Bible was an incredibly complicated project that involved churchmen of many varying beliefs, in an atmosphere of dissension, jealousy, intolerance, persecution and bigotry. At this time, the question of the divinity of Jesus had split the church into two factions. Constantine offered to make the little-known Christian sect the official state religion if the Christians would settle their differences. Apparently, he didn't particularly care what they believed in as long as they agreed upon a belief. By compiling a book of sacred writings, Constantine thought that the book would give authority to the new church. The church was extremely careful in what it selected as acceptable, and severely punished anyone caught using any of the banned texts. The church was only following its own agenda, it was under pressure to standardize teachings. It had spent many years trying to convert Constantine and it was not prepared to antagonize him in any way. He was in fact their salvation. If only we could see inside the Vatican Library would we be surprised at what we would find hidden there.
I do agree with you that in relation to the other 4 Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas would appear to just consist of 113 aphorisms without any narrative, but I think you will have to agree that those 113 aphorisms make an awful lot of sense and go a long wat to explaining life. I too in the beginning also could not accept a Buddhist-Jesus theory, however, during my research I came to believe that there is a very strong connection between the two. The connection that I am referring to is not necessarily that Buddhist teachings were incorporated into Christianity, but that the parallels are so strong that both religions appear to agree on well more than 50% of their content. Since Buddhism pre-dates Christianity we can say one of two things:

1. Christianity drew directly from Buddhism (Vedic) teachings.
2. They both hit on the correct answers which implies there is a third teaching from which they both drew heavily.

Regarding the tomb of Jesus, yes it really stretching things a little to expect this to be true, that is if one were to approach it from a Christian perspective. However, if one approaches it from a Buddhist perspective, it has every possibility of being true. Therefore, it is just a matter of perspective. The history of Kashmir is an amazing study, especially the small little insignificant religions there of 60-100 people who idolize this St Issa and St John the founder (Baptist) and his teachings. If St Issa was not Christ, he certainly was directly connected to him. If they ever do prove the bones are his (which I doubt they will) I will pay for the dinner and the drinks. One thing I did have to laugh at during my Kashmir studies was a very serious account of not just the Tomb of Christ and Our Lady, but the tomb of his donkey., This is one monument I have to find the time to vista. That is one famous donkey.
Peter Kearney (Tokyo)

Excelsior

Although I hope to respond in time to the post in full, I do have one question Peter. How do you account for the overwhelming pre-occupation Jesus of Nazareth had with grounding his ministry within the Hebrew Scriptures? I can't imagine how 2nd temple Judaism and Buddhism could be any less congruent.

It is fascinating to talk to someone who has actually taken the Christ as myth idea so seriously as to chase down the sites. If you're ever back in Dublin, I'll happily pay for the meals and drinks for a chance to talk to you about it!

Asiaprod

Wow, talk about asking the million Dollar question. There is no way I could answer that in just a few simple lines. The truth of the matter is that the original form of Christianity and the original form of Buddhism are actually very close to each other. Please read the following to gain a different perspective http://www.spinninglobe.net/jesusearch.htm. Unless we each understand where the other is coming from any discussions we have will be nothing more than that, just an entertaining discussion. It is very important for me to state up front that I very much believe in the existence of Jesus Christ as a person who lived and breathed and taught over 2,000 years ago. I do not believe the stories attributed to him, the belief system built up around him or the declaration that he is the son of some god who made us all as his children and is waiting in some mystical garden to welcome us (zillions and zillions of humans) home to where we can spend the rest of our days praising him. This does not sound to me to be a productive life. I am sure that you are also aware that one of the great problems the early church faced with documentation available at that time were the continual references to reincarnation, and other issues like the problem of celibacy which in fact was not a prerequisite. As a matter of fact, no early Jewish person could be accepted as a rabbi until he married. This is in complete contrast to the current church. However, I notice in the paper that the church has just ordained a new Bishop in the US who has just converted from another church and is currently married. How convenient. So, now it would appear that a Buddhist concept of life after death was also a central pillar of early Christianity. And there are a thousand instances of these parallels. The real issue is who or what was Jesus of Nazareth. The real problem lies in trying to pin down this issue from a 20th century perspective. This just does not work. We have to gain an insight into the mind set of the time and work the problem from there. This is what I have been doing for the last 3 years.

For me, the difference between the original form of Christianity and the original form of Buddhism occurred when the early church set out to create the religion. At that time the people we waiting for a military Messiah, one who would lead them out from under the heel of the Romans. They were not looking for a new religion, they already had one of those. This religion of their`s very clearly laid down where the new messiah would come from and what he would do. This belief was one of the main driving forces behind the Essen (the authors of the dead sea scrolls), and their greatest prophet John the Baptist, of whom the person known as Jesus was a major disciple. (The next comment will not sit well with some people, but I leave it to them to do their own research.) One story line goes that, Jesus did not start his ministry until after John had been safely put away, i.e. dead under some very strange circumstances. Many of the apostles actually came from the ranks of John`s followers. There is proof that many of the sermons taught by Jesus (especially the sermon on the mount) had been written down years before and were all well know to Jesus at that time. There is absolutely no proof of any miracles or anything else for that matter. There is very little reference to Jesus in any of the Roman writing at that time. Don`t you think that if a person was walking around curing the sick and raising the dead it would not be long before is name appeared in print. This alone is rather strange seeing as the Romans were prolific record keepers and just about any Roman who was anybody wrote copiously of that time. If indeed he did exist and is supposed to have created all this uproar claiming to be the son of god and that he was the herald of the new kingdom, let me assure you, the Romans would have been all over his ass for making these kind of waves and it would be very clearly documented. What do we find when we look, nothing but passing reference to him. It is very clear to me that everything that has been written or attributed has been done after the fact, when there was nobody left around to contradict any of the stories. So what was he doing? I hate to say it, but he was being the messiah. He was using his charisma, his great knowledge and understanding to effect change. We have a saying in Buddhism "The right time, the right place, the right vehicle" what this says in essence is that it is ok to use white lies to effect a greater good. We do not see these as lies, but as a steps on the path to obtaining the goal. Jesus spoke according to that time, to the level of understanding of the people of that time, to the desire and needs of the people of that time. And he did a very good job.

Asiaprod

As I am sure you can see, this is just the bare bones of what I discovered and now believe in. Please just take it as food for thought. It is by no means concise or complete. It is just a framework on which to build discussion. In reference to my early comment about the missing early Church documents, here is a list of some of them which are now missing:
The search for the historical Jesus has resulted in the discovery of many early Christian writings, despite the attempts of the Church to destroy evidence which contradicts its teachings. There are many other Gospels which have been either repudiated by the Church as 'unauthentic' (though it is doubtful that any of these decisions were based on historical criteria of authenticity), or they have been rejected outright as 'heretical' - such as the Apocryphal Gospels, which contain a great deal of information about Jesus' life and teachings.
About fifty Apocryphal Gospels have been discovered so far. Most of these works were destroyed under various decrees of the Church, but some copies have survived and seen the light of day. Tradition has handed down a list of twenty-six Apocryphal Gospels, seven Acts and ten Epistles, all used during the early days of Christianity. Some of these original writings now exist in name only, and of some we have only a few fragments.
Tation, the famous Syriac scholar of Edessa, compiled a volume containing five Gospels in the second century AD, which became known as The Five Gospels of Tation. After thorough research into Greek and Hebrew sources, he compiled his Bible, which remained in vogue for hundreds of years among followers of the Syrian Church. With the coming to power of the Roman Church, the Bible compiled by Tation was ordered to be destroyed. It seems that all copies were collected and burned.
According to Tation, Mary and Jesus did not belong to the line of David. It also appears that Tation had mentioned that after resurrection, Jesus did meet his disciples, and especially his mother Mary, several times, and that he was a living being.
Fifty Apocryphal works discovered so far have been denied official patronage because they do not conform to the revised doctrines formulated by the Church. The most important Apocryphal Gospels of which we have copies still are the following: the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of James, the Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Ebionites and the Gospel of Philip.
The Gospel of the Hebrews was originally written in Aramaic and then translated into Greek and Latin. It gives prominence to James, the brother of Jesus. The Gospel of James provides information about the childhood of Jesus. The Gospel of Barnabas was compiled by Joses, a Levite surnamed Barnabas, meaning the son of consolation. Barnabas describes himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ and says that he was directed by the Lord to record the life and works of Jesus. Barnabas worked together with Paul in preaching about the message of Jesus. He was an uncle to Mark and a companion to Paul, who travelled throughout Palestine preaching from his Gospel. As a missionary to Antioch, he accompanied Paul several times but parted from him due to differences. Barnabas was stoned to death by theJews at Slamis in Cyprus.
The Gospel of Barnabas was accepted as a canonical gospel in the churches of Alexandria until 325 AD, when the Nicene Council ordered that all copies of this Gospel be destroyed and anyone in possession of a copy be put to death. The result was that this Gospel was almost lost to posterity. The Gospel of Barnabas was banned in 382 AD by decree of the western churches. However, a manuscript seems to have existed in the private library of Pope Damascus. In the fifth century, a copy, apparently written in Barnabas' own hand, was found lying on his breast in a tomb in Cyprus. This manuscript found its way into the Library of Pope Sixtus V (1500-1590). It is believed that the manuscript was obtained from the private library of the Pope by an Italian priest, Fra Marino, and made accessible to the public by him.
The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip are known as the Coptic Gospels because they are in Coptic and were discovered at Al-Hammadi in Egypt. They throw a great deal of light on the hidden life ofJesus. It is evident from these Gospels that the early Christians did not believe that Jesus died on the cross. They believed that he arose and remained in hiding with his disciples, eventually dying in a natural way.
The Acts of Thomas, or Acta Thomae, written by Leucius in the beginning of the second century AD, is based on letters written by Thomas from India, and was translated into German by Max Donet and published in Leipzig in 1883. The Gospel according to Thomas, dated about the third century, was discovered in 1947 from Luxor in Egypt. It was translated from Greek into Russian in the 13th century.
It was Thomas who introduced Christianity to the south of India around 52 AD. He built many churches but suffered martyrdom in 72 AD and was buried at Mylapore, where the San Thorne Cathedral Basilica stands at present. The Syrian Christians of Malabar, India, claim that Thomas was their founder. There is some evidence that Thomas may too have been an Essene.
This Gospel was proscribed by the Roman Catholic Church, probably because it denies the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. It was denounced as heretical by a Decree of Gelasius in 495 AD. The Gospel, among other things, provides information about a meeting between Jesus and Thomas at Taxila, long after the crucifixion.
It seems that most of these 'heretical' gospels were unacceptable to the church because in one way or another they portrayed Jesus as a human being. For instance, the Gospel ofJames informs us about the marriage of Mary with Joseph. In the Gospel of the Ebionites, Jesus is believed to have been born in a normal way, as a son ofJoseph and Mary. Similarly, another Gospel says:
My brother, I wish to tell you about a most wonderful thing; sometimes when I wanted to touch him, I could feel a solid material body, but at other occasions, his being was immaterial as if it had not existed at all.
The reasons for the banning of the Gospel of Philip are obvious, for it informs us that Jesus migrated towards the East with his mother and with Mary Magdalene, who appears in this Gospel as Jesus' consort.
The Church, in various councils and decrees, accepted and rejected the different Gospels, the net result of such suppression being that we are now deprived of much useful and authentic source material on the earthly life ofJesus. What is needed is that the New Testament be rearranged, with all available Gospels, Acts and Epistles included in it. Otherwise, this censorship will lead to disillusion amongst followers of the Church.

RE Our date, Count on meeting, I hope to get home before the end of the year and we will get togeter and drink and talk. If you want to take this conversation ofline we can move to private mail I do not want to discourage others from their beliefs. They must do as I did and research the truth.
Peter Kearney (Tokyo)

Playboy

Please do not take this discussion to private. Some of us are finding it very interesting

Asiaprod

Hi Playboy,
No problem, happy to keep it public, please anyone who feels like joinning in do so. The more peole get involved, the more interesting the outcome.
Peter Kearney (Tokyo)

Sapien

Asiaprod wrote:

2. They both hit on the correct answers which implies there is a third teaching from which they both drew heavily.

Causality. Hegel. It implies no such thing.

To paraphrase Frater Perdurabo: The Vedas, the Quran, the Torah, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Mayan calendars and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone all refer to the sun and the moon. Does this imply that they are all derived from a common source?

Excelsior

What was the Council of Nicea actually about?
As I understand it, the not-so-secret history of Nicea was that it was an effort to resolve the controversy betweent the Alexandrian church and the presbyter Arius. Arius argued that if Jesus was begotten he must therefore be finite and therefore a contingent being, in contradiction to much of Scripture. Eusebius lists many of the over 300 delegates at the conference from across the world. Only with Constantine's defeat of Licinius did the persecutions against the church end and so all of the Bishops present would have spent their ministries in risk of death for preaching Christ crucified. They knew how important doctrine was from the experience of life. If their life was worth losing over these beliefs then these beliefs were worth arguing and agreeing on. That is why the 2nd major theme of Nicea was on which day should we celebrate resurrection.

The response to Arius was the declaration of homousius, the belief that Jesus was one with the Father. All but 3 of the Bishops present signed up to the Nicene Creed. This was not a political powerplay by these Bishops but rather, these Bishops being sent as representatives of the church members declaring what their congregations believed.

Athanasius, one of the great early Fathers wrote, "But concerning matters of faith, they [the bishops assembled at Nicea] did not write: 'It has been decided,' but 'Thus the Catholic Church believes.' And thereupon confessed how they believed. This they did to show that their judgement was not of more recent origin, but was in fact of Apostolic times..." Remember that the Catholic Church here does not map onto the Roman Catholic church of today but is more properly read as the universal, or world wide church. Orthodoxy in other words.

Constantine got involved and in his writings you can see that he had a small or non-existent respect for the belief that the Christian churches called Christianity. The controversy between Arius and the church was as substantial as can be imagined and yet Constantine wrote,
"This contention has not arisen respecting any important command of the law, nor has any new opinion been introduced with regard to the worship of God; but you both entertain the same sentiments, so that you may join in one communion. It is thought to be not only indecorous, but altogether unlawful, that so numerous a people of God should be governed and directed at your pleasure, while you are thus emulously contending with each other, and quarrelling about small and very trifling matters."

Arius certainly thought he was proposing a new and indeed true perspective of Christ. The congregations obviously felt that the innovation he had introduced contradicted with the teachings of the apostles. So when Constantine comes in and says "You all believe the same thing. Just get along.", it seems as immensely arrogant as religious pluralists today who disregard the faith of believers in the name of "tolerance". This is all a digression though because it is one of the chips on my shoulder.

In terms of the creation of the Canon, I've written about this elsewhere on this forum. The church was persecuted across the Empire. Hated as splitters by many Jews and despised for pretty much all their beliefs by official Rome, the churches were underground. But communication still continued under the radar as can be seen from the detailed references to remote churches seen in the New Testament. Through this constant interaction, texts and records and testimonies of Jesus were passed from church to church. Judging from the writings of the earliest church leaders there was almost perfect unanimity within the church about the New Testament (and certainly about the Gospels) by 200AD and large agreement before that.

In the west, where the churches were made up largely of Gentiles (non Jewish people), the book of Hebrews was not such a favourite but in the east where Jewish culture was still strong within Christianity they loved Hebrews. Small differences like this aside, there is solid historical evidence that you could travel to any Christian church around the Empire and find the same books in use.

Then when Constantine became Emperor and there was at last freedom for church leaders to move around openly and to meet, they started having councils and conferences and at those conferences they declared what the Canon was. But the important historical point to remember is that the Canon was in existence across the networks of apostolic churches, which under persecution were like the segments of a submarine in trouble, closed off from each other. When persecution ended, when the submarine rose to the surface, the different compartments were opened to each other and they were pleasantly surprised to see that they largely agreed on what was important.

Some of the actual statements of the Council of Nicea can be found here (they seem to have been quite voluminous but only 3 sections remain): http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum01.htm As I understood it, the Canon promulgulation happened in 451AD at Chalcedon, which is long after the Canon was formalised and in use. Long after Jerome's Vulgate of 405AD. Now I am not a historian. My knowledge of this is that of an interested amateur. But I think that there are some major flaws in your interpretation of the Canon formation

If you could see the inside of the top-secret secret Vatican library you would know exactly what to find there? That is impressive. Seriously though, the Christian churches should be shamed by their destruction of texts. It is not true that the Christian church tried to systematically root out all historical existence of the Gnostic traditions as has often been argued, in a kind of textual cleansing. Proof of this is the fact that the letters of John and many of Paul's letters are directly written in response to Gnostic interlopers.

Gospel of Thomas doesn't just appear to be 113 aphorisms. It is a collection of 113 aphorisms. It is likely later than any of the Canonical Gospels. It is certainly the most interesting of the apocryphal (and maybe least apocryphal) but it can't even be considered a canonical Gospel since it is not a narrative. It doesn't tell the story of Jesus' ministry. In this way it is the weakest of the proposed text.

Buddhism and Christianity agree on 50% of their content? How do you land on that figure Peter? If Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses agree with 65% of Christianity, does that make them Christian? Do you assess that based on a word count of sacred scriptures? In that case, Scientology might be 43.66% congruent with Christianity.

Seriously though, Christianity is about a Palestinian Jew from Nazareth called Jesus who believed he was God. Furthermore, the followers of this Jesus had their whole lives changed by the events of a Passover weekend. As a result, the thing we call Christianity emerged. It rests fundamentally on Jesus being who he said he was and promising this whole resurrection thing and heaven and all the rest of that stuff. It is directly in contradiction with Buddhism on a whole host of major pillars.

Excelsior

Who is Jesus and why does his Judaism matter?

Asiaprod wrote:

I very much believe in the existence of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is a title conferred upon Jesus of Nazareth, meaning Jesus, the annointed one of God. Christ isn't a surname. To say you believe in the Christ Jesus is implicitly to agree with the claim that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and the King of all Creation.

Asiaprod wrote:

I do not believe the stories attributed to him, the belief system built up around him or the declaration that he is the son of some god who made us all as his children and is waiting in some mystical garden to welcome us (zillions and zillions of humans) home to where we can spend the rest of our days praising him.

What is left to believe, beyond the existence of a crucufied Palestinian about 2000 years ago? No one disbelieves the man exists. Stating you agree he exists tells us very little about what you believe.

Asiaprod wrote:

one of the great problems the early church faced with documentation available at that time were the continual references to reincarnation

Maybe you could link us to the Gnostic texts that discuss this? Then we can deal with them document by document.

Asiaprod wrote:

ike the problem of celibacy which in fact was not a prerequisite

That would be clear from the Bible. Of the major denominations, only Roman Catholicism has enforced celibacy and that is a recent development. As I write this, I am sitting beside my wife and I don't think her existence will be a problem if I go for ordination with the church I am a member of. It has always been the rule of Roman Catholicism that married Protestant ministers who convert to Rome are entitled to keep their marriages and their families. Let me put it another way, if I slide back to Rome in 30 years, they won't ask me to divorce my wife and leave my children fatherless to become a priest.

Asiaprod wrote:

As a matter of fact, no early Jewish person could be accepted as a rabbi until he married

This is not actually the case, but nevertheless, Jesus was a fairly counter-cultural figure, even before you account for his singleness.

Asiaprod wrote:

now it would appear that a Buddhist concept of life after death was also a central pillar of early Christianity

As I have quoted elsewhere here recently, the oldest surviving New Testament fragment interestingly readsd against this idea. Christianity from the very beginning, talked about resurrection, a new category and an idea that arose within written record that exists to this day within 15 years of Easter1.

If we ever get to share a meal, I'd love you to elaborate on how you've seen Buddhism's afterlife theories line up with Christianity.

Your reading of 2nd temple Judaism is I feel short on an understanding of what the different movements meant in the day, which is what you have rightfully set your eyes upon grasping. There were dozens of Messiah figures in the 100 years either side of Jesus. Only one kept followers after he died. That one created an such an impact in the lives of his followers that within 100 years it had swept right across the world and was literally through the catacombs, undermining the whole empire of Rome. Even a reading of Paul within his Jewish roots, as Playboy's favourite theologian, Bultmann would demand, will show you that the very earliest beliefs of Christians were entirely different in scope from the paganism of Rome or the simple monotheism of Judaism.

Storylines are all well and good but Jesus died on a hill outside of Jerusalem over a Passover weekend. His death and the claims of his resurrection are matters of history. If he didn't come back, then Christianity should promptly be discarded. There is no historical reason to believe that John the Baptist was not a contemporary of Jesus.

The Gentile references to Christ in the 1st Century
In 52AD, Thallus wrote a book tracing the history of Greece in relation to Asia from the Trojan War up to his own day. It seems he was name-dropped by Josephus as being a freedman under the rule of Tiberius. He is also cited later in 221AD by Julius Africanus because Thallus wrote about a darkening of the sun during Passover. Thallus explains it away as an eclipse and Africanus points out that a solar eclipse couldn't take place in a full moon phase. What we can tell from this is that Thallus, a man living in Rome in the middle of the first century was familiar with the Gospel accounts of the first Easter and that non-Christian polemicists were utilising naturalistic arguments to dismiss the claims of the followers of the Way.

In 73AD, the first liberal Christian, or Jesusian, finds his way into writing. A Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion sent a letter to his son Serapion from prison where he talks about wise men being overtaken by misfortune. He writes, "What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished." Classic. US Episcopalians could have felt right at home in a Roman prison.

Christianity in the first 100 years of its life was considered by empirical Rome to be a vulgar, obscure, disreptuable, oriental superstition. Where it would have found its way most commonly into records is in Justice or Police records, which largely no longer exist. Tacitus however, (in his Annals xiii. 32) talked about how the wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain was charged with the crime of believing a "foreign superstition". It is likely that Pomponia Graecina was therefore a Christian. Emperor Domitian had his cousin Flavius Clemens executed and his wife Flavia Domitilla banished for the same crime in 95AD. These police records survive because they were high profile people. The Smoking Gun of the Roman era is maintained but the massive bulk of justice records where Christianity would most likely be discussed as a criminal belief, are now missing.

From 100AD on, as Christianity emerges as a major, if still secretly underground force, the references to it become more common amongst Romans. But it is not true to say that Christ's effect goes unreported.

I guess I would be rehashing stuff we know well to go into Pliny the Elder and Josepheus and all that good stuff?

Asiaprod

You are going to have to let me digest a little of this before commenting back.
Meanwhile, any other opinions out their on this. And Sapien,
Thanks for your comment, I must confess, I don't understand exactly what you're trying to say. And to be honest, I don't pay much attention to paraphrasing, since, the person being paraphrased is usually not even a participant in the discussion. I would love to hear you're comment, but please put it in a way that I can easily understand and not misinterpret.

Asiaprod

Before I continue with this dialog I must confess to being rather perplexed, and slightly disappointed with you. Why did you set up this reply of yours with such a negative, thought-shaping title as “My boring and very long response to Asiaprod.” Strange, that's not really encouraging people to read your response, is it? Boring, to who? If I did not know better, I might think that that was a sneaky tactic used to demerit or lessen the views of the person one is responding to, or could carry the implication of “Oh no, not this again” or “This has all been covered before.” I would be more than a little surprised that one with your obvious knowledge of the subject matter would need to resort to this type of tactic ;-).

I will attempt to answer some of the points raised here, at least the one that can be openly discussed. There are many points that are not open to discussion since they are matters of personal belief and I for one am not setting out to convert anybody. I am here because I wish to learn the views of others, to hold frank discussions, and to gain insight into the mysteries of life and the universe, and I try very hard not post boring comments. You are pleasingly well grounded in the points that you make and I enjoy all the links that you have posted. However, I doubt that you or I are going to change the world or convince others to adopt our beliefs on this board. The advent of the internet and the availability of information have in matters of faith I believe propelled us into a very different world than the one our parents grew up in. We now demand proof, and actively seek it out before committing to any view. Anyway, enough of my bitching, lets get on to the points of interest in your post.

“Through this constant interaction, texts and records and testimonies of Jesus were passed from church to church. Judging from the writings of the earliest church leaders there was almost perfect unanimity within the church about the New Testament (and certainly about the Gospels) by 200AD and large agreement before that.”

Sorry, but here I have to disagree, there is not even unanimity in the 4 Gospels you currently use and by all accounts, any internet search will produce results that indicate there was not that much prior to 200AD.

”There is solid historical evidence that you could travel to any Christian church around the Empire and find the same books in use.”

I already posted a list of missing books used by different churches, how can you say there is solid historical evidence that the same books were used everywhere. I might believe that the same concepts were pretty much universal, but I will not go so far as to say the same books.

”When persecution ended, when the submarine rose to the surface, the different compartments were opened to each other and they were pleasantly surprised to see that they largely agreed on what was important.”

This is a very nice analogy, but to say that they largely agreed is to also say there were also many areas where they did not agree. And it is this standardization by omitting the contradictory parts that most people are objecting to, and that cast doubts of the validity of the Gospels

“Seriously though, the Christian churches should be shamed by their destruction of texts. It is not true that the Christian church tried to systematically root out all historical existence of the Gnostic traditions as has often been argued, in a kind of textual cleansing. Proof of this is the fact that the letters of John and many of Paul's letters are directly written in response to Gnostic interlopers.”

How can you say that the church did not systematically root out contradictory information? How many died at the hands of the church for this very reason. The destruction of the texts was nothing compared to the number of people who were branded as heretics and put to death. How contradictory a practice can this be to a religion that practiced love and compassion?
Re the Gospel of John: Scholarly research since the 19th century has questioned the apostle John's authorship, however, and has presented internal evidence that the work was written many decades after the events it describes. The text provides strong evidence that it was written after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and after the break between Christian Jews and Pauline Christianity. F.C. Baur asserted a date as late as 160. Today, most critical scholars are of the opinion that John was composed in stages (probably two or three), beginning at an unknown time (50-70?) and culminating in the final edition (Gospel of John) around 95-100. This final date is assumed in large part because John 21, the so-called "appendix" to John, is largely concerned with explaining the death of the "beloved disciple," probably the leader of the Johannine community that produced the gospel.
I also have a huge problem with Paul. Of all the writers he is the one I have the least time for. Paul is attributed as writing about Jesus twenty or more years before the synoptic authors' gospel stories were even written. If Paul knew that Jesus was born of a virgin, baptized by John, called his "son" by the Lord, and transfigured on the mountain. In addition to, walking on water, stilling storms, converting water in to wine, feeding five thousand people on handfuls of breads and fishes, curing the deaf and blind, driving demons into a herd of pigs, raising a man from the dead, and who was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter (who Paul is sited to have met with and disagreed with) and was abandoned by his disciples, and most impressive of all was subsequently raised from the dead and left an empty tomb behind for Mary and his disciples to find, then why in the world would Paul not have written down this information somewhere, if not in his letters to the churches and certain individuals, if he had known about them? Would not these events be among the most astonishing for mankind since the beginning of time? Another striking feature of Paul's letters is that one could never gather from them that Jesus had been seen to be an ethical teacher.

”Buddhism and Christianity agree on 50% of their content? How do you land on that figure Peter? If Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses agree with 65% of Christianity, does that make them Christian? Do you assess that based on a word count of sacred scriptures? In that case, Scientology might be 43.66% congruent with Christianity.”

Of course this is meant as an expression, there is no way one could possibly ever provide a numeric figure. This is also not about trying to align any religions it is about finding the areas of similarity within the various religions. It is strange that most Buddhist will answer the question “What religion do you feel most closely emulates or is in tune with what you believe” with the comment Christianity. How would you answer that question?
Sorry, but I am very anti-Scientology; I do not believe any Science Fiction writer is any position to create a realistic religion.

”Jesus Christ is a title conferred upon Jesus of Nazareth, meaning Jesus, the anointed one of God. Christ isn't a surname. To say you believe in the Christ Jesus is implicitly to agree with the claim that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and the King of all Creation.”
I have never been one to close the door on learning, if your statement is correct and I have misunderstood/used the terminology, I need to restate my original comment. I do not believe in Jesus Christ as you interpret him.

”What is left to believe, beyond the existence of a crucified Palestinian about 2000 years ago? No one disbelieves the man exists. Stating you agree he exists tells us very little about what you believe.”
This is not a very wise remark. You know as well as I do that many followers of different religions refuse to believe that he even existed. And yes, that was exactly my point, what are you left with when you take away the stories, the belief system and the Church’s various declarations, absolutely nothing. No proof whatsoever other than hearsay or your own personal belief. Can you show mw any tangible proof other than your belief?.

”Maybe you could link us to the Gnostic texts that discuss reincarnation? Then we can deal with them document by document.”
At a later date will be happy to do so, I will keep this for a future discussion. That is a very large are to deal with.
“It has always been the rule of Roman Catholicism that married Protestant ministers who convert to Rome are entitled to keep their marriages and their families. Let me put it another way, if I slide back to Rome in 30 years, they won't ask me to divorce my wife and leave my children fatherless to become a priest.”
I should hope not, however, I must correct you on this. You may have known this but I can assure you it was not, and still is not, common knowledge. I have many strong connections to priests (I was at one stage thinking of becoming a Jesuit) and have talked about this issues many times as it is a major sticking point with me on the effectiveness of the church to handle the needs of its flock in the 21st century. As a matter of fact only a couple of months a go I (as a Buddhist, and ex head alter boy) recently concelebrated a mass in my house here in Tokyo as a mark of respect to my old teacher and good friend who has been a priest for 60 odd years who had dropped over to Japan on his sabbatical to recreate the journeys of St. Francis Xavier. We talked about this very issue as we have a mutual friend (another priest) being tormented with this problem. How come this solution that you present was never referred to….. because it is not common knowledge. Secondly, I have met many priests, and converted ones at that, but I have yet to meet one who is married with a family.
If the current Pope wished to do anything to help his church, allowing priests to freely marry would go a long way.
Peter Kearney (Tokyo)

Excelsior

Asiaprod wrote:

I must confess to being rather perplexed, and slightly disappointed with you. Why did you set up this reply of yours with such a negative, thought-shaping title as “My boring and very long response to Asiaprod.”

Sorry Peter. Its got nothing to do with sneaky tactics, demeriting your views or anything so Machiavellian. It was an attempt at self-effacing humour.

Asiaprod wrote:

I try very hard not post boring comments.

I don't think anyone who cares to read well thought out stuff would ever accuse you of it.

Asiaprod wrote:

However, I doubt that you or I are going to change the world

Speak for yourself man! The world may not be ready for my "Flood Detector" but I will be vindicated. It will change the way we live when people invest the $199.99 in a usb key that buzzes to alert you to a flood if it is immersed in water.

Asiaprod wrote:

The advent of the internet and the availability of information have in matters of faith I believe propelled us into a very different world than the one our parents grew up in. We now demand proof, and actively seek it out before committing to any view.

Well let's get down to what the Internet was invented for, disagreeing with strangers! I don't think anyone in our parent's generation (why do you think I am the same generation as you by the way? ) was really happy to believe things without proof. Rigour and thoughtfulness wasn't imported into Ireland for the first time in 1994. Well, let me rephrase that to say that in each generation there are a substantial group of people who don't take Plato's charge to "Question everything!" to heart and they are often happy to go with the current of their times. In the 50s in Ireland that was an ultra-Montane Roman Catholicism which did a great deal of damage. Today it is a half-hearted moral relativism which is doing a great deal of damage. But those that ask questions, regardless of society, context and era, are looking for reasons to believe things. That is inherent in the idea of asking questions. My rant #1 is over.

Asiaprod (on my claim that a broad consensus was reached by 200AD) wrote:

Sorry, but here I have to disagree, there is not even unanimity in the 4 Gospels you currently use and by all accounts, any internet search will produce results that indicate there was not that much prior to 200AD.

Peter, there is unanimous agreement within Christianity that there are four Gospels. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I don't understand how you could claim that there isn't unanimity today. I deal with the formation of the Canon later.

Asiaprod wrote:

I already posted a list of missing books used by different churches, how can you say there is solid historical evidence that the same books were used everywhere. I might believe that the same concepts were pretty much universal, but I will not go so far as to say the same books.

The key and subtle thing to see is that you listed missing books that were in existence and that were used but they were not used by churches. Churches are Christian communitites. The word is commonly used casually to refer to any religious grouping in our society because of the debt we are in to a Christian background, but it refers to ekklessia, an idea or a structure unique to Christianity. By 200AD there was a strong consensus forming regarding the New Testament canon and the 4 Gospels were already set in stone within the ekklessia, within the Christian churches. Those books that were chosen were chosen because the apostolic succession maintained them as true witnesses to Christ's ministry over and above the Gnostic texts you quote.

Gnosticism is not Christianity. I don't mean that as a disparaging comment but as a statement of fact. The apocryphal Gospels are all Gnostic. They are not Christian. So the same books were in use amongst the persecuted early Christian church but the concepts you speak of were completely different, in that Gnosticism is completely different to Christianity.

Excelsior wrote:

When persecution ended, when the submarine rose to the surface, the different compartments were opened to each other and they were pleasantly surprised to see that they largely agreed on what was important.

Asiaprod wrote:

This is a very nice analogy, but to say that they largely agreed is to also say there were also many areas where they did not agree. And it is this standardization by omitting the contradictory parts that most people are objecting to, and that cast doubts of the validity of the Gospels

Thanks. I might run it by some systematic theologians and historians before I use it more widely but I think it has some real value. (A fresh idea! That I came up with! How exciting!) Most people aren't objecting to the Canon formation. Most people are wholeheartedly embracing relatavism and reading the Da Vinci Code. Tis a bad old state of affairs.

“Seriously though, the Christian churches should be shamed by their destruction of texts. It is not true that the Christian church tried to systematically root out all historical existence of the Gnostic traditions as has often been argued, in a kind of textual cleansing. Proof of this is the fact that the letters of John and many of Paul's letters are directly written in response to Gnostic interlopers.”

Asiaprod wrote:

How can you say that the church did not systematically root out contradictory information?

Well, how about I remix myself?

Me wrote:

It is not true that the Christian church tried to systematically root out all historical existence of the Gnostic traditions as has often been argued, in a kind of textual cleansing. Proof of this is the fact that the letters of John and many of Paul's letters are directly written in response to Gnostic interlopers.

If they were trying to root out contradictory information they would not have included evidence of the massive and ongoing invasion of churches by Gnostic teachers.

Asiaprod wrote:

How many died at the hands of the church for this very reason. The destruction of the texts was nothing compared to the number of people who were branded as heretics and put to death. How contradictory a practice can this be to a religion that practiced love and compassion?

You ask this question rhetorically but I often wonder how many were actually put to death for that reason? Does anyone know? It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the figures over the centuries. Regardless, it did happen and Christianity in all its major traditions has apologised for it. Not that apologies justify it or bring the dead back. It is a devastating shame that such things have happened but the crimes of the followers cast no light on the Teacher, surely you'll agree?

Asiaprod wrote:

Re the Gospel of John: Scholarly research since the 19th century has questioned the apostle John's authorship, however, and has presented internal evidence that the work was written many decades after the events it describes.

I know this. I have written of this elsewhere. John was written in the 9th decade, sometime around 95AD. The authorship argument is surprisingly weak and one can argue with equal strength that an apostle (even the apostle) was the author. You must remember that the scholars of the 19th and up to mid 20th Century have been trumped by archeology in alot of their assertions. The opposition to John was largely based on the 5th Gate of Jerusalem mentioned which they claimed didn't exist. However, as Jerusalem was developed with the creation of the modern state of Israel, developers stumbled across just this gate, destroyed in 72AD. The more suspicious readings of John prior to the modern era have to be largely questioned.

I guess what I am saying here is that John is a well supported document that even for its lateness is still closer to the events than the Dialogue of the Savior, Gospel of Peter, Apocryphon of James, Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Hebrews, in some cases by as much as 60 years closer to events and these are the earliest Gnostic texts.

Excelsior

Asiaprod wrote:

I also have a huge problem with Paul. Of all the writers he is the one I have the least time for. Paul is attributed as writing about Jesus twenty or more years before the synoptic authors' gospel stories were even written. If Paul knew that Jesus was born of a virgin, baptized by John, called his "son" by the Lord, and transfigured on the mountain. In addition to, walking on water, stilling storms, converting water in to wine, feeding five thousand people on handfuls of breads and fishes, curing the deaf and blind, driving demons into a herd of pigs, raising a man from the dead, and who was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter (who Paul is sited to have met with and disagreed with) and was abandoned by his disciples, and most impressive of all was subsequently raised from the dead and left an empty tomb behind for Mary and his disciples to find, then why in the world would Paul not have written down this information somewhere, if not in his letters to the churches and certain individuals, if he had known about them? Would not these events be among the most astonishing for mankind since the beginning of time?

What? Peter, crack open your Bible and start reading it man! Paul is all over the place on declarations about Jesus. If I understand you correctly, you are arguing that Paul doesn't write anywhere of what could be crudely called the Gospel details? 1 Corinthians 15 is the most obvious example of Paul preaching the full Gospel and I will use it as my text to rebut your argument. There are many more that could be used but let's roll:

St. Paul 1 Cor 15:3 wrote:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:

In other words, there events are among the most astonishing for mankind since the beginning of time

St. Paul 1 Cor 15:3 wrote:

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

In perfect harmony with the prophecy of the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus is the annointed one who bears the sin of the world. Included in those prophecies are that he would be born of virgin, that he would be baptised by one who makes clear the road (John the Baptist), that he would do many signs and wonders, giving sight to the blind and letting the lame walk, and many other things (over 900 if you count like a pedant).

St. Paul 1 Cor 15:4 wrote:

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures

So the physical death and physical resurrection of Jesus in accordance with the Hebrew Scriptures is declared clearly by Paul.

St. Paul 1 Cor 15:5-7 wrote:

and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,

This event occurred in history so you can go ask people who are still alive. Over 500 of them. And if you don't believe me, they'll corroborate all the stories you are hearing read at the ekklessia about Jesus being born of a virgin, baptized by John, called his "son" by the Lord, and transfigured on the mountain. In addition to, walking on water, stilling storms, converting water in to wine, feeding five thousand people on handfuls of breads and fishes, curing the deaf and blind, driving demons into a herd of pigs, raising a man from the dead, being betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter (who Paul has met and rebuked in Christian love) and was abandoned by his disciples, just so he could die on a cross, bearing all sin of all mankind of all time and in so doing defeat sin and its wages death by being raised from the dead and there he left an empty tomb behind for Mary and his disciples to find. Ask them! The witnesses are there! Test them! You must because blind faith is dead faith. This happened in reality and you can test it!

St. Paul 1 Cor15:8 wrote:

and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

And finally at the end of it all, he appeared to me. Born again differently from the norm, I was struck from my donkey on the way to kill Christians. I, a rising Pharisee of meteoric standing. I, a student of Gamaliel. I, a man who knows the Hebrew Scriptures inside out. I saw the risen Christ and he told me everything. So I could tell you....

I apologise for exegeting all over this nice happy thread but I just don't think you're claim about Paul stands up to even a quick read-over the New Testament. Paul didn't write a Gospel, if that is what you mean. But all his teaching is drenched in the stuff of the Gospels.

Asiaprod wrote:

Another striking feature of Paul's letters is that one could never gather from them that Jesus had been seen to be an ethical teacher.

Was Jesus an ethical teacher? I think there is an ethical aspect to Jesus but I would need to be convinced that it is appropriate to call him an ethical teacher. Paul's letters are filled with ethical statements drawn from Jesus. At random I opened my Bible and landed on Romans 8:1 which is an ethical and moral teaching driven by Christ's ministry.

Asiaprod wrote:

It is strange that most Buddhist will answer the question “What religion do you feel most closely emulates or is in tune with what you believe” with the comment Christianity.

It is interesting but it in no way suggests a shared source for the faiths.

Asiaprod wrote:

How would you answer that question?

I'd be typically annoying and say that I am a Christian, a follower of Christ. I have no religion and don't have much respect for religions.

Asiaprod wrote:

I have never been one to close the door on learning, if your statement is correct and I have misunderstood/used the terminology, I need to restate my original comment. I do not believe in Jesus Christ as you interpret him.

Its a common mistake to refer to Christ as the surname of Jesus. If we were going to surname him then Jesus of Nazareth is the way to go.

On the whole marriage thing within Catholicism, I agree that married clergy would be a step forward, not least because it would be a step towards Scripture. But I don't want to get drawn into a "let's bash Catholicism" conversation that Irish people can slip into very easily these days. My theological studies were in a Catholic seminary and I feel fairly confident in stating that married clergy from the Reformed and Anglican communities who switch to Catholicism and wish to become priests get to keep their families.

Excelsior

Excelsior wrote:

What is left to believe, beyond the existence of a crucified Palestinian about 2000 years ago? No one disbelieves the man exists. Stating you agree he exists tells us very little about what you believe.

Asiaprod wrote:

This is not a very wise remark. You know as well as I do that many followers of different religions refuse to believe that he even existed.

People claiming he doesn't exist doesn't in any way affect the overwhelming historical evidence that he did exist, that he caused a fuss and that he was crucified, but then he didn't lose his followers but they started growing because of claims he had been, and this was a new and difficult concept, resurrected.

Let me quote a bit from non-Christian sources of the time.

Tacitus, Roman historian wrote:

“Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus”

Josepheus, Jewish historian wrote:

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.

These are just two of the most iron-cast non-Christian references to his existence. Alongside the quote from Roman historian Tacitus, there are many more historical sources who wrote about large numbers coming to believe Jesus was the Son of God. If you feel like looking into it, Govenor of Bythania, Pliny the Younger, the Roman historians Suetonius and Celusus and the Jewish historian Philo. In fact, people proclaiming “Jesus as Christ”, is one of the most documented historical facts of the age. That is not to say that this proves Jesus is Christ. But it does prove that Jesus existed and was the leader of a unique movement.

Asiaprod wrote:

what are you left with when you take away the stories,

Honestly Peter, you are left with an intellectual travesty considering how strong the Gospel testimony is in terms of history. D-Day was 61 years ago, which is probably the exact same distance between the crucifixtion and the writing of John's Gospel, which is the "weakest" of the texts. Would you discard the evidence of a member of the 101st Airborne's testimony regarding the events on Omaha beach? Of course not! I think you have overstated your case by referring to these things as "stories".

Asiaprod wrote:

Can you show mw any tangible proof other than your belief?

I'd be a pain in the ass if I was to turn the question back on you, wouldn't I? But this is the Christianity forum so lets take that over to Yoda at Buddhism. Seriously though, I as I have written before, the Bible says (in the writings of Paul) that if the Bible is proven to be false, then you have to pack all this Jesus stuff in. I believe because my reason compels me. The internal and external evidence for Christianity is overwhelming. That is not to say that one can be argued into faith- it still requires a leap of faith. But CS Lewis had it right when he wrote:

C.S. Lewis wrote:

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

Excelsior

The Canon, that is the agreed-upon texts of the New Testament, was hammered out over the period starting with intensity in the 2nd Century and finalling concluding in the 5th. In the popular mind and on the shelves of the "Spirituality" sections in bookstores you will find lots of argument that says the Canon is a late manipulation by conniving Bishops and the Emperor Constantine. The issue is not one of faith however, but one of history. The question of how the Canon came to be is not strictly speaking "Spirituality". It is a question of fact, in the sense that any historical question is fact.

Peter feels that prior to 325 and the Nicene Council the churches read an almost limitless array of texts from the most bizarre far out bat crazy stuff in extreme Gnostic texts to the preposterous unbelievable stuff about God becoming man in the form of a Jewish Palestinian carpenter and dying to destroy our death and rising to restore our life that you find in what is now Canonical. But the Canon was not formulated by Royal decree in Nicea. Nicea was about homoousious, not the New Testament texts. The Canon formation was well under way long before Constantine's "conversion" in 312AD and while the Church was still a persecuted and underground movement.

The crucial phase occured in the middle of the first century as the ekklessia I have talked of earlier, the orthodox churches, engaged the Gnostic interpretations head on. By 150AD Justin Martyr's Roman school was using 4 Gospels we now hold dear. By 170AD Tatian composed his Diatessaron which literally means "though four" and which was a compendium of all 4 Gospels in 1. A few years later in Gaul, Irenaeus argued that there were 4 Gospels and utilised his famous analogy of the 4 winds and 4 directions. That is Irenaeus who studied under Polycarp who studied under the apostle John. He said that there were 4 Gospels. In 170AD. The evidence is strong here. The Gospels quickly became the norm in the churches that we now know as Christianity.

The Gospel of John, which today is subject to the most harsh criticism because of what our society perceives as a dangerously strong christology was actually the source of a lot of debate because it could be corrupted so easily by Gnostics. The acceptance of other non-Canonical Gospel accounts was so rare as to be worthy of historical record. For example, around 200AD a bishop in Syria permitted the reading of the still relatively new Gospel of Peter in church but he soon repented when he examined its contents. Clement of Alexandria at this time cites the Gospel of the Egyptians as authority but none of his followers or students continue that so it seems to have been a passing phase.

But soon this passing tolerance for non Canon texts dried up. Origen declared "I accept the traditional view of the 4 Gospels, which alone are undeniably authentic in the Church of God on earth." He utterly rejected Egyptians, Matthias and Thomas and from about 200AD what you see is a uniform pattern of church leaders citing non-Canonical texts for what light they can cast on the Canon. They are never viewed as Gospel but as secondary texts to quote on to illustrate a point, just like I might quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer or GK Chesterton or CS Lewis. You simply don't find the sense that the non Canonical texts should ever be read in church or compared as equal to the "Holy quaternion".

The only text outside that 4 that ever had to be dealt with was nothing so exotic as Mary or Thomas but the Diatessaron itself, a harmony of the Canonical text, a "Best of" for the Gospels. The Gospel According to the Hebrews, had supporters in the East. In that way it waslike the letter to the Hebrews, but its support was not even great enough to argue that it even be classified as a "disputed text" like the letter to the Hebrews was for a while.

Outside of the Gospels, the tension with regards to what was in the Canon and not is much less today, which I don't quite understand. The exact composition of the non-Gospel texts was in dispute to some extent here and there but by 250AD people had broadly agreed on the Canon texts that weren't Gospel texts. That having been said, in some sources there are epistles that didn't make it into our modern Canon. In the early 3rd Century the Muratorian Fragment included most of the works that we now hold as the New Testament and the same Gospels but they also mentioned the Wisdom of Solomon and the Revelation of Peter, texts which have been left behind. Occaissionaly the Epistle of Barnabas or the Acts of Paul or the Didache will show up in early church records but by the 3rd century, the picture across the churches was that these letters were tending quickly towards agreement.

It was only in the 4th century with Chalcedon and other councils that the church said, "Enough, 27 is the magic number" and some dissenters lingered around muttering about what might have been if we had dropped Peter's 1st epistle and subbed in the Hermas but aggreement had been reached. It should be noted that even where there are discrepancies in the writings of the early Christians about which minor letters should be included in the New Testament, the Nag Hammandi texts (contrary to Da Vinci Code conspiracies) never made it as far as even the gray areas in such debates. The debates were often about things like Jude or the Acts of Paul.

And that is how the Canon was formed. The Gospels, the cornerstones of the New Testament were laid firmly as foundations by 170AD and the a broad consensus had clearly emerged about the rest of the New Testament by the middle of the 3rd Century. Although some debate about epistles continued past 250AD, it never had to do with the Gospels. Those texts which Peter cites exist and were read but crucially, they were not read by the Christian church. They were read by the Gnostic traditions or by obscure seperatist sects. The apostles and first disciples founded underground communities across the Meditteranean and further afield and these ekklessia held to the texts we hold dear because the apostles and their students (the eye-witnesses) corroborated and supported them.

It is not filled with intruige. It is not thrilling. There is no conspiracy. Its just a plain and simple emerging consensus. And I have yet to read a lurid paperback that promises to reveal the "secret truths" or something like it that comes close to mounting an argument as strong as the orthodox Christian church and the argument of mainstream academic historical research.

Asiaprod

Firstly, thanks for clarifying our little missunderstanding re boring. I am very glad that this could be got out of the way as I am really enjoy this dialogue .....and learning to :eek: . Do you ever sleep? I need some rest before attempting to reply. Thanks for the enjoyment .
Peter Kearney (Tokyo)

Playboy

Excelsior wrote:

It was only in the 4th century with Chalcedon and other councils that the church said, "Enough, 27 is the magic number" and some dissenters lingered around muttering about what might have been if we had dropped Peter's 1st epistle and subbed in the Hermas but aggreement had been reached. It should be noted that even where there are discrepancies in the writings of the early Christians about which minor letters should be included in the New Testament, the Nag Hammandi texts (contrary to Da Vinci Code conspiracies) never made it as far as even the gray areas in such debates. The debates were often about things like Jude or the Acts of Paul.

Excelsior you make a lot of claims such as the one above w/o providing any sources. If I may trouble you could you provide me with some sources so I can have a look at the material myself.

Excelsior

I don't do it intentionally Playboy, I am just aware at how painfully verbose my unedited stream of conciousness replies here are and I don't want to add to it with references.

Early Christian Writings should have a lot of the early church fathers' letters that I have cited, like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and it should certainly have the Diatesseron by Tatian. Kirby also has all the non-Canonical (or as close to all as you can hope for) available there.

Alot of what we know about Canon formation and variation within the ekklessia comes not from retrospective jigsaw-assembly but from Eusebius' History of the Church, which I suspect you can download too.

A very useful popular debunking of the conspiracy approach to canon formation is Philip Jenkin's short OUP book, The Hidden Gospels. Hennecke and Schneemelcher have a fairly comprehensive text on this issue entitled New Testament Apocrypha. Finally, Alister McGrath has a book I haven't read yet but which has been highly recommended to me called In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible which doesn't directly in any way deal with Canon formation but does cast light on just what kind of social factors actually did affect the moulding of the Bible as we know it. It is that question, how pure is the collection we hold as sacred today, that is probably at the heart of this whole debate.

Playboy

Thx .. should provide me with some interesting reading.

Asiaprod

Here is another good site for old manuscripts

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
Peter K

Asiaprod

Excelsior,
In light of your excellent explination of the cannons and how they were accepted in to main stream practice, I want to move our dialogue in a slightly different direct to add more spice to our debate. As you have explained you are an evangelist and Presbyterian, and according to my understanding, this means that you are agreement with the Christian gospel, especially as it is presented in the four [canonical] Gospels. What is your take, and the official Presbyterian take, on the often referred to, but no real proof of, Q Gospel. This is one of those gray areas that fascinates me. If there were to be a Q Gospel, I have a feeling a lot of today`s misunderstandings or doubts could be laid to rest. I will return to Paul later, since I am not convinced of how much he actually knew or understood, and the RC Religion does depends a lot on Paul`s accounts.

For the benefit of any readers who are not sure what the Q Gospel is:
It is a postulated lost textual source for the Gospel of Matthew and Luke . 19th-century New Testament scholars found that the Matthew and Luke Gospels shared much material not found in their generally recognized common source which was the Gospel of Mark and they suggested a second common source, termed the Q document. This hypothetical lost text— also called the Q Gospel, the Sayings Gospel Q, the Synoptic Sayings Source, and in the 19th Century called the Logia, seems most likely to have comprised a collection of Jesus` sayings (also sounds like the Gospel of Thomas). Recognizing such a Q document is the essence of the "Two Source Hypothesis, the simplest and the most widely accepted solution to the synoptic problem posed by textual correspondences between the two gospels, with the Gospel of Mark forming one source, and Q the other.

Excelsior

I can't speak for the Presbyterian church Peter but I can give you my own opinion on Quelle. (Also, evangelist doesn't sound like a very good job title. It might be more meaningful than my actual job title which is "Staff worker", which I guess means I am a member of staff who works. Enlightening. But anyway...)

Historically, Q was postulated as a way to undermine the canonical Gospels. As research and thought has been put into it, the existence of such a document seems ever more likely- it is the simplest way to understand the shared roots of Matthew and Luke.

But as an idea, it fails to undermine the Canon but infact strengthens it. Such a text, whether it took the form of sayings or some barebones narrative, would have been very early, maybe even before Paul's first letters. Matthew and Luke don't just share parables in common, but they share Passion narrative. So if Q were to have existed, it would be proof of just what the originators of the theory hoped to put the bed- the idea that there were Christian communities from the beginning who preached crucifixtion, resurrection, divinity and grace.

However, Q has never been found. Thomas certainly isn't it. Thomas has elements that we believe are as young as the synoptics (the sayings that corroborate the synoptics are young while the other ones seem to be later additions by Gnostics) and some much older. And as Q has never been found this whole conversation might sound a little bit ridiculous to someone coming at it with a healthy cynicism.

trinitylucan

Excelsior, I am genuinely amazed
Surely you speak of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know

How do you find the time to respond in such detail to so many topics?

I rarely get a chance to log on so it may be some time before I get a chance to follow up.

I wanted to make one suggestion to the 'truth seekers' out there. I think it would be more profitable to examine more about what the message of the bible is instead of spending time studying texts that refute the bible's accuracy and raise interesting questions about possible intrepretations

I don't mean to sound ignorant of critical analysis or to be guilty of seeking to only satisfy my itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3) but just to be wary of the many distractions that can take you away from hearing the liberating beautiful message of God's love revealed in Jesus.

I have often found that what people reject about christianity is truly rejectable nonsense masquerading as christianity and that they may never have heard the true message. There will always be questions and indeed the issues addressed in the bible are " are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort" (2 Pet 3.16) but then an awful lot of it is very straightforward and understandable.

Napoleon was not known as any red hot theologian but is noted to have said something like "Its not what I don't understand in the bible that troubles me its the parts I do understand!"

Excellent dialogue by the way. I'd love to join the meeting back in Dublin!
GK

arctic lemur

There is one common source called Q that runs throughout the synoptics. Luke relied on Q also in order to create his gospel.

UU

Hello !
Honestly, I reject the divinity of Christ even though the Bible says this in ......and this paragraph in the New Testament says.......and so on and on.

Myself? Well, I do believe the people such as Christ did exist but I really don't believe in the very superstitious miracles, phenonomes, fantasies, etc. but look to the Bible for inspiration, meaning and how to live life to the fullest by being a virtuous person. I believe most of these miracles are symbolic which is also one belief that the Unitarian Church has held.

I do believe very much in a man that lived 2,000 years ago or so in Israel/Palestine named Jesus Of Nazareth or Christ. I follow an Islamic approach to looking upon Christ as a prophet, not a god (or son of god) and that he was a man that showed uthermost love, goodness, compassion and forgiveness and highlighted to people how to create a utopia.

Often, Christians may rant on to me about how Jesus died on the cross for mankind and I reply by saying that his death really never reflected his pure, holy, good character as a prophet and as a Unitarian I can have a different view on Christ than most other Christians. I will always view Christ as a man (who was not white Caucasian but a darker, tanned Jew in appearance).

Also, many Christians I feel forget that Christ was a Jew and often I do remind them when some go all anti-Semetist and they reply by saying that Christ rejected his faith. I reply that Christ was actually a very devout Jew to his death and although he had different views he still retained his beliefs.

This is just my belief on Christ and his divinity.

Missy A

Some of the things people say on this thread scare me. Some of these people are Christian and some are atheist. Most of them make no sense, to me, at all. I guess I thought this thread was people talking about Christianity and I also thought that all these people would atleast believe in the existence of Christ.
Sorry.

Puck

Point 1 of this forum's charter:

The purpose of this board is to discuss Christian belief in general, and specific elements of it, between Christians and non-Christians alike. It has the additional purpose of being a point on boards.ie where Christians may ask other Christians questions about their shared faith.

Non-Christians are welcome to come here and discuss elements of Christian belief if they like.

Excelsior

Thanks for elaborating your beliefs UU. When time permits it I love to go along to the Unitarian prayer meetings at lunchtime on Wednesdays on Stephen's Green. (I'm sure I'd be killed for calling it a prayer meeting but anyway) The first time I went I was called an evangelical fundamentalist but somewhere deep inside me I found a way to tolerate their prejudice.

While I utterly respect your belief and would love to hear the story of how you came to develop it, I do have a few questions to ask.

UU wrote:

I do believe the people such as Christ did exist but I really don't believe in the very superstitious miracles, phenonomes, fantasies, etc. but look to the Bible for inspiration, meaning and how to live life to the fullest by being a virtuous person.

While I think talking about supersitious miracles is a mis-use of both words, what I am interested in is how you might read the Bible as having a message about living life to the fullest?

The New Testament does talk about a full life in John 10 but that is an clear "I am God" teaching from Jesus. If you reject his divinity, it amounts to nothing but nonsense with no founding.

UU wrote:

I follow an Islamic approach to looking upon Christ as a prophet, not a god (or son of god) and that he was a man that showed uthermost love, goodness, compassion and forgiveness and highlighted to people how to create a utopia.

I can't imagine any Unitarian with a straight face claiming an Islamic approach to anything. They are bound to the fundamental belief of God incarnated in the form of a book. They don't have a menu. They just have one set meal. Unitarians view truth as a buffet. Muslims see Jesus as Prophet because their Holy Book informs them of that. You surely don't take the Koran as sacred?

UU wrote:

Often, Christians may rant on to me about how Jesus died on the cross for mankind and I reply by saying that his death really never reflected his pure, holy, good character as a prophet.

From what source do you believe he is just a prophet? Also, I am sorry for the ranty Christians. I'm sometimes a ranty Christian so I know they don't mean to be disrespectful and annoying.

UU wrote:

I will always view Christ as a man (who was not white Caucasian but a darker, tanned Jew in appearance).

This is literally a skin deep observation. Orthodox Christianity has often depicted Jesus as being part of whatever race is painting or sculpting him because in a very real way he identified himself with everyone. Thus there are Chinese Jesus' in China, African-American Jesus' on the walls of churches in Georgia and Northern European Jesus' all over our own continent. Why though is there no red-haired Kerryman Jesus?

UU wrote:

Also, many Christians I feel forget that Christ was a Jew

I think that is exactly what you are forgetting. Jesus was a Jew who was convinced that the Hebrew Scriptures prophesied of his coming. His whole life and everything he did only makes sense when you consider that he was arrogant or evil or glorious enough to believe that the whole of history would turn on his life (and his death-defeating death).

I know I have used this so often that regulars have it off by heart but C.S. Lewis' words are incisively relevant here:

C.S. Lewis (from Mere Christianity) wrote:

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 one thing we must not say.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a 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 patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

I am glad you were able to disregard those Christians' crazy idea that he somehow rejected his Judaism when he said that he had come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

One final thing, Christ is not Jesus' surname. It is a title meaning Annointed One given to him by Jews who became the first Christians. This is all part of the "putting Jesus in his Jewish context" stuff that is so important when we discuss his divinity.

UU

Thank Excelsior for your long reponse (lol). I'll concentrate on the whole prophet aspect of Christ. A prophet is defined as:
"A person who speaks by divine inspiration or as the interpreter through whom the will of a god is expressed.
"A person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression."

The reason I believe Christ was a prophet rather than a Messiah or "Son Of God" is basically because he was a great teacher and showed and enlighted people to live lives of goodness and love. I don't believe that Christ himself was divine as I believe he was just a man but I do believe that his powerful, echoing words were of divine inspiration. Christ also really knew how to express himself or he wouldn't of been half as popular. Also, most Unitarians will tolerate other faiths and that includes Islam. Actually, a few weeks back we had a reading from the Koran in church. Unitarians as you know look to all religions for inspiration and that includes conservative faiths such as Islam and Catholicism. Well if no one likes my beliefs about Christ they can f*** off - only kidding (lol)!

Excelsior

Regardless of what definition you can provide for prophet, there is no basis in a historical analysis for defining Jesus as a prophet. He didn't think of himself that way. Jews who remain Jews didn't think he was. Jews who became Christians didn't think he was. Greeks and Romans didn't think he was. You are retrospectively interpreting a reading that I don't think exists.

I don't think you have really engaged my questions. (Maybe I should just **** off? )

wolfsbane

Excelsior said:

The New Testament does talk about a full life in John 10 but that is an clear "I am God" teaching from Jesus. If you reject his divinity, it amounts to nothing but nonsense with no founding.

Maybe His 'I am God' teaching was meant metaphorically, like His 'In the beginning' teaching in Genesis?
Gen.2:4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

What grounds are there for insisting on the plain meaning of one as opposed to the other? I mean, Jesus and the apostles appeal to a literal understanding of the Genesis record several times in the New Testament, so if they are not speaking metaphorically, one would be forced to believe in a literal 6-day creation. And that's ridiculous, right?

UU

To Wolfsbane,

If I were to take that literally, I'd appear, to myself anyway, as a very dim-witted being. The book of Genesis is an incredibly old Jewish book. I believe the whole "In the beginning" to be a total metaphor and no can prove that any of it's true - they can only believe that it's true. Am I expected to believe the world was created in 7 days with exact facts and figures while the continents of the world took approx. 850 million years to break apart from one land mass called Pangea and form today's continents. Could much stories in the Bible be interpretted in a more metaphorical way as many have a much deeper meaning than on the surface.

About Christ's Divinity. Sorry Excelsior but you have totally failed to mention Muslims who do accept him as a prophet, also Unitarians and some other people. A prophet is like a spiritual teacher. Was Christ not a teacher? Did he not speak of "the kingdom of god" and all the rest? Do you not think that he spoke of the will of God(his father as he said)? I do as it's quite obvious. Have you read the Koran? It says it's all there and apparently Muslims believe the Koran is the words of God.

OfflerCrocGod

Excelsior wrote:

reject his divinity, it amounts to nothing but nonsense with no founding.

Finally you admit the TRUTH

Excelsior

Grrr! Why I oughta...

Asiaprod

Finally you admit the TRUTH

Hahaha, that was a sweet catch

Grrr! Why I oughta...

Must be all that cheese and wine:)