Not Mistranslating the Bible

[Cheshire Cat]

17 hours ago, Kar3n said:

I'd call it trolling. 

 

You are wrong. 

[Jeff]

7 hours ago, Cheshire Cat said:

 

During his lifetime, Jesus often spoke of God as “my Father in Heaven.” For the Jews, this was a common poetic expression, and one that is still used in Jewish prayers.For the pagan gentiles, however, it had a much more literal connotation.

 

The Greeks already had legends about men who had been fathered by gods who had visited mortal human women. Legends like these had even sprung up about such eminent men as Plato, Pythagoras, and Alexander the Great.

Why should Jesus be any less?

 

They therefore interpreted his poetic expression quite literally, to mean that he had an actual genetic relationship with God. Jesus therefore became the “son of God,” conceived when the Holy Ghost visited Mary. As the “son of God,” Jesus was not susceptible to sin or even death. The death of Jesus was therefore only temporary.

 

The only reason why it was needed at all was to atone for the sin of Adam. His followers taught that Jesus was resurrected for eternity and ascended to heaven. There he sits at the “right hand of God,” even higher than the angels.

This was the first step toward the deifiication of Jesus, and it was not very difficult for the pagan world to take the second step.

 

Jesus was credited with such statements as (John 10:30), “I and the Father are one.” He had also spoken of (Matthew 28:19), “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” It was easy for the paganized Christians to look at the three as equal and identify Jesus with the “Son.”

 

To say today that such statements about the oneness with the father were an unprecedented realization of man's potential of such a profundity and innovation that people needed to study buddhism and vedanta 2000 years later in order to understand him, is a reasonably questionable idea. 

More likely, in the spirit of the times and contexts in which the text was written and originally intended to be used, it was about Jesus actually being a God and the physical son of the Jewish God. 

 

I seem to be having a tough time understanding your thesis.  Are you now saying that the gospels are really about Jesus being a god (one of many)? And that Jesus was the physical son of the Jewish God (Yahweh)?

 

Also, while many use the prayer “my Father in Heaven”, where are in Jewish tradition are the statement of being “one with the father?” Additionally, Jesus clearly differentiates aspect of his being “son of man” and also “son of god”.  Such concepts were clearly heresy to the traditional Jewish view.

 

So what are you saying is your actual view on Jesus? Divine being/god or just some additional Jewish prophet? 

[Cheshire Cat]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Are you now saying that the gospels are really about Jesus being a god? And that Jesus was the physical son of the Jewish God (Yahweh)?

 

Yes, the canonical gospels are clear about those things. 

In fact, the religions that originally used them (and probably made them) teach nothing different. 

 

Regarding the gnostic gospels, we don't know precisely how they conceived Jesus because the sects that used them no longer exist and the texts aren't clear enough to be reliable outside of their traditions. 

 

In this scenario, to interpret the gnostic gospels to derive a presumed "teaching of Jesus" is  hazardous because they were probably made up with the same intention (that the catholic church also had when making its gospels) to convey specific theological ideas. 

 

To integrate portions of the gnostic gospels and canonical gospels to derive the teachings of Jesus would be like trying to get a working magical system from the Harry Potter series of books. 

 

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Also, while many use the prayer “my Father in Heaven”, where are in Jewish tradition are the statement of being “one with the father?”

 

I believe that far from being a text carved in stone, the gospel was a functional tool for practicing Christians both for liturgical reasons and for teaching reasons (a sort of compendium so that preachers could repeat the same quotes and thus be more accurate).

 

It wasn't the collection of words pronounced by a man none could possibly understand transcribed out of reverence, but the living vibrant expression of the growth and evolution of a peculiar faith. 

I believe that the expression "one with the father" was added only after the churches embraced the trinity of God. 

 

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Additionally, Jesus clearly differentiates aspect of his being “son of man” and also “son of god”.  Such concepts were clearly heresy to the traditional Jewish view.

 

I believe that this was added to give a textual source to the theological idea of the double nature of Jesus: in the catholic church, he's considered to be fully human and fully divine at the same time. 

How? None knows, but probably this was the only way to get out of the Council of Nicea without injuries. 

 

The gospels are like a town rebuilt many times: sometimes, you're looking at an old wall and at other times you're looking at a new tower. 

You can almost read the historical evolution of the Christian faith in the gospels.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by Cheshire Cat